The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Details on spying, not more assurances

    Details on spying, not more assurances

    attered by weeks of criticism about surveillance abuses, President Obama has embarked on a reassurance offensive. The spy programs have been used narrowly, he said on PBS’s “Charlie Rose” program on Monday, and have been effective in stopping several terror plots.

    He promised to press for more declassification of intelligence work, and he said he would energize a dormant civil liberties board. Despite all the existing oversight, he said, “the public may not fully know, and that can make the public kind of nervous, right?”

    The president is right that many Americans are nervous about what they have recently learned, and his assurances will have to go much further to allay those fears. His promises lacked specificity, and some of his descriptions of domestic spy work verged on the misleading.

    Mr. Obama said that no phone or Internet conversation can be monitored without a warrant from the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Asked whether that process should be more transparent, Mr. Obama responded with this astonishing statement: “It is transparent, that’s why we set up the FISA court.”

    Perhaps the court is transparent to him and the intelligence agencies, but it is utterly opaque to the public. All decisions by the court are top secret. The court has refused to release its interpretations of federal law, even in summary form, and without identifying details.

    If the president is serious about declassifying some secrets, he should have said he would start with the court. And at the top of the list should be its opinion that broadened the Patriot Act to allow the collection of every phone record, a power that surprised even the Republican lawmakers who wrote the act. The opinion is the subject of a federal lawsuit, and the Obama administration has fought its release. Mr. Obama should publicly support a bill, sponsored by a bipartisan group of at least eight senators, that would require the court’s opinions to be made public.

    The president acknowledged that the vast collection of call records “has enormous potential for abuse,” but he promised that it wasn’t being used to spy on innocent citizens. But, if that’s the case, why not promise to end the mass collection, acquiring records only in cases of suspicion? It doesn’t seem particularly effective as it is. At a hearing on Tuesday, Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, said that 90 percent of the foiled terror plots were found through requests for Internet traffic, not through the call records.

    Mr. Obama didn’t mention that he waited three years to name a full slate to the civil liberties board; Republicans delayed it by another year. The board is now up and running, but its recommendations won’t mean anything unless the president is willing to break free of the secretive intelligence world and stand for real transparency.

    – New York Times

  • Not a role model

    Not a role model

    •From her gruff and boorish conduct, Patience Jonathan is no exemplary First Lady

    At the height of General Ibrahim Babangida’s rule of total domination, Olanrewaju Adepoju, a Yoruba recording and performance poet in an LP, let out a biting rebuke, with an awesome pun on the Babangida name, a direct fallout from the June 12, 1993 presidential election annulment crisis: “Baba-ngida, Iya-ngida, Omo na ngida!” [Literally: “Daddy is involved, mummy is involved, and even the child is warming up to join the fray!”]

    In Julius Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the famed English playwright told a disapproving tale of how spousal excesses turned an otherwise good man, Macbeth, into a monster; by pushing him into regicide. Lady Macbeth’s continuous goading pushed Macbeth to kill King Duncan, his benefactor. But it also led the couple, who usurped the Scottish throne, to self-destroy.

    Both Adepoju and Shakespeare, therefore, spoke of the danger of excessive spousal interference in public office. In Adepoju’s view, the Babangida government was becoming a family affair, particularly given Mrs Maryam Babangida’s larger-than-life Better Life for Rural Women programme. Shakespeare also told a gripping dramatic tale of how Lady Macbeth destroyed her husband and herself.

    On the office and place of the First Lady, in Nigeria’s often troubled polity and politics, there perhaps would be no unanimity. But nobody can say First Lady intervention in governance is intrinsically evil.

    One thing is clear, though: the Constitution does not expressly make provision for the office. So many, clearly upset by the excesses of many a First Lady, have declared the office illegal. But that is not necessarily so. The office can earn itself a place in the mind of the populace by convention, if it is perceived to be of public good; its occupants comport themselves with decorum, honour and dignity; and are perceived to be assets, not liabilities, to the office of the President or Governor. This is more so, when the Constitution does not expressly preclude the office and activity of the First Lady.

    A caveat, here: this newspaper has, and indeed every Nigerian should have, the highest regard for the office of the Nigerian President; and that of the state Governor. Though no elected officers like their spouses, this honour and courtesy should extend to their wives (or husbands, if they are female); who are expected to reciprocate the honour with decorum and grace.

    It is on suspect comportment that First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, does a lot of disservice to what should be, if well handled, the institution of the First Lady.

    Even before the highly reported friction between President Goodluck Jonathan and Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Mrs Jonathan had mostly generated negative vibes. Many complain of her perceived lexical challenge, making insensitive statements and also her convoy shutting down every city or town she has visited. Lagosians have an abiding bitter tale to tell of her visits. So do domiciles of Port Harcourt; still talking of a city meltdown, just because the First Lady was in town for a private wedding. What was even more galling was the reported abandonment of a function by Governor Amaechi, just because the First Lady’s security cordon had blocked every place.

    That action, extremely provocative and insensitive, should be decried by all. The impunity itself is condemnable, coming from a person who is no constitutional official of the state. Besides, to think that Mrs Jonathan was openly rubbing in the quarrel between her husband, the president and Governor Amaechi, two state officials, was proxy battle most absurd. Aside, the question of waste: so, because Mrs Jonathan was visiting, literally the whole of the Police should choke the state, in a country whose parlous security requires every hand to be on deck?

    But it was on the score of careless and tactless talk that Mrs Jonathan disrespected the office of the Rivers State Governor and undermined the honour, integrity and majesty of the Nigerian Presidency. In the midst of the cream of Rivers State, Patience Jonathan lampooned the governor, claiming, not without open spite, that Port Harcourt, the state capital, had lost its glory. In an infantile bid to win friends for a most embarrassing and thoughtless talk, she compared the present to the tenure of some past governors who were present at the occasion, leaving her guests little choice but to nod in embarrassed agreement. That was bad grace of the highest order.

    It was not even the first time Mrs Jonathan would resort to such public lampoon of a sitting governor. The first was the open spat over the Okirika waterfront resettlement scheme. On that occasion, even with the governor present, Mrs Jonathan went on a rude and crude lecture binge, haranguing the governor on his faulty diction. Her only reasons were that she was the wife of the president and also an Okirika native who had returned in glory to pillory an errant governor.

    For the president to avert a constitutional crisis, he should call his spouse to order. Under the spirit of Nigeria’s federal Constitution, not even the president can talk down on a governor. The president deserves everyone’s respect. But he is no prefect over any governor. From the presidential fiasco arising from the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) election, it should be clear to the president by now that even he cannot enforce powers he does not have. If the president cannot do that, what gives his spouse the conceit that she could do so? President Jonathan must not give the impression that he has been emasculated by his beloved Dame. Even if that were true, that should start and end in the presidential court; and not extend to where it can cause the president avoidable trouble.

    Mrs Jonathan should change her rather reckless, rude and crude ways. Though every Nigerian has the bounden duty to respect the high office of President, the rude conduct of his spouse exasperates everyone to want to feel otherwise. All over, Mrs Jonathan appears a liability: her controversial promotion as Permanent Secretary in the Bayelsa State Civil Service is a huge dent to the anti-corruption war; her proxy battle on behalf of her husband is a great but needless tension to Nigeria’s delicate federalism; and her rather unguarded comments on her travails, while abroad on medical tourism, was a study in lack of grace.

    President Jonathan should move to save the dignity of his Presidency from spousal assault. Even after the Jonathans must have left, the Nigerian Presidency would still be there. It behoves them then to preserve it, as others before them had tried to do, warts and all.

    A First Lady should be seen for her good deeds, and seldom heard for her rude thoughts.

  • Peace talks a fragile step in Afghanistan

    Peace talks a fragile step in Afghanistan

    LAST ATTEMPTS by the Obama administration to start peace talks with the Afghan Taliban foundered in part because the process was not, as U.S. officials frequently claimed, “Afghan-owned and Afghan-led.” In fact, the Taliban refused to negotiate with the government of Hamid Karzai, insisting its only purpose was to arrange the complete withdrawal from the country of all U.S. and allied forces. Mr. Karzai himself strenuously objected to a plan to open a Taliban office in Qatar in late 2011, claiming he had been excluded from talks about it, and the initiative soon collapsed.

    Consequently, it was modestly encouraging that the administration’s latest effort to begin a peace process, announced Tuesday, was less at odds with its slogan. An administration briefer said he expected that an initial meeting between U.S. and Taliban officials this week in Doha, where a Taliban office will open, would be “followed within days” by a meeting of the Taliban high commission and Mr. Karzai’s High Peace Council. In Kabul, the Afghan president endorsed the process, though he stressed that the talks should move “immediately” to Afghanistan, a demand that is unlikely to be met.

    Direct negotiations between the Afghan government and insurgents would be a step toward a political settlement to the war. But President Obama and several of his aides were right to underline the fragility of the process. For it to succeed, the Taliban leadership will have to abandon its goal of eliminating Afghanistan’s post-2001 government and constitution and definitively break with al-Qaeda; Pakistan’s military and intelligence elite will have to conclude that such a settlement is in their interest.

    There’s next to no evidence that the Taliban is prepared to undertake such dramatic reversals of its ideologies and alliances, or that it is close to being defeated on the battlefield. So the challenge for the United States will be to avoid allowing the talks to devolve into a U.S.-Taliban discussion about an abandonment of the NATO commitment to continue supporting the Afghan military with trainers and advisers after 2014. As it is, early talks may be diverted into bargaining over a prisoner exchange that would free Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for a captive U.S. soldier.

    U.S. officials have said they remain committed to the strategic partnership signed with Mr. Karzai’s government last year. But Mr. Obama has postponed any decision about the size or composition of a U.S. stay-on force. In a briefing Tuesday, one senior official offered a less-than-firm response to a question about the Taliban’s demand for a full withdrawal: “To the extent the talks contribute to diminishing violence and eliminating international terrorists in and around Afghanistan, that will have an impact on decisions regarding our future presence.”

    Perhaps such words are meant to encourage Taliban concessions. But if there is to be a genuine political settlement in Afghanistan, the United States must drive home a different message: that it will do what is necessary to prevent a Taliban military victory for the indefinite future. If the insurgents believe they can wait out — or negotiate out — the United States, they will never engage seriously with the Karzai government.

    – Washington Post

  • Tenure conundrum

    Tenure conundrum

    •We reject the proposal for a single term six-year tenure for president and governor

    The recommendation of the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution for a single term of six years for the President and Governors fails to convince. Apparently the committee members believed, rather erroneously, that a single term will cure the unparalleled corruption that has been the bane of our national politics for decades. Instructively, the presidency that had boasted a few weeks ago that it would abide by the decisions of the legislature on this matter, quickly turned around after the recommendation to demand that the law should take effect from 2019, as it was not willing to make the sacrifices, it had promised.

    Interestingly, both the promise to sacrifice and the subsequent recant came from the same top presidential aide, Dr. Ahmed Gulak.

    As our experience across the polity shows, the term of office, whether four, six, or even eight years, makes no difference for an ill-equipped and fraudulently elected executive in the discharge of the onerous constitutional responsibility of a President or Governor. Within the past 14 years of our return to civil rule, we have had a President and several Governors who spent eight years in office without any significant achievement. We have also had those who, within two years in office, showed capacity to make a huge difference.

    So, what we need is a transparent political system that allows the most competent candidate to emerge from an election; and one that will punish or reward the elected official after a first term in office, based on performance. In our view, the current practice of a first four years, and another possible four years, is more enduring; and so should be sustained. The legislators should not be led to make laws to deal with a specific circumstance, or to achieve a limited goal, which is what we suspect is the case in this instance.

    When laws are made seemingly because of an individual, it gives the impression of bad faith. While we empathise with the polity over the failure of many of the state executives and particularly the presidency to perform; it should not be a good reason to deny those performing an opportunity to come back if re-elected.

    Although we support the present renewable term of four years, we will not fail to condemn the clear insincerity of the presidency over this matter. We recall that Dr. Gulak had boasted barely one month ago that the President will abide by whatever the decision of the National Assembly is on the matter, apparently hoping that his boss could benefit through a tenure elongation. Now that the committee’s recommendation will make the President stand down in 2015, Dr. Gulak has turned around without equivocation, to sermonise that such law will be unjust to the President. So, as far as the presidential aid is concerned, the driving force for any constitutional amendment should be the interest of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Such self-centred attitude to national development must be condemned. Indeed, it is even more worrisome that a leading member of the President’s party was already canvassing for the President to be made the party’s sole presidential candidate without a primary election. In pushing this agenda, Chief Tony Anenih the party’s chairman, Board of Trustees, gave scant regard to the party’s constitution.

    Just like Dr. Gulak, Chief Anenih obviously equates the President’s personal political interests with constitutionalism. In our view, it is such misbegotten connection that is at the root of the failed leadership that we are experiencing. We however urge the National Assembly to rather remain focused on the overall wellbeing of the country on this matter.

  • Senate vs. Dame Jonathan

    Senate vs. Dame Jonathan

    •Senate rejects N4b First Ladies’ House fund, but for a wrong reason

    No taking a bow here and no plaudits for the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because it seems to have only scorched the snake and refused to kill it. Though the Senate hearkened to the wish and desire of Nigerians as was canvassed on this page, its final action is considered not far-reaching enough, because many fundamental questions have been left unanswered, making the Senate to seem either absent-minded or deliberately negligent of its duties.

    We speak of course about the desire of the wife of the president, Dame Patience Jonathan, to build a multi-billion naira edifice in Abuja for African First Ladies. In reviewing the budget of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Senate rejected an initial N4 billion proposal from the Office of the First Lady of Nigeria for the building of the headquarters of African First Ladies’ Peace Centre (AFLPC). The Centre, to be sited in the heart of the FCT, is proposed as a high-rise edifice estimated to cost about N13 billion. However, the land on which it is to be sited is currently under a legal dispute between the incumbent first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, and her predecessor, Hajia Turai Yar’Adua.

    According to the report that emanated from the proceedings, the chairman of the Senate Committee on FCT, Smart Adeyemi, explained that, “It is worthy of note that the proposed appropriation for the construction of the building for First Ladies Mission in Africa has been distributed to meet pressing needs in the areas of engineering and satellite towns.” He notes further that: “Due to litigation in respect of the proposed plot of land, money cannot be accessed this year.” In other words, the Senate shot down the First Lady’s project not because it is ineligible but because “it is not proper to appropriate for a land that is not available.”

    We are apt to say that the Senate Committee on FCT did a half-hearted and shoddy job of this very important matter and the plenary session was lazy, if not reprobate in passing the decision of the committee. Nigerians are saying that the Office of the First Lady is neither statutory nor does it have a base in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. How then does it begin to enjoy a place in the Appropriation Bill? Nigerians are saying that the AFLPC is not only a pet project of the wife of the president, that it is a bogus and wasteful ego trip which adds little value to Nigeria’s economy. If she must build it, it ought not to be from public funds appropriated by Nigeria’s Senate.

    We, as many Nigerians, had expected that the Senate would seize the opportunity of this FCT budget to make a statement on the office of the First Lady, budgetary allocations and the ownership status of their huge pet projects, among other issues. But the Senate returned empty-handed, so to speak, making lame and timid pronouncement on a crucial issue of national importance. What is clear is that the Senate, under the leadership of David Mark is either afraid of the guts of the first lady or lacks the moral quality to condemn the very idea of appropriating the funds of the Nigerian people for a magnificent vanity of an edifice without the support of law or conscience.

    What the Senate suggests easily is that the Office of the First Lady could represent her budget through the FCT and any other MDA for that matter so long as it has land to build her ‘pet’ projects? We must recall that the prime piece of land at the centre of the dispute between the two first ladies was allocated originally for a ‘pet’ project. Today, it has become the personal property of the former number one woman; would this edifice not suffer the same fate? We state it again that the so-called Office of the First Lady is an anomaly, unknown to the Constitution or any law of the land. It is a contraption that can easily be abused, being susceptible to manipulation and corruption. We hope that the Senate would summon courage to shed some light on it sooner.

  • Truant territory

    Truant territory

    •Nigeria continues to lead the world in out-of-school children

     

    IT is truly disheartening that Nigeria consistently tops global leagues when social, political and economic deficiencies are being measured. The latest demonstration of this trend manifested itself when the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (EAGMR) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) reported that the country has the highest number of children who do not attend school in the world.

    At 10.5 million, the figure is higher than that of Pakistan (5.1 million), Ethiopia (2.4 million), India (2.3 million), the Philippines (1.5 million) and Cote d’Ivoire (1.4 million). The seriousness of the situation becomes clearer when it is seen that India has a far larger population than Nigeria. The UNESCO report also states that Nigeria was one of four countries in the group to witness an increase in non-school-going children in absolute terms since 1999.

    The reasons why the country is in this deplorable situation are only too familiar. The most obvious one is the massive corruption perpetrated at all levels of government. Funds set aside for infrastructural development, the payment of salaries and the purchase of school supplies are regularly stolen by public office-holders and their collaborators in ministries and parastatals.

    The second relates to the structural deformities which persist in the nation’s primary educational system, under which an over-mighty Federal Government intervenes in the provision of basic education using two per cent of its Consolidated Revenue Fund. While the motivation might be commendable, it has not been effective in practice, because it has often enabled federal authorities to meddle in the affairs of states instead of seeking to complement their efforts. A state might identify the provision of learning aids as its greatest deficiency, only for the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), the organ that coordinates the implementation of the UBE programme at the states and local government levels, to insist on the construction of classrooms as its priority.

    An additional problem relates to the prevailing culture which allows children to forgo school in favour of supposedly-better alternatives like Islamic education, apprenticeships, hawking and domestic service. Many short-sighted parents are of the view that such children are better off earning money than getting an education, and their views are apparently justified by the high rates of graduate unemployment.

    The consequences resulting from Nigeria’s army of children who do not attend primary school are tragic. In the north, out-of-school children constitute the bulk of the almajiris whose capacity for mayhem is only too well known. In other parts of the country, they are a significant proportion of the youths who engage in petty crime, drug-taking, political thuggery, rape and other vices. The increasingly parlous security situation in the country is a pointer to what could happen if nothing is done to ensure that all Nigerian children are enabled to attend school.

    The first step is the promulgation of enabling laws. Akwa Ibom and Lagos states are the exemplars in this regard, as both have enshrined legislation making it compulsory for all children to go to school and prescribe appropriate sanctions for parents and guardians who fail to comply. If education is made mandatory in this manner, it will facilitate the enforcement of related regulations such as those prohibiting the participation of children in street-hawking and other trades at particular times of the day.

    Another thing would be to ensure that the local governments which are primarily responsible for primary education become more alive to their duties. They should conduct a comprehensive assessment of the needs of the primary schools within their areas of jurisdiction, and work with the state governments to resolve them. The UBE should be more flexible and adapted to the specific concerns of individual states in order to achieve the maximum benefits. A nation which fails to prepare its children for the challenges of the future jeopardises its own wellbeing.

     

  • Big shame

    Big shame

    •Flood: It is shameful that Big Men are yet to redeem their pledges six months after

    IF a pledge is a solemn promise or agreement to do or refrain from doing something, then, why some Nigerians, prominent ones at that, would make pledges and fail to honour them beggars explanation. Indeed, it sounds incredible that such a thing could happen even when the country’s first citizen was present when the pledges were made. But this is what has happened that has compelled the committee saddled with the responsibility of ameliorating the plight of the flood victims to threaten to publish the names of the big people in the country whose word cannot be their bond.

    Nigeria witnessed one of its worst flood disasters in the fourth quarter of last year, when flood swept through many states, putting millions of people in danger. About 59 communities were reportedly sacked, 38, 228 displaced and no fewer than160 people were feared dead. The disaster also kept travellers stranded for days on major highways in the affected states. Its dimension led to the setting up of a Presidential Flood Relief and Rehabilitation Committee,  co-chaired by business mogul, Aliko Dangote, and frontline lawyer, Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), by President Goodluck Jonathan. The 34—man committee consequently organised fund raising to assist victims of the disaster. Its target was N100billion, but only about N11.35billion was realised, both by way of pledges and actual donations at the fundraiser held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

    We feel strongly about this shameful act and wish the committee could go beyond naming and shaming. It is disgraceful that our Big Men (and perhaps women) could be so dishonourable even on a thing that touches on the lives of millions of Nigerians. Some of these personalities have enjoyed one form of largesse or the other from the government, probably including bailout funds that we cannot see what they did with it and the government itself is not interested in asking questions.

    We support the riot act read to the defaulters by the committee that such pledges must be redeemed on or before June 30, failing which the committee should publish their names. The idea of not redeeming pledges is fast becoming a conspicuous mannerism of many of our personalities. And it did not start today; it has been with us for long. People who have organised book launch must have experienced such dashed hopes from dignitaries who came, made fantastic pledges, received loud ovation only for the organisers of the book launch to be running after them for the money long after the event would have held. This false lifestyle of our big people is a dishonourable practice that we should discourage. If those held in high esteem in the society would fail to redeem pledges that they made voluntarily to people whose plight should naturally attract empathy, where then are we going?

    This particular case is worsened by the fact that President Jonathan announced tax incentives for corporate organisations that donated generously to the fund as a way of motivating them. It is over six months since the pledges were made and many of the pledges are yet to be redeemed. Sadly, some of those who have not redeemed their pledges have reportedly taken advantage of the tax incentives. We wonder why the incentives must have preceded the redeeming of the pledges, though. Could that have been another form of ‘bailout’ for them? The least the government can do is to compel those who have received incentives without fulfilling their pledge to return whatever they collected. That is the best way to spend the tax-payers’ money wisely.

    We join the committee in thanking those who have honoured their pledges and implore the defaulters to do same to avoid being named and shamed.

  • Power nightmare

    Power nightmare

    THE recent confession by the Federal Government that not less than 120 million Nigerians live without electricity is despicable. Hajia Zaynab Kuchi, Minister of State for Power, after a recent Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan, made the startling revelation. Professor Chinedu Nebo, Minister of Power and Kuchi’s senior colleague in the ministry was among the ministers at the briefing during the presentation of progress report of the power sector. He corroborated her position when he said that provision of electricity has become a ‘nightmare’ for the present administration.

    Hajia Kuchi was blunt when she said: “We have 160 million Nigerians now and we are only giving power to 40 million of that population. What it means is that there are about 120 million Nigerians that are without power and wish to buy power.’’ The revealed figure translates to 25 percent of Nigerians that currently have access to electricity. In the 21st century, this is indeed nightmarish in a country that is as blessed as Nigeria.

    The duo’s position that the only way to deliver power to Nigerians is by ‘serious commercialisation’ is faulty. They believe that the country can be powered through Independent Power Projects (IPPs) and collaboration of Public-Private Partnership. But we ask: Is government no longer responsible for the commercialisation of power? Should the government now be seeking for scapegoat in its futile attempt to commercialise the power sector through the IPPs?

    While it could be over-looked that natural occurrences such as storms, as posited by Prof Nebo, could wreak havoc as was the case in Bayelsa and Kebbi states where storms reportedly destroyed transmission lines, it is totally wrong to use that as absolute reason for the rapidly diminishing power supply across the country. The minister’s allusion to alleged vandalisation of power projects by some youths in Abuja will even not suffice. The truth is that there is need for total overhaul of generation and transmission networks in the nation, a thing the government is not taking seriously yet.

    The government seems to be exhuming excuses meant to exculpate official ineptitude. The minister suddenly realised mid-year that the sector is poorly funded because no fund was provided for routine maintenance of the generation and distribution companies this year. This is scandalous. The official explanation that power privatisation would have been completed since last year is equally bunkum. Is it not the government that is handling the privatisation that should be held responsible for slowing down the process?

    Despite huge government’s investment in the sector meant to guarantee stable power supply, it is sad that power generation in the country still stands at far below the desired megawatts – and most times highly epileptic or even not available for months in some areas. What then is the significance of the over $16 billion spent by the Obasanjo administration on the power sector, not to talk of the one spent by the current government that is yet to be made public.

    We doubt whether the projected December target for 10,000 megawatts is realistic with the current state of the IPPs. Nigerians only know the beginning of power contracts but are left in the dark about their terminal dates.

    It is sad that the history of power transformation has so far been that of miserable projections, failed promises and criminal defaults.

  • Port security

    Port security

    FOR how long will Nigeria continue to wait for the prodding of a foreign government before she rises up to her basic international obligations? This question has become pertinent in the wake of the 90-day ultimatum handed the Nigerian government by its United States counterpart, to improve ports security. Last month, a team from the United States Coast Guards reportedly visited Nigeria to undertake an assessment of the state of security at our ports. Their finding at the end of the visit was that the state of ports security in Nigeria – particularly, the Tin-Can Island Ports –was deplorable.

    Acting on the report, the US government is said to have issued the Nigerian government a 90-day deadline, to remedy the situation or risk the ban of American ships from sailing into Nigeria, not excluding the possibility of other Western countries being mobilised to join in the ban. That deadline ends in August.

    The proposed measure seems drastic. However, no matter how regrettable the measure appears to be, it takes some knowledge of how our Federal Government works to appreciate why such measures are sometimes inevitable. Oftentimes, it seems that is the only way to get things moving. But then, this would not even be the first time that the US government will literally browbeat its Nigerian counterpart to do what is needful on matters bordering on its national security interests.

    A ready example is the aviation industry where it took the relentless pressure by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to get the authorities in charge to do the needful. The International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) certification, known as Category 1 Status, which the nation currently enjoys is proof enough of that.

    More fundamental is whether any serious nation can afford the Federal Government’s leisurely pace of doing things in this age of global terrorism. As major player in the global maritime business, the US cannot afford to be indifferent to issues of ports security, particularly one involving one of its major trading partners. In any case, the issues highlighted by the US authorities are those that Nigerians are all too familiar with; they may present as America’s; they are no less Nigeria’s headache. Today, despite the so-called reforms, the ports have remained unreformable. Ports scenes cut a pathetic picture of a market square where all kinds of activities take place; they are as rowdy as they are chaotic. As for the infrastructure of operations and security, they are not only palpably inadequate; they are just as archaic as they were when the government ran port operations.

    The issues raised by the Americans, although border on port security and hence touching directly on the obligations of the Nigerian government to ensure security of port users; however, we consider them essentially as governance issues on which the government should ordinarily have needed no prodding. The shame of it all is that the same officials who brought the embarrassment to the country are said to be making frantic moves to address the concerns – which of course suggests that the problems are within their capacities to solve in the first place.

    We expect the Federal Government to take the concerns highlighted by the US authorities very seriously. It starts with getting those responsible for the implementation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code – the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) convention to secure and safeguard ships and port facilities around the world – to take their job seriously. It also calls for greater investment in ports security infrastructure.

    None of the above, in our view, needs the oversight of a foreign government to achieve.

  • Keep the focus on China cyber threat

    Keep the focus on China cyber threat

    Throughout the past week, the US media have been dominated by revelations concerning America’s National Security Agency from Edward Snowden. Most of the focus has been on the NSA’s domestic surveillance activities and the extent to which it collects data traffic from millions of Americans. But on Wednesday, the whistleblower focused on another NSA activity: its spying on China. The NSA had “61,000 hacking operations globally”, with hundreds of targets in Hong Kong and China. This “gives us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers.”

    A claim like this should surprise nobody. The NSA, like most national intelligence services, does lots of spying overseas. That is what they are paid to do. But Mr Snowden’s words have allowed Chinese commentators to hit back at the US after months in which Washington has openly attacked China for its cyber espionage activities. The Chinese are arguing that Mr Snowden’s revelations in an interview show the US is hypocritical and guilty of double standards.

    That argument must be challenged. The US and China both engage in cyber offence. But there are big differences in what they do. The US is largely focused on securing information that protects national security. China’s operations are alleged to be different. The bulk of its operations – often conducted by the military – are said to involve the theft of intellectual property from western companies. China has always denied such activity. But western businesses say they find it truly alarming.

    It is still unclear how the US can counter the threat from China. US lawmakers want to pass legislation punishing Chinese companies that use stolen trade secrets. They want to impose visa bans on known Chinese hackers. President Barack Obama wants to get China to agree to norms of behaviour in cyberspace, akin to trade rules. But progress is slow.

    One point must not be lost, however. The great danger of the furore over the NSA in recent days is that it will distract attention from the immense threat from China that US companies face. Yes, the US government must be accountable and transparent when it comes to the surveillance of its own citizens. But the scale of cyber espionage by China against western companies is on an altogether different scale. The concerns that western companies have on this issue must not be overshadowed by debates on US civil liberties.

     

    Financial Times