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Tag: matters arising

  • UTME 2018/19: Matters arising

    About 40 per cent of over 1.6 million candidates who registered for the 2018 Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination (UTME) will be seeking admission into the country’s 30 most preferred institutions (out of 662 instittutions) in the 2018/2019 academic session. The spaces available in most of the institutions are not enough for the applicants. KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE reports on how the Jo

    Candidates are getting set for the post-Unified Tertiary Examination (UTME) screening for the 2018/2019 academic session.

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has introduced some measures to ensure that spaces are optimally utilised unlike what happened in 2017 when 457,846 spaces in universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and innovations enterprise institutions were not taken up compared to the 566,641 slots used.

    Contrary to its practice, JAMB did not announce a general cut-off point for admission during the 2018 Policy meeting for tertiary institutions held in Gbongan, Osun State.

    JAMB Registrar Prof Is-haq Oloyede said the board would allow indidividual institutions set their admission criteria.  The board will ensure they keep to it.  He said JAMB would monitor institutions, keep strictly to the admissions timetable which started July 2, 2018 and would close November 16.  He also said the board would provide a platform for students to be admitted by other schools that have spaces for them once they are not admitted by their institutions of choice.

    Institutions are expected to use the UTME scores in combination with the O’Level grades of candidates or any other criteria they deem fit

    Most subscribed institutions

    For candidates wishing to increase their chances of getting admitted, it may be beneficial to pay attention to the statistics on the performance, number of applicants to their preferred institutions, and changes introduced to the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) and act accordingly.

    For instance, 662,478 of the 1,653,127 candidates that registered for the 2018 UTME chose only 30 institutions, according to categories (universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and Innovations Enterprise Institutions [IEIs), out of about 662 higher education institutions in Nigeria under JAMB’s purview.

    Universities had the lion share of applicants – with 94.29 per cent (1,558,686) of the candidates choosing universities as their most preferred institutions to attend.  Of this percentage, 38 per cent (607,367) applied to 10 universities of 163 universities in Nigeria.

    The top 10 most-subscribed universities are: University of Ilorin (86,401), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (74,635), University of Benin (70,322), University of Nigeria Nsukka (66,486), University of Lagos (62,436), Bayero University, Kano (56,261), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-ife, (48,646), Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka (48,554), University of Ibadan (47,544), and the University of Jos (46,082) making 607,367.

    The top 10 polytechnics, which got 39,013 out of the 69,712 applicants who chose polytechnics as their first choice institutions, are: Yaba College of Technology (5,275), Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro (5,258), Federal Polytechnic, Offa (4,456), The Polytechnic, Ibadan (4,075), Federal Polytechnic, Ede(4,047), Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna (3,922), Lagos State Poly, Ikorodu (3,629), Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin (3,041), Federal Polytechnic, Oko (2,781), and the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede (2,529).

    In the College of Education category, 10 colleges got 15,932 of the 24,524 applications for candidates seeking to do the National Certificate of Education (NCE).  They are: Federal College of Education, Zaria (2,836); Federal College of Education (Technical), Potiskum (2,244); College of Education, Akwanga (1,950); Aminu Saleh College of Education, Azare (1,652); Federal College of Education, Kano (1,559); Federal College of Education (Technical), Gombe (1,453); College of Education, Gidan-Waya (1,303); College of Education, Waka-Biu (1,022), Isa Kaita College of Education, Dutsinma (968); and FCT College of Education, Zuba (945).

    Among the IEIs, the 10 most subscribed institutions, with 166 of the 205 applications are: Pefti Film Institute, Lagos (26); Global Maritime Academy, Ogoni-olomu, Ughelli South, Delta State (25); Conarina Maritime Academy, Abraka, Delta State (24); Unicem Community Development Initiative Training Institute, Mfamosing, Cross River State (21); Complete Computers and Technology Institute, Benin (18); Mario Institute of Hospitality Management and Entrepreneurship Education, Nsukka, Enugu State (15); National Film Institute, Jos, Plateau State (13); Nigerian Television Authority, Television College, Jos, Plateau State (10); Ibrahim Shehu Shema ICT and Business Institute, Katsina, Katsina State (9); and Digital Bridge Institute, Oshodi, Lagos State (5).

    Performance in 2018 UTME

    Of the 1,606,311 results processed, 1,603,181 candidates scored 120 and above in the examination.  Among them, only 414,696 candidates made 200 and above.  As at the time of JAMB’s policy meeting, only 211,676 had the required O Levels for their courses.  However, since institutions are choosing their cut-off points, it is not known the number that would choose 200 as cutoff point.

    Oloyede urged institutions to employ multi-level assessments in choosing their students and not depend on the UTME alone.  He said this was particularly poignant considering that in the past there were cases of students who ended up as valedictorians with the highest Cumulative Grade Point Averages (CGPA) yet had to write the UTME many times.

    “There is need for multi-level assessment in arriving at the cut-off mark institutions should use.  We are now tracking best graduating students in every institution viz-a-viz their UTME score.  The UTME is not the cut off; it is the  minimum score to which you should add other factors before you arrive at the score.

    How CAPS should work out

    Last year, JAMB introduced the CAPS for the first time.  Candidates knew their admission status online and could apply multiple times to change courses to tally with their scores.  There were complaints about the system being opaque and candidates not knowing the criteria stipulated by institutions for admission

    National President, Association of Tutorial School Operators (ATSO), Mr. Dotun Sodunke, had complained during a protest in February that candidates got mixed messages about their admission status.

    He said then: “You would be admitted on JAMB portal and on CAPS page it would deny you admission. Everything is done in secrecy as we don’t even know which schools are organizing post-UTME and which ones are not. Every institution is doing what it wants. Things must not

    However, Oloyede said the CAPS has been redesigned to make it work better and more transparently.

    He said JAMB has stipulated a period for institutions to complete their first choice admissions.  Once over, Oloyede said candidates not admitted will be withdrawn from the institutions and placed in a marketplace where others could shop for them.  To this end, he urged institutions to conclude their admissions on time even if not ready to resume.

    He said: “At the end of the 1st choice period, all candidates not admitted would be pulled out of the institutions’ platform on CAPS and be made available to other willing institutions

    “Any candidate who has chosen an institution as 2nd, 3rd or 4th choice does not need any change of choice or payment to JAMB to be considered for admission during the period of the 2nd choice admission.”

    For this year’s admission, candidates would be expected to download the JAMB App with which they would get notification about their admission status, accept or reject their admission within a specified timeframe.  They will also get notification about other marketplace offers of admission.

    JAMB will also work with Institutions to ensure that their admissions are nationally representative.  Oloyede said in the 2017 admission exercise, only the University of Abuja admitted from all states in its catchment area, as well as nearly all other states of the Federation and foreigners in the right proportion.

    This year, he said JAMB would notify institutions about the “Percentage of catchment Admission and list of qualified candidates from Catchment Area not yet admitted; Percentage of ELDS Admission and list of qualified candidates from ELDS not yet admitted; National Spread of candidates across the States of the Federation and FCT to achieve a minimum of 0.05% of quota; and Percentage of International candidates admitted.”

    int Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) plans to maximise the available spaces.

  • Buhari’s 2019 bid and matters arising

    The country is gearing itself up for the general elections in February next year and with President Muhammadu Buhari announcing that he will bid for the governing party, APC’s (All Progressives Congress) ticket to run for a second term, all hell has been let loose by the chaotic and ill-prepared opposition camp.

    A joke on WhatsApp last week was about the abuse and insults heaped on Muhammadu Buhari, attacking him for everything wrong with the country but failing to answer an important question: who do you have that is better?

    In democracies around the globe, second terms by incumbents are usually harder to get simply because, somehow, there is always some kind of anti-incumbency leading to a loss of faith among those supporters.

    For President Buhari, who won with massive votes in 2015, his major challenge is to do as well as he did, or even better. He came to power with a lot of expectations and Nigerians had, justifiably placed very high hopes on him. As we said sometimes back, he as a consequence, has became a victim of the tyranny of expectations. The weight of unrealistic expectations has evidently blinded many of the people from seeing the revolutionary changes happening across the nation.

    Nigerians expected him to undo the damage in several decades of misgovernance and naturally, many are already feeling frustrated that he hadn’t done that in three years.

    The problem with our opposition is that beyond fault-finding, they are unable to give or, innovate a vision of their own on how they can make the nation better.

    A so-called Third Force has failed to get political traction since it birth. This is understandable, given that they have promised to give the country everything that is new but have so far produced no new faces, no new ways of doing things. Certainly, there is no face that can be called the President of Nigeria.

    For the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) parading itself on the glory of being the largest opposition, the party has not less than 10 leaders acutely ambitious to rule Nigeria. It will take them minimally two to three terms of presidential tenure that is eight to 12 years to reinvent the party.

    Looking at the entire opposition landscape, it can be said that they cannot be united by ideology, the type that made the pre-2015 opposition fuse into a formidable challenger that pushed an incumbent out of office. There is in no way therefore, they can choose leaders with unanimity.

    What then they have taken to, is scaremongering by fanning ethnic and religious divisions among the minorities especially in the Middle Belt where hundreds of innocent citizens are confronted with violent death.

    Before they take the words out of my mouth, let me state that the spate of those killings are tragic and unacceptable. They ought not to happen, and I am aware of how sad the Presidency is about these unfortunate goings-on. And there is so much that is being done to end the killings.

    More, however, could still have been achieved if there is cooperation extended to the security agencies by everyone, and by everyone, I mean especially the political opposition. A political warlord recently ordered the provocative stoning of a Nigerian Air Force personnel as their chopper landed in a Northeastern state.

    Today, the government has irrefutable evidence that much as most of these killings are arising from herdsmen-farmers attacks, some of it is driven by politicians. The recent arrests by the army in Taraba State point to a clear political sponsorship, and the kingpins, some of whom have been arrested have been handed over to the DSS for further investigation. Others who are being sought have either gone into hiding or they are pulling strings of blackmail to force the hands of government to abandon the search for them.

    It is clear by now that the Middle Belt killings, even if they are not caused by the opposition, are no doubt, seen as a political opportunity to set the tone for the 2019 elections.

    Another matter of great disappointment is the ongoing attempt to victimize a group of religious leaders, the Arewa Pastors Initiative for Peace, representing 45,000 members, simply because they paid a visit to President Buhari. We see this development as an unnecessary distraction at a time the country should be united against its common problems and challenges.

    We are both mystified and disturbed by the growing lack of tolerance and accommodation by some groups who see it as their birth right to visit and address the President on their issues but lack the modicum of respect for others to do the same. It is regrettable that an innocuous visit is becoming a subject of needless and unprintable attacks on the President and his visitors for doing nothing wrong.

    For the avoidance of doubt, the President would not want to set a dangerous precedent for the country by discriminating against any group exercising their democratic rights of freedom of speech and association.

    The Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, told the tale of the toad at the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Colloquium recently in Lagos.

    “Let’s discuss tails,” the toad was told. It, not having a tail, the toad said, “no, let’s talk about other things.”

    Rather than coming to the table to discuss what has been achieved or not in key areas of policy, the conversation is today limited to one, the morbid tale of the relationship between farmers and herders.

    Sad as these incidents involving farmers and herdsmen are, I wonder what the result will be if half the newsprint and airtime devoted to this is used to draw attention to malaria which kills 300,000 Nigerians every year; the 88,000 malnourished children and the 230,000 malnourished, pregnant women in the northeast, a quarter of whom the UNICEF said would most likely not make it.

    An important motivation for President Buhari’s bid for second term is that the gains made from 2015 should not be frittered. Buhari is not involved in corruption and is not desperate for the office. He is among the few leaders we have who are not obsessed with money, cars and homes but working passionately for the country’s economy, peace and safety. If a corrupt politician wins, we will go back to where we were in 2015.

    Many, by now, have forgotten where we are coming from. The daily bomb blasts in our cities between 2012 and 2015 including the deadly attack on the United Nations Office in Abuja have been forgotten by many. The Juma’at Mosque bomb attack on Kano that left 300 dead and the theft of 270 girls in Chibok as they assembled to write their final exams, with 113 yet to return have for many, faded into history.

    We lived in perpetual fear. I remember the story of the roadside Mosque in one settlement in which a black plastic bag was noticed by the congregation as the Imam led in prayer. The entire congregation fizzled out, the Imam, realising that he was left alone, only from the eerie air of silence after everyone had quietly left.

    Today, religious gatherings and crowded markets have resumed. Witnesses reported that Abuja and Kaduna witnessed the largest simultaneous assembly of people when the Tijjaniyya Islamic movement celebrated their Maulud a week ago without the fear of bomb blasts.

    Cabinet meetings are now about how trillions of Naira are to be used to provide long delayed infrastructure such as roads, bridges, railway, power, drugs and equipment for hospitals. Grand corruption, by which ministers sat around the table to share money drawn from the treasury, has been ended.

    A majority of our people are farmers who depend on good rains, access to land and fertilizer to grow the food they eat and sell the surplus to make money for school fees for their children and where possible, add a wife or two and make the Hajj or other plans.

    This administration has broken the jinx of fertilizer shortage and its high cost and has put land clearing for agriculture on a priority. Loans at low or no interest rates are being given by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Bank of Agriculture, the Bank of Industry and the Development Bank. It will take years to raise our rising population from poverty. Even in China, with the world’s fastest growing economy, this, still, is a work in progress.

    The administration is doing so much for women, children and our enterprising youths. This is the first time anyone has given our country a social welfare scheme.

    By it, 7.5 million children are served free meals in schools. This has improved school attendance. Two Hundred thousand graduates are now enrolled in N-Power, and 300,000 have just passed screening in the biggest, most audacious employment scheme on the continent. Our youths have a lot of ideas and many who need support, mentoring and guidance under the various schemes under the Social Investment Programme (SIP) of the government are getting help.

    Three years on, the economy has seen a paradigm shift with agriculture getting a pride of place. We are importing 90 percent less rice than we did three years back. The World Bank has certified Nigeria as being one of the top ten most improved economies in the world. Power ministry has done commendably well, raising generation from an average of 2,600 megawatts (mw) to 7,500mw.

    Today, each state has a minimum of between one to five federal roads under construction or reconstruction. Some have as many as eight or nine. The legendary Second Niger Bridge is by now 44 per cent complete, putting to shame the many years of platitude and lies by several past administrations.

    With the advent of the Buhari administration, foreign policy has become robust. Nigerian enjoys a good reputation in West Africa, Africa and the world.

    What this government is doing is different and the results are showing, for example:

    • Reversing the decline which began in 2014 and stabilizing the economy for Nigerians.
    • Recovery of stolen national assets.
    • Economic restructuring for the growth of private sector as the best solution to unemployment.
    • Demonstrable infrastructure improvement: roads, power and energy.
    • Re-establishment of collaborative working relationship between the President and the Vice President as model of how Northern/Southern, Muslim/Christian, Older/Younger Nigerians can and should work together.

    The thing about second term in all political climes is that voters must have a practical reason to vote for someone. President Buhari has not given anyone an excuse not to choose him on this count. His is an administration that has something for everyone.

    Supporters, who talk about a noticeable loss of faith by some, must note that there is nothing permanent in politics. Many of the allies will, in pursuit of power, come back to the APC, being the party with superior power.

    The party did extremely well in the North to come to power and every indication is that in 2019, it will do in the South, what it did in the North in 2015.

    By the way, did anyone notice the poll on who to choose in 2019 by a young man, Mark Essien @markessien on Twitter? Buhari supporters need to read that to cheer up!

    Garba Shehu, is the Senior Special Assistant to the President on   Media & Publicity

  • MANTU’s confessions and matters arising

    The major threat to credible elections in the country is rigging and the failure of the electoral body and the security agencies to apprehend and prosecute suspects. If those caught in the act of rigging and their sponsors had been brought to book over the years, cases of election rigging would have reduced; our electoral process would be credible. The revelation of election rigging by the party chieftains is a wake-up call on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to its MANTU’s confessions and matters arising responsibilities.

    The commission should invoke the various provisions in the Constitution and the Electoral Act against electoral malpractices. Electoral officers who act in concert with politicians and security agencies to commit atrocities against the ballot box should be prosecuted. Former Deputy Senate President, Sen. Ibrahim Mantu, penultimate Friday, in what was considered a bold moral move, had sparked off controversy by confessing to have helped his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to influence votes in the past. Mantu disclosed that he carried out this illicit act by providing financial inducements to election officials, including the agents of the opposition parties.

    The ‘born again’ politician, who featured on a Channels Television programme, had said: “I don’t have to go and change election (results) but when you provide money, you give money to INEC boys that if they see any chance they should favour you, you provide money to the security (personnel). “I tell you it’s not necessarily when I am contesting election but when my party sponsors a candidate, I will like that candidate to win election.” Mantu, who represented Plateau State in the Senate between 1999 and 2007, agreed ‘wholeheartedly’ with PDP national chairman, Prince Uche Secundus,on the recent public n Leke SALAUDEEN n apology he tendered on the party’s mistakes when it was in power between 1999 and 2015. He said:”We have failed the people through our ways and politics.

    It is time for us to ensure that we do not allow the wrong people to lead the people and the nation. “ As politicians, we have committed sins against the people by encouraging the things that we should not have encouraged. “God has totally blessed our country Nigeria with abundant human and natural resources but we have failed to utilize these to improve the quality of lives of the people.” He recalled, how in the PDP, names of candidates who won elections were deleted and replaced with other names. “Winners’ names were crossed out and replaced with names of those who did not win. It is bad because we imposed those who did not win on the people. It is true that we (PDP) ruled with impunity.” He asked other PDP members to also become ‘born again’, remorseful and repentant. “ We must meet the expectations of the people. It is not about changing from one party to another. It is about changing our hearts. It is about changing our attitudes.

    Let us sit down and reflect on the bad leadership that we have given to Nigerians these past years and change. Nigeria is supposed to lead Africa but we have failed.” It seems the statement made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo prior to 2017 general elections was a stimulant for election rigging. At a meeting held with PDP members and stakeholders in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, Obasanjo had said that the April 2007 general elections would be a ‘do-or-die’ affair for the PDP. “This election is a ‘do-or-die’ affair for me and the PDP. This coming election is a matter of life and death for the PDP and Nigeria”, he stated. The threat drew criticisms from the opposition parties, civil rights organisations and intellectuals. They said such a threat was unexpected from a statesman of his status. A civil right activist described the statement as a great disservice on the part of Obasanjo to the country he had the opportunity of ruling twice, first as military head of state and as a civilian executive president. Many had concluded that the 2007 poll could neither be free and fair.

    The poll result tallied with Obasanjo’s expectation: The PDP won 26 of the 32 states, including Kaduna and Katsina states, where the results were contested by the local population. Foreign observers gave it a dismal assessment. For instance, the leader of the European Union Observer Max van den Berg, reported that the handling of the 2007 polls in Nigeria had fallen far short of basic international standards and that the procedure cannot be considered to be credible.

    The United States Department of State said it was “deeply troubled” by the polls, calling them flawed and said it hoped the political parties would resolve any differences over the election through peaceful and constitutional means. After the 2007 polls, the rot stared the country in the face. Petitions flooded the election tribunals and courts. Many of the stolen mandates were retrieved back at the courts at greater costs to the opposition parties. The courts decried the electoral horror and terrorism. The poll created a hollow in the record of Obasanjo as a citizen of the world. It was the nation that suffered the debilitating effects. The country’s image was dented. However, the beneficiary of the flawed 2007 presidential poll, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, gave Nigeria’s a flicker of hope. In his inaugural speech, he shocked his party members when he openly admitted that the election which produced him was flawed.

    He immediately promised electoral reforms to correct the anomaly in the system. Three months after assumption of power, the late Yar’Adua inaugurated a 22-member Electoral Reforms (ERC) headed by the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Muhammed Uwais. The ERC was to specifically “examine the entire electoral process with a view to ensuring that we raise the quality and standard of our general elections and thereby deepen democracy”. Justice Uwais and his team did a good job that could have changed the face of electoral contest for better in the country. The report of the committee came in six volumes and contained three draft bills.

    The first bill was for the amendment of the 1999 Constitution; the second was for the amendment of the Electoral Act 2006 and the third was for the establishment of the Electoral Offences Commission. Unfortunately, the ERC report had been hijacked by the political elite. Giving an insight into why the report never achieved its objectives, Uwais said instead of full implementation of the recommendations of his committee, the Federal Government opted to pick and choose. For instance, the panel that reviewed the White Paper on the Uwais report threw out the recommendation for the establishment of an Electoral Offences Commission to try election offenders. A lawyer, Mr Austin, said the rejection of the establishment of election tribunal was deliberate.

    It will work against the politicians’ interest. He said those who rig elections are sponsored by politicians. It will be very difficult to bring electoral offenders to book when there is no certainty of sanctions. The regular courts are congested; where cases drag for long, it would be difficult to prove where witnesses have been compromised or disappearance of documentary evidence had taken place. He said virtually, of all the elections conducted by the PDP when they were in power, none was considered free and fear by local and foreign observers. That is why our democracy is not growing. When you don’t allow free choice of leaders, there can be no progress. The day we allow the wish of the electorate to reflect in elections result, we will start making progress. There is a hue of irony in the politician’s confessions. He was defeated in 2007 in the race for the Senate seat of Plateau Central Satti Gogwim. Pundits say his defeat might not be unconnected with his alleged role in the inglorious pursuit of the ‘third term’ agender for former President Obasanjo. The PDP has, however, disowned Mantu over his confession.

    The party was reacting to the advice by the All Progressives Congress (APC) that Nigerian’s should learn from Mantu’s claims on how he rigged elections. A statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said Mantu’s claims were personal to him and had nothing to do with the PDP. He said the party had never directed any of its members to rig election on its behalf, at any point since its formation. Mantu spoke about his personal activities and tendencies in the elections he participated in.

    “There is nowhere in the rule of engagement where candidates or party members are directed to rig elections on the party’s behalf. If any member’s conduct transgressed these basic rules of engagement, that individual did not act on behalf of the PDP, and as such the party cannot be vicariously held responsible’’, the party said. Ugboajah, however, demurred. He said: “It is uncharitable of the PDP to disown Mantu because of his confessional statement. Those years when the PDP benefitted from his rigging machine, why didn’t the party expose him and reject the poll results influenced by him? Was it only Mantu that rigged for the party? PDP should own up to its sins before Nigeria can accept their apology”. He said the quality of our leadership is a derivative of the quality control of our elections. “A credible election must reflect the will of the people. As long as we continue to find it difficult to count votes honestly, we will continue to count crises endlessly. INEC should push further for the establishment of a special tribunal where the likes of Mantu should face justice.”

  • Dapchi abduction: Matters arising

    The national and international media may erroneously be attributing the kidnap of 110 girls from Dapchi Secondary School in Yobe on February 19 to Boko Haram. This error is a result of the Nigerian government’s deliberate attempt to conflate the actions of two competing extremist groups, and play down the presence, strength, sophistication and influence of the Islamic State in the West African Province (ISWA). Admitting the extent of the Islamic State’s influence would amount to admission of having lost control of a significant portion of the country.

    In this case, the government’s strategy is backfiring. Previously, by conflating the two groups and finally diverting the resources to the cause of “crushing” Boko Haram (BH) in Sambisa (as it claims to have done three times previously), the government could show in advance of the 2019 elections that they are “winning”. Credit is due to the brave soldiers fighting this fight. However, the government has occluded the fact that ISWA is separate, growing in strength and influence, and that vast swathes of the ungoverned North are being taken over by the black-flag carriers with only minimal effort. On this front they are losing, because the problem is not a military one.

    A smash, grab and kidnap are not the tactics of ISWA. We have observed them acting in a much more sophisticated manner: perpetuating prescription drug abuse, manipulating markets for fish and charcoal and offering basic healthcare services. Dapchi is, however, within ISWA’s territory. ISWA appears to have learned from the multi-million cash euro ransom paid for the Chibok girls’ release in May and December 2017, that girl-snatching is good business.

    I have been working in Northeast Nigeria for two years along with a team of Nigerians working fearlessly in these communities, from Chibok to Dapchi and beyond. I am aware of the intricate dynamics by which extremist groups are acting, by which Nigeria’s institutions continue to fail, and by which the Nigerian people continue to suffer. In Dapchi, aside from the argument that continues between Police, State Security, Military and the State Governor’s office that allowed for the incident to happen, I attribute the event to two categories of failure:

    Failings of the Government

    Large swathes of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa remain ungoverned and unserved. They are remote and hard to reach. They have insufficient water, schools, transport, power, cell phone coverage and healthcare. With an estimated population of over 20 million, the scope and scale of need is immense. All this in a country which has disbursed only 47 per cent of its 2017 budget, that claims to be the largest economy in Africa, and that also has (according to Oxfam’s May 2017 report) the largest inequality in the world.

    A group proposing a governance model based on faith and piousness is not new to Nigeria: churches in the south have enough territory and population to be considered cities and govern their own schooling, security and power generation. But the extent and severity of the poverty in the Northeast is unmatched and presents fertile territory for violent extremist’s state-building.

    Over successive regimes the Nigerian government has failed to keep the political and economic elite separate, such that political actors make economic decisions to disempower competition to their enterprises and their families. The perverseness of this situation is that the “competition” is the population those elite are supposed to serve.

    The government has also failed to identify that 20 million people in such a circumstance can easily be persuaded by a group offering something so marginally better, but better nonetheless. This is how Islamic State has established itself in Nigeria, to the degree that it has communities under its control (ambivalent but active Nigerians, not foreigners), and systems of taxation, production, and domestic and international export.

    “Government failure,” however, is an easy and too-often-used excuse, and one with which we have become entirely too comfortable. The core issue is much more cutting to Nigeria as a whole:

    The failings of Nigeria

    First are the foundational issues, to which most Nigerians are accustomed: it is commonly accepted that holders of public office serve primarily themselves in a pattern that is considered fair because after a designated term limit it will be someone else’s chance. Even for those who do serve the public, too much responsibility, credit and criticism is placed on these individuals; a habit undermining the immense human capital that is Nigeria’s greatest resource. In this way, individuals are not valued and many are openly despised by society: workers, cleaners, farmers, drivers and youth.

    These individuals may unionise to vie for recognition, but there exists a pervasive lack of faith in Nigeria’s systems because there is proportionally no accountability in plurality. Multiple unions, groups, agencies, committees compete for the same resources in a manner reminiscent of colonial powers’ “divide and rule” tactics. Fundamentally, the democratic process has failed: while leadership may change, institutions do not, and they continue to fail to serve the people.

    The final two issues are the crux of the matter. There exists a pervasive lack of national unity, to the degree that “Nigerian” is a foreign concept, as is Maiduguri, Madagali or Dapchi. Other than a single, gated, and generally inaccessible square on Lagos Island, there are no national monuments in the country’s 36 states and 923,000 sqKm that say “we are proudly Nigeria.” Maiduguri is more foreign than Dubai or London.

    It is possible to build a sense of national unity: Ghana, South Korea and Israel achieved this post-independence, and before you respond that none has the population, diversity of geographic challenge: so did Indonesia (independent in 1945, 261 million people, 1.9m sqKm, 13,000 separate islands, 300 distinct ethno-linguistic groups). Lack of national unity prevents us from cohering around this issue and seeing it as our own to solve.

    Nigeria deals with its problems in one of three ways: (a) to dismiss it, (b) to attribute it to someone else or (c) to consider it a military issue to be “crushed”. All three strategies have been applied to “the Boko Haram problem”, and Islamic State is the result. If anything can be salvaged from the kidnap of the Dapchi girls, it is to confirm the flaw in this logic, to learn from it, and to acknowledge the Nigerian malignancy that it is.

    Until we accept the severity and the reality of the problem that Islamic State is establishing a nation in Nigeria’s territory, that with a single action in Dapchi they can send us back to 2014, and that Nigeria’s issues have got us to this point, we will continue to move backwards.

     

    • Baba-Buba writes from Yobe.

     

  • COSON-MCSN feud: matters arising

    COSON-MCSN feud: matters arising

    For over two decades, an acrimonious relationship has lingered between the leaderships of Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) and the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN). While Chief Tony Okoroji shepherds COSON, Mayo Ayilaran is the CEO of MCSN. At the heart of their hostility is who should be the rightful manager of the wealth accruing from the public performances of the rights of musicians, sound recorders, and performers of music. COSON prefers management of these rights by a single collective management organisation (CMO), but MCSN wants a multiple CMO system.

    The Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) is the legal regulator for the industry. In April 2017 and reacting to a petition submitted to his office by MCSN, Abubakar Malami, SAN, the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) gave directives for the immediate approval of MCSN. Expectedly, COSON has gone to court to challenge the AGF’s decision. Okoroji of COSON, for reasons better known to him, has been leading protests against the AGF, accusing him of being a meddlesome interloper and attempting to ‘kill’ the music industry.

    The Copyright Act 1988 (as amended) and the Copyright (Collective Management Organisations) Regulations 2007 are the applicable laws to this discussion. The Copyright Act defines a CMO as ‘an association of copyright owners which has its principal objectives as the negotiating and granting of licenses, collecting and distributing of royalties in respect of copyright works.’ The opposite of CMO is individual management of rights. Almost all countries prefer CMO because of its advantages such as suitability to manage rights in the secondary copyright market, economies of scale advantage that leads to reduced transaction cost, availability of blanket licensing, special benefits to upcoming artistes, and collective enforcement power.

    Copyright confers exclusive right on all musicians (with recognised exceptions) to authorise the use of their songs by any user, such that anyone who uses their songs without authorisation will be liable for infringement. The implication of this in practical term (using Olamide as an example) is that anyone, any business, or any broadcasting corporation who desires to use Olamide’s WO track for some commercial purpose must secure his approval before use. This imposes a herculean obligation on Olamide who has to enforce his right against all of these people/businesses. For instance, against how many individuals can Olamide enforce this right? How many radio or TV stations in Lagos alone can he visit? What about other users of music such as shopping malls, eatery, nightclubs, hotels, etc. in the 36 states of the federation and FCT? How many of them can he single-handedly visit to enforce this right?

    These challenges make CMO a preferred option. Under a CMO arrangement, Olamide and other musicians willingly come together to form an association of owners. They then assign/license their rights to this association.

    Since section 39(2)(a) of the Copyright Act provides that CMOs must be non-profit organisations, their management are only permitted to deduct up to 30% of the royalties collected as running costs before distributing the remainder to all members as royalties. Thus, with this arrangement, artistes like Olamide no longer need to embark on the strenuous and expensive individual management of their rights.

    By the combined reading of sections 17 & 39 of the Copyright Act, any association of more than 50 people acting as a CMO by negotiating and granting license, collecting and distributing royalties to its members in respect of copyright works must obtain approval or exemption from the NCC. In 2009, MCSN, COSON and the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria Ltd (WASP) submitted applications for approval as CMOs. Relying on section 39(3) of the Copyright Act, NCC in 2010 approved the application of COSON and rejected those of MCSN and WASP on the ground that their applications failed to comply with statutory requirements. Section 39(3) prohibits NCC from registering more than one CMO for a class of right if it (NCC) is satisfied that the existing CMO adequately protects the rights of its members. This is the basis for the argument that NCC can only register one CMO for a class of right. This means that, prior to the AGF’s directive in April 2017, COSON was the sole (legal) CMO for musical works, sound recordings and the rights of performers in Nigeria.

    Since only COSON secured approval to act as CMO in 2010, why has MCSN continued to act as a CMO? The inability of the Nigerian courts (comprising of the FHC and the different divisions of the Court of Appeal) to agree on the correct interpretation of sections 16, 17, & 39 of the Copyright Act is the reason for this anomaly.

    The 1992 amendments to the Copyright Act introduced government regulation into the business of collective management of rights. Section 32B of the amendments (this is now section 39) is relevant to this discourse. The section introduced an extensive regulatory framework for collective management of rights in Nigeria. For instance, it laid down in section 32B (2) conditions that a prospective CMO must meet before securing approval from NCC. In section 32B (3), it made the approval of an additional CMO in the same class conditional on the ‘inadequate protection’ clause. Subsections 4 to 6 made it an offence to operate as a CMO without NCC’s approval and then imposed penalties for doing so. Subsection 7 empowered NCC to make regulations necessary to give effect to the new section. Lastly, subsection 8 defined collecting societies as association of copyright owners with the objectives of negotiating and granting licenses, and collecting and distributing of royalties. Any association, society or organisation engaged in all of these responsibilities must secure approval before it can operate as a CMO.

    To regain its regulatory power, NCC sponsored amendments to the Copyright Act again in 1999 and one of the new amendments was section 15A (now section 17). This section made it clear that, notwithstanding the provisions of any other laws, (including section 15 that allowed ‘owner, assignee and an exclusive licensee’ to institute action), any association of MORE than 50 people, performing the function of CMO as defined under section 32B(8) must obtain NCC’s approval under section 39 or must be expressly exempted by NCC.

    With this new provision, one will expect that the court will understand that it is not the intention of the parliament that an association should operate as a CMO without approval. This is where the mischief rule would have been apposite. It is very clear that the mischief that the parliament intended to curb by this amendment was to preclude an unapproved CMO from operating as such. Unfortunately, even after this amendment, the different divisions of the Court of Appeal continued to hand down conflicting judgments with one group holding that MCSN could not operate as a CMO using section 15 (now section 16); and another group holding that the 1999 amendment did not preclude MCSN from suing for infringement as ‘owner, assignee or an exclusive licensee.’

    The House of Representative tasked its joint Committee on Justice and Judiciary to probe the controversy. The committee recommended the immediate approval of MCSN as a CMO. The whole House of Representative passed a resolution to give imprimatur to these recommendations in December 2013. NCC, however, did not obey the recommendation on immediate approval.

    The AGF’s directive will benefit the industry by ensuring the protection of more members. It will also promote healthy competition between the two CMOs. On the long run, the need to win rights holders over to their side will lead to more creativity, more accountability and more respect for rights holders between COSON and MCSN. It will therefore be right to submit that the AGF’s directives will make (and not mar) the music industry.

    Contrary to the agitation from COSON, the provisions of the applicable law, not politics, inform the action of the AGF. This is in line with the provision of section 50 of the Copyright Act.

    In sum, both COSON and MCSN should face the reality of this new dawn; hence they be left out. Instead of this continued bickering, blackmailing, and trading of abuses, they should concentrate on how to convince rights holders of their efficiencies.

     

    • Olatunji is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania, Australia. 
  • IPOB: Matters arising

    IPOB: Matters arising

    •All may be quiet in the agitators’ camp but all is not well yet

    Now that Nnamdi Kanu and his band of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) agitators have been subdued and quietened, we think that time is now for the Federal Government to embark on deep introspection with a view not only to understanding the grouse of the group but also weighing in with some rapprochement in the southeast.

    The IPOB uprising and its vanquishing would surely be recorded in the annals of Nigeria as one of the most momentous incidents of the social media age. Kanu had taken that country by storm armed with a satellite radio and other social media devices.

    With hate speech and resentment as his mantra, he had preached separation and a renaissance of Biafra – a long forgotten attempt in the 60s to forcefully excise the southeast of Nigeria from the rest of the country. His angry message had found fertile soil among Igbo youths who feel marginalised by the federal system. As the number of his followers grew, Kanu became more emboldened and even reckless.

    He began to over-reach himself. He flouted his bail conditions; called for a boycott of a November gubernatorial election in Anambra State and challenged constituted authorities at every turn. He eventually crossed the line when he assembled a band of young men and women, made uniform for them and called it Biafra Security Service (BSS).

    Though they were not known to be armed, videos were posted of him inspecting a guard of honour as ‘supreme commander’.

    This must have spurred the Federal Government to move against him a few weeks ago, perhaps to pre-empt what obviously was youthful exuberance gone too far, from getting completely out of hand.

    In what the military termed “Operation Python Dance 2”, the Federal Government mobilised against Kanu and his IPOB movement in what has been termed a deployment of excessive force by many observers. IPOB claimed about five people were killed but the military said no life was lost and that only two people were injured, including a policeman, especially in Umuahia, capital of the southeast state of Abia, the residence of Kanu and headquarters of IPOB. Either side could have been economical with the actual number of casualties.

    In another rather disturbing move, the Federal Government hastily moved to proscribe IPOB and declared it a terror group. This further raised eyebrows, considering the fact that the group was not armed and was never reported to have killed or maimed apart from purveying hate speech and causing occasional public disturbance.

    While we abhor the dangerous agitations of Kanu and his band, we once again condemn government’s use of excessive force and deployment of the entire military might of the country to crush the group. We believe that quelling the ‘uprising’ could have been better managed with minimum force and little or no casualties.

    The court process was not exhausted and dialogue was not even considered, not to mention carrot and stick methods. We are apprehensive that the government is becoming adept at deploying troops at the slightest civil disturbance, especially in situations better left to the police and paramilitary forces.

    It is in the light of this that we urge the Federal Government to embark on introspection at this moment. Though IPOB may seem to have been decimated and defeated, unless government tackles the issues they raised with the same aggression, then it may have only scorched the snake without killing it.

    Though most parts of the country have suffered the brunt of serial bad governance over time, the southeast may well be an especial case. Since the end of the civil war nearly 50 years ago, not much of infrastructural overhaul has been done as no special ‘Marshall Plan’ to rebuild the zone was adopted and executed.

    A second Niger Bridge linking the southeast to other parts of the country has been on the drawing board for decades; erosion ravages and most federal roads are impassable.

    We urge the Federal Government to move hastily into the southeast armed with some of these palliatives. That is the right thing to do. And of course, the raging matter of restructure should also be considered.

  • Kaduna International Trade Fair: Matters arising 

    SIR: The just concluded 2017 Kaduna International Trade Fair has come and gone, but the dust it has raised may remain in the horizon for a very long time to come.

    The 2017 trade fair may pass as the worst in the history of the trade fair introduced 38 years ago to shore up commercial and business activities in Kaduna city, a city which over the years established a reputation for itself as one of the vibrant economic hubs of Northern Nigeria.

    It is our considered opinion that given the vast experience which the organisers of the event accumulated following repeated editions of the trade fair, with each passing year the organisation of the event should be better than the previous ones. But to the consternation of all and sundry, the 2017 international trade fair was one of the worst organised in the annals of the trade fair.

    It is for the above reason that I deemed it fit to, on behalf of the 13 members, voice our concerns and discomfiture to the Kaduna State Chambers Of Commerce Mines and Agriculture (KADCCIMA) over the shoddy manner in which the event was organised which made it lose its usual vibrancy and colour which eventually rendered the event a phenomenal failure that will remain a sore pain in the minds of investors, participants and members of KADCCIMA for a long time to come.

    To understand the descent and level of failure recorded in the organisation of the 2017 trade fair, it is apt to state that no single foreign firm participated in the event and only a few local firms made a symbolic presence at what used to be Africa’s most prestigious trade fair.

    In fact, the handful of traders that attended the fair converted it into a trading post, where all manner of fabrics and plastic wares were sold. Even at that, the 38th Kaduna International Trade Fair failed to stand out because Shiekh Abubakar Gumi Central Market surpassed it in the assortment of goods on offer and the volume of trade that took place.

    In summary, the trade fair could be likened to a weekly market day like Kasuwar Monday at Kakuri or Kawo Tuesday Market.

    From our findings, inadequate publicity and outreach, lack of initiative on the part of the Director General, Malam Usman Saulawa, as well as his penchant for running the Chamber in line with his whims and caprices, were responsible for the poorly organised trade fair.

    At a time when the country is trying to diversify the economy and government agencies are becoming more business-friendly, KADCCIMA must reposition itself in order to boost trade and investment in the agricultural and mining sectors. Sadly, with what we have noticed in the last few years, our Chamber is not ready to provide the platform for optimum private-sector participation in the economy.

    Consequently, the need to restructure KADCCIMA becomes imperative; and to this end, we are advising the Director General to step aside because he lacks both the capacity and acumen to run the Chamber.

    I would like to restate at this juncture on behalf of the 13 members that there should be a paradigm shift in the way KADCCIMA is being run.  . The new Chamber that we envisage should be the engine room of private enterprise and investments not only in Kaduna State but the country at large.

     

    • Malam Jibril L. Tafida,

    Kaduna

     

  • Rivers re-run: matters arising

    It is no longer in doubt that last week’s re-run legislative elections in Rivers state detracted substantially from a standard free, fair and credible poll. This should be a disappointment given the heavy deployment of men and materials for that singular poll.

    Figures reeled out before the election showed 28,000 policemen, 18 gunboats, three helicopters, dogs and horses were handy for the exercise. This was in addition to the Army, Naval, Air force and DSS personnel mobilized to ensure that violence and all manner of malpractices were reduced to their barest minimum.

    Given these, the expectation was that security agencies would provide a level playing ground for INEC officials to do their job so that the outcome of the elections would approximate the collective will of the electorate as expressed at the ballot box. Curiously, accounts from independent observers, election monitors and politicians from across the divide speak of infractions that cast slur on the impartiality of security agencies and credibility of the elections.

    A coalition of about 70 civil society organizations under the aegis of Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room; observed late commencement of the elections with 10.30am as the earliest time while in some, it started later than 2pm. It reported that delays were so severe in parts of Khana and Eleme rendering them unable to confirm if voting started at all even as materials and staff never arrived in Lleuku and Nyokoro.

    If these were not enough, their further report that a team of policemen and military personnel arrived in a commando style and removed election materials and staff from their locations when counting was about to start in two wards in the Gokana local government gives serious cause to worry. In Bomu, presiding officers were waiting to count; the situation was calm when a team of police and military personnel arrived in Toyota Hilux vehicles with an armored personnel carrier, chased voters away and carried materials and ad hoc staff, the coalition reported. They further observed the same curious manifestations in Etche, Andoni and Eleme local governments. The coalition summed up its observations thus: “the conducts observed called into question the neutrality of security forces and election officials”

    Apparently piqued by this damaging report, the Nigerian Army was quick to deny involvement in alleged “killings, ballot snatching and mass arrests during the election”. The General Officer Commanding 6, Division, Major General Kasimu Abdulkarim said they only acted swiftly in response to security breaches to enforce the law, provide aid to the police and other security agencies.

    On its part, the Nigerian Police found itself issuing two statements on the issue. In the first, its spokesman Don Awunah faulted reports by a non-governmental organization CLEEN Foundation which said the election was “marred by irregularities, large scale violence, professional misconduct and open bias by security operatives and electoral personnel” He admitted there were infractions of law in the course of the elections but the police and other security agencies rose to the occasion and ensured the election prevailed.

    But in the second statement, apparently succumbing to the weight of evidence on the matter, he now said “some security personnel were arrested for professional misconduct, actions, inactions, omission and commission that were detrimental to the electoral process”. For this, he said a high powered investigation panel is currently looking into this unacceptable professional misconduct.

    Before this, video clips had made the rounds in the media showing some of the INEC officials complaining bitterly of having been manhandled by the police for inexplicable reasons. INEC returning officer for Rivers East Senatorial district, Prof. Orji Onu Ekumankama gave account of how a contingent of the police and the army arrested and took them away from their location together with the results just before collation was to start. He said there was no threat to law and order before their arrival.

    It is evident from these accounts that the conduct of some security operatives was a negation of the impartial role they ought to play in providing a level playing ground for a free and fair election to take place. And if one may ask, what was the rationale for carting away election materials and officials in many areas when voting had been concluded and collation just about to commence? What sort of challenge at the collation centers would prove so daunting for the security agencies that would warrant the confiscation of result sheets, chasing away accredited party agents and hauling INEC officials into waiting vans? And on whose instance were the security agencies acting?

    Assuming there was threat to law and order at the end of those elections at the collation centers, what is the standard conduct expected of security operatives in such circumstances: provide adequate security for the collation to progress unhindered or cart away the materials and arrest INEC officials in very questionable circumstances?

    These posers have been raised to underscore the point that the conduct of security forces contributed largely to the credibility deficits that was the outcome of the elections in Rivers state. It is therefore not enough for the army to assert that the role of its members was limited to providing aid to the police and other security agencies where there were security breaches. Neither was the attempt to exculpate them from events that compromised the credibility of that election successful.

    Such excuses cannot stand in the face of several reports of the police and the army carting away results sheets and bundling electoral officers into waiting vehicles when collation was about to commence. There does not seem to be any reasonable explanation for that except the lure to put such results to partisan advantage. But for the doggedness and determination of the Rivers electorate, the outcome of those elections would have been different from the results that have been announced.

    The matter is damn serious and should neither be covered up nor wished away given its frightening prospects for the success of democracy. We say so because allegations of security men aiding politicians to manipulate elections had been traded during the governorship election in Edo and the senatorial re-run in Imo.

    If it was convenient to dismiss those ones, the case of Rivers has shown that we can continue to ignore them at a great peril to our democracy. During Obasanjo’s regime, election results were so manipulated that Nigerians almost lost hope in the credibility of that process. It took copious assurances and measures by Yar’Adua and his successor Jonathan to bequeath the nation an electoral process that showed substantial improvement for public confidence to be restored.

    Jonathan strove relentlessly to give the nation an electoral process that was a remarkable improvement on the charade of the Obasanjo era. The true test of this was evident in the success recorded by President Buhari in the last general election.

    As a beneficiary of free and fair elections, the open partisanship of security operatives in the Rivers contest should be a serious embarrassment to Buhari. And he cannot afford to sit by while the gains recorded in the democratic process are being quickly reversed through the embarrassing conduct of security operatives in conjunction with some politicians.

    At a time the example set by Jonathan is having a domino effect in the West African Sub-region; it is a sad commentary that our security agencies are found neck deep in actions and inactions that compromise the credibility of the electoral process. Buhari must order a high powered investigation that will include independent actors into why in so many areas, security operatives had officials and election materials removed as collation was about to commence. That is the surest way of reassuring that we have not relapsed to the era when election results were falsified, altered and written in hotel rooms in favor of preferred candidates.

  • The 8th Senate and matters arising

    I am really at loss about how to respond to the column of my friend, Femi Orebe of Sunday April 24, on the 8th Senate. He correctly identified my exasperation with things as they are. But more than being exasperated, Orebe might never understand the magnitude of the harrowing sorrow I daily feel pertaining in general to the sordid affairs of my country and in particular to the nadir of disrepute to which the Senate has been sunk. So discouraged have I been of late that by last week, I had begun to see myself as a colossal failure in my foray into Nigerian politics. I had seriously considered going back to Ilesa Grammar School, my alma mater, to teach science.

    In my previous incarnations as an academic and as a business man, failure or giving up had never been a considered option. In these earlier enterprises, my success or lack of it was largely dependent on my efforts and determination. By contrast, as a politician, I have perennially found myself walking and dancing in paths littered with opalaba (pieces of broken glass bottles). My success now depends almost equally or perhaps even more on others than on myself!

    I foresaw the current crisis in the 8th Senate long before its inauguration on June 9, 2015. I pleaded endlessly with Senators Bukola Saraki and Ahmad Lawan for a consensus that would make one of them the Senate President and the other the Deputy Senate President. I requested to lock both of them in a room and to open the room only after they have reached a consensus or after one of them had killed the other! Had my efforts succeeded, my party, the Senate and my country might have been spared the crisis of the last many months.

    Candidate Buhari campaigned on a platform that included a determined assault on corruption; he was hailed and resoundingly elected because a majority of Nigerians believed he was pre-eminently qualified to wage and win that war. I have always felt that if such a war were to be diligently waged, there will not be enough rooms in Nigerian prisons to hold public office holders who would be found guilty. And if the truth be told, these might include most of those supporting Saraki as well as most of those opposed to him! And I am talking here of supporters and opponents either from within or outside the National Assembly. The interview I granted to Tell magazine in 2009 revealed enough on crass legislooting.

    Many have wondered why I have been less vocal as a senator than I was during my tenure as a member of the House of Representatives. I feel great pain when insinuations are made that I had been bought. Those pains rose to the fore following the publication of the phone numbers of all senators by Sahara Reporters.

    I am probably the only Senator in Nigeria who has only one phone number. It would have been easy to get a new phone number. These days, phones come with apps that can filter out calls from numbers that are not on the phone’s contact list. Perhaps my error was my refusal to take either of these easy options. Instead, I chose to answer as many calls and texts as possible. They came in a deluge! I got calls from the UK, USA, Canada, Germany and far away Australia. A few of the messages included racy photographs from ladies who obviously had little interest in matters of public policy!  About half of the calls from within Nigeria were solicitations for help in securing employment or in getting financial assistance. Mercifully, some prayed for and encouraged me to keep faith. Some made legitimate enquiries and did so in quite civil language and tone. Others like Dokun Adedeji were unkind and needlessly rude.

    I had taken a decision to respond to each call or text message in its own tone.  I would match civility for civility, diligence with diligence, rudeness for rudeness, and curse for curse. Contrary to the accusation of Dokun Adedeji, I did not partake of selling my party’s majority to reactionaries.  I have betrayed no one. Rather, on many occasions, I have informed my party caucus, APC leaders, and my Senate colleagues of my readiness to give up my office as Chief Whip for the sake of resolving the most embarrassing quagmire in the Senate. I did so as recently as last Wednesday during the executive session of the Senate.

    In decrying my choice of deprecatory epithets to respond to Dokun Adedeji, Femi Orebe obviously saw no wrong in my being unfairly portrayed as a sell-out. Orebe also left out my latter response to Dokun Adedeji that included my reasons for not speaking on some matters.

    Back in High School, there was a Negro Spiritual we often sang “NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I SEE.” Two days ago (Friday, April 22), I was on my way to Osogbo so I could see my governor and thereafter proceed to Ora Igbomina, my hometown, when I got a call summoning me to Abuja for a meeting with the President at 3 p.m. I made an immediate U-turn racing to the Ibadan Airport while praying for a miracle to catch a flight. I was panting and sweating by the time I boarded the plane which miraculously had waited for me. The plane took off immediately I took my seat. However, as I switched on my phone after landing in Abuja, a sms message was delivered with a message that the meeting in the villa has been postponed!

    Despite the intense pain and sorrows that I have borne in the last many months, I remain grateful to God for the rare opportunity to serve as a senator of my country. I am particularly grateful to Femi Falana who counselled me last week not to resign as senator. Although every forest begins with a tree, I have found out that the adage that a tree does not make a forest is particularly most apt in the forest of politics. Although Dokun Adedeji’s text did not say so, perhaps his vilification is not directed at me personally as Orebe alluded. Perhaps! Hence, I apologize to Dokun, Femi Orebe and others whom I have disappointed for taking the issues so personal. We live and learn.

    Prof Adeyeye is Chief Whip, Senate of Nigeria.

  • Matters arising from the fuel crisis

    Matters arising from the fuel crisis

    Ibe Kachikwu, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum, continues to remain in the eye of the storm as government tackles the fuel crisis.  Although the agonizingly long queues, chaotic scenes, violent outbursts and endless frustration at filling stations are beginning to abate, it will be erroneous to conclude that we are out of troubled waters.

    If anything, forthright as ever, the minister has unequivocally stated that measures put in place to tackle the current crisis are indeed just short term solutions. I call them palliatives.

    In the nature of things, there are those who choose to remind us that fuel queues are still with us, that Kachikwu is yet to deliver on his promise to eradicate the queues on a particular day. That is, ignoring the fact that what he actually said was that the queues would begin to abate on a particular day. Nonetheless, if the queues are yet to abate, in spite of the demonstrable effort of the minister, it behoves us all, especially the media, to identify the cogs in the wheel of progress. But what I see is the persistent effort to paint the dark side of things, to always see the glass as half empty and not have full!

    Part of the problem is that, we often dwell on the effect of poor policy or lack of it and ignore the root causes of our problems. By the same token, responsibilities that ought to be shared by the various arms of government are shoved to only the executive branch with other arms of government posturing as if they can extricate themselves from responsibility. We shall return to this shortly.

    One salutary effect of adversity is that it throws up opportunities that, explored, can lead to very beneficial outcomes. I think we stand a good chance of altering the balance in our favour if matters arising from the fuel scarcity are subjected to objective scrutiny.

    The first matter arising is that there exists, at all times, those whose stock-in-trade is to sabotage every government policy for personal benefits. They did it to Olusegun Obasanjo, they did it to Goodluck Jonathan; they are now doing it to Muhammadu Buhari. These unscrupulous petroleum marketers continue to sabotage the effort of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, to stabilize the fuel supply situation. To them, it does not matter if Kachikwu, like other ministers before him, decides to shout himself hoarse, adopt the most novel strategies or even preach to them from the pulpit. Ask any motorist in Lagos and you will be told how some petroleum marketers divert truck loads of premium motor spirit, PMS, or petrol from the city centre to the outskirts after escorts from the DPR would have left the gas stations. These unscrupulous dealers deploy every strategy to beat NNPC surveillance.

    Out of the prying eyes of the DPR, the diverted fuel is sold at much higher prices and the rest recycled to the city centre to be sold in the open ‘black market’ at cut throat prices. Certainly the fuel being hawked by vendors, Nigeria’s army of jobless youth, did not rain down from heaven. Somebody gave it to them. And it is not Ibe Kachikwu, who has been doing a yeoman’s job, trying to clean up the Augean stable created in the decades when the locust ravaged our common patrimony with reckless disdain and unconscionable rapacity.

    Now, we must return to the realistic choices that need to be made, no matter how unpopular they may seem in the short run. Here is the scenario. Over time, when PMS is scarce, vehicle owners are ready to pay any price to obtain it. Not only that, for far too long, PMS has never really sold at a uniform price all over the country. Thus there have always been spatial and temporal disparities in the price structure. Paradoxically, for largely political reasons, government has always retained a uniform pump head price of PMS that defies practical logic or economic sense, rates that are unattractive to suppliers either from local refiners or importers. This explains the crippling subsidy that has been exploited by the oil cabal to the detriment of Nigerians. Either way, the people suffer double jeopardy: prices go up even as scarcity persists.

    To understand the situation, we need to listen to former treasurer of the western zone of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Shina Amoo. Quoting Amoo in its story, Scarcity: Queues grow longer despite Kachikwu’s promise, the Saturday Punch of April 9, reported thus: “The former IPMAN chief said oil marketers could not buy above the recommended price and sell below the price…” The paper quoted Amoo further: “The April date given by the minister (Ibe Kachikwu) is not feasible. The man first said the scarcity would end by May and he came under heavy attacks so he apologized and gave another date. I don’t think the scarcity will end earlier than end of May.

    “The last time I bought fuel, I paid N182 per litre and how much do you expect me to sell that”, he queried, adding: “It has to be higher and that is why filling stations now sell as high as N200 a litre”.

    Some home truth, you will say. So where do we go from here? Blaming Ibe Kachikwu or any other person for that matter is begging the question. We cannot eat our cake and have it too. Something has to give. We either restore subsidy, with all its adverse effects on public finance or we allow market forces to stabilize the system. Ask any cab operator or any vehicle owner and the response will be that they don’t mind paying more for fuel so long as supply of the product is guaranteed. I think that should be the strategic index in tackling the fuel crisis. If that is what the price modulation principle is all about, let’s muster the political will to get cracking!

    But the most important matter arising from the fuel crisis is the need to enact a policy framework deregulating the downstream sector in such a way that gives investors the confidence to prefer Nigeria to other investment destinations. Until we create an environment that allows local refineries to provide the bulk of the country’s PMS requirements, we will continue to experience periodic disruptive fuel shortages.

    We are back to the issue of shared responsibilities. What is the role of the legislature in all these? Why is the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, still circulating in the National Assembly? What prospect does it hold for a more robust and efficient oil industry? Why are those interested in killing the bill gaining the upper hand? Can the Eighth Legislature depart from the past and place itself as an icon of patriotism by passing the PIB without further delay?

    Rather than the thinly veiled campaign to discredit Kachikwu, as in the distraction of using a private jet on which NNPC did not expend a kobo, we should preoccupy ourselves with addressing the fundamental structural challenges that have discouraged investors in the downstream sector of the industry and which, unattended to, will continue to retard not just the development of the industry but the overall economic well being of the country.

     

    • Agu, is fellow of Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ).