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Tag: President Goodluck Jonathan

  • Nyako, Shettima, Geidam may sue Jonathan over funding of special forces

    Nyako, Shettima, Geidam may sue Jonathan over funding of special forces

    The governors of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states may go to court to challenge plan by President Goodluck Jonathan to use their states’ monthly allocations to fund the military operations in the states under the emergency rule.

    Governors Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Kashim Shettima (Borno) and Ibrahim Geidam (Yobe) are said to have sought legal advice on the issue.

    They believe that since Defence is on the exclusive list in the 1999 Constitution, the Federal Government should solely fund the Special Forces deployed in the states.

    The governors are likely to seek judicial interpretation of Section 217 of the 1999 Constitution.

    The governors are unhappy with a section of the emergency rule proclamation which seeks to confer on the President power to manage funds meant for states and local governments under emergency rule.

    The section says: “Any Order made under sub-regulation (1) of this Regulation may in particular, if it appears to the President to be necessary or expedient for the purpose mentioned in the sub-regulation – make provision for the detention of any person either within the emergency area or elsewhere, removal and exclusion of any person from the emergency area; authorise the taking of possession or control of any property or undertaking in the emergency area; authorise the entry and search of any premises; provide for the application of any law (with or without modification), in relation to that area; provide for the utilisation of the funds of any State or Local Government in the emergency area; provide for the payment of compensation and remuneration to persons affected by the Order; provide for the apprehension, trials and punishment of persons offending against the Order; and provide for the maintenance of such applies and services as the President considers essential to the lives of persons in the emergency area.”

    Investigation revealed that the legal advisors had on Friday started consultations with the Attorneys-General of the three states, who will report to the governor.

    Sources in Borno State said: “The three governors are already weighing legal options. The three states are taking the legal measure as they are not prepared to take chances which is why they are trying to work well ahead so that they are not caught unawares.

    “The three state governments believe that controlling their funds would amount to a clear breach of the constitution because the emergency Proclamation Bill, 2013 that gave the President powers to spend funds meant for states or local governments in areas of emergency rule is in conflict with the constitution and the legal effect of declaration of emergency in an area simply means that citizens are deprived of certain fundamental human rights because of the security issues involved.

    “All laws no matter how important they may be to the governance of the country cannot supersede the provisions of the constitution because of the supremacy of the constitution which the President and every sworn public officer has an obligation to preserve and protect.

    “The constitution does not in any section remove the executives or dissolve democratic structures and relief them of their functions.

    “Power to spend funds meant for states and local governments is constitutionally vested on the chief executives of the state and local governments being second and third tiers of government directly benefiting from the statutory allocation of the federation.

    “So, any attempt by the President or any other person appointed to act in that behalf is unconstitutional, illegal, null and void and of no lawful effect whatsoever. In addition, it will be a fragrant abuse of the constitution to tamper with funds accruable to these tiers of government and in this case, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states which are all federating units like the federal government.

    “Moreover, the provision of security is squarely within the Exclusive Legislative list of the constitution which is purely the responsibility of the federal government to protect the lives and property of its citizenry through security agencies.

    ” Basic social amenities like water, healthcare, education, welfare of the citizens fall within the concurrent legislative list of the constitution which both the federal and state governments are to provide.

    “This clearly means it is the exclusive duty of the federal government in the first instance to fund security services, so why should the President now deprive states of their funds to provide the concurrent legislative list to citizens.

    “This is purely unconstitutional and even a part two law student will deliver judgment against the President and the federal government.

    “Moreover, the states of Borno and Yobe have been the ones funding security operations since the deployment of troops under the JTF to the States, the federal government didn’t give them a dime, why should the President now even consider holding on their funds whereas they have been discharging his own functions?”

  • Count me out of governors leadership crisis, says Jonathan

    President Goodluck Jonathan said yesterday that he has nothing to do with the leadership crisis tearing apart the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF).

    The President who has been accused of sponsoring the moves to terminate Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s headship of the forum on account of alleged insubordination said he had no interest in the Friday election won by Amaechi but now disputed by Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau who claims to be the authentic chairman.

    He has the backing of 17 of his colleagues.

    The President is particularly irked by media reports which suggested that Amaechi’s victory amounted to his (Jonathan’s) loss.

    In a statement yesterday, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, described such reports as mischievous.

    He said: “We have noted with regret the mischievous effort by sections of the mass media to portray President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as an interested party and the main loser in yesterday’s (Friday’s) election of the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF).

    “Contrary to the impression of presidential partisanship and interference in the affairs of the governors forum erroneously conveyed by some headlines in the media today (yesterday), President Jonathan who is currently leading Nigeria’s delegation to the Africa Union Summit in Addis Ababa had no preferred candidate in the NGF elections and could therefore not have been “floored” by any other candidate as some newspapers sensationally reported.

    “President Jonathan has the greatest possible respect for the Nigeria Governors Forum as an independent body of mature, responsible, and knowledgeable elected political leaders who have a critical role to play in strengthening democratic governance in the country, and who are quite capable of running their own affairs without being tele-guided, as some media reports misleadingly implied.”

    It added that the President was always willing to work with any leadership freely and independently chosen by the governors forum, adding that, “He has not, in the present instance or ever before, interfered in elections to leadership positions in the governors forum. Reports in the media which convey that impression are totally off the mark and the handiwork of mischievous individuals and groups with the intention of sowing the seeds of discord and disunity in the polity.”

  • Details of emergency proclamation deepen anguish

    Details of emergency proclamation deepen anguish

    Riding on the crest of a wave of popular approbation on the declaration of emergency, President Goodluck Jonathan is all the more convinced that he took the right step in his effort to pacify the restive Northeast region. The details of the proclamation, which were not immediately available but came many anxious days later, show conclusively how far-reaching the provisions are, and how fateful they could become in the coming months and years for the sustenance of democracy. Notwithstanding which part of the divide we find ourselves – for or against emergency – or how uncritically we embraced the panacea even before we knew the details of the proclamation, it is time for us to move on to even more germane but troubling matters, especially considering that emergency has become a fait accompli.

    I suspect that the president took a few more days than he planned to transmit the proclamation to the National Assembly because he was astounded by the overwhelming support Nigerians gave him. He probably felt he would not injure his goals, whatever they were, if he tweaked the provisions of the proclamation to tighten his hold on the Northeast. Any sound democrat – and there are few of them in Nigeria – or sound thinker should be alarmed by the provisions of the proclamation. Sadly, neither the public which whooped for emergency nor the National Assembly saddled with the greater responsibility of safeguarding democracy, has shown any disquiet or even discomfort with the details. The mostly conservative Senate has raised barely a whimper against emergency, and the often populist House of Representatives has only offered feeble protests.

    So, for now, we are stuck with emergency in the Northeast, even as fears grow in sane quarters that given Dr Jonathan’s constant immoderation and propensity for brinkmanship, he could yet widen the areas under emergency proclamation. Before the details of the proclamation were made public, this column had concluded that the governors of the affected states would become ceremonial rulers and the military commanders the de facto rulers. This observation flies in the face of the president’s pronouncement that he had not tampered with the democratic structures in the three states, and that the governor, Houses of Assembly and the local government areas were intact. It was inconceivable that the said democratic structures could function in the teeth of emergency, I warned. Surprisingly, lawyers, academicians and newspapers argued that by leaving the democratic structures in place, the president was jeopardising the success of emergency and prolonging the misery of the Northeast.

    Such undisciplined reasoning was not totally unexpected, considering that there had been a progressive attenuation of disciplined thinking and research in Nigeria for many years. I had nothing to base my suspicion on, of course, other than my intuitive distrust of Dr Jonathan’s bona fides, whether in relation to his depressing political pragmatism, his lack of ideological persuasion, or even his annoying abjuration of the role and place of philosophy in the government of any society, ancient or modern. When he finally publicised the details, it was clear that Dr Jonathan, like his superficial mentor, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, had unlimited contempt for the principles and practice of democracy. He entertains the quaint belief that it is sometimes necessary to destroy a thing in order to save it. The unsuspecting National Assembly, the bewildered public, and the querulous press apparently agree.

    In the proclamation, Dr Jonathan has completely and undisguisedly subordinated the governor, local government chairmen and, by implication, the Houses of Assembly in the affected areas to the military commanders in the three states. The military commanders, as emergency rule in Ekiti showed in 2006, are in turn subordinated to the president. In short, Dr Jonathan has the distinguished Lugardian honour of imposing indirect rule in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. The National Assembly’s harmonised version of the proclamation tried to circumscribe the subordination of governors and LG chairmen to the president’s whims by limiting the orders he could issue to matters relating to “maintaining and securing peace, public order and public safety in the emergency areas.” The reality is, however, far different, and this needn’t be argued.

    But if this was the only evidence of power grab in the Northeast, it could be pardoned. In another far-reaching provision in the proclamation, the president is empowered to utilise the funds of the affected states for the purpose of executing the state of emergency. The president’s original proposal to spend state funds is truly frightening. But the National Assembly’s harmonised version futilely attempts to limit the usage of the funds to “provide for the protection, documentation, return, re-integration, resettlement, rehabilitation, compensation and remuneration of persons affected by this order.” It is hard to know exactly what was on the minds of the framers of this provision, for the responsibilities listed in that clause are actually much better performed by the states and LGs than the federal government, let alone a military commander. In fact, it is clear that the president originally intended this provision to underwrite the cost of the emergency itself.

    This column had warned last week that, “The governors will be ceremonial leaders throughout the emergency, even as the affected states may be coaxed into parting with a part of their monthly allocations to the war effort.” That warning was neither prescient nor comprehensive enough. There is nothing in Dr Jonathan’s proclamation or the legislature’s harmonised version to indicate the degree of tampering allowed the president. The governors are already browbeaten, and the public mood against them unsparing. They will, therefore, tamely submit to all forms of violation and indignity.

    The president already has enormous powers to do anything he wishes with the country, and is more powerful than any democratically elected president anywhere. Unfortunately, since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, no president has been circumspect or innovative in the use of those powers. Emergency in the Northeast now indirectly deposits more powers in the hands of the president than he used to have. He will henceforth begin to see all sorts of possibilities in accreting in influence and control in hostile states. He now understands how to grab power and how to fund that grab, irrespective of what positive ends he puts the grab to. Technically, he now knows what to do to extend emergency rule, and he will not be incommoded by shortage of funds, nor, quite embarrassing to every Nigerian, will he be in short supply of support.

    The Joint Task Force has proudly announced its troops have completely overrun Boko Haram camps in the emergency states. No less was expected. It would be stupid of the militants to stay and fight. The only time they did so in 2009, they were worsted, and their leader, Mohammed Yusuf, extra-judicially murdered. Since then they have adopted guerrilla tactics and war of attrition that enervate even the most sophisticated army. When emergency was proclaimed it was expected that the Boko Haram militants would flee their camps, regroup at a future date, re-strategise, and re-launch their terror war in more lethal fashion. It is that uncertain and sanguinary aftermath that the JTF and the Jonathan presidency should be worried about.

    I restate my perspective once again that Dr Jonathan’s leadership style is inconsistent with the highest ideals and principles of great leadership. State of emergency is superfluous in the circumstances of the rebellion in the Northeast, as it was superfluous in Plateau and Ekiti States under Obasanjo and in the defunct Western Region under Tafawa Balewa. If Dr Jonathan had not taken a dim view of the matter by embracing melodrama, he would have discovered that deploying additional troops and pacifying the region did not need the agency of a state of emergency, not to talk of needlessly and surreptitiously weakening democratic structures in the affected areas and indeed everywhere, tampering with the fundamental principles of federalism by proposing to spend state and LG money, and unjustly and unfairly blaming and subordinating elected governments to military commanders.

    Moreover, there is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of the crisis facing the country in the Northeast. The rebellion in that region may have socio-economic undertones and a veneer of politics, but it is also much more disturbingly a potpourri of sectarian and class revolts rooted in malformed medieval ideologies. Such revolts, which often come and go within a generation, do not respond to force as facilely as many hope. But to the consternation of the sober and the mirth of the hysteric, Dr Jonathan has reacted to the crisis simplistically and imprudently. On its own, the National Assembly, in particular the Senate, has failed to react to the president’s prognosis with the kind of legislative aplomb a modern and activist legislature should summon.

    Giving free rein to the president’s subversion of democratic structures in the affected states is bound to have repercussions in the near and distant future. Obasanjo was not checked in 2006, though he never imposed emergency in more than one state at a time. Now, Jonathan has imposed emergency in three states at once, and seems set to foment trouble in a fourth, Rivers. And by harshly and abruptly discarding the little progress the country has made in consolidating democracy, and by stifling opposition efforts to propound alternatives, the president and his supporters have injured the body politic much more obnoxiously than Boko Haram is ever capable of doing.

  • Like Mali, like Nigeria

    Like Mali, like Nigeria

    How that the Presidency has eventually acted by facing the security challenges bedeviling the country eyeball-to-eyeball, I rerun this piece published here on Friday March 29, 2013. Declaring emergency andembarking on a shooting war is the easy part, the main WORK is to DECLARE GOOD GOVERNACE across the entire country. Please read carefully:

    When reality struck me smack in the face, I could not cry; I actually laughed out loud as if to say, Nigeria, “I dey laugh o!” To think that Nigeria, a crumbling entity actually sent troops to Mali to quell insurgency! On a second thought, it occurred to me that our presence in Mali is not altogether altruistic; it is largely because there is some dollars to share. I will not discuss here, the number of military trucks, armoured personnel carriers and assault rifles Nigeria to make her fit to embark on a foreign peace mission. The question today is that is Nigeria truly more stable than Mali? Is it more secure, is it better governed and better led?

    Reality check

    Not that one didn’t have an inkling of the dire situation the polity in enmeshed in especially under President Goodluck Jonathan’s watch, but reality dealt me a dirtier slap when I read a report of a terrorist attack in Yobe state last Monday. Let me present the report verbatim as carried by National Mirror newspaper (Tuesday, March 26, 2013, page47):

    “Gunmen yesterday morning attacked the Bara Divisional Police Station in Yobe State killing one police man.

    “Bara is the headquarters of Gulani Local Government Area of the state.

    “Sources said that the attack began at about 1:00 am and lasted for about two and half hours.

    “The attackers burnt the police station and went away with the three cars parked in the premises.

    “The Yobe State Commissioner of Police, Mr Sanusi Rufai who confirmed the incident to journalists in Damaturu, the state capital, said though the police station was burnt with rocket propelled launcher and explosive devices, the attack was repelled by security operatives .

    “He also said that the police man killed was a corporal, adding that the slain victim was slaughtered by the gunmen in his residence at about 5:00 am after the attack on the police station.

    “The attackers, according to the police boss, also destroyed MTN and Glo telecoms masts.

    “The gunmen also carted away three local government vehicles.

    “The commissioner, however, said no arrests had been made in connection with the attack and no individual or group had claimed responsibility.”

    This attack comes exactly one week after the massive devastation of the New Luxury Bus Park in Sabon Gari, Kano, also in the Northwest of Nigeria. Yobe is a vast swath of border state. So are Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Jigawa, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, kwara and even Oyo and Ogun. These states deserve special security attention, to say the least. From the account of the attacks in Yobe, it is obvious any notion of security in Nigeria is merely a ruse; we seem to be living by sheer Grace. For such a sensitive state where attacks have been rampant in the last two years, security is still virtually non-existent. This explains why a gang of hoodlums would operate for four hours (1pm to 5am), sacking police station, LGA office, damaging telecoms facilities and driving away with about six vehicles without a trace; they could have had breakfast if they wanted.

    Stories like Yobe’s are happening everyday across Nigeria. Last Friday, in Ganye town which is the headquarters of Ganye LGA in Adamawa State, gunmen stormed the Ganye Prisons, overpowered a combined team of Mobile Police, soldiers and other armed forces to free about 127 prisoners. About 25 people lay dead after the attack including the deputy comptroller in charge of the prison, Mallam Baba Musa. In Benue, the Tivs and the Nomadic Fulani are engaged in a killing spree; kwara, Ebonyi, Cross River, are theatres of communal wars with security agent over-powered and in retreat. Plateau State’s matter is a full-fledged debacle where perhaps, more Nigerians have been slaughtered than cattle in the last 10 years. Just last Tuesday, 28 people were killed and several villages razed in an overnight raid in Ryom Local Council. As has always been the case, Ryom could have been a jungle or the centre of the Kalahari Desert for there was no sign of government or security presence as the blood fest went on. In the south-south and south-east parts of the country, kidnappers and ritualists reign as security agencies wish they would be left alone.

     

    Where there is no government

    The reality that should be poking sticks into our eyes is that this entity has buckled terribly. Henry Okah, master-mind of the Abuja the bomber was tried and jailed in South Africa last Tuesday; James Ibori, was jailed in London recently but hardly any high profile criminal can be convicted or jailed in today’s Nigeria because our leaders have been castrated by corruption and our institutions suborned. The reality that most of us are wont to deny is that all else has failed in Nigeria except the stream of oil revenues that our leaders steal and fritter away as soon as they are earned.

    Our reality, which we tend deny, is that there is hardly any governance going on in Nigeria today. Yes, we see some governors and ministers deigning to do some work but they are not governing; they are merely executing odd, oft ill-conceived projects. Governance by a simple definition is working the institution, not working the helmsman. Therefore, while there are a few projects going on in some towns and city centres, a vast swath of space is overlooked along with larger population. Most of the 774 LGAs across the land are untouched, ungoverned and famished. Hardly any socio-economic activities go on there as the state governors hijack and squander the funds meant for this tier.

    Again, our unspoken reality is that our hinterlands are so withered and wasted that any band of boys with as many as six assault rifles could seize a chunk of the country and have the police, army, airforce running helter-skelter in their usual reactionary mode. Such is our reality and our predicament. Our naked reality is that Nigeria is no better than Mali today and if we knew any better, the UN should be considering a standby troop for Nigeria before the last few cords snap. Our REAL reality is that the current leadership lacks the capacity to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. Our leaders are only single-minded about holding power; what a pity, blind people desperate to rule a dead country.

    FEED BACK: Kalu’s Njiko Igbo and a tear for Ndigbo

    Happy Sunday Steve read your article in The Nation (May 17). What is the meaning of Njiko? Before you answer me I would like to console you. As a northerner I honestly admire such Igbo politicians like Ken Nnamani, former Senate president. The Igbo should rally round him for he might be their saving grace. To that extent, no need to weep for Ndigbo. Have a nice day – 08051571477

    Mr. Osuji I like the way you always tackle Igbo causes, but you were criminally silent when Gov. T.A. Orji sacked Igbos from other states while retaining non-Igbos – 08037649389

    Brother Osuji people like you who are still able to talk to our people should continue to do so. I returned to Igboland to find a weak and divided people. I had thought my people were strong. Rather they find so much pleasure in inflicting pain on their people. We run to outsiders to give us political power instead of looking at ourselves and bonding together.- 07063315222

    I love your write ups in The Nation. Please keep it up. – 07037999888

    It appears to me that the unique thing that makes the Igbo man prosper in business is the very thing that is his Achilles heel when it comes to politice. What that unique thing is can only be defined by the Igbo themselves – 07042325266

     

  • Rivers PDP: Power has returned to original owners, says Wike

    Rivers PDP: Power has returned to original owners, says Wike

    • Ex-militant ‘generals’ take over venue as new state exco is inaugurated

    • We want president not VP, former deputy speaker Opara tells Amaechi

    Amid tight security jointly provided by armed policemen, operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) and ex-militant ‘generals’ the Felix Obuah-led executive council of the PDP in Rivers State yesterday declared that the state is solidly behind President Goodluck Jonathan for a second term in office.

    It said the people of the state are not interested in the vice presidential slot, a veiled reference to the position allegedly being sought by the state governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi.

    The governor’s alleged ambition is at the core of his current face-off with the Presidency and many PDP members in the state.

    It has factionalised the PDP in the state with one group loyal to the governor and the other (Obuah exco) loyal to the Minister of State for Education, Mr. Nyesom Wike.

    Even the State House of Assembly is not spared with 27 members, including the speaker on the side of the governor and the remaining five on the other side.

    The five pro-Wike lawmakers are officially suspended by the House while the 27 on the side of the governor have been suspended by the Obuah-led PDP for alleged anti-party activities.

    Leading the ex-militant ‘generals’ at yesterday’s dedication of the Obuah-led ecxo at an elaborate thanksgiving service was Soboma Jackrich, alias Egberipapa.

    The venue was the Port Harcourt Club 1928, old Government Reservation Area (GRA), in the state capital.

    In attendance were Wike, Obuah, former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Austin Opara and Senator Lee Meaba, and the five pro-Wike State legislators- Michael Chinda (Obio/Akpor II constituency), Kelechi Godspower Nwogu (Omuma), Evans Bipi (Ogu/Bolo), Martins Amaewhule (Obio/Akpor I), Victor Ihunwo (Port Harcourt III) and a member of the House of Representatives from Rivers State, Kingsley Chinda.

    Traditional rulers, party men and women as well as cultural groups from different parts of the state witnessed the event.

    An anti-bomb police squad car with registration number: NPF 1764 C and an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) were among the security equipment deployed at the event ceremony.

    Policemen frisked every one going into the venue.

    Former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives (Austin Opara), who chaired the party’s reconciliation committee in 2011, described Obuah as the “real and authentic” chairman of the PDP in Rivers State.

    Opara said: “Let power go back to the people. Open your doors and carry everybody along. We do not want vice-president in 2015. We want president.

    “We are assuring President Jonathan that Rivers state will vote PDP in 2015. It is time for change. It is time for emancipation.”

    Wike, on his part, said that with the April 15 emergence of Obuah, through the judgment of an Abuja High Court power has returned to the original owners in Rivers.

    PDP, he said, remains one united family.

    Obuah declared that his administration is for peace and not interested in getting the governor impeached as being insinuated in some quarters.

    Wike said: “This is not a rally. This is a thanksgiving service. We are dedicating the executive to God, because without God, it would not have been possible for them to be here today. I will appeal first of all that we must understand our one family. One big umbrella family that is enough to accommodate everybody. PDP is one united family.

    “We agree to disagree. We disagree to agree. At the end of the day, all of us will still be in the same family, but one thing that is paramount is that power has returned to the original owners. The owners of the power are you and I. The members of the executive are just servants of the party. You are the leaders of this party. Your voice must be heard at all times. It is what you want that the party will do.

    “I will appeal to the executive, led by the chairman, Felix Obuah, as his name implies, go round, let all these things go round everybody. I also want to appeal to him (Obuah), not to be provoked.

    “Today, he has become a father. As a father, he must have a large heart. He has to have a forgiving spirit, to forgive those children, who may not behave the way you have told them to behave. Sometimes, you shout on them. Sometimes, you bring them back.

    “Let me say clearly that this party has regulations. President Jonathan is the leader of the party, as far as Nigeria is concerned. Let me apologise that if not for the tight schedules of Governor Amaechi, who is the leader of the party at the state level, he would have been here in person.

    “As my leader, he (Amaechi) has instructed me to tell you that he is a member of the PDP and he will continue to be a member of the PDP. I will also take back the message that you the supporters have sent that he (Amaechi) should be remembered. That I will do.

    “What is important to know, is that the governor of the state is the leader of the PDP in Rivers State. That is the structure of the party. As a minister, I am not the leader of the party.

    “Above all, a leader of the party is a member of the party and therefore, the party is supreme. Supremacy of the party is very important.

    “I thank all of you for coming, to have this thanksgiving. I am really overwhelmed. Let me tell you, do not be quarrelling with people. Do not be replying what people say. What you must know in life is that change is difficult to accept. When there is change, you do not except people at the same time to embrace the change. Sometimes, they have no choice, but to embrace it.

    “What is happening today is a natural reaction, because there is a power shift. Because the mandate has been returned to the people. Those who were occupying it before ordinarily will not be happy. So, whatever is happening today, do not be angry, then begin to ventilate your anger that people are abusing us. We are human beings. We must be abused. We are not ghosts. We are human beings. So, we must be abused.

    “The abuse cannot remain on our skin. So, you must be able to accommodate it. At the end of the day, you will see that everybody will come back here. I assure you, from now till December, what you see today, you will hear a different thing. It is not that they do not like Go Round, they like him, but just that they have to react, so that they will know that they are also not happy.

    “We are in PDP. We will follow the programmes of PDP. We have no choice, but to support his government. I am appealing to every true PDP member that we will continue to support the President and Commander-in-Chief, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. That is important.”

    The new chairman of the PDP in Rivers state noted that he was humbled and overwhelmed by the mammoth crowd of party faithful, who gathered and joined him and members of the State Working Committee (SWC) of the “great” party, to glorify God Almighty, for his love and faithfulness.

    Obuah said: “Since assumption of office, my executive committee has made efforts in moving the party in the state to the next level. Only recently, we inaugurated various committees, to help reengineer the party in the state. Party members with impeccable character, have been saddled with these responsibilities and by the special grace of God, we shall succeed.

    “Another important issue I want to address is the extent governance in Rivers state has been reduced to blackmail. Whenever impunity in governance is questioned, party members and stakeholders are blackmailed, as those who want to share Rivers money. This cheap blackmail is not acceptable to the leadership of this party in the state.

    “Let me also advise that there is no need heating the polity with hired demonstrators along the streets of Port Harcourt on a daily basis. A situation where top government functionaries gather and resort to raising false alarms of assassination and declaration of emergency rule in Rivers state. That only exists in their myopic imagination. It is to say the least, unacceptable.

    “This administration is for peace. We want to move Rivers state forward. We have not on any day, anywhere planned to impeach the governor (Amaechi). That is not our mission. We want to bring everybody together.

    “As we prepare to face 2015 elections, the party in the state must remain one family, to deliver PDP in Rivers State, as it has been PDP state since 1999 and must remain PDP state. Nobody, no group of people can change Rivers State from being PDP state.

    “The people that make things happen are all here gathered. To God be the glory. The PDP is still the PDP you all know.”

  • Ohaneze seeks posthumous award for Achebe

    Ndigbo apex cultural group, Ohaneze Ndi-Igbo, yesterday urged President Goodluck Jonathan to honour the late literary icon, Chinua Achebe, with a posthumous award for projecting the image of Nigeria to the world.

    The Anambra president of the group, Elder Chris Eluemuno, who made the call in an interview with newsmen in Awka reechoed that the late literary icon left many legacies on the sand of time.

    He said: “Achebe has written more novels and has written more globally accepted novel than any Nigerian.

    “He has received more international awards than any writer in Africa apart from the Nobel laurel.

    “He never pretended that he never liked the white man in his style of writing.

    He was truly a Nigerian, he was truly African and that is why he deserves a national honour.”

    Eluemuno said that Ohaneze Ndigbo would support the Federal Government and the South East State governments in giving the late professor a befitting burial.

    According to him, many traditional activities have also been lined up to project him as a true Igbo man.

    He disclosed that the national body of the group had plans to immortalise the late icon.

  • Much ado about intervention funds

    Much ado about intervention funds

    Opinions are divided as to the propriety or otherwise of some of the intervention funds declared by the Federal Government in recent times, with many arguing that such funds may not have been well-thought out in the first place. Bukola Afolabi takes a look at the contending issues

    WHETHER on the airwaves or newspaper pages, Nigerians are continuously assaulted with stories and reports announcing one intervention fund or the other, but the irony however is that people hardly stand the chance to get the carrots being dangled, a development, which leaves many wondering if the futility of the exercise is worth the trouble.

    Diary of Intervention funds under Jonathan

    The Federal Government, under the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan, has spent at least N1.732trn on intervention funds in different sectors of the economy, investigation has revealed. The figure represents the sum of the amounts approved by the government as intervention funds between 2010, when Jonathan became President, and December 2012.

    Some of the intervention funds include the N200bn Small and Medium Guarantee Scheme, N200bn Restructuring and Refinancing Facility Scheme and the N300bn Power and Airline Intervention Fund. Others are the N75bn Grooming Enterprise Leaders Business Intervention Fund, N32bn Entertainment Intervention Fund and N10.71bn Commercial Agriculture Credit Guarantee Scheme to six banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

    That is not all. Also on the long list of intervention funds, are the N300bn approved for the hotel and leisure sub-sector in 2012; N200bn for indigenous pharmaceutical companies and N100bn textile industry bailout.

    Also in 2010, the FG reportedly disbursed about N7.9bn to 25 companies from the National Automotive Fund. The money was for the production of vehicles, motor cycles, bicycle tyres and other accessories. An additional N3bn was earmarked for disbursement to nine companies before the end of that year.

    As at July 2011, the Bank of Industry had reportedly disbursed N195bn out of the N200bn meant for the refinancing of the manufacturing sector to 518 companies across the six geo-political zones, while N83bn out of the N300bn for the power and aviation sectors had also been disbursed to companies in these sectors.

    The Federal Government also disbursed N126.1bn as export expansion grant between 2010 and 2012. That same year, the FG approved N330m grants to assist 20,000 farmers in Lagos state in July while. In November, 2012, the FG, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria, disbursed a soft loan worth N9.4m to members of the Nigeria Cassava Growers Association, Nasarawa State chapter.

    As part of FG’s intervention in education in 2012, it approved N95.653bn for public tertiary institutions in the country, through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund. Within the period under review, the FG disbursed several funds through the Universal Basic Education Commission. One of such was N94m disbursed to 125 communities in Bayelsa State, in September, 2011, for self-help projects.

    In the agricultural sector, the CBN, through its Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), approved a take-off grant of N75bn to boost agriculture businesses.

    The Head, Project Implementation of NIRSAL, CBN, Mr. Jude Uzonwanne, reportedly said N45bn from the N75bn had been set aside as loans to the farmers, while the balance would be used to train and insure them.

    Furore over intervention funds

    Irked by the situation in which government’s interventions have had little or no impact on the economy, the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), conducted a survey and found that only six per cent of industrialists accessed the funds. NACCIMA said this at the presentation of the survey report to stakeholders in July 2012.

    However NACCIMA President, Dr. Ademola Ajayi, said the intervention funds were faced with the problem of accessibility. According to Ajayi, despite the FG’s N100bn textile bailout fund, less than 25 per cent of textile manufacturers were operating above 50 per cent capacity utilisation.

    Apart from inability of stakeholders to access the government’s intervention funds, there have been discrepancies in the administration of the funds. While some of the funds have been diverted to other uses, parts of the funds can no longer be accounted for.

    According to Florence Seriki of Omatek Computer who is a beneficiary of CBN /BOI intervention fund let us know that the intervention fund through BOI was assessable if you follow the procedure, some people said if you don’t know them in BOI one on one you cannot get the loan but it is not true.

    The names Munira Shonibare, Mr. Suren Mirchandani a foreigner, are some of those who have benefitted from past intervention fund.

    Meanwhile, an anti-corruption group, Coalition against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), said Nigerians had yet to see the impact of the funds on their lives.

    The Executive Chairman, CACOL, Mr. Debo Adeniran, said, “The funds are meant to settle the boys, the political elite. It is just a palliative to hoodwink people into believing that the government is helping them.

    “The solution is not to dole out funds but to make sure jobs are generated and infrastructure is developed to encourage small and medium-scale industries. There should be micro-credit facilities for entrepreneurs to increase local content. Most intervention funds are a wrong step in the right direction. The government is just chasing shadows. The funds will not make people face the reality to be creative and productive.”

    Another group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), said it was improper for the government to approve intervention funds for private enterprises, citing the example of the aviation sector. The Executive Director, SERAP, Mr. Adetokunbo Mumuni, said, “If the government allocates funds for public institutions, provided it is properly accounted for, it is acceptable; when such funds are for private businesses, it is not acceptable. Why use the public funds to intervene in private enterprises? It is unreasonable and unjustifiable.

    “Spending on private businesses sounds fraudulent. Monies have been spent without proper account for them. The government can only give financial intervention, provided funds would be spent transparently and accountably.”

    Lawmakers raise red flag

    The Senate Committee on Public Accounts, last year, raised the alarm over a missing N44bn from the FG’s Special Intervention Fund on Solid Minerals. The committee discovered the missing funds during an interactive session it had with officials of the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

    The committee said despite the fact that the fund was created by the FG as a special intervention fund to develop the non-oil sector of the nation’s economy, no project had been accomplished in the sector.

    According to the Senator Ahmad Lawan-led committee, the records of the Federal Ministry of Finance and that of the CBN could not properly account for about N44bn, out of the total figure of N873bn, between 2002 and May 31, 2012.The committee also found that part of the funds had been used to finance projects in other sectors.

    Defence

    The Director, Development Finance of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Paul Eluhaiwe, has said that the intervention fund for real and power sectors to the Bank of Industry (BOI) is being utilised properly by the companies. Speaking during the CBN and the BOI joint monitoring visit to Western Metal Products Company (WEMPCO GROUP) and Aero Contractors in Lagos recently Eluhaiwe said that the intervention fund for Western Metal was used to build a 52 mega watts  power plant to power factories of different production lines.

    The Director noted that the visit to the factory had given them insight into how the fund has been utilised and its benefit to the company. According to him, about 1000 Nigerians are employed at Western Metal whose products include tile rod steel, flat sheets, nails and ceramic tiles.

    “The CBN-BOI intervention has helped in the employment of about 1000 Nigerians in this place alone. The fund is to help in the industrialization of Nigeria and if we can have three or four of this kind of project we could be producing automobiles in the country as the flat sheets produced here can be used to manufacture cars and some of the components,” he said.

    For Paul Ofu, BOI General Manager, Risk Management Division, the intervention fund was provided at single digit interest rate with long tenure. According to him, the joint monitoring team is happy with the power plant by Western Metal which can power all their factories in 24 hours.

    Reality check

    A recent survey conducted by NACCIMA in collaboration with Enhancing Nigerian Advocacy for a Better Business Environment (ENABLE) showed that of the 358 respondents, 62 businesses, representing 17 percent, attempted to access the funds, but only six percent succeeded. The survey revealed that the top three reasons for unsuccessful applications were cumbersome application processes, inability to meet requirements, and financial constraints.

    It also showed that 24 percent of respondents perceived the entire process as difficult, while 57 percent claimed that it was very difficult to access the funds.

    Analysts say a combination of factors is responsible for the minimal impact of the intervention funds which often include a flawed design for the funds, market failure, fraud and a lack of creativity by deposit money banks, which are often the transmission channel for such funds.

    “A big issue that holds banks back from developing more innovative products is the lack of the specialised skill set that can structure in a risk appropriate way for these sort of products,” Kayode Akindele, Partner at 46 Parallel, a Lagos based investment firm, said.

    “There is a lack of human capital with the requisite credit and risk management skills required. Banks that try and develop these products without the right staff or risk systems to monitor them properly are putting the financial standing of their institutions at risk.”

    CBN’s volt face

    The CBN has in the past said that Nigerian banks do not have the necessary skill sets for agriculture lending, yet the same banks are the CBN’s partners in its Agriculture Intervention Fund. Nigeria’s private-sector credit growth is up a meager 2.99 percent this year, to N15.12 trillion in October, from N14.68 trillion in January.

    About 80 percent of Nigeria’s private credit goes to sectors of the economy that account for only 23 percent of real GDP growth, according to data from the CBN and National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).Agriculture for example, is responsible for almost 30 percent of real GDP growth; however, only 2 percent of credit extended goes to the agriculture sector. Two other important drivers of growth, trade and communications (and transport), which are responsible for 26 percent and 22 percent of growth, respectively, also receive relatively low shares of private credit – 11 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

    The Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee investigating the crash of Dana and Allied Airlines aircraft in July 2012 alleged that the N300 billion Aviation Intervention Fund, was diverted by the industry’s operators.

    Some major intervention funds made available by the FG and CBN to increase access to credit for private sector businesses include the N200 billion Small and Medium Enterprises Credit Guarantee Scheme (SMECGS), which was launched in April 2010.

    The N200 billion Restructuring and Refinancing Facility (REF) scheme, approved by the CBN in 2010, aimed at fast-tracking the development of the manufacturing sector of the Nigerian economy. The Nigerian Incentive Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) was also launched in 2011 with a view to providing farmers with affordable financial products and reducing the risks of such loans to the benefitting farmers.

    The Commercial Agriculture Credit Guarantee Scheme (CACS), established in 2009, in collaboration between the CBN and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, aimed at supporting finance for the agricultural value chain (production, processing, storage and marketing).The scheme is financed through a N200 billion ($ 1.25 million) 7 year bond raised by the Debt Management Office (DMO).There is also the Power and Airline Intervention Fund (PAIF), introduced in September 2010.

    Rather than address critical national needs, intervention funds in Nigeria have become facilities meant for political associates and their cronies.

    Given the peculiarities of our country, it thus looks like the solution is really not to dole out funds under the guise of special intervention. What Nigeria really need is for the government to put in place structures that would lead to job creation, by providing infrastructure that will encourage small and medium-scale industries to thrive.

    Besides the fact that most intervention funds are misdirected, there is the tendency that the funds will make people less creative and productive, the situation which the country can rarely afford at this critical time.

    In the view of analysts, what the country needs is a well structured and properly managed micro-credit facility for entrepreneurs to increase local content and not one bogus intervention fund that will ultimately end up in the pockets of the few greedy Nigerians.

  • State of emergency superfluous

    State of emergency superfluous

    It requires a huge dose of optimism to trust President Goodluck Jonathan’s instinct in declaring a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. I confess I do not have such an endowment, and I am not careful to hold a contrary position on this very controversial issue. Majority of Nigerians, perhaps 99 percent, favour emergency, and either abusively denounce those who don’t or equate opposition to emergency with support for Boko Haram insurgency. They are entitled to their opinion. The more supporters of emergency work themselves up into a fever over the few of us who see through the president’s manoeuvres, the more convinced I am that both the president and his supporters are misguided and intolerant.

    A day after Jonathan took the plunge and committed the Northeast angrily into emergency, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) spontaneously denounced the declaration and pointed out that the president was in fact playing politics with the issue of insecurity. But one day later, after having had the chance to reflect on the delicate matter and to measure the weight of their courage in the face of massive public endorsement of emergency, the party mellowed its stand from asking the National Assembly to reject emergency to asking them to examine it cautiously. I do not pretend to any of the party’s luxuries. I understand the need for the party to cast a wary, indeed longing, eye on the next general elections, and must therefore be careful not to distance itself too inappropriately from the herd grazing on emergency. But I have no vote to seek, and if I wish, I may even have no vote to cast in 2015.

    Of course the ACN, much more than any other party, did well to publicise its initial opposition to emergency even before it understood which way the cats were jumping. That it has had to quickly modify its original stand merely reflects that its leaders are realists who must watch the ballot box with a defensive keenness that exceeds its vaunted predatory instincts. The scale of support for Jonathan’s emergency declaration must have stunned northern leaders themselves into whooping for the measure, I suspect, against their better judgement. Indeed, in the north, whether among former heads of state or among leading politicians, all we hear is a mellifluous chorus of support for emergency. Obviously, at a time like this, discretion is the better part of valour.

    The dispute over emergency, it must be reiterated, is not about whether Boko Haram needed to be fought and defeated or whether it should be tolerated and pampered. Everyone, except the sect’s members, agrees that the killings in the north needed to be halted. The dispute, therefore, is essentially about methods, not goals. The southern part of Nigeria never liked Boko Haram for one minute, and minced no words in vociferously deploring its methods and objectives, even at the constant and irritating risk of accusing the north of supporting the sect. A corollary of that assumed convergence between the north and the sect is the south’s dismissive characterisation of every northerner who proposes a different perspective of tackling the insurgency as a Boko Haram supporter. Indeed, in my view, the northern part was at first ambivalent to the sect, even seemingly indulgent, and only belatedly horrified and shaken by the huge scale of atrocities the militants were perpetrating.

    Readers of this column will recall my trenchant view of Boko Haram, my opposition to amnesty, except for the sect’s foot soldiers, and only because of the administrative cost of prosecuting every sect member, and my unalloyed support for secularism and democracy. Boko Haram should be fought, and the military should lead the battle. But we must be careful to plan beyond military victory. The question to ask is whether emergency will help the government and the military to explain why they failed to defeat the sect and pacify the region. I suspect it will not. Dr Jonathan’s state of emergency does not only reek of politics, it seems to me a facile and fatuous strategy to divert attention from serious issues pertaining to the long-running campaign against terror in Nigeria, such as the Baga killings. Emergency also conceals the general disinclination of the Jonathan presidency for rigorous thinking and scientific governance and foreshadows a rising dictatorship.

    The Nigerian constitution places the responsibility for security squarely on the shoulders of the president, not in the hands of governors. If anyone was, therefore, remiss in his responsibility for security in the Northeast, it was the president. In fighting Boko Haram, there has been no presidential initiative to deploy forces that the states or local governments disagreed with. Dr Jonathan had the unlimited power to add to and subtract from the number of troops deployed in the war front. He took no input from the governors about tactical deployment, and there was no part of the affected states from which federal forces were barred. Does Jonathan therefore need a state of emergency to raise troop strength? What is he doing now that he couldn’t do without declaring emergency? Warrant to search? Suspension of habeas corpus?

    Section 305 of the 1999 constitution broadly describes the procedure for the proclamation of a state of emergency. As the ACN pointed out in its initial position, emergency was already in force in many parts of the Northeast, but was ineffective. Nobody ever questioned the government’s deployments and even rights abuses until Borno elders began to notice strange killings. In fact, there are no powers granted by emergency proclamation that the people had not already vouchsafed to the president in view of the drastic circumstances of insecurity in those regions. It is, therefore, necessary for to be cautious about emergency and admonish Nigerians on why the proclamation should be considered carefully side-by-side with Sections 33 and 35 of the constitution dealing with the rights of the people. It may even be necessary to draw attention to the entire Chapter IV of the constitution for the public and the National Assembly to appreciate those rights that, in emergency, are or should be non-derogable.

    The proclamation has been sent to the National Assembly, and the two chambers have scheduled a discussion for Tuesday. It is important they remove the fears of the people that Section 305 as applied will not be used inappropriately and narrow-mindedly to derogate the rights of the people under emergency. The legislature must not allow itself to be carried away by popular emotions, nor be blackmailed by the reckless and aggressive support most Nigerians have offered the president. They must carefully determine whether the cause of peace would be served by the liberty the president wishes to take over a war he has largely bungled and prolonged by his dithering.

    By declaring emergency, it seems to me, Dr Jonathan gave the impression that someone else, perhaps the governors of the affected states and their conniving political elite, was to blame for insecurity and Boko Haram. The governors’ economic and social policies probably contributed to the beginnings of the revolt and undoubtedly aggravated it, but it is inconceivable that emergency should be expected to remedy the problem and stamp it out permanently. The president also needed emergency to deflect censorious attention from the alleged atrocities that took place in Baga, Borno State in April. The matter was being probed, until emergency was declared. Not only will the probes now be compromised, it is certain that with emergency, no other probe elsewhere will be entertained. Frightened by the countrywide unanimity of approval for the president’s extraordinary measures, northern leaders have, against their better judgement, abandoned the hapless people of the three states to be sandwiched between the extreme measures of the Nigerian security forces and the brutal fanaticism and extortion of the Boko Haram sect.

    This abandonment is anchored on the indefensible argument, advanced mainly by the south and the presidency, that the people of those states had a duty to expose the sect. In other words damned if they rat on the sect, and damned if for fear of their lives they don’t. I feel for them, and wish we had a more informed, more empathetic and more reflective president. The campaign against Boko Haram failed not because we didn’t have the troops and the logistics to fight the sect, but because the security forces failed to fight a winnable and moral war, and win the confidence of the local populace, as indeed other victorious armies in the world take care to do. It is instructive that while Nigerians were hailing the president’s show of force and firepower in the Northeast, it took a visiting British general, Robert Fry, a former deputy commanding general of the coalition forces in Iraq, to caution against the use of excessive force in the Northeast. But Nigerians would rather those states were smashed to smithereens, and the local populace blamed themselves for not pushing out the militants in their midst. It seems we have lost our senses.

    President Jonathan, I have argued, does not need a state of emergency to take the measures he has just adumbrated. But none in the National Assembly will have the heart to tell him that. I am persuaded that indeed the proclamation reeks of offensive politicking. The Northeast is anti-Jonathan, and will stay so until 2015 and beyond. The president does not have any emotional attachment to those states, and could care less what they feel, as he said when he reluctantly visited them in March. Judging from his anger as he read his speech in a tremulous voice on Tuesday, Dr Jonathan was evidently tormented by his private demons, and was intemperate, unstatesmanlike and full of unnecessary fury. His supposed fierce mien was not, as some imagined, a ploy to display presidential toughness; it instead betrayed his boyish instinct for sophistry, his rustic impulsiveness, and his burgeoning ruthlessness and dictatorial tendency.

    Future generations will recall how, on the excuse of battling insurgency and saving the union, we abandoned to the federal rampage our kith and kin in the Northeast, a majority of whom are law-abiding, and for whom sadly and mortifyingly the rest of the world feels more fellow-feeling than Nigerians. By whooping hysterically for war, rather than for a clinical and brilliant campaign to take out the offending rascals destabilising the union, we seem to say that the problem, whose roots are deeper than military defeat can extirpate, can be destroyed with a massive military blow. Nothing can be further from the reality. Military victory may be achieved in the near future, but it remains to be seen whether the fiery and indecipherable logic of the rebellion and the sect’s promotion of borderless war can be subdued permanently by conventional military tactics.

    But more saddening are those who argue that the president should have sent the governors and their legislative houses packing either for being the cause of this imbroglio or for worsening it. This is simply senseless. Are we so undisciplined that at the first hint of a major trouble we are willing to whimsically dishonour some of the provisions of the constitution, or select which part to obey and which to ignore or downgrade? Strangely, among those who make this nonsensical argument are lawyers and academics who should know better. But it is not only lawyers who are losing their heads, that is, after Aso Villa’s melodramatic buck-passing, even journalists and editorial writers have gone completely irrational. They have not only endorsed Dr Jonathan’s questionable decision to impose emergency, they, who should be the bastion of civil rights and free speech, have issued dire warnings to opposition parties to fall in line behind the president. Already, of course, and as the brusque declaration of curfew in Adamawa showed, executive, judicial and legislative powers have been abridged by the military. The governors will be ceremonial leaders throughout the emergency, even as the affected states may be coaxed into parting with a part of their monthly allocation to the war effort.

    It is necessary for the National Assembly to scrutinise the president’s proclamation very closely and tame it. If, without emergency, the Baga incident elicited so much controversy, what should we expect with the leeway emergency proclamation confers? The legislators must understand that with the events in Rivers State, where federal might is being immoderately and perversely deployed, and the unsupportable and capricious inclusion of Adamawa in the emergency declaration, we are well on our way to a brutal dictatorship. We recall how miserably we fared when we feebly confronted the dictatorship and arbitrariness of the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo presidency; it is up to us if in the face of Dr Jonathan’s political dubieties we begin to prevaricate or, worse, wilt. We should not blame Boko Haram for exposing our poor mettle or northern leaders who failed to rally against the sect. If another president takes us for a ride again, and in the end corrupts and weakens the fabric of our democracy, we have ourselves, our weak legislature and our impressionable press to thank.

  • State of emergency, long overdue – Obahiagbon

    The declaration of state of emergency in three states in the northern part of the country by President Goodluck Jonathan has been described as long overdue.

    Chief of Staff to Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, Patrick Obahiagbon, stated this in Benin City while addressing journalists.

    He lauded the president for his resolve to firmly tackle the insurgency which he noted is politically motivated.

    He affirmed that the decision by the president to allow political office holders in the affected states remain in power under the emergency rule attests to his respect for the nation’s presidential system of government.

    Obahiagbon was, however, quick to point out that the state of emergency only represents more military presence in the states which have been under siege by the Boko Haram sect.

    The former House of Representatives member noted that what is most important is for President Jonathan to take more decisive steps to curb the excesses of the sect which he regretted is bent on making Nigeria ungovernable.

  • Jonathan: Desperate race to 2015

    Jonathan: Desperate race to 2015

    The preparations for the next general elections may have diverted the attention of the power players from governance, reports Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU.

    Ahead of the 2015 general elections, President Goodluck Jonathan is baring his fangs. Among the targets for partisan political liquidation are the dissenting voices in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), combative opposition figures and a section of the media.

    The bone of contention between him and his perceived foes in the acclaimed largest party in Africa and the opposition parties is not the President’s constitutional eligibility for a second term. But certain forces in the PDP believe that zoning, the party’s real or imagined formula for rotating the highest office, should be revisited. Also, more worrisome to others is his fitness to continue in office, based on his performance as the number one citizen in the last three years.

    Many Nigerians agree that the major pre-occupation of the Jonathan Administration is the renewal of the presidential tenancy in the Aso Rock, the seat of power. The goal being projected is self-survival in office. It is believed that the management of the conflicts and crises generated by the preparations for the next general elections may have diverted the government’s attention from the pressing national issues. Thus, to the consternation of observers, the pursuit of the Federal Government’s transformation agenda may have taken the back seat because the commitment to good governance is fading.

     

    Challenging moment

     

    Many have observed that Nigeria is at a crossroads. Since 1970, when Nigeria survived a civil war, no particular issue has undermined the national stability like the insecurity. On the prowl is the Boko Haram sect, whose activities are said to be politically motivated. The President’s score card on security is therefore, poor, owing to the inability to nip the insurgency in the bud. When the former National Security Adviser (NSA), the late Gen. Patrick Aziza, drew a relationship between the grave security situation in the North to the neglect of zoning by the PDP, he was ignored and later shoved aside. The victim of the tension between constitutional eligibility for re-election and rotational principle is the polity, which is fretting under the excessive presidential weight. Opposition spokesman Alhaji Lai Mohammed berated the Federal Government for failing to restore order to a state of pandemonium. Other commentators have also described the President as a clueless administrator seized by the pursuit of personal ambition, instead of frontally confronting the security challenge and thereby paving the way for a conducive atmosphere for future elections.

     

    2015 and national

    expectation

     

    In two years time, the implementation of the ‘Transformation Agenda’ will become a campaign issue. Although the President has repeatedly assured Nigerians that miracles will happen before 2015, the opposition has maintained that morning shows the day. Defensively, the presidential spokesmen; Dr. Rueben Abati and Dr. Doyin Okupe; have rationalised the slow-motion approach of the Presidency. While Abati cited some reforms in the aviation and transport sectors as proofs of government’s commitment to the agenda, Okupe said that, before 2015, the perception of the people about the administration would definitely improve because the President would always rise to the occasion.

    However, the National Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande, disagreed. He observed that the problems have overwhelmed the administration, urging Nigerians to halt the PDP’s long years of locus. The ACN chieftain said that Nigerians are full of expectation for power shift in 2015, stressing that, in the last 14 years, PDP has not made a substantial impact on the polity. His grouse is that a President who has failed to find strategic solutions to the soaring unemployment, epileptic power supply and poor infrastructure has failed. “That is why APC is appealing to Nigerians to reject the PDP at the polls”, Akande added.

     

    Curious presidential style

     

    It is not the lack of charisma and carriage that has made critics to dismiss the President as a colourless and clueless leader. In practical statecraft, many think that he has not learned the ropes, three years after. On daily basis, his popularity may have been nose diving, unlike during the 2011 elections when Nigerians across the six geo-political zones voted for him. Curiously, in post-election period, , the presidential style of Dr. Jonathan seems to lacks appeal, tact and strategy. For example, against the run of opinion, the President proposed a change of name for the University of Lagos, Akoka. Although he renamed the institution after the winner of the 1993 historic presidential elections, the late Chief Moshood Abiola, the decision, which was decried by majority of Nigerians, could not stand. On the new year day, last year, he announced the removal of subsidy and crisis engulfed the country.

    Also, contrary to his statement that he would not negotiate with the faceless killers, Boko Haram sect, he turned around to offer amnesty, making some critics to chide him for double-speak. While his predecessor, the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua attempted to make accountability his watchword by openly declaring his asset, De. Jonathan refused to toe the same path, saying that he was not bound by the law.

    The President also dazed Nigerians by his reaction to the pension scam. Instead of firing the fraudsters, he turned his face, claiming that it was a matter for the law. The anti-graft war he inherited from his predecessors have also suffered a reverse when he pardoned his former boss, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who had been convicted for corruption.

     

    Heating up the polity

     

    To convey the impression that election is war in Nigeria, pro-Jonathan campaigners have been making inflammatory statements on his alleged ambition, thereby heating up the polity. Jonathan’s kinsman from the Southsouth, Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, has declared that there would be no peace in the Niger Delta and the country, if Jonathan is not returned as the President. He implied that the militants, who are now on holiday, owing to amnesty, would be recalled to terrorise the zone and disrupt petroleum exploration and mining activities. His ally is the Presidential Adviser on the Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, who also threatened fire and brimstone, saying that it is either Jonathan or Nigeria will see hell. Despite the condemnation that greeted these remarks, the Ijaw and Southsouth leader, Chief Edwin Clark, said that the remarks were not new, recalling that some northerners have made worse remarks in the past. At the presidency, mum is the word.

     

    PDP’s threat to capture

    32 states

     

    The threat by the PDP to capture 32 states, despite its unpopularity in many states, has been interpreted as an intention to rig the future elections. The PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, who urged the party members to work towards the target, said that it is possible. But Mohammed pointed out that the agenda was unrealisable, unless the polls are rigged. It is an understatement. There are 36 states. Currently, ACN has six, All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) has three, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has two, and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has one. Observer agree that the opposition governors are performing in their respective states. How can the PDP therefore, meet its target? Mohammed queried.

     

    Emasculation of

    perceived foes

     

    It fits into the calculations towards 2015 that the President, like his predecessors, should clamour for more control of the ruling party as the national leader. The casualties of this style are perceived foes in the fold. Top on the list is former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who unilaterally nominated him as running mate to Yar’ Adua in 2007. Today, the associates of the former leader in the PDP National Executive Committee (NEC) have been shoved aside. Obasanjo’s influence in his native Ogun State has also been cut to sizes. But this pales into insignificance in the face of the crisis between the President and Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi.

    Recently, the Rivers State House of Assembly cried out that pressures were being mounted on it to impeach the governor, following the rift between him and the President. The state government aircraft was grounded at the Akure Airport on account of the violation of the aviation rules. When the House suspended the elected Obiakpor Council chairmen and councillors, police invaded the council to reinstate them. Also, the Rivers State PDP has been seized by the protracted crises. Today, there are two parallel state executive committee fighting for the soul of the party.

    In Rivers State, the Minister of State for Education, Nyensom Wike, is coordinating the presidential battle against Amaechi. Sources said that the anti-Amaechi forces are working to achieve two goals. The first is to ensure that the governor does not have input into the election of his successor. The second is to ensure that his senatorial ambition is frustrated.

     

    War against Nigerian

    Governors’ Forum

     

    Since the Presidency infiltrated the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), the body has its unity and cohesion. Its chairman, Amaechi, was said to have made some remarks on national governance, which was considered offensive to the power-loaded President. When it was time for the NGF chairmanship election, hell was let loose when Amaechi signified his intention to re-contest. The meeting was rancorous, making the association to postpone the poll till this month. Sources said that the President’s men are working assiduously to ensure that another governor succeeds Amaechi as the next NGF chairman.

     

    PDP Governor’ Forum

     

    To counter the seemingly influential NGF, the PDP Governors’ Forum was hurriedly conceived by the party at the instance of the Presidency. The objective was to break the ranks of the governors, closely monitor the activities of the PDP governors, with the invocation of the doctrine of party discipline as checks, and protect the interest of the President. However, this strategy may not have achieved success as some governors in the North have continued to insist that they cannot be caged.

     

    New aviation rules

     

    Ahead of the next general elections, critics have alleged that a no-fly zone may be carved out, to the detriment of the opposition. Under the proposed rules, hindrances would be erected on the path of key opposition figures who have access to private planes for campaigns. If this works out, only the President may have the monopoly of airspace for presidential campaigns.

     

    Fake APC

     

    To prevent the registration of the proposed All Progressives Congress (APC), strange associations sprung up to seek registration as political parties. In their applications to the electoral commission, they deliberately adopted the acronyms that conflicted with that of the APC. Although the electoral commission rejected their proposal, they are still in court for the purpose of frustration the registration of the authentic APC, which is the merger of the ACN, ANPP, CPC and a section of the App Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).