Category: Editorial

In just nine months, this is good sport; but where is all the money by the way?

HOW, what cheery news the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has infected us with in a season of seeming national moodiness and strife. That the FIRS has been able to gather up into the nation’s treasury, a whopping N3,800,000,000,000.00 in just nine months, is a feat worthy to be lauded. Though we are not told the comparative figures from the third quarter of 2011, it is still a tidy bundle of money by any measure. When we factor in takings from other sources such as crude oil receipts, revenue from the Nigeria Customs and numerous commercial agencies and parastatals, the country’s earnings are bound to exceed her annual budget targets.

While FIRS’ performance is commendable (and we hope it will surpass the N4.628trn year-end earnings of 2011), there is still ample room to do much more. First, in the areas where it has experienced exponential loss in revenue, for instance, Stamp Duties which fell from N4.42 billion to N1.87 billion and National Information Technology Development Fund which plunged from N2.28 billion to N427 million, efforts must be made to ensure that such huge variance never occurs again in those areas.

More important, we expect FIRS as the taxman to get more proactive and creative in making Nigerians pay tax, especially the so-called ‘super-rich’ who flaunt their wealth and exhibit so much extravagance. A good case in point is the recent report that there are over 150 private jets in Nigeria. With each jet costing between $40 – $50 million, it is expected that individuals or companies that own such high luxury items are tracked and made to pay adequate taxes. This approach also has the salutary effect of helping to curb ostentatious living and check corruption.

But, beyond huge tax revenues, we ask, where is all the money? The total federal tax revenue for the year ended 2011 was N4.6 trillion and the federal budget was in the same range; there is also the crude oil sales revenue, among other sources of income for the Federal Government, yet there seems to always be a shortage of funds to back the budget and carry out government programmes.

Recently, there was furore over non-funding of most of Nigeria’s foreign missions, necessitating a near collapse of her embassies and high commissions across the world. The matter was so severe that some top officials posted abroad were forced to return home in search of funds for the basic necessities of the missions.

Recall too that since the middle of the year, there has been a running feud between the National Assembly and the Federal Executive Council over the pace of implementation of the federal budget. The impression has been that there was a shortage of cash to back budget proposals, thus the under-performance of the current budget. Recent attempts by the government to access foreign loans, coupled with ever-burgeoning domestic debts re-echo the question: where is all the money gone?

There is no doubt that government needs to show a lot more transparency, especially as regards accruals to the federal coffers. The people need to know all the possible receivables so that they can be on the same page with the government.

Above all, we must note that in more developed economies, the fear of the tax man is the beginning of wisdom for most citizens and he helps keep every man on his toes as regards tax responsibilities to the state. In other words, we urge the FIRS to dig deeper. The era where it sits in its lush office and watch tax revenues flow into its till ought to be over now. With ample creativity, Nigeria’s tax revenues could be nigh limitless.

WHEN ANTI-AMERICAN demonstrations spread around the world this month, the Obama administration focused much of its public response on denouncing the anti-Muslim video that had provoked outrage and provided a pretext for extremists. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton rightly distanced the U.S. government from the video and stressed the American system of religious tolerance; more disturbingly, the White House asked Google to consider removing the offending video from its YouTube Web site.

So it was heartening Tuesday to hear Mr. Obama, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly, deliver a vigorous defense of freedom of speech, including the right of individuals to “blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.”

“Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views — even views that we disagree with,” the president said. Without such freedom, he said, individuals might be stopped from practicing their own faith; “efforts to restrict speech can become a tool to silence critics or oppress minorities.” He concluded: “Given the power of faith in our lives and the passion that religious differences can inflame, the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech.”

Mr. Obama went on to denounce violence as a response to speech, and to insist that other leaders speak out against extremism — including “those who — even when not resorting to violence — use hatred of America, or the West, or Israel as a central principle of politics.” The rhetoric was well-targeted: Anti-Americanism has become a tool of extremist and reactionary forces in the power struggles underway in post-revolutionary Arab states. The anti-Muslim video — a vile but obscure piece of Internet flotsam — was seized on by militants in Egypt and Libya as a means for rallying support in Cairo and as a cover for staging an armed assault on U.S. personnel in Benghazi.

It is important for the president and his administration to try to make clear to the majority of Muslims — who do not participate in demonstrations but follow the controversy — that the United States does not sponsor or endorse religious slander. That fact, while obvious to Americans, is not widely understood in the Middle East. But it is just as important to send the message that American free speech will not be curbed to suit religious sensibilities and that violence will not be tolerated. “We will bring justice to those who harm our citizens and our friends,” Mr. Obama said. Delivering on those words will be another important piece of the administration’s response.

– Washington Post

Imelda Marcos’ legendary shoe collection goes to waste 

The recent announcement that the over 1,220 pairs of shoes amassed by Imelda Marcos, wife of the late President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, has gone to waste is a testimony to the vanity of worldly ambition and the ultimate foolishness of human greed.

Reports have it that the shoes, clothes, accessories and other materials accumulated by the Marcos family during the two-decade dictatorship of its patriarch, and abandoned by them when they fled the country during the “People Power” revolt of 1986, have been damaged by years of neglect and poor storage. They had initially been kept at the Presidential Palace in Manila, and then transferred to the National Museum after termites and humidity began to affect them. Little effort was made to properly preserve them, and flooding appears to have damaged many items beyond repair.

Given the monumental avariciousness with which Mrs. Marcos collected shoes and other fashion items, the neglect and damage that they have sustained demonstrate the true extent of her greed. Once kept in custom-built, temperature-controlled and heavily-secured walk-in closets, these things have become a fitting epitaph for a wasteful, corrupt and useless regime. At a time when thousands were starving and denied access to educational, healthcare and other aspects of social welfare, the Marcos family embarked on an orgy of conspicuous consumption that was almost unrivalled in contemporary history.

Unfortunately, they are the rule rather than the exception. The developing world in particular is littered with insatiable leaders whose greed virtually has no limit. The rogue’s gallery includes star performers like Congo Democratic Republic’s President Mobutu Sese Seko, who was adjudged to be wealthier than his country; Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the “emperor” of the Central African Empire, whose ambition was to become Africa’s Napoleon Bonaparte; Haiti’s “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who used a combination of murder and voodoo to sustain himself in power. Even Nigeria had its General Sani Abacha, whose determination to perpetuate himself in office was exceeded only by the rapaciousness with which he looted the nation he purported to lead.

Imelda Marcos’ obsession with shoes is symbolic of the moral regression that affects many rulers and their families when they attain the heights of power. She often claimed that the shoes were gifts from adoring citizens, but she never thought to ever give away even one pair of the over 1,220 pairs that adorned her homes. As museum officials struggle to preserve what they can of her tainted legacy, she is currently a law-maker in her country, continuously regaling the citizenry with promises of a return to power. Her superlative shoe collection, however, is as useless to her as it is to her shoeless compatriots who could have benefitted from a timely display of generosity on her part.

Nigeria in 2012 is eerily similar to the Philippines in 1986. There is the same ostentatious display of wealth by politicians and their cronies, the same contempt for public opinion, the same confidence in impunity. Only recently, it was revealed that the Nigerian elite rank among the most assiduous purchasers of private jets anywhere in the world. The populace is repeatedly assailed with tales of frauds involving the theft of billions of naira. Industrialists, bankers, traditional rulers and other wealthy Nigerians continue to breach the boundaries of good taste in their unending quest for ways to show off their ill-gotten wealth.

As they continue to indulge themselves, however, they would do well to remember the fate of Imelda Marcos’s shoes: whatever is flaunted will ultimately end up being neglected; all ostentation and luxury will inevitably come to an end, no matter how expensive it is.

The “bloody Sunday” robbery that shook Lagos three weeks ago is still causing ripples with news of the arrest of three suspects by the police: Uche Okeagbu (23), Emmanuel Ezeani (23) and Chinonso Nwuaugwu(23). In the incident which sent the city into panic, a gang of dare-devil robbers shot dead three policemen, a bureau de change operator, a commercial motorcyclist and a commercial bus driver; and more than 10 people were believed to have been injured. The robbers drove round in two vehicles, spreading horror as they escaped with their loot of foreign currencies stolen from a bureau de change in Agege. For hours, the gang terrorised the public as it surfaced at Ifako- Gbagada, Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, Mile 2 and Agege.

Jolted by the apparent ease with which the robbers carried out their violent operation, the Inspector- General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar, reacted with strong words for his men: “There is no doubt, some of you are sleeping on duty,” he said, adding, “We can’t fold our arms; and policemen must be seen and felt on every road and street in Lagos. The robbery incident is an embarrassment to the force. It can never be accepted anymore.”

Probably prompted by this put-down, the state Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) swung into action and eventually arrested the three suspects that were paraded at the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja. Also on display were four vehicles which hitherto served as the gang’s mobile armoury, Infinity and Toyota Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and two Volkswagen buses, which had been reconstructed to conceal arms and ammunition. Found in the improvised chambers were : two rocket-propelled grenade launchers, five dynamites with a detonator, two general purpose machine guns, nine AK47 rifles, 225 AK47 magazines (fully loaded), 260 rounds of GPMG live ammunition, and over 10,000 rounds of live AK47 ammunition. Police commissioner Umar Manko said one of the gang’s operational vehicles also has a sensor Close Circuit Television (CCTV) to monitor whoever was trailing them.

The discovery of these arms and ammunition is simply mind-boggling, and shows how well equipped the robbers were for their evil business. The level of sophistication of their weapons and operational devices is also amazing. This development definitely raises a crucial question about the source of such weaponry. Furthermore, it highlights the possibility that there are criminals on the loose who might have an operational capacity that is beyond the police. So, the issue of probable complacency of the police raised by the IGP does not seem to address a fundamental question. We ask: How well equipped is the force to deal with such crimes?

To go by his words, however, the IGP would have us believe that the police should be up to the task. In his reaction to the incident, he told his men: “They must put more strategy on ground and methodology of fighting crimes. We cannot fold our hands anymore and allow few criminals to terrorise residents. The governor has given us everything that we need in terms of mobility, in terms of technology, in terms of support and we shouldn’t allow the people of Lagos to be terrorised by common charlatans and criminals.” On our part, we wonder whether the matter is really no more than a failure of strategy and process, and whether the force is sufficiently equipped to do its work.

It is noteworthy that the arrested suspects are young men in their twenties, and we wonder what could have attracted them to a life of crime at their age. In a sense, their alleged involvement in the “bloody Sunday” mayhem could be a metaphor for the state of the nation with its huge unemployment crisis and pervasive corrupt values.

AS at last weekend, about 30 out of Nigeria’s 36 states had been affected by heavy flooding that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed properties worth millions of naira. The worst hit are Kogi, Benue, Taraba, Edo, Anambra, Nassarawa, Bayelsa, Plateau, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, to name a few. Taraba, Kogi and parts of Benue states have particularly come under the wrath of a rampaging flood. Kogi’s capital, Lokoja being at the confluence between Rivers Niger and Benue is at the vortex of the flood which has devastated most of the capital, Lokoja, spreading through local council areas, towns and villages like Dekina, Ibaji, Ankpa, Ajaokuta, Bassa and Kotonkarfe.

Quite troubling was that the deluge could submerge the Abuja-Lokoja highway, a major artery linking the north of Nigeria to the south and rendering it impassable to the throng of commuters plying that road. Vast farmlands are also washed away while houses and properties in many communities across the country were damaged. The flooding has been attributed to many causes which include changing world climate which has triggered excessive rainfall, bursting dams and overflowing river banks.

With the tide high in the Atlantic Ocean, rivers Niger and its tributary, the Benue which run through the centre of the country are experiencing a backlash and a surge of water into the hinterlands. What this means is that all the areas along the plains of the two rivers will experience flooding for some time. There is also the Lagdo Dam in neighbouring Cameroun and the Kainji Dam in Niger State which water had to be released to forestall damages. If therefore the intensive rains continue as the weather agency has forecasted, it means that more flooding is to be expected.

It is true that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) had warned about the impending deluge a few days before, nobody expected this magnitude of disaster. While NEMA had envisaged flood along the plains of the Niger and Benue, the reality has been more extended and devastating, leaving even the Federal Government overwhelmed. And it seems that we are in for a very long night.

As in all natural disasters, there is hardly anything that can be done to temper the intensity of the rainfall or to quell the rage of the attendant flooding. It is an emergency situation that can only be attenuated by quick intervention damage control. Governments at all levels must think relief; ingenious and urgent relief methods must be devised and deployed to disaster areas, pronto. NEMA as currently structured may not be able to do much. There may be need for emergency flood relief committees to spring up quickly and support it in all the flood-prone states.

There is need to set up more safe grounds and relief centres in the affected localities. Also, in the short run, food, blankets, mattresses, medication, potable water and other household daily needs are urgently required in some of the affected areas. Then reconstruction of houses, homesteads and communities will have to commence in earnest. Long-term measures will include opening up of water ways, dredging of canals and building of even dams in the flood-prone areas.

With the twists in world climate, these cataclysms of nature are not expected to abate. In this light, sound emergency management will be the new frontier of human development. We therefore call for a total overhaul of NEMA to include a restructuring, reorientation, retraining and provision of adequate funding for the agency. With nature seeming to lend a hand to terrorist activities around the world, the best response is to always prepare for the worst.