Category: Editorial

NIGERIANS are conversant with government cliché of turning cassava produced by farmers in the country into a veritable export cash crop. But the query is whether successive administrations in the past 14 years have shown sufficient commitment to the idea. Since former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, cassava crop has become a tool deployed to befuddle the public, with the government telling us it is making efforts to find sustainable agricultural alternatives to crude oil as sole means of foreign exchange earner.

Despite spending billions of naira on cassava project, no meaningful foreign earnings has come to the government’s coffers. This underscores our scepticism about the move by the Federal Government to secure from the African Export and Import Bank, Egypt, a US$40 million loan to finance China’s purported demand of three million metric tons of cassava chips.

Though Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, was enthusiastic when he unfolded the initiative recently, we believe that such facility, if eventually obtained, constitutes another policy somersault that may lead nowhere. Adesina is more fascinated by the idea of creating export market for cassava, even to the extent of the nation not likely being able to meet up with domestic demands for the crop. Assuming domestic production is mopped up, what becomes of local consumption? Is it right to create deliberate domestic cassava scarcity simply because of official urge to meet foreign demands?

We deprecate the move to obtain the loan to finance the cassava export project. If the government truly knows its onions, the nation does not need to seek external credit facility to meet up foreign demands for the production of cassava chips. If properly harnessed, we have enough cassava in rural Nigeria to meet domestic and other demands. The challenge is the dearth of infrastructure to transport and preserve the excess cassava produce from the farms across the country, which, sadly, nothing concrete is being done to remedy.

In 2012, the two million metric tonnes of cassava chips reportedly delivered to China, according to the minister, were adjudged the best in the world. But more significantly is the fact that the cassava chips were cultivated and harvested by Nigerian farmers without foreign credit facility. The lesson from this is that the government must focus on how to develop general agricultural infrastructure. The way to start is for the government to see to fruition its plan to set up four cassava chip processing centres in the South-East city of Enugu, South-West city of Ibadan and the northern states of Nasarawa and Taraba. Also, there are other cash crops like cocoa and palm oil, among others, that can generate billions of dollars annually for the government.

We call on the government to stop forthwith the processing of the US$40 million facility. For example, the reported N4.1billion credit facility to the Nigerian Cassava Growers Association (NCGA) for 20,000 cassava farmers by the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) to cultivate 60,000 hectares of farmland during the 2013 planting season is in order. We subscribe to this kind of private investors initiative, instead of the government being the direct beneficiary of such facility.

Instead of seeking foreign loan that will not yield the desired results, we want the government to encourage private investors, both domestic and international, to come and develop our great agricultural potential. We are opposed to this loan that is akin to the laughable idea of phone-for-farmer initiative by the minister sometime ago.

One must have a heart of stone and a head of mush not to welcome the economic renaissance of Africa and its businesses, which a Financial Times series is mapping this week. Still, counting a once forgotten continent’s new-found blessings should not blur a critical look at the challenges that remain.

Many of the fastest-growing countries since 2000 – albeit from a very low base – have been African. The continent’s growth rate forecast exceeds Asia’s. Helping to power this progress is a homegrown business sector.

Part of the success reflects the removal of the extreme policy mistakes of socialist state planning in the 1960s and 1970s and excessive liberalisation and state downsizing in the 1980s. Today, African political leadership is better than it was in many places, if mixed overall. Most leaders now seem willing to let markets do what they do best.

This pragmatism has been complemented by a number of lucky strikes. The global commodities boom has fuelled economic activity on this resource cornucopia of a continent. The mobile telecommunications revolution has swept across Africa, with new markets and innovative services riding its coattails from retail finance to medical information provision.

Hoping one-off boosters will continue to arrive is no strategy for sustained growth. The future is in the balance, to be determined in part by the continent’s current youth bulge. Asia’s growth revolutions show what can be achieved if a demographic transition – a temporarily larger proportion of working-age adults – is handled properly. But it is a growth opportunity that will not last forever.

So far, Africa’s youth, better educated than ever, face largely jobless growth. Making the most of their potential means adding more value within Africa, as Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria’s central bank governor, wrote in the Financial Times last week. This requires better infrastructure in all senses: physical, logistical, human. Railways, roads and ports must keep improving and tie African countries closer to each other, not just to the rest of the world. Financial markets must broaden and deepen. More must be invested in education and health. Agriculture in particular needs attention: it can be a source of both employment and growth.

It is the duty of states to secure these public goods to match business’s contribution to growth so that liberated but sensibly regulated markets can create lasting prosperity in Africa as they have done everywhere else.

– Financial Times

We do not know the essence of President Jonathan’s trips to Borno and Yobe states

All the sound and fury surrounding President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to terror-ridden Yobe and Borno states have ended up signifying nothing. What exactly was the strategic purpose of the presidential visit to these troubled spots in the North East of Nigeria? We find it difficult to identify any tangible gains from the trip. Yet, presidential trips involve huge expenditure of scarce public resources and must thus not be undertaken frivolously.

It is obvious that President Jonathan’s clearly belated visits to the two states was a kneejerk reaction to the recent meeting held by nine governors and one deputy governor of the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC) in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. Spurning spurious security reports, the governors – Kashim Settima, Babatunde Fashola, Rauf Aregbesola, Tanko Almakura, Rochas Okorocha, Ibikunle Amosun, Adams Oshiomhole, Abdulaziz Yari, Kayode Fayemi and Abubakar Aliyu – braved the odds to hold their deliberations in the Borno State capital.

Beyond this, the governors visited and walked through the Monday Market, which is the biggest market in the state, as well as the Government College, Maiduguri. Apparently appreciating the governors’ solidarity with their plight, the people cheered the visitors and Governor Aregbesola made the telling assertion that “There shouldn’t be a ‘no-go’ area for any leader that means well for his people”.

Obviously riled that the governors had seized the initiative from President Jonathan in visiting the heartland of the Boko Haram insurgency, the Presidency reacted with characteristic fury devoid of sound logic. The Special Adviser to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, condemned the governors for allegedly pre-empting the President who had planned much earlier on to visit the troubled states. Describing the governors as ‘power mongers’ only out to feather their political nests, Okupe saw their initiative as a gimmick and a circus show. The presidential spokesman wanted to know where the governors were since the Boko Haram uprising started.

But this is a question that ought to be rightly directed at Okupe’s principal. Why would it take the whole of 21 months and the visit of governors for the President and Commander-In-Chief to visit an area of his domain plagued by such a high degree of violence and bloodshed? The President himself had no credible answer to this question as he struggled in futility to rationalise his utter neglect of the North East in the face of the Boko Haram onslaught.

Contrary to Dr Okupe’s claims, there was absolutely nothing to show that the President’s trip to Borno and Yobe states had been meticulously planned over a considerable time span. President Jonathan did not go to these two states with any new ideas to resolve the impasse, reduce tension or restore peace. Indeed, he had no opportunity to interact with ordinary people as the two states were virtually shut down and taken over by thousands of security agencies during the visit. The President’s carriage was haughty and his demeanour hostile for the most part.

The lowest point of the visit was the altercation between the President and elders of Borno State in Maiduguri. Surely, if the visit had been better planned, the contending issues could have been resolved behind the scenes rather than before the cameras. President Jonathan was not sensitive enough to complaints about the alleged atrocities of the Joint Task Force (JTF) in Borno State. He offered to order the withdrawal of the JTF if the elders would sign an agreement to be held liable for any deaths that might occur. This was nothing but an attempt to shift presidential responsibility to individuals. It also showed the inability of the Jonathan presidency to think out of the box and address the failure of intelligence that is at the root of the crisis in the North East.

Surely, a visit by the President to the JTF headquarters to give a stern warning against the violation of human rights would have sent more positive signals. Overall, the visit was a monumental waste of time and resources.

Why would armed robbers shoot a toddler?

“Nasty, brutish and short”; this describes the fate that befell one-year-old Taiwo Lawal who eventually succumbed to a gunshot injury on his head, in the aftermath of a string of violent robberies across Lagos on September 9, 2012. The Hobbesian picture of human life in a state of nature is rather apt in this heartrending story, even though the setting is a modern-day mega city.

Taiwo was reportedly shot by robbers in his parents’ home in Gbagada, Lagos, and was hospitalised for the last seven months of his life. Although he had an operation to extract a bullet from his head, he remained on the danger list till he died on March 7 at Ward E of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi Araba, Lagos.

It is difficult to imagine that the fatal shooting of the innocent toddler was deliberate. If this was the case, not only does it compound the crime, it also shows a depth of depravity that makes us wonder about the state of society. What kind of criminals would sink so low on the scale of evil, having no compunction about infanticide?

It is commendable that Taiwo’s touching tale of woe attracted donations from various quarters, particularly telecommunications company MTN Nigeria, which gave N500, 000 for his treatment. However, given the gravity of the incident, perhaps more could have been done to save the little boy’s life. According to his father, Wasiu, “We spent all that we had, unfortunately my son did not survive. After MTN donated N500, 000 and a few concerned members of the public gave us money, more expenses kept coming up. The money was not enough as we had to keep spending on drugs and other things.”

Apparently, inconsistent medical diagnosis did not help matters, as Wasiu alleged that doctors initially assured him that the bullet had not affected Taiwo’s brain, but later told him that it did. Furthermore, he alleged, “Initially we were told that Taiwo would require another surgery, but later we were told that he was too young to have another surgery, and that he should have the surgery in a few years’ time. The hospital wanted to discharge him but I objected to it because he obviously was not all right.”

In January, he said, after five months in the hospital, Taiwo’s condition deteriorated seriously, and doctors advised that he should seek treatment abroad. Certainly, this development calls into question the state of the country’s health care system. We wonder why the doctors apparently gave up on Taiwo, and suggested that the patient could be better treated overseas. Was it a result of lack of expertise, or dearth of equipment? The inadequacy of the local health care system has been a front-burner issue for years, and Taiwo’s case once again highlights the need for the authorities to urgently address public concern over the problem.

In the end, Taiwo painfully died a victim of armed robbery. It is disturbing that many Nigerians are tormented by the thought of falling victim to armed robbers, as security remains a big issue across the country. Clearly, the authorities need to do more to ensure the safety of the people and minimise violent crimes. The police force should be well-equipped to perform its statutory duties.

Taiwo’s killers represent the worst kind of armed robbers, those who not only steal with force but also cruelly take the lives of others. There should be no place in society for such destructive desperadoes. It is regrettable that the robbers got away, and no one will be made to pay for poor Taiwo’s death.

The nation has long since changed the behavior that earned it a U.S. designation as a sponsor of terrorism.

Washington has for three decades kept Cuba on a list of countries that sponsor terrorism, even though it has long since changed the behavior that earned it that distinction. By all accounts, Cuba remains on the list — alongside Iran, Sudan and Syria — because it disagrees with the United States’ approach to fighting international terrorism, not because it supports terrorism. That’s hardly a sensible standard.

The State Department says it has no plans to remove Cuba from the list. But Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who recently led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Havana, is urging President Obama to consider a range of policy changes toward Cuba, including delisting it, which would not require congressional approval. Designation as a state sponsor of terrorism carries heavy sanctions, including financial restrictions and a ban on defense exports and sales.

None of the reasons that landed Cuba on the list in 1982 still exist. A 2012 report by the State Department found that Havana no longer provides weapons or paramilitary training to Marxist rebels in Latin America or Africa. In fact, Cuba is currently hosting peace talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and President Juan Manuel Santos’ government. And Cuban officials condemned the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Moreover, keeping Cuba on the list undermines Washington’s credibility in Latin America. During last year’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, presidents from the hemisphere expressed frustration that the U.S. remains frozen in its relations with Cuba, enforcing an embargo that dates to the Kennedy administration.

Cuba is not a model state. The government often fails to observe human rights. Its imprisonment of Alan Gross, a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development who was sentenced to a 15-year jail term in 2009 after bringing communications equipment into the country, has prompted repeated visits to the island by U.S. officials seeking to secure his release.

The list, however, is reserved not for human rights violators but for countries that export or support terrorism. Clinging to that designation when the evidence for it has passed fails to recognize Cuba’s progress and reinforces doubts about America’s willingness to play fair in the region.

– Los Angeles Times

• Is that an omen about how the Jonathan administration will treat opposition come 2015?

The outrage over the arrest of Ahmed Yerima, last Saturday, following his interview on a Radio Kaduna programme is justified. Indeed, every democrat must stand to condemn such a bizarre attack on free speech, which is at the root of any sustainable democracy. Let us emphasise that the fundamental right to freedom of expression provided in section 39 of the 1999 constitution underlines all the other rights in the constitution. For, if a man’s ‘freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference’ is unlawfully abridged, then the right to life, human dignity, personal liberty and all other rights become meaningless.

To underscore this fundamental fact, can anyone in a democratic environment imagine a life without the right to use the natural gift of expression? What about the right to human dignity or personal liberty devoid of the right to freely hold opinion and impart same? Again, how can the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or peaceful assembly have any meaning when mum is forced on the holders of these rights? So, those who casually arrested Yerima, a former Governor of Zamfara State and a Senator of the Republic, must be made to realise the grave harm they have done to the fundamental law of our country. The fact that he was released later is immaterial.

May we ask whether this intimidation is a sign of what is coming? What manner of democracy will allow an opposition figure to be arrested for threatening to exercise a democratic right to protest, if a democratic endeavour to freely register a political party is abridged? To underscore the fullness of the threat, the police allegedly initially claimed that the instructions to arrest the former governor came from Abuja. If it were so, it is important to compel the Kaduna State police commissioner to say who gave him the instructions; whether it was from the police headquarters or the presidency. This finding is necessary to appreciate whether it was a partisan interference of the presidency abusing the powers of the police, or a buffoonery of the police authorities to please misjudged masters.

Either way, the police conduct belies the need for them to remain non-partisan as they should for our democracy to nurture. The Kaduna State police commissioner who has been turned between reclaiming personal responsibility for the outrageous conduct and retaining the initial stand that he acted based on instructions from Abuja; sought to offer the jejune excuse that Yerima was merely invited for a chat, and was not arrested by the police. If this lie were allowed to stick, then on what basis was he invited by his command, and for what reason was the tape recording of his radio interview seized? If he is arrested for threatening to protest, what will happen if he protests?

And come to think of it, the right to protest or hold peaceful assembly is as democratic as the right to hold public office. Both are benefits of a constitutional order. If one right can be indiscriminately abused, what is the safety valve that the other may not be threatened? That is the poser for police commissioner Olufemi Adenaike and those who sent him. While claiming that Yerima was merely invited for a chat, the commissioner is reported to have surrounded the radio station, while the interview was on, with six vans full of policemen. If that type of invitation is not strange to Mr. Adenaike, it is to us; and should not be repeated in the interest of our common democracy.

The west, as much as Nairobi, faces a tricky path

On Africa’s unfinished journey from autocracy to democratic rule, Kenya’s 2013 polls will go down among the more curious staging posts. Kenyans have great aspirations. They are mostly frustrated with their politicians and sophisticated in their understanding of their shortcomings. Yet, according to the country’s electoral commission, they have chosen two men – Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto – indicted for crimes against humanity to lead their nation. That could complicate their relations with the outside world for years to come.

There are strong reasons to doubt the integrity of the final results. In the most tech-savvy nation in the region, the electoral commission failed spectacularly to deploy mobile phones and laptops acquired at great cost to safeguard the integrity of the vote. Mr Kenyatta’s victory stands on a controversial manual count. Raila Odinga, the outgoing prime minister and losing candidate, has taken a challenge to the courts. Haunted by the violence that erupted following disputes over the results of the last vote in 2007, most Kenyans appear in no mood for a fight.

The country’s new leaders have other battles on their hands. Within months they are due to appear for trial at the International Criminal Court for their alleged role in organising 2008 election violence that claimed more than 1,100 lives. To date they have pledged to co-operate with the ICC. They face long periods in the dock – an unusual position from which to manage government business, promote reconciliation and assure foreign businesses that Kenya is a sound investment destination. Should they use their new positions to defy the ICC, it will be even more complicated for Kenya given the prospect of sanctions.

As much as Kenya, the ICC has lessons to learn. The principles of international justice were always likely to rub up against political realities. On the campaign trail Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto tapped into a rich seam of hostility towards western paternalism, turning the ICC indictments into an asset. They made the election a referendum on western intervention in Africa by portraying themselves as victims. Now they are in the best possible position to mount a defence and can use it to mobilise Kenyans should they refuse to attend court hearings. If the ICC is going to indict powerful politicians in future it might think twice about releasing them on bail.

Kenya is at the centre of a regional and continental economic revival. Western companies are heavily invested in this. In the face of strong resistance, there has been real progress on judicial and political reforms. A fairer system of governance, enshrined in its 2010 constitution, is within reach. It would be a mistake to ostracise Kenya. But upholding a commitment to end impunity is also important. Provided Kenya’s courts are able to rule freely on the legitimacy of the elections and its new leaders co-operate fully with the ICC, western governments should take a pragmatic approach.

– Financial Times

• The late Venezuelan president was a good politician, but a poor leader

Hugo Chavez, the late President of Venezuela was as much a centre of controversy as he was a bundle of contradictions. As the best-known of the leftist leaders from South America who attained international prominence around the turn of the century, his words and actions were aimed at demonstrating his professed love for the ordinary person and his hatred of oppression, injustice and inequity.

Coming to power at a time when his country was riding the crest of an oil boom, Chavez embarked on a system of reforms that was breathtaking in their scope and ambition. He instituted price controls, flooded the country with massive imports of food, set up health-care facilities offering free treatment, and virtually nationalised the oil industry. These measures won him the adoration of the poor, and resulted in repeated electoral victories.

His domestic politics were characterised by attempts to entrench his Bolivarian Revolution, and involved comprehensive political reforms such as the abolition of term limits for elected officials, radical political restructuring and squeezing out opposition groups. His main strategy was to leverage his enormous personal charm and almost-inexhaustible energy: he hosted talk shows which ran for several hours on a daily basis, and travelled all over the country to exhort, encourage and educate his compatriots.

He brought a similarly radical vigour to the practice of international relations. Dispensing with diplomatese, he regularly subjected countries like the United States to verbal abuse, often using crude epithets to refer to those he disagreed with. He strongly identified with Cuba which supplied his administration with doctors, engineers and other trained personnel in return for oil. Chavez also sought to facilitate South American integration as a bulwark against the U.S. by establishing the Union of South American Nations, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Bank of the South, and the regional television network, TeleSur.

There can be no doubt that Chavez was sincerely committed to improving the quality of life of the poorest Venezuelans. His social policies were clearly designed to make the majority of citizens better-fed, healthier and well-educated. His Communal Councils and workers’ co-operatives were intended to spread decision-making to more people, and his nationalisation and land reform programmes were aimed at ensuring that more of the country’s wealth was kept within its borders for the benefits of its people.

However, all this came at a heavy price. Chavez made the fundamental error of personalising national authority. Rather than build genuinely credible institutions, he concentrated too much power in his own hands, by-passing constitutional procedures when they did not suit him. Much of the revenues obtained from oil exports were spent without parliamentary oversight; media organisations hostile to him were hounded out of business; government resources were used to prosecute elections, thereby putting the opposition at a great disadvantage.

The clearest demonstration of the extent to which Chavez had personalised power can be seen in his illness. Even though he was gravely ill and had courageously publicised his medical condition, such was his unwillingness to leave office that several constitutional provisions were manipulated in order to give him time to recover. It was only after his death that the Vice-President was able to assume real authority.

Hugo Chavez epitomised the contradictions inherent in the South American tradition of the caudillo, the powerful, charismatic, authoritarian leader: he used his considerable abilities for the betterment of his people, but he did this at the expense of their long-term development. By weakening democratic institutions in his haste to deepen reform, he made the country overly dependent on him. Now that he is no more, Venezuela will struggle to rebuild a culture of accountability and competence independent of its late leader, no matter how well-intentioned and powerful he may have been.