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Tag: principle

  • A matter of principle

    A matter of principle

    • By Muhammadu Buhari

    Rarely in modern times can so few have tried to take so much from so many. 

    If Nigeria had lost its arbitration dispute with Process & Industrial Development in a London court on 23 October, it would have cost our people close to USD15 billion.

    We won, and all decent people can sleep easier as a result. 

    Justice Robin Knowles said Nigeria had been the victim of a monstrous fraud. 

    But it was a close-run thing. 

    As the judge said: “I end the case acutely conscious of how readily the outcome could have been different, and of the enormous resources ultimately required from Nigeria as the successful party to make good its challenge.”

    But ordinary Nigerians never took the decisions that ended up before Justice Knowles. 

    Had Nigeria lost, it would have required schools not to be built, nurses not to be trained and roads not to repaired, on an epic scale, to pay a handful of contractors, lawyers and their allies – for a project that never broke ground.

    • How did it get to this point? 

    • How did Nigeria prevail? 

    • Was this a one-off, or par for a shabby and distasteful course? 

    • What are the lessons for the future?

    The ‘P&ID Affair’ was already firmly set by the time I came into office in 2015. 

    A company registered in the British Virgin Islands that no one had heard of, with hardly any staff or assets, had won a contract to build a gas processing plant in Cross Rivers. 

    The company was owned by Irish intermediaries who knew Nigeria well and had done business in everything from healthcare to fixing tanks.

    The previous government could not supply the gas. 

    The plant was never built. 

    Construction was not started. 

    P&ID did not even buy the land for the facility. 

    But the contract, incredibly, was clear: P&ID could sue Nigeria, and claim all the profits it might have made over 20 years as if everything had been completed.

    Nigeria was in court in London, trying to talk down liability and costs. 

    Back at home, fixers were looking to work out a quiet settlement. 

    This is often the way. 

    A lot of contracts end up in dispute. 

    P&ID won a settlement in 2017 of USD6 billion, with compound interest. 

    People, including out of work ex-British Cabinet Minister Priti Patel, were queuing up to insist we paid, or risk Nigeria becoming an untrustworthy trade pariah.

    It was clear that far from the whole story hadn’t been told. 

    I tasked Abba Kyari, my chief- of-staff and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, with finding a way, even at that late stage and despite so much conflicting advice, to get us a fair hearing. 

    Working with a number of different agencies and senior officials of government, we began to find a huge amount of evidence, not all of which Justice Knowles was to accept. 

    But he agreed that P&ID had paid bribes. 

    He agreed that one of P&ID’s founders had committed perjury. 

    Read Also: I was not involved in P&ID case, says Sagay

    And he agreed that P&ID had somehow found in its possession a steady supply of Nigeria’s privileged internal legal documents, outlining our plans, strategies and problems.

    My own view is that this whole, sorry affair shows how important it is to follow the legal process in resolving a dispute. 

    It shows that given time and opportunity for each side to present their case, the temple of justice can satisfactorily resolve all disputes without resort to extra-judicial measures. 

    It was definitely worth the struggle: this was an attempted heist of historic proportions, an attempt to steal from the treasury a third of Nigeria’s foreign reserves.

    But even at this moment, we should note what the English judge cautioned. 

    The arbitration process in London “was a shell that got nowhere near the truth.” 

    We need better contracts, in the public and private sector. 

    And we need greater transparency: the reality is that, had P&ID not conjured up quite such an outlandish ransom, they may have found themselves in the same place as the myriad other invisible contractors who all too often quietly take Nigeria for many millions in out of court settlements. 

    Sterner sanctions are indicated for Nigerian public officials who have been proven to connive with foreign criminals to defraud our country.

    Nigeria has won this battle with corruption, but the war is far from over. 

    As Justice Knowles concluded: “This case has also, sadly, brought together a combination of examples of what some individuals will do for money. 

    Driven by greed and prepared to use corruption; giving no thought to what their enrichment would mean in terms of harm for others. 

    Others, that, in the present case, include the people of Nigeria, already let down in so many ways over the history of this matter by a number of individuals in politics and administration whose duty it was to serve them and protect them.” 

    Well said.

    • Buhari served as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 2015-23

  • Buhari and the principle of justice

    From the ringing clangour of change that blared from the ginormous megaphone of the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the 2015 electioneering to the ear-splitting applauses that greeted the historic swearing-in of General Muhammadu Buhari as the fourth president since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, a strong indication was given that Nigeria was clearly on the threshold of a defining transformation. At home and abroad, the message energetically bruited about was one of Nigeria changing tack and finally ready to walk the path of justice, order, development and progress. President Buhari amplified it in his inaugural speech, stressing that ‘Nigeria has a window of opportunity to fulfil our long-standing potential of pulling ourselves together and realizing our mission as a great nation’. Quoting confidently from Shakespeare’s well-known Julius Caesar, the president explicitly made it known that he understood his brief as leading his country’s folks to take at the flood the tide of change and lead the country on to fortune.

    But as every compatriot whose critical mind-set is not skin-deep knows, the new beginning that the turn in the tide of the country in March 2015 generously vouchsafed is being incredibly recklessly frittered away. Rather than take the current of that new beginning wholly and heartedly when it was served and from there move steadily on to creatively improve the human condition, the new administration elected, wittingly in many instances and unwittingly in some cases, to omit the great and golden opportunity of a fresh start. The consequence of this errancy is the oceanic number of Nigerian lives and businesses ‘bound in shallows and miseries’.

    It is a confounding irony and a perplexing paradox that it is an acute lack of a deep sense of justice that is at the heart of the heart-searing failures and limiting feats of the Buhari administration. What hobbles the administration since inception is not largely the giddily overstated fact of a nearly empty treasury necessitated by the combined profligate bents of previous administrations or the drastic reduction in the revenue accruable from the sale of crude oil. Rather, the present administration is finding it harshly difficult to transform Nigeria and remake it into a liveable emporium of progress and prosperity because its understanding of the principle of justice is superficial. Being unable to heal the wounds of Nigerians with the balm of justice which it does not admit it lacks, it casts around for kindergarten excuses, deflects public attention from grave issues, scapegoats its critics, and basks needlessly in the constricting streams of inchoate successes. Unable and unwilling to see the forest for the woods, the Buhari government thinks that with more money and not justice and structured thinking, it will reform the country and make it a reference point in the discourse of viable nations.

    More specifically, President Buhari’s numerous appointments since assuming office – from his kitchen cabinet to the security agencies – prove aright the claim of his alienation to the principle of justice. A plural society, indeed any society, cannot abide and thrive on the principle of injustice and narrow considerations. Had the President really taken the tide when it was served, he would have known, ab initio, that his appointment must unavoidably reflect the plurality of the country. When your choices and conducts make segments of your plural society to distrust and consider you as one winking in the dark, you cannot attribute the problem assailing your efforts to lack of funds. A proper diagnosis will reveal it is plainly an issue of lack of justice and good thinking on your part.

    This is what President Buhari loathes to appreciate. Yet, he cannot do without it if he hopes to transform the country. The structured thought of the abolitionist, Frederick Douglas, is apposite here: ‘Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.’

    Similarly, President Buhari’s disposition to the extrajudicial murder of many Nigerians in different parts of the country advertises his uninspiring appreciation of the criticalness of justice in building a functional country. As the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, he has neither questioned the unprofessional propensities and unseemly conducts of the troops he commands nor has he demonstrated believably to anyone that he feels greatly disturbed by the cruelties they unleash(ed) on the civilian components of the country he swore to protect.

    When the President responded to question on the activities of the Shia claque in his maiden televised Presidential Chat in December 2015, he gave the impression that the group got the right treatment, arguing instead that its members were thorns in the flesh of their neighbours. Like the self-possessed Governor el-Rufai of the state, President Buhari could not be bothered that the army under his watch orchestrated the death of harmless citizens. It did not, and still has not, occurred to these men that there is something called justice, which can be done for both the offender and the offended. Not a soldier or a commander has been summoned to account for the unjust deployment of brutal, excessive force in both Kaduna and some of the states in either the South-east or South-south.

    It is equally the absence of justice that is evident in the continued incarceration of El Zakzaky and Nnamdi Kanu of IPOB, and a couple of other Nigerians, in flagrant disregard of court pronouncements. The tenuous crisis-management capability of the Buhari administration is worsened incrementally by its niggling appreciation of the indispensability of justice to the whole project of nation-building. It is strange that this administration learns nothing from the unpleasant conducts of the police under the watch of President Yar’Adua, during which that agency of government extra-judicially killed the Boko Haram kingpin, Muhammed Yusuf, and thereafter brutally cracked down on many more of his followers. If the state under the control of past administrations spurned justice and consequently came a sad cropper, can it be argued sensibly that the Buhari administration has not ignored the tide of a new beginning when it is the case that the colour of the injustices playing out in its time is indistinguishable from those before May 29, 2015?

    Look to the avoidable tragedy of the Internally Displaced Persons and the inability of the Presidential Initiative in the Northeast to account for about N2.5b meant for the wellbeing of the IDPs and how the presidency is pussyfooting in doing the right thing, you will see a glaring picture of an administration inured to the culture of injustice. Rather than heal and be made ready for decent living outside their present temporary abodes, the IDPs are being re-endangered and re-traumatised. Does the President remember what he said in his inaugural speech? Here is it: ‘I will not have kept my own trust with the Nigerian people if I allow others abuse theirs under my watch.’ Sadly, many Nigerians have been serially ill-treated under his watch by those he saddles with vital responsibilities.

    If President Buhari wants to succeed, he must perforce re-examine his attitude to the principle of fairness. He cannot continue to listen to the surface thinkers and self-serving savants who tantalise his ears with the testimonies of unreal realities. Will President Buhari take the tide of opportunities to do justice to the lingering aches of the land? Will he pull down the strongholds of injustices scattered across the country?

     

    Ademola writes from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. 

  • FUOYE pledges to comply with Federal Character principle

    Authorities of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) in Ekiti State has pledged to adhere to federal character principle in employment of workers and admission of students.

    Its vice chancellor, Prof. Kayode Soremekun, made the promise on Friday while hosting the officials of the Federal Character Commission (FCC) led by the Commissioner representing Ekiti State, Bunmi Ojo.

    Soremekun explained that application of federal character principle in the university would ensure proportional representation for all Nigerians, saying he could not afford to work at variance with the policies of the Federal Government that brought him into office.

    The VC said it was in consonance to this that the university advertised vacancies for teaching and non-teaching positions for all willing and qualified Nigerians to apply.

    “We are mindful of the sensitivity of the principles of Federal Character to the impending staff recruitment and we know such would give preference to some states, who are yet to be  represented in the university.”

  • ‘I rejected House Committee appointment based on principle’

    ‘I rejected House Committee appointment based on principle’

    All Progressives Congress (APC) member of the House of Representatives from Oyo State, Hon. Sunday Adepoju has  rejected his selection as the Deputy Chairman of the House Committee on Special Duties. He spoke with VICTOR OLUWASEGUN and DELE ANOFI on why he declined the offer.

    Why are you refusing the offer of the Deputy Chairman of the House Committee on Special Duties?

    All over the world, the majority party takes over government and the committees that will drive the policies of the government are given to party members. The reason is simple. It is to enable effective  execution of the manifestos of the governemnt. In our own case, when the list of chairmanship  of committees was read out, it was a different  case altogether. This is because key committees that can drive the change agenda of President Buhari were conceded to the opposition. Now, without being biased, how do we go about influencing policies that will drive the change we craved for, if those in charge are our opponents. Yes, people would want to ask whether it was because I wasn’t given what I was aiming for. I want to be clear about it. I was not sent here primarily to come and sit as a chair of a committee, but to give good representation to my constituents. In this case,that is, my rejection of the Deputy Chairmanship, my constituents were very much involved and they asked me to do what I did. I was made to realize that this is about the change our party stands for. They said it is better to reject the position and that we should not allow ourselves to be pushed into the opposition in our own government. It’s nothing personal, but we have a duty to ensure that the party we all fought for and succeeded in taking this far should not fail. Conceding key committees to the opposition is another way of ensuring that programmes the APC have for this country are the truncated.

    Isn’t this about juicy committees eluding you?

    This is not about juicy committee or not. I was not sent here to struggle for juicy committee, neither am I sent here to go and beg for money from ministries and agencies, but in a democracy, your party must be in total control of ideas and programmes that will drive your plans for the country. One of such ways is for the majority party to have a grip on key committees that will influence the execution of those policies and programmes, whether on the economy or development in general. Do we truly expect the opposition to see or talk anything good about our party or our President? All they will be doing is pull our party down.  Haven’t we seen how far they went to pull him down in the build up to the election? Even after the election, despite all President Buhari has been doing to turn around this country for good, has the opposition seen anything good about it? In other words, by giving these key committees to the opposition, is that what we want to turn this House into? We were in the opposition before and we know how this works. It is just sad. How did we get to this level? How did we get ourselves into this position where we will not be able to influence policies that will drive the change we promised Nigerians?

    But, how would committees chairmanship  influence policies and programmes that has generated this controversy?

    We don’t have to look far. When we appropriate as lawmakers, what about driving it. Let’s come down to how it affects us. When heads of MDAs are invited, whether Minister, Permanent Secretary, Director General or whatever, let us be frank, the Chairman of a Committee can mess things up with them. Yes, we have Appropriation, but what of Finance, the three Petroleum Committees (Upstream, Downstream, Gas), Aviation, Environment,  Foreign Affairs, Science and Technology,  Works, FERMA, part of Marine, there are more. They are all in the hands of opposition. With this, it is not difficult to see that those that will drive the ideas of change are not in control. This is not a personal matter. I’m on good terms with the Speaker. The Deputy Speaker is also my friend. We relate well, but this is about the party. As opposition in the last Assembly, as new members, we were told to take the back seat. We did because we wanted the nation to move forward. When we were complaining,  they told us to research into older democracies and see how opposition members are treated by the majority party. They told us to do our job as opposition and the job of the opposition is to make the government unpopular. But, why do we have to concede so much sensitive roles to the opposition that is bent on making our governemnt unpopular. Take a look. Have we heard the opposition commend any effort of the present administration since inception? Take a look at how they went about the isues of 100 days and security challenges. Yet, we are in a way empowering them to hurt our governemnt.

    Does it not look like your action was influenced by a group?

    I am not talking on behalf anybody. My action is not influenced by any group, but my constituents. Yes, I belonged to a group, prior to the election, but after the exercise,  I pledged my loyalty to the Speaker. Lasun is my good friend too, I will never wish them bad. The way forward is to make Nigeria great, rally round the Speaker and offer useful ideas when it is necessary. That’s what I have been doing because I relate freely with them. You can ask the Speaker. That shows that I am not talking from the point of any group. My action evolved from what I believe in. I must also make it clear that I can not speak for any lawmaker. I can only talk for myself. When I was  coming here, I had the choice of contesting on the platform of the PDP, Accord Party or any other party, but I chose to go with the APC because their inclination was in consonance with my belief. I have in mind what I want to achieve here just like others have in mind what they are here for. We should just respect that. As far as I’m concerned, when what I expected is not happening, I should have the privilege of acting as it pleases me.

    On this matter, though i was denied reading the letter on the floor, but I have submitted it. Notwithstanding, I remain a committed member of the House. I will do my job diligently and to the best of my knowledge and I remain friendly with the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker.

    What do you think is the way forward?

    On the way forward, if we take it that the deed has been done and we keep quiet, then, we won’t be fair to those that sent us here. They will only look at us as incapable of defending the mandate they gave us because our promise to them was to drive the programmes that will bring the change they voted for. I beleive Mr Speaker is very learned and undertaking. Perhaps, he wasn’t aware of the implications of that action. So, by speaking out, he may want to redress the situation and not be seen as not belonging to our party. With this development of keeping the PDP in control, the road would rather be too tough for the APC in the actualisation of its programmes of moving this country forward.

  • For new NPA boss, the triumph of principle

    For new NPA boss, the triumph of principle

    Fate works in mysterious ways. That much was demonstrated in President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-appointment of the erstwhile Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mallam Habib Abdullahi, penultimate Thursday. His reinstatement as the NPA boss has more or less turned the seat into a musical chair between him and the immediate past managing director of the all important agency, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Ado Bayero.

    Abdullahi had been relieved of his seat by former President Goodluck Jonathan towards the end of his tenure for reasons observers believed had to do with punishing him for insisting on principles that ran contrary to the reckless spending embarked upon by the Jonathan administration in the build up to the 2015 presidential election. While the ex-president was said to have seen the NPA as one of the juicy agencies of government that would supply the funds for his re-election bid, Abdullahi was said to have refused to the key to the agency’s treasury to Jonathan’s presidential campaign team like his counterparts in other ministries and parastatals were doing.

    His principled stance not to subject NPA’s funds to the whims and caprices of pro-Jonathan campaigners was said to have drawn the ire of the ex-president and his supporters, who promptly tagged Abdullahi an APC (All Progressives Congress) supporter and urged Jonathan to move against him. Jonathan himself found the proposal to remove Abdullahi as NPA managing director all the more appealing because he found in it an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Bayero had contested the stool of the Emir of Kano with the incumbent emir, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, whose candidacy Jonathan had opposed for obvious reasons. A face-off between Sanusi and Jonathan over the latter’s revelations on the state of the economy had drawn Jonathan to high dudgeon and culminated in the removal of Sanusi as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

    The effort to humiliate Sanusi would become a huge embarrassment for Jonathan if he became the emir of Kano; a position Sanusi himself had repeatedly said he cherished more than any other in the world. Jonathan thought it expedient to raise an adversary against Sanusi in the jostle for the Emir of Kano’s stool and found one in Bayero. It turned out, however, that the kingmakers in Kano preferred Lamido to Bayero, and there was absolutely nothing the President could do about it because chieftaincy matters are handled purely at state level. Bayero lost out in the contest and Jonathan felt the best way to compensate him was to appoint him as the managing director of NPA in place of the intransigent Abdullahi.

    While President Buhari gave no reason for removing Bayero or appointing Abdullahi in his place, event watchers say it is a case of a Daniel coming to judgment. Sources at the Federal Ministry of Transport say that one of the reasons Jonathan booted out Abdullahi was the latter’s reluctance to support a certain N7 billion shore erosion control contract awarded by the administration through the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) at Akipelai, Ayakoro and Otuoke towns in Bayelsa state. It is said that while the job was not executed, there was pressure from official quarters that the contract’s sum be released to the contractor, but Abdullahi resisted.

    A ministry official commended President Buhari for reinstating Abdullahi, saying that his reinstatement will shed light on the controversial multi-billion naira contract. The official also alleged that Abdullahi was removed because he refused to release funds for the re-election bid of the erstwhile President, like other heads of the maritime agencies did.

    Abdullahi , it was gathered, had also expressed anger with the slow speed of the contractor that won the contract for the rehabilitation of NPA’s six-storey headquarters building in Marina, Lagos. The rehabilitation contract, the ministry official said, “was awarded in 2010 to Messrs Sageto Nigeria Limited for N5.billion.” The consultancy job, The Nation gathered, had earlier been awarded to AIMS Consultants Limited for an undisclosed sum. The contract was supposed to have been completed within 18 months, but more than three years after, the project had not been completed.

    Abdullahi, the official said, did a lot in the actualisation of capital projects of NPA, amongst which were:

    completion of the construction of a 1.6km road at Lagos Port Complex (LPC)

    Completion of reconstruction of terminals B&C at old Warri port

    Completion of the rehabilitation of rail track at LPC

    Continuation of the rehabilitation of the Tin Can Island Ports (TCIP) quay apron and third party projects, which includes initiation and completion of Island Berth on Lagos Channel by Oando and the completion of Eko Support Services project at Bullnose, Apapa.

    Port operators and other stakeholders in the maritime industry also said that Abdullahi had embarked on programmes designed to improve the efficiency of the ports before he was unceremoniously removed.

    Speaking with The Nation in Lagos, the President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Prince Olayiwola Shittu, questioned Abdullahi’s removal, saying that the latter had the desire to make the nation’s seaports the leading and the most efficient ports in Africa.

    Before his sudden removal by Jonathan, Abdullahi, Shittu said, made sure that NPA was responsible for port planning and development, maintenance of common user facilities, regulation of safety and security of the port environment, ownership of port land and quick payment of government dues by the terminal operators.

    This, the ANLCA chief said, was in line with the concession agreement to bring efficiency to the ports and transfer investment costs from the public to the private sector.

    “Stakeholders were miffed by the sudden and unfathomable removal of Abdullahi. To most of the operators and stakeholders, he was doing creditably well in terms of performance and was charting a good course for the NPA’s greatness in terms of port operation and global best practices before he was removed. Most of us did not understand why the last government abruptly decided to replace him with somebody who had little or no knowledge of port operation and failed to give any reason for his removal. Many of us felt that the NPA top position had become a cartel for political patronage before Bayero was removed by President Buhari.

    “In the area of marine operation, many of us agreed that Abdullahi acted impressively. His efforts were anchored on the need to deliver an efficient port service in a safe, secure and customer-friendly environment in accordance with international practices.

    “To achieve this, he paid attention to improving existing port infrastructure such as the rehabilitation of port quay walls and aprons, deepening of the channels, upgrading common user facilities and removal of wrecks from the channels. It was this gesture that made it possible for bigger ships to now call regularly at the nation’s ports.

    “For instance, the weekly call of the WAFMAX vessel with a length of 232.33 metres and capacity of 4,500 TEUS requiring draught of 13.5 metres to Lagos and Onne ports was a great achievement that must be given to Abdullahi.”

    The channel management and conservancy function of the NPA, Shittu said, also improved under Abdullahi.

    “Most of the nation’s sea ports recorded increase in the Gross Registered Tonnage (GRT) of vessels mainly due to the capital and maintenance dredging of the channel by the NPA’s Joint Venture (JV) companies like the Lagos Channel Management (LCM) company for the management of the Lagos channel and the Bonny Channel Management (BCC) for the management of the Bonny channel. The profit for the constant dredging of the channels reflected in increasing cargo throughput to 77 million metric tonnes in 2013 from 44,953,073 metric tonnes in 2005 excluding crude oil and gas,” Shittu said.

    Other stakeholders said that Abdullahi did a lot in the area of IT development.

    An importer, Mr Solomon Adebari said that Mallam Abdullahi led-NPA management scored high in the area of IT as most of its operations mostly in the area of finance are now driven electronically.

    “The introduction of IT in its financial operations was a part of his ways of improving NPA’s revenue base without compromising efficiency and comfort of customers. The e-payment initiative by Abdullahi was a very good one.”

    The benefits of the e-payment initiative, Adebari said, included:

    instant payment confirmation

    elimination of human interface in payment procedures

    improved turn-around time and

    reduction of cost of doing business in the ports which impacts positively on the nation’s economy.