The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Catching them young

    Catching them young

    Delta State Government sets a template for hosting sports in Nigeria

    After the disappointment of Nigeria’s non-performance at the London Olympics last year, it appears that the country has begun to take steps to ensure that it once again attains the enviable heights of athletics prowess. This objective was clearly demonstrated at the recently-concluded African Youth Athletics Championships which took place in Warri, Delta State, from March 28 to March 31.

    Organised by the Confederation of African Athletics for athletes no older than 17 years of age, the championships brought together 32 African nations, including perennial powerhouses like Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt. Meant to become an important source for the identification of sporting talent, the championships are modelled upon similar tournaments in Europe and the United States. The absence of qualifying standards makes it much more accessible than it would otherwise have been, and enables participating nations to try out athletes not already in advanced coaching programmes.

    Nigeria came first in the championships with a total of 13 gold, 10 silver and 12 bronze medals; overhauling second-placed Egypt which led for most of the competition. It is particularly gratifying to note that the country not only asserted its traditional dominance in the sprints, but was able to make some inroads into the middle-distance races.

    The championships once again demonstrate that Nigeria has never lacked the talent to achieve sporting glory at the highest levels. The real difficulty is with the way in which sports is funded, organised and administered in the country. Resources meant for the development of athletes and the establishment of sporting infrastructure are wasted or stolen, there is a dearth of competitions with which performances can be objectively assessed, and administrative capacity leaves a lot to be desired.

    Nigeria’s success in Warri offers the country a vital opportunity to put its house in order. The lessons learnt in organising the championships should become a template for the institution of similar competitions at the local level. Scouting for talent should be taken more seriously, and a comprehensive system of nurturing potential should be established at the local, regional and national levels. Greater focus should be placed on the training of competent administrators who can make sure that sporting policy is properly executed.

    It is particularly important that measures are put in place to ensure that the age-falsification virus that has plagued much of the country’s sport is not allowed to infect the cadet athlete programme. As football has demonstrated, little is gained when corners are cut in this manner. A system of age-verification, complete with supporting evidence, such as school records and a comprehensive timeline, should be developed to ensure that young athletes are truly the ages they claim they are.

    Closely related to this is the entrenchment of a zero-tolerance policy against the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The increasing sophistication of this kind of cheating has combined with the appreciable material benefits derivable from sporting success to make the temptation to cheat almost irresistible. The only way young Nigerian athletes can be saved from this practice is through a mix of continuous enlightenment and a strong regime of drugs-testing. If they are made to understand early in their careers that top performance entails self-discipline and sacrifice, they will be much less likely to engage in any actions that could disgrace them and embarrass their country.

    The Delta State Government under Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan must be commended for the commitment and dedication that it brought to the organisation and hosting. It has made a name for itself as an unflagging supporter of sports development in the country, and is outstanding for the comprehensiveness of its efforts to ensure that its citizens are allowed to develop their sporting abilities to the fullest extent.

  • Gates’ warning on test scores

    In a recent op-ed article, he cautions against overusing students’ standardized test scores in evaluating how well teachers are doing their jobs.

    A recent op-ed article in the Washington Post warned against overusing students’ standardized test scores in evaluating how well teachers are doing their jobs. There would be no surprise about that — if it had been penned by the leader of a teachers union. But it was written by Bill Gates, arguably the most influential voice over the last few years in pushing for the use of test scores to rate teachers.

    Gates’ warning was based on a study released in January that his foundation funded. It determined that student scores have a useful but limited place in measuring a teacher’s work, and that some other measurements, such as student surveys, are more consistent.

    The billionaire philanthropist’s reasoned perspective is appreciated; the problem is that schools in this country are already well down the testing-and-evaluations road. Prodded heavily by reform groups, many of which receive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, states and school districts have in some cases taken the use of students’ scores to extremes that have no grounding in research, making them count for half or more of a teacher’s rating, or hastily concocting tests to measure unmeasurable subjects — and then applying the results to teachers. The most mocked example is Ohio’s extensive new exam in physical education, which includes measuring whether students’ movements while skipping are adequately smooth.

    In 2010, California was denied $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds, largely because it declined to require that student test scores be linked to teacher ratings — something the Obama administration had demanded in return for the money, even though there was little if any evidence that the scores had value as indicators of a teacher’s work.

    The Gates Foundation has a deserved reputation for testing its education hypotheses with expansive, high-quality studies. It rightly abandoned its previous campaign for high schools to enroll no more than 500 students after funding a study that found that smaller enrollments alone did not have a big impact on student achievement. But again, because the foundation’s billions were behind the small-school movement, districts across the nation switched to that more expensive model, which is hard for them to undo now.

    The new study on teacher evaluations contains interesting findings, but much more research is needed.

    When philanthropists have potentially useful ideas about education, they should by all means try them out, establish pilot programs, put their money where their mouths are. But before government officials incorporate those ideas into policy, they must study them carefully and make sure that what sounds reasonable in theory works in practice.

    – Los Angeles Times

  • Empty threats?

    Empty threats?

     MEND’s killing of 12 policemen has exposed the government’s impotence

    Nobody is really in charge around here now. This must be the conclusion by majority of the citizenry after last Saturday’s killing of 12 policemen. The militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), recently threatened it would unleash reprisal attacks and it carried one out in style last weekend, leaving the Federal Government and its security agencies utterly shamefaced, and the populace aghast.

    MEND’s warning came after its leader, Henry Okah, was tried and jailed in South Africa last month. Okah had been facing trial for the October 1, 2010 Independence Day bombing in Abuja, in which 12 people died and tens of others were injured.

    MEND, which is perhaps the most enlightened and most organised of the motley group of militant cells that burgeoned in the Niger Delta creeks in the last decade, had warned that a series of attacks codenamed Hurricane Exodus was to begin at midnight last Friday. The attacks were to be repercussion for what it considers Federal Government’s ignoble role in Okah’s trial and conviction. It also gave notice that the attacks will be sustained until the government tenders an unreserved apology to it and initiates a dialogue as it is currently carrying on with the Boko Haram sect.

    The security agencies stationed in the Niger Delta region, especially the Joint Task Force (JTF) had quickly dismissed the warning, asserting that it had a structure in the area capable of countering any breach of peace and security.

    Last Saturday, exactly one day after the expiration of its notice, MEND struck on the creeks of Azuzama in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. Fifteen armed policemen in a boat who were members of the JTF on duty in the area were ambushed and, according to report, a gunfight ensued; 12 were killed while three escaped. MEND immediately owned up to committing the criminal act, even though the police authority chose to live in denial by insisting that the attack and killing were not by MEND but aggrieved former militants. Meanwhile, the bodies of 10 of the 12 policemen were recovered on Tuesday.

    MEND’s release after the attack was at once audacious and bone-chilling. It reads in parts: “For dismissing Hurricane Exodus as an “empty threat” by the Nigerian security forces, heavily armed fighters from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), at about 17:00Hrs., Saturday 06, April 2013, intercepted and engaged government security forces in a fierce gunfight lasting over forty (40) minutes at Azuzama, Southern Ijaw, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.

    “The clash which happened in the river left over fifteen (15) security forces dead as we also lost two fighters in the battle.

    “We hope this encounter will serve as a lesson for the Joint Task Force (JTF) from making careless utterances that cannot be backed as we remain resolute in our resumption of hostilities…”

    What this episode reveals as we have said again and again, is that Nigeria’s security initiative remains primordial, shambolic, reactionary and undergirded by brute force. The dire lack of intelligence has been exposed over and over again, such that every inch of the country seems vulnerable and every rag-tag group would beat our security agencies even after giving notice of attack.

    We note that it is not by chance that MEND chose to strike in the president’s home state, Bayelsa; it is a show of the ultimate affront to our sovereignty. And their picking on the members of the JTF is at once a mind game as well as a war game calculated to expose the inefficiency of the task force. The killing of the 12 policemen, who ironically, were reported to be on duty guarding an ex-militant burying his father, brings to the fore, the farce of an amnesty granted to the Niger Delta militants. Daily, we are reminded that militancy, terrorist acts, criminality and brigandage remain the order of the day down in the creeks. It is still a jungle out there.

    May we remind that paying criminals to make peace and rewarding murderers and terrorists for the sake of peace betokens impotence of leadership? As government currently pursues amnesty for Boko Haram terrorists, let it draw a lesson from the Niger Delta scenario and realise that peace can never be purchased, it is achieved. Indeed, only exemplary leadership can achieve peace.

  • Goodbye NECO, UTME

    Goodbye NECO, UTME

    We welcome the decision to scrap the two bodies

    Education is one sector of the national life that has received due and undue attention in the past few years. Sound education is generally seen as the passport to good life, panacea to national ills and tonic for development. However, mass failure at external examinations, especially at the secondary school level, has been the subject of many summits, conferences and inquiries.

    Last year, a Presidential Committee on Rationalisation, Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies was set up primarily with a view to reducing the cost of governance. The committee, headed by former Head of Service of the Federation, Mr. Steve Oronsaye, has now submitted its report, recommending the scrapping of the National Examinations Council (NECO) and the Universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) being conducted annually by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

    It is our view that NECO that was introduced by the Abdulsalami Abubakar administration in 1999 has failed to live up to the expectation of candidates and the public. It was established to challenge the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and thus offer options for candidates seeking qualifications for the tertiary institutions. Indication that it could fail in performing that task came very early as nearly all the candidates who sat the NECO papers in 2000 and 2001 passed. The results flew against the grain of observation by stakeholders that the quality of education in the primary and secondary schools had declined sharply in the past two decades.

    Promptly, universities’ vice-chancellors rejected the results for the purpose of admission. It took a directive from the then Minister of Education, Professor Tunde Adeniran, to force ‘successful’ candidates on the universities.

    We support the plan to scrap NECO because WAEC is time-tested. Established in 1952, it has gained both national and international recognition. It has faced challenges, including leakages and inefficiency, but these have not affected its credibility as candidates, parents and institutions see the council taking steps to combat the problems.

    There have been fears that money spent on NECO could have been wasted, but the Federal Government has promised to get the staff absorbed by WAEC, with a view to strengthening the sub-regional body. This is commendable as the council would need more staff to cope with the demands of conducting the Junior School Certificate Examination (JSCE), the National Common Entrance Examination into the unity colleges, the examination to select students for the Federal Academy, Suleja, that has been conducted exclusively by NECO for about 14 years. The sub-regional examination body could also learn from NECO’s use of technology to cut the time for processing the tests.

    Besides, in the interest of students, it has been suggested that WAEC may have to conduct the SSCE examinations three or four times a year, in order to afford opportunities for more candidates to gain the much sought after qualification.

    The UTME has obviously outlived its usefulness. It was introduced to check the growing disdain for polytechnics and colleges of education by candidates who could not secure places in the universities. It took on the unwanted task of centrally placing candidates in all universities in the country. Neither UME, introduced at the establishment of JAMB, nor UTME, has worked in the interest of university education in the country. There can be no justification for one body to recruit students for all universities- federal, state or private. Each institution, as was the case before 1978, should device means of recruiting its students, subject only to minimum standards that the National Universities Commission and or JAMB may set. In any case, the fact that JAMB was doing a poor job has been eloquently demonstrated in the conduct of post-JAMB examinations by the various universities.

    We urge the Federal Ministry of Education to quickly work out the modalities for giving effect to the decisions without sacrificing the national interest and throwing workers into the already saturated employment market.

  • The North Korea conundrum

    The North Korea conundrum

    Obama is reacting prudently. But Pyongyang’s belligerence doesn’t bode well for arms control.

    The Obama administration is reacting responsibly to a series of provocations from North Korea, shoring up defenses while seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis. But even if North Korea is deterred from attacking South Korea or U.S. forces for the foreseeable future, the defiance it has demonstrated in the last several weeks renders more elusive than ever achievement of the administration’s ultimate goal: a Korean peninsula without nuclear weapons.

    Last month the U.N. Security Council — including China, North Korea’s longtime patron — approved new economic sanctions after North Korea conducted a third nuclear test. Undeterred, the North announced Tuesday that it would restart a plutonium reactor it shuttered in 2007.

    The immediate concern for the United States and South Korea is a cascade of statements and actions by North Korea that threaten the military and political status quo on the Korean peninsula. North Korea insists that it’s responding to a threat posed by U.S. military aircraft that took part in recent training exercises; the real explanation for its bellicose actions is the ongoing campaign to deprive the North of nuclear weapons.

    The North has declared that it is entering a “state of war” with the South and has barred South Korean employees from an industrial park jointly operated by the two Koreas. As for the United States, the regime has announced that its military has been authorized to respond to U.S. aggression with “smaller, lighter and diversified” nuclear weapons. On Thursday, South Korea’s defense minister said that the North had moved to the east coast of the country a missile with a “considerable” range.

    Though few experts actually believe North Korea has any intention of attacking U.S. interests or South Korea, the U.S. responded by deploying two missile defense warships in the Pacific Ocean and will position missile defense systems in the U.S. territory of Guam. Such measures are prudent. Korea’s Kim Jong Un has only been in power for a little more than a year, and it would be irresponsible for the Obama administration to ignore his bold threats.

    Meanwhile, the Obama administration is attempting to enlist China in an effort to calm the situation, enforce the sanctions and up the pressure on its North Korean ally. That’s the best option, to be sure; China, after all, keeps Kim’s regime afloat with food and energy supplies. Unfortunately, similar entreaties by this and other American administrations have proved largely unsuccessful over the years because China has many strategic reasons to continue to support the status quo.

    Even if the current crisis is brought to a quick end, it demonstrates how determined North Korea is to establish itself as a nuclear power, an ambition that if accomplished could lead not only South Korea but Japan to consider acquiring nuclear weapons. That is why the United States must continue to try to engage North Korea in an agreement in which it would trade its nuclear program for aid and normal relations. Unfortunately, the events of the last few weeks suggest that there is little interest in such an agreement in Pyongyang.

    Los Angeles Times

  • Soldiers of love

    Soldiers of love

    Mass wedding shows that not violence alone but also love thrive in barracks

     

    Before God and man, at the St Peter’s Military Church (Anglican) 25 soldiers tied the nuptial knots in a special mass at the Nigerian Army 302 Artillery Regiment, Onitsha, Anambra State on Easter Monday. As a matter of fact, they must be having their honeymoon now. So, what’s the big deal about soldiers wedding? As journalists say, when dog bites man, it’s no news; but when man bites dog, then that is news! In other words, there is nothing special about soldiers getting married. As a matter of fact, there is nothing spectacular about mass wedding. It is commonplace, especially in the Pentecostal churches, and the idea is basically to save cost and not necessarily make wedding cost centres. Indeed, mass wedding now cuts across religions, with the Kano State government marrying off 100 widows and divorced women in a mass wedding held in the Emir’s palace in May, last year.

    What is novel in the Onitsha soldiers’ wedding is that it was the first time soldiers would be doing such mass wedding in the country. As the Commander of Onitsha Military Cantonment, Col Taritimaya Gagariga noted in a goodwill message to the ceremony, “It is a thing of great joy for me to see 25 soldiers getting married at the same time. I am overwhelmed with joy that soldiers under my command will want to live responsible family lives.’’

    He was not alone; there was great joy in the cantonment, with the soldiers’ colleagues savouring every moment of the occasion. The mammoth crowd of relatives, friends and well wishers of the new couples who came from different parts of the country to witness the ceremony also shared in the ecstasy. It was indeed a sight to behold, with the couples looking resplendent in their wedding dresses.

    We congratulate the newlyweds and wish them a happy and prosperous married life. By their decision, they have put a romantic face to a military institution that is usually associated with war and blood. What the action shows is that soldiers are also human; they are capable of feelings and emotions like any other human being; the difference is in their stern posture which is a reflection of their orientation and training.

    We admonish the newly married soldiers to let the new life pass through them and not just to pass through it. The new sense of responsibility should reflect in all they do; officially and in their private life. Since they have voted to live responsibly, which is what they have done by deciding to marry, they should make use of the pieces of advice that they got during their wedding.

    But beyond this, the marriage would help the army to easily sort out the issue of the soldiers’ next-of-kin. This has always posed a problem to the military authorities when the untoward happens and they have to pay compensation to the victims’ families. At least Col Gagariga too said that much.

    We want to see more of this type of wedding, particularly in the military. Soldiers who are single and are scared of marrying because they see wedding as a project over which they must spend fortunes can now see that times are changing.

    One of the couples, Sgt and Mrs. Chindo Larai, who spoke on behalf of the others thanked God for giving them the opportunity to be united in love through wedding and promised to use the new status given to them to make a better society. So help them God.

     

  • Flying blind

    Flying blind

    • Government bailouts for the airline industry are not the answer

    For a Federal Government that has ceaselessly preached the gospel of deregulation, it is surprising that the policy of providing bailouts for the ailing real sector of the economy is an unquestionable article of faith. The latest manifestation of this contradictory thinking can be seen in the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to extend soft loans to the country’s troubled airlines.

    The CBN measure is apparently aimed at ensuring that Nigeria’s airspace is operated by indigenous airlines which can offer efficient and cost-effective services on a par with global best standards. While those intentions may be honourable, recent experience has shown that it is not an effective strategy.

    The soft loans being contemplated by the bank are just the latest in a host of interventions aimed at the beleaguered aviation sector. In 2010, Nigerian airlines were beneficiaries of the N500billion bailout fund approved for the manufacturing sector in response to the cash crunch emanating from the global financial crisis of 2008. In 2012, N300billion was given to airlines to refinance their debts to banks. Late last year, the Federal Government announced that it would purchase 30 aircraft to be distributed to local airlines to be paid for in instalments.

    Such sustained interest in the well-being of the aviation sector is not misplaced. The tragic air disasters of the recent past are a sobering reminder of the unacceptable consequences of mismanagement, corner-cutting and infrastructural inadequacies. However, the desire to reposition the airline industry does not mean that money should simply be thrown at perceived problems. It is strange that no attempt has been made to find out why previous bailouts failed so spectacularly to achieve the intended effects. Some airlines took bailout money and promptly went under; others used the money for purposes other than what it was meant for. Nor has there been any efforts to apprehend and sanction those who misused bailout funds meant for their companies.

    To make matters worse, the underlying problems facing the airline industry are as formidable as ever. Vital inputs like aviation fuel, spare parts for aircraft, landing, parking and maintenance charges remain very high. Regulatory oversight is bedevilled with unanswered accusations of corruption, nepotism and inefficiency. A series of strikes has shown that labour relations in many airline companies are not conducive to operational efficiency.

    If the Federal Government is sincere about its desire to help the aviation sector to overcome its problems, it must focus less on dubiously distributing money and more on tackling the roots of the crisis. Greater effort must be made to reduce the operating costs of indigenous airlines which rank among the highest in Africa. Instead of continual bailouts, the strategy should be to create an enabling environment in which the airlines can thrive. For example, reducing tariffs on imported spare parts, lowering airport fees and charges, and establishing special long-term, low-interest loan facilities in banks would help to make the airline business more profitable and more sustainable in the long run.

    The bailout policy has not succeeded in the other sectors of the Nigerian economy where it has been tried. It has not done much to resuscitate the comatose textile industry. The trillions poured into the banking crisis have achieved negligible results; an additional N500 billion bailout for banks was stopped by the House of Representatives in 2011. Indeed, far from representing a viable direction in economic policy, bailouts have apparently become the new system for funnelling huge amounts from government to private pockets, especially given the fact that there appears to be no desire to investigate how such funds were spent.

    It is time for the Federal Government to realise that the bailout strategy can only function effectively as part of a comprehensive programme of reform which must be implemented with honesty, diligence and efficiency.

  • Margaret Thatcher: In every sense a leader

    Margaret Thatcher: In every sense a leader

    Unless we change our ways and our direction, our greatness as a nation will soon be a footnote in the history books, a distant memory of an offshore island, lost in the mists of time like Camelot, remembered kindly for its noble past.” Margaret Thatcher, never given to understatement, presented that grim vision for Britain in 1979, the year she became prime minister.

    Then, for the next 11 ½ years — almost as long as three U.S. presidential terms — she worked with fierce determination and unrelenting stubbornness to dispel it. By the time she left office, reluctantly, in 1990, there was not much talk anymore of Britain’s inexorable decline. Lady Thatcher had changed not only her country’s direction but also its standing in the world. She continued to be passionately detested by some and admired and respected by others long after she left office, and her record will be debated for decades, or centuries. What is hardly debatable is the proposition that she was, in every sense of the word, a leader.

    Margaret Thatcher was a new kind of Conservative in British politics, a true-believing, Friedrich von Hayek-quoting enemy of what she saw as the excesses of the welfare state, of the unions that seemed to run it and of the mass of socialist encrustations that had formed on the Labor Party’s left wing in the years after World War II. She thought that statism was crushing the nation’s economy, destroying the morale of its people and rapidly diminishing its standing in the world. Apparently a good many Britons agreed with her, though not necessarily with her fervent embrace of the total conservative ideology. The country was ready for a break with the postwar past, and Mrs. Thatcher’s party had the good sense to see in her the forcefulness, conviction and eloquence that could bring it off.

    Mrs. Thatcher’s great domestic battles as prime minister were waged against the institutional left and its supporters among the British intelligentsia, which meant of course that they were extremely entertaining. They were fought on the same issue that divides Europeans to this day: When does the people’s demand for security become so all-consuming that it overtaxes the economy, saps initiative and buries the state under a mountain of debt? She worked for deregulation, privatization of state enterprises, tax changes and other domestic reforms she felt were desperately needed, many of which worked real hardship on the country’s poor, at least in the short term.

    But outside Britain she will be remembered primarily as a world figure. She strengthened Britain’s ties with the United States, bolstered its military, supported placement of intermediate-range missiles in Europe (an extremely controversial move at the time) and spoke out with undiplomatic boldness when she took offense at some countries’ actions. She saw a great divide between freedom and the various forms of tyranny in the world, and she made it clear, always, which side she was on. She voiced harsh criticism of the the Soviet Union, but then also, like her good friend Ronald Reagan, moved to engage its new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.

    She made her name in the world a few years into her first term, when the military government in Argentina sought to whip up popular support by invading the nearby Falkland Islands. It was a largely unpopulated place, but those who did inhabit it had no desire to live under the Argentine regime of the time, and Mrs. Thatcher had no intention of letting the invasion stand. Against the advice of many, she ordered a military invasion of the Falklands and retook the islands. Eight years later, after another act of aggression in another part of the word, she reinforced President George H. W. Bush’s resolve to drive Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait.

    Mrs. Thatcher, who was raised in the family apartment over her father’s grocery store in Lincolnshire, and who thought that everyday upbringing an ideal preparation for political life, officially became a “lady” (a baroness) after she left office. She was pushed out by divisions within her party on several issues, the most important being the rapid pace of European integration, of which she was skeptical. For some years afterward, she continued to write, speak and agitate. The first woman to serve as Britain’s prime minister, she held the post longer than anyone else in the 20th century, and she might have held it even longer had she been a bit more flexible. But then of course she wouldn’t have been Maggie Thatcher.

    “I can’t bear Britain in decline, I just can’t,’ she said in an interview shortly before her election as prime minister 32 years ago. She did what she thought necessary to stop that decline, and she didn’t really seem to have much worry about what anyone else thought of it. Her toughness in negotiation exasperated and even enraged adversaries. “I’m extraordinarily patient,” she once told an interviewer, “provided I get my own way in the end.”

    – Washington Post

  • Iron Lady passes

    Iron Lady passes

    •Margaret Thatcher was a prime minister who failed Africa but helped capitalism

    The passing of the iron Lady of British politics, Margaret Thatcher, yesterday, at age 87, has sent shockwaves around the world. Many have praised her for her quintessential politics: hardheaded, defiant and audacious. In her eleven and a half years at the top of British politics, many of her fans and Western analysts have serenaded her for inaugurating a new era of conservative politics as a right-wing populist in the mould of her American counterpart, Ronald Reagan.

    But to us in Africa, she was bad news. While South Africa reeled under the grip of racist regimes of apartheid, Prime Minister Thatcher described the partisans of African National Congress as “terrorists.” In the years of fervent anti-apartheid umbrage around the world, when Nelson Mandela had spent over two decades in jail, many forces called for an imposition of sanctions to force reforms on the regime. Thatcher, like her fellow traveller Reagan, opposed the call for sanctions on the pretext that it would hurt the blacks more than the whites.

    It did not matter to the Iron Lady that the blacks who had lost generations of pride and progress because of the draconian hand of apartheid prejudice were ready to make a few years of sacrifice. That was assuming that her opinion was right. In a recent meeting with Mandela, the present British Prime Minister distanced himself from the Thatcher policy and apologised. But the woman never openly regretted her cold-blooded position even though she witnessed the birth of freedom, those years when Mandela became President and rose in stature as one of the greatest personages that ever lived.

    Thatcher’s role in inaugurating a new life for capitalism has remained controversial. When she became prime minister, Thatcher opened up the economy to the rich by chopping down taxes for them and selling off many state-owned corporations, including the British Airways and British Petroleum. She also sold off council houses for the ordinary. She broke the back of the labour unions, and she succeeded especially with the miners’ union whose one-year strike did not compel the prime minister to change course. They eventually stopped the strike without a deal and many of the mines were shut down and others privatised. She was a great stalwart against socialism and, on her watch, the world saw a seismic ideological change with the fall of communist regimes in Europe and the Soviet Union.

    Thatcher’s success brought a burst of entrepreneurial excitement to Britain and the rest of the world. Britain saw a new capitalist elan and the United States under Reagan followed that path as well. The economic idea of Milton Friedman took over the familiar state interventionist logic of John Galbraith. But it was a reflection of the ongoing war of ideas between Hayek and Keynes. The birth of Thatcher’s economic policies seemed to sound a death knell for Keynes.

    It implied privatisation, lower taxes and deregulation of what was seen as suffocating state presence in the economy. Even the victories of President Bill Clinton of the United States and Tony Blair of Britain came at the expense of some of the leftist orthodoxies like the welfare state.

    But that policy created a world that put institutions at the service of rational choice and that gave sanctity to powerful individuals. The real consequence was that, between her and Reagan, an era of apparent prosperity was born that has exploded for its false premise. A wide chasm has charaterised the past 20 years between the rich and poor.

    The collapse of the economies around the world showed that individual initiatives can be overrated in solving the world’s riddles and that is why both in the United States and Europe, interventionist policies are checkmating the hubris of the individual investor. Keynes returned from the grave.

    That is the legacy of Thatcher’s years, not so much her victory at the Falklands War. She never regretted any of her acts even when the poor felt she was ruthless and imperial. “You turn if you want. This lady is not for turning.” She said that too.

     

  • Presidential ambivalence

    Presidential ambivalence

    • Does President Jonathan have the boldness to declare his political ambition?

    The silhouette of President Goodluck Jonathan is really haunting him for want of valour to publicly proclaim his ambition to run, once again, for the presidency in 2015. Nigerians have overwhelmingly beckoned on him to come out clean on this matter. The deployment of presidential body language and other distracting proclivity is gratuitously overheating the polity.

    President Jonathan, in apparent reference to pressures being mounted on him by Nigerians, gave a hint of his ambition. He did this at the church complex dedication of All Saints Anglican Covenant Church built by Ike Ekweremadu, Deputy Senate President, in Mpu, Aninri Local Government Area of Enugu State.

    His prosaic statement goes thus: “Irrespective of provocations… political leadership is very transient; every leader comes and goes. So, there is no need for people to fight over political leadership that is transient to the extent that you want to even burn your house down…These are transitional leadership, luckily we have a constitution that defines the maximum tenure any individual can stay in office and even if the constitution does not clearly define it, no one individual will stay there for life because we are biological specimen.’’

    To us, the above underscores a presidential rigmarole on a very simple issue of whether or not the president wants to contest for the position he currently occupies come 2015. That coveted post demands the holder to be intrepid and not unduly waver on any serious issue of national importance. Despite curious discernible moves within and outside his ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and at a point the influx of the president’s campaign posters in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, he has consistently maintained a dodgy position by claiming that the time for him to decide on 2015 was not ripe.

    Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, the Anglican Prelate, at the church dedication attributed the problems affecting the nation to that of “human manipulation.” This position is better emphasised by the president’s covert political manipulation of the system to suit his ambition at the detriment of more salient national matters. Nigerians demand a peaceful and politically stable country of equal socio-political and economic opportunities from the present administration. Nigerians generally crave for good governance that has been elusive under the on-going dispensation as a result of avoidable manipulations.

    We thought Mr. President should really focus his mind and efforts on these significant issues that could satisfy the yearnings and aspirations of citizens rather than grab every occasion to engage in riddle talk. The position he sits atop does not require him to be ambivalent.

    President Jonathan has done very little to convince his countrymen of his leadership prowess. Sometimes, it is debatable whether he is conscious of the verdict of history with his drab approach to governance and surreptitious moves to secure another term in office. His claim at the church dedication of having sanitised the flawed electoral system by making every vote to count in the country will be better tested in 2015 when he must have publicly made up his mind to face the electorate. The disappointed citizens are waiting!

    The avoidable trouble shooting that has become the hallmark of Mr. President’s 2015 ambition is deplorable. Rather than avail the public the opportunity of engaging in beneficial discourses, the distractions of the alleged agreement of one term with the north, his eligibility for another term, which invariably the court has made pronouncement on, among others, pervade the air. If he wants to contest, he should come out and say so and stop insulting the people by speaking with both sides of his mouth. We expect our president to be bold enough to say whatever he has in mind.