The Nation Newspaper

Tag: brouhaha

  • The school curriculum brouhaha

    Noxious rumours that pointedly altered the educational system in favour of a religion have for some time held the country hostage leading to accusations, counter-accusations and rebuttals from various quarters. The buzz as impishly created by unnamed folks broadcast on various media that Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) which teaches Christian faith and morals was removed from primary school education curriculum by the present administration as a plot towards ‘Islamizing’ the country.

    Ditto history as a subject which elites viewed as misadventures putting into account the unceasing aggressions and hate speeches from virtually all the ethnic groups in the country in recent times, each group with its styled rabble-rousing, incendiaries and threats. From south-east; secession for Biafra; from Arewa – quit notice to the Igbos; from Niger-Delt – resource control, and from Southwest, Igbo’s absolute compliance or the lagoon option. Incidentally, almost all the arrowheads are the post-civil war populations. Few witnessed the war and its effects, thus fictional commandos. History as widely believed gives a clue of the past including the good and the bad, but lacking. Sadly, the neophytes never knew that people guzzled raw cassava, raw meat and anything closely for survival as a result of war. They owlishly misconstrue wars as Nollywood-Bollywood orchestrated fights; probably their only horror encounters.

    Some leaders from Christendom, on account of the perceived quagmire on Christian Religious Knowledge have unremittingly raised alarms, especially the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) calling on the Federal Ministry of Education to reverse to hitherto position or be ready to meet at the court. The stories indicated the alleged act was to forcefully make all children in primary and secondary school become Muslims against their wishes and those of their parents. The allegation implied that since only Islamic Religious Studies remains as a religious subject, all children have been tactfully programmed to become Muslims against their wishes.

    Evidently, the 9-year Basic Education Curriculum (BEC) which grouped the five subjects including Christian Religious Studies and Islamic Religious Studies under the umbrella of Religion and National Values (RNV) BEC was introduced into the nation’s education system by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration in 2008 and commenced implementation afterwards. Its prominent characteristics include providing remedy to the UBE Act, 2004 for universal access and continuous basic education in Nigeria; attain the lofty values of social and economic development and reconstruction enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Nigeria National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other global and domestic initiatives.

    However, owing to massive outcry over immoderation of subjects, the scheme was judiciously rearranged by Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in 2012 by the then Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i and Minister of State for Education, Barr. Nyesom Wike, now Rivers State governor, alongside Professor Godswill Obioma as the then Executive Secretary, Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC). In 2014, the then minister, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau with the Minister of State, Professor (Mrs.) Viola Adaku Onwuliri retained it as evident in the National Policy on Education, 6th edition (2014) for basic education (primary 1 to junior secondary 3) at page 10 – 13.

    From records, the present administration adopted the scheme in continuity with a mere proposal by the present Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu in 2016 which merely disarticulated History from Social Studies to stand distinctively as two subjects. The necessity to separate History from Social Studies by the minister was to engage children separately in Social Studies and History rather than the shallow knowledge that merely recites names of Nigeria’s presidents, public officeholders as strategic panacea over current hurly-burlies.

    The essence of grouping is to compressively and neatly arrange the subjects. What is paramount is that the learners are expected to do well in all. Christian Religious Studies is sacrosanct for Christian pupils, and to Muslims, Islamic Religious Studies. It is bizarre playing politics with children and religion. Nobody has done it, and nobody ever conceived doing it.

    The French alleged to be elective with the ‘Islamic Arabic studies’; is a compulsory subject from Primary 4 as provided in Section 2 (23) 7 at page 13 of the National Policy on Education. Arabic remains optional since 2008, and exclusively for those willing to have knowledge of the language.

    As a secured policy, the 9-year BEC emphatically provides, “no child should be coerced or compelled to learn or taught any religious studies curriculum in school but one out of the two that restrictively relates to the belief system professed by the child and his/her parents”. As it stands, no child is however, under any compulsion to offer religious studies against the parents’ religion in public schools. Of course, in private schools, the proprietors may call the shot on religious studies in line with ‘volenti non fit injuria’ (to a willing person, no harm is done), and then Parents-Teachers Association (PTA). Nonetheless, government cannot force a privately-owned missionary school to teach the doctrines of other religion.

    Overall, who are the gainers and losers? The children and the society are the gainers while there are no losers at all. The children will face more subjects compressed under the grouping. By assembling four subjects under a group, the alarm ought to emanate from pupils and not adults except where the workload is glaringly affecting the children. Under the arrangement, to pass all Religion and National Values subjects, a pupil will have to perform well in four subjects under it. On the economy, the scheme opened-up opportunity for the kick-start deployment of 250,000 graduate-teachers in phases. None bothered to figure out where these new teachers will be posted knowing that no new public schools is built anywhere in the country. Federal government perspicaciously utilized the BEC to create jobs and at the same time impacting positively on the children. Thus, the brouhaha or hullaballoo is uncalled for. Criticisms can only be constructive and resourceful after critical investigations. Let’s eschew politics of religion.

     

    • Umegboro is a public affairs analyst and social crusader.

  • The schools curriculum brouhaha

    SIR: Our national discourse was charged recently with news about the purported removal of Christian Religious Studies from the nation’s education curriculum. Many Christian leaders described the move as a subtle way to Islamize the country.

    The National Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) whose responsibility is to design, draw and review subjects in the curriculum frantically tried to explain what the new policy entails but no one listened.

    Teaching of religions ought not to be the concern of government; parents and affected religious organizations should take up such arduous responsibility. Our Holy Book advises that parents should lay a solid foundation for the training of their children so that they will not deviate from it when they grow up.

    The current socio-economic imperatives with their concomitant materialistic appeals make not a few parents guilty of dereliction of this divine command. Most parents including our clergies hardly have time for their children let alone preach to them.

    If you ask me, Nigeria is not in short supply of religious teachings. In fact, indeed, it is morals that is lacking and this is the bane of our development. Our deficit here makes us a breeding ground for this ubiquitous monster, called corruption. The level of ostentatious display of wealth in our clime makes looting and stealing more appetizing. When a supposed religiously conscious people cannot become a peaceful and corrupt-free nation, then it is hypocrisy that is at work.

    Interestingly, some of the countries with the best standard of living and low corruption index do not place any premium on religion. In most of these countries religion is studied along with civic and moral education. Examples are France, Malaysia, Canada, United States, Mexico etc. In Norway, for instance, Evangelical Lutherans parents are mandated to make private arrangements for religious training of their children. And in Scotland, religious education is called Religious and Moral Education in primary and junior secondary schools while in upper secondary schools, it is called Moral and Philosophical Studies.

    It is pertinent to note that the teaching of religions with no emphasis on morality will produce extremism and further polarize the country along religious lines. It is the absence of morality in our national psyche that would make a man or woman to steal so much than he or she ever has needs for. All these corrupt people if you ask me are extremely religious. They are either devout Muslims, staunch Catholics or bon-again Christians. Then how come their consciences never prick them when they cart away the national wealth and thus depriving our people and children yet un-born the right to have a decent life? What about decaying social infrastructure like schools, hospitals and power supply? Our country, yes indeed our dear nation bleeds in the hands of ruthless leaders.

     

    • Itaobong Offiong Etim,

    Calabar.

  • JAMB: The 2017 UTME brouhaha

    JAMB: The 2017 UTME brouhaha

    Monologue

    The world is dynamic. It moves with time and in space. And people who are inclined to civilization and dynamism move progressively with it. The only thing that is permanent in this world is CHANGE. Unfortunately, that is the word that most Nigerians do not want to hear of even when no man or woman can survive without change.

    Whether in terms of weather, taste or fashion, man has always been an agent of change. Yet, most people are resistant to the process of change. This is typically characteristic of Nigerians who regularly enjoy the benefit of change but constantly abhor its process.

    Without change, there would not have been anything called Universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB). Without change, there would not have been Permanent Voters Card (PVC) that has now come to give respite to Nigerian voting system. Without change, the Treasury Single Account (TSA) that is now a major means of curbing corruption in Nigeria would not have come into existence.

     

    The new innovation in JAMB

    When the current JAMB Registrar,  Professor Ishaq Olanrewaju Oloyede, OFR, FNLA, assumed office in August 2016, he did not only indicate by his utterances, actions and body language, that further change might be pursued for the betterment of JAMB, he also embarked on series of consultations with people who know to solidify the new innovations. Besides, he has organized series of seminars, workshops, conferences and retreats with many stakeholders from all parts of Nigeria including some past executives of JAMB in attendance.

    The latest of those retreats were the ones held in Abeokuta and Kaduna recently. At those retreats, participants were classified into groups with each group deliberating on a particular segment of the new innovation and coming up with a relevant resolution collectively arrived at.

    Below is the opening remark of the JAMB Registrar at the Kaduna retreat held at Arewa House on Wednesday, March 29, 2017 and titled: ‘Strategic Planning Retreat on Monitoring and Supervision of 2017 UTME.

     

    Preamble

    “…..On behalf of the Management and staff of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, I happily welcome participants to this Strategic Planning Retreat on the Structure of Supervision and Evaluation of the Conduct of the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

    When we sent out invitation to you and gave you a very short notice, we were skeptical on your finding time out of your tight schedules to honour our invitation. However, this large turnout has further confirmed our identification and choice of you as critical stakeholders with genuine and undiluted interest in this Nation’s education sector in general and in its assessment and evaluation sub-sector in particular where the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board plays a major role. I therefore thank you and appreciate your presence here today.

     

    In retrospect

    On my assumption of office as the fifth Registrar of the Board, I pledged to revisit and revamp the original ideals of those who thought it most appropriate to have a body like this Board and to pursue with vigour and passion their original objectives. I therefore salute the vision of the Vice-Chancellors of the then six (6) Universities who introduced the idea of synergy of their mandate in the areas of entrance examination and admission into the few universities that the Nation had. If synergy, peer review, cost saving, elimination of wastages, collaboration, cooperation and enhancement of academic excellence were identified and recognised then with only six Universities, these salient attributes, ideas and ideals are now more than ever before the basic of all requirements that are most critical for the integration and cohesion of the Nation’s Tertiary Education.

    Though a lot of water has passed under the bridge between 1977 and today, the idea of inclusiveness is still as germane today as it was many years back. This is why between August 2016 when I assumed duties and this month, March, 2017, a period of eight months, I have visited various Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, where I met with the Managements of the various institutions in order to renew and restrengthen our relationship and partnership. The Management of the Board has also met with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors, Committee of Rectors and Committee of Provosts. We have equally met with the Managements of National Universities Commission (NUC) and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). We have taken the Board’s major events and activities to the Bayero University, Kano, Baze University, Abuja, Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri, University of Lagos, and others.

     

    Supervision and evaluation

    It is therefore in our stride and continuation at bringing all stakeholders on board our inclusive train that we have organiZed this retreat to take another look at the Board’s supervision and evaluation of its conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

    The aim of this retreat is to adopt an all-inclusive mode of examination supervision and evaluation. Recognising the stakeholding of major players in the Tertiary Education Sector, the Board wishes to give operational responsibilities to the major players in the administration of the Board’s examination. It is not enough for Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) to visit examination centres with sirens and large entourage of government functionaries with very little impact to show for their participation, other than to be under television camera lights and beamed same to the whole world when the outcome of the examination is laced with stories of examination malpractices. This time around, the major players with requisite integrity, intelligence and appropriate knowledge of the assessment would be fully engaged to actively participate in the supervision of the examination.

     

    Sale of application documents

    As part of our approach to the ideal of Inclusiveness, we invited all Central Bank of Nigeria approved commercial banks to participate in the sale of the 2017 Board’s Application Documents. Sixteen (16) commercial banks and NIPOST honoured attended the interactive session where we explained the reason and need for all of them to partake in the exercise.

    After the interactive session, thirteen banks as well as NIPOST signified interest to participate in the sale of the 2017 Application Documents. Between the date of commencement of sale on Monday, 20th and Tuesday, 28th of March, 2017, the following nine banks had paid for the number of Application Documents they required in the first instance. The banks are as follows:

    Zenith Bank; Union Bank; Sterling Bank Unity Bank; First City Monument Bank; Fidelity Bank; First Bank; Skye Bank and

    As a policy, no bank needed to know the Registrar or any Management member or even anybody at all to be patronized. Rather, every bank was given the opportunity to participate in the exercise. This is to affirm that JAMB is for everybody and belongs to everyone.

     

    The Pin Vending System

    Emerging from a retreat in Abeokuta, the Board introduced a new sale of application method that has come to eliminate scratch cards while adopting a cost-saving procedure of PIN Vending System. This is a secure system devised to address the sharp practices hitherto associated with the use of scratch cards.

     

    Problem of New Salr Format

    We are aware of the teething problems attendant to the introduction of the new sale format, and as a responsive body, we have taken steps to ease the initial challenges and in a few days, the results will be a seamless registration exercise all over the country.

     

    Supervision of UTME

    It must be noted that the JAMB has no university of its own. Thus, it is our desire that all stakeholders should take the UTME as their own and make it a successful project through cooperation in the overall interest of the examinees who will end up in our various tertiary institutions and eventually emerge as leaders of tomorrow.

    The current preparation being carried out by JAMB towards the conduct of the 2017 UTM examination should be viewed with good intention and trust because if that examination is not well supervised, it may not produce the expected results.

     

    A clarion call

    The Board is using this retreat as a clarion call on all stakeholders to ensure that all hands are on deck to make the conduct of this public examination better in Nigeria. It must be remembered that the conduct of the examination by the Board is the foundation of the quality of education in Nigeria. In view of this, I urge all the stakeholders to see this year’s UTME and their involvement in its process as a call to national duty and personal sacrifice.

    I also urge leadership of our tertiary institutions to be actively involved in the supervision of the Board’s examination as that will boost the quality of candidates that will be admitted into the various institutions in the country.

    Computer Key Board Without Mouse From the general feedback on the adoption of the Computer Based Test (CBT), we have noted the challenge of computer low level literacy of some candidates, especially the phobia of such candidates for the use of mouse. This has been partly responsible for the call by some people for reversal to the Paper and Pencil Test mode. Thus, in order to ensure equity and level playground for all candidates the Board has designed a system that will allow candidates to use only eight (8) keys without the use of the mouse.

    By this new system, all that the candidates need to do is to press letters A,B,C,D as relevant for responses (answer) to the questions. The keys are arranged as follows:

    P = Previous Question

    N = Next Question

    S = Submit after candidates might have finished answering all the questions.

    R = Reverse (when candidates want to reverse their submission).

     

    Distribution of candidates to centres

    As part of standardisation of the Computer Based Test (CBT) centres in terms of capacity, two hundred and fifty (250), candidates would be distributed evenly to each centre without any discrimination. This means that no Centre will be favoured or discriminated against.

    The JAMB examination Schedule has been designed, streamlined and synchronized in such a way that the examination will start and end on the same day, except otherwise dictated by the number of candidates in a few states with low subscription.

     

    The Blind Candidates

    In order to expand the frontiers of equity and inclusiveness, we met with the Executive Committee of the Association of Blind Persons in Nigeria  at the Board’s Headquarters in Abuja in February 2017 and we also met with prospective blind candidates from a school for the blind in Lagos at the University of Lagos recently.

     

    Visually-Impaired Candidates

    Secondly, the Board has also approached the Digital Bridge Institute to partner with it to set up examination centres for the Visually Impaired Candidates where those candidates can be trained all year round. Now, the Institute has agreed to set up these dedicated centres in Abuja, Lagos and Kano in 2018 and the Board will support the centres with all necessary inputs that can make teaching, learning and assessment at the centres seamless. The centres will also have residential accommodation for the blind candidates and their guides.

     

    Awaiting result

    For the umpteenth time, I would want to seize this opportunity to emphasise that awaiting result candidates are eligible to register and sit for the UTME.

    However, since candidates would not be considered for admission on awaiting result status the Board hereby urges all candidates desirous of admission to upload their O’ level results on the Board’s portal the moment they receive them and before the commencement of admission exercise as their O’ level results would form a crucial part of their registration requirements.

     

    Determination

    We are determined to make a change with this examination as we are aware of the strategic role our examination plays in deciding the direction of tertiary education in Nigeria. We appeal to all Nigerians to give us the required support.

    The guiding principle would be to formulate ideas and map out strategies that would ensure the maintenance and sustenance of the integrity of the Board’s examination and the sanctity of its process.

    Thank you all and God bless”.

  • The budget brouhaha

    It is almost a year since we had a change of government and yet we do not have a budget. This is simply embarrassing and totally uncalled for. In any civilized country, the minister of budget and national planning should have resigned long ago when it was discovered that what our president was made to present was poorly prepared and was not vetted before the president was told the budget was ready for submission to parliament. Ministers and heads of departments one after the other disowned the figures and projects in their departmental and ministries budget. The public was told that some people, presumably bureaucrats, had deliberately smuggled items and heads of expenditure without the knowledge of government. This is an act of sabotage and some people should be held responsible. This was also an act done to ridicule a president who means well for the country and who is doing everything to rescue the country from the abyss of stinking corruption the previous regime left us. I cannot imagine that anybody would have the kind of courage and audacity to frontally confront the president and his government in this way. This is why something must be done publicly to punish the culprits.

    The budget fiasco raises several points in my mind. I think people are trying to test the resolve of President Muhammadu Buhari. They are hiding under the pretext that we are in a democratic regime and Buhari dares not act as a military man and that if he does they will enlist the support of their bevy of lawyers to challenge him. We may yet borrow from the book of late Justice Kalu Anya who said in the 1980s that a time may come in this country when a defence counsel may be jailed along with the accused in cases bordering on national political or economic security. It seems the president’s hands are being tied and he seems to be going along with his traducers. If this goes on indefinitely without the president wielding the enormous powers of his office, people will lose interest in his reformist agenda and he will be perceived as a toothless bulldog or a bedraggled old soldier full of sound and fury signifying nothing. This apparent refusal to use the power of his office for the good of the silent majority has led to the National Assembly and particularly the Senate with its corrupt and compromised leadership blocking the moves of the president at every turn without consequences. Many people have suggested that there is a need to have special anti-corruption tribunals to try the innumerable cases of corruption being daily exposed. If this is not done, the culprits would use their loot to hire lawyers who will collude with the apparently compromised judges to delay the cases by issuing one injunction after another to frustrate the cause of justice as they have been doing since 2007. The result is that this crowd of treasury looters would come back next election and buy themselves seats in the Senate and the House. They will continue to rule us and award humongous salaries and perks to themselves. In the meantime, the work of government is being held hostage and poor people in the cities and rural areas are beginning to take laws into their hands by attacking ordinary people doing their own businesses or minding their own affairs.

    I just do not understand how members of the Senate would abandon discussing and passing the budget and troop down to the court where their so-called president has been arraigned for corruption. They say it is political persecution. Is the Nigerian government also involved in the Panama papers where the same money guzzler has been mentioned? We of course know what is going on. It is not that they love Bukola Saraki; what they are trying to prevent is so that the example of Saraki is not used as a template for their own treatment when the time comes. I wish these people know how angry the masses are with their shenanigans and irresponsibility.

    The president must not be seen to surrender to the evil forces in the land without a fight. There must be some emergency powers the president can invoke to prevent a civilian coup d’etat against his government. This is what the inability to pass a budget in a year is.

    The serious economic problem the country faces is being compounded by this inertia on the part of the legislative branch which instead of doing what is right for the people is nevertheless going on spending spree, buying jeeps whose prices are inflated by 100 percent and forging standing rules to permit all kinds of illegalities and untoward actions unbefitting of the status of the hallowed assemblies they temporarily occupy. The mistake Buhari made was allowing renegades take over parliament without the party whip. Once the leadership that emerged without party control was ensconced in office, the president lost all influence in parliament. If the president does not fight back, all will be lost and it will be goodbye to good governance. Instead of being sorry for their misdeeds, operatives of the regime that brought us to this economic pass are boasting that they will be back in 2019. If nothing is done quickly, their prophesy may just come true. The campaign is on.  Imagine the man responsible for the Boko Haram insurgency not only being appointed party chairman but also presumably gunning for the presidency itself! They are already blaming Buhari for the crash of oil price. The uninformed and even those who should know are saying things were better under the previous regime. They dishonestly give the impression that Buhari is wickedly withholding release of money to reflate a depressed economy. The myriad of problems arising from the collapse of the oil market does not allow President Buhari the luxury of being nice to those who want to bring down his government. He must confront them headlong. We did not elect him because of his democratic credentials or gentlemanly disposition to opponents, in fact we elected him because we want him to be tough to those who will sabotage the present and the future of Nigerians. We know one cannot make omelette without breaking eggs. What this country needs is not a pussy-footing leadership but a strong leader with clear conscience, incorruptible credential with the constitution in one hand and a whip in the other. Sometimes in strategy, it is not the actual use of force that does the trick but the threat of it.

    President Muhammadu Buhari stand up to be recognized, sir.

  • State Salaries brouhaha

    Last year December, the Vice-President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Issa Aremu raised an alarm that twenty-two states of the federation had not paid workers’ salaries for some months. Then came an avalanche of excuses from the helmsmen of the various states. Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola blamed the inability of the state to pay its workers for five months now on the dwindling revenue from the federation account which has been reduced by 40% since 2013.

    He claimed to have depleted the resources of the largely civil service run state to pay the workers and had exhausted all means of borrowing as the banks wouldn’t give him any more money. Gabriel Suswam of Benue state resorted to illegally deducting from the civil servants salaries and still owes them a backlog citing the same lame excuse of dwindling revenue from the federation account.

     Bauchi state owes its teachers for 11 months while workers in Plateau state haven’t received salary alerts for some months now. The same sorry situation holds sway in Abia, Oyo and even in oil rich Rivers state. The same buck passing is a recurrent decimal among the governors that the problem is with the falling revenues from the centre.

    Why should the governors be overtly dependent on the centre for the running of their states? Why can’t there be creative ideas generation on ways to shore up their internal revenue base in the true spirit of federalism? They were elected to solve the problems of their states and not to whine like babies as to the overwhelming challenges.

    The nation cannot continue depending solely on the revenues from crude oil that is fast becoming a topic of study for students of archaeology in the nearest future. We are in the epoch of a knowledge driven economy with the highest premium placed on human capital development.

    The Singapore miracle didn’t come about with natural resources; it was made possible through the total development of the human person. Most states in the country are far larger and more populous than Singapore. What then is their excuse? It is a shame that these chief executives have outsourced their thinking caps and have demeaned themselves to running to Abuja cap in hand to beg for handouts while using their governed as hapless baits.

    They need to be more responsible and alive to their daunting responsibilities and realize that the only constant thing in life is change. If the revenues drop due to no fault of the centre as they have no control over the oil prices in the global market, they must come up with winning solutions. True leaders emerge through crisis which they do not run away from.

    We won’t be talking about Sir Winston Churchill if he didn’t stand up to Adolf Hitler, Abraham Lincoln would have paled into a mere footnote if he had not found a solution to the Confederate General, Robert Lee in Ulysses Grant who later emerged as America’s President. Von Giap ensured Vietnam made the all-powerful United States pull out of the mountainous country through the effective use of guerilla tactics. He also used that same strategy to frustrate the French out of the country.

    Ademiluyi wrote from Lagos.

  • The one man, one term brouhaha

    The one man, one term brouhaha

    A ‘shot of power’ is too little to intoxicate. Two or more will do

    It is fast becoming obvious that the wrangling in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is nowhere near solution, going by the recent declaration in the United States by President Goodluck Jonathan that he never signed any pact to the effect that he would not go for a second term. This is at the heart of the PDP crisis, with his opponents, even in the party saying he should not run because of the alleged pact.. Jonathan had, during a media chat last year, declared that he was yet to decide whether or not to contest in 2015. He said his decision on the subject would be made public next year because making a definite pronouncement on the subject then would distract his administration from delivering on its campaign promises. But, is this what is on ground?

    Be that as it may, neither the President nor those who claimed he signed a one-term pact has rested since the Niger State Governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, made the allegation early this year. ”I recall that that some of us said given the circumstances of the death of President Yar’Adua, and given the PDP zoning arrangement, it was expected that the North was to produce the President for a given number of years. I recall that at that discussion, it was agreed that Jonathan would serve only one term of four years and we all signed the agreement. Even when Jonathan went to Kampala, in Uganda, he also said he was going to serve a single term …” Aliyu made the revelation during a live broadcast of Guest of the Week, on Kaduna-based FM radio station, Liberty Radio (91.7).

    But one of the things that usually baffle me in this kind of situation is the way the aides of those concerned speak authoritatively as if they were party to the actions in question. Some of President Jonathan’s aides have denied categorically that the president never signed any one term pact with anybody. Unfortunately, not all of them who are now defending him, and vehemently so, as if they were there when the purported agreement was signed or not signed, are competent to speak on the matter. For instance, his spokesman, Dr Reuben Abati, has no ‘locus standi’ in it. As at the time in question, Abati was not yet in government. I guess that was when he still saw the ruling PDP as Papa Deceive Pikin. Today, (since he cannot beat them he has joined them) it is either papa is no longer deceiving pikin or he has joined the party so that they can deceive pikin together.

    The same applies to the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak, who has also insisted that there was no time President Jonathan entered into a single-term pact. “Rather than insisting on an agreement that does not exist – since anybody can contest for the highest office in the land, those who are so interested should declare their interest and contest”, he was once quoted to have said. I know these people have a job to do, but I would be comfortable if they had said the President said he never did this or that, instead of speaking authoritatively on a matter they were least competent to speak on. I started pitying people doing such jobs since the time former Governor James Ibori’s corruption saga began and his press secretary denied that his boss was not a thief. We now know better.

    However, the fact is, constitutionally speaking, the President as well as governors are entitled to a second term, provided that is the wish of Nigerians or the citizens of their states; that is to say if they give the incumbents their nod in the election. Therefore, if anything would stand between President Jonathan and his second term ambition; that should not be any group of governors but the collective wish of Nigerians.

    The matter is even made worse by the report that, in the characteristic Nigerian manner, the document that the President allegedly signed with the 23 PDP governors on the pact is now missing. In Nigeria, anything can be missing, without anybody being called to account for it. We were told the other day that the Okigbo report on the $12billion Gulf oil windfall feared to have been squandered by the Babangida regime was missing. That is Nigeria for you. But if the governors would leave such a vital document in the custody of a south south governor (the president’s geo-political zone), and they do not have any other copy, that is their cup of tea. It shows how naïve they were. I only hope this is another dummy they have sold to the Presidency because there is one saving grace that they still have; if they make the document public at any time and convince Nigerians about its authenticity, then, they can compound the President’s problems by claiming that he is unreliable. And who wants an unreliable President? But the G7 Governors should not make their intra-party affair a cause of mayhem in the country.

    If they truly have fallen out of the PDP, they should not behave like the Bamanga Tukur-led PDP that can neither throw the G7 Governors and their supporters away, nor fully accede to their terms for ceasefire. In other words, when Tukur and Co. were told to eat something, they say it is bone, and when told to throw it away, they still claim there is some meat in it. The G7 Governors should be resolute about their plan. Like most other concerned Nigerians, they also have a right to say the President has not done well and therefore cannot be reelected. But this is not by threatening fire and brimstone; otherwise, they would be meeting the President’s forces on the turf that the latter are familiar with; brawn where brain will do.

    My argument is that the governors know what to do legitimately if they want to stop the President from running for second term: they should team up with people with similar objective (that I am sure are in the legion, and still counting) and bring the strategy and tactics as well as the ingenuity the ruling party had been using to ‘win’ elections to the alliance. That is the only way to pull the rug off the feet of the PDP.

    But if anybody thinks the battle to wrest Nigeria from the ruling party will be easy, that person is mistaken. Nigeria’s presidency is, to many Nigerian politicians, like the kingdom of God which suffereth violence and only the violent taketh it by force. This has nothing to do with whether the aspirant had no shoes as a child or whether he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The fact is that there is so much power in the Presidency just as there is so much money in it. So, how can anyone be talking about one man, one term, when there is so much at stake? Even Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who had been military head of state before he became president did not want to leave after serving the constitutionally approved two terms. The man simply played the deaf when some people asked him to adopt the ‘Mandela option’. Nigerians denied him a third shot at the office that he craved, the same way they denied General Ibrahim Babangida a chance to return to the seat of power to retrieve whatever it was that he forgot there.

    Tell me, if there is nothing in the place, why would most of the people that have ever got there, including our revered General Yakubu Gowon, be shifting handover dates over the flimsiest of excuses? When even those who are not from the part of the country where President Jonathan hails from were not satisfied with just a ‘shot of power’; (like the Eb..ra man, they always wanted more tomflers (tumblers)), how can we expect the president who comes from a place where they drink like fish to be? A shot? No. Only two or more will do, Baba ta ni’se wu? (Who is at home with poverty?) Agreement my foot! One term! One term!

  • Budget brouhaha

    If a country’s budget is in a mess, it is straight, simple logic that the country’s economy, if not the entire polity, could become one stretch of quagmire. Seventh month of the year yet the country’s most important working document, 2013 Appropriation Act, is dog-eared and in tatters. Not from handling it in the bid to diligently carry out its legitimate mandate, but from unyielding contentions and bare-faced chicanery. This all-important document is being wizened not in order to determine the fine points and delicate nuances of its requirements for the utmost good of the citizenry, no. It’s all about personal interests, turf fights between the executive and the legislature.

    The budget, the budget, it’s the budget, stupid. How we long for the day when we will get a grip on the federal budget once again. Most state budgets we have lost forever as they are disbursed from the shirt pockets of the big men. Local government budgets are long dead and interred thanks to the undertakers of the local council system. The federal budget, therefore, represents the last frontiers of budgeting in this vast, receding polity. Let’s save the budgeting system, if only to help our children learn the nebulous, arcane art of planning, projecting, juxtaposing, virements, project execution, monitoring and implementation.

    But budgeting has become a dying art in Nigeria and the 2013 budget is in utter ruins. By the time the 2013 Appropriation Act eventually emerged from the National Assembly (NASS) early in the year, it was already half dead hanging only on life support. For about a month, the President would not accent to it. When he eventually did, it was a conditional accent. Don’t ask Hardball if he appended half of his signature on it but he promised to return it to NASS. A few weeks later, on March 14, precisely, President Goodluck Jonathan returned the Act to the NASS. On June 26, the NASS threw it back at him. Ding, dong, like ping, pong our budget goes.

    The first tragedy here is that this matter is as complicated as the budget itself to the point that Hardball cannot help you to unravel it (sorry). The lesser tragedy (since we are entranced in delirious ignorance) is that they are playing ping-pong with your life. The final tragedy is that since they have befuddled our lives so much, that puts them at liberty to brand us ignoramuses who cannot understand basic economics and there ends the matter till the next season of (budget madness).

    As it stands, two quarters have passed yet we don’t know how much of the budget has been actualised. The NASS accuses the executives of seeking to amend an already approved budget instead of sending in a supplementary. The executives in turn insist NASS is balking so much on the matter because it had not released a N100 billion constituency projects cash. For your information, our representatives are passionately fighting to execute about 469 capital projects in constituencies across Nigeria for our edification. Without being prompted, they insist they will have no hand in the projects since the Ministry of Special Duties would handle them. And they are thoroughly piqued that the executives through the instrumentality of the Finance Minister who doubles as the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy (CME) is sitting on their project cash (sorry on the project cash). Where in our constitution is this position of the CME, some have asked angrily?

    Don’t ask me if I have seen a constituency project before in my constituency. You could jolly well count your teeth with your tongue. Don’t ask me if the Ministry of Special Duties is the new Ministry of Works and whether it has the capacity to execute 469 projects across Nigeria. Please ask no more questions because I am as confounded as you are. Please let’s move forward…it is at times like this that you appreciate the strictly Nigerian idea of moving forward.