The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Busy doing what?

    Busy doing what?

    •Vice-President Sambo says President Jonathan is too busy to visit  crisis-torn Maiduguri

    Making excuses for his boss was in itself, an acknowledgment of guilt, and his visit last Saturday must have been in response, albeit in half measure, to the rising criticism of a clear presidential faux pas. For more than two years that Maiduguri, the capital city of the northeast state of Borno has turned into the theatre of Nigeria’s most bloody armed insurgency, second only to the Nigerian Civil War, there has not been a presidential visitation. Not even by delegation.

    The Boko Haram Islamist militancy had taken root from that northeastern-most borders of Nigeria about five years ago and spread to nearly all the states north of Nigeria. Since 2009, the movement’s activities took a violent turn and it has been bloodletting to no end. From suicide bombings in churches, mosques, police, military and paramilitary formations, to brazen execution of their victims using fast-moving vehicles and bikes, Borno State became virtually a war zone as the Federal Government responded by sending a joint task force of military, police and other security personnel.

    As fighting raged, it was expected that President Goodluck Jonathan would visit the zone, if only on a flying stop to boost the morale of the ‘troops’ and reassure the populace that government was on top of the situation. There was no such gesture until last Saturday. Speaking during a courtesy call on the Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, Vice President Namadi Sambo said: “Mr. President would have loved to be here himself but for the exigencies of the office, but I believe that God’s time is the best. I want to assure you that we hold all our brothers and sisters in Borno in high esteem. Both Mr. President and I hold the people of Borno very close to our hearts.”

    If the vice-president had visited and made his speeches without suggesting that his boss was too busy to come, not many would have raised any eyebrow; but his very suggestion of the fact that there are more important things engaging the president other than the vicarious succour his presence would afford millions of his citizens caught up in a deadly internecine conflict is to further signpost a major presidential failing. In the first place, not many Nigerians will attest to seeing their president at work lately unless you consider incessant foreign trips, reception of ‘dignitaries’ and ceremonial appearances as work.

    Leaders all over the world are quick to bond with their citizenry in situations of distress. Be it in situations of tragic natural disasters, major accidents or calamities; not to mention zones of sustained armed conflicts. Leaders worth their tags often find their ways to the danger spots and sometimes, crossing the lines of safety into the vortex of action to show their deep empathy with their people. There are numerous recent examples: we saw U.S. Presidents from Bill Clinton to George Bush and Barak Obama visiting and fraternising with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan during the wars; same for British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

    Some have suggested that President Jonathan has not visited Maiduguri for security reasons, or that such a visit was subject to security advice. They point to the fact that for the past two years, the nation’s independence celebration has been held in the safe confines of the Aso Rock precincts again, for ‘security’ reasons. Even the vice-president’s visit buttressed the security ‘fears’. Reports say the city was shut down nearly to its entirety by security personnel with roads barricaded and markets closed as air force helicopters hovered overhead throughout the duration.

    We surmise that President Jonathan has a bounden duty to visit Maiduguri to felicitate with and reassure his citizens in that far-flung corner of the land who have been under the vice grip of violence in the past few years. They need that presidential fellow feeling no matter the cost.

     

  • Tight rope

    Tight rope

    We welcome the cable car mass transit, but we must be mindful of the safety and standard concerns

    ANYTHING at all to get Lagos moving – anything, would do, including ferrying a chunk of the teeming population via a tenuous cable car system of mass transit. This must be the consensus of most Lagosians who go through tortuous traffic regimen as they shuttle to and fro daily. This is why the move by a private firm, Ropeways Transport Limited to invest about N79 billion ($500million) in a cable car urban mass transit system must be the most salutary news they have heard in a long while.

    A strictly private sector initiative, but said to already have the consent of the Lagos State Government through the Lagos Metropolitan Transport Authority (LAMATA) is set to be operational in 2015. Much as there is a dire need to alleviate the pains of the commuter on Lagos roads today, there are numerous concerns over these new machines that will be ‘flying’ without wings across the landscape of Lagos. How safe are these cabins dangling on thin cables? What about other supporting infrastructure like power supply, connecting cables, control towers and terminals; maintenance of the engines and replacement parts?

    The initiators seem to have it all figured out and all the concerns taken care of. The cable car system is an old technology founded in 1892, according to the Managing Director of Ropeways, Capt. Dapo Olumide. It would incorporate several standard safety measures, including auxiliary drives and hydraulic brakes to prevent passengers being stranded; lightening protection on towers, ropes and stations as well as solar panels on each cabin roof to provide power for cabin interior and exterior lighting.

    Citing research report which has proven that the cable car is one of the safest means of transport in the world, Olumide noted that the system would not rely on power supply from the existing public power grid but would be powered by an independent power project, dual fired primary turbines and sufficient number of static inverters to provide 30 minutes of backup power. There will also be passenger monitoring with CCTV and audio communication links between the control towers, stations and cabins, as well as passenger address system.

    Each cabin is expected to have a capacity of 35 passengers and an estimated 8,000 people per hour would be moved. It will run at a speed of about 35 kilometres per hour and commuters would be expected to pay between N200 to N300 per trip.

    From the foregoing, the cable car mass transit seems to be the very recipe for mitigating the unyielding Lagos traffic which keeps most commuters on the road for additional two to three hours daily. Considering the enormous loss of man-hours, the health hazards and the psychological effect of this on the commuter, many may be asking why we have not thought of this all these years.

    But we wish to drop a word of caution here: good as this scheme may sound, it will remain a drop in the ocean in terms of its overall impact on the Lagos traffic. Lagos is a mega city with about 10 million daily commuter movements, and its population is estimated to hit 25 million by 2015. About 200,000 vehicles are registered in Lagos annually and the state records over 2,000 vehicles per kilometer of its roads. This is scary statistics to say the least, and it would require more than fancy cable cars to move this mass of people.

    We urge the state government not to relent in improving transport infrastructure and building fresh ones. We particularly suggest that work be expedited on the monorail system under construction on the Badagry axis of the state; we also think that the enormous waterways that abound in the state are starkly underutilised. The state could borrow a leaf from Venice and Holland where natural water has been put to the advantage of city transit.

    Having said that, we say let the wingless boxes take to the horizon of the city of Lagos, not only merrily moving the people, but also serving as a cultural signpost of an emerging cosmopolis.

     

  • Police retirees

    Police retirees

    •There is no reason why their retirement benefits should be delayed

    he hard-nosed confirmation by Navy Capt. Caleb Olubolade (rtd), Minister of Police Affairs, that 4,000 retired police officers are yet to receive their pension looks like a fairy-tale but is indeed real. More damning was his amplification that the figures could be higher because more files of other deserving retired officers are still being treated. This is a sad reminder of a nation’s ingratitude to police personnel who served the nation in their prime, only to be forsaken upon retirement.

    Why should it take months for any serious nation to complete the verification of retirees? The way the situation stands, the minister was not even sure of the precise date that the back-log of gratuities would be paid because the bio-data capturing is still in progress. This means that the suffering of police retirees would continue for some time.

    Over time, data irregularities and inefficient pension administration have been the bane of pension management, compelling the government to initiate verification exercises to correct the anomalies. We recollect that an earlier general exercise for the Federal Civil Service, supervised by Mallam AbdulRasheed Maina, over two years ago succeeded in uncovering a colossal N5billion that could have been stolen through payment to ‘ghost’ pensioners.

    While we do not begrudge the Ministry of Police Affairs for toeing the same line, such should not be used as an excuse for delaying pension and gratuities of police retirees. The condition of service in the police force is presently dehumanising and it would be a collateral damage for police retirees to be further dehumanised by not getting their entitlements promptly.

    The minister’s complaint in his 2012 report that the Nigeria Police Force is faced with the challenge of poor funding is suspect. So, what have both the ministry and the police pension office done with previously approved budgets for the police? The question becomes pertinent in view of the Police Pension Office scam of a whopping sum of N32.8billion siphoned by some of its top officials. If such amount can be illegally diverted without the supervisory ministry knowing, the reason why police pensioners’ gratuities and pension are delayed or sometimes denied can easily be deciphered.

    No wonder that a police ministry which has not been able to turn police colleges across the country into model training institutions still has the effrontery to be demanding for more funds. It is trite budget principle that the projects that were implemented and how efficiently previous budgets were utilised go a long way in determining the quantum of allocation for succeeding year’s appropriation. So, the issue is not about the ministry suddenly realising that it needs more funds because of an expose by a media organisation, on the sordid state of Police College, Ikeja. What about how budgeted police pension developed wings? An explanation should be given on this too.

    The mind-boggling fraud that is ravaging the country’s pension system, of which the police is an integral part, is patently abominable. Expectedly, this would make retirement from the police and other institutions meaningless because the bulk of benefits to be enjoyed by retirees notoriously ended up in private pockets of serving top civil servants and politicians.

    We consider as appalling the mismanagement of police affairs, more importantly, police pensioners’ wellbeing. Both have been objects of intensely condemnable graft from unscrupulous top government officials. Under the prevailing situation, the guarantee of a people-friendly, efficient and effective police becomes an illusion.

     

  • UNILAG shines at 50

    UNILAG shines at 50

    Accolades won by the university are well deserved, but there is room for improvement

    his year’s convocation of the University of Lagos is, in a way, the climax of the celebration of the institution’s 50th anniversary that started last year. Indeed, for the university, there is cause to celebrate its unique place among higher institutions in the country. It was the first federal university established after independence. The older university established in Ibadan in 1948 was, at the time, a college of the University of London.

    The establishment of universities in Ile-Ife, Zaria, Nsukka and Lagos brightened the hope of Nigerians that the post-colonial years would boost development in the country. Of the four, the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Ife and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, were established by the Northern, Western and Eastern regional governments. Only the University of Lagos was funded from the federal purse, as a symbol of nationhood and meant to cement the unity expected to come with the 1960 independence.

    Following the recommendations of the Ashby Commission set up in 1959, it was recommended that a university be established in Lagos “to offer day and evening courses in Commerce, Business Administration, Economics and Higher Management Studies.” The commission equally recommended that the university could be non-residential. However, a UNESCO Advisory Commission set up a year later advised against making the university non-residential. Rather, it called on the Federal Government to make the university complete and all-encompassing.

    Consequently, the University of Lagos, fully residential and autonomous, came into being on October 22, 1962, with Professor Eni Njoku as the first vice-chancellor. It was a dream come true and it provided a rare opportunity of providing quality higher education for all Nigerians.

    The late vice-chancellor of the university, Professor Adetokunbo Shofoluwe, at a pre-celebration world press conference on May 8, last year, captured its objectives: “From my vantage point, the future looks beautiful, full of promise and myriads of opportunities. I see a future of outstanding excellence in the quality of staff and of course as a consequence, of students. I see a future of trail-blazing collaboration between the academia of this university and the budding industry in Nigeria … I see UNILAG joining the league of the best 100 universities in the world.” That represented the resolve of the university community when it turned 50 last year.

    In recent times, the university has won laurels and awards. Recently, it topped the list of the best doctoral theses produced by Nigerian universities. The result of the exercise carried out by the Nigerian Universities Doctoral Theses Awards Scheme ((NUDTAS) adjudged four of the doctoral candidates presented by the university as the best. In 2010, the National Centre for Energy Efficiency and Conservation was established as a testament to its standing as a great centre for science research. In the same year, the last accreditation visit to the university by the National Universities Commission approved all courses run by the departments, faculties, schools, colleges and centres of the institution.

    The steady progress made by the university was made possible by the minimal disruption of the academic calendar by industrial disputes and students’ protests. This is an attestation to the maturity of the management and a budding culture of peace on the campus.

    The support drawn from firms, wealthy individuals and institutions is second to none in the country. Last year, the university’s Office of Advancement acknowledged 179 such partners.

    We salute the university for its steady progress and contributions to national development. We identify with its resolve to make its mark among the best centres of academic excellence in the world and urge its management to remain faithful to the goal set by successive leaders of the institution. This has already resulted in UNILAG being the university of first choice for young Nigerians who seek admission every year.

    We hope that, by the time the university would be celebrating its diamond jubilee in 2022, it would have improved upon its ranking, not only in Africa, but globally.

     

  • Cardinal sins

    nly now is the full scope of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ culpability in the sex abuse scandal being confirmed.

    Not only did the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles fail to protect children from pedophile priests, but its leaders, including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, subsequently sought to protect its reputation by covering up cases of sexual abuse and shielding priests from the arrest and prosecution they deserved. The archdiocese then spent more than a decade fighting to keep that coverup from being revealed in court.

    What is most horrible about the facts in the paragraph above is that they come as a surprise to almost no one. The archdiocese’s malfeasance has been alleged for a long time, but only now is the full scope of its culpability in the sex abuse scandal being confirmed. On Thursday, Archbishop Jose Gomez, under court order, released tens of thousands of pages of confidential personnel files of 122 priests accused or convicted of molesting children. Calling the behavior described in the records “terribly sad and evil,” Gomez also relieved Mahony of his public duties, which apparently means little more than canceling his confirmation schedule. Mahony will remain a “bishop in good standing in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,” Gomez said Friday, “with full rights to celebrate the holy sacraments of the church and to minister to the faithful without restriction.”

    Gomez’s actions and apologies aren’t enough, not given the fierce legal battle the church has waged over the last decade to protect itself. The release of the files last week with priests’ names unredacted marked the end of an effort that began years earlier when the church advanced a frivolous argument to protect communication between a priest and his bishop as privileged and protected by the 1st Amendment. Fortunately, lower courts rejected that argument and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to entertain it.

    Gomez and the Vatican clearly hope to put this scandal behind them and to portray it as a horror from a bygone era, something along the lines of the Spanish Inquisition. But the clergy sex abuse scandal is not, in fact, so very bygone. The church fought until the bitter end to protect pedophile priests rather than the children who were victimized, to protect the institution rather than those who put their faith in it. It defended Mahony and Msgr. Thomas Curry, his top advisor on sex abuse cases, rather than concede the right of victims to know the truth.

    The release of the records and the rebuke of Mahony is only a start. If the church hopes to rebuild trust and seek real forgiveness, it must move beyond apologies and explain the lack of consequences for not only the priests who abused children but also those higher-ups who helped conceal the truth for so long.

     

    • Los Angeles Times

     

  • On course

    On course

    •We welcome Reps’ move to tackle weak financial control in MDAs 

    The move by the House of Representatives to tackle frontally the challenge of weak and ineffective financial controls in our public finance system is certainly overdue. Here we refer to the planned amendment of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) under which the House seeks to make funding for the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (AGF), a first line charge on the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federal Government.

    The rationale, according to the lawmakers, is to secure the financial autonomy for the office charged with curbing the financial excesses of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government. The lawmakers also believe that this would address the issue of paltry allocation to the office in the budget, which continues to limit its ability to carry out its mandate. A good illustration is the statement credited to the auditor general, Samuel Ukura, saying that the agency could not audit the accounts of 97 foreign missions in the 2012 budget year because there was no money for his office to work. In the 2013 budget, the sum of N892milion was proposed for the office to audit the accounts of close to 600 MDAs.

    We share in the broad objective of weaning the office off its dependence on the finance ministry and the Budget Office. As it is, the nation has long moved beyond the debate on the need for independence for a critical office like that of the auditor-general. The challenge has always been how to ensure that the institution, as indeed similar ones, have the wherewithal to carry out their jobs and in an unfettered atmosphere.

    Financial autonomy is however only one step in the long journey to improved service delivery. Clearly, the time has come for the National Assembly to look into the books to see how, in addition to the proposed financial autonomy, the operational capacity of the office can be further enhanced. We consider that also key to the whole effort to reposition the office.

    The move by the lawmakers has itself thrown up some related constitutional issues deserving no less attention; these relate to the structure and nomenclature of some of the Federal Government’s agencies, as these have implications for our current practice of federalism.

    A good example is the office of the AGF itself; ordinarily, the correct appellation ought to be Auditor-General of the Federal Government since its mandate covers only the accounts of the Federal Government and its agencies. The same is also true of the offices of the accountant-general and the Attorney-General of the Federation which should be properly designated as those of the Federal Government.

    Of course, the former is without prejudice to the demand for the separation of the office of Accountant-General of the Federal Government from that of the Federation Account. The current situation in which the Federal Government appointee doubles as both the chief accountant to the Federal Government while superintending the federation account is not only far from equitable but also absurd.

    We also urge the National Assembly to take another look at the strident clamour for the separation of the attorney-general’s office from that of the minister of justice. We see great merits in the arguments that the two offices be separated. Indeed, our prescription is that the attorney-general – be it Federal Government or states – as the foremost defender of the public in the matters of law and public policy, should be insulated from the topsy-turvy of executive politics. That done, the minister of justice could then be left with the roles of being the administrative head of justice ministry as well as legal adviser to the Federal Government or the states – as the case might be.

  • Judges’ welfare

    Judges’ welfare

    •There is the need to improve judicial officers’ pay and general working conditions

    There is an urgent need to rescue the Nigerian Judiciary if the fight against corruption is to succeed. This should involve a two-prong approach: drastic improvement in judges’ working conditions and a forensic weeding out of all corrupt judges. Retired Justice Olufonlula Adekeye of the Supreme Court surely sounded the alarm, when she said she could not build a private house after 36 years on the bench.

    In quick reactions, two Senior Advocates put the maltreatment of our judges in clearer perspective. First, Sebastine Hon (SAN), released the humiliating salary structure for our judges; the other, Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), filed a law suit, exposing the negation of section 81(3) of the 1999 constitution, as amended.

    We commend the steps taken by the legal practitioners, but we ask the Presidency and the National Assembly to explain why a clear provision of the constitution on financial autonomy for the judiciary is being breached. Clearly, that section provides: “any amount standing to the credit of the Judiciary in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation shall be paid directly to the National Judicial Council for disbursement to the heads of the courts established for the Federation and the State under section 6 of this constitution”. In turn, section 6 of the constitution deals with the powers of the Judiciary and lists the courts entitled by the constitution to receive direct funding from the consolidated revenue standing to the credit of the Judiciary.

    Unfortunately, the current practice is that the National Judicial Council (NJC) is compelled to forward her annual budgetary estimates to the executive that reviews same, before sending the review as part of the expenditure of the federation for the coming year. When the budget is approved, the executive yet again determines how and when to release the budgeted allocation to the NJC. The result is that the Judiciary workers are poorly paid, many courts dilapidated, and there is insufficiency of manpower and modern equipment to quickly and independently dispense justice.

    Also, the judicial leadership at the federal and state levels are forced to kowtow to the whims of the executive, evidently to our common peril. This constitutional aberration has been condoned since 1999, and many believe that this clear breach of the law has seriously affected the capacity of the Judiciary to deliver on its constitutional mandate.

    Since judges, by the nature of their calling, are circumspect to frontally challenge the brazen conducts of the other two arms of government, there is the need for the Nigerian Bar Association and other non-governmental organisations to insist on the enforcement of the constitution on this matter. While such an action is going on, we fail to appreciate why the Presidency and the National Assembly find it inappropriate to obey the same laws that enable them to act on our common behalf, as it relates to the Judiciary. Unless the national leadership prefers to play the ostrich, they must realise that a deprived Judiciary will be susceptible to corruption, inefficiency and abuse.

    Indeed, if the complaint of retired Justice Adekeye is taken as a guide, then the current remuneration of our judges is perhaps the reason for a lackluster Judiciary in the fight against corruption. As things are, while those susceptible to corruption within the Judiciary easily resort to demanding for bribe and selling ‘justice’, unfortunately as a self-help measure; some others may not have the compulsion to do that and would rather act in the best interest of our common good. Again, the poor funding of the Judiciary is why judges work long hours, write in long hands, and practice their trade in unbearable environment.

     

  • FG vs Ezekwesili

    FG vs Ezekwesili

    FORMER Minister of Education and immediate past vice-president of the World Bank, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, and the Federal Government have been exchanging words over the former’s serious allegation that the Yar’Adua regime and the present administration of President Goodluck Jonathan squandered $67billion left by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.

    Specifically, she alleged that $45billion in foreign reserves account and another $22billion in Excess Crude Account which were direct savings from increased earnings from oil handed over by Obasanjo in 2007 was squandered by Yar’Adua’s and Jonathan’s administrations. This, she claimed, had worsened poverty in the country.

    Jolted by Ezekwesili’s frightening revelation, the Federal Government fired back through its Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, who, rather than explain satisfactorily how the money was spent, challenged Ezekwesili to account for billions of naira allocated to her ministry when she was Minister of Education.

    Perhaps in order not to be left out, President Jonathan’s media aide on public affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, saw Ezekwesili not only as “grandstanding”, but also challenged her to state the source of her information to authenticate her claim. Noting that Ezekwesili had challenged the government to a debate on this issue, Dr Okupe, probably afraid of the consequence of such, said that Jonathan’s government “would not dignify her sweeping statements by joining her for a national debate that she asked for”. Like Maku, Dr Okupe did not address the issues raised by Mrs. Ezekwesili. Rather, he went on sermonising about things and events that were absolutely irrelevant to providing satisfactory answers to Ezekwesili’s damaging allegation.

    For obvious reasons, Nigerians would ask why the Federal Government should wait for this long before it accused Ezekwesili of embezzlement of her ministry’s fund as education minister. Why accuse her of embezzlement now after she had boldly accused the government of misappropriation of $67bn? In fact, the government’s counter-accusation – a miserable afterthought – is a perfect self- indictment on the part of a government that has for so long allowed someone who had “squandered” public funds to walk the streets free since she left office as education minister in 2007. The fact that Maku and Dr Okupe never addressed Ezekwesili’s weighty allegation, but instead indulged in fighting back with irrelevances and subtle threats, is a hallmark of corruption, to say the least.

    It is noteworthy, however, that, as Nigerians tend to believe Ezekwesili’s allegation and disbelieve the Federal Government’s tissue of lies, the House of Representatives, through its committee on finance as well as appropriation, has put its weight behind Nigerians by initiating a probe into the allegation by Ezekwesili. It is very unlikely that she would be that bold to have accused the government of squandering the nation’s resources without good reason, judging from her standing as former special adviser to the president on public procurement and former World Bank vice-president. She was in a position to know the status of the nation’s foreign reserves during Obasanjo’s administration and the time the foreign reserves were squandered.

    Truth is bitter and we do not expect the government to easily admit to Ezekwesili’s allegation. But the matter can be resolved through unbiased investigation, and certainly not by irrelevances and subtle threats by the Federal Government. The House of Representatives and the Senate should probe the matter and let Nigerians know the true state of affairs with regard to the foreign reserves and excess crude account.

  • Sheer blackmail

    Sheer blackmail

    SOME supporters of the President Goodluck Jonathan presidency have in recent times launched vitriolic attacks against the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) insinuating that the body is a threat to the constitution and the democratic process. For instance, the political adviser to the President, Ahmed Ali Gulak, has accused governors of turning their states to their personal fiefdoms.

    On his part, a leading chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from Adamawa State, Professor Jubril Aminu, also castigated the governors saying, “I have worked in many countries and have not seen anything like such a forum. The governors’ forum is what is used to oppress everybody, including the President”. Perhaps the most trenchant criticism of the forum has come from the prominent Ijaw and South-South leader, Chief Edwin Clark. Describing the governors’ forum as “oppressive and dictatorial”, Clark accused the governors of “deliberately breaching with impunity the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the constitution of the PDP without any challenges. The Forum has now become a threat to the peace and stability of Nigeria. Most of the governors today are more dictatorial than the then military governors”.

    Most of these criticisms have clearly been spurred by the raging war of attrition within the PDP, where the governors are a powerful pressure group. This in itself is ironical since the majority of the governors being pilloried by partisans of the presidency belong to the same PDP that controls the Federal Government. We are, of course, unconcerned about the internal politics of the PDP.

    However, we find it difficult to fault the very incisive analysis of the Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, on the role of the governors’ forum in our democratic setting and its stance on the practice of federalism in the country. According to the governor: “To the best of my knowledge, the Nigerian Governor’s Forum is not written into the constitution of this country. It is a voluntary body, funded voluntarily and meetings are attended voluntarily by its members. Its decisions are not binding on the country; its resolutions are shared with the press from time to time…I am not a member of the political party that is in the majority in the governor’s forum. It is only things that we agree on that we push collectively”.

    Surely, no one can credibly question the right of governors or any other group for that matter to associate voluntarily in pursuit of their perceived common interests, at least within the law. Some of the criticisms of the governors amount to no more than sheer blackmail because of the insistence of the states that in a genuine federal system, they enjoy coordinate rather than subordinate status to the Federal Government. Governor Fayemi hit the nail on the head when he stressed, for instance, that the states are unconstitutionally kept in the dark as regards the exact amount that accrues to the Federation Account. In his words, “Section 162(2) of the constitution is very clear that every penny that comes into the coffers of the Nigerian state goes into one and one account only – the Federation Account. Not JP Morgan, not Citi bank. But over and over again, we run this federation as if it is a unitary state and our authoritarian military past is affecting us … Monies are collected by the NNPC, we do not know the amount, no governor in this country can tell you how much this country earns on a daily basis”.

    This is clearly an intolerable violation of the rule of law and the tenets of federalism. We urge the governors not to succumb to cheap blackmail. All pending cases against these constitutional infractions must be pursued to a logical conclusion.

  • Saving Egypt from anarchy

    Saving Egypt from anarchy

    THE MASS DEMONSTRATIONS and violence in Egypt during the past week may look a little like the revolution that erupted two years ago — but they are utterly different. The principal protagonists in the streets are mostly not common citizens seeking an end to dictatorship but gangs of hooligans, angry and restless youth, remnants of the former regime’s security forces and a brutal and corrupt police force that answers to no authority other than itself. As Egypt’s defense minister correctly put it Tuesday, at stake is not the overthrow of a regime but the collapse of the state into anarchy.

    Egypt’s Islamist government and its secular opposition, though polarized into warring camps in recent months, have a common interest in putting an end to the chaos before it consumes the country. The question is whether leaders on both sides can set aside the overreaching agendas and uncompromising tactics that have brought them to this emergency.

    President Mohamed Morsi, who won a two-round democratic election last year, has considerably more legitimacy and popular support than did former ruler Hosni Mubarak. But he and his Freedom and Justice Party, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, have helped create the crisis by adopting some of the former regime’s tactics. Mr. Morsi has smeared reasonable opponents as criminals, tried to intimidate the press and used autocratic methods to force through his agenda. The swelling unrest last month has its roots in the mass protests Mr. Morsi provoked last year by suspending the judiciary in order to complete a new constitution.

    Opposition leaders, who range from former followers of Mr. Mubarak or his nationalist predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser, to liberal democrats and Christians, also have much to answer for. Having lost two elections and a referendum to Islamic forces in the past year, many appear reluctant to play by democratic rules. Some have demanded political capitulation by Mr. Morsi as the price of accepting the government’s offer of dialogue; others openly seek the overthrow of the new regime.

    The weakness and intransigence of both sides have empowered anarchic forces such as the police, unreformed since the fall of the Mubarak regime, hooligans and unemployed young men, who in the past week have battled one another in Cairo and cities along the Suez Canal, killing scores. Meanwhile, the army, also outside the regime’s control, deliberates over whether to restore order, seize power for itself or remain on the sidelines.

    Fortunately, there were signs this week that the politicians were beginning to see the imperative of coming together. Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei reversed his rejection of negotiations and called for a dialogue among his secular National Salvation Front, the Morsi government, Islamist parties outside the government and the military. On Thursday the front met with the Muslim Brotherhood and agreed to oppose violence. There is much more to discuss, including possible changes to the constitution and a law governing upcoming parliamentary elections. A new, national unity government is a worthy, if long-shot, goal. But above all, Egypt’s leaders must agree on restoring order.

    – Washington Post