The Nation Newspaper

Tag: avert

  • How to avert disintegration, by Oshun

    How to avert disintegration, by Oshun

    The Chairman of Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), Hon. Olawale Oshun, spoke on the criterial for national unity and peaceful co-existence at a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of self-government in Western Nigeria organised in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, by Atayese, a socio-cultural group. 

    As demanded by the significance of this event, I should have been here with you but for prior personal commitments. However I have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending that the views and content that will be thrown up today by the erudite Lecturer, Prof. Adebayo Williams be food for thought for all Yoruba leaders – political, traditional, sociocultural, religious and professional levels.

    What we are commemorating today stands still as perhaps the most productive, progressive, welfarist and proficient administration the world has ever known in terms of human development indices.

    Comparing France and Nigeria today, who would have believed that we Yoruba people were availed of television broadcasts before the French?

    But here we are today commemorating what was and lamenting what could have been.

    I contend sincerely, and I believe everyone of you here do, that Yorubaland would have been boasting of similar rankings as today’s developed nations, had the Government of Western Nigeria survived for another twenty years under the Independence or  Republican Constitutions of 1960 or of 1963.

    But today, Nigeria rubs shoulders with failed states on all globally acceptable rankings on human development, and Yorubaland and people are dragged into that cesspool.

    Who would have believed that the subversion of Yoruba developmental trajectory and of Yoruba leadership was triggered just two years into Nigeria’s Independence, with an insidious and conspiratorial plan by the other two majority nationalities to subjugate Chief Obafemi Awolowo and dominate Yoruba people, hence the connived trial of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and other leaders on November 2, 1962 and the violation of democratic and parliamentary tenets engineered in the legislative house in Ibadan at that time.

    The short time between Independence and the subversion should be instructive to us as a people. Perhaps, it was the reason history was initially taken off our schools curriculum! The subversion did not happen because of any breach of democratic principles and or Law by Chief Awolowo and or his Party, the Action Group but because, I dare repeat, the Federalist Constitution which created cooperating and equal partners was unacceptable to the then Coalition government led by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi completed the task when he enacted Decree 34 in 1966 to turn Nigeria into a unitary state. However at that time the falcon could no longer hear the falconer, the North irritated by the affront of the coup, the killing of prominent political and military officers of northern extraction and the fear she now could be victim of domination violently reacted. But the same North using the military and collaborators have effected with perfection and subterfuge what General Ironsi sought to do with his Unification Decree.

    Politics of subversion and domination has played out in different forms in the last 57 years, consolidating the 1999 Unitary Constitution and whilst we may even have some of our own people benefitting from the anomaly to contend with, it is the duty of all Yoruba people to push and ensure that the true Federalist Constitution is reinstated in our country. And here we should not leave this gathering without endorsing Chief Bisi Akande’s recommendation that Nigeria returns immediately to the 1963 Constitution, pending an acceptable constitutional making process. The latest attempt by the NASS at constitution making remains a farce and should be treated as such.

    For the Yoruba people, our position is simple, clear, and unwavering: we wish to live in a country where every component ethnic nationality is respected and given its autonomous space to pilot its development affairs, while we all cooperate and collaborate to build a strong, united Nigeria.

    I conclude with these three statements:

    1. As long as the ethnic nationalities would not respect each others’ rights and would not see themselves as cooperating partners in the development of Nigeria, there will never be unity.
    2. In the absence of unity, development will remain a permanent mirage
    3. In the absence of growth, development and unity, why continue to pretend with nation building, deeply embedded in waste and the destruction of the fortune of younger and yet unborn generations?

    If the three statements above continue to hold true for any country, the only viable option is the dissolution of that country.

    I hope these statements will be taken as food for thought by all well-meaning Yoruba leaders.

     

    • Oshun is Third Republic House of Representatives Chief Whip

  • To avert youth anger

    •We need a radical redistribution of resources 

    It is perhaps the policy-makers’ worst nightmare:  What to do about the hundreds of thousands of young men and women graduating year after year from our universities, polytechnics and other institutions of further learning into a sluggish job market in a time of recession.

    As with other aspects of our national life, the actual numbers are hard to pin down, but if the 50 percent unemployment rate most frequently cited for university graduates is overstated, it cannot be by much. And the numbers are rising.

    It has long been an article of faith that higher education is the passport to the good life.

    In keeping with this belief, families consider no sacrifice too great to ensure that their children get a level of education that would best equip them to secure a foothold and thrive in the public service and the professions and in the larger economy.

    The belief endures, and so does the will to back it, but both are everyday challenged by the lived experience of most of our young men and women.

    Every Nigerian family today numbers in its ranks or knows or has heard of a university graduate or product of an institution of further learning who has never held down a job since graduating several years ago, or has had to settle for eking out a meagre existence from some form of work unrelated to his or her qualification and potential.

    The opportunities that graduates of an earlier era took for granted are no more there. Looking for meaningful work has become so unavailing that many graduates have given up altogether or headed to graduate school as a temporary refuge. The rising expectation yesteryears have been supplanted by deepening frustrations.

    That is a recipe for alienation and all that goes with it.

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo called attention to this danger last week while speaking at a Youth Governance Dialogue, at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

    “If we have youth anger or explosion because of lack of opportunity, it will consume us all,” he warned. The longer the “lack of opportunity” persists, the greater the prospect for such an explosion.

    We wish Obasanjo had come to this epiphany while he was president. For eight years, he presided over an economy that was in reasonably good shape, with a huge foreign reserve, and revenues so assured that his administration paid off in one fell swoop a foreign debt of $12.4 billion many years ahead of its maturity, with dubious benefit to the economy.s

    True, Obasanjo launched programmes to create jobs, alleviate poverty and provide start-off capital for young persons going into business. But their impact has been slight. It is even doubtful whether he really understood the nature of the problem.

    Graduate unemployment, already quite high during his first term, arose because, according to him, students chose to study sociology or mass communication when they should have focused on courses with greater practical application and utilitarian value. But at that time, there were hundreds of unemployed engineering graduates and teachers, to cite just two instances.

    In whatever case, Obasanjo did not live by his precept. When his own time came, he chose to study Theology, at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).

    For the most part, his successors have sought to apply the same failed palliatives, — on a larger canvass in the case of President Muhammadu Buhari. This approach falls short of the bold, imaginative action required at the centre and in the states, to tackle what is nothing less than a national emergency.

    An attenuated job market is not the only potential source of youth anger, however. For even where the youth are employed in large numbers, their salaries and allowances go unpaid for as long as eight months. Federal allocations earmarked for salaries are spent for other purposes and oftentimes diverted into the pockets of political officials who live in scandalous opulence, untroubled by the general misery around them.

    As they pine for opportunity, the youth see these political officials appropriate unto themselves increasingly larger slices of the national patrimony with impunity. It is almost as if they have come to plunder, not to serve.

    What all this indicates is a radical distribution of resources that will pay greater attention to the needs of the youth. It calls in particular for massive investment in job-training and retraining and work-study programmes to keep pace with technological change.

    It calls for urgent reform of the school curriculum to provide for technical and vocational training   in masonry, carpentry, electrical installation, plumbing, air-conditioning and refrigeration, motor vehicle repairs and maintenance, and other skill sets in which demand far outstrips supply.

    Above all, it calls for an enabling environment. Epileptic power supply, fitful water supply and unreliable transportation system make it exceedingly hard to engage in any serious form of entrepreneurship.

    Immediate results are not guaranteed. But unless the nation embarks urgently and earnestly on the programmes outlined above, it will be inching inexorably toward Obasanjo’s grim prognosis.

  • How to avert violence during rerun, by Wike

    How to avert violence during rerun, by Wike

    Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has said that the legislative rerun sheduled for tomorrow will not be marred by violence if the electoral commission conducts a free and fair poll.

    He alleged that there was an agenda against Rivers State, warning the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies against taking sides with any political party.

    Wike, who spoke in Port-Harcourt, the state capital, on the preparation by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the poll, described Rivers as the stronghold of the ruling party.

    He said: “We are ready for the election. But, our complaint is that there is an arrangement by the INEC to allocate seats to an interested party. The APC cannot win any seat in Rivers State for now because there is no achievement by the Federal Government to use for campaign. What’s the percentage of the APC in Rivers?”

    Wike said the PDP has approached the people to vote for its candidates, based on the performance of his administration.

    The governor said the misuse of the security agencies and the recruitment of party chieftains as polling officers could lead to violence on poll day.

    He said it was wrong for the police command to attach security details to the All Progresssives Congress (APC) leaders without extending the same gesture to their PDP counterparts.

    Wike complained that he has been a target of victimisation, blackmail and propaganda by the opposition, ahead of the poll, without justification.

    The governor said he had written to the Inspector General of Police about the threat by some unnamed suspects to kill him.

    He described himself as a popular governor, saying: “If I work on the street, people will come out to cheer me. It gives me joy. People appreciate what we are doing. There is no part of the state that is not benefitting from our projects.”

    Wike maintained that violence can only be averted, if the laid down electoral rules are strictly adhered to by the electoral agency, security agencies and other stakeholders.

     

     

  • ‘How to avert predecessor-successor crisis’

    ‘How to avert predecessor-successor crisis’

    Akwa Ibom State Governor Udom Emmanuel spoke with reporters in Lagos on his achievements and constraints, the agitation for state police and how to avert predecessor-successor crisis. Excerpts:

    How can Nigeria regain its lost glory?

    Nigeria is a blessed country in all the areas of human and material endeavour. but, we find out that our people are not getting the benefits of these endowments. That actually should call for concern. If we look at the G7, they are not just there because they have the guns or that they can do propaganda. When you hear the committee of G7 nations, it is those that have economic power. The question there is, do we not have better than what they have that made them that big? How come we are still where we are today? That is what is driving us as a state, starting from the basic housekeeping facilities. These housekeeping facilities to be very basic. How do we tell the outside world that we are just connecting villages to the national grid for electricity? The question is, through all the ages, does it mean they did not have light? But, that is the truth about Africa. They didn’t have. And to think that at this age we are still talking of providing potable water for our people. That is why we are putting serious attention on these housekeeping facilities

    We run a system in this country. If you think you can take care of your health offshore, wait until you are in trouble and a flight of 50 minutes seems like eternity. If in the flight from Uyo to Lagos the person is on ICU, tell me how he is going to make it abroad. That is why we have to have facilities that can take care of our health needs in this country.

    What are your achievements in the last one year?

    These are some of the things, within one year. we would put things up because we have started our planning, believe me. But these are real things on ground.

    Then, you talk about soft infrastructure that you can’t see, you can’t find. Take, for example, right now, I set up a target that Akwa- Ibom in the next seven years, if you have 11 players on the field, I must produce four to five first to 11th and I am working towards that.

    I am saying every athletic event in this country, I must have an Akwa Ibom there. That is why today, Eyom Ekem, a JSS student, is running for Nigeria 200meters, Commonwealth gold medal. We picked her from the village and trained her in our stadium.

    What we are doing is that, in 10 federal constituencies, we go, we see some secondary schools there, you see some normal football pitches that can compete anywhere in the world. What is the difference between Serena Williams and a girl from my village. it is her exposure to facilities. If they see fantastic tennis court to practise, they would do it. We just believe that human development does not really begin and end with First Class. A lot of people who had First Class today are still not doing better than Messi.

    In those days, we used to hear of Ekarika, Friday Ekpo, Ettim Essien. We don’t have to lose sight of those things. So, we are rolling these things back, most of these things, you won’t see them to read. So, in the next seven years, we are coming with something with say look and we want to catch them young.

    By September, we would start the Talent Hunt, at least, one of the centres is ready. The other ones would be ready before September. So in 10 Federal Constituencies, we would start that and nothing is stopping me.

    Even today, even the little we are doing, look at where we picked Akwa United from. They won the FA Cup. Even, you could see that even mentally, a mental alertness can change a lot the situation of things.

    How is your party resolving its leadership crisis?

    Let me say something. there must be some dissenting voices here and there, whether you like it or not. Even, between two brothers,  it doesn’t mean two of them must agree on certain things. That is why there is this word in the dictionary, the word they call moral suasion.

    Be that as it may, if you keep doing things the same way, you will keep getting the same result. But in politics, you should know that when you have the majority, you are home and dry, and today, we have the majority. What do we want? We want a solid and virile party that is united and that handle the problem of this country.

    I don’t have any other party. the only party I know in my state is the PDP. This is because that is the party that brought development. So, as far my people are concerned, that is the only thing they know. So, what we are telling people now is look, what do you want to achieve? Can we work from what we want to achieve? We must leave all those things, all those sentiments, biases and so on that we started from outside before we can determine where to go. So that is the new direction and that is why you see some of us in the frontline of repositioning our party. We would not allow the selfish ones and so on to derail what we are doing. That is what we are working on and we would succeed.

    How can predecessor/successor crisis be averted?

    You know one thing about human beings is how to manage fellow human beings. So, predecessor/successor’s relationship in Africa as a whole occurs because people don’t know how to relate.

    Two, you must put a round peg in a round hole. If I am a professional in politics, I must also know, if a professional in politics would succeed me to ensure there wouldn’t be problem. If I am a professional in politics and I go and look for a professional politician, there would be a problem in his own ideology and so on.

    Three, it also depends on what are you are looking for? Because that is question many people don’t bother to answer. What are you looking for? I am looking to set my dream and if you are also looking to set your dream, then, you must face that project. And if you are facing that project, there must be no problem. So, we have no complaints, our goal is to make Akwa Ibom a better place. So that goal actually unite our sense of direction and purpose.

    And also, there must be personal determination because they say determination is victory. If you are determined, the banana peel that others marched, you wouldn’t march it. Because it is a banana peel, we’ve just decided two of us won’t march it irrespective of the pressure.

    Some of the pressure is from the press because in Nigeria, people don’t believe that two people must work in harmony. If you work in harmony, they start looking for a name for you, because they expect you to quarrel” with your predecessor. That is what people expect and if they don’t see that happening, they say no, he is subservient to this one. You know it does work that way. We must learn to work with one another for this country to move forward because it is going to be a major distraction for you to leave what you are doing to be doing what does not benefit the common man. How does that bring food to the table of that poor girl inside a village that has never eaten since morning.

    So, I don’t pray that Nigeria should continue that way. People should also learn to know where they are going to and design their style of living and everything because, at the end of the day, what matters most is the people, the citizenry and we must be able to actually take them frm where they are to a better place.

    What are you doing about reconciliation in your state?

    We have only one project in Akwa Ibom and we should all join hands to come and work for Akwa Ibom. If you come to my government, there are a whole lot of people, they were those that were carrying brooms. So, immediately they left the broom, I embraced them because they are Akwa Ibom people.

    You see the day I won my election I said that was the year of campaign partisanship and that I have just settled for governance, and for governance, I go for quality not partisanship.

    But, you don’t just single out a human being out of 6.2 million people. We are building structures and those structures should be able to sustain and endure, even in my absence. So, that is why an open invitation shouldn’t revolves around one man, it revolve around an institution, anybody dropping, we are working with that person.

    What is your reaction to the agitation for state police?

    Unfortunately, I can’t say much on security. Every state governor would tell you the say thing. The little money we get today from the Federal Allocation, we spend a lot on security.

    The late MKO Abiola once said, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. If a state is not paying attention to security, and say it is a waste of money, go and sleep and see whether you would sleep well. And there is something a lot of people don’t know. If government stops to work for one minute, you wouldn’t sit where you sit. So, government must work 24/7 before you sit where you are sitting.

    If you call me 2am, in most case. I must be somewhere doing night patrol with the security forces, even if I cannot shoot gun. Even mere driving, telling them let’s enter this side, they feel so excited that as a governor you are showing concern for them because they are human being like you too, they have family, they have children. That moral support goes a long way. Pick up phone and call them, where are you people going on patrol today, who is who? Let my ADC know and my CSO know. So at times they need a little support morally, you don’t just sit in the comfort of your room. Take it from me, governors spend a lot of time, enery, attention on security, not only in Africa, not only in Nigeria, but everywhere in the world. Security is a major issue and whatever you spend on security is an investment.

    What is your view on the restructuring of Nigeria?

    What is my take on the current structure of the Federation of Nigeria. I only concentrate on things I can change. Things I cannot change, I leave them for God. I cannot change this one. if you want to change this one, call a Sovereign National Conference. I will attend. My change mantra doesn’t extend to this one.

    Could you shed light on the invasion of the Akwa Ibom Government House?

    One thing I have to state here is that the bail of money you saw on the internet had been on google since 2011 or so. they just put the picture there. it didn’t come from the Government House. I was there.

    Two, I want to also commend the president because immediately those guys came, I picked up a phone and called Mr. President, and he answered and he called the NSA immediately. So, they didn’t see a dime not to even talk of the money. But, to me, I just see that as one of the challenges of a developing economy, when an economy is developing, it is like a child that is learning to walk. He would walk, he would fall, he would hit something, at times, he would walk and hit the glass and get some injuries. It is in the process of walking and by the time he starts now starts walking, he won’t make those mistakes again.

  • How to avert electoral violence, by APC chieftain

    How to avert electoral violence, by APC chieftain

    Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC) Publicity Secretary Comrade Joe Igbokwe yesterday spoke on the danger of political violence, urging the security agencies to be at alert as the nation prepares for elections.

    He commended the Lagos State Police Commissioner Kayode Aderanti for arresting the suspected killers of the APC chieftain, Alhaji Azeez Asake,  last week.

    The party stalwart was allegedly killed by suspected thugs of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos, shortly after the PDP zonal rally held at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Onikan. The APC said the thugs are loyalitsts of a top PDP chieftain in Lagos State.

    Igbokwe told reporters in Lagos that the killing was a bad omen, urging the police to get to the root of the impunity.

    He said: “Impunity and political brigandage are enveloping the country and we need to fight it as the 2015 elections draw near. The police, armed forces, DSS, SSS , CDC, our courts and the NYSC are institutions needed for democracy to grow. The Commissioner of Police has asked those keeping illegal arms to surrender them to the police in their own interest. We are in total support of this directive.”

    Igbokwe alleged that the suspected killers were given protection buy a prominent PDP chieftain holding a sensitive position in the country. He said his antecedents have shown that he has capacity for mischief and violence.

    He added: “We are asking the government to call this PDP chieftain to order. We have it on records that he has been a violent politician who uses every means to achieve the desires of his heart, irrespective of the feeelings of others. He is violent, ruthless and potentially dangerous and he sees politics as a do or die affair. He is in the government to defend every Nigerian, irrespective of whether they are in the APC, PDP, tribe, religion or region.

    “To use his powers to advance the cause of the ruling party is a threat to the national unity and a threat to democracy. This chieftain and his boys must be called to order.”

  • ‘Yoruba, Igbo can avert Nigeria’s disintegration’

    A leader of Igbo in Lagos State, Dr Femi Ferguson, has said that Nigeria will not disintegrate, if Yoruba and Igbo unite.

    He urged the leaders of the two ethnic groups to come up with suggestions on how to resoplve the security challenge confronting the country.

    Ferguson attributed the problems of Nigeria to conflicting interests, urging the diverse tribes to settle their differences at the national conference. He told reporters in Lagos that, for Nigeria to survive, Igbo and Yoruba leaders should cooperate with their Northern compatriots to salvage the country.

    Ferguson said that Yoruba have been good to Igbos living in the Southwest, particularly Lagos, adding that their businesses are doing well due to conducive environment which the Yoruba, their hosts, provide for them.

    The Igbo leader noted that Yoruba gave lands to the Igbos to settle and do businesses, recalling that, during the civil war, their abandoned property were protected in the Southwest.

    He said, based on the age-long relationship, Igbos and Yorubas owe Nigeria a duty to save it from chaos, disintegration and imminent war.

    Ferguson maintained that Igbo and Yoruba have what it takes to save the country from disintegrating. He stressed: “The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has predicted that Nigeria would disintegrate in 2015. I am appealing to these two strong brothers to forget political rivalry and face the business of building this country to an enviable status. The national conference is a very good idea, but nothing meaningful would be achieved, if the Igbos and Yorubas fail to cooperate.

    “Personally, I don’t know why this has become difficult because the Yoruba protected the Igbos in the defunct Western Region during the civil war. There is no record of massacre of Igbos during the civil war in Yorubaland and afterwards. After the war, the Yoruba still welcomed Igbos with open arms, gave them land to settle and start their businesses.”