The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Restructure

  • Oyo to restructure 105,000 workforce, says Ajimobi

    Oyo to restructure 105,000 workforce, says Ajimobi

    Oyo State is to restructure its 105,000 workforce and will not retrench as being speculated, Governor Abiola Ajimobi said yesterday.

    Ajimobi, who clarified this in Ibadan, said restructuring of the workforce was aimed at enhancing its productivity.

    He put the workforce at 105,000, saying many workers were unproductive.

    Ajimobi said the restructuring would place each worker where he or she would be more productive.

    “You know we have three types of workers. We have workers, who have the expertise and are ready to work. We have those without expertise, but are ready to learn and work. We also have those who don’t have the expertise and are not ready to work or learn.

    “We want to ensure that every worker has something doing and doing well for government to justify his or her salary. Today, we need to drive our revenue to be self-sufficient,” he said.

    He said restructuring was also reason for the government to strengthen its educational system, because development is knowledge-based.

    Ajimobi said a knowledge-based economy produces development, stressing the need to develop pupils to be able to compete around the globe.

    Quoting a philosopher, Ajimobi said: “If we keep doing same thing all the time, we will continue to have same result.”

    The governor called on the workers to always embrace dialogue, saying the last strike drew the state backward.

    “We told them all that is available to pay salaries, but they did not believe us. They embarked on the strike based on speculations that we were not sincere. Today, we have shown all to them and now they have seen that we are sincere and transparent on all we have told them.

    “I pray that God rewards me based on my action towards the workers. If I lied to them, God will reward me and if I am sincere to them, God should continue to answer their prayers for me,” he said.

    The governor solicited support for the state’s growth in the face of the economic downturn, saying his administration will continue to give its best.

  • Re: Agenda to restructure Nigeria

    SIR: I refer to the opinion piece by Col.  Azubike Nass, in The Nationof June 30, with the above title and couldn’t help but wonder aloud, that some people have really conquered self and are not parochial. That opinion piece was a masterpiece devoid of emotional and regional mawkishness that many analysts who are faustians bandy to deceive people with dull speculative resume.

    Academics, politicians (even a former VP but I wonder why his stance was not when he was in power), pundits have been powwowing about federalism as the silver bullet needed to solve all of our woes.

    People in Nigeria refer to America as a model of ‘true federalism’ where states are independent. But how independent when ‘teaching grit’ generates controversies and yet states in America aren’t allowed to have a separate educational policy away from the nationally set standard; even Alaska natives and native Indians still go on a crying jag about discrimination? Resources in many places are held in trust by the federal government.

    Indonesia, a unitary state was once ruled by brutal military dictators. In spite of that she has successfully diversified her economy to the level where oil and gas aren’t the mainstay of her economy. Her successes and turbulent history are all in the public domain. She is even the second largest economy in South East Asia.

    Need we remind anyone that she has the tenth largest economy in the world in terms of GDP? And she has over 20 manufacturing companies from pharmaceuticals to food (Indomie), etc doing business in Nigeria.

    They are over 270 million and with over 700 tribes, with an unfriendly terrain hard to navigate. A country of Islands, yet she manufactures products and services for export worldwide.

    Here is a country which wasn’t better than Nigeria in the 1960s but yet has grown her middle class to 70 million people while Nigeria sit shamefully and dismally in the Human Development Index.

    The prerequisite for the greatness of a modern country is not the system of government that it runs but on visionary leadership, available productive human capital, infrastructure, and technology.

    One may add that great countries must be able to provide security for her citizens and non-nationals without which there can never be investors.

    Would restructuring prevent some cudgel-wielding men from storming a party secretariat in Abuja or even stop politicians from going on expensive junkets around the world?

    Would it stop our judges from being harassed by politicians and some beaten? Would it allow for an effective freedom of information bill?

    Would restructuring make our leaders and elders tell our youths all sides of stories, good and bad and not engage in selective amnesia, myopia and hyperopia (apology EmekaOjukwu)?

    Would restructuring, equip our schools, make our laboratories in the universities work? Would we see government officials send their wards to well-equipped state run schools?

    Until we groom good people for elective office, people who are selfless, driven by a sense of mission, folks who understand the importance of  ”urgency for change, believe in community, do not wear their opinion on their sleeve, avoid flagging religious views in favour of egalitarianism and to stop putting their snout in the trough of the gravy train,  even if a Martian comes from Mars on a white horse with Marian ideas to transform Nigeria, we would never go above being the self-proclaimed “Giant of Africa.”

    Where is the spirit to restructure? I talk to many people older than me and the level of demagoguery is out of this world. All judgments are based on North and South. Many Faustians come pretending to be nationalists but are nothing more than apple-polishing ethnic Jingoists.

    Golda Meir once said: “All my country has is spirit. We don’t have petroleum dollars. We don’t have mines or great wealth in the ground. We don’t have the support of a worldwide public opinion that looks favourably on us. All Israel has is spirit of its people. And if the people lose their spirit even the United States of America cannot save us.”

    What Nigeria needs now is the provision of thoughtful leadership by visionary leaders. A country that is future-blind shouldn’t be engrossed with talks about restructuring polity for its sake.

     

    • Simon Abah,

    Port Harcourt.

  • Agenda to restructure Nigeria

    The call to restructure Nigerian polity is not new. But the loudest decibels of the currently intensified calls to restructure the nation come mostly from those whose preferred candidate lost in the March 28, 2015 presidential election. President Muhammadu Buhari in his presidential campaign before being voted into power never once promised to initiate the restructuring of the polity.  His three key campaign promises centered on fighting corruption, insecurity and economy.

    After his inauguration as President, Buhari spent about four months doing a systematic study of the key governance institutions (Ministries, Departments and Agencies) before appointing ministers and kick-starting his anti-corruption agenda which started netting some previously untouchable elites, investigating and prosecuting them in law courts. Once the anti-corruption agenda commenced, the decibel of calls to restructure the country intensified.

    It is quite curious why those whose preferred candidate clearly lost in the last presidential election would insist that the new President should drop his key campaign promises and implement their own agenda of ill-defined restructuring of the polity, otherwise they make the nation ungovernable for the new President. But that is not the ethos of democratic political system. Some other opportunistic elites have quickly keyed into the current calls to restructure for various personal motives. The cacophony of voices calling for immediate restructuring comes with variety of suggested models. While some want the President to immediately articulate a bill in tune with their preferred models, some others want, first, to convene a “sovereign” national conference (with an unclear modality for selecting participants), whose recommendations will be subjected to referendum.

    This writer is not opposed to restructuring, and is rather inclined to the model that would apply the existing six geopolitical zones of the country as the main administrative regions, with more devolution of power to the regions. My reasons for supporting restructuring do not however align with the commonly-bandied talks of how it would serve as magic bullet to kill all festering national problems. Nor do I hold the over-blown nostalgia that the defunct regional structure at Independence in 1960 was so glorious; I rather think that the fractious and nepotic politics of the leaders of that time, within and between the regions, laid the foundation for crises that subsequently followed and progressed to our present level of degeneration, with the younger generations outplaying the earlier ones in the macabre game. And the tradition had remained to always point accusing fingers outwards, and hardly ever inwards in seeking the root of the problems.

    I subscribe to restructuring the polity out of the believe that no existing structure is sacrosanct, and that in a situation where we (Nigerians) have collectively proven incapable of managing our affairs and abundant resources to improve the living condition of the masses of the society, we could yet try another model, even when we may not yet be able to predict the outcome. But most importantly, I am strongly convinced that, first, we need to fight and contain the outlandish pattern of corruption as a way to sanitize the society to an appreciable level, before other key issues could be genuinely addressed. The dumbfounding revelations of mind-boggling looting of our commonwealth by a handful of political, bureaucratic and business elites are more than an eye-opener to even the blind. Nigerian masses now see what had perpetually kept them impoverished and the nation poorly-developed, all in the midst of abundant endowment of resources.

    It is quite obvious to any averagely enlightened mind that the road to restructuring, as being canvassed, is littered with mines and obstacles that have to be navigated, and no one can yet predict how it may turn out. Many issues are involved. The previous presidents were well aware of it, and that is why President Jonathan tactfully avoided initiating any action, even after the report of the National Conference he belatedly set up in 2014 was submitted to him six months before the presidential election which he lost.

    Some well-acclaimed grandmasters of Nigerian politics who have lately been lending their suave voices to the call for immediate restructuring know more than most of us that President Buhari cannot restructure Nigeria as they want. The executive cannot do that. Only the legislature is invested with the power to make such law that would alter the extant constitution.

    The President is being much harried to prepare a bill to that effect and forward to the National Assembly. It is well known that bills to the legislature must not always come from the executive. Our legislature actually initiates far more number of bills than the executive and the general citizenry put together. And yet there has been no visible action by the arch-proponents of immediate restructuring to get their elected representatives in the National Assembly to initiate such a bill, process it, and send to the President for assent. And if the President refuses to assent, there is a procedure to over-ride his veto and pass the bill into law. And Nigeria will get restructured as ‘desired’, if really the loud clamour for immediate restructuring is very popular among Nigerian masses, as the arch-proponents make it look.

    It is important to note that in this orchestrated loud clamour for immediate restructuring, the two arms of National Assembly have maintained relative quietude.Ditto for the 36 states Houses of Assembly. And yet these are the institutions with the power to make constitution-altering laws. The 36 elected governors play studious observers to the debate, not revealing their position or possible game plan to any attempt to challenge or collapse their hard-won executive authorities into wider geopolitical units. Even as the call for creation of more states has not yet stopped. The 2014 National Conference recommended the creation of more than 15 new states from the existing 36 states.

    It is no secret that a good number of the prominent voices calling for restructuring have been longstanding beneficiaries of Nigerian decadent and corrupt system. They made their vast wealth and influence that way. And with the ongoing loot-recovery drive of Buhari administration, with its widening scope of investigation and prosecution of suspects, this group of elites are scared that some of their past dirty deals could be unearthed, and that could ‘strip them naked’ before the public. In addition, they have lost their longstanding patronage as godfathers who must be indulged and patronized by any government in making choice/juicy political appointments and contracts. They no longer receive accustomed privileges of their front companies cornering major government contracts.

    So the orchestrated calls for immediate restructuring of the polity being directed at President Buhari alone are attempts to compel him to decelerate his key campaign promises, particularly the anti-corruption agenda, and to drag him into a scheme littered with mines and obstacles, and that would provide a new talking point for criticisms and attacks that would distract from his set programme. As much as this group of elites applies their vast wealth and extensive media coverage to propagate their position as being of popular appeal, the truth is that to overwhelming majority of Nigerian masses, restructuring is not their top priority at moment.

    Samples: In the past 15 years, billions of dollars (trillions of naira) had been spent in the power (electricity) sector by the government. There is little or no improvement to show for it. The funds were simply looted and shared the Nigerian way. Privatization and sales of government assets where avenues through which a few well-placed fellows swindled the nation. The key beneficiaries of all these looting of our common patrimony are still around and enjoying their loot and influence in the same society. These are the people well-determined to do anything that can scuttle the ongoing loot-recovery drive which is an aspect of Buhari administration’s anti-corruption agenda. The cheated and impoverished Nigerian masses should put on their thinking cap and shine their eyes against being perpetually enslaved by some elders and grandmasters of Nigerian politics who equate their personal comfort interests with the interest of the nation.

     

    • Col. Nass (rtd), writes from Enugu.
  • Ekwueme, Obi, Ezeife to Buhari: restructure Nigeria

    Ekwueme, Obi, Ezeife to Buhari: restructure Nigeria

    Restructuring of Nigeria dominated yesterday speeches of eminent citizens at the 17th convention of the Igbo Youths Movement (IYM) in Enugu.

    All the speakers, including former Vice-President, Alex Ekwueme, former governor of old Anambra State Chukwuemeka Ezeife and a former National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) chieftain, Ayo Adebanjo, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to embark on restructuring of Nigeria in line with the principles of true federalism.

    Also at the occasion were former Minister of Information Prof. Jerry Gana; former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, renowned author Arthur Nwankwo and Niger Delta activist and protagonist of resource control, Ms Annkio Briggs.

    Speaker after speaker advised Buhari to implement the National Conference report of 2014 as a first step towards restructuring Nigeria.

    The leaders, who spoke on the theme of the convention, “Still in search of true federalism”, noted that the current protests and demand for separation by various groups as well as other socio-economic crises could be reduced by half if the national confab’s report was implemented.

    In Ekwueme’s view every disappointment is a blessing. His incarceration in 1984 at Kirikiri prison by the military afforded him the opportunity to reflect deeply on Nigeria’s problems, he said.

    According to him, he came out with the idea of six geo-political zonal structure, which he pushed for at a national conference much later and it became a convention, and has taken care of minorities in the South and the North.

    Ekwueme stated that what Nigeria negotiated for and agreed with the colonial masters before independence was a regional government where each has a constitution, annexed to the Republican constitution of 1963.

    According to him, the Republican Constitution then provided 50 per cent revenue sharing formula for the regions, 30 per cent to a distributable pool, and 20 per cent for the centre.

    “There is need for us to return to the basics from what we inherited from our founding fathers,” he said.

    Adebanjo, who traced the origin of federalism in Nigeria to various pre-and post colonial constitutional conferences, insisted that Nigeria must be restructured to correct the humongous damage done to the nation’s constitution by the military and to stop various acts of uprising, including those of Niger Delta Avengers, MASSOB and IPOB.

    Gana said the nation’s founding fathers were right by agreeing to a federal structure, which he described as the best for peace, equity and justice.

    The guest speaker and former Information Minister, Prof. Jerry Gana, said that the key solution to Nigeria’s problem was through true federalism and devolution of powers to states.

    “True fiscal federalism is the only form of association that will allow peace and stability in the country and each region should be allowed to manage its resources the way they want it,” Gana said.

    He noted that the formula for allocating revenue made the Federal Government to get richer while the states operated like beggars.

    “States should be allowed to manage its resources to enable them govern their people the way they want and allocate some percentage to the Federal Government.

    “Government should not be far from the people and the federating unit should be made strong to meet the needs of the people,” he said.

    Gana recommended continuous dialogue and the implementation of the resolutions of national confab by the government as the only means the recent agitation and other national demand could be handled.

    Briggs, who received the award of “Amazon of Truth” by IYM, said true and fiscal federalism must be truthful and justifiable. She believed in resource control, she said, adding  that as much as she does not think that Nigeria must break, she believes that if the nation continues on the current path, disintegration would be inevitable.

    Former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi supported restructuring of the country on the basis of fiscal federalism, but he warned while that was being addressed, there was need to urgently address the high cost of governance. Any governor who says he can’t pay workers’ salaries, Obi said,  should give way for other persons with better ideas.

    Ezeife who also received award of “Igbo Peoples General” stated that the 2014 national conference report recommended additional 18 states to make for a 48 state-structure to address some inequalities created by the military.

  • We need desperately to restructure

    As ever, we hear daily, stories of inter-ethnic conflicts in countries of Black Africa. We read of unrest in the Central African Republic, turbulence in Burundi, the probability of a return to violence in Rwanda, the continued disaster of Somalia, ethnic animosities and threats of secession in Uganda, continued terrorism and the rampage of warlords in the eastern provinces of the Republic of Congo, similar agitations in Angola, Mozambique, trouble in Mali, Chad – the list goes on.

    When we read these things, we Nigerians must recognise that these are things that can happen in our country too. In fact, we must be honest and admit that signs of them already exist in Nigeria. The Biafra agitations in Igboland, the endless inter-ethnic conflicts in the Middle Belt, the contribution of ethnic discontent to the strength of Boko Haram, the growing dissatisfaction among the masses of educated Yoruba youths – are all developments that we must accord the seriousness they deserve.

    The glaringly obvious answer is to restructure this federation appropriately and empower each people group as much as possible to develop itself in the context of Nigeria and to gradually banish poverty from among its peoples.

    It is in the light of these that I re-read the written message brought by a distinguished delegation of Northern leaders, representing the Arewa Consultative Forum, to a meeting of the Yoruba Unity Forum holding at Ikenne on December 15, 2012. ACF is the topmost organization of the Hausa-Fulani political leadership of the North; and the Yoruba Unity Forum is one of the topmost organizations of the Yoruba political leadership of the South-west. The said document is therefore a message exchanged between two organizations representing the two largest nationalities of Nigeria – the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba.  That makes it a truly historic document. What the prestigious delegation of the Hausa Fulani leadership had to communicate to the august gathering of Yoruba leaders that day says much about our country.

    I first read this document soon after its message was delivered at Ikenne and I was highly impressed then by its form and formalities. I am still impressed by the same today.

    Even so, I find the core proposition of the message shocking and embarrassing. The central proposition of the message was that no real change is needed in the way that Nigeria is organized and managed today! That proposition is summed up in the following staggering sentence: “Today, we have reached a point at which certain groups are calling for a re-negotiation of many settled issues in our nation”!

    What does ACF mean here by “many settled issues” that “certain groups are calling for a re-negotiation of”?  Surprisingly, as they spell out quite unmistakably in their message, they mean the structure that the Nigerian federation has today – the structure that, gradually and deliberately between 1966 and 1999, the Federation of Nigeria was given by a succession of northern military dictatorships punctuated now and then by northern-led civilian presidencies.

    The ACF message urges that, in discussing the issues relating to Nigeria’s decline and near-failure, we should eschew recriminations. I agree with that. And I am sure that most Nigerians would agree. Recriminations will not solve the titanic problems of our country.

    But I am sure too that most Nigerians want Nigeria’s political leaders to be sincere and open in discussing Nigeria’s problems. Our country’s situation is desperate, to put it mildly. The war on corruption by the present Buhari presidency is a step in the right direction; but the most important step in the right direction would be to restructure our federation properly. Corruption is one of the symptoms of Nigeria’s decline; the warped and distorted structure of our federation is the root of our country’s decline.

    Any group that continues to insist now that our federation’s structure as it is today is “settled” and not open to discussion obviously needs to rethink in the interest of us all. In the interest of Nigeria’s recovery, orderliness and prosperity, the ACF and its principals must recognise that continued resistance to a proper restructuring of this “federation” by a prestigious nation like the Hausa-Fulani nation is dangerous to Nigeria.

    The stakes are simply too high to allow for continued evasions and dogged stonewalling. This country must sincerely and seriously sort itself out. Our country is a country of many nations. These nations had evolved over thousands of years before the British came along and used their stronger technology to push all of us together into one country. In spite of one-hundred years of living together in Nigeria, these nations are still alive and strong. Even in similar multi-nationality countries where the nationalities have lived together as one country for many centuries, the general tendency today is to give each nationality some local autonomy to manage its affairs in its own way and to make its own kind of contribution to the country it belongs to. Britain, India, Switzerland, Indonesia, Spain, and others, are doing just that. I repeat that even the British who forced all our nationalities together to create Nigeria are now pursuing the policy of “Devolution” – which means giving each nationality (the Scots, English, Welsh and Irish)  the freedom to design its constitution, control its own national government, and develop its own economy – in the context of the oneness of Britain.

    As we prepared for independence in the 1950s, our political leaders were in no doubt that our nationalities should be given the recognition and development freedom that they deserved. That is why they agreed to a federal structure for Nigeria and allowed each of the regions of the federation to manage itself in its own way. The regions made commendable achievements in development, and at independence, our country was a land of hope and pride, a country that the world viewed with great expectation. All that was needed was to take the regional autonomy lower to the level of the nationalities – to grant the petitions of the group of minority nationalities in each region for a region of their own.

    But, unfortunately, after independence, the northern politicians who controlled the Federal Government decided that the Federal Government must control all things in Nigeria, and that the federating units must all be subject to the whims and caprices of the controllers of the Federal Government. By the beginning of the present century, our country had become a battered and broken entity on the edge of a precipice. An overwhelming majority of our citizens, in all regions of our country, are wallowing in poverty and hopelessness. Even the North was beginning, as at independence, under Sir Ahmadu Bello’s highly respectable leadership, to make impressive economic and social progress. I had the privilege in 1961 of visiting this great premier of the North in his office, and of listening to him for a few minutes as he told us what he was doing for the people of the Northern Region. I left his presence very proud of him, and very proud of my country and myself.  Now, the North is sunk and sinking in poverty, and countless youths of the North are reacting to their hopelessness by giving their energies to callings that are dedicated to destroying, killing and wrecking. And yet, some of the men who have been elevated to high positions of leadership in that same North are telling us and the world that the distortions that have led our country to these disasters are “settled” and not open to discussion? It is unbelievable!

    Most Nigerians are saying that the present structure and situation of their country is untenable and unsustainable. The Yoruba nation, the Igbo nation, the nations of the Delta, the nations of the Middle Belt, and the Kanuri and related peoples of the Northeast, all speaking through countless voices and organizations at home and abroad, are saying so. It is time the Hausa-Fulani leadership come forth to say so too.

    The dream of one region’s domination of Nigeria is anachronistic and unattainable. Striving for it is chasing shadows – and chasing shadows in a manner that only generates Nigeria’s decline and promotes ever-increasing poverty and hopelessness for the millions of Nigerians. The dream of a prosperous and great Nigeria is attainable. We can make Nigeria prosperous, and we can all prosper together in Nigeria.  That is a goal worthy to strive for.

     

    • This article was first published on December 17, 2015.

  • We need desperately to restructure

    As ever, we hear daily, stories of inter-ethnic conflicts in countries of Black Africa. We read of unrest in the Central African Republic, turbulence in Burundi, the probability of a return to violence in Rwanda, the continued disaster of Somalia, ethnic animosities and threats of secession in Uganda, continued terrorism and the rampage of warlords in the eastern provinces of the Republic of Congo, similar agitations in Angola, Mozambique, trouble in Mali, Chad – the list goes on.

    When we read these things, we Nigerians must recognise that these are things that can happen in our country too. In fact, we must be honest and admit that signs of them already exist in Nigeria. The Biafra agitations in Igboland, the endless inter-ethnic conflicts in the Middle Belt, the contribution of ethnic discontent to the strength of Boko Haram, the growing dissatisfaction among the masses of educated Yoruba youths – are all developments that we must accord the seriousness they deserve.

    The glaringly obvious answer is to restructure this federation appropriately and empower each people group as much as possible to develop itself in the context of Nigeria and to gradually banish poverty from among its peoples.

    It is in the light of these that I re-read the written message brought by a distinguished delegation of Northern leaders, representing the Arewa Consultative Forum, to a meeting of the Yoruba Unity Forum holding at Ikenne on December 15, 2012. ACF is the topmost organization of the Hausa-Fulani political leadership of the North; and the Yoruba Unity Forum is one of the topmost organizations of the Yoruba political leadership of the South-west. The said document is therefore a message exchanged between two organizations representing the two largest nationalities of Nigeria – the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba.  That makes it a truly historic document. What the prestigious delegation of the Hausa Fulani leadership had to communicate to the august gathering of Yoruba leaders that day says much about our country.

    I first read this document soon after its message was delivered at Ikenne and I was highly impressed then by its form and formalities. I am still impressed by the same today.

    Even so, I find the core proposition of the message shocking and embarrassing. The central proposition of the message was that no real change is needed in the way that Nigeria is organized and managed today! That proposition is summed up in the following staggering sentence: “Today, we have reached a point at which certain groups are calling for a re-negotiation of many settled issues in our nation”!

    What does ACF mean here by “many settled issues” that “certain groups are calling for a re-negotiation of”?  Surprisingly, as they spell out quite unmistakably in their message, they mean the structure that the Nigerian federation has today – the structure that, gradually and deliberately between 1966 and 1999, the Federation of Nigeria was given by a succession of northern military dictatorships punctuated now and then by northern-led civilian presidencies.

    The ACF message urges that, in discussing the issues relating to Nigeria’s decline and near-failure, we should eschew recriminations. I agree with that. And I am sure that most Nigerians would agree. Recriminations will not solve the titanic problems of our country.

    But I am sure too that most Nigerians want Nigeria’s political leaders to be sincere and open in discussing Nigeria’s problems. Our country’s situation is desperate, to put it mildly. The war on corruption by the present Buhari presidency is a step in the right direction; but the most important step in the right direction would be to restructure our federation properly. Corruption is one of the symptoms of Nigeria’s decline; the warped and distorted structure of our federation is the root of our country’s decline.

    Any group that continues to insist now that our federation’s structure as it is today is “settled” and not open to discussion obviously needs to rethink in the interest of us all. In the interest of Nigeria’s recovery, orderliness and prosperity, the ACF and its principals must recognise that continued resistance to a proper restructuring of this “federation” by a prestigious nation like the Hausa-Fulani nation is dangerous to Nigeria.

    The stakes are simply too high to allow for continued evasions and dogged stonewalling. This country must sincerely and seriously sort itself out. Our country is a country of many nations. These nations had evolved over thousands of years before the British came along and used their stronger technology to push all of us together into one country. In spite of one-hundred years of living together in Nigeria, these nations are still alive and strong. Even in similar multi-nationality countries where the nationalities have lived together as one country for many centuries, the general tendency today is to give each nationality some local autonomy to manage its affairs in its own way and to make its own kind of contribution to the country it belongs to. Britain, India, Switzerland, Indonesia, Spain, and others, are doing just that. I repeat that even the British who forced all our nationalities together to create Nigeria are now pursuing the policy of “Devolution” – which means giving each nationality (the Scots, English, Welsh and Irish)  the freedom to design its constitution, control its own national government, and develop its own economy – in the context of the oneness of Britain.

    As we prepared for independence in the 1950s, our political leaders were in no doubt that our nationalities should be given the recognition and development freedom that they deserved. That is why they agreed to a federal structure for Nigeria and allowed each of the regions of the federation to manage itself in its own way. The regions made commendable achievements in development, and at independence, our country was a land of hope and pride, a country that the world viewed with great expectation. All that was needed was to take the regional autonomy lower to the level of the nationalities – to grant the petitions of the group of minority nationalities in each region for a region of their own.

    But, unfortunately, after independence, the northern politicians who controlled the Federal Government decided that the Federal Government must control all things in Nigeria, and that the federating units must all be subject to the whims and caprices of the controllers of the Federal Government. By the beginning of the present century, our country had become a battered and broken entity on the edge of a precipice. An overwhelming majority of our citizens, in all regions of our country, are wallowing in poverty and hopelessness. Even the North was beginning, as at independence, under Sir Ahmadu Bello’s highly respectable leadership, to make impressive economic and social progress. I had the privilege in 1961 of visiting this great premier of the North in his office, and of listening to him for a few minutes as he told us what he was doing for the people of the Northern Region. I left his presence very proud of him, and very proud of my country and myself.  Now, the North is sunk and sinking in poverty, and countless youths of the North are reacting to their hopelessness by giving their energies to callings that are dedicated to destroying, killing and wrecking. And yet, some of the men who have been elevated to high positions of leadership in that same North are telling us and the world that the distortions that have led our country to these disasters are “settled” and not open to discussion? It is unbelievable!

    Most Nigerians are saying that the present structure and situation of their country is untenable and unsustainable. The Yoruba nation, the Igbo nation, the nations of the Delta, the nations of the Middle Belt, and the Kanuri and related peoples of the Northeast, all speaking through countless voices and organizations at home and abroad, are saying so. It is time the Hausa-Fulani leadership come forth to say so too.

    The dream of one region’s domination of Nigeria is anachronistic and unattainable. Striving for it is chasing shadows – and chasing shadows in a manner that only generates Nigeria’s decline and promotes ever-increasing poverty and hopelessness for the millions of Nigerians. The dream of a prosperous and great Nigeria is attainable. We can make Nigeria prosperous, and we can all prosper together in Nigeria.  That is a goal worthy to strive for.

  • Oshiomhole’ll restructure Edo YES, says APC chair

    Oshiomhole’ll restructure Edo YES, says APC chair

    Edo State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Anslem Ojezua, has said Governor Adams Oshiomhole will restructure the Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES) to conform to the current economic realities.

    The chairman was reacting to the controversies trailing the phasing out of the scheme.

    The Edo YES was inaugurated in 2009 as part of the government’s intervention programme to empower over 10,000 youths.

    Addressing reporters in Benin, the state capital, Ojezua said the governor’s decision to abruptly end the programme was caused by a drop in the allocations from the Federation Account.

    The APC chairman noted that the drop was also the fallout of decline in the price of crude oil in the international market.

    He said Oshiomhole did not take the action to impoverish the youth, who played a predominant role in the state’s political development, but to ensure that the beneficiaries derived maximum benefits from it.

    According to him, Oshiomhole has the moral justification to determine how youths could earn regular wages.

    Ojezua said the absence of some youths from their place of primary assignments – following their journeys abroad or getting alternative jobs – had been an issue the government was concerned about.

    The party chairman assured that the youth would be reinstated, after a thorough screening by the committee set up for that purpose.

    He regretted the hardship the hardworking beneficiaries were going through.

    Ojezua expressed satisfaction at the friendly manner the issues were handled.

    The APC chairman hoped that before the end of the year, the scheme would be back on track.

    He assured the youth of his readiness to liaise with the government on how to re-absorb those affected into the renewed scheme.

  • How to restructure Nigeria

    How to restructure Nigeria

    Title: Nigeria: Political Power Imbalance

    Author: Sir Ajayi Olaniwun

    Reviewer: Prof Jacob Olupona

     

    Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, already has a major and incisive work on British/Nigerian Colonial Relations, namely; Nigeria: Africa’s Failed Asset? The present work is a more detailed account containing incredible new facts dredged from British Archives.

    The theme of the present work is: how by an oppressive, shameless and partisan policy, the British Colonial Power, cynically and fraudulently endevoured to confer on the Hausa/Fulani, the right to rule Nigeria permanently.  To this process and for this objective, structural imbalance and inflated population figures were savagely and recklessly deployed. Such was the British contempt for or even fear of the ‘noisy’ disrespectful Southerners and its comfort with the bearing and character of the chosen ruler race, that in the middle of the federal elections in December 1959, whilst the results were still trickling in, Sir James Robertson, the Governor General of Nigeria, pre-empted the possibility of a coalition agreement between Awolowo’s Action Group and Azikiwe’s NCNC, by inviting Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to form a Government, without waiting for the final results. The British Colonial Government was desperate to leave the country in the hands of its proclaimed friends and could not take the risk of allowing post-election negotiations.

    In this headlong rush to pre-determine Nigerian Rulership, the British created and insisted in maintaining a territorial structure in which the favoured Northern Region was twice the size of the Western and Eastern Regions combined, thereby guaranteeing, by reason of sheer population, a permanent Northern Rulership  thus leading to the slogan “born to rule”. This imposed ruling class, combined with a centralized, pseudo federalism, with an all powerful, resource bloated Federal Government, has led directly to Nigeria’s under-development. The British Colonial cry was always: “We must not let the North down”.

    This book reveals for the first time, that provisions for the declaration of a state of emergency were planted in the 1960 Constitution to enable the Northern rulership take over opposition States (Regions) which refused to be dominated.  According to freshly available documents seen by the Author, the firm intention of the British Government and the Colonial Administration was, first to leave the Nigerian Government in the hands of chosen favourites, and then to buttress their hold on power for “We must make sure that the Government of Nigeria is strong, even if possible undemocratic and unjust”  More intriguing still, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, was specifically chosen as the Nigerian leader, by the British Governor- General even over fellow Northerners, like Ribadu and Ahmadu Bello, not to talk of Azikiwe and Awolowo, the prospects of whose leadership was a continuing nightmare to the British Rulers.  Indeed, so deep was the British conspiracy to

    enthrone Abubakar, that they actually engaged in giving electoral help to Azikiwe’s NCNC, in order to further marginalize Awolowo’s Action Group, which was considered the real threat to Northern domination.

    This work reveals many fascinating secrets which show that Nigeria is in this sad state of anomy, tragedy and backwardness, not by the accident of fate, but by a deliberate British Government/Colonial Administration’s conspiracy against the peoples of this Country.

    Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, Nigeria: Poiitical Power Imbalance

    The book, Nigeria: Political Power Imbalance, written by the well respected statesman and politician, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, presents a critical perspective, as an “X-ray” of the nation’s  failed quest for true nationhood. Given the past and current challenges the country faces, the book accounts for what the author believes are the root causes of Nigeria’s failing state and how best to resolve these problems. While  the book demonstrates the central role that Nigeria’s colonial British overlords played in laying the foundation for the present dysfunctional state structure and political arrangements, it also shows how Nigeria’s geopolitical system  and cultural factors continue to perpetuate the crisis. Sir Ajayi’s conclusion is that the present dispensation under which Nigeria operates cannot sustain Nigeria’s  national survival. Only a total re-engineering of the state structure will produce an equitable, egalitarian and prosperous

    Nigeria: Political Power Imbalance captures the complexity and richness of Nigerian history from the perspective of an active player from the Yoruba Southwest. It also reflects and captures the thought and intellect of the committed nationalists of his generation-many  of whom were disciples of the Yoruba sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Sir Ajayi is perhaps the best spokesman for his class of devoted and dedicated leaders, and that explains why he is fearless and frank in his writings as the book clearly demonstrates.

    This engaging account of Nigeria’s history, past and present, is a timely chronicle  of the evolution of the Nigerian nation as a work in progress. A prodigiously written book, it sets the stage for a conversation of how best to restructure Nigeria so that it may survive its present disaster. The book testifies to the agile, brilliant and intellectual mind of the author. The deep and vibrant research work, the remarkable sources be deployed, and the comparative historical perspectives that  he draws upon from the history of other nations-all   indicate that given the proper approach  to nation-building and development, Nigeria may yet become   a great, formidable, indivisible and peaceful nation as the author clearly wishes. This book is a must-read for scholars, policymakers, politicians and ordinary citizens of Nigeria.

  • ‘Restructure oil industry’

    An expert, Dr. Deinde Omotayo, has called for the restructuring of the oil sector.

    He said this became necessary because of the challenges facing the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)  and the sector.

    Speaking in Lagos, Omotayo said despite its role as the nation’s highest foreign exchange spinner, which amounts to about 90 per cent, the industry has been bedeviled by lack of transparency, corruption and theft.

    He said he was worried that over 40,000 barrels of crude oil are allegedly stolen daily by thieves, adding that despite the presence of security agencies, such as the Joint Task Force to police our water ways, the oil saboteurs still effortlessly have their way, leaving the nation bleeding.

    Omotayo, a medical practitioner and stalwart of All Progressives Congress (APC), said in addition to appointing more committed and sound professionals to manage the industry, both the downstream and the upstream sectors of the critical industry should be re-focused to meet the challenge  of modern management and set them on the sustainable part of enhancing the country’s development.

    He accused the Federal government and its gents of running the NNPC aground.

    He said whereas, Ghana produced 250,000 bpd, as against Nigeria’s four million bpd for domestic consumption, the impact of the industry is not felt by the people.

    He warned Nigerians to change their over reliance on oil revenue, saying that this could backfire, especially with the global oil price fall, which had led to a sharp drop in our foreign exchange earnings.

    He said greater investment in modern technology for exploration, drillings and manpower needs must be committee to the sector enhanced operation and value addition.

  • Pinnick promises to restructure NFF

    Pinnick promises to restructure NFF

    • Salutes Adenuga for being rallying symbol of football 

    The declining state of football is set to take a better turn as the Amaju Pinnick-led NFF board has promised a restructured and sustainable football culture that will ensure optimum performance both locally and internationally.

    Speaking during a courtesy call at the corporate headquarters of Globacom in Lagos on Thursday, Pinnick assured Nigerians that the era of mediocrity in football administration was over and that the people will see a change in the performance of Nigerian teams when their blue print is finally set in motion.

    Mr. Pinnick praised Globacom for comprehensively supporting the national teams over the years adding that Globacom would henceforth get more value for invested money as the sponsorship fee would be attached to clearly defined programmes.

    “We congratulate Glo. We believe you should get double the value of what you have invested in football . We also appreciate Dr. Adenuga who is a Pillar on the continent and a rallying symbol. We promise a symbiotic relationship that would be mutually beneficial and henceforth you will see visibly what your funds are being used for. We want to glow in every way” the NFF President noted.

    He announced that the Association would be restructured for optimum performance  and capacities would be developed in various ways adding that they had secured sponsorship for fifteen coaches and ex-internationals to attend a course on match reading while some referees would also undergo refresher courses.

    Welcoming the NFF President earlier, the Director, Promotions & Sponsored Assets, Achuthan Kutty congratulated him on his recent election and promised Globacom’s continued support to the Nigeria Football Federation at all times.

    He re-echoed Dr. Adenuga’s charge that an African team would win the World Cup and expressed the hope that Nigeria would be the country to break the record for the continent during the tenure of the Pinnick led Board.

    The NFF President was accompanied by the First Vice P?resident of the Federation, Mr.  Seyi Akinwumi and the Director of Marketing, Mr. Adama Idris.