The Nation Newspaper

Tag: President Goodluck Jonathan

  • Okonjo-Iweala’s characteristic understatement

    Okonjo-Iweala’s characteristic understatement

    For those determined to vote for President Goodluck Jonathan a second time, let them take counsel from the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy (CME), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, whose continuing and characteristic understatements and underestimation of the harm being done to the Nigerian economy have become quite stifling. She speaks of ‘some challenges’ to the 2014 budget, and seeks to reassure the public that the problems confronting the economy are not such as should frighten or alarm the people. Oil production has slumped by a mere 180,000bpd, she says, and price of oil has slumped to less than $60 per barrel from a June peak of $114 per barrel, all juxtaposed against a 2015 budget benchmark price of $77 per barrel.

    But when she adds that by October, it was obvious that budget target revenue had fallen short by about a  trillion naira, and capital budget for the third quarter of 2014 could not be cash-backed to the tune of about N100bn, we were looking up the barrel of a looming disaster. Principally, the minister blames production shut-in consequent upon pipeline vandalism for the revenue shortfall, a vandalism Dr Jonathan has spectacularly been unable to tackle because he entrusted misfits with the task of pipeline protection. Arguing that oil price may never rise to $100 per barrel, the minister says the government will embark on a number of policy initiatives to diversify revenue.

    It is clear to everybody, except Jonathan diehards, that the Dr Jonathan government is incompetent to handle the economic disaster that is unfolding upon Nigeria. Many states are unable to pay salaries as and when due, and are even owing more than a month or two; the judiciary is also finding it difficult to pay salaries at month’s end; the federal government is also experiencing difficulty paying all its staff at once; and many companies are shutting down amidst contradictory and harsh fiscal and monetary policies. In spite of the government’s half-baked Sure-P programme, unemployment is galloping ahead as a welter of criminal activities, including kidnapping, insurgency and armed robbery, overwhelms the country.

    It does not require a soothsayer to recognise that should Dr Jonathan be re-elected, his government would in response to the mounting economic problems unleash a poisonous cocktail of hasty, panicky and half-baked policies upon the country. The policies would be harsh, even cruel, wide-ranging and, in view of the obvious fact that the economic problems were either engendered by the government or mishandled by the government, inadequate and misdirected. Dr Jonathan has spent the last six years or so of his government misdirecting the country and refusing to anticipate problems; another term in office would not suddenly lead him to a burst of fresh, insightful and appropriate policies. Consider, for instance, how barely one year into his presidency, the number of fuel (PMS) importers rose to about 140 in 2011 from a tolerable 19 in 2008, and subsidy payment also rose to about N2.5 trillion as at December 2011 from a budget figure of about N245bn. The mad looting, in the midst of other unaccounted spending totalling some $10bn or $12bn, has still not been fully explained at the end of Dr Jonathan’s first term.

    Apart from Dr Okonjo-Iweala’s overused World Bank orthodoxies, most of them jaded and misplaced, the Ministry of Petroleum has become both a law unto itself and a defiant cesspit of regulatory opaqueness, while pipelines protection has been callously and recklessly ceded to warlords and militants. In combination, these people and factors ensure that the national economy is not amenable to planning, laws and logic. Nothing will change should Dr Jonathan be re-elected. The president is himself tired, even overwhelmed, and his Finance minister absolutely fagged out after nearly six years in the economic saddle propounding much of the same panaceas day in and day out. Every patriot must be alarmed that a hint of their return is even being contemplated.

  • Nigerians ’ll appreciate me after leaving office, says Jonathan

    Nigerians ’ll appreciate me after leaving office, says Jonathan

    PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has promised that Nigerians will begin to appreciate his achievements when he leaves office.

    He spoke while receiving a delegation of traditional rulers and leaders from Bayelsa State at his residence. It was  led by Governor Seriake Dickson

    Jonathan said he wasn’t surprised by the spate of criticisms of his administration  in recent times.

    He, however, said he was very sure that when a new administration takes over and people make comparison, they will appreciate his efforts and give him his due credit.

    According to him, “people do not often give credit to great men when they are still in charge.”

    He also stressed that leaders globally get lambasted these days through the social media, lamenting that people often use new inventions for the wrong reasons.

    He said he would not be distracted by criticisms as he would continue to give his best to the nation.

    He said: “These days, leaders all over the world get lambasted a lot and the effect of the social media has made it worse. There are some inventions that are not used for the right reasons.

    “The social media that is supposed to be used for positive things, is being used for something else. I don’t expect praises now, until I  leave office.

    “But I will do my best for our economy to continue to thrive despite the challenges in dwindling oil price and the security challenges.

    “People don’t often give credit when the man is still there. They often do it when he has left and another man is in charge. When they make comparison, they will begin to see the great things the former man did.

    ”We will continue to thank Nigerians  for the opportunity given to us to serve and we will continue to do our best.”

    The president told his visitors that he was on the seat by the grace of God and the willingness of Nigerians, adding: “If Nigerians didn’t want me to be here, when I contested elections in 2011, I wouldn’t be here. But they voted for us and we are here.”

    Urging prayers from the delegation, the president said: “I’m your own. If I don’t do well, the shame will be on you. And if I do well, you will take the glory. But I assure you, I will do my best.”

    He thanked the delegation for their consistent support for his administration.

    Dickson said they were in the State House to felicitate and solidarise with Jonathan and his family in the spirit of the festive season.

  • Doomsday 2015

    Doomsday 2015

    Akinyemi’s alert on possible post-election violence in 2015 is probably well founded. Still, his fears are based on symptoms, rather than fundamentals

    Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, former foreign minister and deputy chairman at the 2014 National Conference, has hit the media with his personal fears of possible post-election violence in 2015.

    In a letter to the presidential candidates of the two main political parties, President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the professor recalled his worst fears before the 2011 election (which came to pass) and insisted that, for 2015, the prognosis was even worse. He pushed a theory that it was because the late Gen. Andrew Azazi, then the new National Security Adviser (NSA), refused to work on his anti-violence suggestions that the situation flared — and with disastrous consequences.

    In his letter this time round, he suggested a 10-member committee — The Sultan, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, The Lamido of Adamawa, Alhaji Muhammadu Barkindo Mustapha, The Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, The Oba of Benin, Omo N’oba Erediauwa, former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, The Redeemed Christian Church of God General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, and former Military Heads of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar — to, prior to the election, meet with the two candidates, and commit them to minimal decorous conduct: non-violent electioneering, accepting the result of elections, and, should there be any dispute over the result, non-violent protests.

    The professor also expressed worry over what he called massive importation of firearms into the country, many of them suspected to violently muscle the vote, and set the country on fire. Lest we forget: Prof. Akinyemi also made reference to the “semi-official” American dire prediction that Nigeria might be history by 2015; fearing that a violently disputed election could just set fire to that tinder. He was convinced that should President Jonathan win, there would be violence in the North; but should Gen. Buhari win, there would be violence in the Niger Delta.

    Strictly speaking, this is no crying wolf when there is none. Indeed, the polity is pregnant; and quite ominous. It is ominous because there appears to be a zero-sum mentality, en route to the 2015 election. Stands are hard. Emotions are extreme. Things indeed, appear headed for a crash.

    For sending an alert early enough, Prof. Akinyemi has earned some commendation. It is what every patriot should do; and he has done his part.

    Still, that Prof. Akinyemi is spot-on, in his prognosis, does not in any way suggest it is based on sound fundaments. For instance, why should there be assured violence in the stronghold of each of the two major candidates?  Is it because each side could be perceived not to have won fair and square?

    If that were so, is it not sounder counsel to push for a clean, free, fair and transparent election (prevention is better than cure, version) than setting up a committee of eminent Nigerians to, with all due respect to their motives and accomplishments, put some gloss on avoidable disaster?

    Indeed, if there is spectre of violence, it is simply because the strengthened opposition appears better placed to challenge the abuse of state security by the federal ruling party; with President Jonathan’s penchant to skew legitimate coercive forces to illegitimate partisan causes — witness the electoral siege on Ekiti and Osun states during the gubernatorial polls earlier this year; and the police attempt to banish Speaker Aminu Tambuwal from the House of Representatives, ostensibly because the Speaker had issues with his former party.

    The polity, perhaps including Prof. Akinyemi himself, bought the lie that the processes leading to the Ekiti and Osun elections were fair, even if, on E-Day, the process appeared free. But how could an exercise be free when processes leading to it were unfair? The election tribunal may have endorsed the Ekiti election; and the Osun election, despite federal illicit machinations, may have gone to the other side.

    But there was no doubt: the militarised processes of both were skewed to favour the federal ruling party. That is a notorious fact. If such brazen abuses were repeated at the general election, there would be natural reactions.

    Even, the Akinyemi suggested arbitrating committee of eminent Nigerians might just remind a sceptic, even with the best of motives, of the natural sarcasm that leaps off the title of Wole Soyinka’s play, Madmen and Specialists.

    The Nation has profound respect for many members on the list. Besides, it is deeply thoughtful that only Gen. Gowon (who was in charge in the benign and near-innocent years of military rule) and Gen. Abubakar (who had the unenviable chore of, in 1999, leading the military back to the barracks after that institution had thoroughly subverted its essence) made the list. Gen. Buhari is a candidate, the huffing-and-puffing Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, with his latter day crusading, appears fast becoming part of the problem; and Gen. Ibrahim Babangida is quietly left off.

    Even then, what is the value of Pastor Oritsejafor, CAN President, on such a committee, if the committee’s job is to do transparent and fair intervention — Oritsejafor that has virtually made CAN a partisan, religious tag-team partner of the Jonathan Presidency?

    But of course! It is all patently Nigerian: shun the fundamentals but erect needless planks to attempt to solve a problem that needs not have arisen, if the right things were, ab initio, done!

    With all due respect to Prof. Akinyemi and his patriotic fervour, what Nigeria needs to stave off violence is an election process fair, free and transparent — and eminently seen to be so, even by the blind! People who don’t have the numbers but brag they would win a free election are entitled to their bragging. So, are people who claim they are spoilt for choice in numbers. It is a democracy and everyone is welcome.

    But a clean electoral process would put everybody where they belong. The ball is therefore in the court of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). It should, by right, get all the state institutional support it needs.

    If the Jonathan Presidency can do that and everyone, government and opposition, plays by the rule, the Akinyemi jeremiad would happily prove unfounded. Otherwise, nothing is guaranteed.

  • ‘Oil price slump gives Nigeria chance to end $7b fuel subsidy’

    ‘Oil price slump gives Nigeria chance to end $7b fuel subsidy’

    Tumbling oil prices that have slashed Nigeria’s revenue and roiled currency and stock markets in  the economy, may have a silver lining: an excuse for the government to scrap fuel subsidies that cost as much as $7 billion (about N1.3trillion) a year.

    It’s an opportunity President Goodluck Jonathan, concerned that such a move would provoke protests before his bid for re-election in February, 2015 may not seize, analysts have said..

    “Politics often trumps prudence and there’s an entrenched social expectation for fuel to be subsidised,” Gareth Brickman an analyst at Johannesburg-based ETM Analytic said, in an e-mailed response to questions.

    “The last time subsidies were reduced, there were widespread protests, and given how contentious the political environment is in Nigeria with the elections and on-going ethnic divisions, it is likely this will be the case again.”

    Nigeria relies on refined fuel imports to meet more than 70 per cent of domestic needs and refunded importers as much as a third of the cost of supply in the past year ending in October, according to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. This ensured the price of gasoline was capped at N97 ($0.54) per liter. Jonathan’s attempt to end the subsidies in January 2012, sparked a week of strikes and protests, paralyzing the economy and forcing the government to partially restore them.

    A 2012 parliamentary probe recommended that 70 gasoline importers, including the state oil company Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., refund N1.1 trillion ($6 billion) in illegal fuel-subsidy payments, alleging “endemic corruption.”

    While Nigeria is Africa’s biggest crude oil producer, which pumped 2.1 million barrels per day in November, its four ill-maintained state-owned refineries refine only 16 per cent of their capacity for 445,000 barrels per day.

    The subsidies discouraged private investors who obtained refining licenses from building plants because of concern that costs may not be recovered without market-determined fuel prices, according to Oni of Ecobank Research.

    With the 45 per cent decline in oil prices this year, Nigeria’s oil unions, which ended a four-day strike on December 19 to press for industry reforms, are asking for lower fuel prices to reflect the decline in crude prices, adding to public expectation of cheaper gasoline. They also want state-owned refineries fixed and an end to corruption associated with fuel imports.

    Spokesman for the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff of Nigeria (PENGASSAN),  Emmanuel Ojugbana,  said: “The unions want lower fuel prices because past increases were based on the rise in oil prices. So now that the price has fallen, we expect the government to also reciprocate.”

    The “fuel subsidy is completely wiped out if prices fall below $70 a barrel,” Dolapo Oni, energy analyst at Lagos-based Ecobank Research. “We’re there now.”

    In the spending proposals sent to lawmakers last week, Jonathan plans to increase fuel subsidies nine per cent next year to 1.2 trillion naira.

    While announcing 2015 budget proposals Dec. 17, Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said    government estimates indicate “that the break-even crude oil price” that equals Nigeria’s pump price without a “subsidy hovers around $60 per barrel.

    “It’s only when our crude oil price for Bonny Light falls below this level that we can now talk about the issue of bringing down any pump price.”

    While ending the subsidies now may be painless because of the low oil prices, there are risks for the government if they rebound and the costs are passed on to the consumer, according to analysts including Philippe de Pontet, Africa director at New York-based Eurasia Group.

  • NAFDAC‘s regulatory strides

    NAFDAC‘s regulatory strides

    On Tuesday December 31, 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan re-appointed Dr Paul Orhii for another term as the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). The good tiding, contained in a statement signed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, was to take effect from January 13, 2014. The reappointment was an endorsement and recognition of the revolutionary strides of. Orhii in the affairs of NAFDAC.

    As the curtain is being drawn on 2014, Nigerians would consider a reinvented NAFDAC among positive indicators of the transformation that has taken place in Nigeria under President Goodluck Jonathan. The renowned Pakistani economist, the late Professor Mahbub ul-Haq who was behind the institution of the Human Development Reports of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in 1990 most profoundly, contextualized the centrality of the people in governance when he observed: “The real wealth of a nation is its people. And the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy, and creative lives”.

    President Jonathan has lived through the above words on the marble. No better evidence can be found than his obsession with ensuring qualitative healthcare delivery system in the country. The height to which NAFDAC has taken the regulation and control of the production and distribution of food and drugs in the country in the last six years underlines the resolve.

    The Benue-born NAFDAC’s CEO has not only been a change agent in the nation’s health sector in the past five years, the current year has seen him consolidate on the achievements of the agency and in going a step further in designing measures to spur his transformation drive. Today, NAFDAC under Orhii became the foremost regulatory agency in the West African sub-region to deploy cutting edge technologies in combating counterfeit medicines. These include Truscan, Black Eye, Mobile Authentication Service (MAS), the world’s first anti-counterfeiting contraption which uses the SMS platform, Radio Frequency Identification service (RFID), and Minilabs. Following the resounding successes in the deployment of these cutting edge technologies in Nigeria, the food and drug administration agencies in the United States, Germany, Sweden, Canada and a host of many developed countries of the world, have also started using the hi-tech anti-counterfeiting initiative.

    The introduction of small business support units aimed at developing small businesses, the electronic registration, and evolvement of electronic clearance portal for the sole purpose of fast-tracking online electronic clearance of goods at the nation’s ports thereby preventing trade inhibitions, as well as deployment of the Automated Products Administration and Monitoring Solution (NAPAMS), including the strengthening of its regulatory capacity through up-grading of its surveillance systems and capacity building, have all combined to make NAFDAC a total drug and food regulatory agency.

    The agency has expanded its regulatory frontiers to the practice of veterinary medicine and the use of pesticides as part of efforts to reduce food poisoning in the country. For this purpose, a directorate of veterinary medicine and allied products was created to ensure effective control of food-borne hazards at every stage of the food chain, “from the stable to table and from farm to the fork”. On the safe and responsible use of agro-chemicals, NAFDAC has successfully evolved distinct and efficient guidelines cum standardized operating procedures for chemical regulation and control, while risk assessment and field trials for fertilizers were equally introduced.

    For NAFDAC, good and standardized production and hygienic practices are the watchword in fast food centres and operators of eateries, while bakers are under compulsion to refrain from the use of cancer- causing Potassium Bromate in baking. For promoting cassava bread and export of value-added agricultural products, fortification of food vehicles with Vitamin ‘A’ and other micro nutrients as well as entrenchments of the universal salt iodization aimed at eliminating iodine deficiency disorder in Nigeria, the agency has become a blessing to the country.

    For massive enlightenment and awareness creation, NAFDAC management has relied on television channels, radio, handbills and in-house magazine to do the bulk of the job. It has encouraged consumers’ safety clubs in institutions of learning, and the formation of National Youth Service Corps Community Development Service Programme. The entrenchment of desk offices in the nation’s 774 local government areas for effective grassroots liaison, introduction of consultative fora with stakeholders, regular hosting of town hall meetings as well as the infusion of Food and Drug Safety Education into the nation’s basic school curriculum, etc are part of the awareness sustenance drive. Also notable is the D.G’s  intensive and persistent well coordinated advocacy visits to state governors, local government chairmen, royal fathers, community heads and chief executives of sister agencies, etc.

    Another dynamic innovation in its anti-counterfeiting crusade is the engagement of local celebrities in such campaigns. For instance, Tuface Idibia, a popular hip hop musician, was recently adopted as NAFDAC Ambassador to strengthen the agency’s anti-counterfeiting drive.

    In the pharmaceutical products distribution chain, the drug markets – Regional Mega Drug Distribution Centres (MDDC) and States Drugs Distribution Centre (SDDC) – which it helped create across the country –  have been most salutary in checking the hitherto chaotic distribution channels. Similarly, the Mobile Digital Water Testing Service System to effect an on-the-spot assessment and certification of sachet and bottled water to complement the physical factory-to-factory inspection it has in place, has helped to protect and secure the nation’s multi-billion naira water business.

    Enforcement activities of the agency have remained impressive, as its strategy of detection and destruction of fake and counterfeit drugs, as well as the arrest and prosecution of fakers have curbed a lot of unwholesome practices in the industry. The total overhaul of the agency’s legal framework to accord it befitting enforcement strength was equally achieved under Dr. Orhii.

    Under the incumbent DG, four Nigeria’s indigenous pharmaceutical companies – Swiss Pharmaceuticals, May and Baker Nigeria Ltd, Chi Pharmaceuticals and Evans Medical Plc, got the World Health Organization’s pre-qualification good manufacturing practice certification, and thus earning a global recognition for their products. The agency has performed creditably well in infrastructural development thereby raising the standards of local herbal medical practice to global level.  So also are the construction, rehabilitation and re-equipping of sophisticated scientific laboratories across the country and acquisition, refurbishing and building of office accommodation for the agency’s staff in other states of the federation among others.

    One outstanding accomplishments of Dr. Orhii in the out-going year is staff appreciation through the institution of annual honours and awards, and this has resulted in the exponential improvement on productivity. And for NAFDAC-DG, he will be remembered as one leader that put his all in the effort to eradicate drug counterfeiting and faking and in the global drive to ensure safe drugs for consumers. With success came local and international recognition. One such global honour is being named vice chairman of the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT) based in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also the chairman of the West African Drug Regulatory Authorities Network (WADRAN); chairman WHO‘s Mechanism for the International Fight against Spurious, Substandard and Counterfeit Medicines.

    And finally, the international partnership for effective anti-drug counterfeiting activities has led to the sustenance of Nigeria’s robust working relationships with numerous countries like United States of America, China, Argentina, Canada, India, the European Union, Brazil, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, Libya, African countries, Romania, etc.

    • Ikhilae is a Lagos-based public affairs analyst.

  • Jonathan’s pay-as-you-go philosophy

    IT has been quite a while since Barometer joined issues with President Goodluck Jonathan on his often delectable philosophical outbursts. Last week, the president again indulged his talent for quaint logic and exotic philosophy, forcing the columnist to lose his forbearance. Speaking during the inauguration  of the Youth Employment in Agriculture Programme and the Fund for Agricultural Finance in Nigeria, which held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the president all but concluded that the nation he presides over had been shortchanged by old people. It is a strange doctrine to propagate, and had newspapers not quoted him directly, it would have been difficult to believe he made the statements attributed to him. Why the fallacy of his statements did not occur to him must be put down to his extreme inurement to logic and experience.

    Let us quote his bewildering remarks exhaustively. Says he: “For the Nigerian young men and women, those who we have seen today and the ones outside there, we appreciate and commend you because anything that you are involved, you bring glory to this country. Anything that the old people like us are involved in, it is always problems. Young people are involved in sports, soccer, athletics and so on, and within the period that I have been here as Vice President and President, they have always been bringing glory to us.”

    He dazzles further: “Young people are involved in the movie, popularly called Nollywood, and this continues to bring glory to us. Young people are involved in music, like D-Banj, and they always continue to bring glory to us. But see politics that old people like us are involved in, we continue to quarrel and abuse ourselves everyday and create problems for innocent Nigerians. So, we believe that the future of this country is in the hands of young people. The young Nigerians will surely take us to where we want to be.”

    Then, wonder of all wonders, he concludes: “One day, you will take us to the moon. I believe in the young, creative and talented people. Surely, we will create enabling environment for you because you stand for the future of this country and you will make this country great.”

    It is impossible to encounter any dualism so trite and so offensively wrong. To say that anything young people are engaged in brings glory and honour to the county is not just simplistic, it is annoyingly wrong. Noble deeds, as everyone knows, including schoolboys and schoolgirls, are not the exclusive preserve of any age group. Nor are ignoble deeds. The young are as susceptible to ignoble deeds as the old are vulnerable to it. In fact, it may even be difficult to weight the susceptibilities of the age groups in terms of their deeds, whether noble or ignoble. Perhaps the president meant to talk on and commend the energies of the nation’s young people. But even here, he will fall into a definitional snafu of what constitute actions that bring honour and glory to the country.

    President Jonathan’s observations fly in the face of the current and global realities of a world increasingly worried and undermined by the speciousness, violence, inattentiveness, and ethical fuzziness of the young, a world apparently now delicately stabilised by the old people disparaged by the president, a world that every sensible person knows must profit from the synergies of the old and the young.

    More quizzically, the president has consistently failed to understand that democracy and progress cannot be guaranteed  only by absence of quarrels and abuse, as he sneeringly put it. For the umpteenth time, the president must be educated that quarrels and abuse, especially in a democracy, serve both as catharsis to help the system ventilate tension and stress, and are also a manifestation of the health of the processes and procedures by which a system designs the best options for the society and helps it to renew itself.

    Apparently, there is no way to educate the president on this very germane matter of how vibrant and healthy societies function and rejuvenate themselves. He has always been a monarchist, especially one with a tunnel vision, and extremely intolerant of opposition and dissent. Had democracy and the constitution Nigeria operates not specifically forbidden the tyranny he seems to effortlessly embrace, it is clear President Jonathan would have in turn forbidden the old from the country, consigned them to a sanatorium should the first option be difficult to enact, or decreed a scientific scheme to filter the society of non-conformists. However, what clearly needs management is the president’s extemporaneousness, for when he lets himself go in the gusto of his boyish enthusiasm, he invariably does so in the most reactionary, if not anarchical, manner.  Youth is good and daring; but who can deny the wisdom of the old?

  • Mimiko can’t coordinate Jonathan’s campaign in S’ West-Group

    •Says governor’ll betray the president

    A pressure group, the Ondo State Solidarity Group, has called on President Goodluck Jonathan and the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party

    (PDP) to reverse the appointment of Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, as the Coordinator of President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential campaign in the South-West.

    Warning the leadership of the party to be mindful of what it described as the “deceitful tendencies of Mimiko,” the group in a statement issued in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, by its Ondo State coordinator, Mr. Bankole Betiku, said the political antecedents of the governor “portrays him as an inconsistent politician that does not mean any good for President Jonathan’s re-election.”

    Reacting to a publication made by an aide of the governor against a chieftain of the party, Chief Jimoh Ibrahim, the group alleged that “Mimiko defected to PDP in order to protect his job as governor and to actualise his selfish ambition and not to work for the victory of President Jonathan as canvassed by his aide.”

    Bankole noted that Mimiko lacks the requisite quality and integrity to coordinate the president’s campaign in the South-West, while further alleging that the Ondo State government under Mimiko’s watch currently owes civil servants in the state three-month salary arrears without giving any reason for its action.

    “The civil servants in the state are angry with him for not paying their salary and they have vowed not to vote for PDP, a trend which Jimoh Ibrahim is trying to reverse,” the group explained.

    Okunomo, the governor’s aide, had in the said publication accused Chief Jimoh Ibrahim of causing disaffection in the party in order to pave the way for General Muhammed Buhari’s victory at the poll.

    According to Betiku, Okunomo’s allegation was puerile and baseless; stressing that Mimiko has a secret agenda against the president’s aspiration judging from his desperation to take over the structures of the party at all cost.

    The group explained that Chief Ibrahim has no known political affiliation or business relationship with APC or its presidential candidate as being alleged by Okunomo.

    “Everybody knows that Mimiko is an unrepentant betrayer. His political antecedents are proven evidence of this fact. He betrayed the late former Governor Adebayo Adefarati. He betrayed another late former governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu; he betrayed former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu, who fought tirelessly to help him reclaim his mandate. He will surely betray President Goodluck Jonathan,” the statement said.

  • Varsity workers urge political will to end Boko Haram

    THE Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has said that President Goodluck Jonathan must demonstrate the political will and courage to expose and flush out all persons within and outside his government who have been fingered by intelligence reports to be sponsors of Boko Haram.

    The union also asked the federal government to immediately close the country’s borders with Chad, Niger Republic and Cameroon, as a way of checking the current security situation in the North East and put an end to the activities of members of the Boko Haram insurgency.

    In a communique at the end of its National Executive Council meeting, the university workers want the government to immediately put in place a team to renegotiate the 2009 agreement between the government and the union which is long over due for renegotiation or face a nationwide industrial action.

    The communique signed by its president, Comrade Samson Ugwoke and the Public Relations Officer, Comrade NAD Aboribo, and made available to The Nation in Abuja, the union said the battle to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done and achieved.

    While commending the Nigerian military for its efforts so far, the union called on the federal government to take a more pragmatic step in dealing with Boko Haram and insurgency in the country before it consumes the entire populace.

    It stressed that the union took a critical look at the current security situation in the country and noted that the situation is getting alarming by the day, adding that the unabated bombing and killing of innocent Nigerians under the guise of religion is satanic and cannot be rationalised.

    It alleged that some powerful people within and outside the country might have been using Boko Haram as a tool to achieve the controversial prophecy of doom that Nigeria will disintegrate by the year 2015.

    SSANU further observed that evidence has shown that the majority of the sect members and suicide bombers of Boko Haram are not Nigerians, adding that their operations and code of conduct are alien to Nigerian culture.

    On the 2015 general election, the union observed that the year 2015 may turn out to be a critical year and a water-shed in the history of the country, and commended the relatively peaceful conduct of the primaries by the political parties in the country and called on the politicians to continue to play the game according to the rule.

    The union advised the political class to refrain from overheating the polity through seditious campaigns and statements and called on INEC to ensure free, fair and transparent elections in 2015 by being an unbiased umpire, and ensure that the mandate of people is respected.

    The union also warned the government to avoid an impending nationwide strike in the universities and immediately put in place a team to renegotiate the 2009 agreement, pointing out that its insistence that the agreement be renegotiated has been rebuffed by the government.

  • Worshipping the false messiahs of Nigeria

    Doyin Okupe presented President Goodluck Jonathan as Jesus Christ in the mostopportune time. We were in Christmas mood and should have been most receptive to the revelation of god among us.

    Okupe’s job description as the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs is to appraise and praise his principal. And security on the job lies at the extreme end of hyperbole.

    He has to be (seen to be) sufficiently worshipful of the President or he gets the sack. This incentivizes Okupe to work overtime, talking Jonathan up. And sure enough, it predisposes him to sounding stupid. But this attempt to make up the profane with the sacred shows that Okupe’s sycophancy has mutated into wanton license.

    It couldn’t have been his answer to Wole Soyinka’s portrayal of Jonathan as King Nebuchadnezzar. Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate, called a press conference just to vent and he kept his metaphor within the bounds of the secular. But Okupe, the self-acclaimed Attack Lion, went to a breakfast TV show for expediency and ran into profanities.

    Basically, the overreach testifies that Okupe has run out of material. After placing Jonathan in the peer group of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Lee Kaun Yew and Barack Obama and ranking him as the greatest Nigerian leader since independence, there are no more fitting mortals left for comparison. So Jonathan has to be equated with Jesus.

    Jonathan deserves some congratulations, though. He is one of the rare humans who have managed to inspire the veneration of their persons. His own evolution to divinity makes him measure up to his wife. Patience, according to Evans Bipi, the arrowhead of an anti-Amaechi gang, was ”Jesus Christ on earth”.

    It’s good that President Jonathan’s catch-up worked out fine. This leaves Nigeria with a couple of Jesus Christ’s in the State House. One Jesus and a spare.

    But the paradox is that the countries that are led by mere mortals fare better than theocratic Nigeria. They have higher standards of living. They have very low child mortality rates. They have public schools that are training their youths to participate in a future where knowledge will become the principal commodity.

    They have efficient transport systems that move people and goods with few instances of avoidable mishaps. They have portable water at the turn of the tap. They maintain healthcare systems that our Jesus doubles resort to when they fall ill.

    Actually, the Jonathans are not the only saviors. There is a glut of claimants to the title of messiah, from the lowest tier up to the presidency. They base their claims on some grudging tokens. The roads that begin to deteriorate with the onset of the first rains. The schools they can’t suffer their children to attend. The hospitals their family members cannot patronize.

    Since May 1999, these false messiahs have been saving only their family and friends. They have been offering the populace more hype than governance deliverables. They have been investing in looking good than doing good. And they have always liked to hire fawning loudmouths.

    But it should be obvious that this kind of salesmanship – borrowing from the

    supernatural realm to improve their bottom line – is counterproductive. It betrays the brand as so flawed that its marketability can only be helped by a bogus label.

    President Jonathan should be worried. He should be concerned that his promoters are nauseating and alienating the multitude instead of converting them. He has continued to pretend to be too absorbed in some otherworldly business to notice the sacrileges his hirelings are perpetrating in his name.

    Jonathan winked at the tweaking of #BringBackOurGirls hashtag into his re-election campaign promo. He was content to let it persist until Washington Post shamed him into issuing a disclaimer. He pretended to be asleep while the police desecrated the premises of the National Assembly on the orders of Inspector General Suleiman Abba.

    And he has yet to wake up. Jonathan must rein in Okupe and other sycophants. Chinua Achebe reminds us that those whose palm kernels were cracked by the gods must remain humble. A shoeless school boy who rose to the presidency cannot afford to have an aide misrepresenting him as a contestant for the position of Jesus Christ.

     

    Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu

    @emmaugwutheman

  • Buhari versus Jonathan: time to end mindless campaign

    Buhari versus Jonathan: time to end mindless campaign

    Merely deploying words that frame candidates negatively shows lack of political skills required of the political elite class.

    Yesterday marked the end of the search for the two political protagonists that will drive the campaign and shape the voting in next year’s presidential election. The ruling party at the centre, PDP, presented yesterday its consensus candidate, the incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan. On the other hand, the opposition party, the APC, elected before camera former Head of State, General MuhammedBuhari, as the party’s flag bearer. With the choice of the two candidates by the two leading political parties, it should now be the turn of citizens to hear more from the candidates about why each of them deserves to be voted in as president in 2015 than from distractive noises from chosen or self-appointed spokespersons. It should be assumed that public relations staff of each political party has done very well the preliminary work needed to put the two leading contenders before the electorate.

    On the eve of the conventions of both parties, President Jonathan played the role of a statesman when he cautioned politicians not to act like touts during the process leading to the presidential elections. In other words, President Jonathan must have chosen to caution party men and women not to turn the campaign process into the type of mindless antagonism that characterises relations between co-wives or touts fighting with all means for the same gain in the kitchen or motor parks respectively. The president must have been trying to warn party fanatics not to act in a way that can erode public confidence in the electoral process. Given the spate of name calling of opposition parties and personalities such parties in the past few months by party functionaries in the ruling party, the president must have seen the futility and danger in failing to warn party loyalists in all parties to take the matter of presidential elections with the seriousness it should deserve.

    One thing that may not be obvious but that is equally present in the president’s caution to politicians is the imperative in a serious democracy for political elite to demonstrate political skills expected of individuals in positions of leadership and evidence of a sense of the public interest by showing at all times during the electioneering campaign that political office seekers and their professional supporters have regard for the public, the citizens whose votes they seek and whose support they need to get elected in a truly democratic ethos. Unfortunately, the PDP spokesman failed to heed President Jonathan’s advice when he couched his first response to the announcement of Buhari’s candidacy in a language that detracts attention from policy matters, while focusing on personality of the person that is to run as alternative to the incumbent.

    The publicity chief’s statement: “Buhari has nothing new to offer, except ‘tired ideas’ and provocative utterances” is not an elegant way to start a free and fair issues-based campaign. Given anecdotal reports of citizens glued to television sets and radios in the last forty-eight hours during which the two leading parties formally chose their candidates, there is no doubt that citizens are interested in hearing what the candidates hope to do to address the problems that have confronted the country since 1999. Merely deploying words that frame candidates negatively shows lack of political skills required of the political elite class. Utterances and actions of party officials during electioneering do not only contribute to shaping citizens’ decisions and final choices at the polls; they also reflect the political maturity of the elite class while having the capacity to degrade or upgrade political attitudes of citizens.

    Another statement by the PDP spokesman: “We are convinced that the PDP remains the only truly national political party in Nigeria, a platform on which all Nigerians can pursue their legitimate aspirations” is hyperbolic and has no basis in reality. Such a statement undermines the INEC that found all the parties in the contest from PDP to APC, UPP to SDP national enough to deserve being registered for national elections. Such facile denigration of rival parties is capable of eroding citizens’ trust in the political process and even of alienating floating voters from the party of the incumbent.

    Certainly, there is a sense in which the job of public relations man or woman can be perceived as doing or saying everything that is capable of enhancing the chances of the client and to damage the chances of the rival or competitor. But statecraft and a sense of deliberative democracy require that party public relations officers act and talk in a manner to sustain trust in the system, rather than paint the system as pre-cast and frozen to serve just the interest of a competitor, regardless of fairness and respect for the rights of the other competitor[s] to present other cases   to the electorate. All the political parties need to move away from the traditional notion of election as just an opportunity to smash your rival in words of assault. Elections are regular rituals that sustain democracy and socialise citizens to imbibe the tenets of democratic practice, not a war of words that cast the rival as a demon.

    Truly, electoral competition presupposes that there will be conflict between or among candidates from different political parties asking for the same thing: the mandate to govern. But if we are not to be petty about this important matter, all persons functioning as party leaders need to imbibe and display commitment to the principle of choice by the electorate. Citizens’ ability to choose correctly can be frustrated or destroyed by demonisation of candidates in a campaign that focuses more on personalities than programmes or on images than issues. Our democracy is too young (only sixteen years after the exit of military dictatorship) for the political elite to organise electoral struggle only in the plot and imagery of conflict for conflict’s sake.

    Inter-party conflicts during elections in particular and at other times in a democratic ethos are for the purpose of clarifying nationally important issues for the electorate, with a view to leading them to make informed choices about the future preferred by voters for themselves and their children. Let us not degrade the process with provocative utterances such as are inherent in the latest description of the nation’s opposing party as Bola Tinubu’s APC. Such statement could have been designed to attack Tinubu as a politician who has reshaped the political party system in the country in the last sixteen years, but it also has the capacity to insult citizens and cast them as sheepish followers of an individual, rather than as believers in a multiparty system believed to be the surest way to sustain political democracy.

    Nigerians have heard a lot of slogans in the last fifteen years: “Do or die struggle for power,” “the political party that has been ordained to rule Nigeria for 65 years,” “Nigeria’s only national party that can keep the country united,” etc. Yet, our multiparty system has not disappeared, and the struggle by various political parties for the mandate to govern the country has not become redundant. In fact, the only thing that adds legitimacy to any political party’s bid for power is the existence of more than one political party. There is no better time for the political elite to act in the manner of elite, rather than as touts, to borrow President Jonathan’s phrase.

    Citizens are more likely to want to hear from all the candidates how each of them plans to address the real issues: corruption, security, an economy that appears to have been degraded by the diminishing value of petroleum, an education and health system in shambles, and a polity being broken into two by the diversionary tactics of Christian and Islamic fanatics besotted to political power at all cost. Let us all welcome the emergence of the two principal candidates for the office of the president with discipline and admiration for the democratic process by opening and sustaining the political space for unfettered presentation of policy statements to address the country’s problems. In addition, let us candidates urge for full and prompt funding of the electoral commission, to prevent watering down of the electoral process on account of under-funding while also calling on the media to restrain from reducing the political debate of the next two months to personalities, images, and packaging. Citizens need to hear (without over mediation) from each candidate about the way to peace, progress, and prosperity in the country.