The Nation Newspaper

Tag: gold rusts…

  • If gold rusts …

    SEC’s failure to file report for four years raises questions about its regulatory credentials

    THIS must be the limit. We knew government and her agencies are remiss in giving account, sticking to rules or keeping to deadlines.

    For instance, for over a decade, the Federal Government has been unable to deliver the annual budget on the age-old January deadline. The 2018 budget was signed by half-year and it bears a major lacuna – the non-inclusion of the crucial figures of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). It is common knowledge that revenue-yielding MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies) often shy from submitting their budget proposals for legislative scrutiny, while rendering annual accounts have become anathema to most of them.

    While the government and indeed Nigerians have lived with this aberration to the point that it has almost become a norm, it is inconceivable that a regulatory agency like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would be found on such a rogue list.

    We are indeed worried at the news that SEC has not published its annual reports and accounts for the last four years. The last, according to report, was for the year ended December 31, 2013. This in itself is a violation of the Investment and Securities Act, 2007 Code of Corporate Governance.

    This is a shocking revelation and a huge embarrassment for a commission statutorily charged with ensuring the best corporate governance practice and financial probity in Nigeria’s corporate environment.

    SEC, which oversees the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) requires all quoted firms to render report of their business and financial activities at stipulated intervals. Interim reports are rendered at the end of each quarter while a full report must be presented at the end of a 12-month operating period.

    Defaulters suffer heavy penalties from SEC which range from monetary fines, suspension from trading on the exchange and in serious cases, delisting. Last April, SEC had lamented the alarming rate of defaults in timely filing of reports by quoted companies. In fact, in the last couple of years, default rate has reportedly reached about 30 per cent of quoted companies which led SEC to introduce more stringent measures.

    In an editorial by this newspaper in April in support of SEC, we had strongly condemned the reprobate firms and urged the commission not to tire in being a beacon of corporate governance in Nigeria.

    This is why we are worried that SEC may have lost the moral authority to hold corporate Nigeria to proper conduct. By the law establishing it, SEC is required to submit to the minister and the National Assembly, a report on the activities and administration of the commission in the immediate preceding year. The report, which must not be later than three months after the end of each year, shall include audited accounts of the commission and a report of the auditor on the account.

    It is scandalous, to say the least, that the management of SEC is caught in this odious bind. Though no reason has been proffered as to why the commission has not been keeping its books and giving accounts, no reason would seem tenable under this circumstance. If reports have not been presented, they have not.

    It also stands to reason that reporting procedures at the exchange may have been compromised because SEC has been a reproach to the system. It is interesting to note that if SEC were a quoted company, it would have long been delisted from the exchange.

    In the last four years, SEC has named and shamed many firms, exacted huge monetary sanctions on some and most uncannily, delisted many from the exchange. This is a moral sacrilege that borders on impunity; it is unacceptable; it is repugnant to commonsense and we urge the management of SEC to do well to purge itself of this bad behaviour quickly.

  • If gold rusts

    Preamble

    In contemporary times, no scholar has defined Conscience as succinctly and axiomatically as Sheikh Uthman Dan Fodio did in the 18th century. In a very rare display of an impeccable height of intellectualism, the great sage defined that abstract but invaluable substance in man as follows:

    “Conscience is an open wound, only the truth can heal it”.

    Ever since Uthman Dan Fodio came up with that impeccable definition, no scholar in any part of the world has faulted it in any way or given a comparable alternative to it. Even here in Nigeria, where critical noise of hatred for Islam and the Muslims is loudest, no one has been able to give an alternative definition of Conscience that is comparable to that of Dan Fodio depite the mobid hatred for the sage in some parts of the country. As a matter of fact, the Guardian Newspaper of Nigeria which started publication with scholarship hipe in 1983 had to swallow its pride and adopt Dan Fodio’s definition as its motto when it could not get a better alternative. With that historic definition of conscience, Dan Fodio was able to resolve some knotty issues of his time if tacitltly.

    Today, we have similar knotty issues at hand in Nigeria which have, as usual, been subjected to innumerable interpretations and innuendoes without an iota of regard for conscience. Some of those issues were addressed at a public Ramadan Lecture in Lagos last Monday (May 4, 2018). The lecture which took place at the premises of the Lagos State Television (LTV) was organized by Right Development Limited’, publishers of ‘The Point’ newspaper and the Guest Lecturer was Professor Is-haq Olanrewaju Oloyede, OFR, FNAL, the indefatigable Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and Nigeria’s undisputable Model of Change. He delivered the lecture in his capacity as the Secretary-General of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). The title of the lecture, as designed by the organizers, was:

    “Achieving Peace, Stability and Good Governance in a     Multi-Religious and Multi-Ethnic Nation:

    The Islamic Perspective” In the lecture, Professor Oloyede addressed some pressing issues of concern to most Nigerians.

    The issues were about peace in the land, good governance, economy, ethnicity, religion, and security.

     

    Comment

    The intention of this columnist was to publish the entire lecture vabatim. But due to lack of enough space, only an excerpt from each segment will be presented here in summary as follows:

     

    Definition of Peace

    “….Even in a monolithic Nation of one particular faith and ethnic group, attainment of peace, stability and good governance cannot be taken for granted. Indeed, many monogamous families are known to be in inter-personal turmoil which defies internal resolution and even tasks external mediators including courts. It is therefore expected that a Nation like Nigeria distracted by double or multiple divergences requires extra-ordinary efforts to maintain absolute focus on National Development for which peace and good governance are a sine qua non.

    My approach here is to use good governance as the basis of addressing the topic. This is because peace, as you all know, is not the absence of war, but a situation where people are able to resolve their conflicts without violence and can work together to improve the quality of their lives.

    It involves everyone living in safety, without fear or threat of violence, and no form of violence is tolerated in law or in practice. There is equality before the law and the justice system is trusted to be fair and to protect the rights of citizens. Peace also means that everyone is able to participate in shaping political decisions and the government is accountable to the people. Everyone has fair and equal access to the basic needs for their wellbeing – such as food, clean water, shelter, education, healthcare and a decent living environment. It also means that veryone has an equal opportunity to work and make a living, regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other aspect of identity.

    Peace is therefore more than the absence of violence. It is the totality of condition of well-being felt by individuals, groups and the society at large”.

     

     Good Governance

    “Whether there is peace or not is a matter of how a society is governed. Governance itself has several definitions. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation which looks at how African countries are governed and tries to assess and rank them on the basis of certain internationally adapted criteria defines it as “the provision of the political, social and economic public goods and services that every citizen has the right to expect from their state, and that a state has the responsibility to deliver to its citizens”.

    “The World Bank defines governance as “the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development”. Others have defined it as “the way organisations are directed and controlled to ensure that they are effective in achieving their objectives”.

    “While those definitions are different, what is common to them is the provision of services that citizens or members have the right to expect and which the society or the organization has the responsibility to deliver to citizens or members. In order to distinguish good governance from bad governance, there is a set of principles that have been identified as the main distinguishing features or characteristics of good governance”.

     

     Nigeria and  Ethnicity

    “Overlapping and dynamic identities are at the root of recurrent problems in Nigeria. An identity assumed by a person or group of persons in Nigeria is not static but dynamic depending on what is at stake and for how long. A person who is a religious champion can within a twinkle of an eye become a social-class-champion or an ethnic champion. Current or momentary interest dictates identity and its tenure.

    Nigeria is a federation of geo-political entities presently referred to as “State”, the combination of what used to be “Regions”. In Nigeria, what we now call  States are generally not monolithic in terms of ethnic composition. They appear to be generally arbitrary and circumstantial in origin”.

     

    Demographic Delineation

    “As of today, over 250 ethnic groups with more than 500 languages have been identified in Nigeria. While it will be wrong to regard ethnic group as a unit of the Nigerian Federation, it is also true that ethnic loyalties are very strong in Nigeria.

    At the risk of stirring controversy, let me quote a statistical account of ethno-linguistic groups in Nigeria thus:

    Hausa-Fulani –  29% (Hausa 21%, Fulani 8%)  Yoruba     –         21%  Igbo          –        18%

    Ibiobio     –        5.6% Kanuri      –        4%

    Edo            –        3% Tiv             –        2%

    Ijaw           –        2% Bura          –        2%

    Nupe        –        1% Others      –        10%

     

     Religion in Nigeria

    Another identity that is constantly invoked in Nigeria is religion. Unlike ethnicity, the Constitution of Nigeria pays major attention to religion vis-à-vis the Nation. Sections 10 and 38 of the Constitution are the most prominent of the provisions. The “non-adoption” and the “freedom of Religion” clauses have been extensively dealt with in a recent publication (I.Oloyede et-al: The Operational Complexities of the “free exercise” and “adoption of religion” clauses in the Nigerian Constitution, in Religious Freedom and Religious Pluralism in Africa.

    It is important to note that while the Nigerian media choose to constantly refer to Nigeria as “Secular”, no constitution of Nigeria has ever used the word “Secular” to describe the Nation. That notion was derived from Section 10 which is “non-adoption of religion-clause”.

     

    Tiv-Fulani Conflict in Benue Valley

    The age-long conflict between Tiv and the Fulani, as bad as it is, is being aggravated by political and religious irredentists assisted by irresponsible media. If not for political expediency, the sociology of Tiv-Fulani relations and linguistic dynamics of asking, “where are my cows” by Fulani man and the response of “munchi” (I have eaten it) by a Tiv man would have resonated a long history of such inter-group relations. But where desperate politicians seek relevance, any straw can be held on to gain cheap political points. Nigerians should not fall for the propaganda whether from the politicians or from religious bodies with soiled corrupt hands.

    A deep reflection of what is being presented as a new clash would have shown that it is a conflict that is as old as Nigeria. The Colonial Masters created grazing routes, forest reserves and mediating teams to address the economic and social friction between the Tiv-farmers and the roving herdsmen.

     

    Leah Sharibu’s Case

    The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) recently escalated the state of insecurity with its threat that should Leah Sharibu die in captivity of Boko Haram, there would be religious war!!!

    With that kind of threat I became as astonished as the Sultan of Sokoto and President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) who recently expressed shock at that destructive and counter-productive statement.

    Boko Haram has never hidden its mission of setting Nigeria ablaze through a religious war. Whose interest was the call by CAN to serve? Definitely, not that of the innocent Nigerian Lady, Leah Sharibu. Is it fair, religious or Godly for the sake of political grandsterism to endanger the life of such a precious, principled and promising girl?

    I am sure the immediate family members of the Lady would not subscribe to such politicisation of the misfortune.

     

    Relocation of Embassy

    The recent call by CAN on Nigeria to relocate her embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and its expression of support for President Trump’s relocation of the United States of America’s embassy to Jerusalem is not only appalling to all men of conscience but a (direct) manifestation of acute bigotry, abject ignorance and lack of understanding not only of the ‘Biblical prophecy’ but indeed of religious demography of the State of Israel today.

    An informed Christian Leader, Pope Francis made an impassionate plea against the decision which he said “would add new elements of tension in a world already shaken and scarred by many cruel conflicts”. He said further: “I cannot remain silent about my deep concern for the situation that has developed in recent days and, at the same time, I wish to make a heartfelt appeal to ensure that everyone is committed to respecting the status quo of the city, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the United Nations,”. “Jerusalem is a unique city, sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Where the Holy Places for the respective religions are venerated, and it has a special vocation to peace,”.

    “It is therefore strange that a Christian group would substitute “love” for pathological hatred and oppression just to hurt their Muslim brothers.

     

    The Massacre in Tafawa Balewa

    In Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi State, today, the same community that produced the first and only Nigerian Prime Minister, there is no Mosque let alone the call to prayers. Apart from killing them mercilessly, all the Muslims were exiled from the community. Those Muslims still remain in disarray today as they have become internally displaced people in various communities other than theirs.

     

    Nigeria – Unity,

    It must be emphasised that religion, when practised as expected, is a veritable tool for unity in heterogeneous societies. Islam as a religion preaches morality, justice, equity, and service to humanity. These are sublime virtues which are crucial to the unity and peace of any given society. The goal of Islam is to make life pure and beautiful. Islam encourages the stretching of hands to other religions or other people who are sincere and in sympathy with Islamic ideal of a morally safe world. That is to establish a united society, where love is shared, hatred is detested, and cooperation is established.

  • When gold rusts…

    When gold rusts…

    THE African aphorism that no one knows the child more than his mother is not only true, but it continues to be relevant even till date. With this at the back of his mind, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Okey Wali, SAN, recently took a cursory look at legal practice in Nigeria and berated his colleagues for not paying sufficient attention to professional standards and professional ethics which they observe mainly in the breach.

    As a result of this unsavourable practice, Wali lamented that lawyers, who must at all times maintain honour and dignity of their profession as essential agents of the administration of justice, are viewed in a negative light by members of the public in many jurisdictions, particularly in cases where lawyers may have abused their positions and for some other reasons.

    The NBA President who interfaced with members of the Bench, the Bar and Legal Academics as well as Law students of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, last week said “a consequent obligation of Lawyers is to maintain the highest standards of ethical conduct” and therefore called on the National Assembly to enact a new piece of legislation to replace the near obsolete Legal Practitioners Act (LPA) in order to checkmate the prevalence of declining professional standards and breach of professional ethics by many legal practitioners in the country.

    Wali, who spoke in a paper titled “Professional Ethics and the Future of Legal Profession” in Nigeria at the 4th Edition of the Aare Afe Babalola Annual Lecture organized by Ado-Ekiti Branch of the NBA in Ado-Ekiti, lamented that the current LPA neither provide for nor cover the latest and emerging global trends in the legal profession generally and provision of legal services in particular.

    He suggested among other things that Nigeria should emulate the practice in England where there is a new legal system which has brought massive reform to the legal system, adding that the volume of disciplinary petitions received daily at the NBA Headquarters is a sad testimony and commentary that some lawyers are grossly deficient in character and ethical conducts. His words: “In my capacity as the President of the NBA, I have observed the disturbing volume of petitions against lawyers.

    The number is alarmingly high. Some Nigerian lawyers, for variety of reasons, have not shown sufficient commitment to the ethical obligations of the profession. Ethical lapses have become more prevalent because, for a long time, particularly in the 90s, enforcement of discipline was in a long lull, partly because of the internal crises in the NBA and the inability to give disciplinary matters attention”. He added: “Legal practice presents lawyers with a broad range of ethical problems and tensions.

    These ethical problems occur in the lawyers’ relationship with hierarchy of persons he relates to in his professional life like clients, the courts, professional colleagues and the society at large.

    These ethical tensions and lawyers, who must cope with them, operate in spheres where success cannot be guaranteed and in circumstances that offer room for exploitation. Therefore, the need exists to device rules that will assist lawyers in resolving these tensions and raising the ethical standards of legal practice”.

    To address this ugly and unacceptable trend, Wali advocated a total review of the Rules of Professional Conduct, stating that “we shall work with the excellent draft already prepared by the Candide-Johnson Committee of the Bar Council”.

    The sevenman Committee chaired by Mr. C.A. Candide-Johnson, SAN, had earlier sat and reviewed the Rules of Professional Conduct and came up with an improved draft rules of professional conduct and submitted its report to the office of the Hon. Attorney- General of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN. Another way of addressing the menace, he said, is an immediate commencement of the teaching of Professional Ethics, the most fundamental subject in the legal profession, from 100 Level of university education so that they would not only be confronted with the issue of ethical standards/demands early in their training, starting their training with professional ethics will embed that subject in their consciousness with indelible force. On the other hand, leaving the subject to the last lap of the training of would be lawyers at the Law School, in his view, would amount to an afterthought, included merely to fulfill all righteousness.

    Obviously concerned and worried about how the breach of professional ethics has eaten deep into the fabric of legal practice in Nigeria, Wali said apart from formal curricular teaching of professional ethics, NBA will send its paragon of professional integrity to Law Faculties and the Law School to make presentations to students and teachers alike on professional conduct, discipline and ethics.

    This, in his view, will add a practical dimension to the training and encourage exchange of ideas between legal academia, practising lawyers and law students on this and other subjects. He however submitted that the war for the entrenchment of professional ethics should not be left to the NBA alone. Rather, the impetus of change must come from such sources as the public which bears the brunt of unethical conduct, the legal profession that is concerned about its image and the government that previously felt unconcerned about ethical practices and seem united in their condemnation of ethical lapses.

    Be that as it may, it remains unfathomable, foggy and incomprehensible why lawyers, who as active players in the temple of justice condemn, in superlative terms, any disobedience of court orders which the late Hon. Justice Kayode Eso (JSC), dubbed (executive) lawlessness and recklessness, would be the ones to pay lip service to the fundamental concepts of professional standard and professional ethics.

    When they behave this way, what do they expect from all others – from their colleagues at the Bar, from those on the Bench, from the parties that bow in court and from those who watch from the sidelines? Lawyers ought to carry themselves with grace, dignity and integrity as well as the observance of all rules of practice for these are the ornaments of their hallowed profession. And so, when gold rusts, what will iron do?

  • If gold rusts…

    How, how would Geoffery Chaucer, he of the famous Canterbury Tales, have reacted to the Church of England lobbying the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) to help the lobby to cancel Nigeria’s new anti-gay marriage law?

    And the double whammy: that the Church of England’s leading lobbyists, in this pro-gay marriage crusade, are the Archbishop of Canterbury (global head of the Anglican Church) and Archbishop of York, both prelates who reside in the Church’s holy of holies.

    Chaucer, the chronicler-satirist, would probably chuckle and, half-mirth, half-pity, declare: “If gold rusts, what would iron do!”

    Both Archbishops, of Canterbury and York, have “reported”, to the global Anglican Communion, the two errant governments of Nigeria and Uganda, so outrageously misguided to move against gay-marriage, making themselves affronts to the cultured world. Waving what they call the Dromantine Communiqué of 2005, their Lord Bishops, with all canonical rage at their disposal, appear to be calling for the stiffest of punishments for these errant zealots, who appear to love Christianity more than the original “owners”.

    But from what canon is Their Lords Spiritual arguing their case, the Dromantine Communiqué or the Bible? Oh, in the Dromantine Communiqué, they sure have a winning formula: the sentimental claptrap about everyone being a child of God, entitled to His love, no matter how deviant or perverse, and assured of pastoral care and friendship. Hardly a crime!

    But another question: from what cannon did the archbishops get their calling? It could not have been a fanciful communiqué, a conventional fad to toady up to the gay lobby, to corral their offerings and tithes, in the face of a drying Western church. So, all the talk about the love of God to everyone and abiding pastoral care might just be bunkum – some pitch to embrace carnality to spread a peculiar spirituality. It is the classic commercial universe, in which the church is just one of the sectors, pushing just another product!

    Still, what does the Bible say? For one, it is so alarmed at the moral depravity of sodomy (the un-deodorised acts of gays and lesbians) that it utterly destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So hot was Jehovah’s ire against sodomy!

    Even the New Testament talks of doing the will of the Father, and cautioned against the illusion of mushrooming in sin and yet expecting grace. Even Paul excoriated sodomy in very harsh tones. So, does the Bible conform to this new bible of convenience, the well loved Dromantine Communiqué, which these two archbishops now dote on?

    But make no mistake. All this is not about Christianity or morality. The theology of gay rights is all about the Western Church struggling for nourishment, and it would not mind even Mammon providing that daily bread. But that is okay, if it is okay by the western society.

    What is not okay is the evangelisation of arrogant imposition, hiding behind “human rights”; and these clerics have become the latest champions of the negative. Your Lord Bishops, even the blind can see through the veil!