The Nation Newspaper

Tag: future

  • Embracing our common economic future with optimism

    Embracing our common economic future with optimism

    As widely acknowledged, the ‘old normal’ of high oil prices – oil prices at $100.00 per barrel and above – has given way to a ‘new normal’ of prices well below this range. The 2016 crude oil price outlook is very gloomy. The most authoritative optimistic price outlook for the product in 2016 is by the International Monetary Fund, which forecasts $42.00 per barrel average price. Equally, the 2017 oil price outlook is also not much expansive. Quite clearly, therefore, Nigeria, like all other oil exporting-countries, are having to make fiscal and monetary adjustments in response to this reality.

    The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari recognises this immediate need for adjustment. For instance, unlike Russia which budgeted on $50.00 a barrel price for oil in 2016, the Benchmark Price for oil in the Nigerian budget proposal is $38.00. This tends to counter the argument that Nigeria’s 2016 budget is overboard on oil price optimism. But this is by the way.

    Right from inception of the administration last May, when the Brent crude was still selling at a decent price range of $55 to $60.00 a barrel, President Buhari signalled his preparedness to move forward the agenda of structural diversification of the Nigerian economy. Moving in this direction, the 2016 budget proposal seeks to stimulate investments in infrastructure, agriculture and solid minerals. The resolve to also increase tax revenues and build social safety nets are sure signals that the government, indeed, wants to decouple the economy from oil dependency.

    The implementation of this bold plan is critical in moving beyond the rhetoric of structural transformation of the economy to its actualisation. Most oil producing economies of OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) were also stuck in the rhetoric of economic diversification.

    High crude prices and the accruing huge revenue paradoxically bred complacency and lacklustre commitment to policy actions.

    Nonetheless, economic diversification requires funding. The cumulative gain from last ten years of high oil prices was the fillip we should have seized to make much more progress with this agenda. But in practice, it didn’t work out like that. Perhaps, one could say it hardly works out like that.

    What we didn’t do when petrol dollars was a deluge, we now must do with historically low oil prices and historically low oil revenue for Nigeria. The Nigerian Export – Import Bank had been talking up the imperative of non-oil sector growth during the last season of high oil prices. For us, oil sector-led growth is a jobless growth. It is also pro-cyclical; the potential to expose the country to the current brutal external shocks was always there.

     

    Making the transition

    The adjustments we need to make as a country now are pointedly two-fold. We have to curb imports by boosting domestic production. And we have to develop local capacity to produce non-oil value-added products for export. We no longer have the benefit of high oil price to delay further actions on either of these. So, here is the rub. We have to start making the adjustments and the transition now albeit in the middle of volatile global market conditions and unpleasant domestic economic situation arising from a sharp decline in government revenue.

    Some analysts believe we can make cosmetic tweaking of market policies to, in effect, keep the old order in place. In this regard, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has come under great pressure to lift the rein on importation by being more accommodative with its foreign exchange policy. While it is true that the capital controls may have inadvertently impacted some activities negatively – and happily the President and the CBN have promised to continue to fine-tune the foreign exchange regime – import substitution and diversification of export base have no viable substitutes for long-term performance of the Nigerian economy.

    Yes, this adjustment will not be easy. It would mean near drastic lifestyle changes for even people who have the naira to continue indulging in their foreign taste. For others, it would impose the need to reinvent their businesses and commercial sourcing. Yet, for everyone, immediately, it could mean a squeeze and an economic discomfort.

    The inconvenience will not last forever. But it would last in the period that we all have to make the psychological adjustment. Recent monetary and fiscal policy decisions will have to penetrate the system with the desired effects. Financial institutions would have to respond positively to the policy priority of improvement in real sector and SME funding. We also have to bring about significant expansion of non-oil exports. In spite of the current personal discomforts and market turmoil especially in the foreign exchange and equity markets, opinions are converging that, finally, we have reached a critical turning point in economic management in our country. This portends to be for good.

     

    Help on the way

    The CBN upheld its Monetary Policy Committee decisions of last November at its January meeting. The main reason would be to allow the banks to respond to the November decisions, which initiated a process of injecting additional liquidity in the banks. This was by way of reduced Cash Reserve Ratio, from 25% to 20%. This liquidity, estimated above N1 trillion, would filter into the system only through lending to real sector businesses and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises. These are the sectors that will underpin the strength of the Nigerian future economy.

    This targeted credit boost, however, requires the banks to develop additional risk management capacities and new credit products. Some of such products have started to reach the market, like the one that now wants to help SMEs improve their capital assets. Such facilities would improve operational efficiency and outputs of domestic producers and manufacturers.

     

    CBN and NEXIM Bank collaboration

    The Nigerian Export – Import Bank, which has the responsibility for promoting non-oil exports, is scaling capacity to intermediate external sector revenue generation. One of our latest activities include a collaboration with the CBN to create additional funding resources for Nigerian export manufacturers. This has led to the creation of a new N300 billion Export Stimulation Fund that will lend at 9% interest rate.

    This fund targets immediate impacts. Our quick-win strategy is to expand the businesses of companies that are already exporting. We will give them funding to produce and export more. This facility is in line with the fiscal outlook of the Federal Government, which requires helping the private sector to generate additional $2 billion in non-oil exports in 2016.

    Inadequate financing, according to the CBN, had led to the drop in government’s non-oil export revenues from $10.53 billion in 2014 to $4.39 billion in 2015.

    Nigerian export manufacturers, like other critical stakeholders in the economy, need to step forward and embrace government’s efforts. For too long, the profile of Nigeria as a predominant oil exporting-country had stuck, and with no correlating benefits. While aggregate domestic credit to the economy has been on the rise, credit to non-oil exports has been declining at an average of 0.6% of total domestic loans to the private sector in the last five years, according to data from the CBN. We are set to reverse this.

     

    Trumping pessimism

    A pessimistic view of the adjustment taking place in Nigeria now cannot be validated by our past failure with structural transformation of our economy. The truth is that such pessimism is incompatible with our instinct to survive and prosper, given that the cards we have for shared prosperity are what we are playing now. We have to defeat pessimism and embrace our common economic future with optimism in order to bring about the change that we desire.

    At NEXIM Bank, we look forward to working with Nigerian businesses that would help rebalance our economy more in favour of domestic production and non-oil exports, against dependency on oil revenue and unbridled importation of consumer goods. In the medium- to long-term, we will see a significantly transformed Nigerian economy for our benefits.

    • Orya is Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Export – Import Bank. He is also the Honorary President, Global Network of Exim Banks and Development Finance Institutions (G-NEXID)

  • Saraki, corruption and future of Nigeria

    I have followed the political history of Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki since 2004 when as a young reporter I did a news story on a petition some Kwara elder statesmen, led by Elder Wole Oke, wrote against his government, alleging diversion of local government funds. Backed with ‘documentary evidence’ showing how these funds were allegedly being cornered, the story elicited prompt response from the Saraki government which sent down a team of commissioners to the headquarters of the newspaper where I then worked. We did their own side of the story. To be honest, the government’s response raised more questions than answers. Anyone who read both copies would instantly know something was fishy. Since then I have paid attention to the senator.

    I have followed the developments around the many corruption allegations trailing Senator Saraki. To be sure, Saraki, like anyone else accused of crime, is innocent until proven guilty by a law court. This he has maintained at every opportunity. He pleaded not guilty to all the 13-count charge the Code of Conduct Bureau has preferred against him. Fine.

    But the conduct of the senator since the trial began suggests not just a guilty conscience but an individual habitually given to actions inimical to public probity and accountability.  Such conduct, if not checked, poses a serious danger to public morality. And given that he commands huge following among young generation of Nigerians, his penchant to always cry foul and shout political witchhunt each time he’s asked to account for his time in public office will send the signal to the young ones that they can always evade scrutiny with a shout of witchhunt, echoed by a well-oiled media and propaganda team.

    Sometimes in 2011, Senator Saraki claimed he once waived his immunity as a governor to be probed by the anti-graft bodies. Again, he has blown the whistle on alleged corruption in a few instances. He touts this among his feats as a senator. If Saraki is clean and honest as he wants the public to accept,  one would expect him to grab with jet-speed urgency any opportunity to clear his name. While it remains within his right to seek legal cover against injustice,  the circumstances surrounding his political career – added to his penchant to be seen as one of the best fellows around in politics – mean he should not rely on his privileged access to the best defence attorneys around to stall his trial. He can proceed to an appeal court if he feels the outcome of the trial is skewed against him. But his present journey around all the courts in the land gives the impression that he doesn’t want the trial to hold at all. Such conduct hardly suggests innocence.

    Beyond this, the senator appears to want to scandalise the CCT judge Danladi Umar. Seeing that the judge does not appear intimidated by bus-load of senators who neglected the duty of law-making to standing solidarity with Saraki at the court,  the senate led by the same Saraki has now gone ahead to begin a probe of Justice Danladi for allegedly accepting bribe from a suspect, among other allegations. As shameless, dangerous and objectionable this probe is, I’m shocked to note that Nigerians haven’t shown any outrage at this gangasterism!  Danladi may be guilty.  He may have abused his office. But a senate led by Saraki is morally unfit to investigate him – not at this time. The conduct of the senators since Saraki was docked has stripped them of the moral stamina to probe the same judge who is trying Saraki. It is strange and illogical, and should be rejected by all men of good conscience.

    And maybe the senator could well learn a few things from Justice Danladi Umar. Perhaps knowing that he cannot shout witchhunt as a defence in the allegations against him, he was at the House of Representatives on Thursday,  December 3, 2015 to clear his name. I understand he was there with CCT management team and documents to show his innocence. The public is following the case and will know if any party tries anything funny. Saraki should emulate Danladi by defending himself. He should tell the court, with proof, that all those allegations against him were made up,  that they were figment of his enemies’ imagination. If he is found to be innocent after a clear trial, this will help his political career.

    But what happens if every accused person alleges some form of witchhunt and hides under legal technicalities to evade trial, as the senator seems to be doing? The answer is simple: we will have confusion and chaos in the society.

    And the issues in Saraki’s trial are quite simple. It is like asking any other person: Did you make false assets declaration? Rather than face up to this basic question and defend himself, he retorted that ‘only three people can ask me that question and if you are less than three I will not answer.’ The pertinent question is would his answers have been different if he had been asked by 10 people? This, to my mind, is what Saraki’s objections amounted to by raising issues with whether or not three people should have sat at the CCT instead of two or that the court is not empowered to try criminal case or that it is an inferior court or that there was no substantive attorney general of the federation in place. Would his defence have been different if three people were sitting at CCT or if an AGF was in place?

    The  Supreme Court has appointed February 5 to rule in an appeal by Saraki seeking to stop his trial. Without prejudice to whatever the court will decide, the Saraki’s case is a challenge to all Nigerians to ask ourselves tough questions which include whether or not to accept the Saraki leadership model and its consequences.

    Some persons have asked why the government is not trying other governors for asset declaration issues. It is a fair question. Corruption trial should not be selective. But allegation of selectiveness is never a defence for a man already arraigned before a court. It is either he committed the offence or he did not. If he did commit the offence, he cannot be left off the hook because others in his shoes have not been arraigned. To be sure, Senator Saraki has been shouting witchhunt since 2012 each time he is to be arraigned for alleged corruption. For how long would he do that?

  • ‘If corruption thrives, Nigeria has no future’

    ‘If corruption thrives, Nigeria has no future’

    Second Republic Lagos State Deputy Governor Rafiu Jafojo will clock 80 on Friday. He spoke with EMMANUEL OLADESU and ENITAN SERIKI on his political career, his unfulfilled dreams and the crisis in Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation.

    Congratulations on the occasion of youth 80th birthday. Do you feel fulfilled at 80?

    I thank God for sparing my life. I feel comfortable. It is not easy to be 80. To be honest with you, I am okay. But, I do not feel fulfilled entirely. I would have wanted some other things to happen, which fit into my expectation. There are some things I have not been able to achieve. To start with, I have been agitating for the emancipation of the Aworis. The second is the Lagos State issue. I am not happy with the situation of Lagos. Our leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, should ensure that more Lagosians are given opportunities to paddle the canoe of Lagos. At 80, I have done what Napoleon could not do. I have turned back the Duke of Wellington.

    How did you meet the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, your leader?

    I was in England and he saw me. He was happy that I am an Awori. I was young. I worked for the party, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). Everybody loved me and I loved them. That made Chief Awolowo to have confidence in me. I became very close to Papa in England. When I returned home, I became his cherished son and he became my father. I wanted to go to the House of Assembly from Agege Constituency. But, I was selected as Alhaji Lateef Jakande’s running mate. I learnt a lot from Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Some people were surprised that I had become close to the great man. When I returned to Nigeria, Papa looked for me. He wanted an Awori son to be the deputy governor of Lagos State. Alhaji Jakande had his mind on an Ijebu man. But, Papa Awolowo said no. He said: Go to Awori. There is a boy there called Rafiu. Go and call him for me.  That was how I became the deputy governor. I was not chosen by anybody, but by Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

    What were other things Chief Awolowo told you?

    It is a long story. Chief Awolowo invited me to Apapa. He discussed with me for one hour and thirty minutes. It was inside the first room on the left. I requested for his advice because the office of deputy governor in a presidential system was new. How should I go about it? He said God will lead me alright. Indeed, God has been leading me alright. Papa Awolowo said I should be honest, transparent and avoid anything that will tarnish my reputation.  He said I should not take bribe, I should not assist people to get contract. He advised me to shun corruption. I asked: how do I get something from government? How do I make money? How do I cater for my children who are still young? He replied that I will get something from government by trying to be honest, if I believe in God and if I am honest. I followed his instructions. At the end of the day, I became a senior member of the UPN. It was like when Jesus was speaking to his disciples. There was no going back.

    How were you able to cope with the office of the deputy governor, which was largely perceived as a spare tyre?

    I had home training. I was properly brought up by good parents. If you have home training, you have everything. You have to maintain your home training. I was guided by home training. I was very focused. I did not allow anything to distract my attention. And things were going on very well with me.

    How did you meet your beautiful wife?

    I met her when she was a nurse. She was doing her nursing training in Lagos. She was a trainee in that school. When she completed her course, she was there. All of a sudden, I decided to withdraw her from the work. She was a qualified nurse. But, I did not allow her to continue the work. I was very jealous. I didn’t want any doctor to snatch my wife.

    You have been a progressive politician for a long time. But, at a time, you went to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and later returned to the progressive fold. How do you compare the two divides?

    It is not comparable.  The PDP is not a party. I only went there to hide my face. I went there because of my friend, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo. I went there to hide my face. The PDP is not a political party. Forget about the PDP. They are not there.

    What is the solution to the lingering Afenifere crisis?

    The resolution of the Afenifere crisis cannot be achieved. There is no solution in sight. People can organise themselves in one way or the other. But, Afenifere is gone. There is no more Afenifere. I am saying this categorically: there is no Afenifere again. Afenifere is gone forever.

    What is your position on the agitation for special status for Lagos State?

    I am for the agitation. This is what we want for Lagos. It is achievable. I hope our leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, will be able to achieve it for us. Lagos shoulders enormous national and continental responsibilities. There is pressure on the infrastructure here. It is a mini-Nigeria. Lagos needs special funding.

    What is your advice to Governor Akinwumi Ambode?

    He should thread carefully. Whenever he is going to the front like this, he should try to look back. He should do the right thing always.

    What is your advice to President Muhammadu Buhari?

    Buhari is not my friend. He has offended me. He was the person who asked them to search Chief Awolowo’s house after the coup. I have not forgiven him. I cannot forgive him, until the day he comes out and apologise. They went and search Chief Awolowo’s house for nothing.

    What is your advice to young politicians?

    They should not be in a hurry. They should shun corruption. If corruption thrives, Nigeria has no future.

  • Building the bridge to the future

    SIR: Every society rests on a sustainable law of systems. If our national life must know fulfillment, there are things we must do and not do. We must not let recurrent expenditures exceed capital expenditure. Immediate problems must not be solved at the expense of investment into the future by giving robust attention to education. When a sector is underfunded, it is as good as not being funded at all because adequate attention cannot be given to complete and fulfill what ought to be done. It is insanity to keep doing things the same way and expect different results.

    For unusual and meaningful progress to be made in education, it must not be business as usual. There is need for this administration to employ a radical approach to achieve classical results by curbing age-long  corruption, providing facilities to meet 21st Century demand, so as to have world-class institutions to advance our economy. Baking inferior graduates that are certificated  without  being effectively competent to be job-producers will pin our civil services down to the  depth of degradation. How can we have competent medical  doctors  to manage health care delivery, engineers and technocrats when we keep using last century ideas in today’s business?

    Let this administration stop corruption in all its ramifications. There should not be sacred cows; it must have zero tolerance for  corruption however little because not even God can deliver us from what we have affection for. To fight this manfully, we need to employ the Asian Tiger policy of punishing law-breakers even if found among lawmakers and stop extravagant spending on governance;  it is  unthinkable for those entrusted with public treasury to feed fat at the expense of common people.

    Unless proceeds from the oil is diversified to industrialize the economy, we are not better than beggars that live only for daily survival. In vain is forcing dollars rate down when we do not have goods to export. Education stimulates economy by giving back graduates to produce values in unquantifiable manner for economic viability and all round productivity.

    It is high time we adhered to UNESCO standard and policy on education that 26% of annual budget be devoted to education. This administration will do well if she can declare free and compulsory and education in Northern Nigeria to stop the illiteracy, ignorance and insurgency bedevilling that region. This was what late Chief Obafemi Awolowo did in 1955 in Western Nigeria with free and compulsory education and his counterpart in the North, late Sir Ahmadu Bello  with scholarships and bursary allowances.

    We must realise that the Almajiris of yesterday are the Boko Haram of today. There were schools in Borno State that had no Mathematics, English Language and science teachers. When children graduate from schools with no teachers, how will they not believe that education is a sin?

    The compelling need of every nation is to advance toward technological development. Nigeria is created with potentials and abilities for success and greatness. The only way by which the land can prosper is to develop her youth by giving them sound education because today’s kids are tomorrow’s kings. Sophisticated weapons  cannot  combat crimes; get our youth soundly educated to meet 21st Century Standard and redefine their sense of patriotism. We may not be able to prepare the future for our children but we can prepare them for the  future. Let us wisely use our scarce resources we have to get what we  need. Twenty-six percent of annual budget is the way out. Let us act fast before it is too late.

    • Ezekiel  Oluwole Kolawole,

    Ikotun, Lagos.

     

  • Lagos, the Black capital of the future

    Lagos, the Black capital of the future

    Among the many sins of the Black people, none stands out more conspicuously than their inability to build or sustain durable nation-states.  Only very few African nations are sustainable in their current configuration.  In western diplomatic circuits, the standard joke is that Africans don’t do nations. As proof, they point to the sorry mess on the continent and out of the continent in Haiti where the African psyche finally overwhelmed African heroism.

    In the more extreme version of this Afro-dismissal, the entire continent is seen as being merely there to make up the number. As a writer famously put it, humankind first evolved in Africa, but they have not continued to do so there. In such circles, Africa is seen as a historic digression and Africans an evolutionary bye-pass in the course of human evolution.

    It is a scary proposition, this thesis that shuts out a whole race and the founding continent of humanity. One of the debilities pointed out is the inability of African nations to create and configure modern institutions that will sustain and nurture the neo-colonial state foisted on the continent and its people by imperialist conquest and subjugation. Needless to add that this sin flows from the original sin, the colonial contraptions foisted on Africa in the name of nations, or what Basil Davidson has famously described as the Blackman’s burden.

    If we discount the use of illness as an alibi as newly perfected by Nigerian elites when the law catches up with them, the greatest sin of Africa’s post-colonial elites is their inability to create and sustain great cities and megalopolis which will serve as a cultural, economic and technological hub for the rest of the nation and the continent at large.

    In what is now a celebrated encounter with the Lagos epic gridlock, The Economist correspondent put the blame for the resumption of traffic anarchy on the streets of Lagos on the incompetence and inadequacies of the new governor, Akinwumi Ambode, who in his estimate has so far been unable to match the proactive vigour and sheer reforming energy of his immediate predecessor.

    It is possible that the correspondent of The Economist wrote out of turn and out of anger without doing his research or homework. He did not bother to find out what was actually going on. This has brought a gale of furious recriminations accusing the iconic London magazine of neo-colonial journalism. Taken together, this is just as it should be, for it shows that many Nigerians are bothered about the state and condition of the greatest conurbation of black people anywhere in the world.

    The best way to go is to tackle the matter from the root in order to show why Lagos matters to Nigeria and to Africa and the black person.  Are Africans truly incapable of creating and sustaining great cities? If we insist that early European explorers of the fifteenth and eighteenth century spoke of the wide well-paved streets of Ilesa, the neat perpendicular avenues of Benin and the sprawling amphitheatre of old Oyo town, it may be dismissed as foolish romanticization.

    But the fact remains that when the Portuguese adventurers arrived at the old Kongo kingdom around present day Angola around the middle of the fifteenth century, they met a political organization and social structure at par if not superior to the one they left at home. They loitered around a bit hoping to have a glimpse of the mighty army that underwrote the flourishing kingdom. Alas, old Africans didn’t do matching military either. And since God marches on the side of the bigger battalion, virtually all the inhabitants of the kingdom were captured and transported to the new colony of Brazil through the slave port of Luanda.

    In the event, the old kingdom was to suffer three different types of colonial rationalization: Portuguese, French and Belgian. There can be no bigger recipe for millennial disorientation and dysfunction. In his leopard cap and resplendent costume complete with barbers daily imported to Gbadolite from Paris, Joseph Mobutu reminded one of the old Belgian minister of the interior famously captured in Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness who superintended the systemic brutalization of a race while being elegantly and nattily turned out. Yet by 1901, the indigenous city state of Abeokuta had solved the problem of sanitation and peaceful order.

    There is a sense then in which it can be argued that Lagos is the once and future capital of Nigeria, nay of Africa and the Black race. We do not mean capital in the pedestrian capitalist modernist sense but in the sense of a cultural, economic and technological hub of a nation, a continent and the whole Black race.

    This is why Lagos means so much to many, with the astral aura of greatness as an authentic African megalopolis hovering over it. It should be noted that Lagos did not start out as the capital of amalgamated Nigeria and neither has it ended up as the commanding capital of a harshly unitarist nation. But there can be no doubting its continuing relevance as the cultural, technological and economic powerhouse of the nation and indeed tropical Africa as a whole.

    There are at least three other great African mega-cities that could have served the same purpose: Cairo in Egypt, Johannesburg in South Africa and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But while Johannesburg lacks an authentic African feel, Cairo is hobbled by religious and cultural constraints whereas the sprawling anarchic human conurbation of Kinshasa has unraveled under the strain of a thriving kleptocracy and endemic political disorder.

    Lagos seems to have been specially prepared for its destiny. Originally a flourishing fishing, trading and farming outpost, the modern name was a Portuguese reenactment of home abroad. The city has since grown exponentially taking in mammoth waves of settlers as it survived colonial slave raiders, a civil war, colonial bombardment and a protracted intellectual, political and cultural duel between its coastal elites and the colonial authorities fought out in pamphlets and newspapers which shaped and defined its character and possibilities as a Black Mecca of freedom and enlightenment.

    With its Yoruba and later Benin nucleus and influx of Nupe settlers, Hausa traders, Brazilian returnees, Sierra-Leonean recaptives, West African fortune-seekers and the Igbo people, this colonial and post-colonial hybridity has helped to foster a sense of oneness and belonging for all bar a few hiccups arising from competition for increasingly scarce resources. This delicate mix should not be overturned in the name of ethnic jingoism or cultural revanchism.

    No other African metropolis can boast of this kaleidoscopic potpourri. This is why Lagos has set the pace for the rest of the country, whether it is colonial politics, the decolonizing project, fashion, music, literature and post-colonial razzmatazz. The most iconic picture one can boast of is that of the late regally resplendent Oba of Lagos, Adeyinka Oyekan circa 1966, waltzing with the famous Caribbean singing diva, Millicent Small. It was a class act at the summit of sophistication and culture.

    Also as if by some divine or mystical coincidence, Lagos parades an illustrious gallery of former military and civilian rulers: from Mobolaji Johnson, the late Navy Commodore Lawal, the indefatigable Admiral Godwin Ndubuisi Kanu, the iconic Lateef Jakande to the late Air Commodore Gbolahan Mudashiru. But it is with the advent of the Fourth Republic and the financial wizardry and modernizing genius of Bola Ahmed Tinubu that Lagos finally came into its own in terms of breakneck development consolidated by his tough and doughty successor, Babatunde Raji Fashola.

    This is where the current Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, has his work cut out for him. If he appears slow and tardy in coming away from the starting block, if he appears to have been remiss in darting away at the sound of the referee’s whistle , it may well be because the methodical accountant in the governor has been taking  a mental and fiscal audit of the Lagos project in its entirety. The truth also is that the Lagos APC command centre which ought to have nudged the governor appeared to have been distracted by the protracted and unproductive politics surrounding President Buhari’s cabinet.

    But if that were to be the case, the return of traffic gridlock and unruly motorists, cyclists and criminal urchins to the streets of Lagos tells its own story. It goes to show why and how the institutionalization of human habits and behavioural  patterns often matters even more than the enforcing personnel. Institutions are a function of repeated habits and gestures with instant state reprisals for offenders burnt into the human consciousness. If putative offenders know that no matter how long it takes the long arm of the law will finally catch up with them, they will think twice.

    Yet it is also axiomatic that no straight furniture can be procured from crooked timber. Without documented data and a functioning electronic pool of drivers, commercial or otherwise, tracking offenders is going to be a Herculean task. Many will offend simply to re-offend. And in a parlous economy bristling with bitter inequity asking the police, LASTMA officials and members of the Road Safety Corps not to take or demand bribe is a tall order indeed.

    While pursuing institutionalized order through constant education and enlightenment programmes for road users through organs of mass dissemination,  Ambode should not be afraid of wielding the big stick on offenders while purging the worst miscreants from the services. Nigerians are a hardy and hardened lot and if all humankind are angels, there would have been no need for government.

    Having said all this, the time has come for the federal authorities to see Lagos as a special national project which is beyond the scope and resources of a particular state government. With a population approaching four medium-sized states of the federation, it is time for Nigeria to revisit the structural and constitutional anomaly which groups Lagos together with other states.

    A Lagos megalopolis of the immediate future must have an underground metro which will rival the best efforts in Europe, Asia and America. It must also be self-sufficient in the generation and production of its own electricity needs. Needless to add that this cannot be handled by the state but in partnership with the private sector. It will be recalled that the first time these ameliorative projects were contemplated, they were summarily scuttled by unitarist governments whose sole concerns seem to be the forcible uniformity of growth for the different components of the nation.

    Going forward and given this sorry history of unitarist and statist governance in Nigeria, we must now repeat the original question. Can the Black person do great cities? Of course yes, and Lagos is going to be the stellar exemplar. Rather than relying on a solitary state, a megalopolis is often the product of the explosion of human vitality and multifarious talents convulsing and concussing together as they break through man-made barriers and artificial boundaries all within the bounds of law and order.

    Given the great developmental strides Lagos has taken in the last forty years and in particular the last one and a half decades, it should be clear that no human principality can stop a megalopolis whose time has come. The rough edges will eventually be straightened out. The history of human development has shown that timeless cities often trump temporal states and transient authorities. No matter the future configuration of Nigeria, Lagos is the destined capital of the Black race.

  • Siasia: Bayelsa has brighter future

    Siasia: Bayelsa has brighter future

    The Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) governorship candidate in Bayelsa state, Moses Siasia, has called on the youths to join him in building a prosperous future for the state.

    Siasia was received in Yenagoa, the state capital, by thousands of youths as he unfolded his programes at the Samson Siasia Stadium, named after his elder brother and coach of the Under-23 Football Team, Samson Siasia.

    The 35-year old businessman said that, having achieved so much in business, where he has employed over 400 young professionals, he has what it takes to govern the state.

    He said: “My administration will diversify the state’s economy through agriculture and tourism to make Bayelsa an economic hub in the Southsouth geo-political zone. I will increase workers’ minimum wage from N18, 000 to N25, 000, while there would be prompt payment of gratuity to pensioners.”

    Siasia saiud he will focus on a two-point agenda of job creation and education.

    He sadded:“In achieving these two points agenda, we would also address the key strategic sectors like quality health delivery by ensuring the health sector earned the trust and respect of the people. We will partner with the Federal Government and other stakeholders in the improvement of electricity.

    “We would explore other sustainable sources of affordable energy. The rural areas will no longer be thrown into darkness. We would introduce electronic badge system for security.

    “The government will ease means of transportation by establishing a drive and own tucking system, build trailer parks, invest in water taxi system for the riverine communities among others”

    “We would boost agriculture and make it attractive and rewarding. We will tackle the security challenges in the state to ensure that Bayelsans can go to bed with both eyes closed and also earn the trust of investors. Bayelsa will become the hub of tourism and technology advancement”

    The said he will be the first governor to serve with a woman deputy governor in Bayelsa State, adding that women would occupy 40 per cent of government appointments.

    He urged Bayelsans, particularly youths, to avoid mortgaging their future with peanuts. He said they should vote according to their conscience during the election.

    His running mate, Mrs Irene Opuene, urged the people  to vote for Siasaia, stressing that the ticket is people-driven.

    She added: “It is our turn to participate in government.  Siasia is your son who has empowered other youths and women in our land. Remember, this movement is about that farmer in Nembe whose farm has been destroyed by oil spillage with no compensation.

    “It is about our young ladies that have been forced into prostitution by bad government. It is about the people in Yenegoa who have no portable water to drink.  The movement is not about Moses and Irene but it is your quest for purposeful leadership and transformation.

    “It is about the cry of our people against imposition and recycling of old hands. Moses Siloko Siasia is opportune to be at the forefront of the movement. We have no godfather but God and you, the good people of Bayelsa.”

  • EFCC: What future after Lamorde’s exit

    EFCC: What future after Lamorde’s exit

    Concluding part of the write-up on the immediate past Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chair Ibrahim Lamorde and the profile on the new helmsman Ibrahim Magu. The first part was published on pages 2 and 3 in the November 11 edition. 

    WHEN Ibrahim Lamorde was appointed as chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2011, it was with overwhelming enthusiasm and at the presidency and among Nigerians. The immediate past President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, spelt out his mandate.

    He said: “When I give you a job, I will give you time to do it. Assuming somebody, who is heading an agency that is supposed to handle corruption, is not doing that and he says it is because of the President’s body language, that person is not competent.

    “I am one Nigerian who has the privilege of holding this ofûce and I give the people the latitude to do their work. But, I am happy that Nigerians have conûdence in the EFCC. Nigerians have conûdence in Lamorde and I also have conûdence in him. I have no personal relationship with Lamorde.

    “He even investigated me when I was the Governor of Bayelsa State, but I have conûdence in him, given his track record. Of course, there was a lady who was there. There were lots of complaints. Some may be right, some may be wrong, but perception matters so much when handling matters like corruption. The conûdence of the people must be there. I had to remove her and that does not mean she is guilty of the allegations but because I saw that Nigerians no longer had conûdence in her.”

    On November 28, 2011, after taking the baton from his predecessor – Mrs. Farida Waziri, Lamorde promised to move the EFCC to a new level. He said: “In the last eight years, I have been uniquely placed as a participant and observer in the birth and nurturing of this commission. While seeking to improve on whatever institutional weaknesses there may be, I will leverage on the abundant skills and experience in the commission and the immense goodwill of Nigerians to move EFCC to a new level.”

    And in what appeared to be his mid-term review in 2013, Lamorde, in an interview he granted the special edition of Zero Tolerance Magazine, said: “What I have at the back of my mind and what I always advise people on is that if you are there, do the best that you can and make sure that you improve the system. Improve on what you met so that history will judge you kindly at the end of the day.

    “I want to look at the achievement of EFCC not in terms of numbers of people arrested or convicted but the consciousness of Nigerians as regard corruption. The EFCC has taken discussion about corruption to the front burner.

    “You can hardly say anything about corruption without mentioning EFCC and I think this is important. The expectations of Nigerians from the commission have not diminished over the years. If anything, they may have outgrown the size and resources of the EFCC. We have no illusions about the fact that we would nevertheless continue to be called in service to the nation and we have no choice than to respond to that clarion call.”

     

    Did Lamorde fail in office?

     

    Irrespective of the yardstick employed, Lamorde made some harvests in office. Apart from recovering N65.3 billion loot between 2012 and 2014, it secured more than 397 convictions between 2011 and 2014. It also filed 1,792 cases in court during the same period. The breakdown of some of the cases he instituted filed was as follows: 2011 (417); 2012 (502); 2013 (485) and 2014 (388). The convictions recorded per year read: 2011 (67); 2012(87); 2013(117) and 2014(126).

    “Signiûcantly, the war against graft heightened in 2013 as 117 persons were convicted, while 126 convictions were secured in 2014.  Statistically, between 2011 and 2014, there has been an 88 per cent increase in the conviction rate, a ûgure that makes the EFCC perhaps the best performing law enforcement agency in the world,” a document  from EFCC’s Media Unit said.

    The commission was also able to grill and put some past political officer holders on trial. They include:  ex-governors Sule Lamido (Jigawa); Gabriel Suswam (Benue); Modu Ali Sheriff (Borno); Abubakar Audu (Kogi); Danjuma Goje (Gombe); Akwe Doma (Nasarawa) and Rev. Jolly Nyame (Taraba). It also pursued outstanding cases like those of ex-governors Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia), Saminu Turaki (Jigawa); Lucky Igbinedion (Edo) and Chimaroke Nnamani.

    Also investigated are: Mrs. Toyin Saraki (wife of Senate President); ex-Executive Vice Chairman of the defunct Intercontinental Bank, Erastus Akingbola and others.

    The agency’s Head of Media & Publicity, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said: “Between 2012 and 2014, the commission recovered N65, 320,669,350. Also, the sum of $245, 952,030.13, 693, 399.00 pounds and 62, 600.00 Euro were also recovered during the period.

    “The cases involving former Kogi State governor, Abubakar Audu, former Gombe State governor, Danjuma Goje, former Nasarawa State governor, Akwe Doma, former Taraba State governor, Rev. Jolly Nyame are progressing in courts, as several witnesses have been called by the prosecution.

    “Of course the case against Ayodele Fayose has only been temporarily halted by the fact of his re-election as Ekiti State governor. We could go on and on. These records apply to cases involving ex-governors only. They do not tell the whole story regarding the prosecution and convictions record of the Commission.”

    Uwujaren said the EFCC has not abandoned the cases involving some former governors from whom some properties had been seized. He listed the governors and the properties seized from them as Kalu (10 properties, 13 accounts frozen); Alamieyeseigha (12 properties); Igbinedion (two properties); Nnamani (accounts of six firms linked to him frozen); and Saminu Turaki (six accounts of firms frozen).

    He faulted the allegations of non-performance against the anti-graft agency by Ibekaku, adding: “However, for Nigerians to see through her lies, it is important to recall some of the milestones achieved by the Commission in the investigation, prosecution and recovery of assets of politically exposed persons, including ex-governors.

    “Until he was pardoned by the Nigerian government, it is on record that former Bayelsa State governor, DSP Alamieyeseigha was the first former state governor to be successfully prosecuted by the EFCC.

    “Over N3 billion, which includes the proceeds realised from the sale of his properties has been returned to Bayelsa State. These properties include Chelsea Hotel, Abuja.

    “Other real estate investment of Alamieyeseigha which accounts were frozen by the Commission include: Plot 26, Dalhatu Close, Abacha Estate, Ikoyi; 20, Obaji Street, Diobu, Port Harcourt; 1, Community Road, Off Allen Avenue, Lagos; 247, Water Gardens, London W2 2DG;   14, Mapesbury Road, London NW2 4JB;  Flat 202, Jubilee Heights, Shootuphl L, London, NW2 3UQ;  68-70, Regents Park Road, London; 4A, Ilu Drive, Ikoyi, Lagos; 18, Mississippi Street, Maitama, Abuja; V & A Water Front, Cape Town, South Africa; 2, Marcibit Street, Ishaku Rabiu Estate, Off Aminu Kano Crescent, Abuja and 24, Amazon Street, Maitama, Abuja.

    “Another former governor who was prosecuted and convicted by the Commission is former Edo State governor, Lucky Igbinedion. Apart from the conviction, the commission equally recovered some properties from him. The properties include are on 57, Ihama Road, GRA, Benin and 24, Izekor Road, Benin.

    “Following the furore generated by the option of fine handed the governor by the trial judge, the commission filed fresh charges against Lucky Igbinedion.

    “The action was challenged in court with the trial court ruling that the commission cannot try the ex-governor on the same matter for which he had already been convicted.

    “The EFCC appealed against the ruling with the Court of Appeal affirming the Commission’s position that Igbinedion really has a case to answer.

    “Following that, two of his accomplices, his younger brother, Michael Igbinedion and his personal assistant, Charles Eboigbodin, who were charged alongside the former governor of Edo State, were successfully prosecuted and convicted, just last month (April 29th 2015, precisely).

    “The case involving Chimaroke Nnamani, former governor of Enugu State has been in court since he was first arraigned in 2007 alongside Sunday Anyaogu. His then aide, and six firms linked to them:  Rainbownet Nigeria Limited, Hillgate Nigeria Limited, Cosmos FM, Capital City Automobile Nigeria Limited, Renaissance University Teaching Hospital and Mea Mater Elizabeth High School.

    “EFCC, in 2014, sought for a separate trial of the companies and on May 19, 2015, the companies pleaded guilty to an amended 10-count charge. We await the court pronouncement on the fate of the assets.

    “Former Governor Orji Kalu’s case is currently at the Supreme Court where he is challenging the competence of the charge after the court of appeal affirmed the trial court’s ruling that he has a case to answer.

    “The Commission has, however, seized the following properties belonging to the former Abia State governor. They include: 9A, Queen Amina Road, Ungwan, Rimi GRA, Maiduguri; 21, Gwari Avenue, Behind Gerau Hospital, Off Kachia Road, Maiduguri; parcel of land at Kirikiri Industrial Estate, Lagos; 103A, Olumeni Street, Old GRA, Port Harcourt; 65, No. 7 & 8, Orogburn Crescent, Diobu GRA 11, Port Harcourt; bedroom bungalow and adjoining buildings at Mairi Village, Maiduguri; 3 bedroom bungalow at GRA Maiduguri; warehouse at Mairi Village, Maiduguri; former Progress Bank Building, No. 45, Baga Road, Maiduguri and former Orji Alex Bakery, Bulunkutu, Seleke, Maiduguri.

    “Several accounts in various banks linked to his companies were also frozen by the commission. The accounts include those belonging to: Tourism Development Area, Gambia; Slok Investment Limited; Slok USA INC.; Slok Nigeria Limited; The Sun Publishing; Astel Offshore; Neva Nigeria Limited;  Reality Organisation; Kachi Agwu Enterprises;       Menco Resources Limited; Nnachison & Co;  Slok Air Nigeria Limited and Firmbase Inter Limited.

    “As for Saminu Turaki, former governor of Jigawa State, the accounts of companies linked to him were also frozen by the commission.

    The companies are: INC Natural Resources Limited, Civic Centre Road, Kano; Wildcat Nigeria Limited, 31, Kuta Road, Minna, Niger State; Arlek Construction Nigeria Limited, 7, Civic Centre Road, Kano; Gethel Nigeria Limited, 7, Civic Centre Road, Kano; Wallong Camco Nigeria Limited, Tukur Commercial Layout, Dutse and Gansu Construction Engineering Limited.

    “For Joshua Dariye who was recently ordered to proceed to trial after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal against the Appeal Court affirmation of the competence of the commission’s charges against him, the following properties were recovered. They are:  Plot 1802 Ao4, No. 19, Frederick Chiuba Close, Asokoro, Abuja; plot of land in the name of Jambo Holdings Nigeria Limited, Rayfield, Jos;  No. 11, Rest Road, Jos;  plot of land at Gada Village, Off Adiko Bukuru Road by Pharm Headquarters, Jos;  plot of land at Liberty Boulevard, Jos; plot of land at Ibrahim Taiwo Avenue, Jos; two additional plots on Dogon Dutse Road, Jos; plot of land at Gold & Base Neighbourhood, Jos and plot of land known as Yelwa Club, Bukuru, Jos.

    “In the case involving former Delta State governor James Ibori, whose conviction in a London court was largely based on the evidence supplied by the EFCC, the Commission secured the final forfeiture of the $15 million bribe, which he allegedly offered to a former chairman of the Commission, to the Federal Government.”

     

    What is next  for EFCC

     

     

    The future of EFCC may be brighter with autonomy, good funding to conduct investigations and prosecute cases; if there is limited interference from the presidency and with the motivation if its members of staff. The first hurdle for Magu is to lead the EFCC to come clean before the Senate on the N1.3 trillion recovered from convicts. The extent to which it set the records straight will determine the level of faith Nigerians have in the agency.

    President Buhari may have found a soul mate in Magu if he is eventually confirmed him as the substantive EFCC chair.  History beckons on the crime-fighting agency for a second chance at rebirth.

  • Efcc: What future after Lamorde’s exit

    Efcc: What future after Lamorde’s exit

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday sent Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman Ibrahim Lamorde on terminal leave like one of his predecessors. In this piece, Managing Editor (Northern Operations) YUSUF ALLI examines the technical exit, its implications for the future of the anti-graft agency and the tasks before the new helmsman, ACP Ibrahim Magu.

    EXPECTATIONS that anti-corruption czar Ibrahim Lamorde, will serve out his five-year term as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) collapsed on Monday. Larmorde, who is due for retirement next February, was asked to proceed on a terminal leave by President Muhammadu Buhari.

    When Lamorde visited Buhari on Monday, he thought it was one of the usual official summons from the Presidential Villa which had created intermittent insomnia for him. Lamorde went with a loaded brief on how he upped the ante in the last three months. But in a solemn and dignifying manner, Buhari told him that his time was up in the anti-graft agency.

    Later, a soft-landing statement by the President’s Special Adviser on Media & Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, said: “The President has approved the appointment of Mr. Ibrahim Magu as the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Mr Magu, who is an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), is to take over from Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, who is proceeding on terminal leave ahead of the formal expiration of his tenure in February, next year”.

    After a 12-year stint in the commission,  Lamorde’s chequered and eventful history was cut by Buhari. He had the unique record of being a member of the foundation staff as the anti-graft agency’s director of Operations. He passed through the vicissitudes of the commission with an exile posting to Ningi, a quiet part of Bauchi State and he rose through the ranks to become the chairman.

     

    Why he was removed

     

    Like his predecessors, Lamorde was asked to go on terminal leave ahead of his exit in February. Unknown to many, Lamorde had read the body language of the President that his time was up but his decision to give Buhari the benefit of the doubt was not fortuitous enough and he was beaten to the game.

    Sources said he had confided in a few friends that he would like to leave the commission because of some developments, including target pressure and the need to attend to his health. Yet, he did not want to be seen as running away from his responsibility. He felt a voluntary exit might be misunderstood but he was eventually boxed into a corner by his removal. It was unclear if the government got intelligence report on Lamorde’s planned exit, or just acted intuitively.

    According to reports,  Lamorde’s removal was connected with reservations on his approach to President Buhari’s anti-graft crusade; disagreement over the pace of the war against corruption;  security reports and alleged weighty allegations against him; and stepping on sacred toes.

    A reliable source, who spoke in confidence with our correspondent, said: “The EFCC chairman has been removed following some allegations against him and security report. You know already, the Senate is looking into complaints on the whereabouts of N1.3 trillion recovered by the anti-graft agency since inception. The presidency was uncomfortable with some disclosures by a petitioner, George Uboh.

    “While the government does not want to tamper with the ongoing probe by the Senate, it believes it is untidy to allow EFCC chairman to be rubbished. It is better for Lamorde to step aside and be answerable.”

    Responding to a question, the source added: “I think the President has his own focus on the war against corruption and the pace at which Lamorde was going was certainly slower for Buhari to appreciate. The EFCC was lacking the required bite.

    “Although the agency tried to make do with the either the investigation or arraignment of some high-profile suspects like ex-Governor Sule Lamido and children, Mrs. Toyin Saraki, the Presidency saw it as too late in the day.”

    Another factor which was said to have accounted for Lamorde’s sack was security report on his alleged relationship with some former officials who served under former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

    The Presidency was also said to be angry that the EFCC did not take action on Petroleum Resources Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke until the National Crimes Agency (NCA) in the United Kingdom (UK) invited her for questioning. The thinking of the government was that there were sufficient grounds to prevent Mrs. Alison-Madueke from travelling abroad.

    It was also learnt that the EFCC bid its time in managing the investigation of former Akwa Ibom State Governor Godswill Akpabio when sister agencies sent alarms. In a curious twist, Akpabio led the PDP Caucus in the Senate to defend Lamorde when the N1.3 trillion fraud allegation was blown open.

    A statement by Akpabio, senators Phillip Aduda and Emmanuel Bwacha said: “ The PDP leadership in the Senate is not against any committee of the Senate performing its oversight duties and or functions but we feel that this is not the appropriate time to embark on this most important assignment particularly since this same action was mooted and has failed at previous plenary session.

    “We therefore urge the committee to suspend its public hearing on this particular matter until further notice.”

    It was gathered that the Presidency could not fathom why it was the lot of Akpabio and company to come to the rescue of Lamorde at a time there were pending allegations against the former governor, who is the Senate’s Minority Leader.

     

    Image crisis.

     

    The EFCC battled in the last few months to protect its image and that of Lamorde on the whereabouts of the funds recovered from former political office holders.

    Besides the N1.3 trillion alarm, there were allegations on diversion of either cash or assets seized from a former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun and a former Bayelsa Governor, the late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.

    The EFCC said there was no diversion of either cash or seized assets. The commission said Balogun forfeited N2, 258,100,516.87 in 11 accounts, including the accruing interests. It also said N3, 128, 230, 294.83 realised from assets belonging to the late Alamieyeseigha was remitted to the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Finance in favour of Bayelsa State. The EFCC made the clarifications through its Head of Media & Publicity, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, against the backdrop of allegations by a whistle-blower, Uboh.

    As part of the security report, a petition by a lawyer, Leo Ekpenyong, to President Buhari was also said to have triggered Lamorde’s removal.

    Ekpenyong’s petition read in part: “It would be recalled that sequel to my petitions against the former Governor Akpabio’s administration dated 8th, 22nd June and August 3rd respectively, the Senate Minority Leader was invited by the EFCC and after his departure from the Commission, he bragged to his supporters that Lamorde was under his control and nothing reasonable would come out of his investigation.

    “It was against this background that I raised an alarm urging the Federal Government to sack Lamorde since it was apparent that justice would not be done to our petitions, taking into consideration the deliberate and unnecessary delays at investigations and possible prosecution.

    “During my interview on a guest show (O and M) televised by AIT, I accused Ibrahim Lamorde of having interests in contracts awarded by Akwa Ibom State government. This fact, Senator Akpabio mentioned to me on June 22nd, 2015.

    “Ostensibly angered by this allegation, Lamorde summoned me on October 26th via the head of its economic governance unit and for nine (9) hours, battled by compulsion to get me recant my allegation and withdraw my petitions against Akpabio. I stood my ground and maintained that the EFCC leadership was ‘hand in gloves’ with Senator Godswill Akpabio.

    “On November 2nd, one DSP Chuks Ibe from the FCT Police Command invited me to answer to a petition written against me by Lamorde. During the course of this interrogation, DSP Chuks Ibe dictated how I should write my statement and personally informed me of his interactions with Senator Godswill Akpabio.

    “Consequently, on November 5th, 2015 during my routine interview session at the FCT Command, I was led before the Gudu District Upper Area Court on a malicious charge of defamation and giving false information.

    “The excruciating persecution between the EFCC and the Nigerian Police reveals the conspiracy theory involving the trio of Godswill Akpabio, IGP Solomon Arase and Ibrahim Lamorde.”

     

    Sacred cows fighting back 

     

    As humble as Lamorde was, he stepped on so many powerful toes while in office. And this enlisted him in the ‘marked’ register of the bigwigs. One of his Achilles’ Heels was the arraignment of powerful pension fraud suspects and some former directors in the civil service and a permanent secretary.

    A source added: “No one in this country can fight the pension fraud cartel. The syndicate conspired against former EFCC chairman, Mrs. Farida Waziri and now they have dealt with Lamorde. All they did was to deploy their financial muscles to rubbish him.”

    For a long time, the dirty fight between Lamorde and a former Chairman of the Pension Task Reform, Abdulrasheed Maina, will continue to be a reference point.

    Maina, a powerful force in the Presidential Villa since 1994, was more than a match for Lamorde because he has the ears of the influential ones in the country. Despite allegations against him, Maina enjoyed red carpet treatment at the Villa when President Jonathan was in the saddle. When a former Inspector-General of Police was asked to look for him, he said he could not find Maina, who was even sighted delivering lectures in some universities.

    Also, Lamorde’s running battle with a former acting director of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Juliet Ibekaku, and a dismissed staff, Mr. Michael Nzekwe, contributed to his removal. Ibekaku, who was an insider, went all out against Lamorde by revealing official secrets in protest against her maltreatment by the EFCC leadership.

    At a point, she said: “In the past seven or eight years since the inauguration of the EFCC, we’ve been hearing about governors who have been in the courts for the past eight years, no conviction, nothing! No assets recovered.  And we are still (sic) back to square one.

    “So, something has to change. And in my mind, what needs to change is the leadership.  The second thing that needs to change is the staffing, who are we hiring to work in this place?”

    Another source added: “The crisis of confidence between Lamorde and Ibekaku was dirty. She made many documents available to the Presidency. These are documents you cannot ignore.”

    Another cold war which consumed Lamorde was the arrest and arraignment of a former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Steve Oronsaye for alleged pension fraud.

    The animosity between Oronsaye and Lamorde was traceable to the recommendation that the NFIU should be separated from EFCC. This suggestion created bad blood even among lawmakers in the National Assembly. It was being insinuated that Oronsaye paid dearly for it. In fact, it was alleged that the trial of Oronsaye was a paid back time.

    The last war which Lamorde waged was the arrest and quizzing of Mrs. Toyin Saraki, who is the wife of Senate President Bukola Saraki. Shortly after Mrs. Saraki’s arrest, a petition surfaced in the Senate from one George Uboh, an alleged ex-convict. The Senate, which was seeking a pound of the EFCC flesh, did not mind the messenger. It went for the message on EFCC’s inability to account for N1.3 trillion funds seized from convicted persons since inception. It was difficult to separate Uboh’s petition from aggrieved Senators who were backing Saraki’s wife.

    What Lamorde did not tell anyone was the pressure he endured to stay in office. When U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria James Eintwistle visited him in 2014, he made reference to this but in his usual taciturn manner, he was not forthcoming.

    He said: “Most of the times anything that happens, whether people are at fault they blame it on someone else. Even when there is a genuine case and you go after an individual, they will start saying that he is being haunted because he is this or that.

    “It is a situation that is laden with landmine now. We have to meander to avoid stepping on the landmine so that they don’t blow us up. It is very difficult. We went through that in 2011. Sometime when election is coming it becomes very difficult to do anything. We have decided to do our job to the best of our ability with the dictate of our conscience knowing what is right and what is not.”

     

    In-house sabotage.

     

    For being prudent and enforcing discipline, Lamorde had issues with officials, who stoically bore their travails while using their connections to undermine him. Most of the workers were not happy that some allowances received under Mrs. Waziri were either cut or cancelled for lack of funds. Yet, these workers joined the service through upscale connections.

    Under Lamorde’s administration, the EFCC could not complete its new office complex, making the anti-graft agency to join the list of MDAs with abandoned projects.

    But the media unit said: “Lamorde’s commitment to staff is also evident in the introduction of some allowances and functional staff canteens at the headquarters, the EFCC Academy, Lagos and Kano zones, with plans to introduce it at the remaining zones before the end of 2015.

    Promotion of staff, which hitherto was a ‘big issue’, had been resolved by the Lamorde-led management, as officials now sit for their promotion examinations as and when due.

    One source said: “Another signiûcant achievement of the Lamorde-led EFCC is manpower development. He had envisioned an anti-graft agency that would operate to best international practice. In realisation of this, he ûrst reviewed the recruitment policy by introducing aptitude tests, interviews, polygraph tests and vetting of candidates’ certiûcates and background, among others. This is in order to ensure that only the best are offered employment into the commission.

    “Priority is also given to staff training and retraining, with many employees beneûting from local and international training programmes. The interventions of some donor agencies have been invaluable in this regard. The likes of the Inter-Governmental Action Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), provided grants that enabled ofûcers to improve their skills through exposure to cutting-edge training and global best practices.”

     

     

     

  • How to groom youths as future leaders

    How to groom youths as future leaders

    Sahara Group Executive Director Mr Tonye Cole, did not mince words about his firm’s readiness to continue supporting youth innovation when he led the ENACTUS team of the Federal Polytechnic in Kaduna (KADPOLY) to meet Governor Nasir El-Rufa’i last week. WALE AJETUNMOBI reports.

    A company executive is canvassing for support for students to make them self-reliant and employers. According to Mr Tonye Cole, Sahara Group Executive Director, it is through such encouragement that students can realise their potential. Entrepreneurship, he said, unlocks opportunities and economic prosperity worldwide.

    Cole believes that youths must be supported to develop Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s innovative ideas. This, he said, remains the key to achieving irreversible economic growth and solving unemployment.

    Cole spoke when he led members of the Entrepreneurship Action in Us (ENACTUS) of the Federal Polytechnic in Kaduna (KADPOLY) to present the trophy they won at a global entrepreneurship contest to El-Rufai, last week.

    The ENACTUS team in KADPOLY, comprising students from different disciplines, represented the country at the ENACTUS World Challenge in Johannesburg, South Africa last month. The Nigeria team beat several countries to get to the semi-final round, before it lost out to its counterpart from the United Kingdom (UK). More than 3,000 students from 34 countries participated in the contest.

    Sahara Group has been the major sponsor of ENACTUS team to promote youth entrepreneurship through a network of students in free enterprise.

    Receiving the team, El-Rufa’i said the achievement of the students indicated that the nation had a promising future, noting that the feat underscored the need for private sector participation in driving positive change in the country.

    The governor said: “This achievement underscores the need for increased private sector participation in driving positive change across all sectors of the economy. Our youths hold the bright future we all long to see and organisations, such as Sahara Group deserve commendation for providing platforms and opportunities for our youths to realise their aspiration.”

    Cole told that the KADPOLY students got the ticket to represent Nigeria at the competition after they won the national Sahara Light Up Nigeria Challenge – a contest developed by Sahara Group to help creative students develop alternative and sustainable energy models that can boost power supply using locally-sources materials.

    The KADPOLY team, he said, developed a green power generation project labelled Renewable Energy Advancement Project (REAP). The electricity project involved the use of recycled materials for the construction of a Hydro-power system that generated electricity for residents of Sabon Kakau village on the outskirts of Kaduna.

    Cole said: “The village never had electricity for over 50 years of its existence. While it would have cost the villagers a whopping $22,000 to connect to the national electricity grid, the students only spent $600 to provide the environmentally-friendly facility.

    “This is one of the positive changes we are driving. It is the reason why we have continued to invest in youth innovation and empowerment to enhance capacity building and entrepreneurship in Nigeria and other places we conduct business across the globe. We have been doing this through the platform of Sahara Foundation.”

    Through the contest, Cole said students have developed simple power-generation models that reduce production cost and encourage the broad utilisation of the different energy sources to boost small-scale businesses, healthcare centres and schools.

    He added: “I am confident that even after the 2015 ENACTUS world cup event, every participating nation would always remember the Nigeria team for its creativity, resourcefulness and spontaneous intelligence. Sahara Group believes that by supporting youths in various intervention projects, we would be extending and strengthening frontiers for sustainable socio-economic growth and development.”

    Zam Obed, a final year Accounting student and leader of the  team, praised the Sahara Group for the opportunity given to the students to develop their entrepreneurial abilities.

    Cole said that the firm had started a partnership with the United Nations on “Building Bridges” project, which seeks to engage young people for effective participation in activities that will make Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) realisable.

    The platform had already started with a conference with the theme: Beyond 2015: Promoting Gender equality and Good governance, where Sahara Group and other partners joined the conversation on the challenges and opportunities for youths in SDGs agenda.

  • AfDB, AMF discuss member-states economic future

    African Development Bank (AfDB) Group President Akinwumi Adesina, and Director-General/Chairman, Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), Abdulrahman Al Hamidy, have held talks on the economic challenges of their member-countries. They met on the sidelines of World Bank-International Monetary Fund (IMF) yearly meetings in Lima, Peru.

    The leaders reaffirmed the importance of their partnership and how best to leverage their core competencies and comparative advantages in support of domestic, regional and international economic developments,amid increases in financing member-countries needs.

    AfDB said both institutions cooperation has been strengthened under the Deauville Partnership with joint activities focusing on the development of domestic capital markets. Both lenders are looking at opportunities to building a broad collaboration for a promising enhanced partnership.

    AfDB and AMF agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to crystallise their future collaboration in financial sector development.

    Adesina said: “The AfDB is committed to working with the AMF and our other international and regional partners to support building vibrant, innovative, robust and competitive financial systems in Africa at both domestic and regional levels.

    “This partnership will facilitate relations between the AfDB and the AMF, improve the efficiency of our efforts and provide a concrete basis for further cooperation on financial sector arena that will contribute positively to economic growth and social progress.

    Al Hamidy said: “Providing assistance to the development of the financial sector and supporting capacity development in the region has always been among our top priorities, and we look forward to pursuing and intensifying this effort to better tackle the needs of our African member-countries. Our ongoing cooperation with AfDB has always been successful and we are glad that today it’s being reinforced and strengthened to better serve the needs of our common member countries.”