- Keynote address at the First Year Branch Anniversary – Commemoration with Symposium of APC UK BEDFORDSHIRE BRANCH, Luton.
On behalf of all members of party in APC UK chapter, I bring you fraternal greetings and congratulate you on this occasion of your branch first year anniversary.
When we came here last year on 9th May 2015 for the inauguration of your branch, I commended your very well organised programme as the best we had seen since branches started opening up across the UK. Well done for keeping up with your tradition of excellence in your branch activities.
The APC led Federal government of Nigeria under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, came into office with the message of “CHANGE” campaign. And the three cardinal points of President Buahri’s campaign promises were hinged on:
Buhari promised to fight corruption
Buhari promised to tackle insecurity
Buhari promised to create jobs.
The President took a pragmatic and distilled view of the APC manifesto of “A new party for a New Nigeria”. He decided to take a focussed approach on those issues he considered the main stumbling block to Nigeria’s liberation and/or emergence into a peaceful, prosperous and stable country. This shows that he had given great thoughts to his Presidential ambition and what he would like to be remembered for as President of Nigeria.
The fight against corruption:
“Corruption is a disease, a cancer that eats into the cultural, political and economic fabric of society, and destroys the functioning of vital organ” (Inge Amundsen, 1999). I am going to review this subject along two broad lines, namely financial and political corruption.
Financial Corruption
No doubt, tremendous progress has been made in re-energizing and repositioning the national anti-corruption organisations, such as the EFCC and ICPC, such that, not just newspaper stories, but rather numerous convictions and asset recovery is taking place regularly. Indeed cash recovered in all currencies within the last one year as declared by President Buhari, is well over half the national budget for this year. This is commendable and should give us hope that at last Nigeria is beginning to set out on a journey of creating an environment that is conducive for business – because wherever financial corruption thrives, businesses cannot thrive because of the stifling nature of activities such as bribe taking which inevitably slows down the processing of payments and reduced profit margins for business people.
The successes so far recorded in the area of the anti-corruption war in financial dealings seems limited to the national government agencies at the moment. It is now time for systems to be devised to tackle this scourge at the state and local government levels where it appears the stink of financial sleaze is suspected to be even more prevalent with state governors literally behaving like overlords and the local government leadership only appearing in offices to collect and share monthly allocations. It means therefore, that the anti-corruption bodies need new thinking in spreading its intelligence gathering tentacles across all sections of government.
It is time to move beyond waiting for petitions to be sent before investigation commences. There has to be a proactive mechanism independently driven by organisations such as the EFCC through the deployment of both technology as well as specially trained “invisible” Marshals who live their lives doing other things but who work as financial intelligence officers to snoop around and help with information gathering on the financial behaviors at all levels of government across the country; all year round. This is the innovation I suggest is needed to fully ensure that the present anti-corruption programme not only succeeds but outlive the Buhari Presidency and become a way of life in Nigeria.
Political Corruption
“Political corruption takes place at the high levels of the political system. Political corruption is when political decision-makers use the political power they are armed with, to sustain their power, status and wealth. Thus, political corruption can be distinguished from bureaucratic corruption, which is corruption in the public administration, at the implementation end of politics” ((Inge Amundsen, 1999).
You will immediately realise that political corruption is actually the foundation for financial corruption and indeed maybe worse than financial corruption. In my mind this behemoth encompasses such behaviours as nepotism, ethnic and religious exclusivity and elevation of members of a particular group over and beyond all others in the belief that they are the only ones that can be trusted. This is an area, that I am uncertain the government of President Buhari has come to grips with; what with the reported cases of secret employment of children, relatives and connected individuals in several government parastatals without reference to laid down guidelines and moreover at a time when a large army of unemployed Nigerians roam the streets.
It is my view that the government cannot afford to keep quiet or turn a blind eye on such behaviours with all the attendant potential it carries for continued institutional decay/degeneration.
The priority of government should be about how to actively promote those behaviours that will encourage state institutional regeneration and renewal, and there is an element of urgency in this regard to win public trust and support for the war against corruption.
The fight against insecurity:
Prior to President Buhari being sworn in May 2015, Nigeria faced the grave danger of being overrun by Boko Haram. Boko Haram was gaining territory on a daily basis in the North east of Nigeria.
The Nigerian armed forces did not seem to have an answer to the rampaging advance of the terrorist.
Now we know why! We now know that the military was grossly under resourced. Although some of the soldiers were crying out at the time that they were being sent to the battle front with bare hands to fight against an enemy that was well armed; and in addition with an enemy that seems to know the Nigerian military’s every tactical plan and movement.
We now know that at the highest level of the military, monies meant for the purchase of military hardware and for the welfare of the soldiers were systematically pillaged by the military and security leadership. Perhaps, if no other event manifests, the utter heartlessness of the last government, this did. Some of the soldiers who complained were assembled, court marshalled and some sentenced to death, whilst others were given jail sentences. How could this have happened to our proud armed forces who have in time past demonstrated leadership in numerous conflict zones in Africa and beyond.
Now the story has changed. True to his campaign promise, President Buhari has mobilised national and international resources to take the battle to the door steps of Boko Haram and the terrorist group has been broken, degraded and peace is gradually returning to the North East of Nigeria.
On this score I will award the President and his government a pass with distinction!
A new threat has however returned to the country, with restiveness and armed militancy returning to the Niger Delta! A new militant organisation – Niger Delta Avenger (NDA), that seem to be only interested in; and indeed determined to maintain the now apparent old order of “let me just chop oil money – because na we get am” mentality has emerged. They are blowing up pipelines and oil production facilities, leading to massive drop in oil production as well as power generation.
The NDA seems to not care that for six years a son of soil occupied Aso Rock and all he achieved was to open the national coffers and poured our commonwealth into the banks of a few – No development came to the communities of the Niger Delta, even already approved federal projects in the region were not executed, a new form of internal colonisation rose within the region, with one ethnic group seeming to take on the new role of regional overlords and in the midst of all the poverty, a new cream of super-rich emerged at the expense of the Niger Delta communities.
The reason for the emergence of the NDA, whilst claiming that their mission is resource control and the continuation of the amnesty programme for militants from the Niger Delta, appears however from recent news report to be that they want all corruption investigations and/or possible charges against their principals dropped! What does this tell of the real purpose of the NDA?
Successes of the APC led government of President Buhari in the N-D.
Since coming into office, the APC government of President Buhari has set out a clear agenda for the Niger Delta; namely the construction of the already approved rail project and road networks linking the Niger Delta to Lagos and other parts of the country – the East West coast road and the coastal Port Harcourt – Calabar Rail Project. And very recently the Federal government launched the most ambitious clean-up project in oil polluted communities of the Niger Delta in line with the UN environmental study and recommendations for the region. This is the first time any government in Nigeria is taking such a gigantic step to restore life back to the destroyed and degraded Niger Delta ecosystem. So again in terms of taking steps to ensure that finally the people of the Niger delta at the community level enjoy the benefits of Oil production in their communities, I give APC government of President Buhari a pass with distinction!
Missing factor in resolving Nigeria security challenges?
To tackle and finally ensure long term sustainable security in Nigeria, not just in the North East or Niger Delta, a more fundamental approach need to be adopted. Here it appears to me, our party and government is failing. For us in the UK we have in the last two years witnessed or are witnessing two referendums
First the Scottish referendum and on 23 June 2016, the EU referendum. What is the significance of these and what lessons do they project to the security challenges Nigeria faces? There is a direct correlation between citizens’ feeling that they have a stake in the governance of their country, thus creating that feeling of ownership and internal security. The Nigerian leadership at both the executive and legislative arms cannot and should not continue to alienate the people they are working so hard to serve. I am sure there is a justifiable reason why President Buhari does not want to hear anything about the restructuring of the Nigerian state. Justifiably, he seems not pleased with the amount of money that was expended in organising the last National Conference by former President Goodluck Jonathan. And yes, our party, the APC was clear they were not in support of that conference. Yet, it is time for both our party leadership and President Buhari to take a fresh look at the challenging question of Nigeria national restructuring, for the purpose of national security, national reconstruction and the elevation of a sense of new national culture of ownership, devotion and acceptance of our “Nigerianess”.
The nearly three hundred ethnic nationalities that constitute the Nigerian state should be given a chance to actively participate in making a decision on the core issues that involve their commonwealth.
Our party, the APC and President Buhari need to step back and review the present situation. We as a Party in government have a real chance of creating the Nigeria of our dream – a country that values its citizens, not just the rulers; a country that is futuristic in planning, yet delivering maximum benefits of governance to its citizens in the now; a country determined to contribute to world peace and prosperity and a country that is fully running in the steam of truly participatory democracy.
How can this be done? My thoughts:
As a government, I suggest that we do not need another Sovereign national conference. Let there be a distillation of the core issues namely:
a) Form of government – Parliamentary or Presidential.
b) Resource control and true federalism – central ownership and sharing of resources as is presently the case vs devolved system that sets percentage contribution to the centre from each state.
c) Relationship between the states and local government etc.
The federal government should set a timeline to conduct a referendum during which she will sensitise, educate and mobilise the people on the issues outlined above or more. And at the chosen date the Nigerian people should be called out to vote in a referendum on these issues. The National Orientation Agency (NOA) is already in existence and can lead on this campaign and sensitisation programme whilst INEC conducts the voting aspect.
The outcome becomes binding on all and the Nigerian constitution amended by the national assembly to reflect the new status. I believe that with this approach, the unending cry of marginalisation, resource control and question of the form of government will be settled by the people and therefore become the new order.
The fight against unemployment:
Nigeria like all other countries classed either as poor or developing economies have a relatively young population demographic. This by itself should be a huge advantage, except that it also means that millions of young people are out of work
The APC federal government under the leadership of President Buhari took off very slowly, with operators of government levers not installed months after the President took office and indeed many still not in place into the second year in the life of this government.
This scenario coupled with the revelations of Budget padding has meant that whatever promise was made in regard of this subject is only just beginning to take off. The new national initiative on job creation; the Npower project, has now been launched – 500,000 graduate and non-graduate jobs will be created across several sectors. This is a massive step in dealing finally with backlog of millions of young people who have been in the unemployment market for years. Other sectors, for example the Police force is also in the process of recruiting.
What now needs to be done is stepping up the drive to encourage private sector growth for job creation. I am confident that APC government of President Buhari will surpass expectation in this regard, now that the process has finally started and lessons must have been learnt from the botched and delayed implementation of this year’s budget.
I believe that the Diaspora Nigerian population have real opportunity to contribute to national development through job creation. We in the UK in partnership with other national bodies and associations in Europe and elsewhere are already actively engaged in the process of mobilising towards Diaspora group participation in project development.
We are confident that this government will not fail, though the present situation appears absolutely depressing because of the numerous challenges being faced in the effort to recover the national drive and focus for development.
Like all Nigerians we are anxious that the process moves faster especially knowing that ours is a government that is driven by the party’s ideology of Social democracy and welfarism. We align ourselves with the people of Nigeria and call on our party’s leadership and government to continue to strive hard to ensure that the problems of poor or lack of electricity and food provision be urgently tackled.
Perhaps a short term solution to the increased cost of agricultural produce is a consideration of allowing for private imports of essential products such as tomatoes etc.
To the leadership and all members of APC UK Bedfordshire branch, I say a big congratulation on your one year anniversary. And thank you for inviting me and my team to this celebratory event.
Written by Dr Philip Idaewor
Chairman APC UK
