The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Unsubsidised incongruities

    Unsubsidised incongruities

    •Presidency withers as subsidy palaver yields curious revelations

    WHEN and how the fuel subsidy scam will end seems not in sight, but one incontrovertible point is that the Jonathan presidency gets sucked into it and is worsted almost every passing day. Each day dawns with a widening circle of suspects, co-conspirators and brigands in what will pass for the worst free-for-all pillaging of Nigeria’s treasury in recent times.

    Recall that last January, President Goodluck Jonathan had kick-started the year with the announcement of the yanking off of a supposed subsidy in the price of petrol. It was a total removal which caused the retail price of the commodity to increase by about 100 per cent. The reaction of Nigerians was spontaneous and unanimous in rejecting the change and insisting on a reversal. A weeklong protest ensued, which shut down most of the country and turned violent in some places, claiming lives. After one week of anomie, the president backed down by reducing the price of petrol from N140.00 per litre to N97.00 (up from N70.00); government perhaps in response to the charge that there was no subsidy in the first place, further went on to raise various probe panels to review not just the subsidy regime but to x-ray the entire oil and gas sector in order to reveal the impediments and constraints.

    Subsidy shocker

    The aftermath of the January subsidy shocker, the subsequent mass protests and the panoply of probe committees have yielded results both the government and the people probably never envisaged. First was the revelation that trillions of naira in phantom ‘subsidy’ payouts was made to party cronies and (it is now being revealed), perhaps members of the executive arm of government. Some of the probes, especially the one headed by Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have reported mindboggling malfeasance, fraud and mismanagement in the oil and gas sector.

    The government, especially the Presidency, seems to be out on a limb in finding solution to this ‘subsidy’ crisis that seems to get more toxic to the system as the days go by. Just a few days ago, yet another twist was introduced to the twirl as a sitting cabinet minister was linked to a company indicted for subsidy fraud to the tune of over N2.7 billion. The firm, Pinnacle Contractors Limited, is suspected to be owned by the current Minister of Labour and Productivity, Mr. Emeka Wogu. Wogu had denied any knowledge of Pinnacle Contractors in one breath and in yet another, it is said that the company was owned by Wogu family but was sold in 2010 before the subsidy scam started.

    The story went that Masters Energy which supposedly bought Pinnacle continued to use the Wogu family name to get fuel import allocations for the new parent company, Masters Energy, to execute.

    We dare say that we find the Wogu family business tale curious, insulting and implausible, to say the least. Is it not strange that families sell businesses in Nigeria, “lock, stock and barrel”, not retaining any interest whatsoever in it? Besides, it sounds fictional that a company that has changed ownership could remain influential enough to secure multi-billion naira worth of allocations from government for its new owners. Yet again, how come the Federal Ministry of Finance made such huge payouts to such a company without as much as a cursory check? To think that these huge payments were made to Pinnacle after and in spite of the January upheaval, signposts how deep corruption has seeped into the system.

    We would not have been overly troubled if Wogu had not been recently appointed by the president as chairman of the White Paper Committee in the criminal investigations that indicted Pinnacle Contractors. We find this phenomenon utterly incongruous and worrisome and the signals this sends are at once dangerous and debilitating to the system. In fact incongruity seems to have become the new policy of the Jonathan administration, especially as it concerns this subsidy affair. In the first place, the petroleum resources minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke under whose watch, authority and approval the subsidy scam was perpetrated has remained in office and is indeed, setting up committees to probe what is obviously her inefficiency and mismanagement of the oil and gas sector.

    Again, at the helm of a Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Subsidy Payments is the managing director and chief executive of Access Bank, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, whose bank played crucial roles for its customers in the subsidy transactions. Having him sit in judgment over some of the companies his bank had mutually rewarding business dealings with is to take the incongruous to another level.

    Fish wives tale

    Further, we must state that we do not believe Wogu’s fish wives tale in the least and we think he has insulted the intelligence of Nigerians to no end by that hocus-pocus of a story. We suggest that he should be asked to go or at least step aside until investigations are concluded. The former minister of power and steel, Professor Barth Nnaji had to resign on a question of compromise of his office. This is a graver offence and Wogu’s continued stay in office will do nothing but further damage to the Presidency and the administration. Of course he must be removed immediately from heading the White Paper Committee.

    As we have said on this page before, the subsidy affair has taken a life of its own and it is sure to define the Jonathan administration whichever way it is eventually resolved. Will it unravel Jonathan or will he find it a stepping stone to greatness and statesmanship?

  • Georgia’s bad dream

    Georgia’s bad dream

    When President Mikheil Saakashvili swiftly conceded his party’s defeat to his fierce rival, Bidzina Ivanishvili, after last month’s Georgian parliamentary elections, it raised hopes that the transfer of power might avoid the score-settling that has disfigured the country’s post-Soviet politics.

    Although Mr Ivanishvili railed against alleged abuses of power by Mr Saakashvili during the campaign, he too seemed willing to be conciliatory. The new premier promised not to seek revenge against the president’s United National Movement, which had ruled Georgia since the “Rose revolution” of 2003.

    It has not taken long for this flowering of cross-party cordiality to wither. Since the poll, the prime minister has pursued a widening campaign against politicians and officials connected with Mr Saakashvili. There has been a wave of arrests of officials and former ministers. In the latest sweep, a group of interior ministry employees have been charged with conducting illegal surveillance of Mr Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition during the campaign.

    Few doubt that Mr Saakashvili has questions to answer about the way the UNM ran Georgia before the election. In its desire to dominate affairs, his government too often blurred the line between party politics and state institutions. The sense that the government used the justice system for its own ends was a factor in its defeat. Some of the treatment meted out to Georgian Dream was highly questionable.

    But Mr Ivanishvili’s party must take care not to fall into the same trap in its thirst for redress. Some of the prime minister’s public statements, in which he has talked about pursuing UNM officials until they stop “hysterically lying”, have the flavour of a witch hunt.

    Having criticised Mr Saakashvili for using state institutions for political ends, Mr Ivanishvili should give the judiciary space in which to do its work independently. Inquiries into the last government’s conduct would command more confidence if there is less shouting from politicians on the sidelines.

    Mr Saakashvili’s allies are warning that such conduct puts Georgian democracy at risk. While that is too alarmist, the premier’s high-handedness is not without cost. Unchecked it could undermine the country’s efforts to integrate more closely with the European Union and Nato. This is one of the Rose revolution’s better legacies. Mr Ivanishvili should not undermine it.

    – The Financial Times

  • MDAs’ jamboree

    MDAs’ jamboree

    • It is bad that they failed to remit N4trn revenues in three years!

    ACCOUNTABILITY and transparency are the soul of modern governance. Without the twain, governance would be in A shambles and its activities would be a free for all bazaar that has no bearing on results or the country’s progress. This seems to be the case with the Federal Government even though the state governments’ examples have not been any stellar either.

    This question of accountability in government was raised recently by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts which is reviewing the Report of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAGF). The report for the years 2006 – 2009, had revealed that the Federal Government’s MDAs had reneged on remitting to the Federation Account, the sum of N4 trillion over this period.

    The House committee, briefing journalists, noted that it was investigating the activities of a sample of 60 out of the 601 MDAs. Citing some examples, the committee stated that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) alone had $7 billion recorded against it as unremitted revenue within this period. Another example is the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) where it was discovered that not a dime had been remitted to the Federation Account for over seven years. Solomon Adeola, the committee’s chairman puts it this way: “There is nowhere in the budget where it is stated that this is revenue from gas. NLNG has been on for over six to seven years and it is not privatised, but we have not even heard from it. And that is why this committee has invited the company to give us its revenue profile.” The committee also invited the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke and the heads of the agencies under her supervision, including the NNPC, NLNG, the Department of Petroleum Resources, (DPR); the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, (PPPRA) and the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, (PPMC).

    It is grave indeed that agencies which are supposed to be the nation’s cash cows would operate for years without giving account or making remittances to the common till. It must be one of the surest signs of a government that is remiss in its duties and indeed, one that has forgotten the reason for its existence. It is something akin to a failed state where key agencies of government would operate for years without turning in any results or reports for that matter.

    For a government that mandates private concerns to render annual accounts, it is shocking that the activities of its agencies are often shrouded in secrecy. This unwholesome situation is particularly worrisome in the cases of highly commercial agencies, especially in oil and gas, telecommunications and maritime sectors, to name a few. But even at that, it ought to be standard practice that all MDAs should properly and publicly render financial accounts of their activities annually.

    While we commend the House Committee on Public Accounts for what could be described as a rescue operation, we also suggest that this being a fundamental issue, it should not be left at the whims of the agencies involved to act right. We suggest that requisite laws be enacted to make it mandatory for MDAs to render annual accounts and it must be made publicly just like companies quoted on the Stock Exchange. We also suggest that for full effect, it may not be out of place for a body to be set up to receive and review these accounts promptly and issue queries as appropriate. This is without prejudice to the OAGF.

    The issues at hand here are serious matters of state. Again, they border on accountability, transparency, diligent harnessing of state resources and institution building. This is an opportunity to properly situate these matters. Let’s not miss it. We must stop this jamboree.

     

  • State-of-the-nation

    State-of-the-nation

    •We welcome eminent Nigerians’ intervention

    Fifty prominent leaders from the South and North of Nigeria met at the Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, on November 21, to ruminate over the state-of-the-nation. The leaders, under the aegis of ‘Project Nigeria’ had Prof Ben Nwabueze as chairman. The organisation, which promised to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership of the National Assembly, sees itself as a platform to canvass good governance and establish unity among the different interests in the country. In pursuit of its agenda, it set up a committee headed by a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Adamu Ciroma.

    A source who attended the meeting revealed that the project became imperative because “the country is fast declining; we must save the country from collapse. We must close ranks and ensure that things are done properly”. But this was not the end of the story, as investigations showed that many of the participants at the meeting were skeptical about the ongoing constitution review, arguing that it would be a fruitless exercise. However, the meeting resolved, in line with the feeling of many Nigerians, that there was need for a national conference to solve most of Nigeria’s problems.

    To say that the nation has undergone a serious decline is an understatement. Over the years, corruption and indiscipline have been on the rise at all levels. The Boko Haram is one of the negative dividends of poor or lack of education, general unemployment and poverty in a country that is the sixth largest producer of oil whose citizens, therefore, have no reason to be poor. The general poverty in the country is caused by greedy and selfish misappropriation of the nation’s wealth by a few people. This has raised concerns, just as the current rising frustration in the land and the high inflation rate that has sent the prices of goods and products skyrocketing. The high level of poverty and the big gap between the leaders and those they are supposed to govern and care for remain worrisome and capable of leading to violent revolution against the elite.

    Perhaps one of the most serious problems confronting the country today is insecurity. Sporadic bombings of churches and public places by Boko Haram, kidnappings, armed robberies, ritual killings for money- making and other purposes, etc. have become the order of the day. The situation in the country is that even the future is uncertain. In short, life has become ‘nasty, brutish and short’.

    In these circumstances, we expect every patriotic Nigerian to be concerned and to proffer solutions to the challenges. We, therefore, thank the eminent Nigerians involved in ‘Project Nigeria’ for their concern about the state-of-the-nation. We hasten to add, however, that our politicians must be ready to put national interests above parochial ones, especially among the elite in the different geo-political zones.

    But the problems can never be solved just by a review of the constitution as the National Assembly posits, because previous reviews have never solved the country’s problems. The 1999 Constitution is particularly defective in that it was handed to us by soldiers who were forced, more or less, to leave the political scene; it is not a product of any democratic process properly so-called. Even constitutions put together by egg-heads are subjected to periodic reviews.

    This is why it is gratifying that the eminent citizens involved in the ‘Project Nigeria’ themselves acknowledged that we need a national conference to thrash out the issues. We are disgusted with successive governments’ stance on this matter because they are not helping the situation. It is high time we went beyond the usual panel beating and patch-ups that have only scratched our social, economic, political, educational and religious problems in the surface without touching the fundamentals. We need to talk.

  • Another harebrained project?

    Another harebrained project?

    •We need full disclosure on what the envisaged national carrier entails

    After the woeful experience of the Nigeria Airways, no patriotic Nigerian would ever want the Federal Government or any government in the country to have anything to do with running an airline. But the Nigerian government seems to be coming up with another harebrained proposition: it says a new national carrier with at least 30 brand new aircraft would soon be established in the country. The disclosure was made by the Director of Airport Operations of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Henry Omeogu, at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, Rivers State, during an interactive session with newsmen.

    We wonder what the role of government would be in the initiative to warrant its breaking the news, if it is entirely private sector-driven as we were told. Government’s business starts and ends with ensuring that those who intend to establish airlines in the country meet the required criteria; and to ensure that standards are maintained even after the airlines have become operational. Ordinarily, we would have remained silent until a clearer picture of what the initiative entails because Mr Omeogu did not give details. But experience has shown that delay in speaking up on such matters could be dangerous.

    If our guess is right that the government wants to play another Father Christmas role in this project, then it should forget the idea. We want to remind it that when it comes to owning and running airlines, Nigeria has come a long way. Our experience with Nigeria Airways is still fresh in mind. The Nigeria Airways was a good example of how a bad business should be run. It cancelled scheduled flights at will, oftentimes because some government officials needed the aircraft at the time of flight. Interestingly, the government officials for whom the flights were cancelled hardly paid their fares; they saw the airline as an extension of the government because it was owned by it.

    As it were, Nigeria Airways became a metaphor for inefficiency, corruption, ineptitude, waste and bad governance. Indeed, incessant government interference was the proverbial last straw that broke its camel’s back.

    Subsequent attempts to have another national carrier ended up in fiasco. We recall the Virgin Nigeria experience and that of Arik Air. Even when the government decided to bail the airlines out of their financial crisis, we have little or nothing to show for it. Some of the airline owners just pocketed the bailout funds. It is not unlikely that some of them would have become richer, post-handout, than they were when they founded the airlines.

    The idea to float another national carrier, especially if it would involve government funding in any way appears a grand design to warehouse funds for the 2015 elections. This is much more so since those responsible for the death of Nigeria Airways are yet to face any sanctions. It is the Nigerian tax-payers that are made to bear this unfortunate burden. This is one of the few countries where people would commit such crimes and they would still be walking the streets free.

    Above all, the decision on the coming airline is beyond the FAAN boss who made the disclosure. It is a major policy decision that should be announced by at least the aviation minister. May be if this had been done, a clearer picture of how exactly the government intends to go about it would have emerged. It is simply not enough for the government to say the initiative would be private-sector driven. In Nigeria, that is a nebulous concept. It is however not too late for the government to tell Nigerians what the idea entails. Only people with the discipline should be nostalgic about having a national carrier, not Nigeria.

  • Dirty nation, dying people

    Dirty nation, dying people

    • Nigerians groan under increasing health challenges

    If healthy nations are wealthy nations, then Nigeria must be one of the world’s poorest countries. Two sobering revelations recently confirmed the critical state of its health situation. The first came from the World Health Organisation (WHO), which raised an alarm on what it called the worsening health crisis in the country, characterised by unacceptably high levels of infant and maternal mortality, low access to healthcare in the rural areas and truncated life-expectancy rates. The second was from the United Nations, and stated that about 34 million Nigerians –nearly 20 per cent of the total population – defecate in public, despite the obviously negative consequences the practice posed for public health.

    While these revelations are a disturbing indication of the depths to which the country has sunk, they cannot be said to be surprising. Nigeria’s very high infant and maternal mortality rates are a huge scandal in a nation that ranks as one of the world’s top oil exporters. Years of rural health programmes have failed to ensure that the bulk of citizens who live in the rural areas get access to the health services that they need so desperately. The country has been turned into a giant open-air latrine, thanks to a fetid combination of inadequate infrastructure, widespread ignorance and a refusal to consider innovative solutions to the problem.

    Nigeria’s health and sanitation crises are attributable to causes which have gone unresolved over decades and have, as a result, mutated into almost-intractable challenges. The country’s infant mortality rates are the consequence of the failure to build upon the sterling work carried out by the late Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti in enhancing child immunisation in the late 1980s. Instead of making progress in this area, the country has performed so poorly that it now endangers other nations by being one of few places in the world where polio is yet to be eradicated. A steady decline in the quality of pre-natal and ante-natal services made available to pregnant women has ensured that maternal mortality rates remain stubbornly high. It has now become the norm for anyone who can afford it to give birth outside Nigeria’s shores.

    The country’s woeful record on personal sanitary habits is another case of deep-rooted incompetence on the part of successive governments. Open-air defecation is a medieval practice that was supposed to have died a natural death with the emergence of modern water-closet toilets. However, the failure to build social infrastructure, especially the non-provision of potable water, has made it convenient for large sections of the populace to adopt easier, if dirtier, methods of relieving themselves. Apart from the practice of shamelessly defecating in broad daylight, there is also the so-called “shot-put” method, which involves voiding faecal matter into the ubiquitous black polythene bags and throwing the package as far away as possible. So widespread is this filthy practice that even students in higher institutions have become notorious for doing it.

    No nation can begin to seriously contemplate economic advancement of any kind if its citizens are rendered perpetually unhealthy by basic health challenges and unsanitary habits. Policy concerns must move away from ludicrous white-elephant projects to those which directly affect the masses. In this regard, Nigeria must revive the vibrancy that its childhood immunisation programme had under Ransome-Kuti. Efforts must be re-directed towards ensuring that its primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities are revamped in order to deal with increasing populations and higher expectations. The nation must ensure that the millions of dollars in local resources and foreign counterpart funding reach the health projects that they are meant for. Above all, the federal and state governments have to wage a comprehensive war against the widespread poverty and deprivation that have made Nigerians so vulnerable to disease and death.

  • Capital flight

    Capital flight

    SANUSI Lamido Sanusi, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), made the startling revelation that about $11bn (N1.73trillion) moved out of the country through the nation’s airports so far this year. He spoke at an event organised by Bank Directors Association of Nigeria, in Lagos.

    The CBN governor in his vintage self captures the repulsive trend: “In this country, almost everybody uses the dollar. This year alone, the records we have based on the declared amount at the airports is getting to about $11bn in cash that was taken out of Nigeria….Why would anyone walk out of an airport with $5million? Well, they will say it is because the law has made it clear that you can take any amount so long as you have declared it and I cannot stop you.’’

    These figures, though scary, might be an understatement in view of the country’s poor record-keeping profile. Thence, coming from someone who should know, we feel that whatever the released documented official figures now, it is obvious that it could be higher. In effect, if legal capital flight could be as high as this, then, smuggled money through the airports could double this amount.

    The pointers: Just recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, arrested one 24 year-old Abubakar Tijani Sheriff for attempting to smuggle $7million (about N1.101billion) out of the country to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He had escaped security scrutiny from other agencies at the airport but was apprehended at the point of boarding by operatives of the commission. During routine airport checks, he lied that he had a sum of $4.5million on him but a thorough screening showed that he was actually carrying $7,049,444 (Seven million, forty-nine thousand, four hundred and forty-four United States Dollars). Last week too, a man was reportedly arrested for attempting to smuggle $350,000 out of the country, among others too numerous to catalogue.

    We are aware of reports that some Nigerian citizens are routinely arrested at airports in Europe and North America for currency smuggling. In virtually all these cases, the money is lost as they are never repatriated to the country. All these underscore the countless money smuggling acts that escaped the scrutiny of security agencies at airports across the country.

    It is bad for the economy that the recorded amount of capital flight from the country outweighs its Total Foreign Direct Investment profile. The amount of money ferried out of the country this year alone, as declared by Mallam Sanusi, is more than a third of the country’s total national income. If a projected estimate of the undocumented figures siphoned abroad is added, then, it could be higher than the total national income. This portends a serious problem ahead for a country that can only boast of a mere $1billion in its Sovereign Wealth Fund.

    The government should do something drastic to curtail the high rate of capital flight. The documented amount of $11billion moved through the airports to develop the economies of foreign countries is scandalous for a country that is still groping to provide employment, quality education and necessary infrastructure, etc. Perhaps, the time has come for the government to device a means that would encourage wealthy Nigerians to invest in the national economy. This can only be achieved though, with the right investment climate and political stability.

  • More questions than answers

    More questions than answers

    THE termination of the N89.53billion design, build, operate and transfer (DBOT) contract, awarded Bi-Courtney Consortium, a Nigerian firm on May 26, 2009, has resonated well among the longsuffering travellers daily exposed to the avoidable death trap the important artery has become.

    But the termination of the contract, and its re-award to the pair of Julius Berger and Reynolds Construction Company (RCC), does not automatically solve the problem. The challenge facing both the Federal Government and Bi-Courtney is to avoid a situation where the see-saw would lead to total paralysis. But that appears easier said than done, with threats and counter-threats of legal action flying all over the place.

    The charges against Bi-Courtney, as reeled out by Mike Onolememen, the works minister, included an alleged serial breaching of its contractual terms, despite alleged constant reminders that it keep to the terms, so much so that six months to the end of the agreed contract duration (May 2009 to May 2012), no work had taken off on the all-important road. Because of the daily carnage on the roads, the minister reasoned, the Federal Government had no choice but to revoke the contract. The carnage bit might appear an emotional pitch when the full details of the contract are undisclosed. But it has been well received by the public.

    The counter charges from Bi-Courtney included allegations that the Federal Government, which though calculated the contract duration from 2009, took a whole of two years to approve the design of the road. If that were so, who now pays for the two years spent on design approval? Bi-Courtney also alleged government’s bad faith by changing tack when the company had already secured the commitment of foreign firms to execute the project, aside from Abuja allegedly folding its arms while Bi-Courtney battled some South West governors for alleged right of way.

    How all this would stand in court, should the company resort to legal action as it is threatening it would, is not clear. What is clear is that court proceedings would further slow down work on the road. And should Bi-Courtney secure an injunction, it would be near-paralysis for a long time to come! Besides, it is doubtful if either Julius Berger or RCC would go ahead and execute any work, with a legal threat hanging in the air. That is why both sides must come to a compromise, in the interest of the suffering public.

    But aside from the legal overhang, there seems to be more questions than answers in the reported re-award of the contract. Aside from breaking the 125-kilometre road into two, with Julius Berger handling the Lagos end to the Sagamu interchange and RCC handling the Sagamu-Ibadan end, the Federal Government’s announcement has been rather vacuous.

    The works minister talked of “emergency re-construction” of the expressway – pray, what does that mean? The DBOT contract envisaged adding two more lanes on each side, making it an eight-lane expressway, at least from Lagos to the Sagamu interchange. Is the “emergency re-construction” sticking to that model or just retaining the road as it is now? If it is sticking to the DBOT plan, it cannot obviously adopt the Bi-Courtney designs without running into legal mines. That means it has to come up with a new design. If that is so, how then can the two firms begin immediate and emergency re-construction? If it is just to reconstruct the road as it is, how sound would that decision be, given the explosion of traffic in that axis?

    The revocation of the contract, for what appears non-performance, looks good on the surface. But the government must volunteer more information to show the problem is being solved for real. Right now, there are simply more questions than answers.

  • Britain’s Place in Europe

    Britain’s Place in Europe

    Euro-scepticism has remained a current in British politics, long after Britain put aside centuries of anti-European sentiment to join the Common Market in 1973 and to become a member of the more highly integrated European Union 20 years later.

    Until now, periodic spasms of parochialism did little lasting harm. But since the European debt crisis and recession, there has been growing sentiment across the British political spectrum for leaving the European Union. As Roger Carr, the leader of Britain’s biggest business group, the Confederation of British Industry, rightly warned on Monday, this latest trend needs to be taken seriously and strongly countered by pro-European business and political leaders. Leading political figures expect a national referendum to be called on continued British membership in the European Union, probably for 2015. If it were held today, an Opinion/Observer poll suggests, the anti-European side would prevail, with a large majority of Conservatives, a plurality of Labour voters and a significant minority of Liberal Democrats voting for a British exit.

    Leaving the union would be a grave mistake, sacrificing Britain’s best hopes for a brighter economic future to half-baked longing for the simpler days when the British ruled an empire and had less need for European trade. There’s plenty of time for pro-Europe leaders to make that case. But they must heed Mr. Carr’s advice and speak up.

    Twenty-seven countries now belong to the European Union, with several more nations like Iceland, Serbia and Turkey hoping to join. Even without further expansion, the union accounts for almost 50 percent of British trade and is its largest trading partner.

    Of course, the sceptics can point to the European Union’s many disappointments. Too much senseless, stifling regulation flows from a bureaucracy with too little democratic accountability. Costly and indefensible agricultural subsidies to local farmers deny needed markets to developing countries and are a factor in driving economic refugees to Europe, a movement that politicians like to rant against.

    The euro was established as a common currency with too little preparation and institutional support. And, over the past year, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has been destructively pushing her partners to enact laws that would prolong the recession by setting rigid deficit ceilings, denying countries the fiscal flexibility sometimes needed to revive growth.

    But the union’s shortcomings are all the more reason for Britain to keep its seat at the table where Europe’s economic future will be made.

    Britain, as the Continent’s third-largest economy after Germany and France, has had a crucial role in shaping European policy, pushing the bloc toward freer trade and away from political federalism. And it has helped preserve the rights of others to opt out of unwanted initiatives like the euro. With decisions on fiscal policy, bank supervision and financial regulation likely to be made in the near future, Britain’s voice is needed more than ever to protect British interests and larger European ones as well.

    British supporters of continued European Union membership in all three major parties and in the business community need to counter the seductive simplicities of the euro-bashers who claim that Britain can ignore Europe and thrive on its own. They need to make the case that British engagement in Europe should be, as Mr. Carr put it Monday, “the linchpin of our wider global trade ambitions.” Britain needs the European Union as much as it needs Britain.

    – A version of this editorial appeared in print on November 23, 2012, on page A34 of the New York edition with the headline: Britain’s Place in Europe.

  • Presidential chat or farce?

    Presidential chat or farce?

    The event does not enrich us, so it should be scrapped

    When the president decides to confront the questions about the state of the nation, we expect to see and hear a presidential effusion on a sublime scale. But it seems the Presidential Chat instituted for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has turned out to be a ritual of repetitious humdrum shorn of breathtaking vision, coherent policies and moments of inspiration for a country famished for cheer.

    It is obvious from the format of the event and the suffocating profile of the president that the chat is billed to make the nation’s chief executive look good. With the array of editors and other members of the media elite, we should have expected a robust exchange of wit and ideas in an atmosphere of friendly affray, sombre without being adversarial. But what we saw last week was not only the absence of such intellectual tart, but a drab air of courtesy overwhelming any hint of the exigencies of the nation’s problems.

    It was marked, however, by a clever accommodation of some of the major themes of today’s Nigeria. There were questions about infrastructure deficit, the abyss of corruption, the instability of power, the educational paralysis in the land, the hobgoblin of fuel subsidy and a number of other pressing matters. Yet, like a person who eats a meal but feels hungrier, Nigerians were left without a sense of what essentially President Jonathan is ladling out to the nation from the diet of his vision.

    On infrastructure, for instance, he referred to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, which he acknowledged as Nigeria’s priority road. He also made commitments to the Ore-Benin Road just as he had often shown verbal enthusiasm about the fatal East-West Road.

    But so curious was the infrastructure offering that he did not reveal to the nation that his government had yanked Bi-Courtney from handling the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway project. It was left for the nation to hear a day later that two other firms had now signed contracts to rebuild that all-important road. Why did the president not even announce it? So what was the point of the chat if such a fundamental decision had been taken? So was the chat for routine questions and answers?

    Now, Bi-Courtney has threatened a court action. But in what seems even more curious, the proprietor of the company, Wale Babalakin, suddenly jumped on the headlines on charges from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for money laundering involving the convicted former governor of Delta State, James Ibori. From analysts’ perspectives, the charges were merely to witch-hunt the man into impotence and immobilise him from pursuing the challenge of the contract loss.

    It must be stated that there is nothing wrong with charging him if there is indeed a case. But the timing betrays not only naivety but desperation. What is important to us is not whether or not Babalakin is charged but whether the road is delivered properly to Nigerians. We also know that Bi-Courtney has not been able to deliver on the road.

    We fear though that litigation based on the nature of the shift of contractors might entangle the road in paralytic quarrels and the ordinary Nigerian traveller may suffer from the battle of elephants. This will prove another test of leadership for the president.

    The president also launched an attack on former President Olusegun Obasanjo over his invasion of Odi in Bayelsa State. President Jonathan’s answer found refuge in opportunistic rancour by attacking a former president rather than addressing his own failing in tackling perhaps the worst era of insecurity in the nation since the 1960’s when we were embroiled in a civil war.

    We cannot shy from the barbarous imbecility of the Odi or Zaku Biam atrocities. But we know, too, that the president has a case to answer on Boko Haram insurgency. It is not enough that Jonathan enlisted a former head of state like Yakubu Gowon, who has shown, in his obsession with divine supplication, an inability to x-ray Nigeria’s problem. He is clearly an establishment lobbyist, always in lockstep with the power of the day.

    The president also assailed us with contradiction on the issue of fuel subsidy removal. A day earlier, he made headlines over his declaration that the fuel subsidy would go. Then he denied it in the media chat. But what was not clarified was whether the president undertook a policy pirouette or he had challenges with articulation.

    This brings us back to the real value of the chats as an important avenue for gauging the policy thrust or visionary preoccupation of the president. In both areas, we have not benefited as a nation.

    Rather, it has helped only to expose a president out of touch with the basic impulses of the people and their yearnings for good government. As an interaction, it is a parody of free speech as the captains of the industry come away as having been outdone by a lackluster communicator.

    If the presidential chat with its phony openness to phone calls, emails, twitters and blogs do not ennoble us with serious questions and answers, we recommend that it should discontinue. It has been a chat that does not chart the way forward.