The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Still in the mire

    Still in the mire

    • Fuel scarcity and allied crises will loom in the polity so long as this spurious subsidy regime remains

    We have only scorched the snake, we have not killed it. This seems the most succinct way to frame the unending crisis in Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector, especially as it concerns the so-called Federal Government subsidy regime. Just last week, some marketers had cried out that government which disburses the subsidy refund largesse owed them about N100 billion. According to them, this consists of outstanding claims from last quarter of 2012 up to the beginning of March, 2013.

    Last December, the National Assembly had approved a Subsidy Sup plementary Budget of N161 billion, but marketers claim that it was not enough to clear the backlog of claims arising from various committee reports on last year’s subsidy crisis. What seemed like a subsidy bazaar was uncovered early last year after Nigerians embarked on a nationwide protest, following the January 2012 fuel price hike. The protests forced government to review its subsidy management process which revealed unbridled corruption and fraudulent practices.

    Many oil marketing companies and individuals found to have been fleecing the country of billions of naira through spurious subsidy claims and outright forgeries are currently being prosecuted. Even the current regime of subsidy payout has been redolent with malfeasance as claims and counter claims of underhand payments have been filtering out. The situation is still terribly unsavoury if we consider that we are dealing with an issue that touches the very economic nerve of the country.

    We are indeed talking about a very huge slice of Nigeria’s economy: the 2013 subsidy budget is N971 billion. Going by last year’s record, this is sure to get bloated far beyond a trillion naira. This amounts to over one quarter of the total federal budget. What economic principle allows a country to spend this quantum of her total budget to import refined fuel, especially when such a country is a major exporter of crude oil? While it is bad enough that such huge resource is devoted to imported fuel oils, we are worried sick that there is no order to the ‘madness’ of fuel subsidy disbursements.

    In other words, we are spending over a trillion naira and there is no known structure, no template, no clear guidelines and no transparent process that can be subjected to public scrutiny, and it is difficult to know who is being paid what. Recall that some members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) were recently accused of receiving subsidy payments. This is what happens when a process is not transparent. The entire subsidy regime simply put, is still in the mire.

    There could not be a worse spell than this and we concur that rich oil wealth is indeed, the poverty of Nigeria. Since the abrupt hiking of the petrol pump price in January, 2012 from N72.00 to N141.00 (later reversed to N97.00) and the attendant mass protests, not much has changed. All the promises of palliatives for the populace have seemingly dissolved in fresh controversies. The Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE – P) and all the various committees arising from the crisis, including the reassurance of expedited action on four Greenfield refineries have remained mere rhetoric.

    It is indeed otiose for us to state that this state of affairs in Nigeria’s oil sector is unsustainable and in fact, could lead the country to perdition. For the umpteenth time, we urge government to take a holistic look at the oil industry and effect a total revamp; a move which will include initiating modern refineries, petrochemical complexes and setting a deadline for abolishing the importation of refined petroleum products. This is the way to go.

  • Wardens’ woes

    Wardens’ woes

    • The plight of these workers demands our sympathy and change of policy

    A newspaper investigative report has exposed the pitiable plight of traffic wardens across the country. These officials in orange-and-black uniforms who are responsible for intra-city traffic control labour under conditions that are as bewildering as they are sad. The Traffic Warden Service (TWS) belongs to the Motor Traffic Department (MTD) of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), but its officials are contemptuously regarded as lesser beings by the general duty policemen.

    To start with, according to the report, they hardly have proper offices, and in many cases have to change into their uniforms at beer parlours where they also keep their belongings for a fee. On the job, their careers stagnate for years, causing low morale, anguish and even life-threatening consequences. One of the victims of this absurdity laments, “I will be retiring next year after putting in 35 years in service to this country. Yet I am still a sergeant and will retire as a sergeant, while police officers who met me in this job have risen to Superintendent of Police (SP) or Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP). If I was promoted normally, I should be a Deputy Superintendent of Traffic (DST) or Superintendent of Traffic (ST), but I am retiring as a sergeant.”

    This narrative has predictable adverse implications for the financial position and living condition of traffic wardens. Consequently, they live below the poverty line and are denizens of the slums. “The best our children can attain is the junior WAEC, after which they are forced to face the hard life,” says the sergeant who feels like “a useless father.”

    The hurdle in their path is Decree 21 of 1975 which established the traffic section and limits their rise to the rank of Senior Traffic Warden. Although the terminal rank was extended to Deputy Superintendent of Traffic following complaints by the Vanguard for the Actualisation of Traffic Wardens’ Autonomy (VANCTRAWACT), there has been little or no improvement in the career progression and welfare of the wardens. Many of them have been on the same rank in the last 10 years or more. The few who have been promoted are still awaiting confirmation of their promotion, seven to 10 years later.

    This state of affairs is baffling, considering the fact that the police affairs minister, under a presidential directive, set up an eight-member ad-hoc committee headed by Daniel Tifato to address the issue, and its report was submitted in November 2010. It is interesting that, as a result of its findings, the committee recommended a review of Decree 21 of 1975 and Section 59 of the Police Act, which were identified as impediments to the wardens’ cause.

    Furthermore, the committee proposed three options to resolve the lingering crisis. Firstly, that the TWS be granted autonomy as declared in the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Kaduna, on May 18, 2000; TWS requires a clear-cut career structure to enable them rise to their peak; they should be given the opportunity to rise through regular promotion like their police colleagues; and they should be allowed to attend training and promotion courses alongside their NPF counterparts.

    Other options are that the cadre of traffic wardens should be abolished, renamed traffic police and merged with the MTD of the NPF; and lastly, that the TWS should be merged with the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) or Vehicle Inspectorate Office (VIO) of various states.

    We agree with these recommendations, and wonder at governmental inaction. As a matter of urgency, the authorities should weigh the options and settle for the one that will be in the best interest of the wardens. Any further delay in responding to the recommendations will not only unjustly prolong the wardens’ woes; it will also compound the callousness of the powers-that-be.

  • Northern plea

    Northern plea

    • We have to know who Boko Haram members are to grant them amnesty

    How can the country finally resolve the protracted irritations of the Jama’atul-Ahlil Sunnah Lil Da’awati Wal Jihad, commonly called Boko Haram? Could the atrocious actions of the sect be curbed through blanket amnesty for its unrepentant members?

    These questions become pertinent in view of the hubbub generated by calls from the north that amnesty should be granted to members of the sect. At different times, the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF) through its committee on Reconciliation, Healing and Security, and Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto and President-General of Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI)/leader of Nigerian Muslims all called for total amnesty for Boko Haram members as a pre-condition for halting insecurity in the north.

    The NSGF committee came up with a report believed to have goaded President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent visits to Borno and Yobe states, the president’s first to that violence-prone part of the country since the sect launched its attacks in 2009. Apart from the demand for unconditional amnesty, the 41-man committee that was inaugurated on August 22, 2012 and headed by Ambassador Zakari Ibrahim reportedly requested the immediate release of all Boko Haram detainees against whom there is no established case of criminal involvement; and the immediate prosecution of those against whom there is evidence of criminal involvement before courts of competent jurisdiction, among three other demands.

    While we would gladly support meaningful requests that can bring about desired peace in the northern part of the nation, we take exception to a demand that is hanging in the air such as the one by the northern leaders. Amnesty can only be granted to identifiably penitent people. In this case, Boko Haram members are haughtily unknown and there is nothing to suggest that they are ready to lay down their weapons. President Jonathan was obviously right when he said amnesty is not for ‘ghosts’.

    After all, Imam Abubakar Shekau, the dodgy sect’s spiritual head, has remained recalcitrant to official overtures made to end Boko Haram’s unwarranted attacks, using Islamic religion as a decoy. No wonder that the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, have been voluble in their condemnations of the north’s call for amnesty.

    The northern governors and Sultan Abubakar would do the country a lot of good if they can publicly identify the people that have been tormenting their region for years. Surprisingly, the focus of the governors and the Sultan has been on Boko Haram while regrettably forgetting that another dangerous group, Ansaru, purportedly an offshoot of the former, has emerged and has made the abduction of foreigners in that region its specialty. The membership of these two sects is shrouded in secrecy and this makes calls for amnesty an exercise in futility.

    Moreover, the level of incessant destruction by the sects has become intolerable. This development makes the sects’ case to be quite different from the situation in the Niger Delta militancy. Though the activities of Boko Haram/Ansaru and the one by Niger Delta militants smack of criminality, it must be noted that the sects moved a step further with its orgy of wanton killings. And we know that terrorism is a globally condemnable crime against humanity that any serious nation should not condone under whatever guise. Additionally, the militants have economic restoration as the basis of their agitations, but the sects’ members are making unattainable demands that could only lead to dismemberment of the country.

    We demand that the northern leaders should meet with the Boko Haram/Ansaru members and cause them to publicly lay down their arms. It is only then that the call for amnesty can be rational.

  • Wasteful expenditure

    Wasteful expenditure

    • Soyinka is right; Maku’s tour is a scam

    When we thought the country was through with reckless deployment of resources, information minister Labaran Maku has reminded a bewildered nation that nothing has really changed in the 14 years of public affairs management by the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Since last year, a large party of journalists assembled by the information minister has been on an endless road show called the National Good Governance Tour.

    According to the minister who himself was a journalist, the tour was meant to showcase what the federal and state governments have achieved in recent times. So far, the tour has taken the 120-strong band to about 16 states where the minister led the group to inspect mainly projects executed by the state governments. In each state, he capped the tour with a town hall where he pontificated on what has been done, how they ought to have been done and what he thought has not been done well.

    A lot is wrong with the concept and packaging of the jamboree. First, this is a federation. The Federal Government has no business assessing the performance of state governments. Worse still, there is very little to show by Abuja that gulps about 55 per cent of national resources. In most of the states, the tour is all about what the harassed state governments have managed to do with the little resources allowed them in the skewed federal fiscal system bequeathed the country by the military.

    Second, as Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole has pointed out, it is sickening that the Federal Government could be presenting a bill of millions to state governors. At a time that workers and the people are agitated that living wages are not being paid and infrastructure crying for attention, how could Maku be exerting such pressure on a meaningless project?

    It is also unfortunate that media houses could release journalists to join the train. How could men meant to keep the gate and keep their eyes on the national till be so myopic as to allow participation in such a futile exercise? Organisations in the media, including the Nigeria Union of Journalists, the Nigerian Guild of Editors and the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria should immediately withdraw participation from the tour and issue statements denouncing it as wrongful deployment of resources.

    Maku’s explanation that the governors were carried along in taking the decision is unhelpful. It is puerile and illogical. Again, Governor Oshiomhole’s explanation has answered him. If the group wanted to tour projects and applied to pay him a visit, it would have been accorded all respects due visitors. What is clearly unacceptable on the part of state governments is that they were required to pick the bill. But, whatever the source of the fund for such an unnecessary tour, it is regrettable that about 10 years after another information minister, Professor Jerry Gana, treated the public to such a show, we are back dancing on the same spot.

    The world is watching us. The fate of the black race is tied to the progress and choices made by Nigeria. When public affairs are handled by insensitive officials, such hopes are misplaced and the government would have disappointed the Nigerian people, the African continent, the black race and the entire global community. The country can take consolation in the fact that men like Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima and Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, and, indeed, the Action Congress of Nigeria have roundly condemned the jamboree as a fraud.

  • Unacceptable lopsidedness

    Unacceptable lopsidedness

    DELIBERATIONS on the contentious Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) on the floor of the Senate last week confirmed, once again, the appalling lack of transparency, accountability, justice and equity that has continued to hobble the oil sector, which is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. Even though the Bill eventually smoothly scaled the Second Reading and proceeded to the committee stage on Thursday, this was not before some very shocking revelations during the debate on Wednesday as regards the lopsidedness in the ownership of oil blocs in the Niger Delta.

    Before the dramatic turn of events following the disclosure on the oil blocs, the debate had assumed a North-South dichotomy among the senators. It was not surprising that northern senators vehemently opposed key sections of the PIB, particularly the provision for the allocation of 10 per cent net profit of oil companies operating in the Niger Delta, to host communities. Like other members of the northern political elite who had persistently voiced their opinion on the matter, the senators were not convinced by the argument that the host communities deserved to be compensated for the gross devastation of their environment, livelihood and even health in the process of prospecting for oil.

    The standard argument from the north has been that the Niger Delta is already being overcompensated through the 13 percent derivation fund it receives, as well as the establishment of the Ministry of the Niger Delta and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC).

    Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Ita Enang, however, introduced a major twist to the debate on Tuesday when he disclosed that northerners control 83 percent of oil blocs in the country. Urged by the Senate President, David Mark, to buttress his allegation with facts, Senator Enang reeled out names of beneficiaries of oil bloc allocations, their companies and the oil fields they control. His facts have not been controverted since then.

    Those named as owners and operators of the oil blocs include Alhaji Mai Deribe from Borno State, owner of Cavendish Petroleum that operates OML 110; Mallam Sanusi Lamido from Kano, a major shareholder and director of Seplatform Petroleum that operates ASUOKPUJUMTU marginal field; General Theophilus Danjuma whose South African Petroleum Limited (SAPETRO) controls OPL 246 in partnership with Total Upstream Nigeria Limited and Brasoil Oil Services Company Nigeria Limited and Alhaji Sani Bello of Kontagora, Niger State, who operates OML 112 and OML 117 through his AMNI International Petroleum and Development Company.

    Others are Alhaji Indimi of Oriental Energy Resources Limited that operates OML 115 as well as the Oduok and Ebok fields; former Petroleum Minister and OPEC Chairman, Alhaji Rilwan Lukman who manages AMNI oil blocs. Others include Alhaji Aminu Dantata who operates OML 108 through Express Petroleum and Gas Limited as well as the trio of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua and Alhaji Ado Bayero who own INTEL Oil Services with substantial stakes in Nigeria’s oil exploration in Sao Tome and Principe. Some of the non- northerners in the industry include Mike Adenuga, Emeka Offor and Yinka Folawiyo.

    It is ironical that the north, whose leaders have vehemently opposed the demand by the Niger Delta for a more just share of oil revenues, actually controls the bulk of the region’s oil business. Many of these companies reportedly make more profit from their oil blocs than the PIB seeks to pay host communities as compensation.

    The Senate should not sweep this issue under the carpet. It should demand full details of oil bloc allocations and take corrective measures to ensure fairness and balance. We do not even know why the oil blocs would be allocated to individuals, with many of them not having the capacity to utilise them optimally. All these underscore the urgent need to pass the PIB that will ensure transparency in the sector and prevent the kind of abuses responsible for the current lopsidedness in the allocation of oil blocs.

  • Return of ATM charges

    Return of ATM charges

    WHEN the Bankers Committee scrapped the inter-bank charges on the use of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in November last year, it came as relief to bank customers accustomed to paying all kinds of sundry transaction charges. However, they may have rejoiced too soon with last week’s dramatic re-entry of Card Maintenance Fee courtesy of First Bank, barely three months after. A terse notice from the bank last week informed the customers that effective March, N100 will be charged for all cash withdrawals for the month.

    The notice came with the usual bland statement that this was to enable the bank serve the customer better. As a matter of fact, First Bank is not alone in this, a few other banks have slammed similar charges on their ATM services.

    Is the issue about service? It’s hard to accept. The issue is – First Bank, for instance, considers the maintenance service of N100 per month a paltry amount to pay by their customers for using the ATM service. It could well have denied the cash haul from the hundreds of thousands of customers involved.

    Of course, the measure revives the old argument as to who benefits more from ATM services. The conventional position is to see the ATM as affording the customer the convenience of easy access to his cash. That is no doubt true. What is no less true however is that it saves the banks the direct multiples of man-hours (and the associated costs) spent in attending to their hordes of individual customers. Given that service costs are by their nature non-discriminatory in terms of whether the customer is a small or big account holder, and to the extent that the banks cannot legitimately deny their impact on their costs and hence their bottom-line, it is only reasonable to expect that the man-hour cost saved through the use of ATM would set off the so-called costs of maintenance.

    We suspect that this consideration may have informed the scrapping of the charges by the Bankers Committee in November. Now, if the scrapping of the charge was agreeable to the bankers club three months ago, when did it suddenly become disagreeable, and why at this time? What is the meaning of card maintenance charge when the cost of the cards is charged the customer at points of issue? What is there to maintain in the plastic device that any bank would seek to rake in fortunes in unearned cash for merely keeping it, even when not in use?

    This newspaper is at a loss to understand the re-emergence of the charges except that the banks believe that it is in their power to do as they like. If there are other reasons behind the measure, Nigerians are entitled to know. At the moment, this has not been satisfactorily explained.

    We equally deplore the idea of introducing the charges through the back door. Not only does it go against the grain of the agreement by the Bankers Committee, it has the great potential to spawn other spurious charges by the banks.

    Just as there are countless other sources that banks can make money from, we expect our banks to explore more creative ways to make money. In doing this, we expect them to spare the ordinary folk of spurious charges on their hard-earned deposits. After all, the industry cannot claim to be promoting a cashless society on one hand, while pursuing measures that are clear disincentives to its stated goal on the other.

    We expect all the banks that are jettisoning the agreement reached at the Bankers Committee meeting about three months ago to withdraw the charges. Otherwise, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should call them to order.

  • Obama’s drones and laws of war

    Obama’s drones and laws of war

    Rand Paul should be applauded for his 13-hour filibuster on Wednesday that delayed the vote on John Brennan. Mr Brennan will be confirmed as the CIA chief – as indeed he should be. But Mr Paul performed a service in highlighting Barack Obama’s slipperiness on the ever-expanding lethal drone programme. It was a pity that the Republican senator confined his protest to the legality of killing US citizens on American soil – an outlandish scenario the administration refuses to rule out. The debate ought to have encompassed any non-combatant in any country. But Mr Paul has thrown down an overdue gauntlet. The president would be wise to respond.

    There is little doubt that drones have become an effective tool of counter-terrorism in the past four years. Mr Obama may well have been justified in each and every drone approval that he has given. Hellfire missiles have killed scores of al-Qaeda leaders who were beyond the reach of law. But we can only take Mr Obama’s word for it. Neither the US courts nor Congress have regular oversight of an administration that claims the same inherent powers alike as George W. Bush’s. Mr Obama may no longer call it the “war on terror”. In practice he has merely extended its scope.

    As a constitutional lawyer, Mr Obama is well aware that his actions and classified justifications will be inherited by successors, who may not be as conscientious in poring over “kill lists” as he has been. The time is past due to put the targeted killing programme on a statutory footing. No constitutional democracy can tolerate an executive that claims unilateral, perpetual and secretive powers over life and death. At the very least the drone programme needs to be subjected to judicial review overseen by Congress.

    Any bill will involve a broader debate than Mr Paul’s fatigued meanderings on Wednesday night. And Mr Obama will have legitimate fears about preventing leaks that could undermine the effectiveness of the drone programme. But these can be addressed by confining judicial approval to special courts – as is already the case for warrantless surveillance. Likewise, the circle of those briefed on Capitol Hill can be restricted.

    What is clear is that Mr Obama can no longer base his actions on the “just trust me” doctrine. Other powers, including China, are developing drones. It will be in the US interest to restrain them. Unless and until Mr Obama proclaims and follows his own rules, he will have no basis to press them on others.

    – Financial Times

     

  • Electronic voting in Kenya

    Electronic voting in Kenya

    Holding credible periodic elections has become the irreducible minimum requirement of the democratic system. In Europe, North America and other developed parts of the world, the poll has become a good measure of the standing of candidates and a means of handing mandates to political parties to run their countries for specified periods. The sanctity of the ballot box has been established in such climes over the decades.

    But this is not so in most parts of Africa where rigging has remained an ugly feature of politicking and balloting. It is in view of the odium it has invited that countries in the continent are making efforts to shake off the reproach by employing technology in a bid to deliver free, fair and credible elections devoid of rancour and disputation.

    Kenyans decided after the 2007 polls that claimed more than 1,000 lives that the ugly episode should be consigned to the history books. First, there was a widely acclaimed constitution review process that involved all. It was sealed with a referendum that produced a peoples’ constitution. The new constitution was specially designed to stamp out the ethnic tension that grips every election and turns polling into battle.

    The East Africans took another logical step by investing in Biometric Voter Registration. It was designed to eliminate ghost voters and aid speedy balloting and vote counting. The first opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of the system came with the March 4 presidential election, fought mainly by the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga and his deputy, Uhuru Kenyatta. Uhuru, son of the country’s first President Jomo Kenyatta, went to the poll with a slight edge, given the backing he received from President Mwai Kibaki. But Odinga, who is believed to have won the 2007 election against the incumbent trusted in the solid Coalition for Reforms and Democracy to upstage the Jubilee Coalition candidate, Kenyatta. It was not just about the presidential election, there were also elections into the counties to take democracy to the grassroots.

    Contrary to expectations, the electronic register failed and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission ordered recourse to manual voting and counting. This is largely responsible for the delay in declaring the results.

    Despite the hiccups similar to the experience in Ghana last year, it is commendable that the Kenyans have taken a major step forward. The system was introduced at the instance of the political parties, politicians and candidates who were determined to put the reproach of 2007 behind them.

    In Ghana, too, the electronic platform could not be put to optimum use. We see the development as a wake-up call for Africa. The continent cannot afford to be left behind by the developed world.

    In this, Nigeria has a major role to play. As the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria is the hope of the continent. And, without a transparent process of election of leaders, development would remain a mirage and our country will remain a laughing stock in the comity of nations.

    We recall that public money was invested in revamping the electoral system ahead of the 2011 poll and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) unequivocally promised to deliver a Biometric Voter Register for the election. While Kenya and Ghana managed to put the register on display and made adjustments as the situation demanded, the Nigerian electoral commission could not show the electorate what it had invested so heavily on.

    There are lessons to be learnt from the Ghanaian and Kenyan balloting. First, it is clear that the way forward is to embrace the electronic platform. The recent election in Ondo State is a reminder that the manual platform, however well meaning the officials are, is open to abuse and cannot be trusted to return the will of the people. Second, it is better, given Nigeria’s size and population, to use the electronic register in small elections in order to discover the weak points and tidy up before general elections.

    In this wise, we call on INEC to demonstrate the use of the register in the Anambra, Ekiti and Osun polls coming up between now and next year. It is unacceptable that taxpayers’ money was invested in a project that has obviously not been executed.

    INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega and his team should prove all wrong by ensuring that all votes count in 2015 and anyone who tries to pervert the will of the people is caught in the act and prosecuted as a deterrent to further abuse of the electoral system.

  • Kalu’s degree

    Kalu’s degree

    • If this was improperly awarded, then its revocation is in order

    Degrees are supposed to be earned. But the integrity of the degree will be in question if it is issued in a manner that suggests it was picked on the shelf, or obtained through the back door. It is in the light of this that we see the revocation of the degree awarded the former Governor of Abia State, Mr Orji Uzor Kalu, by the Abia State University (ABSU), Uturu, while Kalu was a sitting governor.

    The university’s senate cancelled the degree in line with the recommendation of a panel it said investigated allegations of breach of the extant academic regulations of the university, in the former governor’s matter.

    According to ABSU, the former governor’s violation of the regulations on admission-by-transfer rendered his offer irregular ab initio. It was alleged that the transcript which Kalu sent to ABSU from the University of Maiduguri where he had dropped out did not bear the letterhead of that institution. Secondly, it was alleged that Kalu did not matriculate, in spite of the fact that this is mandatory for all fresh ABSU students. It was also alleged that the former governor spent only two semesters in the university instead of six (i.e. three academic years of study). If these were so, then, the university acted rightly by withdrawing the former governor’s degree. Its senate has a responsibility to ensure that only people who meet the criteria for admission and award of its degrees obtain such.

    Perhaps the next question is whether the senate was not aware of all these irregularities at the time the governor was awarded the bachelor’s degree. But this is not a question over which anyone should split hairs. Apparently, what would seem to have transpired was that Kalu either used his influence as governor at the time; or the university lacked the courage to ask him to fulfill all righteousness then.

    And that is the point this paper has always stressed – the need to strengthen institutions. If this had been done, the university would have insisted that the governor followed the due process, either while seeking admission or when it was obvious he would not meet the requirement of the number of semesters to get his degree. Thus, he would not have been able to violate academic freedom the way the university authority has suggested he did. Under no circumstance should any individual be more powerful than an institution.

    Degrees are supposed to be awarded not just for academic excellence but also only to people found worthy in character. Unfortunately, there are many sitting governors who had bagged awards from universities either owned by their state governments or others; this is wrong. In other climes, such can only be possible after the completion of their terms in office. We keep complaining of falling standard of education, this is inevitable, especially in a situation where governors who should be role models violate the sanctity of the academic industry. It is this same spirit that encircles our academic system whereby people get certificates without labouring for them.

    Those impugning political vendetta into the cancellation of the former governor’s degree by the university are only embarking on academic aerobics. Whilst this may not be completely ruled out, the germane point is whether former Governor Kalu’s admission process was flawed and whether he met the criteria for the award of the degree. In the same vein, those who think it is late in the day to cancel the degree obviously do not know how the university system operates.

    It is sad that people cannot see the immorality, abuse of executive power and electoral mandate in a sitting governor seeking admission into the same university where he was Visitor. How would he have combined his duties as governor with those of a full-time student? Perhaps the only point in issue is whether the university gave Kalu fair hearing before taking its decision. Even on this score, we are sure that the former governor knows what to do if he thinks he has been unfairly treated by ABSU.

  • NDLEA’s ghost convicts

    NDLEA’s ghost convicts

    • It is incredible that such people could be in any other place other than the prison

    The sundry abuses of our country’s criminal justice system need to be confronted by all stakeholders. Unfortunately, governments at the federal and state levels are the chief culprits because of their lackadaisical attitudes to the responsibilities of the state in the process. Matters are not helped by some officials in the criminal justice system who collude with criminals to ridicule the system. These include investigators, prosecutors and custodians of accused persons and convicts.

    Recently, rights activist, Femi Falana, SAN, raised an incredulous alarm that 197 persons convicted for drug trafficking offences, are not serving their prison terms. But, as unbelievable as the report seemed, the allegation was substantiated by a committee set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, headed by Justice Gilbert Obayan, in 2006. According to the committee, ‘out of 143 drug convicts for the year 2006, 96 of them were never brought to prison. Similarly, another 101 drug convicts for the year 2005 were never brought to the prison, bringing the total convict evading jail to 197 within this period’.

    The learned Senior Advocate has asked the NDLEA to supply him information on the allegation, relying on the Freedom of Information Act, to make the demand. He threatened to bring civil and criminal proceedings against the NDLEA chairman and his agency, if after seven days the information is not given to him. We join the activist to ask the NDLEA, where are the convicts? If indeed the convicts have been unlawfully released from prison, there is the urgent need to bring the gang responsible for this scandalous conduct across the agencies to immediate justice.

    It is disheartening that the Federal Ministry of Justice will stand idly by, while this kind of treacherous impunity against our national interest is allowed to fester. We demand the immediate implementation of the findings of the Justice Gilbert Obayan’s (rtd) committee. Any further delay must be interpreted as a clear connivance of the Ministry of Justice with the criminals who use their positions to undermine our criminal justice system, to the nation’s detriment. We urge the various agencies to put in place safeguards to forestall this type of embarrassment. Indeed, any of the convicts re-apprehended should be subjected to a fresh trial for jailbreak, and the officials concerned treated as accomplices to the crime.

    The disease plaguing the NDLEA is also the lot of other agencies in our criminal justice system. It is commonly believed that many of the high profile detainees and convicts usually spend their detention in the comfort of their homes. There is a more bizarre allegation that those convicted to die are substituted by sundry criminals, who are killed in their place. Another common strategy used to help convicts and detainees avoid confinement in prisons and detention camps is to pretend that they are ill, and are receiving medical attention, when actually they are not. Many of the heads of the agencies, while hosting the high profile detainees shamelessly turn to their drivers and aides, instead of treating them as persons in custody.

    We urge other activists and the civil society to join in the crusade to sanitise our criminal justice system, in the country’s interest. A system that does not genuinely punish infractions of its law is an open invitation to chaos and a national embarrassment.