The Nation Newspaper

Tag: indefensible

  • Indefensible negligence

    •Shocking! Federal Govt didn’t know that oil firms are depriving the country of huge profits

    IT is trite that a major reason for the persistence of Nigeria’s underdevelopment is not the dearth of good and well thought-out laws but the lack of the political will to rigorously implement them. This truism is vividly illustrated by the fate of the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts Act, which has been in effect since January 1, 1993. This law was enacted to provide a framework for the equitable and just sharing of oil profits between the Federal Government and oil companies. Towards this objective, the act made it imperative that whenever the price of oil exceeded $20 a barrel, there ought to be an upward re-adjustment of the Federal Government’s share of oil profit “in a manner as to become economically beneficial to the Federal Government”.

    Unfortunately, this explicit provision of the law had been observed in the breach since August, 2003, with the Federal Government incurring staggering losses of its share of oil proceeds over a period of 15 years until the Supreme Court’s ruling on October 17, that steps be taken to remedy the injustice. It took the vigilance of the Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa state governments to discover this anomaly, prompting the attorneys-general of the respective states to file a suit at the apex court in 2016 challenging the defective enforcement of the law.

    The fulcrum on which the case of the three states rested was that the Federal Government’s share of an estimated $1, 149, 750, 000,000 realised as oil profit between 2003 and 2015 fell far short of what ought to have accrued to it under the law. As oil-producing states, Rivers, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom states were negatively affected by the Federal Government’s indefensible negligence on the matter, since it also implied a shortfall in their own share of derivation funds from the Federation Account.

    These three states certainly deserve commendation for sensitising the Federal Government to its responsibility in this regard as well as utilising the provisions of the constitution to pursue the cause of justice for their respective jurisdictions. The action of the states was the basis of the apex court’s landmark decision that since oil prices had long transcended the $20 per barrel benchmark, the subsisting sharing formula between the Federal Government and the oil companies under the extant Production Sharing Contracts, has become invalid.

    In its consent judgement, the Supreme Court gave its assent to the terms of settlement reached between the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Shehu Malami (SAN), and the attorneys-general of the plaintiff states. Accordingly, the Federal Government and the three states are to “immediately set up a body and the necessary mechanism for recovery” of all revenues lost to oil exploring and exploiting companies as a result of non-adherence to the legislation on the lawful profit sharing formula since August 2003.

    It is incredible that it has taken a whooping 15 years for this glaring lapse to be detected and attempts made to rectify it. Could this be due solely to complacency, negligence or incompetence on the part of the respective petroleum ministers and their aides during this period? Or was it a question of deliberate elite conspiracy on the part of complicit state officials and the oil companies to pursue private pecuniary gain at the expense of the common good? Surely, this issue deserves thorough investigation in order to discover what really went wrong.

    While commending the Supreme Court for this courageous and patriotic decision, we urge the AGF in particular to take responsibility for ensuring the speedy actualisation of the Supreme Court judgment. This is particularly because the country remains in dire financial straits and requires all the funds it can lay hands on to tackle daunting challenges in many sectors of the economy.

  • Defence Minister defends the indefensible

    Defence Minister defends the indefensible

    THE Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, does not give too many interviews. But last Thursday, he was cornered by reporters as he emerged from a National Security Council (NSC) meeting at the Aso Villa in Abuja, and pinned down to about two main questions: why herdsmen attacks have been left virtually unchecked; and what motivates the killers. Reporters were quite clear whatever the Defence minister had to say would be of capital importance and probably offer a peep into the government’s mindset, particularly why it has proved puzzlingly incapable of stanching the flow of blood where the attacks have taken place. The minister’s answers, however, shocked the reporters, not just because of the elocutionary difficulties that accompanied his answers and often marked his public speeches, but principally because of their incredible inappropriateness.

    Nigerians have the enterprising State House reporters to thank for gaining insight into the workings of the Defence minister’s mind, and insight into the mysterious minds of the country’s leaders and the obvious but shocking fact that the solutions to the herdsmen killings are either not anywhere in sight or have been coloured by strange and incomprehensible interferences. Perhaps confused by the insincere and colourful answers government officials continue to give to questions pertaining to the killings in Benue State, reporters felt obliged to ask the minister, who was expected to know, what factors were responsible for the crisis.

    Apart from acknowledging that he emerged from the NSC meeting with the president, the minister suggested that remote and immediate causes explained the crisis. There the wonders began. On remote causes, he blamed the constriction of grazing routes over the years, due, it seems, to economic and demographic changes, but shocked reporters by suggesting the inevitability of the clashes. He spoke nothing about the antiquated mode of cattle rearing and the need to modernise dairy farming. Hear him: ” Since Independence, we know there used to be a route whereby these cattle rearers use. Cattle rearers are all over the nation. You go to Bayelsa, you see them; you go to Ogun, you see them. If those routes are blocked, what happens? These people are Nigerians; it’s just like you going to block river or shoreline, does that make sense to you?”

    Luckily the Defence minister was honest with his answers which betrayed where his sentiments lie, not to talk of admitting that the offended herdsmen are Nigerians, not foreigners. But reporters were to receive a much bigger shock. Explaining the immediate causes of the clashes, the minister suggested as follows: “But what are the immediate causes? It is the grazing law. These people are Nigerians, we must learn to live together with each other, that is basic. Communities and other people must learn how to accept foreigners within their enclave, finish!” English can be a very problematic language, sometimes amplifying meanings quite unintended by the speaker. It was, however, clear that the minister was impatient with what appeared to him as public bias against the herdsmen. His impetuous answers demonstrate how easy it is to goad a minister into betraying his innermost sentiments.

    From all indications, those sentiments are unpleasant to the ears. And coming a few days after the president himself begged farmers to accommodate their herdsmen countrymen in the name of God, the country is assaulted by how dangerously narrow the perspectives of the federal government have become on the crisis. With a security council that does not mirror all shades of opinions and cultures, not to say have the capacity to understand production systems, it is not difficult to see why it seems the government is more concerned about the safety and survival of the herdsmen than anything else. Worse, it does not appear as if the government has ever fully discussed all points of view on the causes of the clashes and the solutions. Officials merely reinforce one another’s jaded arguments.

    The Defence minister’s point of view tallies with the president’s. Both apparently see the clashes as communal, as the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, first suggested before he was forced to recant, and as the Defence minister has now reiterated. This is why the anomaly and impracticability of establishing grazing colonies all over the country do not strike them in the face. This is why they are indeed surprised that many Nigerians, and particularly the news media, put too much emphasis on the killings. And this is why it must be bewildering to the public that the country’s Defence minister finds it difficult to see the contradictions in blaming anti-open grazing laws for killings that began before the laws were made.

    No one can estimate how many deeply disappointed Nigerians continue to ponder the shameful and contradictory responses those entrusted with power over the country give to the crisis. First, they suggest that the killers were foreigners, not Nigerians. But no one bothered to explain why foreigners would be so embittered by Nigeria’s domestic policies to levy war against the country, nor why, since the authorities knew the identity of the killers, they were nevertheless reluctant to take the fight to the invaders. Today, the far-fetched suggestion is that the Benue killings were orchestrated by Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) militants. Second, there was also the suggestion that what was taking place was a clash of militias. Yet, no government official has volunteered proof regarding which militia is the aggressor and which militia is defending their lands. Sadly, the government which should help navigate a way out of the crisis is either paralysed or has proved spectacularly incompetent. Third, after spending months ignoring the killings that predated the anti-open grazing laws, and after being tongue-tied over killings in states where those laws do not exist, the government now bizarrely blames laws enacted in response to the clashes and killings.

    Until the government finds the depth of knowledge needed to appreciate the factors predisposing the country to farmers/herdsmen clashes, and develops the requisite impartiality needed to sustain the integrity and independence which the constitution demands of them, they will simply make a mess of the problem, divide the country further, and banish the peace required for long-term development. It is troubling that no one in government seems to know the right thing to do, and those who do, lack the courage to make their voices heard. The country is thus virtually divided into two on this matter, and the divisions are ossifying because the government is either complicit or incompetent.

  • Wike’s indefensible act

    Wike’s indefensible act

    • Rivers State Governor’s unannounced visits to CJN and rude defence

    The visits by the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, to the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmoud Mohammed, without an appointment, is irresponsible. The reasons he has offered for the visits do not hold water, because he knew that he has a case before the election petition tribunal, and he knows his case could eventually come before the CJN for adjudication. So, was Wike not bothered that his visits could trigger an alarm, that he was seeking an opportunity to compromise the judicial process?

    According to Wike’s media aide, the governor had gone to the CJN’s office to discuss the renewal of the appointment of the state acting chief judge, and the state acting president of the customary court of appeal, before the vacation begins.  He conveniently chose to forget that as a litigant before the courts, his visits could raise a doubt in the minds of his opponents, about the impartiality of the judicial process, of which the CJN is the chief custodian. But for the fact that Wike did not meet the CJN, it would have been reasonable for his opponents in the election petition case to worry whether Wike had compromised the process, using his influence as a sitting governor.

    To make matters worse, Wike chose to make the visit a personal affair, instead of an official visit, which would have seen his protocol officers set up an appointment through the protocol officers of the CJN. Such a process would have made the purpose of his visits clear from the beginning, and so allow the learned jurist an opportunity to accept or decline such inauspicious visits. But for the vigilance of the press, Wike’s clandestine visits, if successful, could have impugned the integrity of the highest judicial official in Nigeria; for it appeared as if Wike was determined to continue his visits to the office of the CJN, until he succeeded.

    For many, it is scandalous that a governor would, unannounced, attempt to badge into the office of another state official. It depicted the governor as unmannered in state protocols. But considering that Wike is a former minister of the country, it beggars belief that he could behave in such a manner, unless of course he had other ulterior motive for his two failed attempts to see the CJN. Wike’s political antecedents may have lent credence to the accusation by his opponents, that he holds nothing sacrosanct.

    It is also important that Wike reins in his media aides, unless he authorised the gibberish which they tried to pass off in their paid adverts, as explanation for his faux pas.

    The attempt to denigrate and impugn the integrity of the reporters who exposed his secret visits should be condemned. If we may ask, did the visits not take place, or did the governor not go to the CJN’s office without official information as to his motives? Or was the governor expecting the reporters not to report that the clandestine visits took place; or is it a lie that Governor Wike’s election is hotly contested by his opponent in the last general elections?

    Going forward, we expect that the governor would not make another attempt to visit the CJN, as long as he has a case pending in court. We also expect that if he insists on another round of visits, the CJN would rebuff him. If the governor wants to communicate with the CJN, he should do so in writing. We also urge the CJN to guard his reputation jealously, in the overall interest of our judicial process, regardless of the desperation of those seeking his attention.

  • Defending the indefensible

    Defending the indefensible

    •The earlier Nigeria faced realities about the state of affairs in the country, the better

    AS usual with such reports, the Federal Government has disagreed with the latest African Development Bank (AfDB) report on poverty. In a statement personally signed by the Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, the government contended on Monday that the report covered the period between 1996 and 2010. In effect, it did not take cognisance of the developments occasioned by President Goodluck Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda, according to the minister.

    It is baffling that the government is always eager to dismiss external reports which merely reinforce what Nigerians already know about their country. When Transparency International (TI) says ours is a corrupt nation to the core, the government says this is not so. When Nigeria is presented as lagging behind in social indices, the government reacts angrily. Now, it is time to debunk the AfDB report, despite the glaring realities of pervasive poverty in the country.

    This is not the way to get out of our challenges. Living in self denial can only aggravate an already bad situation. We agree with the minister that poverty is not peculiar to Nigeria. But what we also know for a fact is that the causes of poverty differ from country to country; so are the approaches to containing it. If many Nigerians are poor, it is not for lack of resources, mineral and human.

    Rather, it is due mainly to mismanagement and corruption. And only good leadership can steer the country away from the pangs of poverty. This is what has made the difference between Nigeria and other countries like India, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan that were in the same league of backbencher countries with us, even up to the 1970s.

    Even if we agree with Minister Maku that the AfDB report did not cover the immediate past, that is the last three years when he believed that so much has happened to present a different picture, the fact is that since May, 1999 to date, Nigeria has had only one ruling party, and that is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In other words, granted that the report covered as far back as 2010, the present government cannot distance itself from whatever the situation was at that time, if only for the fact that it is still a product of the same ruling party.

    Other claims by the minister can only pale into insignificance when compared with realities. Take the unemployment rate and Gini Coefficient, which measures the dispersion in income and wealth among individuals, that Mr. Maku mentioned. According to him, this is 26 per cent and 0.63, respectively, in South Africa, compared to Nigeria’s 24 per cent and 0.45. The Gini Coefficient for other comparator countries like Brazil, China, and Singapore were 0.52, 0.47, and 0.48, respectively. In effect, going by Mr Maku’s assertion, Nigeria’s economy is doing much better than any other of its size in Africa.

    We have heard this claim from several ministers of the present government. Just as we have heard that Nigeria remains the highest destination for Foreign Direct Investment (FID) inflows into Africa, over and above South Africa and Egypt. Yet, we cannot immediately recollect how many companies have folded up in the country and relocated to other places in Africa due mainly to epileptic power supply. The power problem is still there; erratic as it could be. Today, generation has dropped from over 3,800 MW to about 2,600 MW. All Nigerians get are excuses why it is deteriorating rather than be steady.

    We do not want to join issues with the minister beyond here. His principal’s government might have done a lot to fight poverty, create jobs, and reduce inequality. But what the AfDB report and others before it have said is what Nigerians see and feel. The country will be better off the moment we accept these realities rather than be trading excuses and defending the indefensible.