The Nation Newspaper

Tag: smiling

  • Why the Governor is Happy and Smiling

    Why the Governor is Happy and Smiling

    A member of the Kenyan delegation which recently visited Taraba State was asked by a reporter of his impression after touring some parts of the state. His answer was an instructive take-away package. Taraba, he said, is a state in a hurry to renew and reposition itself to meet the people’s need for modern amenities. He did not stop there.  He said: “Everywhere we went during the tour men were at work on the roads. On-going water projects sites were numerous and contractors were battling hard to meet stringent completion deadlines given to them by the Governor.”  All of these, the Kenyan gentleman said, underscored one vital point: Governor Darius Dickson Ishaku’s determination to take the state off the reverse gear and move it forward.

    That determination informs the way things are done in Government House, Jalingo, the seat of political power in the state. The Governor is ever in a hurry to touch lives positively and he is frequently reminding his aides to increase their speed because there is no time to waste. It is for this reason that Government House under the watch of Governor Ishaku is always a beehive of activities. At any point in time during work hours, there are meetings and consultations going on, all in the efforts to seek new and realistic approach to the all-important issue of taking the state to greater heights.

    The situation was very much the same in Government House last week. Government House was in a very busy mood and so was Governor Ishaku, its Number One tenant. The star event of the week was the visit of the Kenyan delegation from Nairobi Water and Sewerage Corporation to Taraba State. And the star subject of the week was W-A-T-E-R. Water was the most discussed item in government circle during the week.

    Governor Ishaku for whose administration the provision of water is a priority, received the visiting seven-member Kenyan delegation three times in four days. The first was a courtesy visit in the Governor’s office, the second a private dinner for the visitors in the Governor’s Lodge and the third and last a farewell visit during which the group submitted a diagnostic report on how effective management of water can be achieved by the Taraba State Water Agency. It is rare for Governor Ishaku to be so generous with time as he did with the visitors from Kenya but this had to be so because the provision of water and its management for profitable efficiency are a priority of his administration. During the visit, each member of the delegation received a souvenir from both Governor Ishaku and his wife, Barr. Anna Darius Ishaku.

    The visit of the Kenyans was an opportunity for Governor Ishaku to also check on the contractors handling government’s water projects at the various construction sites in Jalingo and he came out of each of the sites happy and smiling the way I have never seen him do. The secret? He was happy with the level of progress that has been made by the construction firms and smiling because water will soon be flowing into the homes and offices of the residents of Jalingo.  He told his audience during the brief but remarkable ceremony in his Lodge on Friday afternoon that he was anxious to have in Taraba State a water agency that is as efficiently managed as the one he saw in Kenya. About 50 staff members of the Taraba State Water Agency are soon to depart for Nairobi to be trained in the culture of efficiency in water management. The Kenyan team has since left for home.

    The euphoria of victory over water problem that is certain and already knocking at doors in the state also radiated and coloured almost all the other events of the state during the week. The graduation ceremony of the first batch of 335 beneficiaries of the Ishaku administration’s Youth and Women Empower Programme was a huge celebration of success that is unique in the state. The scheme is the first most productive economic empowerment programme since the creation of Taraba State in 1991. It is the greatest gift from the state to the 335 participants, one they will never forget in a lifetime.

    The trainees were selected through a rigorous process, two from each electoral ward.  They were trained in carpentry, hairdressing, footwear designing, computer operations, soap making, wood carving, cloth weaving, fish net production and welding. They had become proficient in these areas of entrepreneurship at the end of the three-month exercise. At their graduation ceremony held in the sports hall of the Jolly Nyame Stadium, Jalingo, on Tuesday, all participants received special free packages of equipment they require to set up their own business. These include, photo copiers, computer/printers, generators, machines and tools. The programme was implemented by the Ministry of Poverty Alleviation and co-ordinated by Rescue Watch, the monitoring organ of the government’s Rescue Agenda.

    Speaking at the graduation ceremony, Governor Ishaku said the programme was his administration’s response to “our people’s desperate desire for jobs as expressed in almost all reports from our local government areas” collated for him by members of the Rescue Watch. He also explained what decided his choice of areas covered by the skills acquisition training. “My decision to approve the skills acquisition programme to cover tailoring, shoe making, soap making, wood craft, carpentry, weaving of “Kyadzwe” and “Lantang” traditional clothes, welding, hairdressing and computer services was deliberate”, he said. He said it was because of a strong personal conviction “that the things that our women and youths can leverage on for self-sustenance are right here at our backyards.”

    Ishaku urged the grandaunts to take advantage of the skills they have acquired from the training to create wealth and employment opportunities for others.  “You cannot afford to fail the people of Taraba State by misusing the public funds that was committed to your training. Any attempt to abuse this gesture by any beneficiary of the scheme shall be met by the full wrath of the law.” He warned the grandaunts against the temptation to sell equipment provided for them to set up their own business. “The idea of selling off these equipment provided for you should never in any way be contemplated because all the ward contact persons are hereby charged to keep watch over the beneficiaries and report non-compliance.” There are plans, according to the Governor to start the training of yet another batch of women and youths.

    Mr Rebo Usman, Chief of Staff to the Governor who supervises the Rescue Watch and the empowerment programme said all the grandaunts had signed an undertaking not to sell the equipment given to them. During their three month period of training, participants were each paid a monthly salary of Ten Thousand Naira. While the ceremony lasted the participants kept singing special songs and clapping hands in appreciation of Governor Ishaku for the great turn around in their destiny courtesy of the economic empowerment training.

    For Governor Ishaku, it was yet another glorious moment of accomplishment. He was again happy and smiling, especially as he toured through the stands where items produced by the trainees were on display.

    Earlier, Governor Ishaku had flagged- off the Third Nigeria Medical Association games tagged Jalingo 2017 and took the kick-off at the opening soccer competition. He noted that the games were an opportunity for the doctors to savour the traditional hospitality of the Taraba people. Ishaku said he was impressed by the idea of a Doctors’ Annual Games because in the past, doctors were often portrayed as too busy saving lives to save their own. By exercising through sports, doctors were showing the way to a healthy living. Ishaku also directed that each participant in the games be given one carton of Highland tea. Highland tea is one of the major products of the state.

    Dr Henry Okon Achibong, a member of the House of Representatives who represented Speaker Yakubu Dogara said it was a welcome coincidence that the Doctors’ games were being hosted in Taraba at a time that the health sector in the state was getting the best of attention.

    While all these were going on, Ishaku was also busy with preparations to host many of his colleague governors, traditional rulers and other prominent Nigerians from all parts of the country at the 40th anniversary celebration of Aku Uka’s ascension to the throne of his forefathers, scheduled for Friday, March 17 in Wukari. Details next week.

  • Gov. Ibikunle Amosun, the people are still not smiling

    •(A reminder to a bungling governor)

    gun State still looms like a gothic platitude of pain and death from its transit townships but the “Gateway State” remains Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s bower of bliss. There, in his stately Eden, Amosun  lives immune and insensate to the ravages of ill-will and pent-up fury tearing the natives apart from inside out. Governor Amosun must be having a blast inside the Government House at Oke Mosan. He does not have to rise and retire to his bed everyday wondering if he would die along the deadly stretch of Lagos-Abeokuta highway, particularly at the spots where innocent children, mothers, fathers – dependants and breadwinners – die like stray fowls, accidentally or by installments, in his administrative landmine.

    Governor Amosun’s loved ones are extremely lucky; unlike the mother who left home with her three children only for them to be brought back as mangled corpses from an accident, caused by bad road, to the deceased’s husband. Amosun is certainly favoured by the ‘gods,’ unlike the bereaved families who sent their wards to school only to receive news that they had been crushed to death by a steel container in a gory accident along the Sagamu-Benin expressway. Is Governor Amosun neglecting that death trap because it is a ‘federal road?’ If that is the case, is Governor Amosun solely remunerated from revenue he makes from Ogun State or from the ‘federal purse?’

    Governor Amosun is one lucky dude as he does not have to live up to the promise he made to the poor, hopeless pupils of the Community Primary School, off Agoro road, Owode-Titun, Ota, Ogun State. One year and six months after they lost their classrooms to a violent rain squall, most of the 740 pupils have been learning with tears, under a crooked shed held together by wooden poles and corrugated iron sheets. The school’s Parents Teachers Association (PTA) constructed the shed last year when it was clear that the state government will not come to the children’s rescue. Although Governor Amosun promised to rebuild the school when his campaign train visited the area to seek re-election, he has since forgotten his promise and the area.

    Thus through scorching sun blaze and violent rain squalls, the pupils huddle together helplessly, in futile lunges for comfort and cover from the ravages of nature, tearing at their fragile frames. For the only public primary school in the community, the descent into decay started in May last year, when a rainstorm blew off the roof of the block of six classrooms and the staff room. The storm also tore off the entire side of the building. Yet Governor Amosun conveniently forgets the sad fate of the poor pupils of Community Primary School in Owode-Titun, Ota.

    Some cratered meters from the school, the stars are still a backdrop for the inhuman condition at Owode junction, just before you get to Ifo. Is Governor Amosun waiting for that expedient moment of disaster or road mishap of immense magnitude to occur before he swoops in with a bereaved mien and overzealous aides, to misappropriate anguish where he feels none?

    The natives of Ijoko, Agoro, Ijako, Iyana-Ilogbo, Ilepa, Ijoko, Alade, Oju Ore, Ilo-Awela, Elekunmefa, Imise, Onihale, Singer, Lusada, Ewekoro, Atan-Ota and Igbesa to mention a few, are still dying slowly and accidentally, from the perils of plying their muddy and badly cratered roads and there is still ugliness in Lafenwa, Aiyetoro, Olugbode and various communities along Itele road.

    From a distance, the piercing and indiscriminate glare of sunlight and moonshine desecrate these townships like tombs slipshodly carved along the graying highway that leads to Abeokuta, Ogun State’s capital city. Closer, the people and houses in the communities take shape like a stream of accidental shadows, their hard noises striking one’s face and making the senses numb with jarring clarity. It is their noiseless undertones that however, evoke intense feelings of awe and curiosity. Sad desperate glances of the natives inspire a thirst for buried narratives that they miserably learn to endure as unreal jests made by death.

    Guess his Excellency in Ogun State, has learnt to glance without flinching at the straggle of human suffering emblematic of the pale ghost of his “Gateway State.” Wonder if he is unaware of the deaths and squalor across the townships; wonder if he knows that there are schools with better structures, histories, progressive and ideological foundations that deserve as much attention and support as he is currently giving his model schools’ phantasm; wonder if he simply chooses to ignore the descent of the tourist tracts where decay and death spit venom at the hapless citizenry, like Siamese cobras every day.

    Governor Amosun is probably unmoved to affect heart-felt responses to the malaise. Perhaps he is making spirited gestures even as you read to extend citizenry-centred governance cum democratic dividends to the disillusioned natives of the state. Perhaps he just doesn’t know how to go about it.

    Ignorance is not an excuse for denying the citizenry good governance and their fundamental human rights. It is no longer tenable to hoodwink the citizenry by chants of ‘Change’ and platitudinous avowal to abolish squalor and foster general prosperity; time has revealed what section of the citizenry such ideological ‘life boat’ solutions are meant to deceive. It shall no longer be “politically expedient” to neglect a class of the governed just because, by will or circumstance, they inhabit parts of state the ruling class would rather not lose sleep over; except at the time of election or re-election.

    Governor Amosun is spending his second term in office which makes it even more dangerous for the APC to maintain dominance in Ogun State if he fails. When the party eventually presents its candidates for public offices in 2019, what glowing achievements will it point to as Amosun’s legacy and reasons why it should be given the people’s mandate again? The oft over-hyped and derided bridges and roads in Abeokuta? Or the equally contentious model school projects? These familiar arguments have gotten too old now and they are infinitely strange to the poor citizenry braving the perils of the state’s townships every day.

    Life in Ogun State’s townships is in grave decline. Together, these neglected tracts constitute an ambiguous ‘sick rose’ accentuating Ogun State’s descent into a food for worms even as you read. Though a sick rose, Ogun State is manouvered to mimic a growth cycle in the hands of Amosun and amid the rabid PR blitz launched and managed by Camp Amosun.

    That is why the state government will do nothing even if foreign investors  cum fortune hunters like cement giant, LafargeWAPCO Plc, subjects its host communities to terminal death, by its dangerous production activities, in desperate pursuit of profit. (It is instructive to note that LafargeWAPCO perpetrates in Ogun State, atrocities it wouldn’t dare commit in France and other European nations but that is a discussion for another day.)

    Ogun State’s manifestation as a sick rose satirizes Governor Amosun’s preferred portraits of it as a bower of bliss. It reveals an inner hostility; the governor’s flirtatious art of concealment necessitates that truth’s approach must take the form of a rape. If not, the people of Ogun State will continue to die by the onslaught of the conqueror maggots of hypocrisy, neglect, arrant betrayal and underdevelopment afflicting the state.

    Does Governor Amosun, like too many of his peers, consider truth as he hates to see it, as a perverse fetish? Does he believe that any critique or contradiction of his gospel of ‘Change’ is a swerve from goodwill and fruitfulness? If so, his much celebrated ‘Change’ project is diametrically opposed to the APC’s gospel of ‘Change.’

     

  • Nigerians are suffering and smiling

    SIR: Living in Nigeria is like a bitter and sweet symphony.  Nature endowed the nation with abundant beauties.  The landscape across the country is like a bed of green grass.  Flourishing vegetation in various regions makes an awesome basket of exquisite delights.  The sun glows soothingly like a lover’s gentle eyes.  Its beaming in dry season can cause a stranger to run under the shade, trees big as giant umbrellas comfortingly cover the open spaces.  Natives sweating under colourful clothing stir wonders to the imagination.  They excitedly go about their business with soaking handkerchief in their hands mopping their brows.  The sound of the exotic languages in the market places is like an orchestra.

    Nigerians must have been made of a special breed.  Farmers, traders, civil servants, students; the society wakes every morning to start the crucial exercise to make a living.  There is no steady power supply, no running water, no good roads; all the modern amenities that make life livable are a luxury to the masses.  Yet like soldiers in a war front, they carry on.  They gather in their houses, churches, bars, and other rendezvous at the end of the day and let off steam like a boiling pot.  They infuse their lives with joy.

    A village clown once observed that you do not need money to live in Nigeria.  He explained that there are many social events going on every day of the week.  He looks for posters for news about where there is a wedding, wine carrying, funerals, chieftaincy celebrations, thanksgiving and numerous other occasions.  He dresses up in his best clothe and goes to these events.  There is no invitation required to get reception.  Some days he is so drunk and ate so much that he is tired to meet up to all his engagements.  He is dumbfounded that people want to leave Nigeria to travel anywhere in the world to live.

    Here profoundly may lie the secret of the smiling faces one sees all over the country.  An average Nigerian toils day and night under excruciating circumstances to become successful.  The first thing he does once he has money is to have a lavish occasion to demonstrate to his community that he has achieved social status.  The size of one’s event is the measure of his acceptance.  The recognition accords him honor and respect.  In some unfortunate situations, folks are confronted with social pressure.  They sell their land, personal properties or borrow money to have a flamboyant funeral for example.

    Nigerians at their best have a culture of celebration.  They dance at festivals, churches, funerals, weddings and every other occasion.  There is no situation that they do not as a custom to turn into a celebration.  This tradition may appear infantile.  However, it seems to help the society overcome like it does with the perpetual onslaught of injustice peppered by a corrupt political system.  They sing always thanking God for everything.

    The melody is sweet.  Under the moonlight, the sky is blue.  The land provides fresh harvest all season.  The people march jubilantly to welcome each dawn.  There will be rainfall.  There will be sunshine.  Nature made the weather kind.  Nigerians close their eyes at night and live the fantasy.  They have the magic to create happiness.

     

    • Pius Okaneme

    Umuoji, Anambra State.

  • Nigerians… Suffering, smiling amid plenty

    Nigerians… Suffering, smiling amid plenty

    Evidence abound that the country is plagued with man-made poverty, in spite of its wealth and potentials. A forum organised by the Obafemi Awolowo Institute of Government and Public Policy (OAIGPP) proffers solutions to the anomaly, reports OLUKOREDE YISHAU

    The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stands at $262.61 billion. The tale this tells is that the country’s economic profile is quite pleasing and promising. Economists say they have no reason to fault the measurement of the status of the economy through the GDP, which measures the national income and output for a given period. This has, however, raised a poser: is the GDP the best index for measuring the health of an economy?

    Not a few believe that using this method, especially in a developing economy, is prone to flaws, and can lead to a distorted conclusion. The reasons for this are not unconnected to the fact that the GDP can engender a situation where a few people have an unfair share of the output of the country and not stimulate job creation or wealth.

    By the recent figure of the National Bureau for Statistics (NBS), unemployment increased to 23.9 in 2011 from 21.1 in 2010. Going by a 2012 frightening statistics by the NBS, about 112 million of the 160 million Nigerians were whipped into poverty. By that figure, it means 67 per cent of the population is finding it hard to eke out bare existence.

    The United Nations Human Development Index for 2013 ranks the country 153 of 186 countries. As if that is not enough, the report says further that the average life expectancy in the country is 52 years. Also, the World Bank, in its May 2013 Nigeria Economic Report (NER), said the economic outlook of the country is gloomy, saying the number of Nigerians living in poverty is increasing too rapidly for comfort.

    The NER said: “Poverty rates remain high in Nigeria, particularly in rural areas. These rates declined between 2003-2004 and 2009- 2010, although not nearly as fast as would be expected from the pace of economic growth in the country. While the officially reported growth rates of GDP well exceed population growth in the country, the pace of poverty reduction does not; this implies that the number of poor Nigerians living below the poverty line has grown measurably.”

    Yet, the country is to Africa what China is to Asia. The Raw Materials Research Development Council last year said there are more than 9, 000 untapped natural resources in the country.

    The need to tap wealth like these and help the country out of the gulag was why eggheads gathered at a public lecture by the Obafemi Awolowo Institute of Government and Public Policy (OAIGPP), Lekki, Lagos. Entitled God-Given Wealth, Man-Made Poverty and the Rule of Law in Nigeria, the lecture was delivered by the Nabo Graham-Douglas Distinguished Professor of Law at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Abuja, Prof Yinka Omorogbe.

    Prof Omorogbe said: “In every sense, God has blessed Nigeria. However, the promise remains unrealised, as notwithstanding these resources, Nigeria remains one of the world’s least developed countries, and a country widely perceived as being a victim of the Resource Curse.”

    Prof Omorogbe was not the only one who lamented the turn of events in the country, where the majority cannot afford just one decent meal in a day, yet their country rivals China as one of two fastest growing markets for private jets in the world.

    The host of the event and Director-General of the Awo Institute, Prof Adigun Agbaje, chairman, Board of Trustees of the Institute and Interim National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Chief Bisi Akande; Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Mr. Ekpo Nta; lawyer and human rights activist, Mr. Bamidele Aturu; Dr. Frederick Fasehun of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC); Prof Moses Makinde (who represented the Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola; and others took turn to rue the poverty level in the country.

    Prof. Omorogbe says until Nigeria is founded and established on the rule of law, its survival will continue to be shaky. She said: “Succeeding years will not bring the hope that is being earnestly expected. Instead, the promise of abundant natural and human resources given to us by God will not be realised as it should, inequalities will increase, poverty will remain unchecked, and we could be faced with a continuing descent into an abyss of unknown dimensions.”

    Nigeria, Prof Omorogbe said, has a sizeable portion of such mineral deposits and was tipped at independence as the hope of the black man. She said, over the decades, the story has changed.

    She said: “Nigeria has been a disastrous development experience. On just about every conceivable metric, Nigeria’s performance since independence has been dismal. In PPP terms, Nigeria’s per capital GDP was US$1, 1113 in 1970 and is estimated to have remained at US$1, 084 in 2000. The latter figure places Nigeria amongst the 15 poorest nations in the world for which such data are available.”

    She blamed corruption, impunity, lack of investment in human service and industrial infrastructure for the current doom.

    The situation has been worsened by oil theft, with oil worth about $3 million stolen each day. She said oil as a resource has been more of a curse than blessing to the country, adding that: “Nigeria is the global poster child for that ailment. It refers to the prevailing tendency of resource-rich countries to regress rather than to grow and become prosperous. Sadly, but truly, all new petroleum producers study Nigeria to show how not to be like her.”

    She faults the claims by government officials that the economic growth of a country equals to development.

    The professor said: “In fact, growth often exists in places where there are great disparities in income distribution and which suffer from development deficiencies. This is the situation in Nigeria and in several developing countries. Let us disregard the cheery news and figures that are regularly spewed out by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy. She clearly knows that the economic growth being witnessed by Nigeria is not accompanied by corresponding elevations in development indicators… She knows that the increased ‘wealth’ has not and will not trickle down to those who need it most – for whom a few naira makes the difference between life and death – without concerted policies and mandatory actions by both the government and big businesses.

    “Economic growth is concerned with aggregated figures, while development is concerned with discernible and measurable impacts of monies that have entered the state on as much of the population as possible.”

    She said growth must be accompanied by development for it to be meaningful. In her words: “It is usually preceded by informed policy decisions and actions which must include the enactment of legislation to promote or mandate the necessary activities needed to promote he desired development objectives.”

    Speaking on how to turn the fortunes around, she quoted the 2007 World Investment Report: “Government systems and institutional capacity ought to be strengthened and mineral wealth should be invested in the creation of knowledge for economic innovation, and in human, societal and physical capital formation, including infrastructure development.”

    She added: “This environment of impunity – where anything happens, has led to the classic paradox embedded in what is known as the Resource Curse – where an abundantly wealthy country becomes one of the world’s poorest countries with some of the worst economic indicators in the world.

    “Lack of respect for the rule of law and due process has led to a climate where ‘anything goes,’ and where all and any resources may be appropriated and utilized by an elite few, at the expense of the far more numerous masses, leading to cornered wealth and to great inequality, with stupendous wealth co-existing in environments characterised by lack, want, poverty, and an absence of basic infrastructure for modern living. This is the reason why an abundantly blessed and resource-rich country like Nigeria remains counted amongst the poorest nations of the world.”

    She faulted those who blamed the country’s underdevelopment on past and present leaders, saying: “We are all leaders at one level or another.”

    She explained: “The follower of one person is also a leader of some others. The follower tolerates and enforces the negative leadership skills of his boss while practising his own autocratic and often lawless leadership skills to the detriment of his followers and the institution or group that he leads. At all levels, leadership with impunity is both accepted and practised by the same people.”

    Aturu, however, said all Nigerians cannot be held responsible for the sorry state of affairs. He said: “There is a sense in which one might be fairly accused of trivialising the subject if one holds responsible the messenger whose entitlement to a minimum wage of N18, 000 is still being contested by some governors for the economic woes of the country. We need to focus more on those layers that bear ultimate responsibility for the acts of omission and commission that have virtually grounded our country.” He stated that by insisting that all Nigerians are responsible for the troubles afflicting the country, the real culprits might escape punishment. And because they are not punished, the culture of impunity becomes entrenched.”

    He agreed that adherence to the rule of law could help the country get out of its dilemma.

    In his words: “The law fashioned by the Nigerian state is the instrument of the dominant class, the propertied class, for the protection of the interests of that class and necessary subjugation of the interests of the working class.” In his words, the Nigerian state is a rogue state. He illustrated that with a number of examples, including the security votes appropriated by the various heads of governments that are never accounted for. To him, the solution lies in creating political platforms and forums to sensitise the people and achieve an attitudinal change. He advocated the establishments of change cells in schools, public institutions, political parties, professional organisations, political parties, market associations, security organisations and among peasants.

    “When people become conscious that they own all except the lives of others, they would readily do everything to resist the privatisation of social life. Governors will not be able to spend public funds without accounting for them. Even Vice-Chancellors will conduct the affairs of their institutions openly and transparently.”

    Nta, who praised OAIGPP for the lecture, urged research institutes to “take up the challenge of providing social constructs that will help Nigerians enjoy their God-given wealth and reduce corruption-prone processes and ethical deficits that produce man-made poverty”. He said his commission plans to start anti-corruption studies in the universities, with the support of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

    Akande said the role of the Nigerian elite must be subjected to critical analysis in the attempt to seek a solution to the various crises plaguing the country. He added that leaders must be well prepared in order to “tame their appetite and emotions and embrace discipline as a value in order to achieve effective governance and general development of their society and country.”

    Will the words of these observers and experts in development be heeded?