The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Wada goes back to work

    Wada goes back to work

    Though the Kogi governor’s crash was avoidable, the openness with which his treatment was conducted is commendable

    To a cynical country, Kogi State Governor, Idris Wada’s decision to receive local treatment, instead of the default setting of many a presidential and gubernatorial mind to hop abroad in seasons of trauma, is seeking cheap mileage from his auto crash. That however, would push cynicism too far on the plane of callousness. The governor struck a big blow for confidence in local hospitals; and he should earn his full plaudits.

    But even the most sceptical on Wada must concede the openness with which his accident and treatment was handled. That, though routine in other climes, is quite novel here. But it only proved what we have always said: illnesses are natural and accidents are no crime; so coming clean on them would only earn the victim the empathy and love of fellow Nigerians; which goes a long way to support treatment and recovery. That Governor Wada is out of hospital, with a reasonable level of public goodwill, underscores this point.

    Still, with more care, that accident was preventable; and the governor with a broken thigh, the ill-fated Idris Muhammed, the governor’s aide-de-camp and assistant superintendent of Police (ASP) who lost his life, and the governor’s driver who is still hospitalised would have been saved the trauma that is their lot now.

    For starters, why do gubernatorial and other political VIPs ‘vehicular convoys speed like some bats hurtling from hell? For lack of tangible performance, do they regard themselves as fugitives that must flit past a censorious and angry people? Though reckless official convoys have brought too many to grief, it is about the most predictable thing among this tribe. To avert future accidents and untimely deaths, this bad attitude must change.

    Then Governor Wada’s parsimoniousness which, if reports were to be believed, has now proved fatal. It would appear the tyres for the governor’s Lexus SUVs were due for replacement, so much so that the late ADC reportedly offered to put down his personal money to change the tyres. Perhaps if he had done that, and the tyres did not bust while on high speed, he probably would have been alive today.

    But why should he? The vehicle was an official car. So, why should the ADC spend personal money to fix an official car? Inasmuch as there is rampant sleaze in the system, and the governor’s obvious concern that no financial leakage occurs is admirable, there still ought to have been an automatic set-up of checks and balances that promptly take care of routines like changing tyres, without the governor getting directly involved.

    The Kogi case, as in most states in the country it would appear, is a culpable lack of systems, leading to suspected micro-management which has now proved very costly – and fatal. This certainly is not good enough. The governor should keep his mind on the big picture, and keep off micro-management that could prove very costly. Besides, if the tyres of the governor’s car were suspect, and the road was not stellar, why the great speed, that turned a burst tyre into a catastrophe?

    Governor Wada, by his surgery and treatment at an Abuja private hospital, did very well by insisting on treatment at home. But his charity did not quite start at home –for Abuja, far better, to be sure, than junketing abroad on medical tourism, is still outside Kogi State. So, while the Abuja treatment is commendable, it also brings out the disturbing fact that there is no single hospital in Kogi good enough for gubernatorial care! That is an indictment on his tour of duty as governor.

    Now that he has survived the accident therefore, it is time for him to put in place better medical facilities in his state. That way, he would have domesticated, in his own state, his campaign for VIP confidence in our local medical personnel and hospital facilities.

  • Privacy in the information age

    Privacy in the information age

    If a law enforcement agency wants to examine your snail mail or the contents of your computer hard drive, it must obtain a search warrant, which means it must convince a judge that there is probable cause that a crime has been committed. But no warrant is required to obtain email or documents you have stored in a computer “cloud” so long as they are 180 days old.

    That would have changed under legislation recently approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee at the behest of its chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). If enacted, it would make the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act conform to 21st century understandings of personal privacy. Before the advent of the Internet, it arguably made sense for the law to distinguish between someone’s own records and those that belonged to a third party, such as the telephone company. That distinction has been rendered meaningless by technological advances that allow individuals to receive and retain email and store documents in cyberspace. (The 180-day distinction was based on a flawed analogy between telephone conversations and email; the notion was that email subscribers were primarily concerned about the privacy of contemporaneous communications.)

    In interpreting the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, the Supreme Court has said that the crucial question is whether someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy. The same standard should guide Congress in adapting federal statutes to a new information age in which Americans rightly regard their email and stored communications as private documents. The amendment approved by the Judiciary Committee does that by requiring a government entity, such as a state or federal law enforcement agency, to secure a warrant before obtaining email and other documents in the possession of an Internet service provider.

    The Judiciary Committee attached the Leahy email amendment to much less consequential legislation allowing subscribers to online movie services to share their viewing history on social media. Unfortunately, the House and Senate approved the movie bill without the email amendment, postponing any final action on email privacy until the next Congress. But the Judiciary Committee’s action was an important first step.

    From the Internet to cellphones to GPS technology to infrared devices that can “see” into a house to indicate whether marijuana is being grown there, technological changes have challenged personal privacy in ways that the law has been slow to recognize. Congress can begin to catch up by approving the Leahy amendment.

    • Los Angeles Times

  • Al-Mizan abduction

    Al-Mizan abduction

    • Nigeria’s security agencies must act in accordance with democratic standards

    One of the reasons why Nigeria’s transition to democracy has failed to yield desirable outcomes is the unreconstructed authoritarian mindset of many of the institutions entrusted with safeguarding the country’s wellbeing. This shortcoming was in evidence yet again on Christmas Eve in Kaduna State, when soldiers and plain-clothed security operatives stormed the homes of two journalists working for Al-Mizan, a Hausa-language newspaper based in the state.

    Behaving in a manner harking back to the worst days of military dictatorship, the security team numbering some 40 heavily-armed men burst into the homes of Musa Muhammed Awwal, the paper’s editor, and Aliyu Saleh, a reporter. They manhandled both men and their families before conducting a search of their houses. The two men were arrested along with their wives, although the latter were reportedly released later. This was followed by an attempt to abduct Al-Mizan’s editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Mus, on the same day. The paper’s offices were also stormed and ransacked.

    Al-Mizan’s apparent offence was its reporting of alleged atrocities by men of the Joint Task Force (JTF), currently engaged in putting down the Boko Haram insurgency that has spread across much of Nigeria’s north-east. The paper accused the JTF of culpability in the disappearance of about 84 individuals in Potiskum, the Yobe State capital.

    Prior to this, the JTF’s operations have been criticised by human-rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, in addition to politicians and community leaders in states where the task force is stationed. The main criticisms have focused on the JTF’s rules of engagement which appear to justify the use of all available methods in combating the Boko Haram menace, regardless of whether or not they violate human rights. Unlawful killings, rape and torture are the main accusations levelled against the task force. The JTF has denied these allegations.

    However, the veracity of such denials is weakened by the assault on Al-Mizan and its journalists. When a media organisation is believed to have made false or malicious claims, it is either reported to the appropriate professional organisation or taken to court. The blatant refusal of the security agencies to utilise either option is a troubling reminder of just how weak the country’s democratic structures are. The Nation was victim of a Gestapo-style invasion in October 2011; assaults on journalists are still a common occurrence across the country. The security operatives behind such abuses are rarely reprimanded, let alone prosecuted.

    Nigeria can no longer tolerate a situation in which its citizens are intimidated by gun-toting security agents who consider themselves above the law. Successive failures to confront these human-rights abuses over the years has entrenched a culture of impunity in the security agencies. They are almost never called to account for what are clearly illegal arrests and abductions; instead, efforts are directed towards the release of those who have been detained. Once that happens, the matter dies a natural death.

    The country’s human rights bodies and professional groups such as the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) must unite to develop a comprehensive response to such attacks on the rights of the citizenry. It is not enough to simply protest or condemn such acts. Efforts must be made to ensure that legal action is taken against the agencies that are responsible for such acts of impunity, and that it is pursued to a logical conclusion.

    Although the Al-Mizan journalists who have been illegally detained were released yesterday, those responsible for violating their rights must be made to answer for their actions. Security objectives cannot be pursued at the expense of liberty.

  • No to loan frenzy

    No to loan frenzy

    •National Assembly should stop external borrowing 

    For a Federal Government that has done little else than flash a dubious global record of lowest debt to GDP ratio to rationalise its unbridled appetite for loans, last week was a moment of truth-telling from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

    Venue was the Honorary International Investment Council (HIIC) conference in London. Subject was the mounting debt stock at a time of high crude prices. The CBN governor was unequivocal: At the current levels of foreign debts, and with the current trend, the nation stands in grave danger of relapse into debt peonage.

    His words: “we are borrowing more money today at a higher interest rate while leaving the heavy debt burden for our children and grandchildren”. The trend, he surmised, if unchecked, will lead to the mortgaging of the future of generations unborn”.

    For an individual regarded as being rather too outspoken for the demands of his conservative office, the immediate temptation is to dismiss his views with a wave of the hand. But that would be most unfortunate not just because of his role as head of the monetary policy committee, a role which makes his views authoritative, but also because of his membership of President Jonathan’s Economic Management Team.

    The fact of the matter is that Sanusi was merely echoing the opinions of majority of Nigerians on the issue of the bourgeoning debts. To ratchet up debts at a time of rising revenues is not only inexplicable, it is unconscionable.

    The arguments in favour of more foreign loans have remained as unconvincing and worn. The merit, we are told, lies in the fact that they are cheap and are of relatively long gestation. That may well be. But then, the issue of whether the loans are actually needed at all, or whether they can be well utilised is a completely different matter. The point bears restating that we are hard pressed to see the sense in stacking up debts at a time of record earnings in crude oil. What makes it more confounding is that this is happening at a time the nation is said to have built an impressive reserve in the excess crude account.

    Now seems the time to settle the question of what the Jonathan administration has done with the loans taken, particularly as it does not appear that many Nigerians can point to any on-going projects to justify the mountains of debts being stacked up in their name. The National Assembly can help in this regard by putting a moratorium on new loans while insisting on a comprehensive audit of the existing ones to establish how much value has been delivered.

    Obviously, the latest development is merely a symptom of how far the nation is from imbibing the lessons of its celebrated exit from the London and Paris Clubs of creditors in 2005/6. Six years after, Nigerians still struggle to find evidence that any lessons have been learnt. They find none. Whereas, in pre-2005/6, the creditor cartel was the London and Paris Clubs, in 2012, attention has shifted to the Chinese and the World Bank – more of the same.

    The same goes for fiscal discipline; very little has been learnt; evidence is one of unbearably incompetent government that cannot implement its capital budget –a mere 30 percent of the whole. Nigerians expect the Jonathan administration to deliver value; not in the loan frenzy.

     

  • Goodbye 2012, Welcome 2013

    Goodbye 2012, Welcome 2013

    • By all accounts, things were dreary in 2012. Are the prospects better for 2013?

    The year 2012 was a leap year. The general superstition is that leap years are often horrible years, consuming many; and utterly sapping the lucky ones that survived. The year 2012 lived up to that chilling billing, as disaster, agony and anguish came in proverbial leaps and bounds.

    The clear message from all the disasters, natural or man-made, was that the republic could be far better run. Is that likely to happen in 2013? There are always hopes that a new dawn is possible. But the prognoses are pretty dim.

    The tragedy of 2012 was epitomised by the massive collapse of security and safety. Boko Haram, the murderous lunatics that camouflage as Islamists, wrought their grimmest harvest last year, killing some 815 people in 275 attacks, in the first nine months in 2012, according to a Human Rights Watch document, entitled Spiralling Violence: Boko Haram Attacks and Security Force Abuses in Nigeria.

    After the staccato attacks on Kano in January 2012, with heavy guns and bombs, which claimed 150 lives, the attacks attained heightened madness by mid-year when Boko Haram, in three consecutive Sundays, attacked churches in Bauchi, Jos, Zaria and Kaduna, claiming 80 lives in the gory campaign against the defenceless. The year, for Boko Haram, ended as it started: with attacks on two churches in Borno and Bauchi states on Christmas Eve, claiming 12 lives and another storming by gunmen of a prison facility in Maiha, a border town with Cameroon in Borno State, in which no less than 20 were feared dead.

    Despite the strivings of the security forces, who often were accused of extra-judicial executions, torture and other strong-arm tactics in their bid to contain the Boko Haram menace, free-wheeling terror appeared to taunt a Federal Government that was at the end of its tether. Security is one key area President Goodluck Jonathan must seriously work on in 2013, if his government must preserve whatever is left of the mystique of Nigeria as a modern and working state, in contrast to a failed one.

    But even as security was collapsing, safety was in a free fall, costing one gubernatorial death in Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State, courtesy of a helicopter crash (which also killed Gen. Andrew Azazi, former National Security Adviser, NSA), and two serious gubernatorial accidents: Taraba Governor Danbaba Suntai who in October crashed in a self-piloted light aircraft; and Kogi Governor, Idris Wada, who on December 28 had a fatal road crash, courtesy of a bust tyre, which claimed the life of the governor’s aide-de-camp and in which the governor reportedly broke one of his legs.

    The Dana plane crash of June 3 in Lagos, in which 146 passengers and all seven crew members perished, could well have been an accident. But such occurrences tend to underscore the Nigerian penchant for levity in safety matters and notoriety to subvert standards. This ingrained institutional malaise must be frontally tackled in 2013; if the not unfair general feeling that the authorities are not up to par is not to continue.

    The tragedy of mass deaths and frequent kidnappings notwithstanding, improvement in power generation, perhaps the only feeble spark in a gloomy year, came with its own tragedy. By December 2012, electricity generation had hit the 4, 500 mw mark. Though 10, 000 mw was supposed to have been realised by 2007 at the end of the Obasanjo Presidency, the increase in power output has brought palpable relief to households and micro-businesses. This success should however be consolidated and increased output recorded in 2013, for 4, 5000 mw is still a far cry from the target of 40, 000 mw for 2020, under the 20:2020 development document. Still, it was ironic that Barth Nnaji, the minister credited with this breakthrough, after consistently and quietly working on it for years was consumed, when he resigned for alleged abuse of office.

    Transportation got a slight jab in the arm at the tail end of 2012, when a Lagos-Kano passenger/cargo rail shuttle was launched. That was a welcome relief. We need to see how stable and reliable this will be. Critical road arteries, like the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Ore-Benin Expressway also got marginal improvement with the Federal Governor ordering emergency repairs to make these busy roads motorable for Yuletide travels. Still, the Federal Government must do much more on road rehabilitation and construction in 2013, for much of the roads nationwide are in a shambles.

    In 2012, the economy was still marooned in the paradox of growth sans development. Though the Nigerian economy had averaged 7.4 per cent growth in the past 10 years and was projected to slow down a bit at 6.9 per cent in 2012, according to African Economic Outlook 2012, the growth clearly has not made a dent on poverty (with still more than 6 out of every 10 Nigerians living under the poverty line). Neither has it impacted much on dilapidated roads and other infrastructure. Besides, there is still mass unemployment, bordering on hopelessness. Though agriculture had accounted for much of this growth – which is good news – it has not upset the over-dependence of the economy on oil and gas.

    Indeed, a key component of the oil and gas is petroleum downstream, the failed deregulation of which led to a nation-paralysing strike in January 2012, with an attempt to hike the pump price of petrol from N67 to N140 and “completely remove subsidy”. That crisis established two related facts: that much of the so-called subsidy was no more that corrupt payout in election year 2011; and the futility of downstream deregulation by importing fuel.

    In 2013 therefore, the Federal Government must not only recover the illicit payout and judicially punish the culprit, it must as a matter of urgency invest in building local refineries. It must adopt a new policy of downstream deregulation based on local refining. If it clears the oily and corrupt stable, it probably would have enough funds to heavily invest in education and health, twin long-term pillars of development.

    Politics 2012 was much more of the same – and that is because President Jonathan has consistently refused to show leadership. When he ought to play the statesman, he insisted on playing politics, to please his party’s apparatchiks. A glaring case in point is the running saga of Justice Isa Ayo Salami, president of the Court of Appeal, who remains illegally suspended, despite every advice to the contrary.

    The political waters in 2012 remained shark-infested, with nary any difference between the principal political parties, if not in ideology, then in orientation and practice. This has led to an unbearable level of hopelessness and citizen cynicism, which could hurt Nigeria’s democracy and development. Unfortunately, with 2015 elections looming and only a year to the 2014 electoral test-run in gubernatorial polls in Ekiti and Osun states, there might, in 2013 be more politics and less governance.

    For something terrible not to give, things must change for the better in 2013.

  • Arab awakening is only just beginning

    Arab awakening is only just beginning

    Middle East will keep monopolising world’s attention

    The US may be pivoting eastward in an attempt to answer the rise of China. The EU may be gazing inward in its tortured attempts to emerge from the eurozone crisis. But the Middle East – rarely more combustible than now – will not

    be wished away by inertia or introversion. It will continue to monopolise the firefighting capacity of world powers throughout 2013 and beyond.

    The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now so close to being made insoluble – at least within the two-states framework the international community set but the US declines to press on its Israeli ally – that it requires separate consideration. As of now, Syria is the most incendiary of the region’s tinderboxes.

    More than 21 months after the uprising started against Bashar al-Assad, and then turned into an insurgency to counter savage repression, the regime is engaged in a rearguard action, punctuated by punitive air strikes. The rebels have momentum and tactical agility. Whether or not western powers give them the heavy weapons they need to counter the regime’s still far superior firepower, the Assads are finished.

    Arming the rebels now may hasten their departure, arrest the disturbing advance of jihadi extremism and galvanise the opposition. The rebels are starting to cohere, invested with legitimacy this month by the recognition of more than 100 countries, including the US and EU member states. But as the regime enters an endgame that could get still bloodier, it is politically incoherent to mount such a diplomatic offensive while outsourcing the arming of the rebels to Gulf states. They are enhancing the influence of Islamism far beyond what Syria’s multi-confessional society would normally tolerate. That will make stabilising Syria after the regime’s implosion even messier, especially if the Assads keep trying to spread the conflict to neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Turkey.

    The fall of the Assads will be a strategic setback to Iran and its regional allies such as Hizbollah, the Shia Islamist state within the fragile Lebanese state. But that could quickly be reversed if Israel were to carry out its threats to attack Iran’s nuclear installations, enabling Tehran’s theocrats to rally disaffected Muslims across the region and strengthen their grip at home. It is easy to imagine how such a conflict would drag in the US, disrupt the Gulf and its oil traffic, and set fire to Lebanon.

    The best chance of avoiding this is if President Barack Obama is more forthright in his second term about the terms of negotiation with Tehran. The only realistic deal is to allow Iran to enrich uranium to low levels, under strict international monitoring, but draw a red line against any attempt to construct a nuclear weapon. If this does not become the settled policy of the international community, a new war in the Middle East becomes more than likely.

    While that is dangerous in itself, it would also influence the still promising, if necessarily messy, process of the Arab awakening from a long era of tyranny. The mainstream Islamists who have most profited from the toppling of dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and now probably Syria have yet to demonstrate they understand the principles of pluralist democracy, just as their opponents have yet to show they can come up with a convincing alternative, beyond their brave but politically inchoate ability to fill public squares. Egypt is the crux.

    The attempt by President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood to impose their constitutional blueprint is convulsing a diverse society, sabotaging an already prostrate economy, holding up the rebuilding of institutions and inciting international suspicion of Egypt as it strives to regain a leading regional role. This is dismaying, yet Egypt still has the capacity to surprise.

    – Financial Times

  • The Lagos banger fire

    The Lagos banger fire

    IT was another day of wailing at the Idumagbo area of Lagos the day after Christmas, when a three-storey building located at 45, Ojo-Giwa Street, where firecrackers were stored, suddenly went up in flames at about 9.30 a.m. At least one person was killed and more than 14 other buildings burnt. About 40 people that were injured were rushed to various hospitals. Of course, many vehicles parked in the area, as well as other property, were destroyed.

    The annoying part of it all is that the tragedy, like many other Nigerian tragedies, was avoidable. That it was caused by firecrackers is enough evidence of the predominant role that the ubiquitous ‘Nigerian factor’ played in the disaster. It was an ample demonstration of everything wrong in and with the country. Firecrackers have been banned in Nigeria. Yet, they are a common feature during end of the year festivities. As a matter of fact, it was as if the bangers were given out for free the way they were used in Lagos until the unfortunate incident of December 26.

    Yet, just about two months ago, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State had appealed to residents to desist from the dangerous business of storing inflammable materials in homes, especially in this dry season. “The consequences are more than the gain. … But they have failed to listen to our appeals”. The failure to heed that appeal is what has caused the millions of property lost to the incident, apart from collateral damage, the cost of which we may never be able to ascertain. Now, how much profit would the importers of the bangers and those selling them have made or hoped to make that can compare to the losses incurred in the tragedy?

    We sympathise with those affected by the incident even as our hearts pour out to the dead. But, beyond this, the tragedy is a wake-up call to us all to raise the alarm whenever and wherever danger looms. For sure, there were neighbours in that area who knew that such inflammable materials were stored in that place but they never bothered to inform the security agents. It is true, as Governor Fashola observed, that “people have the right in a democratic government to decide whatever they wish to do, but they can only embark on such act when it is not injurious to others”. We all have to be more safety and security conscious because the government cannot be everywhere at all times.

    This tragedy shamefully exposed the general carelessness among us as a people, even as it is a big indictment on our security agents. If firecrackers have been banned in the country, how come we have the materials all over, with children and adults alike throwing them freely, without anyone trying to stop them? Where were the Customs officials when the prohibited items were brought in? Now, the police say they are searching for the owners of the firecrackers, thereby barring the stable door after the stallion has escaped. Were the police not aware that such items were stored and sold in the place?

    The Lagos State government should begin the enforcement of the law banning the use of residential houses for commercial purposes. In the same vein, the state government should look seriously into the way houses are built so close to one another, especially on the Lagos Island. This has always hampered rescue efforts in emergencies. Above all, we call for a thorough probe into this incident. Obviously, some people had been negligent and they should be made to face the music.

  • Damning advisory

    Damning advisory

    DESCRIBING the current security situation in Nigeria as remaining “fluid and unpredictable”, the United States Government’s latest travel advisory warned its citizens of the risks of travelling to 10 states, including Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Plateau, Gombe, Yobe, Kaduna, Bauchi, Borno and Kano states. Beyond this, the United States restricted its officials from visiting any of the 19 Northern states in Nigeria without obtaining official permission from US authorities, again because of the parlous security situation in that part of the country.

    Giving detailed, specific and verifiable incidents of rampant criminality across the country throughout 2012, the latest US advisory demonstrated clearly that safety conditions have worsened in Nigeria since June 21 when the preceding advisory was issued to its citizens.

    Among the many incidents of unrestrained lawlessness in most parts of Nigeria cited by the advisory are kidnappings, armed muggings, armed robberies, both at day and night time, assaults, abduction of foreign nationals from offshore and land- based facilities, attacks on communication facilities nationwide, assassinations, car-jacking, extortion and, of course, the raging Boko Haram terrorist insurgency in the northern part of the country.

    In the damning but incontrovertible assessment of the advisory, “Law enforcement authorities usually respond slowly or not at all and provide little or no investigative support to victims. US citizens, Nigerians and other expatriates have experienced harassment and shakedowns at checkpoints and during encounters with Nigerian law enforcement officials…Travelling outside of major cities after dark is not recommended because of both crime and road safety concerns”.

    It is thus not only Nigerians that are aware of the dangerous conditions in which they live and are thus wary and cynical of government’s unconvincing avowals to the contrary. The world has become a global village and, with modern telecommunications technology, no country can successfully hide its internal conditions from the outside world. In routinely issuing advisories to guide and protect the safety of its citizens worldwide, the American government demonstrates what should be the attitude of a responsible state to its people. The life of every American matters to the US authorities and that is how it should be.

    The reflexive reaction of the Nigerian authorities to this kind of negative foreign assessment is to live in denial and exhibit aggressive defensiveness. This is unhelpful and counterproductive, as the US advisory is predicated on verifiable facts. Indeed, if similar advisories issued in the past had motivated the Nigerian authorities to take urgent remedial action, we would have long transcended the prevalent unsavoury situation.

    The response this time must be different. This must be seen as a wake- up call for decisive, result-oriented action to enhance safety throughout Nigeria. Of course, this advisory only reinforces the negative perception of Nigeria as a fast failing state; a situation which will further discourage foreign investors from channelling their resources into an unsafe and unpredictable environment. Yet, without massive foreign investment, business cannot thrive because jobs cannot be created for the teeming number of unemployed youths in order to help mitigate the tendency towards criminality.

    The Nigerian state cannot continue to pay lip service to national security. As it is, the prevalent security situation is an excuse for huge security expenditures that apparently end in private pockets. The massive corruption at all levels of government in the country has indeed become a serious and dangerous security challenge. It denies the country not only of the resources needed to provide a well motivated, equipped and efficiently organised security network, but also the direly required investment in infrastructure, social services and poverty alleviation. Without these urgent investments, insecurity can only worsen in Nigeria.

  • Go-Slow government

    Go-Slow government

    How long does it take a president to make his impact felt? This question becomes pertinent in view of President Goodluck Jonathan’s feeble defence of his dreary approach to governance in over 19 months of being in the saddle as a duly elected president. This fairly lengthy period is aside from his having to conclude the remaining term of office of late President Umaru Yar’Adua, upon his death.

    The President stirred the hornet’s nest at the Christmas Day service of the Cathedral Church of the Advent Life Camp, Anglican Communion, Gwarinpa, Abuja, where he worshipped, when he craved the indulgence of Nigerians over his government’s seemingly slow approach to governance. Perhaps in response to the publicly held notion that the slow pace of his administration is unacceptable, he enthused: “By human thinking, our administration is slow, I won’t say we are slow, but we need to think through things properly if we are to make lasting impact. If we rush, we will make mistakes and sometimes it is more difficult to correct those mistakes.”

    The president’s alibi is ridiculous because many of his policies cannot be said to have undergone the crucible of rigorous thinking. Perhaps mentioning just two of them will suffice. First, the president would not be honest with Nigerians if he says that the government’s decision to remove fuel subsidy was well thought out, in view of the unprecedented corruption that is being uncovered in the sector. This would have occurred to the president if he had thoroughly weighed the options before making his decision public. Secondly, what deep thinking went into the establishment of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) which has not made any appreciable impact on the citizenry?

    Moreover, the president has been caught several times making several statements that he had later come back to recant, by claiming to have been misquoted. At a point, his administration has made a policy statement about Nigeria’s global rating by Transparency International (TI), during the last Independence Day broadcast that it claimed it got from a newspaper. Was that too evidence of rigorous thinking?

    What is opportune here is to tell the president to be more cautious in his pronouncements. He should stop making comments that give him off as a bemused leader. After all, he is not a new-comer to the presidency. We recall the number of years he has spent so far in office, counting from when he became substantive president after Yar’Adua’s death; this is relatively close to a whole term of four years if added to the 19 months that he started his own mandate. How longer does he expect Nigerians to wait again before reaping the dividends of democracy?

    The fact that President Jonathan has spent thus far a period in power and is still talking about the need to be ‘slow and steady’ portends a serious threat to the country’s development and growth. It is an agreeable age-long aphorism that slow and steady wins the race. But, there is nothing steady in the sluggish approach of the Jonathan administration. It is an incontrovertible fact that the government has not successfully resolved any of the country’s challenges that it met on ground.

    We ask: What has happened to power generation? What about infrastructure that have been in a shambles as typified by the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and other major federal roads across the country? What is the current state of education? The state of insecurity is more deplorable than what President Jonathan met on ground. There are several other sectors that are in fiasco and need quick and not unsteadily slow responses from the government. So, President Jonathan’s impression that his administration has so far laid solid foundations in critical sectors like agriculture, power, transportation and roads and infrastructure is misplaced.

    The president must realise that Nigerians are craving for good governance and not unsolicited presidential sermon. Despite the obvious non-performance and erratic policies of this government, we are concerned that President Jonathan has adamantly said that any step he takes, ‘whether little or giant, he won’t go back’. Let him know that his policies, as pointed out in this editorial, are not perfect. The danger ahead is that if President Jonathan continues at this pace, it will take eternity for Nigeria to witness positive change.

  • Christmas Eve attacks

    Christmas Eve attacks

    The yuletide was ruined for families, the pious and the entire nation

    In attacks that run counter to the essence of the season, gunmen unleashed mayhem on two churches in Yobe and Borno states on Christmas Eve, killing 12 people, including a pastor and a deacon. The attackers also set the Yobe church, where the pastor was killed, ablaze. The deacon and five other worshippers were killed at the First Baptist Church, Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

    And, on Christmas Day, some gunmen also opened fire on the Dawakin Tofa Local Government Council interim management officer, Alhaji Ahmed Kambai Ismaila, at about 9.30 a.m. at the Sallari Quarters in Kano. They had reportedly trailed him but shot at his vehicle when they got close to it. He escaped with injuries but his driver who was hit by the bullet died instantly.

    These incidents dented the massive security cordon in the country by relevant security agents who had anticipated the possibility of attacks to mar the Christmas celebrations. Of course there was reason to so anticipate because the attackers seem to derive joy from such senseless killings. They have done that again and again, and there is nothing to suggest that we have seen the last of such attacks. In other words, the latest attacks brought back the sad memory of the Christmas Day bombings in Madala, Niger State, last year, in which many died.

    We are saddened by the fact that the terrorists could display such a flagrant disregard for the solemn period that the Christmas represents. This is a season when virtually everybody that matters has been calling for peace around the world. As a matter of fact, Pope Benedict XVI, in his homily at the St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on Tuesday spared time to decry the attacks on churches in Nigeria. The 85-year-old pontiff, in a message watched live around the world, and also by about 40,000 pilgrims prayed for “concord in Nigeria, where savage acts of terrorism continue to reap victims, particularly among Christians”.

    We abhor terrorism in whatever form; it is even the more worrisome when it seems targeted at people of a particular religion. Nigeria is a secular state where freedom of worship is guaranteed in the constitution. So, it is wishful thinking for anyone or group to think they can silence or prevent people from practising their faiths.

    It’s high time we tackled the security challenges headlong. The government should not allow things to degenerate to a situation where people would be going to their places of worship with the Holy Book on one hand and a bazooka on the other. We do not accept President Goodluck Jonathan’s excuse that the government is taking its time in dealing with the country’s challenges so as not to make mistakes. The fact is that time is running out; Boko Haram, for instance, has been with us since 2009 and about 3,000 persons have been killed in its various bombings and other attacks since then.

    Yet, all that the government keeps giving Nigerians are assurances that ‘it is on top of the situation’. A time there was when the president even told us that by June this year, Boko Haram would have been history. It is six months after and the terrorists are still wreaking havoc in the nation. So, how many more lives do we have to lose before the government gets its acts together?

    What we are saying is that it should not take eternity for things to change for a government that knows its onion. The fact is that President Jonathan has not inspired much hope in any area of our lives in the years that he has been president, which is unfortunate. In case the president needs to be reminded, security is the first task of any government. A government that cannot guarantee this has lost the basis of its existence.