The Nation Newspaper

Tag: angst

  • Of Christmas, grace and angst

    Of Christmas, grace and angst

    Here we are again, that season of bright colours is upon us again. But this year, it seems to have come like a thief-roused-you-in-your sleep! You get up groggy-headed wondering what the heck is going on; then you realize an intruder is in the house. And your medulla races rapidly from bemusement to anger, then angst – in that order.

    This is the situation for Hardball and surely, for many of his compatriots. (You may take it to the bank for this Hardball fellow has the best hunches in the land).

    For a clime that bottomed out last year and has been roiled in the muck of recession since then, it is understandable the bright, red and green colours of Christmas are dulled. No country operates at sub-optimal; at sub-zero and expects its citizens to be gay at Christmas. Which other country, a major oil producer at that, is working and living at below zero percent?

    And speaking of a major oil producer, how can citizens  spending most of the season on queues at the filling stations be happy?

    Fuel scarcity ; poor power supply; queues at filling stations spilling into the highways impeding traffic especially for travelers… they sit there for hours cursing the day they strayed into this land, hauling pellets of abuses to whoever they believe is responsible for their woes. In this cycle of angst and abuses, who says there is no mystical potency to the tongue?

    Now is it the stars of the Black man or some malevolent sprites that would not allow him make good? How come a country that’s bequeathed with billions of barrels of crude oil cannot refine the product and maximize her immense bequeathal? Hardball must have asked this same question over a thousand times in different media and at different times.

    For over three decades; yes thirty years, Nigeria has been importing the bulk of her petrol needs along with over one dozen other petroleum products! All by-products of crude oil which she exports on the cheap and imports at premium prices.

    Why has this most important solution to Nigeria’s economic ills eluded over half a dozen successive governments including the current one? Stopping petrol products importation is the magic wand any government needs to wave. Why is everyone blind to this fact?

    Refining is almost as old mankind; so is power generation technology a commonplace knowledge. Yet most cities of Nigeria are in darkness even on Christmas Day… degeneracy continues to creep in on us like evil worm. Payment of salaries becomes cardinal achievement amongst our governments…and many of my compatriots would sing the carols on empty stomach today. Angst in a state of grace…

  • Our moments of angst

    SIR: The EFCC has, in dramatic fashions, been recovering huge sums of monies from unusual places, far away from the strong rooms or vaults of banking institutions, purportedly on the prompting of some whistle  blowers.

    The latest discovery of $43.4 million, N23.3 million and 27,800 pounds in a flat at the Osborne Towers in Ikoyi, Lagos, has unarguably been the biggest of such discoveries by the EFCC.  How so much money could be kept outside the banking system and in a flat whose ownership has generated controversy speaks to the extreme degeneracy that has afflicted us as a nation.

    The undisguised attempts by the federal government and its agencies, particularly the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to befuddle the Nigerian people over the ownership of the money should be condemned and rejected by well-meaning Nigerians and the international community. NIA has claimed ownership of the money. But Nigerians have justifiably doubted the agency’s claim.

    It is just not enough to put up such claim.  There must be incontrovertible evidence to prove it; otherwise, the NIA would be deemed to be playing a fast one, in the circumstance, for reasons best known to it.  Some people have even insinuated that the NIA might have resorted to this fatal gambit in order to shield the real owner(s) of the monies.

    Indeed, the entire development has been deliberately made convoluted; and, an otherwise simple matter of pointing a finger of guilt to the culprit of the flat 7b Osborne Towers humongous cashgate, has been made much more complicated by the insincerity of government and some of its agencies.  This is very depressing. President Buhari should feel very embarrassed that this is happening under his watch. Instead of seizing the big stage to flog the issue expeditiously, his government is dancing round the issue, perhaps, to protect some person(s).

    I must commend the EFCC – whether it is seeking to impress the president or Nigerians – for the bust and its decision to go to a Federal High Court in Lagos to secure an order for temporary forfeiture of the monies to the federal government.  This is salutary in that the court had given enough time for the owner(s) of the money to file an affidavit or a counter affidavit as the case maybe to prove claim of ownership.

    Whoever is claiming ownership of the monies should go to court to join issues with the EFCC on May 5; otherwise, the court should proceed to give an order for permanent forfeiture of the monies to the federal government.

     

    • Sufuyan Ojeifo,

    Abuja.

  • The Avengers’ angst

    OF all things, militancy should be the last to occupy our minds right now; but it has crept back stealthily to the front burner. Many thought that it was dead and buried following the amnesty granted militants by the Yar’Adua administration in 2009. Under the deal, those who renounced militancy and surrendered their weapons were granted amnesty and rehabilitated by the government. The ‘men’, that is the leaders, were said to have been given a huge sum of money to give up their weapons; the ‘boys’, that is the foot soldiers, were taken to camps for deradicalisation.

    In the camps, they were paid stipends and taught handcrafts. Many were taken abroad for further training, with the government spending millions of dollars on them. The amnesty deal was, however, not embraced by all militants’ leaders. Dokubo Asari of the Niger Delta People Salvation Front (NDPSF) remains a known critic of the programme. Asari has also never hidden his disdain for the North, which he believes is responsible for the despoiling of the Niger Delta. The region is oil rich, but its people are the flotsam and the jetsam of the earth.

    The Niger Delta environment is not conducive today because of the operations of oil companies. They have messed up the waters and the farms from which the people derive their living without giving them anything in return. Rather than come to the people’s aid, successive administrations were believed to be in cahoots with these foreign firms to deprive the oil-producing communities of what rightly belongs to them. It was to call attention to their people’s plight that environmental activists like the late Ken Saro-Wiwa sprang up. But with the death of Saro-Wiwa and the likes of the late Isaac Adaka Boro before him, the agitation took a militant hue.

    Militancy changed the face of the fight because it became what the agitators could get from the struggle and not what could be done for the larger community. Militants resorted to kidnapping for money and blowing up oil facilities, which are the nation’s assets. As things stand now, it seems it is bye bye to amnesty, with the sudden emergence of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), starting the fight all over again. It is not that the fight had been settled; no, not all; but, at least,  the country was making headway in resolving it through the amnesty initiative. The Avengers, only they know what they are avenging, have thrown a spanner in the works, with their ill-motivated action.

    There is more to the resurgence of militancy in the Niger Delta than meets the eye. There is no threat to the region’s interests for now to warrant what the Avengers are doing, except if they are executing a hidden agenda. The militants may not be happy that the region has lost power at the centre and may be doing all this to rattle the Buhari administration to draw constant attention to the place. The Avengers are surely not fighting for former President Goodluck Jonathan, but fighting to keep what they were getting under him, which may no longer come to them, with Buhari at the helms. We were warned of this day long ago by Asari, but we did not take heed of what he was saying then.

    Shortly after the last presidential election, which Jonathan lost to Buhari, Asari rambled about the Niger Delta ideology at the gathering of the Ijaw for the 2015 yearly Isaac Adaka Boro public event. He was bitter that Jonathan had lost the election and without mincing words, he said his people would ‘’resume our struggle if Buhari draws the first blood’’. Asari forgot that Buhari was not elected to shed blood, but to preserve it. In the heat of the moment, he spoke the minds of his people on that occasion, threatening fire and brimstone, all because their son lost an election.

    Asari said : ‘’Yes, a new government begins in Nigeria and a new phase of our struggle shall begin also. The Jonathan presidency was like a restraining order; now that restraint is lifted. However, we will watch and wait; let them draw the first blood and we shall determine our best way forward. Truly, Nigeria will never be the same again; the future is pregnant’’. Is NDA the product of that pregnancy? Asari should tell us because a rabbit does not run in the daytime for nothing. The Avengers are dancing to the drumbeats of some people, but we do not know where these people are. Asari may know for him to have spoken the way he did last year.

    Using strong words to the delight of his fellow Ijaw, he went on : ‘’Should Buhari whom like Pharaoh has determined in his heart to turn desolate the Niger Delta draw the first blood by undermining certain interests of the region, then begin the systemic arrest, maiming and murder of our comrades, continue the confiscation of our rights for self determination and treat the region as a conquered region then it may be honourable for some of us to die in prison or on the field of war as nobody is afraid of him’’. Long before Buhari assumed office, the Niger Delta people seemed to have resolved to give him a tough time because of the fear of the unknown. Whatever gave them the impression that the president would come with an agenda to decimate them only God knows.

    Or are they trying to do to Buhari what Boko Haram did under Jonathan? Of what use will that be? Were they told that the president was Boko Haram’s sponsor? This shows how shallow their thinking is. The Avengers are having a field day destroying our commonwealth in these hard times and even daring the military to a fight. Those who know them should call them to order now because by the time the military takes them on, the story will be different. We all have our grievances against the system, but they cannot be addressed through violence. The earlier the Avengers appreciate this fact the better for them and their backers.

     

  • Angst over car park charges

    Angst over car park charges

    Shoppers are becoming uncomfortable with charges they pay for parking cars in malls. They have described such charges as needless. TONIA ‘DIYAN reports

    One after the other, they hopped into their cars, amid complaints. This is crazy.

    Oh ! Owners of malls are taking undue advantage of us, by  collecting car park charges from us. Why must we pay for parking space in malls  where we shop regularly for our personal and corporate needs? asked some of the shoppers as they drove out of Ikeja City Mall in Alausa, Lagos State.

    Neither did they return greetings from the security men, who waved to them probably to collect money from them, nor offer some smiles.

    Indeed, they wore a sad look, suggesting that they are not happy with the charges imposed on them by management of various malls  in the state.

    The above summed up the frustrations of shoppers in malls located within the Lagos metropolis. Be it malls in Ikeja, Lekki, Surulere, and other areas in Lagos, it is the same story.

    Being the nation’s commercial nerve centrres, Lagos has witnessing  a flurry of activities  which include buying and selling of mercandise, online payment for goods and services, delivery of products at the doorsteps of people who have paid for them among others. It was therefore not suprising to see people, especially the high fliers in the society going for shopping to satisfy their urge for classic materials.

    Across the various malls visited by The Nation Shopping, in the state,  shoppers are quick to  express their disappointments over what they termed illegal parking charges levelled on them by malls’ owners.  To this group of people,  the charges was a tool used by the management of malls to extort money from them.

    Bade Suleiman, a shopper at Leisure Mall, Suruelere in Lagos  Mainland,  said he was not comfortable with the ways they were being charged for parking space in malls.

    He said he was paying N200 per hour for using the car space provided by the management of the mall.

    Hear him:  ‘’ I  do not  understand the  rationale behind the N200  we  ( the shoppers)  are being charged for using car space in thee mall. I have been shopping in the mall for long, and my car has never been stolen either or outside the mall. It is with this mindset I go to malls in Lagos and beyond. Whether I’m shopping spree or not, I always believe that my car is safe.Why must I pay N200 for using the car space provided in the mall since they are making money from me? He asked.

    Another shopper,  who identifed herself as Brahiyat Haruna, said it was wrong for owners of malls to charge them for using their car parks.

    He said paying for car space  in the malls does not guarantee the safety of his car. While some shoppers are frowning at the charges, few others said there was nothing wrong with the levy imposed on them for using car space.

    Aremu Ayo, a shopper, said it is not right to pay for a car space in a mall where he buys goods and further  helps them to improve on their business.

    He said he goes to malls to buy their products, and therefore, should not be made to pay for parking space.

    ‘’ Sometimes, shoppers buy products at a far higher prices due to taxes and other government’ levies.  Yet, are made to pay for car park. This is not good enough.

    While this lasted, some people said there was nothing wrong in asking shoppers to pay for car space in malls.

    Nurudeen Babatunde is one of such people. A middle aged man from Lagos, Babatunde said there was nothing wrong in the charges which shoppers pay for using car  parks within the malls.

    He  said there was nothing wrong in shoppers paying for parking space within the  malls.

    “After all, it costs only N200 to park a car at the mall, I think the charges are moderate.A shopper can only be asked to pay more charges if or she spend more than an hour  in the mall..”

    According to him, if people can  spend thousands of naira to buy goods in the malls,  payment for car space of N200 per hour should not be a problem to them since they are paying for the safety of their cars.

    He urged people not to stay too long in the malls to avoid being charged huge amount of money for using their car parks.

    ‘’I do not see the need to spend more than an hour in a mall. If we  do not want  to pay highly for car park, then the best thing for shoppers to do is conduct their transactions as quickly as possible.’’ he added.

    According to  mall administrators in Lagos,who spoke to The Nation, on condition of annoymity,  there is need for shoppers to pay charges for using car park in the malls when one considers the problems they create for other users of the malls.

    He said: ‘’For instance, parking spaces are congested, making it difficult for other shoppers to enter in order to conduct transactions. On a good day, we accommodate 1000 cars because the land is almost two plots. Some park for three or four hours, while it is just 15 minutes for others. The N200 fee we charge is, however, for single entry. Once you drive out, you will have to pay again if you have any reason to come in.”

    Sander Norman, a Manager in Ikeja City Mall, said: “If malls do not  charge for parking, people would take undue advantage of them, by leaving their vehicles for hours.  If people  can drive to Victoria Island to buy  goods, and pay about N200 as toll gate fee, they should be able to do the same here,” he said.

    It would be recalled that a mall was closed in Lagos in 2012 when shoppers protested  the payment for car parking. Will another mall(s) be shut against for the same reason?

    Time will tell.

  • Look back with angst

    As new year approached a century ago, most people in the West looked forward to 1914 with optimism. The hundred years since the Battle of Waterloo had not been entirely free of disaster-there had been a horrific civil war in America, some regional scraps in Asia, the Franco-Prussian war and the occasional colonial calamity. But continental peace had prevailed. Globalization and new technology-the telephone, the steamship, the train-had knitted the world together. John Maynard Keynes has a wonderful image of a Londoner of the time, “sipping his morning tea in bed” and ordering “the various products of the whole earth” to his door, much as he might today from Amazon – and regarding this state of affairs as “normal, certain and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement”. The Londoner might well have had by his bedside table a copy of Norman Angell’s “The Great Illusion”, which laid out the argument that Europe’s economies were so integrated that war was futile.

    Yet within a year, the world was embroiled in a most horrific war. It cost 9m lives – and many times that number if you take in the various geopolitical tragedies it left in its wake, from the creation of Soviet Russia to the too-casual redrawing of Middle Eastern borders and the rise of Hitler. From being a friend of freedom, technology became an agent of brutality, slaughtering and enslaving people on a terrifying scale. Barristers shot up around the world, especially during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The globalization that Keynes’ Londoner enjoyed only really began again in 1945 – or, some would argue, in the 1990s, when eastern Europe was set free and Deng Xiaoping’s reforms began bearing fruit in China.

    The driving force behind the catastrophe that befell the world a century ago was Germany, which was looking for an excuse for a war that would allow it to dominate Europe. Yet complacency was also to blame. Too many people, in London, Paris and elsewhere, believed that because Britain and Germany were each other’s biggest trading partners after America and there was therefore no economic logic behind the conflict, war would not happen. As Keynes put it, “The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions and exclusion, which were to play the serpent of this paradise, were little more than the amusements of (the Londoner’s)… daily newspaper”.

    Playing your role

    Humanity can learn from its mistakes, as shown by the response to the economic crisis, which was shaped by a determination to avoid the mistakes that led to the Depression. The memory of the horrors unleashed a century ago makes leaders less likely to stumble into war today. So does the explosive power of a modern conflagration: the threat of a nuclear holocaust is a powerful brake on the reckless escalation that dispatched a generation of young men into the trenches.

    Yet the parallels remain troubling. The United States in Britain, the superpower on the wane, unable to guarantee global security. Its main trading partner, China, plays the part of Germany, a new economic power bristling with nationalist indignation and building up its armed forces rapidly. Modern Japan is France, an ally of the retreating hegemon and a declining regional power. The parallels are not exact – China lacks the Kaiser’s territorial ambitions and America’s defence budget is far more impressive than imperial Britain’s – but they are close enough for the world to be on it guard.

    Which, by and large, it is not. The most troubling similarity between 1914 and now is complacency. Businesspeople today are like businesspeople then: too busy making money to notice the serpents flickering at the bottom of their trading screens. Politicians are playing with nationalism just as they did 100 years ago. China’s leaders whip up Japanophobia, using it as cover for economic reforms, while Shinzo Abe stirs Japanese nationalism for similar reasons. India may next year elect Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who refuses to atone for a pogrom against Muslims in the state he runs and who would have his finger on the button of a potential nuclear conflict with his Muslim neigbours in Pakistan. Vladimir Putin has been content to watch Syria rip itself apart. And the European Union, which came together in reaction to the bloodshed of the 20th century, is looking more fractions and riven by incipient nationalism than at any point since its formation.

    I have drunk and seen the spider

    Two precautions would help prevent any of these flashpoints sparking a conflagration. One is a system for minimizing the threat from potential dangers. Nobody is quite clear what will happen when North Korea implodes, but America and China need to plan ahead if they are to safeguard its nuclear programme without antagonizing each other. China is playing an elaborately dangerous game of “chicken” around its littoral with its neighbours. Eventually, somebody is bound to crash into somebody else – and there is as yet no system for dealing with it. A code of maritime conduct for the area is needed.

    The second precaution that would make the world safer is a more active American foreign policy. Despite forging an interim nuclear agreement with Iran, Barack Obama has pulled back in the Middle East – witness his unwillingness to use force in Syria. He had also done little to bring the new emerging giants – India, Indonesia, Brazil and, above all, China – into the global system. This betrays both a lack of ambition and an ignorance of history. Thanks to its military, economic and soft power, America is still indispensable, particularly in dealing with threats like climate change and terror, which cross borders. But unless America behaves as a leader and the guarantor of the world order, it will be inviting regional powers to test their strength by bullying neighbouring countries.

    The chances are that none of the world’s present dangers will lead to anything that compares to the horrors of 1914. Madness, whether motivated by race, religion or tribe, usually gives ground to rational self-interest. But when it triumphs, it leads to carnage, so to assume that reason will prevail is to be culpably complacent. That is the lesson of a century ago.