The Nation Newspaper

Tag: stupid!

  • Fuel: It’s market forces, stupid

    Fuel: It’s market forces, stupid

    It must have been exasperating to watch officials of the Nigerian national Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Department of Petroleum resources, DPR and the petroleum resources ministry all speak, as it were, in tongues in the wake of the embarrassing fuel shortage that gripped the nation few days to Christmas. Seems one moment when lies would trump truth-telling; obfuscation, clarity. After a month-long circus in which corporate dereliction accounts for no mean part, we are, as always, pretending to getting around to the bolts and nuts of the vexing issue even if, as in times past, the solutions proposed not only amounts to merely kicking the problem down the road but are merely attempts to recycle worn solutions as new.

    And so we are back to the pre-May 2016. Back to the same wearisome arguments about the co-efficient of fuel-price determination; the import price parity and the troubling mathematics of fuel cost recovery; of subsidies and opportunity costs; of phantom and cooked up figures. And finally, to the ugly, though hard, truth about the economics of a product around which other elements in the polity spins.

    Never mind the posturing by Maikanti Baru, Nigerians know who it was that finally won the day. Never mind the docking of the usual big boys of the fuel import trade – Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPMAN) and their perennial sparring partner, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), the latter of which complains to no end about getting fuel to dispense even when the hordes of shadowy players had enough to flood the streets with; in the end, the cold arithmetic of the business or what some choose to call the fundamentalism of the market seems to have finally prevailed. Something, it has finally dawned, must have to give about the current price of the ‘essenco’ called petrol. It is either a review of the current price of N145 per litre for petrol to something around the N180 per litre band, or a return to the full-blown Nigerian nightmare called subsidy!

    Either way can only be bad, terrible news. Whereas a review of the current price would seem beyond contemplation at a time real incomes have witnessed an unprecedented decline under the Buhari administration, a return to the era of subsidy on fuel would be just as toxic for an economy said to be hungry for development funds. However, like every single public policy issue in this clime, it is not that the problems suddenly chanced upon us, or would require some complex algebraic formula to decipher; the problem stems from the game of denial by the NNPC and its principal the federal government. Rather than level with the citizens on the dilemma posed by the rising oil prices and unstable exchange rates considering not just our dependence on fuel imports but the fact that we have absolute no control over the global price of crude, they resort to drawing a veil of secrecy on what is ordinarily a straightforward economic issue.

    The truth is that some newspapers had as far back as October 2017 more than speculated on the return of the subsidy regime. Vanguard actually reported a figure of N586 million daily as fuel subsidy following the rise in crude oil price from $49 to $58 per barrel then. Today, with oil prices closing menacingly on $70 a barrel mark, we should be looking at a much higher figure of the subsidy than the N586 million daily reported for October 2017. And so, the question naturally bears asking – what happens should oil price hit, say $100– a price not exactly inconceivable given the volatility in commodity prices?

    Which is why Nigerians should take the theatrics by Maikanti Baru and company with a pinch of salt. Nor should anyone for that matter be deceived by the effort to conceal the corporate incompetence of the minders of the oil industry.

    By the way, does it strike anyone that the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, the agency charged with the determination of the fuel-price template thinks it is better to play the ostrich – pull down the template element from their website as if by so doing,  the price movements would be guaranteed frozen!

    What to do? Get the figures out. As far as I can see, only the National Assembly stands in good stead to help lay all the cards on the table. Certainly not the subsidy-denying PPPRA. Much as we are a long way from the era of denying the arithmetic of the differential between the cost of import and price at the pump, the fact remains that the subsidy debate remains largely emotive. Yet, to the extent that there is no other name given under the heaven to describe the under-recovery of costs save subsidy, establishing the quantum of the differential will surely be a good step not just towards stripping the fuel trade of its needless mystique, but removing the veil behind which officials hide to prey on the system! Can anybody think of a better way to psychologically prepare the citizens for the imminent liberalisation say, when Dangote refinery and others, finally come on stream?

     

    Change and its many semantics

    “I have kept a close watch on the on-going debate about “Restructuring”. No human law or edifice is perfect. Whatever structure we develop must periodically be perfected according to changing circumstances and the country’s socio-economic developments. We Nigerians can be very impatient and want to improve our conditions faster than may be possible considering our resources and capabilities. When all the aggregates of nationwide opinions are considered, my firm view is that our problems are more to do with process than structure.

    We tried the Parliamentary system: we jettisoned it. Now there are shrill cries for a return to the Parliamentary structure. In older democracies these systems took centuries to evolve so we cannot expect a copied system to fit neatly our purposes. We must give a long period of trial and improvement before the system we have adopted is anywhere near fit for purpose”.

    That was President Buhari in his New Year broadcast. For those clamouring for ‘restructuring”, it must have been disappointing that the president thinks that the current structure can be salvaged by some process of re-engineering.

    Rather than engage in the endless but increasingly unfruitful debate on the path that the Buhari administration would rather not tread, why don’t we, for a change, focus on interrogating the so-called re-engineering which the president seems enamoured?

    It seems that only then can the citizens begin to meaningfully account for the administration’s scandalous squandering of a national goodwill!

    I rise!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • 2017: It’s the economy, stupid!

    It is a constant rite of passage. At the dawn of every new year, there is that vibrant and infectious burst of hope of better things to come. Humanity – maybe with few, if indeed any exception – forges a rare unanimity in resurgent optimism; and regardless of varied and, for most parts, disappointing experiences in the preceding year, there is that unanimous mood swing towards keen expectations of bliss in the incoming year.

    Experience shows though that it is a vicious cycle: from high mode in excited hope, to bottom-out in failed expectations, and back to high mode in resurgent optimism. This happens year after year. But it has never been a sufficient factor to dissuade humankind from the almost naive rebound of hope that resonates in the exuberant goodwill we mutually share as we wish one another ‘Happy New Year!’ In that celebratory spirit, I hasten here to wish you, dear reader, a Happy New Year in 2017.

    Rituals apart, it seems apparent enough that the prevailing mood in Nigeria this year just isn’t as boisterous as it used to be in a season as this. If you interrogate the ambience, you would find there is a subdued cheer in the land this New Year; and if I may hazard a guess, I would say the subdued mood has to do with some trepidation many Nigerians feel about general prospects of the national economy in the incoming year.

    Not that this new year isn’t pregnant with promises of better things as all new years have always been. Among others, we have the word of President Muhammadu Buhari that the Federal Government’s 2017 budget plan will send the recession currently plaguing the Nigerian economy on terminal recess in the course of the year. As I recall, the President said that much when he presented the budget proposals to the National Assembly in December.

    And that promise has been amplified by Information Minister Lai Mohammed, who in the closing days of December praised Nigerians for their perseverance and understanding in 2016 and urged them to look forward to better times in 2017. “We give thanks to God that we are alive. By the grace of God, next year will be much easier. 2016 has not been a particularly easy year even for governance because the economy has not done as well as we thought it would. This is not because of incompetence on the part of government, but because of the general global slowdown that affected commodity prices,” the minister told journalists at a Yuletide programme staged at the State House, Alausa, by the Lagos State Government.

    Well, I am sure many Nigerians earnestly look forward to the promised better times in 2017, because the economy put the majority through living hell last year. The bitter experiences left a nasty aftertaste that rankles deep in the polity, and possibly explains the subdued cheer in the land over the dawning of a new year. Besides, critical indices as at the close of last year weren’t exactly bright, with the exchange rate of the naira sliding further and inflation running riot in the economy amidst severe strictures in general cash flow.

    The year 2016 was not all doom and gloom and apologists would want the success stories acknowledged, and you really can’t argue against that in good conscience. The epic war on corruption was waged relentlessly by the present administration despite some faltering steps, and the military under Buhari’s leadership made indisputably giant strides in the battle against Boko Haram insurgents. Even on the economy front, the drying up of foreign exchange resource compelled backward integration that has boosted local content in certain sectors, including agriculture. All that is readily granted. But the prevailing experience in 2016 was an unprecedented hardship that left the bulk of citizens in acute distress.

    That is why if anything matters at all for Nigeria in 2017, it’s the economy, stupid! (Just so we are clear about it, that slogan is a popular variation of the phrase ‘The economy, stupid’, which James Carville coined as a strategist for Bill Clinton’s successful campaign against sitting President George H. W. Bush in 1992. Carville’s coinage was meant for Clinton’s campaign workers as one of the three messages to focus on, the other two messages being ‘Change vs. more of the same’ and ‘Don’t forget health care.’) The recession pangs were intensely suffocating in the just ended year, and many citizens are gasping for life-saving breath even now.

    I live on Main Street with the people and I can relate a few experiences from there. Both government and private businesses were stiffed by the short supply in cash flow in 2016, and part of the fallouts were job losses that piled high in the course of the year, making the impact of the 200,000 n-power jobs the Federal Government flaunted in employment creation very tame. As for those who managed to keep their regular jobs, many had to live with delayed / withheld payments or downrightly slashed wages; and those were in the face of a drastic slump in cash value amidst runaway inflation that the Federal Office of Statistics (FoS) reckoned above 18 per cent.

    Epileptic power infrastructure, high cost of fuel and persisting scarcity of forex, among other things, combined to compound the rouge inflation, such that the local economy turned predatory as producers and service providers readily passed on their mounting overheads to increasingly cash-strapped end-users. If you asked me, the most scary dimension was easily the spiralling cost of drugs, which compelled some citizens to shun conventional medicare at a grave risk to their lives.

    A seemingly settled disposition of some state governments compounded the woes for citizens in their workforces. Some state governments appear to have settled for abdication of their moral as well as constitutional responsibility to pay their workers’ salaries that are due. Now, perish the thought of bonuses! And neither are pensions being paid to elderly citizens who are retirees. Those affected are left by employer-governments to sink or sulk in the predatory economy, even though many state governors never seemed to lack resources for ego trips and vanity fairs.

    Bothered by the trend, President Buhari late in December requested state governors to use the refund made to them from excess deductions for external debt service to settle outstanding emoluments of workers. He recently approved a refund of N552.74billion to state governments arising from their claim that they were overcharged in deductions for external debt service between 1995 and 2002. The states received 25 percent of the respective sum approved for them mid-December, and the President only requested that the money be used for workers’ wages. In a directive through Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun, he admonished that the issue of outstanding workers’ benefits, particularly salaries and pensions, be tackled with urgency and not allowed to continue as a national problem. Soon after he assumed office in 2015, President Buhari had declared an emergency over unpaid salaries when it was found that 27 out of the country’s 36 states were behind in payment – in some cases for up to a year. It was on that account the Federal Government has twice issued them bailout funds.

    It is doubtful though that many of the affected state governments are equally concerned for the workers’ welfare, because much of those emoluments remain unpaid by some state governments even now. But that is what you get when a country’s Labour movement is dead. Forget the palpitations you see in relentless factional in-fighting and sporadic but lame pronouncements by Labour leaders on disparate concerns and at discordant times, the Labour movement in Nigeria is DEAD.

  • Again, it’s the economy, stupid!

    Despite the gloomy outlook, it is frightening that government is yet to chart the way forward

    For the recession-hit Nigerian economy, there seems to be no respite anywhere in sight going by the latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) revealing that it contracted by 2.24 percent in the third quarter. In the second quarter, it shrank by 2.1 percent.

    Like then, the indices remain gloomy: crude production – the pivot on which the economy spins now turned an albatross – again fell for the fourth consecutive quarter from 1.69 million barrels in the three months through June to 1.63 million barrels per day. On the whole, the oil industry contracted by 22 percent over one year. Whereas the non-oil sector which includes manufacturing, banking and agriculture chalked up a 0.03 percent in expansion, factory output contracted by 4.4 percent – the third consecutive quarter of decline. Leading the club of the laggards is the construction sector which shrank 6.1 percent, the fifth straight quarterly contraction.

    While the situation is grim enough, the situation in the Main Street would appear worse than any statistics could ever attempt to capture. While some have suggested stagflation – an admixture of persistent high inflation, high unemployment and stagnant demand – as a more fitting description of the situation, truth is no single concept can come close to capturing the daily grind that living has become for the ordinary Nigerian or even the ugly spate of de-industrialisation that currently defines the nation’s experience.

    Meanwhile, if the nation expected a rebound in oil prices, that has been rather slow in coming as oil prices currently hover below the $50 a barrel mark. Worse is that the activities of the militants in the Niger Delta have proven to be more devastating than often admitted. Whether in terms of crippling power shortages from damaged gas infrastructure, the shrunk oil revenue that has left most states as indeed the Federal Government struggling to meet their financial obligations; or even the current volatility and the crippling scarcity of foreign exchange that has left most manufacturing industries endangered, there is no question about how daunting the challenge is.

    Unfortunately, the Buhari administration is either yet to see the problem for what it is – a serious emergency – or simply lacks the capacity to match its pace with the challenge, aside the now familiar indulgences in blame-game and fruitless dissection of the problems.

    We are forced to ask – yet again: where is the roadmap on which the Buhari administration expects to navigate the nation out of the current crisis? For all the perennial complaints of industries about being ill-served by the plethora of government policies, when will the government begin to tackle the problems seriously to alleviate some of the problems of the sector, at least in the short run? Now, thanks to the expected harvest in the agricultural sector this year; where are the policies in place to guarantee sustainability in the long run?

    Moreover, what is the government’s thinking about the current situation in which industries rely almost exclusively on imported raw materials? Is it not a shame that some of these raw materials –currently a huge source of forex depletion – could actually be developed locally were government to put appropriate policies in place? What programmes are in the works to ensure that the nation begins to reap for once the benefits of backward integration?

    It is not sufficient for the Federal Government to claim to accept that the way out of the current crisis is diversification of the economy. Nigerians want to see practical measures to achieve this.

    A little while ago, this newspaper was willing to grant the administration the benefit of the doubt on its request for emergency powers to fast track the implementation of its infrastructural renewal programmes, and for $29.96 billion to finance the development of critical infrastructure. In the two instances, what comes across is the difference between wishes of the administration and the imperative of hard work. It is time the administration moved from proving that it knows its onions to getting things done.

     

  • It’s the ethos, stupid!

    It’s the ethos, stupid!

    The rule of law cannot operate as stark and naked. It must be clothed by a people’s culture and belief system

    With the latest global scandals dubbed the Panama Papers, two contrasting reactions, to allegations of sleaze, have come from two different jurisdictions.

    In one, the law was breached; complete with a formal legal censure for that breach, from that country’s Constitutional Court. In the other, the law was technically not broken. But the alleged morality of the act stank.

    Yet, where the law was breached, the culpable holder of office held tight, supported by his rather permissive political milieu. But where the law was not even breached, the high official of state resigned because of citizens’ shrill moral outrage.

    Welcome to South Africa and Iceland but with the rather disturbing proviso that Nigeria’s situation sits glumly in South Africa’s camp. That should bother every patriot committed to deepening  our democracy and clearing the public space of sleaze.

    In South Africa, the Constitutional Court upbraided President Jacob Zuma for spending state money to renovate private property. By calling for legal sanctions against the president, the Constitutional Court fully discharged its own duty by the law. That created a buzz in parliament, climaxing in an impeachment vote against the president. But at the end, the move failed.

    By the impeachment vote’s defeat, due process succeeded. But the law failed. The president retains his seat, though he has committed culpable misconduct. But alas! The parliament, with a comfortable African National Congress (ANC) majority, decided that the misconduct was not serious enough. A reminder of  former President Goodluck Jonathan’s distinction between stealing and corruption?

    Now, flip the coin, and we go skating in Iceland: a similar set of laws (punish sleaze in the public space) but a completely different set of ethos.

    Courtesy of Panama Papers, Iceland Prime Minister, Sigmumdur Gunnlaugsson, with his spouse, Ann Sigurlaug Palsdottir, floated a shell company, Wintris, with the help of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama law firm, that had developed good capacity in midwifing such notorious investments, most times to evade tax.

    Evidence shows most of the assets belonged to Ms Palsdottir, the daughter of a rich Toyota dealer, from whom she inherited some family wealth and assets. The Prime Minister explained, when the news broke, that his wife had always declared her family’s assets to Iceland tax authorities; and technically, he had done nothing wrong since Iceland’s parliamentary laws did not require he declare his interest in Wintris.

    But such was the public ire, thousands of protesters calling for the Prime Minister’s head, that he had no choice but oblige them. He resigned his office, with Agriculture Minister, Sigurdur Ingi Johannson, taking his place. So, in Iceland, though technically no law was broken, public morality trumped narrow, moral-less legality. Unlike South Africa, the society is better for it.

    But then, which society? The one in which laws are founded on well ingrained ethos, a pervasive culture that rewards and applauds decency but punishes and boos crookedness — and crookedness need not be codified by law. In other words, it is a society that is value-driven, has a strong sense of right and wrong, and is on moral auto-pilot to reward or punish.  The laws, in such lands, are happy bonuses!

    The point, therefore, is stark: even the most comprehensive and rigorous of laws are well too often subverted by a permissive culture that fudges and resorts to cants, when it should have strong repulsion for bad conduct.

    That is the current tragedy of South Africa under Mr. Zuma. Indeed, by the President’s escape of impeachment, South Africa appears, value-and institution-wise, schizophrenic.

    On one hand, the Constitutional Court, a bridge between the old apartheid era and democratic South Africa, appears robust and imbued with the right values for South Africa’s advancement. The law eventually failed but the court pushed it to its limit.

    On the other, the post-apartheid Parliament appears stunted. Aside from the raw gold of Nelson Mandela’s first five years, and the rather antiseptic Thabo Mbeki years, it seems to have scandalously degenerated under Jacob Zuma. Imagine the president, after apologising, pledging a refund of state money and beating the impeachment wrap, declaring that he needed to check, with his accountants, how much state money he would refund!

    With the rather dreary turn of events, President Zuma has a date with history. He should quit to save the ANC, Africa’s oldest democratic organisation. If he doesn’t, that party would have produced the seeds of its own destruction!

    But Nigeria appears even worse than South Africa, if we were not to commit the grand hypocrisy of one who sees speck in the eye of others but ignores the beam in his own eyes.

    Nigeria has been well represented in the Panama Papers global scandal, of politicians and public office holders floating shell companies to hide and launder public money. Right at its vortex is embattled Senate President, Dr. Olusola Saraki, in court to clear his name of allegations by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) in the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

    Alleged to have floated such shells, in concert with his spouse, Toyin, Dr. Saraki claimed the investment under discussion were his spouse’s family inheritance and assets, insisting he wasn’t bound by law to declare such. But Mrs Saraki’s lawyers have countered the assets belonged to no family, but Mrs Saraki alone! That has introduced a rather intriguing angle to the matter, even as the Senate President appears more embattled.

    But aside from occasional scandals, which of Nigeria’s former presidents can be brought to trial, even with prima facie cases? There appears, entrenched, a sickening culture of sacred cows, no matter how mired in muck.

    This appears a stark contrast to Brazil, where former President Lula da Silva is being indicted for alleged sleaze. But again from Brazil has come the aberration of the sitting president, Lula’s former deputy, appointing him as presidential chief of staff to stave off the law!

    With the current corruption trials, there appears a judiciary whose body language seems non-committal to dispensing justice with fairness and dispatch; lawyers, from the silks down, rather sold on crass technicalities to save clients with fat briefs than be the exemplars as priests in the temple of justice, and judges too happy and merry to subvert justice if the cash is right!

    There is no substitute for the rule of law. But if it is skewed by unconscionable accused persons because, they are (wo)men of means, aided by racketeering lawyers and abetted by venal judges, the rule of law is in grave danger of willful self-subversion. That would be tragic indeed.

    For Nigeria to enjoy the rule of law, therefore, it must first cultivate the culture that makes it thrive. That is the lesson from Iceland. We only hope it is not too chilly for our system to understand and cultivate.

  • Attracted to the other girl

    I feel so stupid

    My step mother and I are best of friends. But recently, I noticed that she has been cheating on my dad and it makes me feel so sick and stupid. On his part, my father has been very caring and loyal to this woman and I wonder why she is behaving this way. He won’t even believe me if I tell him some of my findings. Ndidi

     

    Response

    Sad. I can imagine what you are going through at the moment. However, you must remember that three is a crowd in every relationship. You must allow your dad to discover things himself. Alternatively, you can pray for her to change her ways.

     

    My girlfriend is a tomboy

    I am in love with someone who can be described as a tomboy. She does not care about her appearance, doesn’t keep appointments or remember memorable dates that I treasure. She also has a number of attitudes that I do not like. Now, I think that I should dump this lady and get someone who would understand me. Roland

     

    Response

    I know it hurts when your partner is on a parallel line. Running away from her does not make you better. First, you need to let her know how you are feeling. If communication does not bring about the change required, then it may just be time for you to move on.

     

    Does it read on the metre?

    I have a very great relationship and my boyfriend is a wonderful person. I work in a reputable hospital as a nurse and I have built a career over the years. However, all the efforts that I have put in are being threatened my immediate boss who wants me to have a relationship with him. He is known to have sacked a number of female staff who do not agree with such advances and my friends say that I should say yes because ”it doesn’t read on the metre” (no one will know about it). Alero

     

    Response

    Oh dear! It is unfortunate and I can imagine that you are in a tight corner. Unlike your friends and advisers, I think it does read on the metre. This man is just out to ridicule you like the others. So I would advise you to stick to your principles and he would be forced to leave you alone. Even if it costs you your job, you would definitely get a better job.

     

    Attracted to the other girl

    I have a girl I love and want to date. But the problem is that we can’t date because her friend who I met only once is in love with me. I don’t have any attraction for her friend; she wants to keep the friendship and wants me to be her friend, though she also loves me. Who should I go for? Toluwalope

     

    Response

    Hello Tolu, you just have to make up your mind about who you really want. You actually muddled up the emotional process. How come you are meeting one and then loving the other? If you are not sure about who or what you want, please let the girls be. Do not ruin their friendship.

     

    I am scared

    I have been in an affair for about two years and we got engaged last week. I was excited, but I am bothered about the way he steals glances at women when we go out to places and events. I smell a rat and I hope I am in the right relationship. Amina

     

    Response

    Sweetheart, there is no cause for alarm. It may just be that you are imagining things. You need to trust him and believe that everything is going to be alright.

     

    Can I walk away?

    My marriage is less than six months old and things have not been as great as I imagined. I feel like walking away because my man is totally unfaithful .Samira

     

    Response

    Nothing hurts as much as getting to know that the person you love is taking you for granted. It hurts because you are likely to get to know after everyone else. Infidelity destroys the basis for trust, and what would a relationship be worth without trust? However, I think you can still give him some time to sort himself out. It could be an old flame that has not been totally extinguished.

     

    I am devastated

    I am feeling very sad at the moment. I discovered that my younger brother is having an affair with my fiancée about three weeks ago and I am devastated. Should forget about the girl or take her back? Rotimi

     

    Response

    So sorry about this bad news. This should naturally turn you off but if you are still in love with her, then you can just take her back. In only hope that she won’t go back to your brother later on. However you should not be unmindful of the fact that many people are morally bankrupt these days. There are a number of shady emotional deals going on .Your worries certainly speaks volume. This actually cast a shadow on the character and integrity of your girlfriend and your brother.

  • It’s the structure, stupid!

    It’s the structure, stupid!

    It is the burning question; the snake on the rooftop; the five hundred pound gorilla in the room. It is the zillion naira question that we choose to ignore at the nation’s peril. It is the fundamental question of “what structure?”

    President Goodluck Jonathan’s speech is still being analysed. There has been more of commendation than analysis or debate. It is to be expected and the President must be very pleased. I only hope that in our native hagiographic disposition, we do not lose sight of the basics. The President wants delegates to his conference to remake Nigeria in a way that enables her to fulfill what he regards as her destiny. And time is running out already.

    While I appreciate the caliber and antecedents of a sizeable number of the delegates to this conference and have no reason to doubt the integrity of many more, I am not very optimistic about the outcome. This is because of the mixed signals coming from the groups and entities that matter. One day, we are told that the conference’s resolutions will be subject to a referendum of all citizens. On yet another day, we are informed that there is no enabling law and the conference resolutions must have to go before the National Assembly and debated as amendments to the constitution. I am wondering if our privileged legislators have seriously entertained the question of whether the fundamental question of “what structure?” is fixable by way of amendments.

    Of course, fixing anything by a patchwork of amendments is not utterly inconceivable. The challenge however is that if such amendments are extensive enough to cover all flaws, we may end up having the semblance of a completely new constitution. Isn’t it better then to discard an ill-fitting outfit than go through a process of alterations that destroy its beauty?

    But there is at least one more important consideration than the aesthetics of constitutional amendment. In the first place, no matter how we dress it up with the fanciful language of legitimacy, it is obvious that the 1999 Constitution was an imposition by a military clique bent on having its will after a self-inflicted indictment in the court of the people. The fact that the nation has been contemptuously made to put up with it for the last 14 years simply shows the pretentiousness of its “democratic” awakening.

    It should have been a triumph of the people’s will over the dictatorship of the gun if in 1999, elected representatives opted for a new beginning that prioritises a genuine constitution of the people by the people and for the people. It didn’t happen because those who found themselves beneficiaries of the people’s revolution from 1993 to 1998 were not representatives of the people but sympathisers of the military cabal and its civilian clique. The long and short of the matter then is that a military-imposed democratic constitution is an absurdity that has to be excised.

    What has made governance in Nigeria ineffective and thoroughly detestable in the last fourteen years? I don’t know of any reasonable analysis that focuses on just one causal factor. There is a multiplicity of factors, including bad leadership, docile followership, poor accountability regime and an inadequate constitutional arrangement. However, since it is the foundation of all other factors, the constitution has a pride of place in the constellation of factors for the explanation of bad governance.

    For instance, the immunity clause in the constitution explains why bad leaders are difficult to get rid of. The revenue allocation formula ensures that the states are beggars at the table of the federal government, meaning effectively that a greedy governor with no moral qualm only has to be a mainstreamer and all is well for him. But that doesn’t translate to a buoyant welfare scheme for his people. Witnessing the opulence that is displayed in Abuja and the developmental eye-sore that confronts them in the creeks, militancy has an unusual, if deadly, appeal to the hopeless youth.

    But there are reasonable people who think that the constitution is alright and the revenue formula is sacred.

    In 2005, former President Obasanjo organised the National Political Reform Conference in Abuja. It turned out, as we now know, that it was a ruse; and there was a hidden agenda in spite of his declaration of “no hidden agenda”. But that conference brought to light the sharp divisions among its component parts that this country has yet to overcome after fifty years of coexistence.

    By putting it this way, however, we do a lot of injustice to ourselves. For it appears we blame ourselves for what others before us have not been able to achieve due to no fault of theirs. Scotland and England have been together for far longer and they cannot boast of eliminating divisions. The last elections showed that the Scottish National Party won more votes in Scottish Parliament than the Labor Party and may now opt for independence from the United Kingdom at the next opportunity. So divisions in a multi-national state are not abnormal and, indeed, they should be the foundation of our constitutional arrangements. This is the merit of a genuine federal system which we do not now have.

    This time, it appears that consensus is gradually emerging over the question of structure

    I seek indulgence to refer to six fundamental proposals made by the Northern States at the 2005 conference. First, the Northern states recommended “that the Conference should endeavour to strengthen and re-affirm the corporate existence of Nigeria as an indivisible, indissoluble and plural national state under a Federal System, comprising three tiers of government, Federal, 36 states and 774 local governments.” Second, the Northern states opted to “reject in its entirety any attempt to convert the (geo-political) zones into regions and any reference to them as such should be expunged in any official document…”

    Third, the North insisted that the “concept of rotational presidency among the so-called zones should be discarded as it is subject to manipulation and abuse by unpatriotic Nigerians. It is neither in our constitution nor in our electoral laws.” But, fourth, the North went on to recommend that the “Presidency should rotate between the North and the South and this time around (2005) it is the turn of the North.”

    Fifth, the North suggested “that constitutional provision needs to be made for rotation within the states to provide opportunity to the various minority groups have (sic) access to the position of governorship within the states and to give them a sense of belonging.”

    Sixth, on resource control, the North chose to “stand by the constitutional provision that the Federal Government should hold in trust, control and facilitate the exploration and exploitation of all mineral resources in the country as enshrined in Section 44 (1.3) of the 1999 Constitution.”

    Clearly, these proposals go to the route of the challenges facing the nation. The Northern states are aware of competing positions which call into question the legitimacy of those constitutional provisions they revere; and, starting from next week, I intend to interrogate them with alternative visions. Meanwhile, I submit that the issues cannot be resolved by the National Assembly whose members have sworn to protect the very constitution that is being challenged. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to expect that constitutional amendments, which only deal with the facade, can correct the foundational problem of national existence. And this underscores the wisdom of the proposal for a Sovereign National Conference to deal with the fundamental question of structure.