The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Checking bribery

    Checking bribery

    • This is a task for governments at all levels as well as all well-meaning Nigerians

    Although bribery is frowned at in many societies, it still thrives all over the world, with various degrees of occurrences. But it is more prevalent in the developing countries where there are lax rules in defining what constitutes bribe, and the possibility of being caught and sanctioned for taking or receiving it.

    In Yorubaland, southwest Nigeria, it used to be called ‘owo eyin’  (money taken from the back). In the olden days, policemen who wanted to take bribe on the road  would simply move some distance away from passengers in a vehicle and stretch their hands backward for the drivers or conductors to put the bribe in their hands. This way, only the drivers and policemen involved knew what actually transpired. The passengers could only hazard a guess until the driver returned to tell them what happened. How much he parted with, etc.

    But that was then. Nowadays, many policemen at checkpoints no longer care about who is looking at them; they take the bribe in the full glare of the passengers and other road users. That is how far things have degenerated.

    For the chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu, to have claimed that 87 million bribery incidents in which about N700billion changed hands in 2023 is indication that bribery remains a thriving ‘industry’ in the country. A whopping 87 million cases in one year?

    Aliyu’s revelation was contained in his keynote address at the International Law Conference organised by the Faculty of Law, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He spoke on “Law and Contemporary Societal Issues: Navigating Challenges and Opportunities.”

    Of course, we are not surprised that, as Dr Aliyu said, the frequency of bribery is higher in the rural areas than the urban centres. The reason is simple: ignorance and illiteracy. Many people in the rural areas do not know their rights. They are therefore more susceptible to threats by security agencies and other public officials who demand bribes from them for various infractions, rather than face the law.

    Read Also: First Dangote PMS delivery set for September

    It is however heartwarming that more people are now reporting incidents of bribery to the appropriate authorities.

    “Despite these challenges, we are making progress. The rate of citizens reporting bribe payments to official authorities increased from 3.6 per cent in 2019 to 8.6 per cent in 2023.

    This is a testament to the growing awareness and willingness of Nigerians to fight corruption,” Aliyu said.

    Although he did not so specifically indicate, we want to believe that the increase in awareness he mentioned has to do with the urban centres. Again, although we do not know what the increase in the reported cases of bribes from 3.6 per cent to 8.6 per cent represent in absolute terms, the fact of the matter is that 87 million incidents of bribery in a country, and in one year, is still huge.

    As a matter of fact, we want to believe that the figures would be far higher because ours remain a society where so many things are shrouded in secrecy.  Many incidents of bribery definitely must have gone unreported.

    We need to deal with the scourge because of its implications as an aspect of corruption. Corruption is the fourth major problem that affected Nigeria in 2023, after cost of living, insecurity, and unemployment, going by figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). We have to kill it if it is not to kill the country.

     The present government must do better than its predecessor which although popularised the expression “we have to kill corruption before it kills us” even though it didn’t do much to deal with the scourge.

    And, in order to reduce its incidence to the barest minimum, we must address it holistically. That is, we must take cognisance of its various dimensions as both a legal as well as social problem requiring a comprehensive and sustained approach.

    It is a problem that the judiciary must buy into if we are ever to get out of it. Many bribery cases involving Nigerians and foreigners that had long been disposed of in other countries remain at preliminary stages in the country.

    This does not augur well for the nation.

  • Patriotic duty

    Patriotic duty

    • The Patriots’ visit to President Tinubu is the way to go

    It has become imperative that all knowledgeable Nigerians get involved in the task of governing the country. Governance is so important that it cannot be left to politicians alone. When left to them, the society suffers and narrow interests are pursued. But when other citizens and groups are watchful and contribute their quota to nation- building, there is accelerated progress.

    The Patriots, a group of eminent statesmen, took it upon themselves to deliver their reading of the current situation in the country to the President, and made recommendations. This is quite commendable. It is an example that other elders and groups, including the youth, women, professionals, academics and unionists, should follow as there is an urgent need for contestation of ideas if Nigeria is to be drawn out of the woods where it has found itself in recent years.

    Principally, The Patriots told the President that the 1999 Constitution cannot cut the ice. It has to be changed if the people are to be brought on board, and whatever new policies this government has are to stand the test of time.

    The group also contended that the existing political structure has failed and would continue to fail because no pluralistic country has ever succeeded except with the aid of a true federal constitution that allows federating units or subnational entities to function with a large dose of autonomy. Many authorities had earlier pointed out that the various regions that made up Nigeria at independence blossomed economically in the First Republic owing to the latitude allowed them to function largely independent of the centre, as they had their own policing network to enforce laws, their judicial structure and even constitutions. In fact, the Western Region had diplomatic presence in London.

    The Patriots also saw a labyrinth on the way to promulgating a new constitution as it suggested, as the operating supreme law does not make provision for a referendum, and without that, it is difficult to describe the ensuing

    constitution as autochthonous. The eminent men, many of them in their 70s and 80s, submitted that the way out is for the National Assembly to make provision for referendum to ratify the outcome of a wide-ranging consultation by a National Constituent Assembly. The assembly would submit its recommendations to the President who would send it to the federal legislature in the form of an executive bill.

    There is obviously no easy way out of the quagmire in which Nigeria has found itself. The President and the federal lawmakers need solomonic wisdom to sift through the tonnes of documents produced by former constitutional conferences and assemblies even if another assembly would be constituted. Whatever any group may suggest, or even the current leadership of the country may decide, some people  would come up with counter-arguments that would be as sound as the proposed.

    We see sense in the idea that the current administration is already on the right path to resolving the national logjam. At a time when the poor are hungry and angry, the economy ought to be given priority attention as President Bola Tinubu told The Patriots’ delegation led by former Secretary- General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Chief Emeka Anyaoku. The hunger and unemployment monsters must be tamed if people are to see any policy as anything but designed to punish them, or as evidence of incompetence. The administration has an urgent duty to tackle this to prevent a descent into an upheaval and chaos.

    This is not to underrate the need for political restructuring. Indeed, the existing structure is not only incongruous, but programmed to collapse at some point. The approach of gradual devolution of power to the federating units as shown in delisting electricity from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent is a masterstroke as it is also meant to give filip to the economy.

     States have been granted authority for mass transit by rail, even though this is yet to be formalised. This is another masterstroke in tackling the need of a state like Lagos. If the bracket could be expanded to allow for cooperation by contiguous states to move cargo and people across geo-political zones, the rate of inflation would likely further slope down the hill.

    Read Also: Conference of Patriotic Nigerians seeks end to protest 

    Similarly, last month’s activist posture of the Supreme Court in interpreting constitutional provision on payments to the local government is likely to inject life into the third tier of government in the country, thus freeing them to make contribution to nation-building.

    We agree with the President that there is a need to tread cautiously while walking the constitution reform tightrope. In doing so, he should keep his eyes on the ball of revitalising the economy. Then, getting the national and state houses of assembly to effect devolution of power to the states through the instrumentality of constitution review is the only way to achieve desired results without upturning the cart, at least in the interim.

  • Fuel subsidy

    Fuel subsidy

    • The heart of the matter

    Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, may have meant to put the issue of the fuel subsidy removal in context, particularly the issue of the cost of the road not taken. Nonetheless, his interview on AIT’s Moneyline programme broadcast on its YouTube channel has somewhat provoked searing questions about the nation’s readiness to terminate the obnoxious fuel import regime.

    The minister was quoted on the programme as saying that Nigeria pays $600 million each month on fuel imports. The country, he would particularly remind, lacked precise data on its domestic fuel consumption as a result of which fuel importation became an all-comers’ affair of sort.

     “So we are buying not just for Nigeria, we are buying for countries to the east, almost as far as Central Africa. We are buying for countries to the North and we are buying for countries to the West. And so we have to ask ourselves as Nigerians, how long do we want to do that for and that is the key issue regarding the issue of petroleum pricing”.

    The answer, we daresay is obvious. Nigeria should have no business importing refined products in the first place, not to talk of a situation in which it would have to use its hard earned foreign exchange to subsidise fuel prices for its neighbours. Assuming that the nation’s four refineries are up and running, would the government still have made the argument about using its foreign exchange to subsidise our neighbours? And has the government stopped the monthly $600 million committed to fuel imports since subsidy was removed?

    Talking of fuel pricing, we do think also that the issue is somewhat overstated; it deflects from the more fundamental argument about government’s continuing inability to provide cheap, affordable and convenient means of transportation for every segment of the society. For, whereas the general assumption tends to be that most Nigerians would prefer their individual modes of transportation, the reality is that most would rather opt for cheaper, reliable and convenient alternatives were they to exist. Which is why the argument about pricing could have been better made had the government put the railways to work; by this we mean the Lagos – Kano – Maiduguri on the western axis and the Port Harcourt – Aba – Maiduguri on the eastern axis, to restore the glorious status of the once-thriving railway towns along the corridors and also to ease the movement of goods across the country. Nigerians can only now but wonder what difference the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas would have made to the debate had the policy been introduced by preceding administrations.

    Read Also: Fuel subsidy: Another viewpoint

    For now, what appears to us to be at issue – for which Nigerians continues to be agitated – is why Nigeria’s refineries have remained comatose despite the billions of dollars already sunk into them.

    In July 2019, the then newly appointed Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Mele Kolo Kyari, had promised to fix all the country’s refineries before May 2023 when President Muhammadu Buhari would leave office. Five years on, the promise has remained unfulfilled. The same  NNPCL in August 2023 had promised to deliver the Port Harcourt Refinery by December 2023; it not only failed to deliver, but has been unable to commit itself to any completion date some eight months after its initial target date. And now the Dangote Refinery on which Nigerians had pinned their hope of an imminent rescue appears to have been mired in the same unending web of intrigues that have defined the sector.

    Again, to answer the minister’s question –the nation has far better use for the $600 million monthly haemorrhage than spend it on fuel imports. The earlier the government got the refineries – public and private – working, the better for the country.

  • Rangers to the rescue

    Rangers to the rescue

    Agro Rangers debut in 19 states and FCT. What of the remaining 17 states?

    The news is good and should be toasted by all: to boost the security of farms and farmers nationwide, the Federal Government has deployed 10,000 Agro

    Rangers to 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Abuja.

    Farmers, often at the mercy of bandits, terrorists and allied violent criminals, should heave a deep sigh of relief — at least in those states covered by the security cover.  But what happens to the remaining 17 states not yet taken care of?  We should hope that the rangers should reach them soon enough too.

    But, while awaiting the security ring to be clamped over farmlands in the entire 36 states, this indeed is a good development to re-set the prospects of food security in our country.  There are too many sad tales of farmers, either being entirely shut out of their farmland, or being compelled, by criminals, to pay hefty tributes to do their honest and legitimate work.

    If these new rangers put a stop to these nefarious practices, then it would have been a new dawn.

    Again, the strategic thinking behind deploying an elite and specially trained unit, of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to tackle this all-important chore, should be saluted.  It just means spreading the services of the NSCDC from mainly urban duties to a rural one.

    If you add the fact that the same NSCDC is providing elite guards to serve as Forest Rangers as well as to keep sanity and security at mine sites, you would see the nimble thinking of maximising the use of this civil defence corps, without adding further burden to the police: the prime civil security outfit; and the military: the ultimate in citizen defence against external aggression. 

    Read Also: Obasanjo more disillusioned than ever

    However, the army had latterly been deployed to keep the peace in explosive security zones within the country.  It is good therefore that the NSCDC is stepping up to fill the void, so that the army could return to its core and conventional function of defence.

    Still, it is assumed that the NSCDC elite corps, deployed as farm rangers, have not only been well trained but are also equipped with requisite arms and ammo to match the fearsome arsenal of the bully terrorists and bandits that have been arm-twisting the farmers.

    The taste of the pudding, as the saying goes, is in the eating.  If this experiment succeeds — and we don’t see why not, if it has been well conceptualised — we should witness a bumper cultivation; and even a more bumper harvest in the next harvest seasons.

    Harvest seasons because Olusegun Dada, the presidential assistant on agriculture who broke the news on the farm rangers, spoke about taking delivery of 5, 000 mechanised farming equipment in the first instance; and also giving support to till 10 million hectares of land nationwide. 

    This is indeed cheery news.  If all goes well, then the prospect of food security is bright, more so when the Federal Government is talking of maximising the use of dams for both wet and dry season farming.  But the crux is always in implementation, so those involved should get this right.

    The demon of high food prices is driven by many factors.  One is farm insecurity, which this farm rangers intervention is facing down.  That should drive up food crop quantity, from reasonable harvest.

    The other is high transport cost, in moving produce to the market.  Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) being mainstreamed should also grab a hold on that — eventually.  But right now, the government should put in more efforts in making local refining of crude a reality.  Whatever dip in fuel pump prices should build a strong momentum for CNG to truly arrive and re-set general lower transport cost that should drive down food  — and general — inflation.

    It’s additional good thinking that the farm rangers are not only trained in kinetic, but also in conflict management and counselling matters, particularly between farmers and herders.  This is a very vital role that could help increase the nation’s stock in both plant and animal farming.  It is also a great window to agrarian peace, until ranching that restricts herders to exclusive grazing and livestock processing spaces is mainstreamed.

    The rangers are coming at a critical stage in the nation’s agricultural and security history.  The NSCDC must ensure those deployed are above board, and do their work with civility, humility and integrity.  That is the way to earn the confidence and trust of our rural folks. 

    The rangers cannot afford the notoriety of another security parasite come to plague the long-suffering rural folks.

  • Torn passport

    Torn passport

    • A bad example of how a domestic quarrel ended up becoming a public issue

    The video of the woman who allegedly tore her husband’s Nigerian passport, which has gone viral, because she has some family quarrels to settle with him, is a classical instance of how to make a domestic matter a public issue; and a public object, the cause of pain on the domestic front. What do we mean? The dispute between a husband and a wife is ostensibly a domestic affair; but a spouse tearing the other’s international passport has turned a domestic quarrel into an offence against the state.

    That is so because, though the passport is issued to an individual, it is actually held in trust by the holder, since the passport under the laws of the country is the property of the state. So, the act of destroying a private passport is a crime punishable under the Immigration Act 2015. Section 10(b) of the Act, provides that any person who “unlawfully alters, tampers with or mutilates any passport or any pages thereof, is liable to imprisonment for a term of 10 years or a fine of N2 million or both.”

    Even more unfortunate is that the violent act was perpetrated by the woman in front of her impressionable children. The video showed her pulling her three children away from the shocked immigration officials and other users of the airport. We wonder why the immigration officials did not pull her in for questioning immediately she tore the passport. Her action is no different from taking up a hammer and destroying the facilities at the airport. Would the officials allow her walk away in such circumstance?

    Perhaps, the immigration officials were either too shocked to react immediately, or they did not know that what she did constituted a crime? Either way, the officials failed in their duties. But, having identified the culprit as Mrs Favour Igiebor, we commend them for inviting her for formal questioning, and eventual prosecution as provided by the relevant laws of our country. The consequences of her action must be in the open and hopefully travel as far as the harm she has done to the image of our country, in the social media.

    Read Also: Immigration investigates torn passport, invites couple

    In her reaction, the woman had claimed that she had been a victim of domestic abuse. She said: “This issue has been going on for a long time. And I had to do what I did. Don’t just look at my actions alone. I am not a mad woman. I have gone through many things. I have my own reasons.” She went on: “My husband is his mother’s boy, his sister’s and brother’s best brother, leaving me, the wife, to suffer.”

    If that is true, she has our sympathy over her life troubles, even though that would not exculpate her from the consequences of her action in tearing the passport. Still, the issues she raised should be of concern to the public. She alleged that she has been a victim of domestic abuse by the husband and his family members. No doubt, family members sometimes constitute a cog in the relationship between a husband and wife, but who knows whether her testimony represents the true state of affairs, since the husband has not gone public with what ordinarily is a domestic dispute.

    Our simple counsel to married couples would be that they should not allow family members be the source of friction in their marriage. And where there is a dispute that the couples cannot settle within, they should seek professional help from marriage counsellors. When couples bottle up their anger, they may resort to violence at the slightest provocation. Mrs Favour Igiebor’s action however seems to be premeditated. In the video, she said her intention is to ensure that her husband does not travel out of the country again.

    All said, we would want the immigration officials to also investigate the purported claim by the husband that the entire matter was a skit and update Nigerians appropriately. Whether it is true or false, the public must get to the root of the matter because what is in the public domain cannot simply pass off any longer as a family affair.

  • Issa Hayatou (1946 – 2024)

    Issa Hayatou (1946 – 2024)

    • Longest-serving CAF president who transformed African football will be sorely missed

    For 29 eventful years, he was perched on the pinnacle of African football administration as president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), from 1988 to 2017. His tenure, the longest in CAF history, earned him the epithet ‘emperor’ in some circles. But his leadership undoubtedly transformed African football.

    It was a measure of his stature in world football administration that he was briefly interim president of the International Federation of Association Football, better known as FIFA, from October 2015 to February 2016, and helped to bring some stability to the organisation in a period of leadership crisis.

    In tributes to Issa Hayatou, the Cameroonian former leader of African football who died on August 8, aged 77, FIFA president Gianni Infantino described him as a ‘passionate sports fan,’ and CAF president Patrice Motsepe praised him for his contributions to the growth of African football.

    He had a successful career as an athlete before he became a football administrator. He represented Cameroon in basketball and athletics, and held national record times in the 400-metre and 800-metre sprint events.

    At 28, in 1974, he became secretary-general of the Cameroonian Football Federation (FECAFOOT), and was later president of the body in 1986. He was elected the fifth president of CAF after the position became vacant in 1987. His seventh re-election campaign, in 2017, ended in defeat. After his loss, he was appointed president of the National Football Academy in Cameroon.

    His era as CAF boss witnessed progressive restructuring and introduction of football competitions under the body, including the Africa Cup of Nations, CAF Champions League, CAF Confederation Cup, and CAF Super Cup. Former CAF secretary-general Hicham El Amrani was reported saying his actions boosted “both infrastructure and player development.”

     Notably, Women’s Under-17 and Under-20 versions of the Africa Cup of Nations were introduced in his era. He was credited with leaving $130m in CAF coffers, though he had inherited only $1.25m.

     Also, under him, African representation increased at the World Cup from two teams in 1990 to five when the tournament expanded in 1998. The high point of his CAF presidency was bringing the World Cup to Africa for the first time when South Africa hosted in 2010.

    He was senior vice president of FIFA from 1992 to 2017. He unsuccessfully ran for FIFA president in 2002, with the backing of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). His nomination by UEFA to replace Sepp Blatter as head of FIFA demonstrated his interpersonal skills as a leader.

    Read Also: BREAKING: Ex-CAF president Issa Hayatou dies a day before 78th birthday

    Hayatou later became acting president of FIFA, in 2015, following the removal of Blatter as a result of a corruption case. It was a short stint. He left the position five months later, in 2016, when Infantino was elected to head FIFA.

    He was at the centre of some scandals, which he survived. In the 1990s, he was alleged to have received bribes totalling about $20,000, in a case regarding the awarding of contracts for the sale of television rights to the World Cup.  He denied any wrongdoing, saying that the money went to CAF.

    Hayatou also faced an allegation that he and a fellow CAF official had received $1.5m in bribes from Qatar in 2010 to secure support for its ultimately successful bid for the 2022 World Cup. He denied the accusation. He also attracted controversy concerning the signing of a deal worth $1b with French media rights company Lagardere in 2015.

    In 2021, FIFA banned him for a year for breaching its code of ethics. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the sanction, finding no justification for FIFA’s penalty. In the end, he was unscathed.

    He was a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 2001, and an honorary member from 2017. 

    A recipient of an honorary degree from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, Oyo State, Nigeria, in 2007, he will be remembered for vigorously promoting the interests of African football, and leaving it better than he met it.

  • Fighting hunger

    Fighting hunger

    • Import waivers on food should begin to count from when implementation starts

    It is unsurprising and indeed commendable that the President Bola Tinubu administration has had a rethink of its previous disposition to discouraging food imports into the country. The reason for this initial stance was a desire to protect local food producers and sustain the gains the country is presumed to have made in recent years towards achieving

    food self-sustenance. The continually escalating cost of essential food items such as rice, yam, maize, garri, eggs, poultry, beef, tomatoes, pepper, vegetables and groundnut oil, among others, indicates that local production of these items is grossly insufficient to meet demand.

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has put current food inflation at 40.66%, which is the most serious and hurtful aspect of the general price inflation being experienced by millions of Nigerians, to the extent that substantial numbers of people can hardly feed once daily.

    In response to this emergency situation, the President last month approved the suspension of duties, tariffs and taxes on essential food items through land and sea borders for a period of 150 days. The items to enjoy the waivers include maize, wheat, husked brown rice and cowpeas. This measure is targeted at achieving significant reduction in food prices in the interim, before policies towards enhancing local food productivity begin to yield the desired results.

    Understandably worried that bureaucratic procedures and bottlenecks might delay the commencement of waivers designed to respond to the dire food emergency,

    journalists asked the Comptroller-General of Customs, Mr Bashir Adeniyi, at a press conference last week about when the implementation would commence. He expressed the hope that it could start within a week, depending on when guidelines for the process currently being worked out by the Federal Ministry of Finance are concluded. The ball is thus in the court of the ministry to speed up action on its own part, to enable Nigerians begin to enjoy the envisaged benefits of the waivers by way of reduced food prices.

     The food situation in the country in terms of affordability and even availability in some cases has serious negative implications for crime rate, social unrest and political stability.

    Since the waivers are to last for only an initial period of 150 days, the earlier the implementation begins, the better. It would indeed be appropriate for the 150 days to begin to count from the actual day the implementation starts.

    Read Also: Wike threatens to revoke land titles over non-payment of C-of-O Fees

    It is understood that easing the cost of food imports to facilitate price reduction is only an interim measure. Accordingly, governments at all levels must intensify measures to boost productivity in the agricultural sector. It is not encouraging, for instance, that since the Southwest governors announced plans, nearly two months ago, to collectively work towards mass food production in the region and mandated their commissioners of agriculture to work out the details, nothing more has been heard about the issue. So important has the hunger question become that there must be regular briefing of the public on steps being taken to actualise the objective of food self-sustenance.

    Given the vast expanse of arable land across the country, and a largely favourable climate for agriculture to thrive, there can be no excuse for Nigeria to be in the throes of food crisis.

    Of critical importance is the need for the Federal Government to expedite action on the restructuring of the country’s security architecture to enable farming activities resume in large parts of the polity where they have been disrupted by insecurity. The harvest for the 2024 wet season expected between October and November can only have the desired impact if farmers across the country are safe enough to urgently get back to their farms.

  • Functional websites 

    Functional websites 

    • •Nigeria’s LGAs should be accountable and transparent in their activities

    A study by Budget Foundation, also called BudgIT, a non-governmental organisation, has shown that only seven of the 774 local government councils in the country have active websites that ought to open their operations to the people. In the 21st century, it has become imperative that citizens are carried along in the business of governance, especially as the younger generation are beginning to ask questions concerning how public fund is being deployed and how decisions are made.

    It is deplorable that, as BudgIT pointed out, the tier of government closest to the people thinks little of mobilising them for the task of developing the country. The economy remains in a shambles, the polity is erected on infrastructure of the 19th century and the upwardly mobile section of the population is totally neglected.

    This was the essence of the policy dialogue organised by the Agora Policy and Partners in Abuja, last week. The participants argued that the country should not expect that last month’s landmark judgment by the Supreme Court is adequate to effect necessary changes for transformation of Nigeria. For, as long as the people are taken for granted by the various tiers of government, it is impossible to lift Nigeria into the realm of developed countries, or even to assume her rightful position of the ‘giant of Africa’.

    As the anger expressed by the young people last week indicated, the Nigerian people are getting stung by the socio-economic milieu and may be running out of patience even if it is all borne out of pent-up frustration from past failures to meet expectations.

     This is where the local governments come in. If funds allocated and generated at the lower rungs of the ladder are expended on things that the people find beneficial, all the tiers would benefit and Nigeria’s aspiration to join the league of developed countries would be accelerated.

    Read Also: Lagos distributes 20,000 food boxes to residents

    Young professionals have a major task in ensuring that the 774 local government areas work. They have a duty to monitor governance at that level and force engagement. Any leader anywhere in the world that could dodge accountability would gladly do so, but when they know that opacity is unacceptable, they would sit up as their feet are put to fire. Nigerian youths are generally energetic and boisterous. This should be used to the benefit of the society. The Not-too-young-to-run law was not passed for fun. As youth groups like the Zikist Youth Movement contributed immensely to the struggle for independence, it is the responsibility of this generation to ensure that all things work together for the good of the society.

    Neither the political structure nor the economy would receive the much needed boost unless openness and transparency becomes a culture of governance. All tiers, branches and institutions of governance should be closely monitored to ascertain that they work for the people.

    Now that the Federal Government has secured a final Supreme Court declaration that only elected government is permitted at the local government level as unambiguously stated in section 7 of the 1999 Constitution, and that only such properly constituted local council should be funded from the Federation Account, a measure believed to be capable of putting an end to the age-long theft of funds due to the people by state governments, all eyes must be on how officials expend the allocated funds.

    It all starts with leadership recruitment process at that level. For too long, this has been neglected. The irreducible minimum required to monitor the 774 local government areas is that they must have functional, regularly updated websites. Unfortunately, even many  institutions of government at the highest level do not meet this requirement because they have been allowed to operate as they will at all times.

    BudgIT’s findings indicated that even the seven local governments that have websites fail to report basic income and expenditure statements.

    Other NGOs should join BudgIT and the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) in regularly scrutinising performance by public institutions. Professional bodies such as the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), trade unions, religious bodies and traditional rulers should not just sit idly by, watching as some politicians fleece public resources. The local government is too important for building a new Nigeria society to be left to local leaders to run as they will.

    BudgIT has a duty to revisit the situation before the year runs out. Turning around Nigeria is a task that must be done.

  • Beyond dissolution

    Beyond dissolution

    • Reps should invite EFCC to probe allegations against its dissolved committee members

    The announcement of the dissolution of the Joint Committee Investigating Corruption Issues in the Petroleum Mid-stream and Down-stream Sectors has stirred a lot of controversies. Spokesman of the House of Representatives, Akin Rotimi, announced the dissolution: “The committee, which was originally assigned to probe the importation of adulterated petroleum products, the shortage of crude oil for local refineries, and other crucial energy security matters, will be replaced by a newly formed ad-hoc committee with the same responsibilities.”

    Some constitutional lawyers and NGOs put their foot wrong by condemning the house leadership headed by the speaker, Tajudeen  Abass, for dissolving the committee. Some others allege that the committee had compromised while some others say that there has been some witch-hunt against the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) and the chief executive. Mele Kyari and some others. They accused the lawmakers of extortion. The latter charge, given the fight between the NNPCL and Alink Dangote was at the bottom of the furore.

    Nigeria is an oil-producing country that has not lived up to the position of the 9th largest oil exporter in terms of the economic gains or infrastructural development, due to endemic corruption in the oil sector. Just a few years after the oil boom in the 1970s, the then head of state, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, had said that ‘money is not the problem of Nigeria but how to spend it’. Although Gen. Gowon had said he did not mean the statement in the context it was taken, that is exactly what has been happening since then. And that was the oil boom era when the Nigerian currency was stronger than the dollar and equal with the British pounds.

    Corruption in government and those running the oil sector has become the albatross of an oil-producing nation with more than half the population living in multi-dimensional poverty, and with the world’s largest out-of-school children at more than 20 million. The oil revenue has been so mismanaged that it has led to diverse developmental issues like environmental pollution, militancy in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, unemployment and sundry problems.

    It is therefore very interesting  that Speaker Abass could dissolve a committee set up to probe the rot in the petroleum industry based on allegations of corruption against the members. That is  self-indictment in a good sense since we rarely see a legislature turn its searchlight on itself in this manner. Nigerians, though, must be carried along through a transparent process that lays everything bare. Such investigations in other functional democracies are done in the public glare to avoid all the allegations and counter-allegations going on like a circus. We want to have everything in the public glare for Nigerians to make up their minds.

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    Graft allegations in such a critical national sector, particularly when it sullies lawmakers, on either side are not discussed under the table or in hushed tones. It is not supposed to be an in-house. It is a matter of legislative integrity and we shall see at the end of the day if it purifies our legislative profile or not. Incidents like this help place the people’s representatives on a pedestal and it is as much a test on them as it is for this democracy.

    One of the actions that may have inspired the dissolution was the call for the firing of Kyari. It is curious because observers see it as an act of malice because of the tiff between the NNPCL and the owner of the Dangote Refinery. The target is kyari and many say it is not unconnected with lawmakers visit to the refinery in Lagos.

    They did not adduce any important reason  for calling for his sack, especially since the NNPCL on his watch has increased output to 1.6 million barrels a day, opened its account for auditing and raised its revenue profile to profitability not seen in a long time. Did the committee find these achievements out of line with the call for his sack? And hence called for its dissolution? If true, It makes the committee a victim of its own corruption.

    Merely dissolving a committee and forming another amidst the litany of allegations is not enough. Nigerian economy is bleeding and for a country so dependent on oil and its varied by-products, the systemic corruption must be treated holistically more so when lawmakers are the culprits.

    The National Assembly might be considered complicit because we want to believe that if the standing committees in the house and senate are diligent with their oversight functions, many of their own will not be caught in the act.

    We recommend that given the issues involved which are economic crimes in nature, the house leadership should not only be transparent but co-opt the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for a better job.

    The corruption in Nigeria’s oil sector is so pervasive it is a globally known fact and it is disappointing that most cases either in the down-stream, medium-stream and up-stream sectors have local and official collaborators with foreign agents in the industry. Nothing can be more unpatriotic than to have Nigerians working with other nationals to shortchange the nation for personal gains. That Nigeria is notorious as an oil-producing nation that is the poverty capital of the world tells the whole story. To set up a committee that sets out to foster corruption and embark on a witch-hunt negates a committee’s fount of being. Hence the matter must be pursued with rigour to the end.

  • JAMB’s final warning

    JAMB’s final warning

    • The board will no longer condone irregular admissions

    With effect from August 31, 2024, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) will no longer reckon with any candidate offered admission outside its Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) after 2020.

    This ultimatum was contained in a letter signed by the board’s director of admissions, Mohammed Bolaji, and addressed to vice-chancellors, provosts and registrars of tertiary institutions in the country.

    According to Bolaji, this move is to curb illegal admissions and falsification of records. “Any institution found to have admitted any candidate outside CAPS after 2020, will be made to face appropriate sanctions in addition to the forfeiture of the said admission with its legal implications.”

    The letter added: ““The board has discovered widespread and unwholesome practices whereby some institutions were colluding with candidates to falsify vital records, such as backdated year of entry and subsequent age adjustments, to utilise certificates of genuine candidates with similar names and to facilitate illegal admissions carried out before 2017 to enable participation of fake candidates in the National Youth Service Corps scheme.”

    This is shameful.

    JAMB introduced CAPS in 2017, as part of the reforms by the Prof. Ishaq Oloyede-led management to ensure accuracy, records, transparency, accountability, fairness, and equity in admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Oloyede, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, assumed duties as JAMB’s chief executive in August, 2016. Given his background, he knew how institutions sidelined laid-down rules and regulations, beginning  with the admission processes.

    The usual commotion that hitherto attended the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in the pre-Oloyede years was part of the evidence that all was not well with that examination. Oloyede decided to sanitise the process, leveraging technology. CAPS was one of his ways to bring sanity into the process.

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    Ordinarily, CAPS ought to have taken effect from 2017 because the tertiary institutions were not supposed to admit students through the back door in the first place. However, the board made a passionate appeal to the former Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, to extend the deadline to 2020, so that students who had been offered irregular or illegal admissions would at least be able to legitimise them through the ‘Condonement of Illegal Admissions Without Registration Number’ window

     that the board established for that purpose. The minister acceded to JAMB’s request.

    It is this window that has now become an avenue not just for irregular and illegal admissions but a veritable vehicle for criminal activities.

    It is instructive that both JAMB and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), the natural ‘consumers’ of the products of these institutions, have had cause not only to complain but, at times, threaten to reject the products of these criminal irregularities from the shameless institutions.

    What is even the more startling is that these schools continue in their sinful ways despite several warnings to turn a new leaf.

    We support JAMB’s ultimatum. The institutions have had ample time to normalise admissions made through the back door. 

    We can only hope that JAMB will be able to stay the course this time around. The tertiary institutions could not have expected a different reaction when an otherwise functional vehicle is now being used for dysfunctional purposes.

    If as high as 88 institutions, including universities, that are supposed to graduate only students found worthy, first in character, then learning, are involved in falsification of facts, then what hope for the country? It indeed beggars belief that about 90 per cent of the institutions involved are universities. As they say, “if gold rusts, what would iron do”? If universities are liars, their products that benefitted from the lies can hardly turn out better.

    We must sanitise the system for the sake of the credibility of the certificates that our tertiary institutions give so they can command respect globally.