The Nation Newspaper

Tag: restructuring

  • Fowler redeploys 26 directors in FIRS restructuring

    Fowler redeploys 26 directors in FIRS restructuring

    • 359,158 corporate tax payers added

    The Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler, has transferred 26 directors of the service and introduced the State Coordinator structure.

    A statement by the new Head, Communication and Servicom Department, FIRS,  Wahab Gbadamosi, said “each of the 13 State Coordinators will supervise operations in their areas of jurisdictions. Two directors were moved to the headquarters in Abuja. Three will coordinate affairs in the states.”

    The statement added that “experienced deputy directors were transferred to FIRS’ Training School and centres across the country as part of the efforts of the Service to strengthen its knowledge transfer programme and expeditious development of the capacity of its workforce in the interim.”

    In the new posting, the Director of FCT and Northcentral Region, Olufemi Faniyi, was posted to the Compliance Support Group, while Innocent  Ohagwa, Director, Southsouth and Southeast Directorate Department is now Acting State Coordinator, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Cross River states. Gbolaga Oshiga, Director, Lagos Mainland (East and West Directorate) Department is now Acting State Coordinator, Ogun, Oyo and Osun states.  Mohammed Magam, Director, Northwest and Northeast Regions Directorate Department becomes the Acting State Coordinator, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara States while Olufunlola Adediran, Director, Oil and Gas Department, Lagos, was transferred to the Office of the Coordinating Director, Domestic Tax Group in Abuja.

    “The State structure is part of the new FIRS Chairman’s vision of minimising the span of control, closer focus on corporate tax payers in all the states of the federation and stronger collaboration with State Boards of Internal Revenue (SBIR), to increase overall tax yield accruable to the three tiers of government.”

    Also, between October 13 last year and January 27 of this year,  (107 days) the FIRS registered additional 359,158 corporate tax payers under a new campaign to widen the tax net.

    “The FIRS chairman plans to add at least 500,000 new corporate tax payers by March 31, 2016.

    “Working with states under the Joint Tax Board (JTB), structure, the FIRS chairman plans to widen the tax base further by adding five million new individual taxpayers to the country-wide tax register, by December 2016,” the statement explained.

  • Stop resistance to restructuring of federation

    I have just 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. Arewa Consultative Forum 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 at Ikenne says much about our country.

    But before I come to the core of the ACF message, I take some liberty to comment on the delegation from the North and the way they handled their message. I must give honour where it is due. The ACF message was very expertly and carefully worded. It was printed, with late Sir Ahmadu Bello’s picture emblazoned on it. And the ACF representatives thoughtfully made some copies available for distribution at the YUF meeting, and generally delivered their charge with great dignity – dignity appropriate in the communication of one great nation to another great nation. I read this document a day or two 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, we should all tell the ACF and its principals 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 100 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 Scotts, 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 the development freedom that they deserved. That is why they agreed to a federal structure for Nigeria. And that is why they 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 expectations. 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 to themselves 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. In a group of youths visiting the Northern Region from a school in the Western Region in 1961, I had the privilege of visiting this great premier of the North in his office, and of listening to him for a few minutes as he told us, his sons, what he was doing for the people of our 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 whom God has 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 a Hausa-Fulani domination (or of a Yoruba or Igbo 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 the goal worthy to strive for.

  • Restructuring as answer to MASSOB’s nuisance

    PDP, like NPC/NCNC and NPN/NPP, its forebears is a party embraced largely by the majority of those who share Hausa/Fulani and Igbo mainstream political tendencies. The party suffers a common affliction with her grandparents- intolerance of opposition.  In 1962, NPC/NCNC destroyed AG, sending Awo the opposition leader to prison in Calabar. Following pressure from well-meaning Nigerians, the ruling coalition gave Awo an option between renouncing politics and relocating to the UK or the US for a couple of years or being in prison while they run the country according to their world view without opposition. Awo rejected both options claiming such opportunism would amount to betrayal of his supporters in the West and among the marginalized minorities across the country. He chose to remain in prison until war over sharing of offices between the Igbo elite and northern elite who had separately approached the military for support ended in a military coup that swept the warring allies away in January and July 1966. In the Second Republic, the warring partners metamorphosed into NPN/NPP in 1979. As it was in the First Republic, the coalition was destroyed by haggling over the sharing of offices and resources. To outwit NPP, its main rival and ally, NPN massively rigged the 1983 elections awarding itself landslide and ‘seaslide’ victories even in opposition strongholds.  It is also on record that the massively rigged 2003 and 2007 elections supervised by PDP and Obasanjo were the worst conducted elections in our nation’s history. Yar’Adua the beneficiary of the 2007 massive rigging was so scandalized that he had to set up the Justice Uwais Commission to review the electoral laws.

    But Stalwarts of PDP who publicly swore their party would rule uninterrupted for 60 years, as part of their strategy, seized control of restive groups’ agitation for justice, fairness, and equitable share of the resources of the state, all of which were fallouts of the betrayal of our nation through the dumping of the 1963 republican constitution and the running of an heterogeneous society like a unitary state by the military. Thus MEND whose stated goals ‘are to localize control of Nigeria’s oil and to secure reparations from the federal government for pollution caused by the oil industry’, became an ally of PDP with its leading members cornering of mouth-watering multi-dollar contracts.  The Oodua Peoples’ Congress, formed by some Yoruba elite for the actualisation of the 1993 annulled MKO Abiola’s mandate after securing contracts to monitor oil pipelines also became an ally of PDP. Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State recently asked Chief Ralph Uwazuruike ‘to tell his audience why MASSOB went to bed throughout the period Jonathan was the President, only for MASSOB to wake up from their deep slumber now that Buhari is the President.” Echoing similar sentiment, Ohaneze has also alleged that ‘those sponsoring the latest agitation for the creation of the state of Biafra are corrupt Igbo politicians who are trying to hide under the agitation to avoid prosecution for their alleged crimes.’

    Greed, dishonesty and desperate bid to hold on to power which underlined the above action of PDP leaders also explains the motive for unleashing those ex-Governor Suswan of Benue described as ‘Fulani mercenaries going around with AK47 wreaking havoc on Benue people’ on behalf of Fulani real owners of the cattle. It is instructive that while in the last six years, Nigerians wake up daily to reports of orgy of killings of scores of innocent women and children, torching of their houses by so-called Fulani herdsmen, a situation that led to open lamentation of ex-governor Gabriel Suswan of Benue that his “people have congenially been displaced from their homes by these Fulani herders on a daily basis’ and that ‘some of our children have not been to school in the last two years’, none of these heavily armed herdsmen has been arrested , successfully prosecuted neither has their sponsors be found.

    Yet while Jonathan and his PDP pretended to be helpless, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN in February 2014 , as the election drew near argued in a letter to Jonathan that their free movement across the country with their cattle is guaranteed by Section 41, Subsection 1 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which states “every citizen is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereof or exit therefrom.” They also referred to Section 42, Sub-section (1) (a) which ‘forbids the imposition of any disabilities or restrictions on any citizen by any executive or administrative action against any citizen of any ‘community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion…”

    A segment of the Fulani political elite who make fortunes from the misfortunes of their less privileged compatriots as owners of the cattle heads on whose behalf the armed Fulani herdsmen operate suffer the same affliction with a segment of the Igbo elite, with whom they  jointly ruled the country since independence until Buhari’s emergence this year. This dishonest and greedy segment of the Igbo political elite also unleash poor largely uneducated Igbo youths on the streets of urban centres hawking imported substandard and sometimes banned items. The uneducated Fulani herdsmen and their Igbo street traders counterparts often serve as canon fodders for their dishonest and greedy elite who egg them on to pillage other peoples’ land in Port Harcourt or desecrate other peoples’ culture in Lagos citing section 41, subsection1 and section 42 subsection 2 which are aberrations in a federal constitution.

    The way forward is a return to ‘Path to Nigeria Freedom’, with the coming together, for the first time in our nation’s history, a segment of the northern political elite represented by Buhari’s CPC and the mainstream Yoruba political tendency represented by Tinubu’s ACN who share a common view of society. They must first seek the kingdom of politics as Kwame Nkrumah would have put it. It is only after that the ongoing economic war can find meaning.

    We must restructure. There is no alternative with the failure of all the social engineering efforts of the military such as establishment of NYSC scheme, creation of unviable states and LGAs, establishment of federal government secondary schools and universities and quota systems of admission to federal institutions and civil service. Except for those benefiting from our nightmare, we have seen how a workable federal arrangement liberated people and groups from the tyranny of the state in the defunct Western Nigeria , India, Canada, Russia, former Yugoslavia, and Europe after the horrors of two world wars. Enemies of restructuring are those who instead of investing in the future of their impoverished compatriots want to live on their sweat and blood by condemning them to 12-14 months in the forest herding cattle they do not own or hawking smuggled goods whose labels they cannot read on the streets of our major cities.

  • AFC completes corporate restructuring

    The Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has said it has completed its corporate restructuring exercise with conclusion of key appointments into its executive management team.

    AFC had in January this year implemented a new organisational structure with a view to increasing the corporation’s client responsiveness by creating sector clusters that would each be responsible for delivering all of AFC’s products to clients within those sectors.

    The re-organisation also aimed at simplifying the corporation’s structure and responsiveness.

    Chief executive officer, Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), Mr. Andrew Alli said the new organizational structure would assist AFC to achieve its goals noting that AFC was formed to provide financing solutions to infrastructure projects in Africa.

    He pointed out that while it has so far made considerable progress over the last eight years of operations, it nonetheless needed to reinvent itself at this point to sustain the momentum.

    “We believe that the new organization structure will put the AFC on the right path,” Alli said.

    In achieving these objectives, a number of changes have already been made at the executive level. Dr. Adesegun Akin-Olugbade was appointed Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of AFC from his previous role as Executive Director, Corporate Services, taking on additional responsibilities for IT and the newly-established, Investor and Country Relations functions. He also remains as the Corporation’s General Counsel and Head of Legal Department.

    Akin-Olugbade, a Harvard Law School alumnus who graduated top of the Nigerian Law School Class of 1984 and is a pioneer executive of the AFC, has over 30 years’ experience in the legal profession and the financial services sector, having worked at both the technical and executive management levels, in the public and private sector, for leading commercial law firms, development banks and international financial institutions. He was previously General Counsel and Director of the African Development Bank and pioneer Chief Legal Officer and Head of Legal Services Department of the African Export-Import Bank.

     

  • Air traffic controllers seek restructuring of aviation agencies

    Air traffic controllers seek restructuring of aviation agencies

    •NATCA urges Buhari to probe sector

    The Nigeria Air Traffic Controllers’ Association (NATCA) has canvassed the restructuring of the nation’s aviation agencies in line with their primary functions as enshrined in Acts establishing them.

    Its President, Mr. Victor Eyaru, spoke at the association’s 44th annual general meeting and conference in Akure, Ondo State.

    He said the restructuring would reduce burdens of duplication of departments and directorates as against the originally designed structures.

    Eyaru urged the Federal Government to reduce corruption and wastages in the system by extending its probe to the aviation sector.

    He called on the government to extend most of the airports aprons, complete abandoned terminal buildings and create more jobs through the proposed new national carrier.

    The association’s president decried the abandoned Lagos airports taxiway for more than six years.

    He added that the inaction has reduced the capacity of the airport and prevented aircraft from accessing its vital areas.

    Eyaru said air traffic controllers formed only 12 per cent of the total staff strength of Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) as against 45 and 70 per cent for other sister organisations outside the country.

    He said paucity of fund in the agency slowed down timely renewal of facilities and the training of core aviation professionals in statutory areas to ensure proficiency in air safety.

  • NERC orders restructuring of fixed charges

    NERC orders restructuring of fixed charges

    •Discos asked to discontinue bulk metering

    The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has directed Distribution Companies (Discos) to restructure their fixed charges so that subscribers do not pay for electricity they do not consume.

    The directive is in line with a resolution passed by the Senate for NERC to look into complaints by electricity consumers over indiscriminate billing.

    The Discos have also been directed to discontinue the practice of bulk metering.

    The Senate, in its resolution following a motion by Senators Sam Egwu (Ebonyi North) and David Umaru (Niger East) entitled:  “Unfair trade practices of Electricity Distribution Companies in Nigeria” decried the fleecing of Nigerians by Discos through fixed charges and bulk metering among others.

    It directed NERC to immediately abolish fixed charges on electricity consumption as well as bulk metering of villages and communities.

    In a seven-page response to the Senate’s directive, NERC said it had told the Discos to restructure the fixed charges.

    The chairman/Chief Executive Officer NERC, Sam Amadi, who signed the letter, said even though the fixed charges were not illegal, the commission had been able to intervene in the matter.

    He said: “Based on the intervention of the Commission, the distribution companies have agreed to find a way to restructure the fixed charge such that a consumer who does not receive electricity supply does not pay the fixed charge.

    “This remodeling of the fixed charge will be part of the ongoing tariff review process being conducted by the distribution companies.

    “NERC will continue to ensure that whatever model is presented for its approval is fair and reasonable and ensures the survival of the new electricity market and improves quality of supply to consumers.”

    On the vexed issue of bulk metering of customers, the Commission said it totally agreed with the Senate on the need to eliminate the sharp practice.

    He added that the Commission has however provided a leeway for estimation in situations where residential meters are not provided to customers.

     

  • TUC praises govt over Ogoni clean-up, NNPC restructuring

    TUC praises govt over Ogoni clean-up, NNPC restructuring

    The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has praised the Federal Government over its planned clean-up of oil-polluted Ogoniland, resuscitation of the national carrier and the appointment of a new Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

    TUC in a statement signed by its President, Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama, and Secretary-General, Comrade Musa Lawal, said it views the moves as steps in the right direction if the change mantra espoused and canvassed by the ruling party is to yield positive results.

    The Congress advised the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to expedite action on the afore-mentioned areas and other items on its developmental agenda, as time is not on the government’s side.

    According to the statement, successive government’s insensitivity to the plight of the people has been the major cause of most unrests and insurgencies in the land.

    The labour chiefs noted that the initiative to clean up Ogoniland will help give a sense of belonging to the Niger Delta people. Part of the statement read: “Our country, being a mono-economy, cannot afford to neglect the goose that lays the golden egg. The present administration should go ahead and also diversify the economy, revive other sectors as it has planned to do in the aviation industry through the reintroduction of the national carrier, and fight corruption to a stand-still.

    “The Niger Delta agitation, for instance, started as a result of failure to address the grievances of the people, which include the destruction of their farmlands by oil spillage, gas flaring.”

    On the NNPC, TUC said the war against corruption should be comprehensive, lest it be viewed as mere witch-hunting. “While we applaud the sanitisation that has commenced at the NNPC, we also insist that it be extended to the ministries and other agencies of government. There is no patriotic Nigerian who is not bothered by the administrative and financial anomalies we have encouraged and accommodated as a nation,” Kaigama said.

    The labour Center also noted that the move to revive the national carrier is a welcome development, adding that it is a shame for Nigeria, a nation with a population of over 170 million people, not to have a national carrier at a time when smaller nations like Ethiopia operate airlines that are major sources of prestige and foreign exchange to them.

    The statement further said British Airways and other foreign airlines earn substantial revenue from flying Nigeria’s airspace, taking advantage of the large vacuum created by the ineptitude of our leaders over the years.

    “Apart from the thousands of Nigerians who go on medical tourism to Britain and other foreign nations, a good percentage of Nigerians who live in those nations come home at least twice yearly aboard their airlines. Just imagine how much we would earn if they flew our own national carrier instead? A lot of foreign exchange is involved here!

    Suffice to say that all those countries are having a field day making aviation money that we should be making. And this is aside the massive employment potentials that we have denied ourselves,” TUC lamented.

  • More restructuring to continue in NNPC, says GMD

    More restructuring to continue in NNPC, says GMD

    The Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, on Thursday gave indication that more sacking and deployment of personnel will take place in the Corporation.

    Speaking with State House correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, he said that three stages of restructuring will take place in the NNPC.

    According to him, the new look NNPC will start manifesting in the next six months.

    He said: “I don’t want to over critique an institution I have taken over please. Having said that, things have been done wrongly and things need to be done differently.

    “We are doing a lot of work in terms of repositioning, restructuring, getting the right personal in key places and setting a culture of accountability and service delivery so that the new NNPC that you are going to see will be a different institution altogether,” he said.

    On how far he was going with the restructuring, he said: “Complete. It’s A to zero restructuring. I have done the first three layers which is going to the GEDs to GGMs and General Managers.

    “You are going to have a lot more now. The GEDs and GGMs will take it to the next layer which is the lower layer. And the whole idea is to go back to being able to look at your appraisals; how well have you done in the job and if you’ve done very well, how do we elevate you to a position where you can offer more service.

    “If you’ve not done well enough, we can retrain you and if you’ve not done well enough and there is no possibility of retraining you, we will let you go.

    “At the end of the day, NNPC isn’t public service. It’s a corporation and we run like a company generating money for the people of Nigeria. And so, that whole concept of anything goes should stop. And this is the first stage of that whole process.

    “It’s a three-pronged process that I am pursuing. There’s a people aspect which we are dealing with now; there is a process aspect; after the people at the right places, you are going to get forensic audit done so that we know clearly, proper forensic audit that will cover us all the way to 2014, 2015, that will be able to say to you, this is the state of the company,” he added.

    According to him, processes and control are going to be put in place under his tenure.

    He also said the NNPC is going to embark on retraining and repositioning.

    He added: “We are going to re-engage our majors and minors, all those who are active in the sector, for us to work as a team to try to take Nigeria forward. It’s going to be the process stage.”

  • SEC trims staff, offices in major restructuring

    SEC trims staff, offices in major restructuring

    Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has undertaken a major restructuring exercise that cuts its operations, workers and technology with a view to improving service delivery to all stakeholders.

    The restructuring entails both a review of the organisational structure as well as a voluntary retirement scheme to trim down the wage bill of the regulator.

    Under the restructuring exercise, SEC is closing four of its existing seven zonal offices. Under the previous organisational structure, SEC operated with a head office in Abuja and seven zonal offices in Kaduna, Kano, Ibadan, Lagos, Maiduguri, Onitsha and Port Harcourt. Under the new arrangement, SEC has decided to close down four of its zonal offices in Kaduna, Ibadan, Maiduguri and Onitsha in order to allocate both human and material resources to strengthen the remaining three in Kano, Lagos and Port Harcourt.

    In a statement yesterday, SEC said the decision to close the zonal offices was arrived at because it could leverage on technology and shift resources to the use of both print and electronic media for public enlightenment to achieve the primary objective of investors’ education.

    The Commission stated that its new complaints management framework will delegate first stages of complaints management to the operators and trade groups, which implies that less and less complaints will be handled by the SEC, further reducing the need for multiple zonal offices.

    “In essence, by closing the four zonal offices and strengthening the remaining three, SEC can do more at a lower cost, this will free up resources to be allocated to critical areas of the Commission’s mandate like investor protection and investor education,” SEC noted.

    It also noted that it intends to strengthen functions such as monitoring, investigation and registration at the Lagos zonal office which will enable operators to reduce their overhead cost.

    According to the Commission, the move to shift more roles and functions to the Lagos office will boost institutional capacity and increase efficiency while improving service delivery by reducing turnaround time for processing applications. In addition, SEC can reduce its overhead cost as well while taking full advantage of proximity to operators to discharge its responsibilities in a timelier manner.

    Another aspect of the structural reform at SEC as an institution is the composition of workers by ranking. The Commission had been operating at an unsustainably top-heavy structure with a lot more senior level staff and junior level ones. For example, as at January this year, there were over 30 Deputy Directors, more than 40 Assistant Directors and upward of 80 Senior Managers. This issue had direct effect on workers’ morale as well as motivation because it inhibited career progression.

    To address this situation, the SEC Board approved a voluntary retirement scheme proposed by the Executive Management to incentivise top-level staff above the age of 45 who had served the Commission for more than 10 years and a nearing their retirement to voluntarily retire. Through this exercise, at the end of July 2015, 43 very senior staff exited the Commission, some of whom had served for more than 20 years and had stagnated for up to 11 years on the same position due to the non-availability of vacancies.

  • Corruption and restructuring

    The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been in the public domain since the advent of the President Buhari’s regime. Hardly does a day roll by without reports of the arrest and grilling of sundry personages especially those who have held one public office or the other. In this category, fall former governors and sundry public office holders including those still in service.

    Of late also, the commission has extended its searchlight to women; inviting and quizzing some of them for alleged offences. Issues for which they are being probed are offences allegedly committed years back. Not unexpectedly, tongues have been wagging as to the probable reasons the commission has woken up from the slumber into which it had irretrievably sunk. Those who toe this line are amazed that the crimes agency which almost rendered itself irrelevant during the last regime could so soon after, begin to show seeming seriousness in its statutory mandate.

    Because of the dissonance between its previous perception and the new toga it now seeks to wear, motives have been imputed into the current upbeat in its activities. The first theory links the rise in its activities to the resolve by the Buhari administration to battle corruption to the ground. In order to remain relevant to that electoral promise, the agency is said to be left with no option than to align itself with the new direction.

    The other which is linked to the first is the conjecture that the new regime is about to appoint a new helmsman for that anti-graft body. For this, its current operatives had to wake up from inactivity, apparently to prove a point that they are equal to the task. But the moot question is why before now they had been unable to creditably discharge their mandate despite the pervasiveness of corruption within the polity. Or was there anything in the policies of the last regime that posed encumbrances to its efficiency? We have not been so told and nobody will be impressed if such reasons are now being invented.

    Not long ago, the commission published a list of former governors it has dragged to court including monies and properties recovered from them. Ostensibly, the aim was to sway the public that it was living up to its billing. That could as well be. But without prejudice to the litany of cases the commission has instituted against many former governors and other political office holders, the general feeling is that its posturing has rather been very cosmetic. It would appear the way and manner it is prosecuting its mandate are patently incapable of taming the monster. For, corruption is so much entrenched in our system that only a very radical and proactive approach to its fight can prove a successful therapy. Many are deeply worried that none of the governors the body has been parading on trial has been sent to jail. Even then, some of them have been parading the political space as if nothing will happen. The agency may want to hide under the tortuous processes and delays in our justice system. That notwithstanding, it has not approached its duties with the kind of zeal and commitment that are required to decisively tackle such a debilitating problem. Allegations that the agency has overtime turned into a tool in the hands of the government for hounding the opposition has not helped its image and credibility.

    This scenario was such during the Obasanjo regime that it saw the commission deployed to carry out such constitutional duties as the impeachment of state governors. The end may have justified the means. But the damage done to the corporate image of that body still persists. Thus, in the renewed task of dealing a death blow to corruption, the EFCC would require radical restructuring such that will not only enable it discharge on its mandate but also regain public confidence as an impartial watchdog.

    But that is one side of the matter. Corruption is so endemic in our national life than what the current mandate of the EFCC can sufficiently tackle. This is because the mandate of the agency only focuses on incidences of corruption. The agency comes in only when there are financial infractions. It is helpless when it comes to stemming the causative factors that propel, reinforce and sustain the malfeasance. In other words, it only tackles corruption only when it has occurred. By this fact alone, the success that can be made in the corruption reduction index through such a strategy is highly circumscribed. While it is proper to deprecate the manner the agency is carrying out its functions, it has to be said unequivocally that the battle is beyond what it can solely wage. There are more serious systemic dysfunctions that must be tackled for the scourge to be reduced to the barest minimum. These issues are not new. What has been lacking has been the sincerity of mind to admit and find realistic solutions to them. They have to do with certain issues of our federal order that have overtime constrained the building of national consensus and common sense of belonging amongst the disparate peoples that inhabit this country. They relate in the main, to the defective federal structure we currently operate and its tendency to reinforce competition for loyalty between the primordial entities and civic structures. They have to do with the amoral relationship between the government and the ethnic groups. This influences and determines the relationship that should exist between both authorities. That is the real issue.

    Despite all the pretences, the way the federation is currently structured can only aid and abet corruption. The various interests’ relationship with the centre is determined by what they expect to get from it. It is not a reciprocal relationship but a one sided bargain. The concentration of too much power at that level has not helped matters. That is why there is bitter competition for its control and leadership. People conceive that level of governance from the prism of the unjustifiable advantage it will give their primordial units to the exclusion of others. Our society does not yet frown at the impoverishment of that level for the gains of other mundane considerations. We need to work on that. Today, people are still debating whether the recommendations of the last national conference should see the light of the day. Some even want it thrown into the dustbin just because it was promoted by an administration they hate. But there are others who contend that there are salient aspects of those recommendations the nation cannot really do without. This writer subscribes to that position.

    So, it is neither a matter of who husbanded the conference nor to whom its credit should go. The irreducible decimal is the future some of the recommendations hold for the success and stability of the nation. If such credible positions on how to stabilize the polity have been clearly articulated, the credit for its successful implementation will definitely go to the regime that had the political will to see them through. It is therefore not an ego trip but a serious business to retrieve the nation from the precipice it is inevitably heading. Since that is what the Buhari regime has set out to achieve, it is left with no option than to radically restructure the country to guarantee its survival and quick development.

    It has become increasingly imperative to devolve more powers to the component units for them to develop at their own pace. This will quicken the pace of development and also reduce the reckless stealing that goes on at the federal level. It will also stem the rivalry for the control of the souls of the citizens between the central authority and the primordial entities. Happily today, such key players in the new regime as Asiwaju Bola Tinubu are well known advocates of restructuring through a national conference. The opportunity for that engagement is now with us.