Category: Editorial

To the Jonathan administration, making the crisis-torn Borno State an oil producing state has become a task that must be accomplished. Speaking at the palace of the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Garbai, on February 2, the visiting Vice President Namadi Sambo announced Federal Government’s allocation of $100 million for oil exploration in the Lake Chad basin in the 2013 budget. This, he said, is in addition to the $75 million spent last year on modern seismic data gathering and processing to identify three oil blocks in the basin.

The administration, he stated, considered this as not only necessary to raise the country’s oil and gas reserves, but to create more jobs and economic opportunities in the North-east sub-region. He summed up the administration’s commitment this way: “I want to inform you that government is committed to the oil and gas search in the Lake Chad basin”.

Stripped of the good intentions, we find the idea of putting oil exploration among the wish-lists of the people at this time not only uncanny, but inexplicable. And considering that the visit to the state would be the first by any ranking official of the Jonathan administration since coming into office, the announcement was cynical as it was opportunistic.

More pertinent however is whether the annual ritual of pouring money into the quest can be described as money well spent. This has become debatable. The statement credited to the Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke is instructive in this particular regard: “there is a possibility that we may find oil in commercial quantity in the Chad Basin because of the discoveries of commercial hydrocarbon deposits in neighbouring countries of Chad, Niger and Sudan which have similar structural settings with the Chad Basin. Therefore, it is prudent to aggressively explore the Chad Basin for possible hydrocarbon deposits”.

To be clear, what is at stake here is not the possibility of an oil find; the geology of the region would seem to have confirmed that beyond any shadow of doubt. The issue is that the confirmation still falls far short of answering the question of whether the money sunk in is worth the trouble at all.

Just as the answer is critical to the eventual commercial decisions that would be taken, we cannot at this time gloss over the obsession fuelling the open-ended quest, which, although offers no guarantees, yet continues to come at great costs to the national treasury. Although, we recognise the obsession as part of the craze to be named among the club of oil-producing states – and the advantages of wealth without work that it confers – we cannot but ask why major oil prospecting companies are not leading in the search at this time? Does it say something of the prospects – borne of their superior knowledge of its futility?

What will an oil find do to the region? Beyond the politics, pretty little as far as we can see. More money to the treasury? Possibly. Wealth creation? For a few, notably the prospecting companies and their overpaid staff, yes; for the majority, it seems extremely doubtful in the current situation of zero value addition. Employment? Even more doubtful –at best a few score jobs will be created. And development? No guarantees whatsoever.

What the North-east needs at this time is peace and development. It needs to rebuild the entire fabric of commerce to create opportunities for employment; it requires massive investments in skills to equip youths and to upgrade its infrastructure. As for the obsession with oil exploration – we see this as utterly misplaced.

THE report that Manitoba, the Canadian firm contracted by the Federal Government to manage the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) is yet to get the Delegated Authority to take over the company is disturbing. This is injurious to the country in many respects. First is its potential to damage the relationship between the Nigerian government and its Canadian counterpart. The second is the possibility of breach of contract for which the country has since become notorious. Most important is the effect of the delay. As a matter of fact, this constitutes our greatest source of worry because of its repercussion on the power reform and more especially, power supply in the country.

It is incredible that seven months after the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) signed the management contract with Manitoba, the company could still be groping in the dark as to when exactly it would get the necessary papers to take over. It would appear that some interests opposed to the company taking over the TCN want the Federal Government to cancel the contract. This, as the government is aware, will attract a loss of about $23.72million in line with the terms of the contract. For sure, the country cannot afford such waste of funds.

It is even the more interesting that there have been interventions from very high quarters, including the Presidency, to no avail. In frustration, Mr Don Priestman, the chief executive officer-designate of Manitoba said: “We signed the contract a long time ago. After a transition period of one month, we were supposed to receive the Delegated Authority. That has not yet happened. Without the Delegated Authority, we cannot take over. The contract was questioned at a point but the President finally said that it was in order”.

Even the concerned Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) said it had written to the government to resolve the contract imbroglio. “The earlier it is done, the better”, NERC chairman, Dr Sam Amadi said. We cannot agree more.

The power supply situation in the country has become embarrassingly intractable for decades, with successive governments merely playing lip service to the sector. However, things appear set for improvement with the power sector reform initiated by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration. Unfortunately, there are too many vested interests that benefited from the old order in the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) as well as its successor, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) that is now being unbundled, who would not want any form of change for purely selfish interests. The high wire politics in the power ministry was partly responsible for the exit of the immediate past power minister, Prof Barth Nnaji.

We cannot afford to continue to play politics with this all-important sector. Even in the best of times, we have managed to generate about 4,700MW of electricity, a far cry from the national demand. This is far too low for our size and population. South Africa, with a population of about 50 million generates about 34,000 MW. What this means is that we still have a long way to go if we must industrialise because power supply is key to industrialisation.

In the light of all these, we implore the Federal Government to get the matter resolved as soon as possible. We have not even started to sell other aspects of the PHCN and we are having this kind of delay in allowing the contractor take charge. The point is that no matter how beautiful a plan is, it may be marred by implementation. Nothing in the power sector road map can be said to be unworkable at this time; what the government needs is the will. The issues relating to the Manitoba contract must be resolved without further delay.

France has done well by giving stolen art works back to Nigeria

In a very welcome display of international concern for the well-being of Nigeria’s cultural heritage, the French government has returned five Nok terracotta figures which had been illegally taken out of the country. The statuettes had been found in the luggage of a traveller by French customs officials and had been seized pending a determination of their provenance. After exhaustive research, it was discovered that they were authentic Nok art works of great antiquity and virtually beyond price.

Given the depressing presence of thousands of Nigerian artefacts scattered across museums and private collections in different parts of the world, it is heart-warming that France has seen the self-evident wisdom in ensuring that such priceless works of art are returned to the country where they were produced. Instead of remaining indifferent to the situation and permitting the large-scale theft of Nigeria’s artistic patrimony to continue unheeded, the French government sought to ensure that it would no longer be a conduit for such illegalities.

The French example should be adopted by other countries, in particular, Britain and the United States. Both countries have museums and collections full of ancient Nigerian art, much of which left the country in tragic or suspicious circumstances. Many items were looted by British forces in the various military campaigns that established colonial rule. The British Museum, the Museum of Mankind and the Wallace Collection are full of illegally-acquired art treasures. In more recent times, the large-scale theft of cultural artefacts has been the main source of illegally-exported items.

While Benin bronzes are the best-known example of stolen Nigerian artwork in foreign countries, there is also an extensive collection of royal household art stolen from palaces across Nigeria and illegally taken beyond its shores. These artefacts are openly displayed in museums that have consistently refused all requests by successive Nigerian administrations to return them. No country should be a willing accomplice in the theft of a nation’s cultural heritage.

It is also clear that Nigeria itself has to demonstrate its own seriousness in reducing the problem to the barest minimum. The country’s museums, palaces and cultural institutions are so badly-secured that thieves simply walk in and help themselves to the treasures on display. The ease with which hundreds of items leave the country’s shores annually also leaves a great deal to be desired. There appears to be no system of identifying, documenting and keeping track of Nigerian artworks, and this makes it difficult to investigate cases of art theft. When culprits are apprehended, they are rarely brought to court.

Nigeria must ensure that it expands its capacity to properly preserve and store cultural artefacts. It must also be prepared to participate actively in investigating art theft, especially the suspected collusion of highly-placed officials in the illegal export of artwork. When stolen art is returned, it should trigger a comprehensive examination of how it was stolen and exported in the first place. Whoever is found to have been complicit in such illegalities must face appropriate sanctions. In the specific case of the returned Nok statuettes, for example, the country should ensure that legal proceedings are initiated against the individual with whom they were found.

As the country puts its own house in order, it can then pursue restitution claims against foreign countries with renewed vigour. The return of stolen artefacts can be built into bilateral agreements and bi-national commissions; it should be reiterated ceaselessly at meetings with officials from the nations concerned; it could be made a pre-condition of all cultural exchange agreements. Nigeria should show the world just how serious it is about the ownership, preservation and retention of its priceless cultural heritage.

In more than a decade at war since Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has relied increasingly on drones to kill people away from the battlefield. It has faced few constraints. Now an overdue push for greater accountability and transparency is gathering steam, propelled by growing unease that America’s drones hit targets in countries with whom it is not formally at war, that there are no publicly understood rules for picking targets, and that the strikes may kill innocent civilians and harm, not help, American interests.

Stanley McChrystal, the retired general, has warned that drone strikes are so resented abroad that their overuse could jeopardize America’s broader objectives. The secretary of state, John Kerry, spoke at his confirmation hearing of the need to make sure that “American foreign policy is not defined by drones and deployments alone.”

Drones have obvious advantages. The unmanned vehicles, whose controllers may be hundreds of miles away at a remote base, can hover silently over a target for hours, transmitting images and sound, and then strike quickly if needed. The administration says the use of drones has taken many enemy combatants off the battlefield and reduced civilian casualties.

But skeptics abound. John Brennan, the counterterrorism adviser most responsible for the program, faces a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday as President Obama’s nominee as C.I.A. director. He should be questioned closely about the strikes: their purpose, legal justification and relationship to broader American foreign policy aims.

For years, Mr. Obama has stretched executive power to claim that the 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda gives him the unilateral authority to order people, including American citizens, killed away from any battlefield without judicial oversight or public accountability. He took a step in the right direction on Wednesday when he directed the Justice Department to give Congressional committees its classified legal advice on targeting Americans.

Officials say they only target belligerents covered by the 2001 legislation, but the public has no way of knowing under what criteria these targets are chosen. Nor does it know, absent publicly stated rules, how the 2001 law would be interpreted by future presidents. The confirmation hearing provides an opportunity for Mr. Brennan to explain his view on whether there is any check on presidential decision-making, especially when American citizens are targeted, and whether targeted killings are creating more militants than they are eliminating.

The White House has said it is still developing rules for when to kill terrorists. The United States has conducted more than 400 total strikes in at least three countries — Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia — killing more than 3,000 people in its war on Al Qaeda, according to a report by Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The majority killed were part of a C.I.A. covert program begun in 2004 and aimed at militants in Pakistan. At a minimum, United States rules should specify that no one can be killed unless actively planning or participating in terror, or helping lead the Taliban in Pakistan or Al Qaeda. Killing should be authorized only when it can be demonstrated that capture is impossible. Standards for preventing the killing of innocents who might be nearby should be detailed and thorough.

An investigator for the United Nations Human Rights Council said last month that he would study the “exponential rise” in drone strikes in counterterrorism operations. More than 50 nations have or are trying to get the technology. The United States will set the standard for them all.

– New York Times