The Nation Newspaper

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  • Rule of law under attack

    Sir: On September 23, when Nigeria’s Chief Justice, Honourable Justice Tanko Muhammad was called to the microphone to give a speech at the special session which marks the beginning of the 2019 to 2020 legal year in Abuja, his words fired the audience into an enthusiastic euphoria of change.

    He said: “The rule of law must be observed in all our dealings and we must impress it on the governments at all levels to actively toe the path.

    The rights of every citizen against any form of oppression and impunity must be jealously guarded and protected with the legal tools at our disposal”.

    His most charismatic words: “All binding court orders must be obeyed. Nobody, irrespective of his or her position, will be allowed to toy with court judgments….As we know, flagrant disobedience of court orders or non compliance with judicial orders is a direct invitation to anarchy in the society.”

    Little would the CJN have known that in less than 24 hours, in the same city where he made the proclamation, his words would be put to test by those whose expertise rely only in disobeying court orders. A Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the immediate release of social crusader; Omoyele Sowore from DSS facilities on September 24. Days after, the DSS is yet to obey the order of Court for the immediate release.

    There are obvious intertwines among the rule of law, democracy, and the independence of the judiciary. For example, when the DSS arrested Sowore on August 3, the agency believed it acted pursuant to a law- rule of law. After detaining Sowore for some days, the agency thought to further detain him by relying on another law and it approached a law court to obtain prolonged detention order – again, rule of law came to play. Now that the same court which granted the initial detention order has ordered the release of the defendant, rule of law becomes useless.

    When orders of courts are flouted with loose-regard as we have today and when human rights abuses are replete in a government’s affair- the Nigerian government, the judiciary and indeed democracy are at the receiving end.

    Nigeria’s government may not be a high-performer in providing quality education for its citizens, poverty indices may be on the negative rise under Nigeria’s government watch, the government may be failing in adequate protection of lives and properties of its citizens, but one distinguishable hallmark of excellence which the government possesses, and which admits of no controversy is that no nation in the world beats Nigeria to the game of flouting court orders.

    It is established fact that well-settled laws, fair trials and enforceability of court orders enhances the stability of democracy and instils confidence in the common man of a sure hope that justice would be obtainable in court.

    There is a need to call a spade a spade and bring sanity aboard. The CJN needs to bring his words of September 23, to life. He needs to make a public statement on this attack on the rule of law being perpetrated by “serial rapists”- who are taking no chance to rape the life out of the Nigerian constitution. The CJN needs to act now; act fast.

    • Tope Akinyode, Esq. Ikeja, Lagos.

  • Nigeria’s tortuous journey to affordable housing

    The United Nations (UN) recognises standard and quality housing as everyone’s fundamental need. The global body also says it is the government’s obligation to guarantee that everyone lives in a secure, peaceful and dignified apartment. It also sets a minimum threshold for monthly rentals at between 7.5 to 10 per cent of an individual’s income, as well as the number of people a toilet facility should serve. However, most, if not all of the UN standards, are evidently at variance with the reality in Nigeria. Assistant Editor OKWY IROEGBU-CHIKEZIE reports

    For the majority of Nigerians, the road to standard, quality and decent housing remains long and tortuous. They are still far from meeting virtually all the global standards and yardsticks for measuring what constitutes adequate and decent housing, going by a recent  report, by the UN-Habitat, a United Nations (UN) human settlement  programme, titled “The Right to Adequate Housing.”

    The UN’s report, which was accessed by The Nation,  broadly defines what constitutes adequate housing, in the context of  global standards, to mean adequate privacy, space, security, lighting, heating and ventilation.

    Others are access to basic infrastructure, such as water supply, sanitation, waste management and adequate location to work and basic facilities – all at reasonable cost.

    The report, which recognises adequate and decent housing as everyone’s fundamental need, said, for instance, that citizens’ right to adequate housing should contain some freedoms, such as protection against forced evictions and the arbitrary destruction and demolition of one’s home; the right to be free from  arbitrary interference with one’s home, privacy and family; and the  right to choose one’s residence, to determine where to live and the freedom of movement.

    “If eviction may be justifiable, because the tenant persistently fails to pay rent or damages the property without reasonable cause, the  state must ensure that it is carried out in a lawful, reasonable and  proportional manner, and in accordance with international law.

    ‘’Effective legal recourse and remedies should be available to those who are evicted, including adequate compensation for any real or  personal property affected by the eviction.

    “Evictions should not result in individuals becoming homeless or vulnerable to further human rights violations. In general,  international human rights law requires governments to explore all feasible alternatives before carrying out any eviction to avoid, or at least minimise, the need to use force. When evictions are carried out as a last resort, those affected must be afforded effective procedural guarantees, which may have a deterrent effect on planned evictions,” the report said.

    The UN report, which ought to put the authorities in the housing sector on their toes on meeting the global definition of adequate housing, also contained some entitlements such security of tenure; housing, land and property restitution; equal and non-discriminatory access to adequate housing; participation in housing-related decision-making at the national and community levels.

    The Nation checks showed that the UN report may have exposed the  lapses in the Nigeria’s housing sector. This is because majority of Nigerians still fall far short of global recommended standards or definition of adequate and decent housing. For instance, most of the suburbs in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, such as Ajegunle, Orile, Isolo, Alimosho, Ajangbadi, Agege and  others, an average room designed for an occupant  takes as many as  eight persons.

    Also, a standard plot of 60 by 120 feet or 648 square meters that should ideally have a single occupant in a bungalow or a storey with two families have 10 rooms, five in a row with no fewer than seven occupants in each room competing for the same service. It is common knowledge  seeing people in this kind of environment getting up as early 5am to take turns to use the conveniences, such as toilets and bathrooms to make it early to their offices and places of business.

     Experts’ reaction

    Expectedly, the UN report has elicited diverse reactions from industry experts and stakeholders. However, a common thread that runs through their reactions is the fact that the report exposed the shortcomings in the nation’s housing sector, as well as the need for authorities in the sector to go back to the drawing board in the country and her citizens must meet global standards for adequate and decent housing.

    For instance, a former National Secretary of the  Nigeria Institution of Estate Surveyors & Valuers,  Sam Ukpong, said most Nigerians, or rather most people in Lagos cannot be said to be living in a house. He said those who can be said to live in houses built with bricks and mortar practice open defecation, as the houses are without toilets or it takes too long for residents to take turns.

    He said the aggression and impatience that pervade the society could be attributed to where people reside. He said, for instance, what happens on the streets of major cities, especially Lagos, where people transfer aggression on road users is as a result of the stress they go through commuting either to work or their places of business speaks for itself.  He said the time it takes one to get to his place of business or work has a major effect on the behavioural pattern of the particular person.

    Ukpong said: “Adequate and decent housing has a way of increasing the life expectancy of people. The government is not doing  enough in terms of housing provision. Adequate housing is a human right. If the government wants to fight insecurity and crime, it should work seriously in making housing affordable to those in the lower rung of the ladder.

    “In Lagos, for instance, the HOMs Programme, which is supposed to make housing accessible to first time home owners, is almost comatose. I am yet to identify anybody that has the opportunity of owning a house through that programme”.

    Ukpong said a man that is not sure of where he would sleep after a day’s hard work, or already has it ingrained in him that his accommodation is not what it is supposed to be and is already thinking of how he will wake up early in the morning to take his bath before others, is likely to be short tempered and angry at almost everybody.

    He, therefore, called on the government to take housing seriously by ensuring that those entrusted with providing housing or making it accessible to the low income earners, do it right.

    Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) President Mr. Rowland Abonta also said a wrong housing policy could stall the development of the nation and  encourage insecurity.

    Abonta, who spoke at the inaugural meeting of the 2019/2020 National Council of NIESV in Abuja, stressed that housing should be incorporated in the national development policy to check  insecurity.

    He said: “Nigeria would become a better nation when stakeholders stopped playing politics with housing issues. I call on the government and policy makers to be honest with the issue.  It is a human requirement ranked as number two among human needs. The day we stop playing politics with it is the day we will be a better nation.”

    Indeed, people brought up in squalors and indecent environments, according to experts, are aggressive and always upset with nature.

    They are very reactive and aggressive to the public. If a census of convicted criminals is taken, one will almost be sure that they are usually from poor backgrounds. This means that Nigeria may have been unwittingly breeding criminals with her national and anti people housing policy.

    According to Abonta, the biggest challenge in the Nigerian housing sector is lack of planning. He expressed regret that over the years, housing has been made a political issue such that every administration  spends huge sums that is not based on any indices at all because they do not know what they are providing for, neither do they attain the goal they set for themselves. But at the end of the day, some budget has been spent.

    To properly plan for housing, Abonta advised that there is the need for the government to undertake a housing survey to determine what the people need. He maintained that housing survey is necessary to determine the housing stock, and the  housing needs in the country, adding that adequate planning will bring all other problems into proper perspective.

    The NIESV president said the 17 million housing deficit being bandied about may not be correct because there was no empirical basis that gave rise to the figure.

    On social housing, he said it would be impossible for low income earners to own their houses with the kind of housing arrangements and financing available in the country.

    According to him, in developed societies, there is provision for social housing, stressing that the NIESV had in the past harped on the need for the establishment of such housing schemes in the country to no avail. He said a responsible system or government will insist that investors in the housing sector should dedicate a reasonable percentage of their investment to low income people.

    Abonta advised the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) to devote more time and resources to building big housing estates. “I am yet to know when they (FHA) will do the kind of thing they did in Lugbe, Abuja, in those days, which was called National Housing Programme,” he said.

    Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, advised the Board of the FHA to invest massively in housing development nationwide  as a means to further address the challenge of unemployment in the country.

    Fashola, who spoke after receiving the yearly report of the board of the FHA in his office,  urged the Authority to replicate, nationwide its ongoing 700 units, 10, 000 employees Abuja Mass Housing project in Zuba. According to him, such investment, if replicated in the 36 states of the federation and Abuja, will create an ecosystem of opportunities for jobs and industrialisation.

    The Minister noted that through the project, FHA has identified  appropriately the critical role that housing development could play in responding to and solving some of the problems and challenges currently faced in the country.

    He said: “If you go to a site where over 700 housing units are being built and 10, 000 people are benefiting and getting employment there, you are really beginning to address the social issues of exclusion, unemployment, joblessness and restoring the dignity of the human being.

  • Ex-UACN chief seeks better designs

    Former Managing Director  UACN Mr. Hakeem Ogunniran has  stressed the need to re-engineer home designs and construction to achieve maximum efficiency.

    He said the trend in urban dwelling in leading cities across the globe since 2011 is that “the era of mac-mansion (big structures) is gone” as a result of limited land supply and the spiraling construction costs.

    He spoke at the ground-breaking ceremony of Fiona Lawton Apartments, an upscale estate in Lekki, over the weekend.

    He said: “The reality on ground has made it necessary  to optimise living and maintenance costs and  this is reflected in the significant reduction in the average sizes of dwelling apartments in such cities as New York (39 square meters) London (46 square meters) Paris (36 square meters) and Hong Kong (15square meters) in the last few years.”

    Ogunniran, who is the Managing Director of  Eximia Realty Company Limited, said his objective is to create a unique and innovative platform to deliver real estate solutions by addressing emerging living models tailored to contemporary urban lifestyles.

    On what informed his market segmentation, Ogunniran said: “Our deduction from empirical analysis is that there is a reasonably significant market for micro apartments designed to suit the Nigerian lifestyle preferences in Lagos and a few other cities. We are set to tap into that opportunity through our ‘uniquely crafted living spaces’ based on the concepts of ‘Compact, Comfortable and Convenient Dwelling.’’

  • El-Rufai: Beyond the show

    Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has some explaining to do. After grabbing the headlines when he took his six-year-old son, Abubakar, to Capital School, Malali, Kaduna, a public school, to begin his primary education, on September 23, El-Rufai has questions to answer.

    True, El-Rufai has been commended publicly for putting his son in a public school, but he has also been criticised publicly for allegedly playing to the gallery.

    Senator Shehu Sani, who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the eighth National Assembly, told reporters in Kaduna that the governor’s action “was simply a 2023 political stunt set up for the media and people who live outside Kaduna because those who reside here know what public primary schools look like.” What do public primary schools in Kaduna State look like? Why did El-Rufai put his son in that particular public primary school?

    Sani said: “It is not because I have political difference with him, no. But whoever lives in Kaduna State knew that what the governor did with his son by enrolling him in a public school was just a comedy…He would have done better by upgrading schools in Kaduna. You cannot spend N195million in a particular school and then take your son and the media to that school and think you have done anything different.”

    Is it true that the El-Rufai administration spent N195 million to improve Capital School, Malali? How was the school improved? Why was the alleged cost of the improvement so high?

    Sani added: “I know that the children of former Governor Ahmed Makarfi attended this same Capital School. I also know that other public officials’ children go to that school too. So if you are not being cunning, deceptive and comical, you would have allowed all your children to enroll in public schools. Public school doesn’t mean primary schools alone; there are public secondary schools and public universities.”

    How many children does El-Rufai have? How many of them are in school? How many of them are in public schools? Abubakar was quoted as saying:  “I am sad that I will miss my old school, my friends and my teachers. But I have to help my father keep his promise.”  Which school was he talking about?

    El-Rufai wants to seen as a man who keeps his word. In a state broadcast in December 2017, he had promised to enroll his son in a public school when he is six years old.  At the time he made the promise, he was two years into his first four-year term as governor. He had said: “We are determined to fix public education and raise their standards so that private education will become only a luxury. As we make progress, we will require our senior officials to enroll their children in public schools. And I will by personal example ensure that my son that will be six years of age in 2019 will be enrolled in a public school in Kaduna State, by God’s grace.”

    His first term ended in May 2019. It wasn’t certain that he would still be governor of the state in September 2019 when he put his son in a public primary school. El-Rufai was re-elected governor for a second term, which is why he was able to grab the headlines the way he did. What if El-Rufai had not been re-elected? Would he still have put his son in a public primary school?

    El-Rufai’s words to journalists after the show at Capital School, Malali: “I made that commitment because I believe that it is only when all political leaders have their children in public schools that we will pay due attention to quality of public education. I went to a public school like this. In fact, the school I went to is not as good as this one, but here I am, because of the quality teaching I got.”

    He added: “My intention is to ensure that all our public schools offer quality education, and so we are encouraging all our senior public servants to send their children to public schools. Once the public schools are improved to a point they are nearly as good as or even better than private schools, no one will waste his money taking his child to private school.”

    What is the cost of primary education at Capital School, Malali? Who are the parents of the children in the school?

    In January, El-Rufai had publicised how his administration reformed the state’s education sector. While playing host to the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Ms Amina Mohammed, he said his first-term administration inherited 4,200 public primary schools that were in a bad condition. He also said that in 2015 he had inherited enrollment rate stagnant at 1.1 million pupils, with about 50 per cent of pupils taking lessons on the floor because of lack of furniture.

    He said: “In our effort to improve teaching quality standards, the Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) had in June 2017 conducted a Primary Four competency test for teachers.” According to him, 21,780 out of 33,000 teachers that sat for the competency examination failed.  He stated:  “As part of our education reform programme, we sacked the failed teachers and recruited 25,000 new teachers…We have also expanded access to education by making the first nine years of schooling free for boys and the entire twelve years of primary and secondary education free for girls. This has led to increase in School enrolment from 1.1 million to 2.1 million almost doubling the number of pupils in the State.”

    In a tweet on his education sector reforms, El- Rufai had said: “After a review of the cost and analysis of the demographic trends data as it relates to overcrowding in the classrooms, we decided to build multi-storey school blocks with more classrooms to accommodate 30 to 40 pupils per class. By January 2017, about 500 of the schools had been rehabilitated at the cost of about N6 billion. Our investments have contributed to the total overhauling of the education sector. We have introduced a Schools Rehabilitation Programme to provide decent classrooms, furniture, water and toilet facilities.”

    But El-Rufai needs to respond to Sani’s remarks and other remarks that call into question his dramatic appearance with his son at Capital School, Malali.

  • NATA gets Life Grand Patron

    Nigeria Automobile Technicians Association (NATA) Ejigbo Branch has appointed the Chairman of Ejigbo Local Council Development Area of Lagos State, Monsurudeen Bello as the Life Grand Patron.

    The appointment, NATA said, is in recognition of Bello’s selfless service to the people of Ejigbo, and his contributions towards the progress of the association.

    Bello, popularly called OBE, was honoured during the inauguration of the executive of the association.

    A plaque was presented to him by NATA’s state Deputy Chairman Olusegun Aikhomo Mayegun.

    Mayegun said the honour was also an appreciation of the council boss for bringing an end to the misunderstanding between members of the association.

    OBE, who was represented by the Vice Chairman, who doubles as Supervisor for Health, Dr Olatunde Olusunmade, thanked the association for honouring him.

    Olusunmade said the administration’s giant strides can be felt in areas of infrastructural development.

    “At the moment, Kashimawo Alimi Street beside NNPC bus stop is being rehabilitated. The project would be completed before the end of the year. This would reduce traffic gridlock at Jakande Gate. Dauda Ilo Road in Ejigbo and Junction Road in Oke-Afa are also under rehabilitation, while Adebayo Oyelana has been rehabilitated and in good condition,” he said.

    Olusunmade urged NATA members and residents of the council to support OBE for another term.

  • Pupil Abubakar El-Rufai

    The media was awash last week with stories and photographs of the enrolment of Abubakar, the six year-old son of Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai in one of the state’s public primary schools.

    Some of the photographs showed El-Rufai, his wife and some security aides taking the little boy to school to have him formally enrolled. El-Rufai was also seen in one other picture sitting in front of the headmaster with his son on his laps. There was another picture showing Abubakar in the classroom sitting on the front seat with one other pupil presumably to clear doubts, as to the authenticity of the enrolment exercise.

    A very excited El-Rufai said the move was informed by on-going reforms to revamp public schools in the state and make them more competitive.

    “We are determined to fix public education and raise their standards so that private education will become a luxury. As we make progress we will require our senior officials to enrol their children in public schools”.

    He further explained the exercise was in fulfilment of a promise he made two years ago that his son who will be turning six years in 2019 would be enrolled in a public school as a mark of personal example. The enrolment was therefore to fulfil that promise and bolster confidence in our public schools.

    Ostensibly, the overall objective is to bring up public schools to offer quality education comparable with what obtains in private schools. And when this is achieved, the lure to have children in private schools even in the face of prohibitive costs would have been substantially stymied. The society will be better for it.

    Given the scandalous neglect our public education system has suffered over the years with parents preferring private schools with accompanying exorbitant fees, El-Rufai’s example would seem a step in the right direction. For one, it is an admission of the inherent dangers in the continued neglect of our public education system resulting in the lowering of standards. For another, it is a veritable statement to the effect that the poor quality of education offered in public schools would have been substantially reversed were our leaders to be sending their children to such schools. Again, he seems to be sending out signals that the quickest approach to reversing the criminal neglect of public education is for leaders to begin sending their children to such schools. With that, they will see the need to pay adequate attention to the debilitating challenges that have reduced our public education system to former ghosts of themselves.

    The scenario is that of vicious cycle of neglect-dilapidated buildings; lack of teaching and learning materials, lack of seats with pupils sitting on the floor in some states and poorly motivated teachers. All these accentuate general loss of confidence in the quality of services emanating from such poorly organized schools. If any modicum of public confidence is to be restored to the public education system especially at the primary level, the starting point is to substantially address these systemic deficits.

    That appears the point El-Rufai was underscoring. And he is not alone in this. He is making a very bold statement that public schools can be trusted to offer quality education. He is saying that public schools can be substantially upgraded to offer educational services that compare very favourably with what obtains in private schools. He is saying that the comatose state of public education system is consequent upon its neglect by governments and once that is reversed, standards will substantially improve. That goes without saying.

    Incidentally, this rot is not peculiar to the education sector as the same malfeasance permeates the entire fabric of our national life. The health sector where our leaders prefer medical tourism abroad to fixing our hospitals is a serious case in point. The discrimination, profiling and stigmatization of our citizens abroad in search of elusive greener pastures are also on account of the squandering of our collective patrimony and wrong priority setting by visionless and rogue leadership.

    If much of the resources this country is bountifully endowed is gainfully deployed to productive engagement, the nation would have been high up in the rungs of the ladder of development. And its domino effect would have been evident in all sectors of the national economy. So the deficit El-Rufai seeks to remedy in his state’s public education system is a general cankerworm afflicting all spheres of our national life. And it will require the right dose of therapy, commitment and visionary leadership to have them substantially redressed.

    El-Rufai has dramatized that rot in public schools in Kaduna and seeks to shore up public confidence in it by enrolling his son in the system. If he considers that school good enough for his son, there is no reason other citizens of the state cannot have confidence in the quality of education it offers. He wants us to believe in the capacity of that school to offer quality education. We have no reason to nurse the feeling that the school is not in a position to offer quality education. For it is inconceivable that the governor would just send his son to that school as a ‘guinea pig’ just to score some point.

    Yet, we have not been told how many of such schools exist presently in the state, the state of facilities provided to ensure quality education and whether the school is just a prototype the governor intends to replicate in other parts of the state. He should have gone further to provide additional information on other children of his; where they are currently pursuing their education careers. All these would have been helpful in the overall assessment of the outing especially given the media blitz and fanfare associated with his son’s school enrolment.

    Opinions differ as to whether El-Rufai should have made a public show of the enrolment or have it done privately. There are also issues with the retinue of officials that accompanied him to the event including his wife, its psychological effect on the pupils and whether cheap political point is not at the centre of it all. It would have made better sense for the mother of the child to have privately enrolled him in the school without the fanfare and drama we were treated to. All these tend to cast serious doubt on the purpose the outing was intended to achieve.

    Even then, disclosures that the governor spent N195 million to upgrade that school which had before now, been the choice of the affluent including a former governor of the state detracts substantially from whatever point El-Rufai intended to score. What seemed to have emerged from this is that Kaduna Capital School where the child was enrolled had even before now been considered somewhat elitist. That school is severely handicapped in serving as a gauge for the quality of education offered in Kaduna public schools. And that raises the question of the indecent haste in making public show of the enrolment when no substantial improvement seems to have been recorded in upgrading the standard and quality of teaching and learning in the state’s public schools system. It would have made better sense if the governor had come up with a list schools upgraded and revamped to offer comparable education with the one in which his son is enrolled.

    It is possible to contend that this is the first phase of the upgrading and that subsequent efforts would be made to bring all public schools in the state to the standard of the one under focus. Then, he should have waited for substantial improvement to be recorded in the entire education system before going to town the way he was seen last week.  And with mounting criticisms from the state against the dramatized enrolment, we are left with the inevitable conclusion that there is more to that enrolment than ordinarily meets the eyes.

    It is not just coincidental that the drama is coming on the heels of the flooding of the streets of Kaduna and Abuja with campaign posters of El-Rufai for the far-flung 2023 presidential elections. Suspicion is high that vaulting political ambition is at the centre of the attempt by the controversial governor to portray himself as a man of the people.

    He has not dissociated himself from the posters. And that gives further fillip to the suspicion that vaulting partisan political ambition is at the heart of all that drama. We will live to see how that ambition will serve the collective interest of our federal contraption.

  • Nissan recalls 1.2m vehicles

    Nissan North America is recalling 1,228,830 model year 2018-2019 Nissan Altimas, Frontiers, Kicks, Leafs, Maximas, Muranos, NVs, NV200s, Pathfinders, Rogues, Rogue Sports, Sentras, Titans, Versa Notes, Versa Sedans, Infiniti Q50s, Q60s, QX30s and QX80s.

    Also being recalled are model year 2019 Nissan GT-Rs& Taxis and Infiniti QX50s, QX60s, Q70s and Q70Ls.

    The back-up camera and display settings can be adjusted such that the rear view image is no longer visible and the system will retain that setting the next time the vehicle is placed in reverse.

    The lack of an image in the back-up camera display increases the risk of a crash.

    Nissan will notify owners in phases, and have dealers update the back-up camera settings software free of charge.

    The recall is expected to begin October 21, and all affected VINs should be activated by November 11.

  • Long overdue

    • We welcome the suspension of the Jonathan-era auto policy

    If there is one thing to be said of the news of the suspension of the controversial National Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP) by the Muhammadu Buhari administration, it is that the measure has been long in coming. Tall in ambitions and a surfeit in good intentions, never perhaps has a policy been so clearly wrong-headed.

    Proceeding on a flight of fancy, it sought to compel local auto manufacture even when the basic infrastructure are neither present nor the marketing environment readied. To serve the quest, the struggling middle class, most of who had been reduced to buying fairly used foreign imports, had to be slammed with a duty hike plus a punitive levy of 35 percent to acquire one vehicle. The assumption – again misguided – was that this would ultimately boost the patronage of locally assembled cars, while discouraging the importation of fairly used ones.

    As it turned out, neither happened. No thanks to the duty hike and the levy, the cost of the imported used vehicles shot through the roof while Nigerians, desperate for cars, headed for neighbouring ports where import duties and port charges were friendlier. With cars meant for Nigerian market diverted to neighbouring ports, activities at our ports dwindled and so was revenue.

    Meanwhile, the so-called local operators on whom the government had pinned its hope for the revival of the auto industry failed to rise to the challenge. The operators, no sooner after, returned to their pastime of importation of fully built cars even as the few that ventured into limited assembly found out that the prices of their products were beyond reach of those they were meant to serve – and this in an environment where consumer credit is not readily available, except for corporate entities.

    To remedy perceived lacuna in the policy, the eighth National Assembly in 2017 passed the National Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP) Bill only for President Buhari to withhold assent. The bone of contention was the “pioneer status” granted to manufacturers under the bill – a provision which the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) found disagreeable. Whereas the Bill provided for a 10-year tax holiday for manufacturers, this was found to be contrary to the provisions of Pioneer Status Act which limits the tax holiday to three years, subject to an extension of one or two years.

    This is where the country is today. The suspension of the policy should provide ample opportunities not only to review the flawed assumptions inherent in it but also to enable fundamental corrections to be made. It goes without saying that the policy must not only be sound and pragmatic, it must cater to the interests and aspirations of every stakeholder in the industry.

    Surely, the auto manufacturers as primary drivers of the policy can do with all the incentives that the government can give to ease their pains and ultimately help bring down their cost of production; the dealers and consumers united in their joint quest for an enabling infrastructure of credit without which the industry can never be sustainable. The policy will, hopefully, terminate the current obsession with the quest for a wholly Nigerian car in a country where the manufacture of ancillary auto parts like batteries, windscreens, tyres have remained a tall order. If merely for the humongous amounts of foreign exchange spent on importing auto spares, the policy should seek a more effective partnership with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) on the wide range of auto parts to save scarce foreign exchange and as a launch pad for the local auto manufacturers. We expect that the policy will help bring activities back at our ports. To be sure, the current stiff auto tariff regime does not pretend to serve the local auto industry, the economy or even the ordinary citizen, but the neighbouring ports. It should recommend a drastic downward review.

  • Optics is everything

    Amidst the Brexit chaos in the United Kingdom, that country’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson often resorts to optics for political brace. His actions project him as a crusader for the preference of a majority of Britons – the electorate had voted 52 percent to leave the European Union against 48 percent ‘remain’ in a 2016 referendum – up against the parliamentary elite who are throwing in bricks at every turn to upend that preference. Yet, he would not be dissuaded easily. He postures as having a handle on the crisis, which otherwise seems to be spinning out of control and threatening to drown him. And he is soldering on.

    Last week, Johnson was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly where he marketed his vision of post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ to the world community. He had vowed to take his country out of the EU “do or die” by October 31st, but legal roadblocks may effectively tie his hand. As the prime minister delivered his address to the UN assembly across the Atlantic on Tuesday, 11 justices of the U.K. supreme court ruled his suspension of parliament “unlawful, void and of no effect.”

    But Johnson is positioning himself as not to blame in the event of failure of Brexit as scheduled. His messaging portrays him as being victimised for determining to deliver the people’s choice, as in saying: ‘I badly want to give you the Brexit you voted for, but I am being frustrated every inch of the way by parliament.’ The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in a report last week said if opinion polls are to be believed, his message resonates with the public. Although the prime minister had planned to use his New York trip to cement ties with United States President Donald Trump, he returned to London immediately after his General Assembly address to face off with his country’ lawmakers. Reports said it was an eerie encounter, as he dared opposition leader Jeremy Corbin to call a no-confidence vote on him. He also tagged a parliament act forbidding him from exiting EU on October 31st without a deal a “surrender bill.”

    Africa has its own master of optics in President John Magufuli of Tanzania. Since coming to office in 2015, he has cut the image of a no-nonsense, waste-cutting, goal-getting and corruption-mauling populist leader who walks his talk. They call him ‘The Bulldozer,’ as he relentlessly takes down privileged impediments to developmental goals he sets for his country. And there are indications he’s made some headway for Tanzania. He is also regarded beyond his country as a Spartan role model on a continent plagued by corrupt and indulgent leadership. Only that he’s carried on at the cost of pushing back the frontiers of liberties that democracy ordinarily affords.

    Talking about optics, Magufuli has stopped lavish celebrations of Tanzanian independence day since he took office. Rather than expend public funds on the December 9 yearly event, he has been ordering environmental cleanup on that day while redirecting money that would have been spent on celebrations into providing social services. I am not sure if he still does so four years after, but when he started out he personally joined in the environmental cleanup. Nothing beats visuals of a country president being zestfully hands on at digging out filthy debris from clogged drainages alongside the people he leads.

    To further cut governance costs, the Tanzanian leader introduced other austerity measures. Among them, he banned overseas travel for officials, directing that diplomats in Tanzania’s embassies abroad should stand in for the country at any meeting requiring government representation. Reports said Magufuli himself has not travelled outside East Africa since becoming president; he has only visited neighbouring Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, while his farthest journey has been to Ethiopia. He is on record saying he skips foreign travels to save money. A report by his country’s central bank early in 2017 showed the government saved $430million by limiting foreign travels between November 2015 and November 2016.

    Magufuli’s optics have been so powerful that despite the relatively minimal stature of his country in global affairs, he is widely regarded as an African icon, such that #WhatWouldMagufuliDo? trends on Twitter as citizens of other countries measure the actions of their own leaders against potential responses of the Tanzanian president.

    We can do with some optics in governance in Nigeria. And when Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai took his six-year-old son to be enrolled in a public school in the state capital early last week, it was good optics to a high degree. The governor said he was enrolling little Abubakar into primary one at a public school in fulfillment of a promise he made in 2017. “I made that commitment because I believe it is only when all political leaders have their children in public schools that we will pay due attention to the quality of public education…My intention is to ensure that all our public schools offer quality education, and so we are encouraging all our senior public servants to send their children to public schools. Once public schools are improved to a point that they are nearly as good or even better than private schools, no one will waste his money taking his child to private school,” he said.

    Objectors, many of them out of partisan bias, have however second-guessed the governor and accused him of propaganda. They said it was cheap that he took along news crews to an event that should be a routine parental engagement. Others discerned sheer opportunism, since other children of el-Rufai schooled abroad. And really, it isn’t that anyone could unarguably foreclose such motives as have been alleged. In a 2010 feature piece in the New York Times, Ben Zimmer wrote that: “When politicians fret about the public perception of a decision more than the substance of the decision itself, we’re living in a world of optics.”

    But Zimmer also cited Canadian bi-linguist and then editor of The Suburban, Quebec’s largest English-language weekly, Beryl Wajsman, who wrote in a 2007 column for Canada Free Press that “the ‘optique’ (French term roughly equivalent to ‘optics’), as it is called in very politically savvy Quebec, is everything.” This is a principle that applies no less to the el-Rufai school enrolment act.

    If el-Rufai had not sent his children to a public school until now, the whole message is that his government has been working on the system to now inspire sufficient confidence in every cadre of society. If every other government leader at the state and federal levels across the country does likewise, we would be making a major headway with the public education system nationwide. Thus, the symbolism of the Kaduna event was aptly captured by little Abubakar’s mother, Ummi el-Rufai, when she said inter alia: “By the time we start attending public hospitals and sending our children to public schools, the system will get better.” You could bet that the public school system in Kaduna State will get qualitative and quantitative boosts from the el-Rufai act that ordinary state residents will savour for some time to come.

    It is optics of this kind that we need for all-round improvement in the quality of leadership in this country. Imagine the impact on the Nigerian healthcare system if our leaders would walk into public hospitals and submit to examination by local doctors, rather than scurry abroad for treatment of headaches and other slight ailments. Imagine if they travel long distances over land on the dilapidated road infrastructure, rather than hop about in aircraft to engagements even short stops away from their power cocoons. Imagine if their daily upkeep is from their take-home packages and not budgetary items in government overheads. Imagine if they’re connected solely to the national power grid with no generator backup.  Imagine if they snake through traffic gridlocks in urban centres without the routine traffic being diverted for their sake or sirens blaring off other road user to make way for their unimpeded passage. It is when they experience first hand what every other citizen experiences that we could hope for empathetic governance that would make things better.

    • Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

  • BREAKING: DSS releases Chido Onumah

    Operatives of the Department of State Security Services (DSS) have released journalist-cum-activist, Dr Chido Onumah.

    Onumah was picked up hours ago on arrival at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja from a trip abroad.

    Sources close to the coordinator of AFRICIMIL confirmed he has been released.

    Details shortly…