The Nation Newspaper

Tag: present

  • Present danger

    •That 282 vessels vanished from the ports in six years is ominous

    It is said that some things are better imagined than spoken, while yet some others are better left unspoken at all. Such is the situation concerning a report that in the last six years – 2010 to 2016 – a total of 282 vessels got missing from the custody of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA.

    This revelation came up during an investigative public hearing on smuggling by the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff. The hearing, designed to draw attention to the damage smuggling is doing to the economy brought to the fore, revelations which are at once shocking and mind-boggling.

    For instance, that 282 vessels disappeared from the various terminals of the NPA; that a whopping sum of N1.45 trillion worth of goods are smuggled into the country annually through the Cotonou ports in the Republic of Benin, and that goods worth about N4.35 trillion are smuggled into the country through the various sea ports. The airports too are no exception; they are also huge illegal trading routes. These should be troubling indeed.

    Cumulatively, it is estimated that goods worth about N7 trillion are spirited into Nigeria annually. This is about the size of Nigeria’s annual federal budget. The import of this is that this black business is almost the size of Nigeria’s official economy.

    The implications of this situation are grave and far-reaching. First, is suggests that Nigeria’s borders – land, air and sea are porous beyond imagination. For instance, how could vessels which were recorded to be officially under the custody of a nation’s ports management suddenly disappear? How could such large number – 282 – grow wings and fly away from the precincts of a thriving port?

    This suggests a sad era for our Customs, tariffs and commercial regimen. In other words, Nigeria may not be earning even half of the revenues accruable to her in international, multilateral and bilateral trading transactions. There is also the damage to local industrial base when mass-produced, cheap, foreign goods are shipped indiscriminately into the country.

    A notable case in point is the once-massive and thriving textile industry which had long been dealt a death blow by the cheap stuff from China and Southeast Asian countries. Dozens of such textile firms which once boomed across the country in the 70s and 80s are now long moribund and Nigeria depends almost 90 per cent on smuggled textile materials and accessories.

    If goods worth N7 trillion could illegally get into the country, there will be no telling the quantum of arms, ammunition and dangerous weapons that accompany such goods. For a country that had been under the siege of terrorism in the last one decade, it would be expected that her borders would be among the most secured in Africa today.

    Oil thieves and high water pirates also seem to have a leeway on Nigeria’s waterways. The case of the bunkering vessel, MT Pride, which mysteriously got missing between the Nigerian Navy and the Nigeria Police in early 2000 is still memorable. Oil theft has become a multi-billion business now run by powerful syndicates that have become entrenched in military and high government officials. Vessels will continue to vanish so long as there is huge, cheap cash available to compromise nearly all concerned.

    The situation is grave and indeed dangerous. It is actually inimical to the very existence of the country. While we commend the senate for bringing it up, we urge that tackling the malaise should transcend a mere senate committee public hearing. The Federal Government must, as a matter of urgency, intervene and empanel a high powered commission to carry out a comprehensive x-ray of Nigeria’s border situation and the level of illegal trade that transpires there.

    A thorough implementation of the report therefrom would go a long way in salvaging what is already a bad situation and avert a present danger.

  • Buhari @ two: Past is present

    “To be educated is, after all, to develop the questioning habit, to be sceptical of easy promises and to use past experience creatively” – Chinua Achebe

    Two years into the four-year mandate of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the human condition in Nigeria is still very much the same. The government has made a good show of scratching the surface of things. Its snail speed, which is not even the problem, has not yielded the filling fruits of change that it bells out with deafening clangour. Let us not pretend about it, the two years of the Buhari administration have only secured train tickets for Nigerians for a journey to a land called change. The train has refused to show up; hence the passengers in their numbers have remained stranded at the train station of increased unemployment, insufferable economic hardships, and avoidable and mind-numbing killings.

    The rains of wanton disregard for the rule of law, deliberate lack of accountability, proud disinterest in speaking to the people, unhelpful rebuttals, and arrogant demonstration of paternalism have all wetted the Nigerian passengers at that humiliating station in those spectacularly uneasy years. Even when there exist some baskets of achievements here and there in those two giddy years, the dominant narrative is still that the Nigeria of today is not markedly different from the ones preceding the second coming of President Buhari.

    This is the very matter I wish to address in this piece. In claiming, as the title of this piece announces, that for Nigeria the past is still the present, I do not wish to be understood as looking in the direction of that disappointing behemoth called government. It will not be Nigerian government if its actions and policies significantly improve the quality of life of the people. The past remains the present in Nigeria because a considerable number of Nigerians are comfortably docile, joyously uncritical, and are outlandishly satisfied with easy, simple answers. Democracy in Nigeria is weak and malnourished because many Nigerians do not tend to it. Governance in Nigeria is distressing and killing because oodles of the people do not contribute to it. Elected and appointed public officials in Nigeria live above the dictates of the grundnorm because a large number of Nigerians either kick feebly in response, are totally indifferent, or too often work the accordions of approbation. The history of poor, enslaving, punishing governance in Nigeria remains the reality of the present because speaking up and asking the hard questions are an anathema to multitudes of Nigerians.

    To be more specific, the Buhari administration was swept into office by a huge tidal wave of uncritical and saccharine approval. Few Nigerians lobbed the stones of germane and uneasy questions, but a disproportionate majority fenced them off, frenetically declaiming that a Daniel had come to hand down the condign judgement to the knaves diluting the broth of justice and good governance in Nigeria. They stubbornly refused that the Daniel be asked a few questions on how he intended to achieve his lofty vision of change.

    My take is that had candidate Buhari been subjected thoroughly to a blaze of the right questions, had he been taken through the fiery furnace of scrutiny, we would have known the depth of his vision, the practicability of his ideas, his readiness for the job and, more importantly, the core weaknesses of his thoughts and capability. That knowledge, I insist, would have empowered Nigerians to help his administration in its undertakings. No, it does not mean that if we had done that, a vastly better Nigeria would have emerged by now. The fact is that we would likely not have travelled some of the disconcerting roads of the last two years. Candidate Buhari became President Buhari without his feet sustained in the fire of critical engagements in all relevant ramifications. The fault, therefore, is not entirely in the punishing myopia and alarming contradictions of the Buhari administration. It is in many Nigerians who have erroneously understood their duty as “citizens” to be praise singing, fawning, and genuflection rather than an engaging role of questioning, keeping watchful eyes on the government, and doing much more than taking its words and promises at their face value.

    The administration has been so indulged, cossetted, and lovingly over-accommodated that it has become abysmally emboldened to insult decent minds with a scorecard positively portraying the administration’s Lilliputian achievements in exaggerated tone in wanton denial of what actual reality serves. Whether it is the repudiation of the logic of pluralism as evident in the nature of the president’s kitchen cabinet, the uncoordinated anti-corruption waltzing, the flagrant disobedience of court injunctions, the unworkable economic policies (when it manages to put up something like policy), or, among many more, the kindergarten handling of the President’s unfortunate duel with what ails him, a number of Nigerians are convinced the Buhari administration is infallible and changing the country as promised. They do not see that their blind, uncritical support for the administration hurts it more than it helps it. They do not understand that the great and mighty works they wish to really happen in the lifetime of this administration are not happening because, like the administration, they spare no moments to reflect and examine the methods and manner of the administration.

    Democracy and good governance continue to elude Nigeria not only because those who call the shots are phoney, struggling democrats and are not (wo)men of ideas and visions, but it is also because a great number of Nigerians lack basic knowledge of civics and do not understand that citizens’ roles in a democracy are not to praise government, go to sleep and expect that while they sleep the government will not sow tares among the wheat. Every Democracy Day since 1999 has become to Nigerians the paradox of a past being the present. Things change in far little ways and worsen in ocean measures because too many Nigerians do not understand their roles. In other words, you cannot correctly blame blind leadership as the bane of good governance in Nigeria without identifying blind, worshipful following as strongly instrumental.

    If democracy in Nigeria is to mean more than having elections and peaceful transition of power from one underachieving civilian head to another with a truckload of promises, if good governance is truly to endure and be enjoyed, Nigerians in their substantial number must begin to speak up, ask the hard questions, demand accountability, pamper no government, and be alive to their other duties as citizens. Uncritical citizens do not make a good country. Citizens without the questioning habit ruin a country quicker than they are able to contribute to its progress.

    But for their massive critical citizens, countries who are today reference points in the practice of democracy and increasing realisation of good governance would have treated the world to different discomforting narratives. Nigeria’s story cannot be different; if this country is to change to a land of prosperity, rule of law, good governance, justice, and equality, many Nigerians must put off their slavish caps and don the one that allows them to think, question, and reject tokenism and ensnaring propaganda. More than ever before, this is needed now if the Buhari administration is to be remembered for good.

     

    • Ademola is a public affairs analyst based in Bodija, Ibadan, Oyo State.

  • Past in the present and present in the future

    It is for convenience that we human beings discuss our affairs in water tight compartments as if we can really separate the present from the past and the future from the present. As a human being, I am part of the past because I am a product and elongation of my parents and I see my future in my grandchildren. Just like human beings, the life of a state is a continuum in the sense that the present builds on the past and the future begins in the present. This is one of the reasons why history is an important discipline in all civilizations. When a country suffers a disconnect with its past, there is disorientation, chaos, planning without data cultural void and, reinventing the wheel , lack of confidence and focus, all of which manifest in underdevelopment. Development is not just building roads and other physical infrastructure, development is about people too. Various governments at various levels believe that tearing down edifices and building new ones is development but sadly this far from it. Conservation and change should be the philosophical principle of development. It is the lack of this fundamental underpinning of development that leads to the decay of existing facilities while we quixotically embark on building new ones. Cynics have always said that our people prefer new contracts which corruptly lead to pecuniary rewards and for self-aggrandizement than maintaining existing infrastructure.

    I took some final year students of the College of Humanities of Redeemer’s University Ede to Ibadan on a lecture tour of historical landmarks in Ibadan recently and I am sorry to say that it was not a pleasant experience. Saint Anne’s School, the oldest girls’ school in Nigeria, more than a century old is just struggling. Thanks to the old students, the school maintains a facade of life but when you go in, one notices that God has departed from the house of Israel. The school that prides itself for producing first female vice chancellor, ministers including Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, innumerable professors and wives of past leaders including the wife of current Oyo governor can do with modernization of existing facilities and redevelopment of the boarding houses within a secure environment. It is boarding schools of the past that moulded the character of those great girls who went to the school. Can Oyo First Lady, being an old girl of Saint Anne’s adopt the redevelopment of this school as her pet project? The school no longer runs boarding houses because of insecurity. A country that cannot secure its female children in schools is not really a country but an agglomeration of villages and towns and a mere geographical expression lacking soul and purpose. Ibadan is not on the coast open to invasion by Egbesu boys humiliatingly terrorizing Lagos while government security forces are shamefully publishing a list of places to avoid as if government is merely in authority but not in power.  If I was disappointed with Saint Anne’s, I cried when I saw Ibadan Grammar School, a school which used to be the pride of Ibadan. The place looks deserted with boarding facilities abandoned and teaching facilities unavailable. This was a school where I spent two happy years in the boarding house during my higher school years. What can I show my grandchildren in this ramshackle school? From Ibadan Grammar School, my students and I went to Government College Ibadan (GCI). Come and see how the mighty school has fallen flat on its face. I did not attend the school but went to Christ School Ado-Ekiti for which I am very proud and grateful to God because the school made me as it made others. But anybody in my generation who claims he did not want to go to Government College is lying. The reason why most people wanted to go there was because most, if not all their teachers, were graduates and most of them were from the United Kingdom. The school ran on English public school principles with emphasis on sports, academics, tradition and nurturing. Edward Abiodun Osuntokun, one of my brothers went there and we all used to admire him especially his mastery of the games of soccer and cricket as well as his embrace of English culture generally. We later found out that some of the chief examiners at the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate Examinations which we all sat for all over Nigeria were teachers in this school thus giving their students inside tract in the race of public examinations. But on reaching Government College at Apata Ganga , the school which our own Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka celebrated in his book the PENKELEMES years, I was shocked about the total decay and despair facing us. The children were filthily attired and scruffy. One of my students described them as riffraff. When I told my students those who had attended the school in the past such as Wole Soyinka, Oba Akenzua and Oba Erediuwa of Benin among notable Nigerians such as Dr Omololu Olunloyo, Professor Ladipo Akinkugbe, late Professor Olumuyiwa Awe among many others, my students could not believe it.  Government College students on a Monday morning were roaming around scantily dressed with their dirty shirts hanging limp on their  dirty bodies and dusty feet that left one without doubt that the kids may not have had their baths for weeks. Obviously the school does not run boarding facilities any more for fear of the children being kidnapped. We were so disappointed that we did not wait to find out what was the reason for the total collapse of a once famous school. The collapse began with the Unity Party of Nigeria ‘s free education at all levels when all schools were suddenly turned into day school thus sacrificing quality in order to carry out party ideology. From that time onwards, private schools replaced and filled the demand for good schools by parents who can afford them while the good old schools were taken over by the poor and the governments abandoned them and left them to their own fate. Thus the educational history and tradition of years were lost.

    It was not only in Yorubaland that witnessed this decline and disconnect with the glorious years of secondary education. I shudder to see colleges like Barewa, Government College Ughelli and Government College, Umuaihia. I remember Professor Jibril Aminu, a visionary, if there was one, asking as federal minister of education to be allowed to redevelop these historic colleges and preserve them for the future but advocates of state rights stood against him and the result is what we have today. What makes English public schools such as Harrow, Eton, and Winchester famous is the age and tradition behind them. Oxford University is not known for its modern buildings but for its antique bungalow hostels and the scholarship behind them. This is the point we are missing in Nigeria by allowing our famous schools to wither away.

    Instead of Oyo State building another so-called technical university, why can’t it simply take over Ladoke Akintola University and fund it properly while Osun State devotes its attention to its own underfunded university. Money will thus be freed to redevelop and rehabilitate the run down public schools for the sake of continuity and change. If Oyo state needs a paradigm in secondary educational facility as far as physical buildings are concerned, the governor should visit Osun State and behold the legacy schools Aregbesola is leaving for posterity .

    What is happening in Oyo is definitely happening at the centre where federal properties like the colonial secretariat and the abandoned federal secretariat at Ikoyi are rotting away and being turned into homes of vagrants and criminals. These properties could easily have been handed over to the University of Lagos and or Yaba Polytechnic to be used as either hostels or business school campus or given outright to Lagos State to use for whatever purpose it deems fit. Or the federal government properties in Lagos including the abandoned and rotten National Stadium standing as a symbol of waste and lack of planning and petty jealousy by those who feel Lagos does not need to benefit if other states cannot benefit? Has it occurred to such people that Lagos is critical to Nigeria’s overall economy and development? What really concerns me is that in the race of develop there should be no place in discarding the past while concentrating on the present which future governments may abandon unless we collectively begin to plan  on the principle on letting the past inform the present while the present points to the direction we need to take to the future. What better way to do this than by embracing the principle of continuity and change by not demolishing physical symbols of the past but maintaining them and changing them only where necessary.

  • Ekiti @ 20: Past, present and future

    Ekiti was carved out of the old Ondo State on October 1, 1996 under the military regime of the late Gen Sani Abacha. Whichever perception one shares about the state of affairs, celebrating Ekiti at 20 is not immaterial. Taking cognizance of the protracted and fierce battle the leaders of Ekiti had to wage to effect the state creation, one would be adequately convinced that it sufficed for the citizens to roll out drum to celebrate the victory. I know other provinces like Ibadan, Ijebu and the Apas of Benue, who scrambled for the same opportunity and lost would perceive Ekiti as ungrateful and undeserving of the favour should the state fail to celebrate the feat with pomp and pageantry.

    The creation of Ekiti State was a lofty achievement – the greatest laurel ever won since the existence of the ethnic group several decades back. Not even the Kiriji War that was fought and won by our forebears matched this feat. But creating a state for an ethnic group for political balancing is not as relevant and pivotal as how that state tends to fare after its creation. When the former President Olusegun Obasanjo was being pummeled for influencing former President Goodluck Jonathan to assume presidency, he defended his action by saying: “You can help a person to secure a job, but you can’t help him to perform the responsibilities of the job”.

    In actual fact, the Federal Government had done the greatest favour, through concerted and unflagging instrumentality of some patriotic Ekiti elites by creating the state, but time to ruminate on whether the state has fared well in terms of development is apposite at this crucial age. Age 20 is a watershed in the life of any human being. At that age, the compass directing one’s life must be heading towards a positive side, failing which the person will get derailed or veered off the path of greatness.

    A critical dissection of the trajectory of development of the state under every succeeding administration gave a gory and pathetic indication. The military administrations of Col. Mohammed Usman and Commodore Atanda Yusuf sacrificed better and showed more commitment to the development of the state than the situation we are witnessing under the present PDP government in Ekiti. To an average Nigerian person, the military is regarded as an aberration and represents something sinister that lacks values and decency. Without sounding immodest, military regimes stand better than the present situation.

    Just like the chairman, Committee for the creation of Ekiti State, Chief Deji Fasuan once said: “Ekiti has not really fulfilled the dream of its founding fathers. Ekiti has not been governed well and we cannot say we have got to the Promised Land”. This statement connotes that Ekiti has failed to tap into its abundant human and material resources to develop the state.

    Intellectualism is the hallmark of any government and any state that is lacking in this is bound to hit the rock. It is an indisputable fact that the state has the highest turnout of professors in the country and galaxy of stars spread across various professional careers. But can we boldly say that we have tapped optimally into this gargantuan intellectual capacity?

    In terms of natural resources, the lush vegetation in the southern and northern zones of the state, the cocoa and timber plantation and other solid mineral deposits like Gypsum and Calcite in Ijero, Clay in Ire Ekiti and the ridge of mountains in Efon-Ikogosi axis and in Ado Ekiti capital city, were not really explored to energize the engine of development. They were practically abandoned, thereby giving Ekiti the sobriquet: “Land of Untapped Abundance”. This is not a wise concept and it is condemnable.

    As we speak, Ekiti has one of the most fragile economies among the 36 states of the federation. It has a narrow and monolithic economy heavily anchored on civil service architecture with little productivity to drive the system. This was responsible for why the state could not compete favourably with other states in terms of development.

    While defending the need for the creation of the state out of the old Ondo State before Arthur Mbanefo panel in Akure in 1995, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), said the state could derive its earnings from the abundant aforementioned human and natural resources. He also reassured the committee about the fact that the state has a good prognosis to survive and thrive economically, predicating this on the abundant human resources available to it.

    Sad enough, all these have failed to reflect positively on our economy. Today, the state can no longer pay salaries of workers and meet other obligations to its citizens, because it rests heavily on the lean resources coming from the federation account, which has not been forthcoming.

    When the democratic dispensation kicked off in 1999, the state soared on the country’s economic ladder, in terms of quests and drives for prosperity. Otunba Niyi Adebayo of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) made the move to return the state to the path of glory as set by its founding fathers. His administration started the economic dream by building the multi-billion naira Abuja house in Asokoro, to propel the state’s economy. It also invested in Odua Group of Companies and bought shares in many banks to invigorate the economy and make the state run independently of the federal government.

    Aside from this, he promptly engaged the services of Ekiti professionals in various critical sectors making Ekiti to live up to its name: ‘Fountain of Knowledge’. Those who didn’t see this unseen and silent investments condemned his style and laid ambush for him during his reelection bid, which he lost to Governor Ayodele Fayose.

    Ex-governors  Segun Oni and Kayode Fayemi, also built on the legacies by reviving the state’s moribund industries, like Ire Burnt Brick, Ikogosi Warm Spring,  Orin Farm Settlements, to mention but a few,  to assume highly commercial status.

    Fayose’s emergence marked the beginning of what could be best branded as fortunes reversal in Ekiti.  It was during his time that the state started relying solely on allocations from the federation of account to boost the economy. It was his time that the state intellectual capacity was being debased to the extent that charlatans, rascals and mediocres are in government, holding pivotal positions in trusts for the people. The intellectual giants have been relegated to the extent that they are now maintaining siddon look, which is dangerous to Ekiti, as an enclave.

    Though it would be tantamount to exaggeration for someone to conclude that the state fared optimally well under the trio of Oni, Adebayo and Fayemi, comparative analysis with the present situation point to the fact that those administrations were, in fact, Eldorado.

    Like Chief Babalola (SAN) adduced before Mbanefo panel that the state’s economic prowess would be derived from its abundant intellectual capacity. That has been the dream. But the scenario has been that both the human and material resources are underutilized, and time to live by that dream is now, or else, failure awaits us and that could be disastrous.

    The appropriate questions the teeming Ekiti populace must ask themselves is that: Why is Ekiti of yesterday better than now? For Ekiti of yesterday, we were the most educated in the country, the most sought after by employers of labour and the most organized set of human beings. But in Ekiti of today, the knowledge is gradually fading, criminality is taking the centre-stage.

    • Faparusi, a former member of the House of Representatives is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress.

  • Kogi 2015: From past to present

    The Kogi State Governorship Election is scheduled for November 21. The polls may still be weeks away, but the scenario has reopened an old wound. It has thrown up two known gladiators who have had the privilege of governing the state at various times. These two gladiators are: the incumbent governor and Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Capt Idris Wada and Prince Abubakar Audu, two time governor of the state who is contesting for the fifth time on the platform of the All Progressives Congress. There are also other contestants like Philip Omeiza Salawu, immediate past Deputy Governor to Ex-Governor Ibrahim Idris who will be flying the flag of Labour Party, LP,  Akwu Goodman, All Progressives Grand Alliance and Enesi Ozigi, of Peoples Progressive Party, PPA. While Audu and Wada are of the Igala Stock, Salawu and Enesi are from the Ebira speaking region of Kogi State.

    Political analysts have however narrowed the contest to a two horse race, between Wada and his main challenger, Audu. The two men are not in unfamiliar territory. They had earlier been the toasts of political pundits in 2011 when the state went to the polls to elect their governor. On that occasion, Audu suffered a bloodied nose from the then  inexperienced Wada as it were.

    The two major contenders have had the opportunity to govern the State so their leadership qualities are not new to the people.  Prince Audu was governor in 1991 to 1993 and from 1999 to 2003. Capt Wada is about completing his first term of four years.

    An objective profiling of the two men while in public office is therefore not out of place. An eagle eye look at their achievements, temperament and other antecedents therefore affords the electorate the golden opportunity to make informed choice based on their performance and character traits.

    Audu’s supporters largely present him as the father of Kogi. According to them his performance in office is yet to be surpassed by any other administration in the state.  They  list the establishment of Kogi State University (KSU), Establishment of Confluence Beach Hotel and Establishment of Diagnostic and Reference Hospital in Ayangba as his major  achievements. Audu’s opponents are however quick to point out that most of the projects he lays claim to are phantom projects- that could not withstand the test of time. For example, the university Audu established apart from being named after himself was just a university in name as it lacked the basic facilities to offer any accredited course. It was successive governments that renamed the university to Kogi State University and ensured that facilities and resources were provided for the category A accreditation that the university’s courses enjoy today.  Even APC stalwarts like Alex Kadiri pointed out in a recent interview that  “Audu merely used the infrastructure already put on ground by the World Bank. Kogi State University is standing on the site of the World Bank Agricultural Project, where they had an airstrip. All the houses the lecturers are living were built with the loans collected from the World Bank. The state is still paying back and it is part of the debt every government must pay. The loan may not be fully liquidated in the next eight to nine years”.

    Apart from ensuring accreditation of all courses in KSU, Wada has gone ahead to establish the College of Medical Science and is constructing a world-class 250-bed teaching hospital. He has also established the Faculty of Education to improve the quality of teaching staff in the state.

    Another major project credited to Audu is the Confluence Beach Hotel which played host to conferences during his administration. Apart from constituting a drainpipe on the state’s resources, the devastating floods experienced by the state in 2012 exposed the underbelly of that project as it was constructed without any environmental impact assessment study. Governor Wada on his part set up the first modern environmental laboratory in the state to forestall such poorly planned projects in the future. He has also attracted investors that will take over the rehabilitation and management of the hotel.

    One achievement that Audu’s supporters claim is the establishment of Dangote Cement factory at Obajana. Objective analysts in the state are at a loss how they come about that claim as no benefit in terms of dividend payment has come to Kogi State since the inception of the factory.

    An area where Audu’s supporters cannot claim any achievement is in the area of agriculture. Wada’s focus on agriculture has resulted in the state becoming the number one cassava growing state in the nation. The feat has attracted the World Bank, the Federal Government and Cargill USA- a top manufacturing company ; now there is a move to partner with the state to establish the first staple crop processing zone in the nation at Alape, Kogi State. When completed, the income of the state will increase by about N14billion per annum.

    Unlike Audu who operated under a period of economic boom, Wada is operating under an unprecedented period of sharply dwindling revenue. Today, he has achieved an unparalleled 200 percent increase in internally generated revenue throughout the creation of a single revenue account and e-collection of revenue accruable to the state.

    Wada has tried to keep faith with the state’s workers by ensuring that their salaries are paid as at when due. He has also cleared all the 21 years arrears of pension backlogs that he met. It is a known fact that in spite of the economic boom during Audu’s era, he owed civil servants for upwards of six months and blatantly refused to pay pensioners because he referred to them as ‘dead woods’. Another area where Wada is given full credit is the respect of the citizen’s inalienable right to freedom of speech. People of different shades express their opinions freely without fear of intimidation and victimization. The Wada administration is known for tolerance of opposing views even when they border on the absurd. During Prince Audu’s reign, this was not the case. The Prince reigned with iron hands and was generally intolerant of criticism and fostered tyranny on the people. People have not forgotten that in those dark days, a journalist was bathed with acid on the streets of Lokoja.  Today, journalists in the state can attest to the fact that they now operate in an environment where they operate without let or hindrance. Servants and the various labour unions also agitate for their rights without the fear of intimidation.  Traditional rulers can equally bear testimony to the fact that they no longer go through the excruciating pain of waiting by Jamata Bridge to welcome the governor whenever he travels to Abuja and his several trips abroad.  The arrogance and flamboyance of the past has today been replaced by simplicity and humility in governance.

    ‘Wada has tried to keep faith with the state’s workers by ensuring that their salaries are paid as at when due. He has also cleared all the 21 years arrears of pension backlogs that he met. It is a known fact that in spite of the economic boom during Audu’s era, he owed civil servants for upwards of six months’

    • Abu writes from Lokoja, Kogi State

     

  • Don to present two books

    Two books, written by Prof Samuel Babatunde Agaja of the Department of Surgery, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, will be presented on Saturday, March 21, 2015 to commemorate the 65th birthday of his wife, Dr A. M. Agaja.

    The books, “More than Conquerors” – an autobiography – and “Twenty Years of Service to Humanity”, will be presented at the Spot Rendezvous Events Centre, Tanke, Ilorin.

  • Buhari: past or present

    Speaking of an albatross from the past and its perpetually negative potential, Gen Muhammadu Buhari, former military head of state, three-time unsuccessful presidential hopeful and presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), must be wondering what it would take for the people to accept him as an evolved leader, which is not to suggest that he has stopped evolving.  It would appear that the evidence of his evolution might not be enough, which could be a complicating factor.

    In an interview he granted CNN, which was significant especially on account of the medium’s global stature and influence, the difficulty of convincingly communicating Buhari’s  personal progression was discernible. CNN International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour asked Buhari: “The headlines around the world are that the Nigerian presidential election is a contest between a failed president and former dictator, and you are the former dictator. Some people say that you expelled 700,000 migrants years back, thinking that it would create jobs; that you banned political meetings and free speech; that you detained thousands of people; set up secret tribunals; executed people for crimes that were not capital offences. Have you changed or are these what the Nigerian people should look forward to if you win the election?”

    Buhari’s answer was disarmingly frank and philosophically potent. He said: “All those things you mentioned with a degree of accuracy were what actually happened, but they were under a military administration. When the military under my leadership came on board, we suspended those aspects of the constitution that we felt would make it difficult for us to operate under the circumstance we found ourselves.” Then he delivered what could prove to be a defining consideration in the presidential election: “But, I think I would be judged harshly as an individual by what happened during that military administration, or to extend what happened under a military administration to a democratic system.”

    Interestingly, this argument highlighting the necessary antagonism between dictatorship and democracy is not new and has come to represent something of a stock response to critics of Buhari’s past in power. Without doubt, it is a rational and logical defence of dynamism. However, it remains to be seen whether sense would subvert sensation, or more specifically, whether common sense would shred common sensation.

    Indeed, it is paradoxical that Buhari’s image as a change agent or game-changing player ahead of the poll is rooted in a positively unchanged aspect of his personality.  Also fascinating is the effect of this changelessly appealing dimension of his character. It is enlightening that Buhari’s rich reputation for integrity has remained fundamentally undamaged since his military leadership from December 1983 to August 1985.

    This is not only the crux of the matter but also the cross of the man. Those who fear the probable anti-corruption implications of a Buhari presidency may not be exactly paranoid, given his antecedents as a former military ruler whose short-term regime sought to cleanse the rot through unusually severe methods. However, perhaps the overriding argument in favour of Buhari, which should recommend him for power at this point in time, is his unassailable antiseptic personality. The truth is that those who have professionalised corruption deserve every possible fear; and a leader known to have zero tolerance for corruption like Buhari may well be the best positioned to reverse the rubbish.

    If former president Olusegun Obasanjo is to be believed, and there are certainly reasons to believe him, the mountainous magnitude of official corruption in the country and the fearfulness of the culpable may be strong factors  hardening the apparent desperation of President Goodluck Jonathan to cling to power despite his unmistakable unpopularity.

    It is illuminating that in reaction to the controversial rescheduling of the country’s general elections by six weeks, Obasanjo said: “I believe the President’s fear is not leaving office per se, because he and I have had occasions to talk about this both seriously and jovially. I believe the President would want an opportunity to disengage peacefully and have a nice, decent and glorious exit. I believe the President’s fear is, particularly, motivated by those who see Gen Buhari as his likely successor.”

    So, why is Buhari, perceived as a bugbear?  Obasanjo again: “I believe those people have been telling him that Buhari is a hard man, he would fight corruption and you may end up in jail if not in the grave. I believe people must have told him all sorts of things and he is not the only one, there are other people who may be afraid of Buhari.”

    It is important to note that this alleged fear of Buhari transcends despotism or democracy, meaning that the apprehension is not actually about Buhari the unreformed military dictator or Buhari the democratic convert, but really about the essential Buhari. In other words, Buhari is a threat as a quintessential anti-corruption figure, whether he is in uniform or out of uniform.

    To reformulate the description of the country’s expected presidential election as “a contest between a failed president and former dictator,” it may be more profound to describe the poll as a battle between a champion of corruption and a crusader against corruption. When the choices are presented and seen from this angle, it might be easier for Buhari to surmount the blame from the past.  Perhaps it is in the interest of the collective memory to suspend remembrance. This is a time for the people to earnestly reimagine the country’s leadership, not dwelling upon Buhari’s past in power but focusing on his present and unchanging opposition to corruption, which is a blight on the land.

    Amanpour asked Buhari: “On corruption, there are complaints by many people in your country over massive corruption. Can you face up against that? Are you committed to rooting out corruption? Buhari replied: “We have to because there are serious citizens who said that “unless Nigeria kills corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria.”  The question must be asked: Who wants Nigeria to die of corruption?

  • Embracing the future to lead the present

    Embracing the future to lead the present

    Innovation, entrepreneurship and digital revolution will  help Nigeria move forward. There has created a new generation  of young  entrepreneurs  with the mission to develop products of the future. They are adventurers who create  solutions to daily problems most don’t even see. Daniel Essiet reports. 

    He is among  emerging digital entrepreneurs.  He  dreams of  building  high-growth company with  an array of aggressively growing businesses in Nigeria  and beyond.

    He is  Silas Okwoche,cofounder, Ideacentric Global Systems Limited. He  is a  serial entrepreneur to watch.  Okwoche  is a young  tech entrepreneur taking  the  nation  by storm. He  is passionate about disruptive technologies. His  contemporaries see him as  one  of the future hope of the  nation having  established  himself  a leader in the business intelligence space. He read Chemical Engineering  from  Ahmadu Bello University,Zaria. A serial entrepreneur,he  loves self-  employment and shown  even while he was  in  school.

    While in university, somewhere between attending lectures,he  was   re-selling wrist watches,doing   freelance website designing and selling  peanut snack products.

    He  just  knew then  that  serial social entrepreneurship and problem solving  were  his  true passions. After graduating with a degree in  Chemical Engineering in 2005, he worked for a year with SOI consulting and YWAP international as lead web developer and head of business development ,before founding Ideacentric in 2007. But  Okwoche  and his  partner,Dimeji  started Ideacentric as a web design firm in Kaduna. Then, they did web- designs for scores of small and medium scale organisations. Soon their   skill-set increased and because of oral eferrals.

    They started handling  brand design and IT-projects for SME’s and some large organisations. In 2010, they   moved to Abuja and consolidated their service offering under strategy, media and information technology. They  provide services, such as online research and proposal writing, brand marketing, material design and productions, as well as web and mobile application design and development.    One of his ideas is to make school curriculum available on mobile devices.. The company is  set  to   manufacture  its line of mobile internet tablets, called SPAKC,which  will  run on the Google Android.

    Okwoche  and his  partner are building apps, in partnership with educators and publishers that provide intuitive user-interfaces to access high quality school curriculum content. The   content will  be  stored in the tablet’s internal memory or in their  e-library.”He is   optimistic the government, along with international development organisations, will be able to pay for the less-than US$100 tablet. This price is inclusive the e-education content. This will enable every secondary school student to have a tablet for free. They have got some positive feedback from the  government. Furthermore, they   believe the internet ready tablets and apps will fly in the open market even without the government buy-in.He   created a mock-up and tested the idea with potential customers – and the feedback he  got is good.

    He  has  been a big fan of visionaries. For him, great ideas represent  the starting point.  His   inspiration comes from those who have the ability to convert those ideas into a value proposition that society simply cannot dismiss.  For  him, ,starting  a tech  company  is   more than starting a firm  or building the next best must-have device; but  is  predicated upon a vision that inspires.

    At the moment,  his  organisation  is   looking for an underserved market to exploit or bringing one more “disruptive” technology to the masses.

    His co partner, Oladimeji Obimakinde, said  the journey so far had been quite humbling. His  words:” Knowing that God is setting me/us to be trailblazers to many young and old Nigerians and the world has been an amazing experience and knowing that we are actually been positioned for relevance in the IT sphere for me builds fulfillment in me and a drive to “do more”.

  • Plagued past Vs blasted present

    Plagued past Vs blasted present

    What Reuben Abati, ex-The Guardian and current presidential spokesman and Femi Fani-Kayode, former Aviation minister and Olusegun Obasanjo’s irreverent presidential gadfly, would openly tangle is the stuff of a very pleasing – and biting –irony: as shown in Abati’s “The Hypocrisy of Yesterday’s men” and Fani-Kayode’s counter, “The Delusion of Today’s men”.

    When Fani-Kayode was in power and in government (apologies to Ibrahim Babangida and his infamous post-12 June 1993 presidential election annulment bragging), there was no personage, no matter how hallowed, this gadfly could not sting, all in the service of his imperial president.

    Now, Abati has given the Obasanjo ancien regime a bit of the Fani gadfly dose and all Fani Power junior could do is whine and drivel; and deliberately mix up the valid corporate paralysis of the Federal Aviation ministry, with showcasing a claimed personal glory as aviation minister! That is perfect sophistry – but if reader is dumb!

    But even in his lachrymose riposte, Fani-Kayode dropped a useful Freudian slip, when he prayed with all his soul that yesterday’s men may yet be future occupants of power.

    The question is: power for what? Power for power’s sake, which epitomised the empty snorting, and even emptier grandstanding, of the Obasanjo era that Fani-Kayode served; and which has made it susceptible to Abati’s biting fusillade?

    Or power for positive change, which moral authority would have shut Abati up, even when, for the umpteenth time, his prostrate principal is barbed on account of his glaring incompetence?

    But this Abati vs Fani-Kayode media show also echoes an earlier intra-power bickering, even when Nigeria was far saner.

    When the Great Zik of Africa crossed the path of the then East Central State Administrator, Ukpabi Azika (Judas among his Igbo people but hero in Nigeria, for standing resolute against Biafra), Azika launched into a verbal poetry of “ex-this and ex-that”. The Great Zik kept his peace but got his pound of flesh when Azika fell with the Gowon regime in 1975. He fired back in sagacious triumph: “no condition is permanent”!

    Now, that was biting wit and counter-wit. But it did not leave Nigeria better than it met it, given the progressive decay of leadership, which may yet land this land in a ditch. Neither will this Abati/Fani-Kayode spat. It is yet another costly distraction from proxies of failed and failing leaders.

    Indeed, both Abati and Fani-Kayode produced another stunning metaphor in their debate on how, or how not, a certain Obasanjo aviation minister allowed the Port Harcourt International Airport “to grow grass”, while a Jonathan minister has not only fixed airports nationwide but is busy upgrading them.

    But really, that these proxies of a plagued past and a blasted present are allowed much media space, with all due respect to democracy and its tenets of free speech, is indicative of how the public space has been overgrown with grass, with wilful thorns of a horrible past and a disastrous present choking the imperative for radical change to salvage a clearly troubled future. It is mere empty noise that distracts the mind from clear thinking.

    But if Fani-Kayode and his Obasanjo class of 2003-2007 got so hit the best Fani could produce is a pathetic self-glorifying riposte, Abati is no less tragically misguided. The problem with Abati is that he is tragically trapped in the past. Besides, he is putting his head in a battle he does not understand: for Jonathan, his boss, is an Obasanjo creation.

    In his well primed verbal shellacking, he wrote with the aplomb, the glory and the majesty of a verbal royal; and of a wordsmith that takes no prisoners, the ruthless way he hit home!

    But alas! It was all authoritarian wordplay without moral authority. Like the Biblical King Saul, the moral glory of his Guardian column-writing days is departed from Dr. Abati. All that is left is a naked and hollow language of power – power his pathetic principal, neither a thinker nor a doer, but a gnome wanting to cling to power, even if he does not seem to know what to do with it, projects rather pitifully!

    Still, despite the glaring limitation of the Jonathan presidency, the Obasanjo crowd had it coming; and in the Abati shelling, got their due comeuppance.

    First, it was Obasanjo who, despite being a former president, would go and publicly run his mouth on the incumbent, despite a Lugardian power convention that demands otherwise. He easily forgets it was this same empty grandstanding for relevance that landed him in hot soup with the grim Sani Abacha, who unlike IBB before him and Goodluck Jonathan after him, did not suffer fools gladly.

    Then, an Obiageli Ezekwesili and a Femi Fani-Kayode would come, lobbing into the fray stupendous figures in alleged wasted “savings” for the gullible and excitable to chew, go ga-ga and foam in the mouth – a squandered US $67 billion here, a US 100 billion there from alleged oil sales for two years, query allegedly courtesy of David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, and another N350 billion allegedly shelled on dubious security vote.

    But why is Obasanjo and his gang getting self-righteously livid now? When they knew security was not assured, why did they hoard money as “savings” when they could have invested it in physical and social infrastructure, which would not have been stolen but would also have resulted in multiplier effects for the prostrate local economy and provided jobs for the millions of jobless?

    Was it the perfidy in the Yoruba tale: of prodding robbers to plunder (inviting alleged incompetents to an unstructured national treasury) only to tip off the owner of the property (the present Obasanjo and co jeremiad in the Nigerian media)?

    And why the lament on a spendthrift Yar’adua and Jonathan presidencies when Obasanjo had all the time to erect a robust check-and-balance system structured on genuine federalism, but instead opted to push himself as the strongman Nigeria would perpetually need? That perhaps was why he so desperately wanted a third term!

    Besides, did he not actively campaign for Yar’adua, his darling Umoru? And did he not junk Yar’adua on his sick bed, just to crown Jonathan as his new prince, zoning be damned?

    After all said, all the cacophony is nothing but unlamented civil war in the unravelling power caste Obasanjo tried to erect for his sole pleasure, masquerading as national interest. So, let the Obasanjo crowd maul themselves. It is pure Karma at play!

    Meanwhile, let Nigerians think: a plagued past and a blasted present only assures a torrid future that Nigeria would have only at its peril. So, instead of being sucked into this worthless in-fighting among useless power prodigals, Nigerians must get rid of them all in a clean sweep – and 2015 is another opportunity.

    The Obasanjo crowd, past and present, are the one who trouble Nigeria’s Israel. The power chamber – and the polity – is better without them.

     

  • Jonathan to present budget Oct. 11

    Jonathan to present budget Oct. 11

    Barring any last minute changes, President Goodluck Jonathan will next Thursday (October 11) formally present the 2013 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly.

    The presentation will come two days after members of the House of Representatives might have returned from the on-going inspection tour of the capital projects in the 2012 budget.

    The Nation’s finding revealed that the Presidency has communicated the new date to the leadership of the National Assembly.

    It was learnt that the government bowed to the decision of the National Assembly to shift the initial October 4 date because the Executive found the reason given as cogent.

    The House of Representatives had rejected the October 4 date to enable its Finance and Appropriation Committees go through the Medium Term Expenditure Framework.

    President Goodluck Jonathan had on September 18 presented the Medium Term Framework to the National Assembly in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007.

    A reliable source, who spoke in confidence, said: “The Executive accepted the shift of the October 4 date for budget presentation in good faith because of the reasons advanced by the Legislature.

    “The President believes that the National Assembly acted in good faith and he chose to appreciate its argument to postpone the date. This is a sign of a rapprochement between the two tiers of government.

    “So, instead of forwarding the budget, the President will present it on October 11. The Executive does not want any row over budget with the National Assembly again.

    “The leadership of the legislature, members of the Federal Executive Council and Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have been informed of the new date.”

    Some of the assumptions for the 2013 budget are as follows: crude oil production of 2.48 million barrels per day; crude oil price of $75 per barrel; and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 6.85 per cent.

    As at press time, it could not be immediately ascertained whether the Executive will adjust the planned estimates in the light of the holes spotted in the 2013-2015 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper by the House of Representatives.

    The Joint House Committee on Finance, Legislative Budget and Research, National Planning and Economic Development increased the oil benchmark from $75 to $82.