The Nation Newspaper

Category: Mobolaji Sanusi

  • Asiwaju: The progressive torchbearer turns 62

    Asiwaju: The progressive torchbearer turns 62

     ‘Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so’ – Charles de Gaulle’

    There is an interesting puzzle that many politicians currently in power across the country have found a hard row to hoe. That riddle is Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu – the Jagaban of Borgu land, Asiwaju of Lagos and former governor of Lagos State. Tomorrow, the man will clock 62; yet, he is still waxing stronger within the nation’s political firmament as a dependable torchbearer of the progressives.

    Without sounding immodest, it would not be out-of-place to state that today, he remains the most-sought-after politician and perhaps, the most influential one of the progressive hue in contemporary Nigeria. At a point in the history of this country, the late sage, Pa Obafemi Awolowo, was the issue. Even after the great man’s death 27 years ago, most politicians in the south-western part of the country still use his name to deceive the electorate during electioneering periods. Momentarily, Bashorun MKO Abiola appeared on the political horizon, but was cut short by the feudal military oligarchy that denied him his electoral mandate before the killer tea helped him into an early grave.

    Since the passage of these two men, I doubt if there is any Nigerian that has taken the political emancipation of his people from the yoke of tyranny seriously as much as Tinubu has been doing. The political ignoramuses might deride him; the grovelers of centrist governments are used to impugning his character, but that is the man still standing like the rock of Gibraltar. Asiwaju has the power of political liberation; he is imbued with a rare economic skill, being a shrewd accountant with vast international experience. This man of unquantifiable goodwill has this uncanny nerve for discovering a talent which was reflected in the membership of his mostly well-endowed cabinet team which he assembled during his eight-year rein as governor of Lagos State.

    The man turns 62 tomorrow, but many people merely criticise him simply because they are oblivious of his steadfast commitment to finding solutions to the challenges facing the country. Tinubu thinks Nigeria, dreams Nigeria, lives Nigeria and sleeps Nigeria. From the north, east, west and south, people call him at random to seek his help or input. These men and women are not necessarily members of the political elite class. The former governor is also at home with the downtrodden whose interests form the thrust of his concern for a better country that we all can be proud to call our own.

    Some, out of sheer envy of his large heart and vastly spread goodwill, will query his source of wealth. Simply because the man is doing what they cannot ever do or are not privileged to do since they are not in a position to do it, they harbour the ache in their bellies. Some see him as being immoderate. But Benjamin Distraeli had an answer for them when he said: ‘Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.’ There are empirical examples of Nigerians, irrespective of tribes and especially among the Yoruba, the man’s cradle, that have benefited immensely from his largesse. But sadly, these same people still hypocritically relish speaking ill of him. That is one of the inherent sacrifices of greatness, being paid by Tinubu.

    Who is doubting Asiwaju’s progressive credentials? That person needs to embark on historical excursion. At a time that the Yoruba states of Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Osun and Ekiti were falling to the gangsterism of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2003, it was only Asiwaju’s Lagos that stood to absorb the heat of conservatism before eventually launching, single-handedly, the worthwhile battle that liberated the former western region but Ondo, from the grips of ruling party’s rampaging agents of neo-colonialism. The giant strides that the region is witnessing today are a consequence of Asiwaju’s political sagacity. Everything is falling in place in the west that has extended to Edo State and this gives credence to Walt Whitman’s statement: ‘Produce great men, the rest follows.’ Who still doubts the fact that progressivism is indeed taking firm root in the west and beyond today in the country? Indeed, Charles de Gaulle was right by saying: ‘Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men and men are great only if they are determined to be so.’

    It is this uncommon determination to be great and to fully liberate the masses from the yoke of reactionary politics that compelled Asiwaju to take with zeal, progressive politics, since the merger of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) with other opposition parties – far beyond the west and to every nook and cranny of the country. The move is generating spite, covetousness as much as cynicism from those who always see impossibility rather than possibility in laudable initiatives. The difference between Tinubu and the rest in the political arena is that he sees possibility where others remain political jellies. His often-talked-about political superiority complex does not mean pride, although it might appear to be so in the eyes of the mischievous among politicians who want to see it so. Tinubu feels a higher esteem over the obstacles he desires to surmount and he is blessed with the rare courage of overcoming them, with enough energy reserved for any eventuality.

    Like Awolowo during his life time, Tinubu has, in contemporary Nigerian politics, become a thorn in the flesh of the centrist rulers who believe that despite their brazen ineptitude, it is a taboo to think or even contemplate wresting power away from jinxed leaders like them. This syndrome is the major headache of the current presidency. And it is what Tinubu, alongside other progressive-minded people, has firmly promised to upstage in the coming February, 2015 general elections. This writer felt the unwavering determination in Asiwaju’s voice when he called him on phone last week. Obviously, from the discourse with the great man when he picked his phone, he justifiably looks forward to celebrating his birthday next year in highly victorious mood. Then, Nigerians will have had the golden opportunity to look back and say: We are free at long last!

    This column wholeheartedly wishes you plenteous happy returns of tomorrow in sound health and continuing political relevance. Happy birthday to you sir. And as the Yoruba would pray: Igba Odun, Odun kan!

     

  • Death in pursuit of survival

    Death in pursuit of survival

    ‘Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labour laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history’ – Dwight D. Eisenhower

    The contemporary melancholy in today’s Nigeria is the naked joblessness of the general run of her people. And quite sadly, the government seems bereft of ideas on how to arrest the grim menace. In all frankness, of all aspects of social misery, nothing is as heart-breaking as unemployment in the life of especially an educated able-bodied adult. Unemployment diminishes a living being since a man is fun to live with until he loses his job. This might have led to the saying – an idle mind is an un-enjoyed mind. Hunger and idleness arising from unemployment kill easily. Unfortunately, the nation is witnessing a record high unemployment. More worrisome is her anaemic economic recovery strategies which are rooted in bad planning and corruption.

    What the country is currently undergoing is the foisting of compelling idleness on the educated youths which indisputably is one of the worst evils of poverty. The best social program any serious nation can avail her citizenry is a good job prospect but such unfortunately, is currently a scarce commodity in the land, which is why people who wallow in joblessness-induced hunger still pay to seek elusive employment that in most cases, have been shared out by the ruling class.

    The above scenarios were the prevailing circumstances under which 693,000 applicants paid N1, 000 each to designated banks by a greedy consultant, Rexel Technical Global Nigeria Limited, which was selfishly employed by Internal Affairs Minister Abba Moro before prospective job seekers could be registered for the last disastrous Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment exercise. Where is that serious country in the world, except Nigeria’s egregious example, that would compel cash-strapped job seekers to pay before being allowed to write recruitment tests? Moreover, should employment opportunities in public service be seen as an avenue for making ill-gotten wealth by public officers – just as Moro did? This is callously reaping from other people’s misery. Welcome to a new level of corruption without humanity or human face!

    Nigerian jobseekers in Benin, Edo State; Port-Harcourt, Rivers State; Minna, Niger State, Calabar, Cross Rivers State, Lagos State and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), saw hell in their bid to bring dignity into their lives by seeking for placements at the NIS. More disdainful is the fact that the NIS has just 4,556 vacancies that 693,000 job seekers angled for. The entire recruitment process ab initio, was a ruse because there was no justifiable ways by which the essence of justice would have been served at the end of the day, even if the exercise had been hitch-free. The stampede that followed led to the death of 19 applicants (humans, not animals!) across the states. So heart-rending is the fact that four of them were pregnant women! Pitiably, unemployment diminishes people especially in a country like ours where no social safety net exists. In such circumstances, people would be ready to do anything just to eke out a living. This is why they could absorb the indignity of sitting on bare grass in an open field to write recruitment examination by these job seekers.

    The lack of systemic compassion in the land was underscored by the blame game deployed by Abba Moro when he heaped all blames on the victims of the tragedy when he declared after the incident: “The applicants lost their lives due to impatience. They did not follow the laid-down procedure spelt out to them before the exercise. Many of them jumped through the fences of the affected centres and did not conduct themselves in an orderly manner to make the exercise a smooth one. This caused the stampede and made the environment unsecured.” Ye God! Let this man say this to the marines. He should come out and tell Nigerians if applicants ought to be responsible for the provision of security at the recruitment venues.

    From the over N6 billion that was made by Moro and his business surrogates, shouldn’t they have made provision for adequate security with the police and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps at the venues? Afterall, security agencies “uncovered” evidence that a staggering N7 billion was collected from 734, 000 applicants by the consultancy firm purportedly employed by Moro for NIS. This column firmly believes that Moro is still in office today after the gory incident simply because he is a true reflection of the administration that he is serving.

    No government that has respect for human dignity and that is abreast of the rights of the people to life as enshrined in the constitution will still be keeping a minister that caused such a monumental national disaster out of avarice and inordinate love for money. What else than to further rein it in on President Goodluck Jonathan that the minister should not escape sanction for high-handedness since he also ignored the Board of Immigration Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence, Prisons and Fire Service that advised him against saddling, for personal game, a consultancy firm with the sensitive recruitment exercise. Even more shameful is the executive impunity displayed by Moro when it was reported that David Parradang, Comptroller-General of the NIS was not involved. This same greedy minister equally fought with Mrs Chinyere Uzoma, removed former NIS Comptroller-General simply because she refused to surrender the recruitment process to him. The way and manner the woman was set up reportedly moderated the Parradang’s relationship with Moro.

    This last NIS recruitment calamity is enough to show the president and the ruling People’s Democratic Party that in their 15 years of misrule over the country, unemployment has astronomically ballooned to a level never witnessed in the annals of the land. William Shakespeare in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ aphorised about unemployment thus: ‘You take my life when you take the means whereby I live.’ Most Nigerians walking in the streets are living corpses because they are either unemployed or that the avoidable harsh economic reality has denied them of their means of livelihood. Moreover, a situation whereby unemployed job seekers in the country died in legal pursuits of survival is enough damnation for the current administration.

    That this kind of thing is happening less than 12 months to a general election and the ruling party still believes that it would win is serious affront and contempt for Nigerian electorate. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States once said: ‘Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labour laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.’ The PDP and the current president, rather than ensuring social security, have inflicted fuel/kerosene subsidy fraud/removal on the masses; rather than employment, have foisted recruitment mercantilism on the system and rather than farming programmes, have deployed agricultural rhetorics that dwell on the celebration of phantom job creations in the agricultural sector of the economy.

    Avoidable deaths in pursuits of survival can only stop if Nigerians do not only insist that Moro must go, but by their using their votes in February next year to make the vehement statement: ‘This mess must stop; this clueless president must vacate Aso Rock Presidential Villa for us to have our peace.’

  • Oby’s macabre dance

    Oby’s macabre dance

    ‘’He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and this pretension itself is a very great prejudice’’ – ———Anatole France

    Quite an infinitesimal few, no doubt, would doubt the fact that Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, her gender notwithstanding, is a noteworthy citizen of this country. Within a period of 14 years, her life has transformed from a struggling Nigerian to one who is rated globally. Her track record: she came to limelight when she served the Obasanjo administration as Presidential Aide in charge of Public Procurement Reforms; Minister of Education and later, Minister of Mineral Resources. She was later appointed Vice-President of the dreaded World Bank that has been the main agent of retardation of developing countries. Currently, she is the Senior Economic Advisor for Africa Economic Development Policy Initiative Open Society Foundation. By virtue of this position, she doubles as senior advisor to a number of leaders of African countries who are looking up to the World Bank for economic ideas/supports which have never rescued them from the yoke of neo-colonialism.

    Since the advent of President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency, this turn-coat and once-upon-a-time pro-establishment woman, has taken the gauntlet of deceitful activism of economic reforms against the baby of same establishment that created her. Some public watchers have said that her unusual activist stance was borne out of the twist in the relationship between her mentor, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the present administration’s leadership. That her powerful benefactor unleashed her on President Jonathan; to punish the incumbent for disobeying him and not doing enough consultations with him on state affairs – for selfish ends.

    This dubious self-righteousness must have misguided some people in the All Progressives Congress (APC) to tip her to deliver the keynote address at the party’s 2014 national summit which held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja. Her lecture titled: ‘The Uncomfortable Truth of Elusive Economic Development,’ to say the least, has generated so much review on social media and deafening hullabaloo in the polity. The title should have read:’ The Deceitful Truth of Mismanaged Economic Pontification.’

    This column believes that nature condones personal weaknesses even though it abhors egomania and pretensions. Oby was unnecessarily and vaingloriously full of herself when, in abuse of the privilege such an August platform offered her, declared before beginning her lecture: “I do not know how you decided to take this high risk of inviting me to your gathering, knowing full well that my zeal for candour can be generally unsettling for some people of your class and occupation.  Since you took the risk, I have assumed the liberty to speak boldly even to your discomfort, especially considering that we live in a season of grim when our country is greatly troubled. In perilous times like this, truth is the absolute freedom. I shall be spurred on by the counsel of George Orwell who, in honour of truth, stated that “in a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”. I further assume that if you wanted someone with the skills of deceit, it would not be me that you would have invited to your gathering. I, therefore, speak to you today not as a politician.”

    By even reiterating that she was not ready to speak as a politician, this woman gave herself away as a prejudiced lecturer that was out to vent the anger of her hidden paymaster on APC. She showed undisguised partisanship when she told her listeners: “Your gathering here cannot be on how to unseat the ruling party. APC is just a new set of political operators who want to control statecraft. Will you deliver different outcome? I doubt. If we say having APC is the solution to Nigeria’s problems, then we are mistaken’’ What she is fraudulently insinuating here is that the ruling People’s Democratic Party should continue with its brazen misrule.  If indeed telling the truth in a time of deceit is a revolutionary act, Oby should have started her suspect activism during the tenure of her paymaster, Obasanjo, when real political, economic and social deceits commenced in the country.

    She copiously quoted a Professor of Leadership, John Jacob Gardener’s definition of Transcendental Leadership to wit: “A new metaphor, transcendent leadership, answers a planetary call for a governance process which is more inclusive, more trusting, more sharing of information, more meaningfully involving associates or constituents, more collective decision making through dialogue and group consent processes, more nurturance and celebration of creative and divergent thinking and a willingness to serve the will of the collective consciousness as determined by the group – in essence, a leadership of service above self”

    Oby made mockery of this landmark definition if she thought her target was APC and its leadership alone. Oby’s first (dis)service to the nation, in sync with this definition, was her failure to honourably resign from the Obasanjo administration when things were going irredeemably awry. Otherwise, what is transcendental leadership in the non-inclusive, treacherous, information hoarding, unitary decision-making without most groups’ approval and self-serving administration of Obasanjo under which she served? Obasanjo had the opportunity of approving the Freedom of Information Bill but he never did because he was – and remains – a tyrant. The same man ensured that he was above the law during his reign as whatever he believed in was imposed on the nation. That was how we came about the late President Umaru YarÁdua and the current president.

    Was Oby not in that infamous government when Obasanjo was pursuing his Third Term Agenda that would have prolonged his tenure? It was a period that witnessed huge wastage of the nation’s money that was criminally shared out to lawmakers as bribes to ensure easy passage of that agenda into law. What was Oby doing in that government then? Couldn’t she have resigned if indeed there remained any iota of honour in her as she would want the world to believe at the Abuja APC summit? Was she not aware that billions of naira were given as bribes at the period? What was her publicly professed economic opinion to this?  Nigerians are waiting to hear from her! Yes, she spoke well on her aversion to Boko Haram terrorism, but she needs to tell the public whether it was not her well-derided “transactional politicking” that caused the political feud between Jonathan and Obasanjo, her benefactor.

    Oby’s self-serving lecture was not her fault, but that of those that got deceived by the fraudulent outbursts of this emergency economic reform activist. Her legacies: Oby caused so much discontent among staff of the Procurement Office during her tenure; she left an insignificant mark as education minister and was a better forgotten minister of mineral resources of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Nigeria is truly in search of political and economic truths, but any emanating from this agent of neo-colonialism should be better ignored by Nigerians for its injurious ingredient. May God help Nigeria!

  • The epoch of docility

    ‘History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid’

    ——–Dwight D. Eisenhower

    Watching the goings-on in Nigeria today – mind-boggling corruption, mismanagement and mis-governance – that have perpetually kept Nigerians under the siege of want and penury, it will not be out-of-place to wonder why the people have remained inexplicably calm. Most contemporary prosperous nations are where they are today because they have sensitive citizens that brook no nonsense from their leaders. This must have informed a senator and historian of the Roman Empire, Publius Cornelius Tacitus’ (ca. AD 56 – ca. AD 117) position centuries ago that: “Great empires are not maintained by timidity.” No one is advocating revolt against the government of the day but it is an acknowledged fact that the rights to assemble and protest against inimical government policies and actions constitute a salient inalienable duty that the citizenry owe themselves and the society.

    This is because those in authority pretend to be close to the people when in actual fact they are indeed hearing the deceitful voices of greed of close aides who are interested in letting them know what they want to hear. The desires, wants and cravings of the mass of the people are relegated while the greed of those in the corridors of power is misconstrued as the need of the generality of the people. This routinely endemic situation can only be rectified if the people, from time to time, challenge the impunity of those in power through the court, media and where compellingly necessary, mass protest. This will amply demonstrate that sovereignty truly belongs to the people from whom the leaders derived the powers that they wantonly abuse.

    Just this week, Nigerians were thrown for no precisely acceptable reasons into another round of petroleum scarcity bogey. The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) came out to say that there was no official increment in pump price of fuel. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) engaged in buck-passing by accusing independent petroleum marketers of sabotage, an accusation that the latter quickly debunked. But the groaning by motorists over the biting fuel scarcity continues, while the presidency, until this publication, remained un-concerned. Also, the same imperial NNPC has been allegedly involved in serious pilfering of public till by its criminal non-remittance of over $20billion oil money into the federation’s account. Rather than sanction NNPC for this “criminality,” the presidency left it alone and went after Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the embattled suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), for blowing the lid off this egregious national scandal. The same NNPC is involved in kerosene subsidy roguery that runs into trillions of naira. In another financial scam against the nation, the Budget Office under the nose of the presidency was discovered to have allegedly doled out government money to government agencies without requests and when such monies were returned voluntarily by the agencies involved for fear of reprimand when eventually discovered, no one is made to account for them.

    On another plane, the same Budget Office was discovered to have been involved in short payment running into hundreds of millions of naira of budgeted funds at the point of release to government agencies, including National Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and without proper accountability for the shortfalls subsequently. More terrifying is the fact that this development is happening in a year preceding a general election in which President Goodluck Jonathan is angling for re-election. This column views this act as being contemptuous of the sovereign will of the people of Nigeria. In a country where the citizenry are not docile like ours, the sitting government would not have to wait till early next year’s election before getting its woeful electoral results. But this is Nigeria with a citizenry with the greatest shock absorber elasticity in the whole world; so sad!

    The power sector reforms is one other important area that has become a monumental scandal in terms of the huge public money already expended and the racketeering that pervaded the process, including the hurried sale of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to cronies of those in power and which unfortunately has not guaranteed stable power supply to Nigerians. Yet, the new buyers of PHCN would have the effrontery of bringing bills for electricity not provided for the people at the end of the month and even demanding payment of debts purportedly owed the old regime for epileptic services rendered. Yet, Nigerians cannot statutorily sue the old PHCN or the new owners for damages suffered as a result of services paid for, but not rendered. What an injustice! It is only in Nigeria that this kind of official cheating can happen and the citizenry will not protest against such inimical system. The lesson is that any nation where the Rule of Law is not allowed unfettered process is on a definite descent into the abyss of a failed state.

    This column agrees that we must do everything to discourage popular bullying, the brawling and oppression in private and our public lives, but it agrees with Theodore Roosevelt that it is necessary to ‘despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong.’ This column enjoins Nigerians to dare inimical government policies and actions before and even during elections in any parts of the country. It is not illegal to stand up against kleptocracy in government and bad policy makers in power and even more importantly is the need to dare election riggers. By this, the column does not mean the kind of fake protests by those usually paid professional protest organisers that have become the ombudsmen of the people for selfish reasons. A genuine protest will come one day and though the paths might be littered with interim setbacks, it is by being counted amongst the brave that we can win glorious triumphs. At the moment, it is unfortunately that Nigerians currently rank among those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the abyss twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

    Quite sad to note that despite the avalanche of sufferings in the polity as typified by the current stinging but preventable fuel scarcity, Nigerians prefer to follow the path that looked the safest, forgetting that such docile path could be the most hurtful. My country men and women do not want to try and thereby continue to spend years in silent hurt, wondering if something could have materialised. Nigerians are truly timid set of people that are usually frightened before a danger looms. The precarious economic situation, official looting, denial of amenities, astronomical unemployment rate and hopeless official electoral rigmarole among others are compelling necessities that should destroy timidity in people. Why not Nigerians? Nigerians surely have some useful lessons to learn from recent developments in countries like Ukraine and Venezuela. When is the end of protracted epochal docility among Nigerians going to come to an end? Heavens, it is a truism, help those who help themselves!

  • The Lamido-Jonathan conundrum

    ”The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”———-Winston Churchill

    Ordinarily, blue-bloods anywhere in the world are usually conceited. But when it goes with luminosity and articulacy, its inherent gait of courage says something about their hauteur. Not many people can stand a swaggering person, nonetheless, an intelligent Hausa/Fulani from the royal family of Kano traditional feudal hue. Generally, any prince, by privilege of birth, is not expected to take orders from anybody, but from infancy is used to others taking instructions from him. Such royalty is conventionally conversant with being revered and courted by the high and mighty in the society, especially those in his sphere of authority. It was with this air that Sanusi Lamido Sanusi suddenly found himself in the position of Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). And with his untamed valour, egotistic bluster and sometimes audaciously nauseating policies and actions, he garnered ample admirers and foes by the time he was suspended from office last Friday by his nemesis and perhaps, unsuspecting numero uno foe, President Goodluck Jonathan.

    The president, while fielding questions from a panel of journalists during the Presidential media chat in Abuja earlier in the week, declared: “But Sanusi is still the governor of the CBN and people must know that. That is why there can never be a substantive governor until the issue is sorted out. Sanusi can come back tomorrow to continue his work because the issues raised are the issues that the board of the CBN with the Financial Reporting Council, the authorities that have powers to look into the financial transactions of the CBN, will deal with…’’ The president spoke about one relatively unknown 2012 audit report that demanded that Lamido steps aside if it must be properly looked into. But the same president kept Stella Oduah perpetually in office as Minister of Aviation when she was mentioned as the arrow-head of a grossly over-inflated two armoured BMW cars purchased at a time the aviation sector was (and still is) bleeding from lack of infrastructure.

    Perhaps, an objective onlooker would be forced to ask: Why was Oduah not compelled to step aside by the president as he did in the prevailing circumstance when the panel that recommended ‘administrative caution’ was investigating that serious accusation against a minister of a very important ministry of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? Something akin to this also happened when a civil society group reportedly accused another female oil minister that is still serving the president of being an alleged wastrel anytime she was travelling by air through exorbitant aircraft hire both within and outside the country. The president looked the other way at that crucial period. Diezani Allison-Maduekwe, the Minister of Petroleum was exercising oversight function over the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that is facing subsidy mismanagement crisis and has not been told by the same president to step aside. Whatever Mr President says about the probability of Lamido returning to office after not being found guilty of any infraction, this column and discernible Nigerians know that as far as the CBN governorship is concerned and going by traditional official aversion for dissents, it is sure that the embattled Kano prince is history.

    But besides the fact that the president is not coming to equity with clean hands in the way and manner Lamido was suspended, this column does not think that any sitting CBN governor should be robed with the garb of being above the law – not even if such person is a Fulani prince from Kano State. The column is not oblivious of Section 11 of the CBN Act, 2007, stating when the Governor or any of his Deputies can cease to remain in office not to include suspension by the President. The only mention of the word ‘suspension’ is in section 11(1)(d) and that relates to the removal of the Governor when he or she is disqualified or suspended from practising his or her profession in Nigeria. Furthermore in section 11(1) (f), the only occasion the President can recommend the removal of the Governor or exercise any disciplinary control over him or her is when the president’s recommendation is supported by two-thirds majority of the Senate. This is the conundrum facing the president in his desperate bid to cut to size his unusually voluble CBN governor that has turned the apex bank into a platform for feudal activism.

    Despite these, this column agrees with the president that in exercise of his oversight functions, he has the power of ensuring that the CBN or other institutions of government do not become an island on its own. As the president said, “the issues of suspension and removal are very different.” And save for such power of oversight, Lamido would have unilaterally and arbitrarily printed N5000 denomination currency notes and changed the face of the naira today. But to the credit of Mr President, he listened to public aversion for the move and quickly nipped it the bud. Unfortunately, the Islamic bigotry in Lamido triumphed over the public when he foisted Islamic banking system on the nation. The beauty of democracy in the brewing suspension saga is that the beleaguered prince has gone to court to challenge his suspension and whatever comes out of the Temple of Justice will go a long way in simmering the widening public tension over the matter. Such judgment when delivered will definitely open a new vista in the management and general affairs of the nation’s apex bank.

    However, one thing that is good is that the CBN Governor really helped in bringing to the fore so many hidden rot in the nation’s financial system. He exposed how NNPC through NPDC took oil blocks belonging to the federation and then transferred the operation of the blocks to inexperienced private agents lacking the required funds for the exercise. The prince revealed that NNPC failed to remit $20billion dollars into the federation’s account. It is absurd that the president said he could not look into the allegations because of inconsistencies in figures. Through his reported memo to the Senate Committee dated February12, 2014, Lamido showed that NNPC sells our petroleum for a fixed price of $10 a barrel which is a paltry percentage of its market price and that the corporation allows documents to be destroyed after one year, leading to the cover-up of monumental fraud.

    Though Lamido raised the alarm over fraud in the fuel subsidy regime at a Public Hearing in the House of Representatives some years back, his supposed open campaign for the removal of the same subsidy portrayed as an unstable character that says one thing in the morning only to change such at night before going to bed. The circumstance of his removal, though painful, is a reminder to Jonathan not to toy with the sanctity of the CBN. He should remember the example of Idi Amin Dada of Uganda in 1971, whose order to Joseph Mubiru, Central Bank Governor, to print more money was turned down. He eventually killed Mubiru but that could not solve the problems that his selfish interference caused that country’s apex bank till today. Though the Kano prince has been removed, the issues he raised about looting in NNPC, subsidy pilfering and the economy generally must be resolved by the president. More importantly, his removal if not properly handled might signal the beginning of a wobbling CBN in the country.

  • Bankole’s day of emotion

    Bankole’s day of emotion

    ‘There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts’ —- Mahatma Gandhi

    Who in his shoes will not be overwhelmed by emotions? The greatest injustice that can be done any man of conscience who cherishes his dignity is for him to be maliciously accused. And that was what this administration did to Dimeji Bankole, the immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives. Bankole’s trouble with President Goodluck Jonathan began when he was perceived as having soft spot for late President Umar Yar’Adua during the dramatic impasse that eventually brought Jonathan to Aso Rock. Like his vindictive – now estranged – mentor and former president, Balogun Olusegun Obasanjo, President Jonathan, upon being sworn in as president, maliciously began a cat-and-mouse game with Bankole, snooping around for anything at all – no matter how puerile, senseless and indefensible – to cling on to in order to get the ex-Speaker prosecuted and nailed in court. The worst came when he lost the election in his bid to get re-elected into the House.

    It is surprising, as a form of digression, that Bankole displayed an exemplary sense of admirable democratic credential when he, on that night of his electoral loss, went straight to the house of the undisputed leader of progressive politics in Ogun State, Akinrogun Segun Osoba to congratulate him. So he did to the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and its candidate that won against him. That was a rare display of political maturity that is a rarity in the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Nigeria. No loser candidate ever believed he was fairly defeated – but Bankole did in a manner that made him an exemplar.

    This column is averse to corruption under whatever guise, but abhors a situation where phantom corruption charges are cooked up against any Nigerian, not for the substance of it or the interest of the country, but to witch-hunt a citizen for toeing a path different from that of the man wielding the big stick. That is my point of divergence with the arraignment of Bankole since his adversaries would stop at nothing to get him. This trend has become a sickening routine since Obasanjo started a system where any undoing was warehoused until the target disagreed with him only to unleash the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on the target. That was what Jonathan, using EFCC, ostensibly did against Bankole. The president forgets that to punish a man because of erroneous inference from the position he holds is persecution – an imprudent and impious act. An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.

    Those hidden quantity that instigated the kangaroo trial of Dimeji must belatedly realise that it is iniquitous, unjust, and most impolitic to persecute for politics’ sake. Unfortunately too, it is an inherent and inseparable trait in persecution game of the powerful that it knows not where to stop. The continuation of this nefarious game could be seen in the persecution, through the court, of former Bayelsa State governor, Timiprie Sylva and others while those in the presidency’s good books but accused of similar offences are strutting round the country freely, sometimes running errands for Mr President. The way Bankole’s case ended clearly shows to those behind the schism that nothing which is good and true can be destroyed by persecution. This column, through Bankole’s case, now better appreciates that persecution, whenever it occurs, establishes only the power and cunning of the persecutor, not the truth and worth of his belief.

    The EFCC’s action was reportedly informed by a petition by a disgruntled former member of the House of Representatives, Dino Melaye in 2011, when a 16-count charge against Bankole led to his arraignment. There are several others in power today who were accused by same EFCC of sundry offences in court, but because they are in cahoots with Jonathan with several juicy appointments today. The current chairman of PDP, Adamu Muazu is one of them; a fraud case is still dangling on his head. Even some ministers in Jonathan’s cabinet with embattled suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Lamido Sanusi’s revelations about how they criminally spent the country’s money should be in jail today. They are still in power enjoying their loots partly because of docility of Nigerians and also because they still enjoy the confidence of the president.

    What is imperative is for powerful men with clean conscience to embrace the Bankole spirit by standing up, in court, against official impunity and undue persecution. This is where the ex-Speaker should be greatly commended for not compromising with the evil men in power over phantom offences that he believes he did not commit. Perhaps, the popular record waxed for the senior Bankole by the inimitable juju music legend, Chief Ebenezer Obey will aptly suffice. The legend’s song admonishing his adversaries went thus: Bankole won se bobaje ni kobaje iro ni won’npa: Gbogbo lala koko fefe won, iro lojasi. Bankole se pele, oke agba logun yi.’’ The song is just an affirmation in Yoruba language that all the machinations by the senior Bankole’s foes fell flat, Baba Commander also enjoined him to tread softly.

    In what passed for a theatre of the absurd, Bankole was charged with nebulous offences that were not under his direct authority. Such included contract inflation, procurement fraud and bid rigging under the Public Procurement Act (PPA) Section 58 (4) (a), (b) and (e). The prosecution counsel was Festus Keyamo who had issues with Bankole when he was Speaker and could not succeed in sustaining a prima facie case against Bankole. Justice Evoh Chukwu, in the true spirit of justice, declared that the prosecution failed to link the ex-Speaker to all the alleged offences, particularly when the EFCC was found wanting in establishing that Bankole was the House’s Accounting Officer, who handled its contract transactions or that he was involved in contract inflation, fraud and bid rigging. What a shame!

    Overwhelmed with emotion, Bankole’s tears upon the court verdict are understandable in a society where in the face of persecution; a suspect is already convicted in the court of public opinion. Has EFCC/Keyamo forgotten that in criminal matters, all essential ingredients of an offence charged must be proved beyond reasonable doubt? A court is not a field where an attorney plays to the gallery or engages in laughable activism. It is rudimentary element of law that the country runs an adversarial criminal procedure where it is up to the prosecution to prove its case against the accused and not the other way round.

    One of my most cherished quotes since my undergraduate days as a law student over two decades ago was Lord Dennings’ in Lennon v Metropolitan Properties Limited, where he said: ‘Justice must be rooted in confidence and confidence is destroyed when right-minded people go away thinking: The judge is biased.’ On the day Bankole was discharged and acquitted on presidency-induced trumped-up charges with EFCC as its face, the confidence of right-minded Nigerians was re-enlivened in the judiciary because they went away thinking: This time around, the judge was not biased in favour of a system that promotes docility towards official impunity of ruling administrations. Perhaps the Bankole example is a pointer to the naked fact that after darkness comes the glorious dawn for the righteous. And maybe his vindication is a warning to power wielders who often get mad with it, not realising that it is a fleeting substance. Maybe!

  • Thoughts on a welcome mortgage

    Thoughts on a welcome mortgage

    ‘The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.’ ——Aristotle

    Jacques-Anatole-François Thibault, who is universally known and addressed as Anatole France was that French writer of satire and fantasy that won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921. Though not a lawyer, he was exercising his artistic freedom when he wrote: ‘The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.’ He must have realised shelter as being, alongside good hospitals and education, a most important thing that a society needs. Homelessness is a serious problem in any society because a house, no matter how lowly, is a home when it shelters the body and comforts the soul.

    Anatole France’s statement in our clime seems idealistic because its applicability looks more real in developed societies of the world. In our society, the statement has no applicability as only the rich amongst us could boost of living in good homes and environment while many of the lucky poor live in shanties/slums just as several other unlucky plebeians live under the bridges in Lagos and other cosmopolitan cities of the world. Quite presumably, the realisation of the truism in France’s comment that not only the rich, but also average income earners should own houses, prompted Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola of Lagos State to decide to help aspiring home owners in the state to own one.

    To show his characteristic seriousness, the governor of archetype recently launched the Lagos Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme (Lagos HOMS). And available for purchase through mortgage are newly completed 1,104 units of flats and terraces, while 3,156 other units are under various stages of construction. The governor further disclosed at the launch that work would soon commence on additional 4,454 units across the state. The solely government-financed project was done through sustained initial monthly savings of N200 million that was later increased to N500 million monthly. The scheme provides a minimum payment period of 10 years that would attract a reasonable maximum interest of 9.5 per cent per annum.

    The conditionality includes that aspiring owners must be first-time home owners with none on ground, either acquired privately or bought from government and the claim must be backed by sworn affidavit; only for Lagos residents irrespective of origins but must have stayed for not less than 180 days; and must show a residency card issued by LASIMRA. Additional requirements include proof of payment of tax for an uninterrupted period of five years preceding application, while house choices eligibility must match with applicants’ proven income sources; successful applicants must live in the houses while violations would lead to re-possession, pay-off and or re-offer to others.

    This Fashola initiative is just a consolidation of what Pa Lateef Jakande pioneered in the state as far back as early eighties and which Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the master strategist, broadened and greatly improved upon to give thousands of Lagosians opportunity to own homes in a state where the housing deficit is placed at one million units per annum. This is understandable in a Lagos with strong economy and people’s pull; thus the state understandably is witnessing an attendant increase in the demand for housing that has shot prices of properties beyond the reach of average Nigerians. Even rents have become so high that the government of the state, through its legislative assembly, came up with a relatively new Tenancy Law with the primary goal of protecting tenants from shylock landlords that have turned their houses into crude oil.

    The policy is no doubt very good. But the institutional/legal modus for deciding beneficiaries and the eligibility criteria for owning them need not be drastically inequitable. And this has led to the question of whether it can survive in this kind of environment where employment turnover is dangerously high. While it could be argued that the flats are in cadres, how does one correlate the fact that the law regulating it says that aspiring owners must be first-time home owners with no pre-owned home, whether acquired privately or bought from government in the state? So, a man that works in Apapa/Island/Lekki axis of Lagos, who managed to build a small structure in a manageable but not necessarily safe surrounding in Agbado/Abule-Egba/Alakuko/Agege/Egbeda/Igando/Aboru et’al end of Lagos that his funds could cover, cannot upgrade by getting one of these flats because he owns something called property in a Lagos slum. Yet, others that live along Lagos/Ibadan Expressway, Ojudu/Sango Ota end of Ogun State among others with LASRA cards and evidence of tax payment in the state can convenient bid for the flats. What about those with personal properties but who would now leverage on the fact that they are unknown to law because they are yet to be registered with the government to get the flats? Those that have registered titles with the state government after payment of required fees will be unjustly denied access to the mortgage, despite meeting other conditions.

    While I could discern the altruistic motive of the government for inserting this provision in the widely reported law, may I quickly add that the mischief that it will cause in the long run to those owning properties in suburbs of Lagos, but would have otherwise qualified to bid for these flats in decent areas and environment is greater than whatever good is officially desired. The target of BRF are those politicians that are attempting to buy up entire Lagos and the civil servants that unduly allocate such flats to themselves in the past but majority of those that would now suffer the sins of these classes of Lagosians are neither politicians or civil servants that already live and own properties, courtesy of abuse of government policy, in the choicest areas of the state.

    This column believes that it is a good thing that BRF has taken the good housing initiatives of Jakande and Tinubu a bit further, but it would not be too late if fractional part of the flats could be used as pilot study for the mortgage while others are rented out to gainfully employed Lagosians who are currently desirous of decent and affordable accommodation. This is the model in London and other developed countries where such tenants after demonstrating good tenantable conduct for years are offered the right of first refusal to buy. Such model can be emulated in Lagos.

    The policy is good because the principle behind it will ensure maximisation of space and elimination of slums in the state. However, the inequality that the initiative’s law would create under the guise of eliminating fraudulent and gluttonous acquisition of properties by the ‘haves’ to the detriment of the ‘have-nots’ is something the governor has to look into. Like l told the governor when some members of this paper’s Editorial Board interviewed him last December, except this mortgage policy identifies now with the peculiarities of the people of the state, the probability that it won’t be messed up and eventually discarded by succeeding government is very slim. And that won’t rub off favourably on the credibility the BRF administration has earned through its exemplary commitment to the welfare of the majority, so far. After all, my learned senior and Lagos governor must realise that law as an instrument of social engineering, as espoused by Rosco Pound, that inimitable legal theorist, should not trample on the just in its bid to emasculate or punish the unjust.

  • Drumbeats of war

    Drumbeats of war

    That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable – Thomas Paine

    Just earlier this week, the Council of State – the highest advisory body in the country – met within the precinct of the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The body reportedly deliberated among others, on the nation’s Centenary Celebrations; the upcoming National Conference and worrisome security situations in the country. Apart from the centenary jamboree which this column considers a wasteful exercise, the other two are salient issues that touch on the general health of the country. So, the Council that comprises the President as chairman, all past Presidents and Heads of States, past Chief Justices of the Federation, the 36 incumbent governors of the states as well as the leadership of the National Assembly, could not have erred in making its advisory positions known.

    According to reports, the council members endorsed the National Conference proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan, having seen it as something that could strengthen the unity of the country and which, as such, should be encouraged. The council also chastised politicians in the land for making unguarded statements that are capable of undermining the nation’s fragile security situation. This column considers it imperative to ask whether the Council of State is a mere rubber-stamp assemblage of federal government policies or an assembly of supposedly wise men and elder statesmen that ought not to hesitate to give any sitting administration knocks where necessary. It is, however, a shame that the governors of leading opposition party, All Progressives Congress (APC), reportedly supported the confab when it is widely known that their party is averse to the issue.

    The confab that is scheduled to begin in the third month of this year would definitely not sharpen our knowledge and intellectuality about the defective structure of Nigeria, but can only be used to promote the 2015 President Goodluck Jonathan re-election agenda and to induce and compromise hitherto opposing appointees to join the Jonathan re-election chorus under the guise of promotion of phantom national unity. But the confab, certainly, will in the end grossly achieve the goal of fanning embers of instability and democratic repression. History is, without equivocation, on course.

    Also, the Council of State wants our politicians to measure their statements so that the security of the nation would not be jeopardised. The council’s position was reportedly informed by presentations of the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, before members. But this column considers it appalling that none of the esteemed members of the council had the courage to tell President Jonathan to watch his un-presidential statements alongside those of members of his ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Even the governors of the opposition APC acquiesced at that crucial moment when they ought to have spoken their minds. A philosopher once reportedly said to his countrymen during a particularly bad crisis period that “on an occasion like, this we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”

    Alhaji Asari Dokubo, the unrepentant militant from the Niger-Delta once reminded of its grim consequences if President Jonathan is not re-elected to lead this country. Nothing happened to him despite the fact that such was a clear pointer to what this presidency may be planning against the electorate come 2015. Chief Edwin Clark, a supposed elder statesman, has been inflaming the polity with quite unstatesmanly talks without any reproach from the presidency or the NSA. Does it mean that unguarded volatile statements from supporters of the current president are no security threats to the land?

    The council and particularly the NSA should realise that by not doing what is just, he alongside the presidency is beating the drumbeats of war and fanning the ember of discord in the country. And this is likely to increase the wave of distrust between the government and the governed. And once this menacing tide is not stemmed, the government that is not trusted should realise that the art of war teaches not to rely on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on being ready to receive him and, not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that enough preparations have been made to make popular position unassailable.

    Nigerians have watched closely how some people in the Niger-Delta, especially those of the Ijaw hue have been threatening fire and brimstone if Jonathan is not re-elected, but they must realise that against them, the opposition and the entire Nigerian public are making ready their strength to the utmost of their power. This column appeals to all anti democratic forces wherever they might be to sheathe their swords of war. The NSA and the Council of State members owe Nigerians the duty of ensuring that violence does not break out in the coming general elections. All necessary checks must be put in place to ensure that those that speak the language of war not only end up on the wrong side of history but also do not live to enjoy the spoils of war for they must get consumed in the inferno that would ensue.

    When else another Council of State meeting holds, its members must refrain from being mere rubber-stamps. They must strive to be audacious in telling the president that democratic powers derive from the people and at all times, the people remain the repository of power. For a considerable period of time now, it is glaring that the people are disenchanted with the drab style of governance at the centre. Poverty is dangerous escalating. As at 1980, the poverty level in the country was 27 per cent but by 2010, it grew to 64 per cent and it is still unfortunately growing unhindered because the government is clueless about how to arrest the situation. What this translates to is that while about 17million Nigerians were poor in 1980, by 2010, about 112 million or more are living below poverty line. In view of all these, Nigerians, not supporters of President Jonathan, deserve to make reasonable and informed demands regarding every action and inaction of this government. If the Council of State will not ask the federal administration pertinent questions, the people on behalf of whom public office is held in trust will definitely ask through their votes in 2015 and one thing is indubitably clear: no amount of drumbeats of war or discord from some miscreants in the Niger-Delta can change that!

     

  • Where are Jonathan’s true friends?

    Where are Jonathan’s true friends?

    ‘A true friend is one soul in two bodies’ – Aristotle

    It was that 19th century American transcendentalist poet, philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who once gave a vivid depiction of a happily successful man when he said: ‘I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply, not into the market, not into opinion, not into patronage.’ This quote readily came to my mind while ruminating during the week over the unmitigated rot in the polity. On the faces of Nigerians is serious disenchantment with a system that has little or no regard for ethics, morals and laws of the land. We see impunity in Rivers State; we are yet to comprehend the callous killings in the north east in particular and the entire north in general. The Niger-Delta has nearly been overwhelmed by brigands under the guise of militancy; the polity has become the theatre of conflicts emanating from the ambition of one man to have another shot at the presidency.

    Ordinarily, no one should begrudge President Goodluck Jonathan for his open-secret aspiration to run for re-election. But we all have a right to challenge his qualification for such re-run not only on Election Day but more importantly, before that date. That is why this column is using the Ralph Waldo Emerson test by asking the president to answer whether he can sincerely say when asked about his presidency’s success that he would point into more of his positive works for Nigeria and not into the market of bootlickers and others seeking patronage around him. This column doubts whether the president can do this; not in the face of general wave of insecurity across the country, epileptic power supply and questionable privatisation of the PHCN. The foreign reserve of the country is suffering progressive depletion by the day; oil theft have become an elusive cankerworm that this government cannot nip in the bud, import waiver scam has become routine in government, the economy is in shambles; defection gale is everywhere while discourses on intra-party squabbles, especially in the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have taken precedent over more serious matters of urgent national significance.

    In the light of all these, it will amount to taking Nigerians for fools if the president thinks his re-election will come on a platter of gold when beckoning 2015 comes. And sincerely, can’t the president play the Nelson Mandela game and become an unforgettable statesman if he chooses not to seek re-election? For virtually all Nigerian leaders, quitting when the handwriting is on the wall has become impossibility because of the type of friends that mill round them when they are in power. These friends of success build fake grandeur that later creates disillusionment for men of means in various fields of human endeavour. President Jonathan, like most leaders before him, is prone to this trap because of the patronage that himself and his ruling party readily gives. After all, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the recently removed national chairman of the PDP, at a party meeting he presided over in the first quarter of 2013 in Kaduna, said: “PDP is all about patronage. We are going to dole out our patronage to all our members who remain in the party…There is a heavy war ahead in 2015. A group has come up and wants to sweep the mat off our feet. We cannot allow that to happen.”

    The practice of patronage by the ruling party has grown into a challenge that is usually provoked by a complacent political class that is historically willing to subordinate its ethical values and legal standards to that of its greedy leaders. In the process, the political system and the entire society are held hostage to the egos of a president who considers the country as his fiefdom and her people as a malleable mass that could be easily trampled upon. That is why Tukur, as one of the false friends giving wrong counsels to the president, left the party he could not effectively manage in utter opprobrium. However, the president still sees in him a loyal northern ally when in truth what Tukur, like several others, is loyal to is the revered post that Jonathan occupies; not his person and he has even been rewarded with the position of Chairman of the Board of Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) by the president. The essence of clientelism in politics is therefore meant to unfortunately keep people dependent, with lots of largely unfulfilled promises to the same people that elected them.

    The president, despite the retinue of fake friends around him, should endeavour to still create ample time, amidst his tight schedule, to distinguish between true friends and other friends before his public announcement of his intention to seek re-election. He has to realise in time that real friends will always be there to visit him and not his position. Most people that surround him and urging him to go on are fair-weather companions that revel in flattery simply because all is well. Unlike true friends, they do not have the president’s best interests at heart; neither do they have the pluck to tell him what he needs to hear most especially on his unpopular bid to seek re-election in 2015.

    As a successful being, the president needs to ask: Are people around me the type that can remind of how remarkable he is at a period that the rest of the world has forgotten him? After he must have left office, would his so called friends of today always be there even when they could have gone elsewhere more important? The president and most other successful men should realise that sham friends, like shadows stick around during brightest moments, but immediately disappear during darkest hours. The president and other men of privilege must realise that it is not how many friends they have that matters but the quality of those friends. As a sitting president that is high up in life, his friends are the ones that are now getting to know him. If he allows himself to be disgraced out of power and down in the abyss, then he might regrettably get to know who his genuine friends are. Mr President, you can only gain heroic transformation to the genre of statesmen if you listen more to the voice of wisdom rather than that of cacophonies of self perdition before 2015 comes. Most of President Jonathan’s friends that pretend to be listening to him today are on one sole mission: Gathering information to judge him immediately he becomes history!

  • Professionals in power

    Professionals in power

    ‘Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have’ – Winston Churchill

    Whatever the turbulence the country might currently be undergoing, there is hope that one day this country will get her acts together and become one of the leading nations of the world. What is doubtful is whether that dream will be achieved under a monolithic Nigeria. There are prevailing factors that can give cause for concerns and they include ethnic/tribal distrusts, religious intolerance, nepotism, unbridled plundering of state resources, illegal deployment of police institution by politicians, and dearth of infrastructure arising from corrupt inclination by politicians in power. Others include increasing wave of insecurity, leadership insincerity and waning interest of the populace in their leadership and the Nigerian Project among others.

    In a country as blessed as Nigeria with enormous potentials in oil and other resources, it is still dumbfounding to fathom that most of her leaders have found it screamingly difficult to transform the country into a meaningful pride in the comity of nations in Africa and the entire world. It is doubtful if leaders in countries like China, India, United Kingdom, United States, United Arab Emirates(UAE), Qatar, South Africa and others that Nigerians run to in search of medical succour, better living conditions and security are better or more knowledgeable than what we have at home. This column doubts whether they have better education or knowledge of doing things than ours. The only difference is that leadership in those countries and other better-managed ones put the interest and welfare of their countries above their own selfish desires. The greatest problem facing the country today is how to ensure that our leaders turn away from greed and corruption once they grab the instrument of power. The wheel of power ought to be used to serve the greatest good of the greatest number which is quite unlike what obtains in our clime where closeness to power determines personal ratings of reigning administrations.

    In the United States, United Kingdom, UAE, Qatar and others, their systems in health care, education, security and economy are working because their leaders adhere to planning and think less of selves, but more of the wellbeing of their countries. What does UAE have that Nigeria does not have? What about the countries of the western world that Nigerians daily troop to for better living or health needs? In addition to whatever these countries have as an edge, it is to the glory of God that Nigeria has better favourable climate that could boost her agricultural exploits and create incentives for other productive purposes. Unlike what obtained in the past, there is glimpse of hope that professionals in power, though belatedly, are rising to the occasion of making their impact felt by the people. Recently, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, a trained medical doctor, did something this column considers quite instructive.

    He proved to be a worthy medical doctor when he joined a team of medical experts and post-surgery team to perform kidney surgery transplant in one of the theatres at the Delta State University Teaching Hospital (DELSUTH), Oghara. His action smacks of empathy for the sick because he could have stayed in the comfort of his office to await the outcome of the surgery. Many public office holders in the country forget their professional constituency once they get to power. Uduaghan is not one of those that abandon their professions; rather he tries to make things work well for the medical sector. He realised too early the words of Hippocrates that

    ‘healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.’ This statement must have informed his decision of reportedly ensuring that DELSUTH brings dialysis cost down from N22, 000.00 to N5, 000.00 – even though the subsidy is mainly for Delta indigenes. DELSUTH reportedly carried out hip-bone and knee cap replacement surgeries as another signal to Nigerians not to travel abroad for medical tourism. Kidney transplant can now be done at Ogbara for just two million naira unlike the several millions of naira being charged by foreign hospitals.

    For inhabitants’ good health and to serve the essence of bringing true happiness to the society at large, other governors and even the president should emulate the Delta example. This column knows that there are several governors currently in power that are professionals in various disciplines and are doing well for their people. Governor Babatunde Fashola, the Lagos State “governor of example” is not just a lawyer, but a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). Sometime ago, when the President Goodluck Jonathan government concocted a case against the Asiwaju of progressive politics in Nigeria and former governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Fashola was one of the lawyers that represented the Jagaban of Borgu land. He is a worthy administrator and a good ambassador of the legal profession through his transformational style of governance.

    In Ekiti, the legal training in Governor Kayode Fayemi is really showing in the way he is transforming that state. Governors Rotimi Amaechi, Godswill Akpabio and Sullivan Chime of Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Enugu states respectively are professionals that have improved the infrastructural fortunes of their people. Governor Rauf Aregbesola, an engineer by profession has really brought his knowledge to bear through his exemplary urban renewal policy in Osun State. What about the admirable managerial acumen of Governor Abiola Ajimobi that has brought the hitherto elusive transformational governance/public sanity back to Oyo State? The wish for healing through improved medicare, good roads, drinkable water and public sanity among others has always been half of health and this is what these professionals in power have done for their people and others that may have cause to travel to their states for whatever reason.

    Whenever inhabitants of the states mentioned above are happy, their governors would be remembered as worthy ambassadors of their professions and admirable prides of their states. Like Uduaghan, these other governors are lending their ideas, their voices, and their precious time to genuinely improve their communities and the world at large. After all, Thomas Jefferson, former United States President once said: “The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.” And that of any president, no matter how powerful!