The Nation Newspaper

Tag: national

  • Herdsmen attacks: State or national issue?

    The big question begging for an answer in the public domain since the precarious incident of the herdsmen attacks on communities and innocent citizens of the country is whether the heinous acts should be categorized as a state or national issue.

    The above question is against the backdrop of the continuous attacks in recent times which have led to wanton destruction of lives and property of the people. What is more worrisome is the fact that the Federal Government, which is constitutionally saddled with the responsibility of protecting lives and property of the citizenry through its security agencies such as the Nigeria Police Force, the Army, the State Security Services (SSS), among others, has not taken decisive actions against the ceaseless and inhuman atrocities of the herdsmen.

    The worries remain that the present administration has not treated the herdsmen issue with the urgent dispatch it requires, thereby posing a serious security threat to the peace and unity of the nation. Painful to note is the fact that in the past one year, the nation has witnessed series of attacks and killings of innocent people as a result of the weird attitude of the herdsmen.  The situation has become so terrifying that Nigerians keep wondering what could have come over these cattle rearers, that they now unleash grievous terror on their fellow Nigerians with sophisticated weapons, while nothing much is being done to tackle the issue.

    Coming to the recent attack on Attakwu Community of Enugu State, and the misconception and sentiments being attached to it in the arena of public opinion, one is first compelled to frontally condemn the unfortunate incident as callous and barbaric. But the truth remains that the Enugu incident is not as grievous as the ones that occurred in other states of the country, yet people have not raised their eyebrows over how the affected state governors have addressed the issue.

    It is on record that the recent report released by the United States government to its citizens traveling to Nigeria, named 20 unsafe states in the country and marked them as no-go-areas for the reason of “pockets of crimes being carried out by faceless persons that are hardly brought to book”. Enugu State was not in the list.

    When one takes an inventory of how many people that have been killed and injured by the herdsmen in ravaged states such as Benue, Plateau, Kaduna, Delta, Imo, among others, it becomes obvious that Enugu does not deserve the negative comments it receives from cynics.

    In Benue State for instance, the casualty rate of persons killed by suspected herdsmen between May 30 and June 20 this year, in Logo and Ukums local government areas alone, according reports is about 81 persons. Even though the Benue State Police Command said it witnessed 22 deaths, the number is still high compared to what was witnessed in Enugu State on the two occasions the herdsmen struck. The statistics are the same in other ravaged states.

    The questions now are these: Why is the Enugu State issue different? What have the governors of these other states mentioned above done constitutionally to address the issues   that the Enugu governor has not done? Under our lopsided federalism, does the power to direct the security agencies to crush the marauders rest squarely on the shoulders of the governors or the President and Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Forces? Do the people expect a governor who swore an oath of office not to take unlawful actions that could lead to bloodshed or jeopardize the unity of the country, to make inciting statements?  Is it the responsibility of the state assembly to enact laws bordering on national issues such as grazing bill or is it the duty of the National Assembly?

    These and other questions are indeed begging for answers, considering the fundamental rights of every citizen of the country as contained in our constitution.

    One, therefore, takes exception to the falsehood being peddled by the likes of Amanze Obi in the Thursday, September 1, edition of his Broken Tongues in Daily Sun, where he alleged that the “Fulani herdsmen massacred an entire community” in Enugu State. Nothing could be farther from the truth – how could that be true?

    I live and work in Enugu and to the best of my knowledge there is no record of an entire community being wiped out anywhere in the state. The state despite the unfortunate recent incident of the herdsmen has remained peaceful and is still rated as the least among the states ravaged by the herdsmen in the country. There is no doubt that the governor is working tirelessly with the security operatives to do all that are necessary and lawful to bring the culprits to book and end the menace of the marauders.  This is evident in the recent arrest of a suspected herdsman in the state by the police for allegedly being in possession of a sophisticated AK47 riffle.

    One appreciates the stance of the Enugu State students, who “lampooned” those inciting the students and youths of the state to stage reprisal attack on the Fulani herdsmen over the recent carnage in the state, particularly that such vengeance would be counter-productive and might lead to the endangering of lives of youths and students in the state. While condemning the attack in its entirety, they noted that the menace of the herdsmen was a national issue and requires the swift intervention of the federal government, which is constitutionally empowered to nip in the bud the atrocities of the marauders.

    They reasoned wisely that “unlike in Ekiti State, the population of the Igbos living in the northern parts of the country is enormous, allaying fears that any unlawful action against the herdsmen in retaliation may likely put the Igbos in the north at the receiving end.”

    On the call by some Igbo groups for the Enugu Governor to emulate Governor Ayo Fayose’s actions against the herdsmen, the students said that “no true Igbo leader would support any act that could lead to bloodshed or undermine the peace and unity of the country.” According to them, “Governor Ugwuanyi as a responsible leader believes in due process and constitutional means of addressing issues of this nature and should not be pushed to instigate the people of the state to take laws into their hands, as that is certainly not the best option under a democratic setting.”

    Hence, the Enugu Students passionately “called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the security agencies to step up actions to put an end to the dastardly acts of the herdsmen in the overall interest of the country.”

    In the same vein, the workers of the state through the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) shared similar views with the students, calling on the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to exercise his constitutional powers to ensure that the issue of the herdsmen was laid to rest.  In their joint statement signed by the state chairman and secretary of the congress, Comrade Igbokwe Chukwuma Igbokwe and Comrade Benneth Asogwa, they also commended the Enugu Governor, “for his prompt visit to the ravaged community and the efforts he had put in place to maintain peace, protect the lives and property of the people of the state as well as ensure that the incident did not escalate.”

    From the foregoing, it is clear that the menace of the herdsmen is a national issue and should be tackled holistically with the full support and cooperation of the federal government for a peaceful, united and prosperous nation – thereby sustaining the dreams of our founding fathers.

     

    • Chukwuma, a public affairs analyst writes from Enugu.

  • National security and social protection

    SIR: The economic well-being or lack thereof of society has a clear and direct impact on the security of the society. Societal threats such as unemployment, mass poverty, unfair labour markets, etc., generally affect social cohesion negatively and tend to erode any form of identification with the state. The resulting disenchantment and distancing, often witnesses the “radicalisation” of its youth, and the birth and or strengthening of criminal organisations, narcotic cartels, jihadi-terrorists, and avenging militants, etc.

    Social protection programmes are commonly understood as initiatives that provide income or consumption transfers to the poor, protect the vulnerable against livelihood risks and enhance the social status of the marginalised, with the overall objective of reducing the economic and vulnerability of the poor, physically-challenged and marginalised groups in a given society.

    Social protection has however been more recently deployed as a tool and component of national security frameworks, with states ensuring the provision of safety nets for the poor and vulnerable, which in turn encourages them to be productive contributors to society, thus depriving terror groups and criminal organisations of an otherwise ready pool of talents and personnel.

    Hence, in appreciation of these realities and the emerging societal threats to national security, progressive governments around the world have generally adopted a multi-prong approach that combines conventional security and intelligence systems, with a healthy dose of social protection programmes.

    It is against this background, that a number of commentators have urged the Federal Government to begin to pay far greater attention to the harmonization and expansion of its social protection programmes in the country because contrary to the erroneous perception of ‘social protection’ as some fanciful western concept for prosperous nations, social protection is in fact an existential necessity for the security of any state in the 21st century.

    The security services, as effective and brave as they may be, cannot be locked in an endless cycle of conflicts and insurgencies across the federation; currently the Nigerian military is on active deployment in at least 15 states of the federation. To remedy the situation, the government must develop socio-economic and socio-political solutions to the myriad of security threats confronting Nigeria. Just as his eminence Cardinal Olubunmi Okojie stated in his widely circulated letter to President Buhari, “If there is no solution to Nigeria’s problem there may be endless war. You strike one town, you gain it, and you come again to regain it.”

    Social protection is thus no longer a luxury, but a critical economic and security need for all nations, both rich and poor. Nigeria needs to secure its future not by the force of arms alone, but by the deployment of efficient social protection programmes for its poor, it’s vulnerable and the physically-challenged.

     

    • UgochukwuAmasike,

    Lagos.

  • ‘FDI’ll boost national development’

    The importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) to job creation and national development will be only be known if the government creates a minimum adequate economic environment for economic recovery, the Chairman, NovareLekki Mall, Prof Fabian Ajogwu, has said.

    He said this would entail putting in place investment-friendly reforms, scale economies in trade and investments, minimising policy changes and shocks, and building strong institutions for economic growth.

    Speaking on the sidelines after the inauguration of a mall in Lagos at the weekend, Ajogwu said   Nigeria’s attitude should be similar to that of South Koreans whose leaders have continually re-stated the fundamental truth that – “No one owes us (South Koreans) a living!”

    Therefore, he explained, Nigerians should realise that no one else owes their country a living; hence, the attitude must be clearly reflected in the country’s ways of doing business by creating and implementing innovative strategies that are aimed at turning the economy around.

    “We believe that with this in place, Nigeria can realistically expect to have increased inflow of investments or foreign capital. In the words of former President de la Madrid of Mexico, ‘Capital has no heart. Capital has interests and sees its security and income as fundamental’. Foreign investment only sees profits, and real and sustainable profits can only be made in a place with the minimum adequate economic environment,” he said.

    Ajogwu explained that the solution to the country’s problems does does not lie upon the West, but within the country and her citizens. This, he noted, was because help from the West came in the form of aids and policies and their inherent price tags.

  • Ogun hosts first NUJ national summit

    Ogun hosts first NUJ national summit

    Ogun State Governor Senator Ibikunle Amosun will host the first Annual National Summit of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, (NUJ).

    Billed for August 16 and August 18, the summit in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, is the first NUJ national simmit.

    It will engage stakeholders in the media on past, present and future challenges of the industry.

    Speaking on why he agreed to host the event, Governor Amosun said: “It couldn’t have been otherwise since the history of the media industry actually started here in Abeokuta.”

    The governor added that “we, in Ogun State, are known for always setting the pace. Don’t forget that the first newspaper in Nigeria, Iwe Iroyin Fun Awon Ara Egba, was published in Abeokuta in 1859 by the renowned missionary, Henry Townsend.”

    He noted that “even the idea of the first television station in Africa was the brainchild of yet another great son of Ogun State, our revered Papa Obafemi Awolowo, the late sage who was premier of the Western Region. He would go on to establish the oldest surviving private newspaper, The Tribune.

    “So from whichever angle you want to view it, Ogun State takes the lead in the history of the media profession just as it does in other areas of human endeavour. It is, therefore, befitting we naturally should host the historic first edition of an annual National Media Summit.”

    Organised by the national leadership of the NUJ in partnership with Ogun State, the three-day Summit will have former President Olusegun Obasanjo, delivering a keynote address on Media and National Unity on Tuesday.

    There will also be remarks from Akinwunmi Ambode, Lagos State governor; Ibrahim Dankwambo, Gombe State governor; Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Kano State governor; Seriake Dickson, Bayelsa State governor; Aminu Tambuwal, Sokoto State governor and Abdulfatah Ahmed, Kwara State governor.

    Minister of Interior General Abdulrahman Dambazau, and Alhaji Lai Mohammed, minister of Information, the industry host, among others, will also address the gathering.

  • ‘Policy marketing crucial to national development’

    ‘Policy marketing crucial to national development’

    Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) President Dr. Rotimi Oladele has underscored the importance of policy marketing in the  drive by the government to restore investors and citizens’ confidence in the economy.

    Oladele, who joined other speakers to discuss the imperative of “Leadership, policy marketing and repositioning of the Nigerian Nation,” at Brand Campaign Magazine’s fifth anniversary lecture in Lagos, said successive governments did not put in place the right policies.

    He said Nigeria is fertile for “unbaked, disorganised, rotten policies. The issue of policy marketing is totally neglected as far as policy is concerned,” he said.

    He said development was anchored on the rectangle of policy, law, regulation and infrastructure. “Once these are put in place, you do not need to preach to anybody to know what to do and when to do what is is right,” he said.

    Oladele, however, lamented that the country’s policy does not allow the nation to grow.

    He urged leaders to rethink Nigeria’s policies so that followers can change their mindset.

    Also, Brandish Magazine’s Managing Director, Mr. Ikem Okuhu said the lecture was aimed at awakening in Nigerians the need to begin to think, considering the shallow educational policy.

    The Marketing Mix Limited Managing Director, Mr. Akin Adeoya  said Nigerians should watch the lifestyles of the leaders they choose.

    He stressed that those who create value for the little they have should be preferred against those who are profligate in their lifestyle.

    The Brand Campaign’s Publisher, Mr. Akinwumi Dickson described the birth of the magazine as a child of circumstance that grew to become one of the leading brand magazines in the industry.

  • AMCON, debt recovery and national interest

    Debt recovery is as daunting atask as anything. Ask anyone with banking experience, he/she will tell you how staff in debt recovery departments are loathed by bank debtors. This is what we are witnessing today: the loathing of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) by some recalcitrant debtors in the wake of its heightened activities in debt recovery.

    It is tempting in Nigeria to side with a debtor narrating his ordeal at the hands of debt collectors because of the picture such encounter evokes in our minds due to the experience we all share of the bad reputation rent collectors acquired in our communities due to the manner they employed to recover their debt including subjective use of law enforcement agents. It is even more tempting to believe when such narratives are told in our news media with a measure of sophistry. But reading between the lines will show a strenuous effort to stand truth on its head. But the reality isover the years, there has been developed a body of laws to ensure fair dealings in debt collection in Nigeria and globally. So, that portrayal of the debt collector as reprehensible villain out to wreck lives of a struggling debtor— either as an individual or a business concern—belongs to the past or in the warped imagination of the portrayer.

    Therefore, before a statutory body in the league of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), established and operating with the purview of law and under a regime committed to laid-down rules, is seen in open dispute with a debtor, all amicable options must have been exhausted. This aside, if truth must be told, no company or individual is forced to borrow money in the first place. Ultimately, if companies owe a debt, it’s because they chose to borrow money. Their lenders made that loan, or offered the credit line, contingent upon a documented pledge to pay it back. This means creditors do have a right to their money, and a debt collector is simply trying to reclaim what is legally and ethically owed by the debtor.

    I once argued that the world economy is supported by debt. This means that we are operating a debt-dependent economy. In essence, therefore, debt in itself is not always a bad thing. The problem of debt arises when there is default. So the question is how do we avoid defaults, and if they eventually happen, how do we manage the crisis that follows? There is no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions. Every nation studies its economic peculiarities and adopts the best approach that will mitigate the potential for a catastrophe.

    We all can recall that Nigeria has had its own fair share of the impact of the 2008 global financial meltdown on its banking sector. And we adopted some innovative measures to prevent systemic collapse of our banking system. Three prominent ones stand out – bailout, bridge banking and, perhaps the most significant of all, the establishment of Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) in 2010.

    Lest we forget, AMCONwas created to be a key stabilizing and re-vitalizing tool to revive the financial system. It went ahead to efficiently resolve the non-performing loans (NPL) assets of the banks in the Nigerian economy. Its objective include: assist eligible financial institutions to efficiently dispose of eligible bank assets; efficiently manage and dispose of eligible bank assets acquired by it; and obtain the best achievable financial returns on eligible bank assets or other assets acquired by it.

    So far AMCON has acquired about 13,774 Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) worth N3.6 trillion from 22 commercial banks in Nigeria and provided financial accommodation of N2.2billion, protected N4.7trillion of depositors’ funds and interbank takings as well as saved approximately 14,000 jobs. No one can deny the fact that, through AMCON’s intervention, the Federal Government successfully managed our debt crisies and saved our banking system from imminent systemic collapse. But this achievement will not be complete until and unless it recovers those bad debts, which it uses taxpayers’ money to purchase.

    Lest we also forget, the debtors AMCON is dealing with now have passed through all the three stages of a normal debt recovery process.  They have failed to settle their debts with their initial creditor’s internal collectors (bank loan recovery teams) referred to as first-party agency, which is the first stage in the process. The second stage is when a third party is introduced to play the role of debt collector. The third stage is for the original creditor to write off the debt and sell it, which is where AMCON came in. AMCON has acquired the Non-Performing Loans of the banks using taxpayers’ money; so it is in the national interest that it recovers these loans from the debtors and to do so in order to turn a profit on its purchase.To do otherwise is to short-change toiling Nigerian taxpayers.

    To help it in this recovery task, AMCON has recently inducted successful firms that qualified as its Asset Management Partners (AMPs). The AMPs are consortiums with specialist skills required to ensure recovery and debt resolution from banking, legal, valuation and accounting backgrounds. The move is AMCON’s strategy to resolve over 6,000 accounts with loan balances of N100million and below.

    I believe these AMPs are familiar with all the provisions of the Nigerian laws and with global best practices that advocate for fair treatment of debtors. Perhaps they are aware or even belong to professional associations such as ACA International, the world’s largest non-profit trade group representing collection agencies, creditors, debt buyers, collection attorneys and other industry service providers.

    The ACA requires its members to abide by all laws and regulations, as well as its own codes of ethics and operations. For example, the ACA requires its members to “treat consumers with consideration and respect” and “communicate with consumers with honesty and integrity.” It also prohibits collectors from engaging in “dishonorable, unethical or unprofessional conduct likely to deceive, defraud, or harm a consumer.”

    Indeed, debtors are in safe hands with the current Managing Director/CEO of AMCON Ahmed Lawan Kuru. His vast experience as a risk management expert is widely acknowledged. He knew his onions well, having played at the top echelon of the defunct Bank PHB as executive director overseeing critical areas like Risk Management, Compliance, Commercial Banking, Northern Operations, Public Sector, Multilateral Agencies and the West Coast, East and Central Africa expansion programme of the bank. Before assuming his current position of MD/CEO at AMCON, Ahmed was the MD/CEO of Enterprise Bank Limited. He was also Executive Vice Chairman, Emeritus Capital Limited, a financial service firm with speciality in international business development focusing in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Surely, he is the type of chief executive who knows that loans are the engine of progress of modern economy; so he will never see debtors as enemies as insinuated in some quarters. On the contrary, he is committed to supporting businesses with a view to enhancing their productivity. And, more than that, he wants tohelp them transform their NPLs to RPLs (Re-performing loans). Doing this, Ahmed believes, will provide liquidity to the banks, which will help them meet their own obligations as well. So he knows how to balance his act between giving a breather to debtors to meet their obligations and the need for AMCON to realise its own mandate.

    So what we are seeing today in heightened AMCON activities is nothing short of adoption of an aggressive recovery strategy that has led to increased repayment from hitherto recalcitrant obligors. As said earlier, AMCON is simply trying to reclaim what is legally and ethically owed by the debtor. Period. There is no room for any sentiments here. It is business, pure and simple.

     

    • Hassan is a business and financial analyst.

  • National question/state of the nation

    SIR: Lately, the polity has been heated up by the echoes of restructuring which has become a catchword across the geopolitical divide.   No one is certain what the proponents of restructuring actually means, whether by restructuring they mean negotiation for break up, true or loose federalism or regional autonomy.

    Restructuring, whatever be the intendment would be an issue that goes to the root of our nationhood and touches on the constitution. Therefore, it is a question that can only be decided by the Nigerian people through a referendum or conference of a sort; sovereign or otherwise.   To this end, there must be a legal framework to cloth it with character and content of enforcement.  The proponents of restructuring in their wisdom feel that when the restructuring of Nigeria is defined one way or the other, our problems would be solved while every other thing would fall in place.  To me, this assumption is rather too simplistic and pedestrian as the demographic demarcation of Nigeria has never in itself posed a problem.

    The fundamental problem with Nigeria I dare say is not the issue of structure but leadership.  We have never had national leaders from time; all we have always had are regional leaders and ethnic jingoists.  We have ruling elites who appropriate power for self-aggrandizement and oppression of the ordinary citizens in their acts and life style.

    The defining feature of the nation today is fear, insecurity, ethnic tension and religious intolerance.  There is hunger and poverty as never before and some people literarily feed from the dustbin; not just the scavengers we used to know picking metal and plastic bags for recycling.   There is a palpable fear that the country is heading dangerously on a precipice and the government appears helplessly overwhelmed and preoccupied with trading blames on the failures of the past regimes.  All these have nothing at all to do with the structure of the nation; you have Hausa-Fulani, Ibo, Yoruba and the ethnic minorities all part and parcel of running the government.  That the previous government was engaged in primitive acquisition is a common knowledge which of course led to their waterloo and the aftermath is the current probe going on by the anti-graft agencies.

    Nigeria is bleeding; infrastructures have become decrepit and nearing collapse.  A travel by road to any part of the country is more than a nightmare; more like a journey on the road to Golgotha.  You are lucky if you make it: that is if you escape from kidnappers, armed robbers and the numerous police and other security toll collecting points harassing citizens and commuters.  This is not to talk about the state of the roads that have collapsed completely at different points without diversions.

    Whatever the argument, the issue with Nigeria has gone beyond whether our nationhood was a product of historical accident or design by the British colonialists.  It certainly is beyond whether we are a mere geographical expression to the extent that we have always consciously operated and lived under a unified form of government in whatever nomenclature, unitary or federal but with subconscious commitment to our ethno-religious divide.  Nigeria may have been a product and conscious effort of the British imperialists to bring the amalgam of tribal men and ethnic diversities to live as one with the sole aim of exploiting the rich resources of the various regions for the benefit of the industrial machines of the metropolis.  Again, it would be mental indolence to continue to blame our woes on colonialism.  The United States of America was once colonized; so are countries like India, Pakistan etc.  It is even more infantile to blame our woes on military intervention in politics whereas the military has left power over 16 years. The Nigerian ruling elite have promoted ethnicity and religion above every other consideration in order to continue to remain relevant.

    The issue of restructuring is a huge distraction like the former President Jonathan’s National Conference. Agreed there is nothing immutable or sacrosanct about any geographical expression whose boundary remains forever and never shifts when the conditions are created.  As it is often said, “empires rise and fall”.  Boundaries of great countries and empires have been redrawn before our very eyes especially those that were wielded together and skewed to marginalise some of the ethnic groups; minority or otherwise.   Whatever shape Nigeria takes in the face of sustained leadership failure would not solve the problem of poverty, unemployment, deficit in infrastructure, insecurity, etc.   If we tackle the problem of leadership, we are on our way to solving the Nigerian problems.  It is not at all in the structure because giving the same type of leadership, Nigeria would continue on a drift to a collapse.

     

    • Mike Kebonkwu Esq

    Abuja.

  • Towards national renaissance

    In 2013, the British Secretary for Education, Michael Gove, initiated education reforms aimed at ditching the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). After subtle protestations and threats by some individuals to sue him should he go ahead with the reforms, Gove threw in the towel, admitting that he tried to cross a bridge too far. Announcing his decision against the reforms, he said, “When the arguments overwhelm me and I recognize that I am wrong, I think it best to retreat. We only make progress in this life when we know when to cut our losses.” Echoing Mr. Gove’s position was the Schools Minister David Laws, who said; “it is far better that there should be some red faces amongst some ministers in the Department for Education for 24hours than take any risk with the qualifications that will be taken by millions of youngsters for many years into the future.” The point is; no country, in the history of political association, no matter its political system is known to have modernized with a closed-door policy.

    In Nigeria, the government seems to have listened to the voice of reason and decided to cut its losses. Just recently, the Education minister Adamu Adamu, announced government’s readiness to reintroduce history into primary and secondary school curriculum in the country, seven years after it was ditched. This initiative of the federal government is quite commendable especially at this moment. It is baffling how the decision to scrap this all important subject was reached in the first instance but bringing it back will more than make up for the executive error.

    History, simply put, is the study of man’s past activities. And historians believe it is these past activities that culminate into the present condition or situation of man. Cicero, the Roman philosopher and politician once said that “To know nothing of what happened before you were born is to forever remain a child.” The idea of history is that each generation passes on to the next the treasures which it inherited, beneficially modified by its own experience, and enlarged by the fruits of all the victories it has gained.

    To have an education system where history is not prioritized as one of the core subjects is to lay the foundation for a society devoid of the basic orientation for a meaningful existence, where the social patterns and structures for organized meaningful existence is a mirage. In this type of situation, children of school age are plunged into a situation where truth presents itself in a multidimensional and polymorphous fashion. Life becomes a succession of pasts and futures, all too far away from a present that is unattainable.  Faced with such clash of plausible solutions, they dabble with the unhealthy admixture of ideas that put them in the dramatic interplay of interminable crises of sense. Such situation reflects Plato’s imagery of a charioteer with a double-faced horse each wanting to follow a different direction. The vital statistics would be nothing but a litany of woes and shame on all fronts of life; political, social and economic.

    Now that the government has expressed its readiness to bring back history into our schools, and the euphoria that greeted the announcement subsided, the onus is now on stakeholders in the sector to ensure that the subject when reintroduced is optimized, as it will help reawaken the apparent moribund political consciousness of our teeming young population. Philosophers tell us it is the responsibility of government to educate its citizens. It is on this note that I call on the Anambra State government to lead the way in this direction.

    Education is a process, and in this context, the process of educating the Nigerian child with regards to history ought to start with his/her historical origin. History is to a people what memory is to the individual. As a field of study, it offers the avenue for understanding the true nature of the society, its values and problems. As Nietzsche would say; “every people speaks its language of good and evil, which the neighbor does not understand. It has invented its own language of customs and rights.” Suffice it to mean that no society can get along without the knowledge of its history.

    As an Igbo, it was fun having to learn history right from the primary school. During those years, one was able to understand concepts like Omenala (regarded as the corpus of the Igbo belief system), Ala (Earth Goddess), Amadioha (Sky God) Aru (abomination), Eri, the first king of the ancient town of Nri, who according to one of the standard versions of the Igbo myths of origin is the progenitor of the entire Igbo race, the cosmogonic pact between Chukwu and the Igbo proto ancestor, the Aba women riot of 1929, Amalgamation of Southern and Northern Nigeria, heroic antecedents of patriots like Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo, et al. But having to learn about Igbo cultural civilization was the high point as it helped form my worldview.

    Unfortunately, this is no longer the case as education is no longer packaged for the best intellectual formation of the Nigerian child. It is merely job-oriented specifically because of the economization of our thinking. There couldn’t be a better time for the Anambra State government to take this noble step than now that the tide of anti-social behavior and moral degeneracy is on the rise, that we live in the present that lacks a definite shade of meaning, gripped with the cold fist of pessimism in the face of the vanishing old way of living which constituted the nodal hold of the Igbo cultural life.

    As it stands, the Igbo traditional world is in a rapid process of declining, and in dire need of a true embodiment of Igbo cultural messiah. The Igbo traditional world-set with its basic symbolic mind-set and the set of values that characterize its socio-political and religious systems of order and moral standards are swiftly eroding into the archaeological archives.

    The old cultural hegemony is on the verge of destruction, to be replaced with an alien cultural hegemony; all in the name of globalization. The old ancestral tree of cultural reincarnation is severed, with its trunks and stump elements scattered everywhere and left to rot away, evidence that the old can no longer reincarnate in the young. The sacred groves have been divested of their sacred aura. The young no longer perceive the immediacy and reality of their cultural leaning. The ancestral cap of wisdom; that residual reservoir of sapiential gems of centuries past has been removed and the milk of wisdom poured out and allowed to flood into the abyss of oblivion. The old have been dethroned from their ancestral throne of wisdom and the staff of their sapiental authority broken. The young, on the other hand, have developed a total mistrust of the traditional wisdom, and its hold of authenticity and authority is refuted more often than not for want of logical consistency and practical utility.

    Nevertheless, the transitory cloud of confusion that characterize the present moment must not daunt our spirit. Having a sense of history is what makes our species unique, and I am not in doubt that the government of Willy Obiano will take up this initiative and put us on the march to national renaissance.

    The words of the late Zik of Africa, himself an indigene of the state, will always be the guiding principle, “it would seem that the God of Africa has specially created the Igbo nation to lead the children of Africa from the bondage of the ages.” Therefore, the governor should take up the task of actualizing the prophecy and vision of his kinsman.

     

    • Chijioke is of the Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus.
  • Is PDP a national party?

    Is PDP a national party?

    Sir: The PDP had excoriated its APC rival in endless outburst of shenanigans on the latter being administered by a select few and therefore not qualified as a national party.

    The theatre of absurdity playing out in PDP however suggests the contrary.Nigerians are yet to see a situation within the APC where only two governors would ride a roughshod on their party approbating and reprobating a supposed collective decision the way Fayose and Mimiko did with untrammelled impunity.

    It is no longer news that the two governors were the brain behind the emergence of Ali Modu Sheriff (SAS) as interim chairman, a contraption which some political watchers have rightly linked with a self-serving vice presidential ambition of the duo.

    While this absurdity was unfolding, the hierarchies of the party obviously now battling insolvency and desperately in need of financial patronage could  do nothing to check the governors who are presumed to possess enough financial muscle for which the party is enamored with and which made the party and its leading lights  permanent guests of anti-corruption agencies.

    The two governors set Sheriff up as a cannon-fodder who would lend his private jets and unexplainable wealth to the incestuous use of the party and help the two gladiators achieve their narrow political objectives after which he would be abandoned.

    It is rather unfortunate that the inability of PDP to check excesses of individuals overreaching themselves actually cost the party victory at the last General Elections and is still the same nemesis mow being blamed on APC.

    Femi Fani-Kayode ran one of the most negative campaigns that finally sealed the coffin of PDP in the history of electoral politics in Nigeria yet the party saw nothing wrong with it.

    Time certainly will tell whether SAS is the lord of the manor or a cannon-fodder, but PDP should spare Nigerians the infantile line of APC’s connivance in a crisis planned and executed by two of its governors under the watchful eyes of the money conscious and the presumptive conscience of the party called the BOT.

    Whilst it is imperative to have a credible opposition to the current administration,the last thing Nigerians would accede to is a money obsessive opposition that can easily be led in the nose by governors who have not demonstrated leadership in their respective states in turning their states into replicas of IDP camp where life is roguish,brutish and short.

     

    • Bukola Ajisola,

    Victoria Island, Lagos.

  • Time for national carrier

    •This is the lesson from the exit of foreign airlines 

    The after-shocks of the current slump in global oil prices show no signs of abating. Last month, the American carrier, United Airlines announced plans to stop flying to the country by June 30. That move will end the carrier’s only route to Africa.  Although it acknowledged that its Lagos-Houston route has been underperforming financially for several years, it blamed the latest decision on the downturn in the energy sector. Just as the customers on the route – known to be key centres for the oil and energy markets – have been spending less on travel, the last straw appears to be the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s restrictive foreign exchange policy that has left an equivalent of $600 million of the entire industry’s ticket sales trapped.

    United Airline’s spokesman Jonathan Guerin puts the matter as it affects its company rather explicitly: “Since last fall, we have not been able to repatriate revenue sold locally in Nigerian currency and therefore we had to essentially suspend these sales, which make the route unsustainable as about half of the revenue generated by the route comes from Nigeria point-of-sale”.

    Spanish carrier, Iberia, had similarly announced plans to suspend flights to Nigeria from May 12, and Ghana from May 17, citing reasons of “drop of demand and lack of profitability”. Etihad, Qatar and Air France have reportedly served notice of their intention to restrict flights to Nigeria if the current foreign exchange policy is not reviewed.

    Both from the points of view of bilateral trade and cultural exchanges that would be adversely impacted, the planned exit of the American carrier as indeed the prospects of others following the trail is certainly regrettable. As entities established to return profit to their numerous shareholders, we understand that the decision is absolutely theirs to make – although we daresay that their reasons, in the current instance, appear perfectly understandable and legitimate. However, the obverse side is whether the CBN, faced with the challenge of managing the economy, particularly the increasingly scarce foreign exchange brought on by the continuing slump in oil prices, could have acted differently. This to us is debatable.

    We understand that the airlines global body, International Air Transport Association (IATA) is already making representations to the Federal Government in this regard. That is ordinarily how things should be. Unfortunately, this in itself has tended to be a minor part of the broader clamour for the jettisoning of the existing forex controls by the apex bank, something we consider not only unrealistic but fraught with grave dangers for an economy with barely $26 billion left in its foreign reserves. That the campaign has come with a tinge of blackmail is something we find rather unacceptable.

    We can only urge the CBN to keep the course – guided at all times by the nation’s best interests.  Whereas the $600 million might not seem much to IATA, it is certainly a lot to pay to some half a dozen foreign airlines in remittances at a time of excruciating forex scarcity. In the circumstance, the current situation ought to be appreciated in the context of the nation’s prerogative to set out what its priorities are in the light of competing demands for forex through the official window.

    The development yet again underscores the need for a national carrier. As it appears, the real challenge is to find a model of a truly national carrier that works – one that is fully capitalised and technically equipped to compete among the world’s best. Apart from offering Nigerians the benefit of choice, it would help curb the current drain on the nation’s foreign reserves. There is hardly a better time to begin the quest than now.