The Nation Newspaper

Tag: thinking

  • Thinking aloud

    Afe Babalola on sundry national issues

    Since sometime late last year when I had cause to travel to Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, for the funeral of one of our former consultants on the editorial board, Prof Moses Akin Makinde, I had wanted to write on the man, Chief Afe Babalola. I almost fulfilled that desire when, a few weeks back, he suggested a uniform examination for all university finalists in Nigeria. Aare Babalola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who is the pro-Chancellor and founder, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, ABUAD, had said at ABUAD’s 2018/2019 Matriculation and Founder’s Day Ceremony in Ado-Ekiti, in January that: “I want to suggest to the National Universities Commission, NUC and the Ministry of Education that in order to maintain quality and high standard in Nigerian universities, the final year students in all programmes in all our universities should take the same national final examination.”

    According to him, this would make all the universities to strive to attain high standard. “In this way, every university shall work hard to ensure that their students pass the national examination thereby ensuring high standard in teaching and research,” he explained.

    Ordinarily, this would have been a good idea, even if it does not seem to have a parallel in any other country. But then, not a few saw in it a self-serving agenda, given that Aare Babalola’s ABUAD boasts some of the most sophisticated facilities one can think of in any university, perhaps even beyond our shores. I was privileged to visit the university in November; as a matter of fact, I stayed at the ABUAD Inn, which is right on the university premises for the night. It was a pleasant experience. Before departing the next morning, my colleague and I that went to represent this newspaper at Prof Makinde’s funeral decided to drive round the university premises. What we saw was astounding. We interviewed some of the students, and we confirmed what we had always known; that the school fees do not come cheap. But when we match what is on ground with the fees; there was little basis to complain. After all, as they say, obe to dun, owo lo pa (a good soup is a function of good money).

    Anyway, so it does not look like I am doing PR for ABUAD, let me stop there and leave the rest for another day. As I was saying, when Aare Babalola suggested the idea of a harmonised final examination for all university finalists, it was seen as a way of exposing the glorified secondary schools that pass for universities in many parts of the country, whether privately or publicly-owned. Perhaps those who saw the suggestion as self-serving are right. Last year, four of ABUAD graduates who went to Nigerian Law School graduated with first class, with one of them emerging overall best. Another of its graduates emerged overall best in the final Medical Examinations in 2018. The school had other feats which I also would not want to mention here. Suffice it to say that the university’s achievements are beyond its relatively young age; it was established in 2009.

    Aare Babalola was probably genuinely concerned about the falling standard in many universities; which is obvious even to the blind. Whenever I come across materials indicating the very high standard in some of our universities of old, it grieves my heart that many of them have become shadows of their former shape. A time there was, I can still recollect, that in my days in the University of Lagos, we had students from other countries even outside of the African continent. I must confess this did not have meaning to me until Prof Is-haq Oloyede, the registrar and chief executive of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) explained the rationale behind the board’s decision, last year, to reduce application form fees for foreign students who want to study in Nigerian universities. Oloyede said they did that to attract those foreign students because the number of foreign students in a country’s university is part of the criteria used in rating the institutions. But how many foreign students would want to come to a country where university teachers or other ancillary workers are perpetually on strike, where you can only determine when students would be admitted but not when they graduate? This is the situation in many of the public universities. But not so in the private ones where students do not stay beyond the stipulated period, unless they have issues with their studies.

    So, if the proprietor of a private university, and a flourishing one at that, is suggesting a common final examination for university finalists, we can see where he is coming from. Apart from the fact that each university is supposed to have its own identity, its niche,  the environments in the two types of universities (public and private) are not the same. The advice one can give Aare Babalola is that he should take consolation in the fact that the market will always determine who to employ. So, the wheat and the chaff can continue to be together, at the appropriate time, each would find its level.

    Barely six weeks after this suggestion, Aare Babalola came up with yet other suggestions which are also likely to attract criticisms, for obvious reasons. For example, he wants those who aspire to the country’s presidency, governorship or other elective positions to have a minimum of first degree. Speaking at the Obafemi Awolowo Leadership Prize Award Ceremony at the Harbour Point, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Wednesday, Aare Babalola, who is the latest recipient of the award also spoke on sundry political issues, including the lucrative perks attached to political offices which have made the struggle for political offices to be bloody in some cases; the unwieldy number of political aides to the president and some governors; the past when members of the House of Assembly were only paid allowances as against these days when they earn mouth-watering salaries and allowances. The SAN, who spoke on “Awoism and the Unending Search for Transformational Leadership in Nigeria: Political, Economic, Educational and Social challenges”, is the third recipient of the prize since it was instituted 10 years ago ; the others being Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and former South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki.

    It is belabouring the issue if one is asking whether Aare Babalola merits the honour. He does.

    But, should first degree be the minimum educational criterion for political office seekers in Nigeria? I think so. Take the lawmakers for example, these are the people who are supposed to make laws for good governance. How can people who cannot differentiate their left from right make sensible laws for good governance? I remember in the first term of Otunba Gbenga Daniel as governor of Ogun State, he made what seemed shocking to many of us at a meeting we were having then that there was not a single university graduate in the state house of assembly. It was like; ‘no wonder’ nothing good was coming from that Nazareth! Those of us at the meeting with the governor were so shocked to hear that because, given the state’s proximity to Lagos, we had thought that would also rub off positively on the politics of Ogun State, particularly on the caliber of people to be elected into sensitive positions.  Later events in the house and the state at large validated the negative consequences of the lack of educated elite in the assembly that was supposed to make laws for good governance.

    But then, education is not the only criterion for quality delivery in political appointments. For the first time in a long time, Nigeria had a graduate (a PhD holder at that, in the person of Dr Goodluck Jonathan from 2010 to 2015) as president for about five years. How did that impact on governance? How was the Jonathan government different from those of Shagari (a Grade Two teacher), or Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who only became a graduate after his tenure as president, thanks to the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)? Again, there are several graduates in the National Assembly and state houses of assembly, but this has not necessarily translated to quality governance. As a matter of fact, some of the people in the National Assembly and in government houses went to some of the best schools abroad, yet, there is hardly any difference between them and those who schooled here or those who did not go to school at all. This notwithstanding, I still will align with Aare Babalola that in this age, Nigeria cannot afford to have illiterates or semi-illiterates as president, governors, legislators, etc. We need people who understand where the world is headed; people who can adapt to the dynamics of modern realities, modern technology and all that. Nigeria cannot afford to have analogue leaders in a digital age.  Such leaders cannot be good ambassadors of the country in the comity of nations.

    All said, Aare Babalola has not said anything new apart from his suggestion that a uniform examination be conducted for university finalists  in the country. But his ideas on the political plain may not go far because those benefiting from the awkward arrangement are not in a hurry to give up their illegal perks. Yet, that is the way to go if the country must stop the profuse bleeding occasioned by the humongous amounts we spend on people who are adding little or no value to our lives.

  • The economy needs new thinking

    SIR: It is no more news that Nigeria has come out of her worst recession in two decades. The state of the economy is the greatest challenge facing the Buhari government; despite having recorded successes, over the last two years, in many areas – security, anti-corruption war, stability in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, restoration of Nigeria’s good image in the international community  and plugging leakages amounting to billions of naira.

    The Buhari government inherited an economy which wasted $480billion between 2010 and 2014; no tangible savings in the Excess Crude Account with corruption ruling every aspect of governance.

    The administration has taken precise steps towards the full diversification of the economy to reduce the country’s continued dependence on oil and to conserve our foreign exchange. One of such steps is the Anchor Borrowers Programme aimed at facilitating commercial banks’ lending to farmers of rice and wheat and other agricultural products. Despite this, the transformation of the agricultural sector into a major income earner for the nation demands more advanced thinking. This writer once advocated for a new agricultural scheme that encourages an all-inclusive participatory technique- where youths, communities, local councils, states, the federal government and the private sector (financial institutions and private investors) will be major participants.

    Financial institutions and private investors will be the financiers; governments at all levels will have well-defined roles, while the youths and small scale farmers shall be the primary targets. In addition, the scheme should be designed to be in four categories- ‘export oriented’, ‘large’, ‘medium’ and ‘small’ scales, along with a well-defined time-frame for government to complete handoff from the scheme. The federal government would be the guarantor of funds to be provided by financial institutions or private investors. This will be done through the issuance of federal government bonds. The scheme would work in such a way that local councils and state governments would provide lands and other logistics. The private investors or financial institutions involved are not to give money directly to the government in order to receive the bond-certificates, but it would be a kind of barter arrangement; where the investors, either financial institutions or private individuals would set up farms and put in place all structures required in a standard farm. Afterwards, a bond certificate equivalent to the cost which is to be determined by both parties and NGO’s will be issued to them. This will completely eliminate corruption which is the main cause of failure of most good programmes in Nigeria. To encourage investors to participate in the scheme, before the maturity of the bond, the investor would take a prescribed stake, between 5% and 10% in any of the farms they setup. They will also assist in monitoring progress on the farm. Besides being an added value to the investors, this will also give them rights to shares from the farms’ profit.

    Experts in the economy always inform us that variables such as low foreign exchange, the unstable or depreciating value of the naira, an import-dependent market, a mono economy and the crashed global price of the oil are the main reasons for the unstable prices of goods and services- the main reason most Nigerian are suffering. A study in the CBN Journal of Applied Statistics Vol. 7 No. 2 (December, 2016), stated that “inflation in Nigeria, was driven by the pass through of import prices to domestic prices via markup pricing by firms. This was aided by domestic inflation being persistent.”

    The experts and managers of our economy are yet to come up with an economic system to keep prices of goods, services and the value of the naira stable. Of recent, when the value of naira suffered depreciation, there was debate on whether the naira should be floated or fixed by the government; none of the sides (to float or not to float) won.

    Nigeria needs to develop home-grown and off-the-shelf approaches to tackle the unstable prices of goods and services and the stability of the naira, import payments and redistribution of wealth.

    Our economic team needs to be expanded to include other ‘laymen’ such as the real local players in the markets, social commentators, farmers etc – these will increase the pool of opinions in the economic team. Let us look at the monetary system and local and international transactions – why can we not allow other currencies like the dollars, The West African CFA franc; Chinese yen  to also be legal tenders in our economy, and asking our international trade partners to make some of their payments in Naira. This may be the silver bullet.

     

    • Zayyad I. Muhammad,

     Jimeta, Adamawa State

  • NASS should put on its thinking cap

    I have been amazed at the pedestrian level of legislation in the National Assembly especially when reacting to executive bills sent to it, the most recent of which is the current appropriation bill. It seems the National Assembly is bogged down by considerations that are far removed from rationality and national interest. Some weeks ago, the National Assembly was noisily condemning the Ministry of Petroleum Resources’ plan to bring in private investors to run the moribund petroleum refineries in Port Harcourt. This was perhaps because Oando, a Nigerian company in association with an Italian company was involved. The involvement of these two companies would have led to their investing billions of dollars to bring the useless refineries to life and optimum production something that has not happened since the 1970s.  These Port Harcourt refineries and the ones in Warri and Kaduna have been attracting billions of naira allocations for so-called annual overhaul maintenance without any result leading Nigeria to importing virtually all petrol and diesel we use for running our vehicles and mechanical plants. These refineries have thus become a conduit pipe for corruption and the ruin of the Nigerian economy. The foreign exchange earned from export of hydrocarbons and agricultural produce that would have been used for industrialization of the country is uselessly expended on importing what we should ordinarily produce. This corruption during the last regime led to trillions of naira being paid to so-called importers of petroleum products on the politically induced liberalization of importation of petroleum products. Things were so bad that any politically connected person simply had to get a company registered and whether or not the company imported any petrol, its accounts got credited with billions of naira. The cases of this unbridled financial rape and looting have been in the courts for the past two years and it is almost axiomatic that they will die there as many of the corruption cases have experienced.

    I remember with sadness Abacha awarding a one hundred million dollars contract to Total to rehabilitate the Kaduna refinery and I asked myself – how much does it cost to build a new one? At that time Singapore was building a new refinery for the same amount our country was using to do regular maintenance! The point I am making is that maintenance of these refineries have become cash cows for those in power. Now if these refineries can be sold, why would anybody be against it? Before Obasanjo left power in 2007, he invited Dangote to buy the Port Harcourt refineries and he had plans to sell the ones in Kaduna and Warri. But perhaps out of perfidy or inexperience, Yar’Adua cancelled the sale of the refineries. This apparently led Dangote to commence building of his massive refinery in Lagos. This is a refinery all Nigerians are waiting for with bated breath to save us from export of our foreign reserves through petroleum importation. Imagine if our overpaid legislators understood what is in our national interest, they should have hailed the plan to privatize all the money-guzzling refineries. In other countries facing this kind of humiliation of importing what they produce, these refineries would have been sold for one naira each in case there is a law against giving away public property.

    The second example of lack of proper understanding is the debate on the budget. First of all, the National Assembly lacks the expertise to draw up a budget or tamper seriously with a budget that took experts in the civil service and consultants months to prepare. It is not the duty and role of the legislature to begin to inject into the budget what in the considered opinion of the experts does not belong there. This budget had been subjected to budget hearing before the final budget was drawn up. In other words, no one is saying the National Assembly appropriation committee should have no input, what we are saying is that it should not be  altered beyond recognition

    Babatunde Raji Fashola, the minister in charge of works, power and housing has been unjustifiably attacked for drawing the attention of the public to the National Assembly’s radically slashing the allocation for the Lagos-Ibadan express way and the Second Niger bridge from Asaba to Onitsha to the extent that work may have to stop particularly on the expressway because what is in the budget is not enough to pay for work already done. Rather than show understanding of the problem, the minister is being accused on petty grounds of ethnic considerations. He was flippantly told he is no longer a governor of Lagos State but a federal minister.  This is an insult. He does not need to be told that. It is like giving a dog a bad name to hang it .I do not know anybody in that less-than-august body whose nationalist credential is better than that of Fashola.

    First of all the Lagos -Ibadan road is a national road connecting the rest of the country to the major ports of Apapa and Tincan Island which handle more than 90 percent of the carrying trade of the country. The road is not a Yoruba or south-western road. The National Assembly says the road is scheduled for private/public partnership. Was the failure of this not responsible for government take-over of the project after almost seven years of dilly-dallying on the project?  Why must the most important road in the country be used as an experiment? Has it occurred to our legislators that this reasoning is responsible for the collapse of Apapa network of roads since repairing it must be subject to federal character?

    Has it occurred to our distinguished senators that 60 percent of the national economy is tied to smooth running of this North -South road? Lagos is the cash cow of this country in terms of export and import, custom revenue, excise levies and Valued Added Tax. Our legislators need to take crash course in Economics 100 to appreciate the importance of Lagos to the national economy. Lagos is key to the overall development and successful diversification of the economy. Secondly, with all the agitation in the South-east, one would have thought this is the wrong time to cut the budget of the Second Niger Bridge. This may fuel further agitation about marginalization of the south-east.

    I am for equitable national development, but it is not every budgetary debate that should be based on federal character. How does the development, for example, of Murtala Muhammad International Airport in Lagos to make Nigeria the hub for West African aviation be reduced to if you build an airport in Lagos you must build one in Ado-Ekiti or Yola or if you begin re- afforestation to prevent desert encroachment in Katsina and Kano you must do the same thing in Edo and Abia. We need to get serious. This petty, penny-pinching and puerile thinking on the part of our fortunate legislators who do not take their job seriously should be condemned. They should stop heaping insults on a man like Fashola who is adjudged as a man capable of running this country with distinction if he was given the opportunity.

  • Thinking aloud

    Thinking aloud

    How did we start? What have we become and why? These are questions that challenge the mind.

    Up to 1962, especially in the Southwest, we still had a very good educational, political, economic and moral value system due in large part to the vision of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his group. The development of the human being was the driver of social policy. It mattered a lot that they focused on education and social development. The foundation of the Southwest was laid in those years.

    The unfortunate negative transformation started from the time Awolowo left the Western Region. It was good to have an alliance with others, but they went about it in a way that jeopardised what was already working. The Action Group as a political party was working and everything was moving in the right direction. Then we opted for a mainstream approach because we saw others sharing the national cake from which we were left out.

    But even before independence, the West was doing much better than other regions and that was because of the vision of Chief Awolowo. And, of course, as they say, the rest is history. The gamble led to the collapse of the First Republic and we have never recovered from that.

    Now, why does this matter? It matters because, that was the beginning of the abandonment of a true federal structure. When the military came, it reverted to a unitary system that effectively destroyed the federal system. And when in 1979 the civilian government came back, it was never the same again. The Shagari administration even initiated the appointment of Presidential Liaison Officers (PLO) for states.

    It is incredible that a country of our complexity does not allow true federalism to work because of the interest of some particular groups. How can right thinking people, with all the economic and political indices that show that it is the best option for this country of diverse people, jettison the practice of federalism?

    It is simply mind boggling and unless we get that straight, even with a strong two party system, we will still be wandering in the political wilderness. We are certainly far from where we ought to be; and we are not making progress towards that end. The structure is the most important thing. If we get the structure right, everything will follow. If we don’t get the structure right, we are doomed.

    One of our major challenges is for those who accept positions of responsibility to carry out the requirements of those positions. Whether it is the president of a voluntary organisation, a director of a state-owned company, the governor of a state, or the president of a country, an occupant of any position of responsibility must constantly ask himself or herself: what can I do better? What will be my legacy? And in asking those questions, he or she will be challenged to do better. This has always been my own approach to the responsibilities that I have been saddled with, whether as president of Egbe Isokan Yoruba or Egbe Omo Yoruba, USA, as teacher, chair of an academic department or as dean of a college.

    Our values come from various sources: family, religious institutions and educational institutions. My generation can boast of strict parental discipline. Our parents were sticklers to values. They introduced us to the importance of being responsible in whatever position we find ourselves. We must now reflect on our own legacy. Have we passed on those values to our children? Or are we giving them a new orientation to the negative values that ruin individuals and nations?

    Moderation, which has not been a strong value that many people hold dear, is important in everything we do, especially in the area of material possession. The craze for material possession is driving us to the precipice in this country. How much can anyone expect to own and what does one make of it in the end?

    Again, we can all relate to the moderation of our parents in terms of material possession. The most they left us is investment in our education. I can never forget that. I don’t have material possession to leave for my children, but they have good education and they will make it with divine assistance. Why does one need to jettison values to accumulate illegally in order for children to have material inheritance? Will those children be able to stand on their own? What will be their value system?

    That is one of the drivers of the craze for the corrupt material accumulation that we are spending useful time combating: “My children and my grandchildren must not suffer. My great-grandchildren must not suffer, etc.” Why don’t you give your children the educational resources they need to work on their own? Then, equipped with such values, they can be in a good position to live their lives the way they would like it to be.

    I do not want to belittle the importance of wealth. The fact that I don’t have it doesn’t mean that it is not good. My emphasis here, however, is in terms of the development of children. They need to be imbued with the value of hard work. Every child needs to work hard to make things for him or herself and the nation would be a lot better off.

    I applaud wealthy individuals abroad, especially those who give out their money to charity because they would like their children to work hard and create their own wealth. Therefore, these philanthropists make contributions that benefit needy people who do not have the background that the children of the wealthy have. So, if you are a child of a wealthy person, your education will be invested in and that gives you a head start, and that’s all anyone needs.

    As it is with individuals, it is with society. We missed the point initially and that is why we are suffering now.  When Chief Awolowo asked the nation to invest in human capital from the national bounty, he made sense. But the authorities did not take him seriously. If we had invested our national resources in good educational structures, if we had built up our educational institutions when we had the means, we should now be way ahead. We will not now worry about cultists in our universities and in secondary schools. But we missed that opportunity; and now we are paying dearly for it.

    There used to be a time when oil sold for more than $100 per barrel. Now it is about $50 and we are still having many children born on a daily basis, minute by minute. So we compound issues because first, we don’t invest wisely, and second, we have not taken seriously the need to control our population.

    You cannot miss the sea of heads on our street corners, markets and airport lobbies, for whom we don’t make provisions. But have you ever wondered when this ticking bomb will blow up in our faces? I hope that we will get it right before a violent revolution erupts like a volcano and consumes all of us. How is it that we bring children into the world and we don’t care for them as a nation? And what do we expect of them? We condemn militancy; but do we ever pay attention to the common saying that the devil finds job for idle hands? What do we expect hopelessness to breed?

    All Progressives Congress (APC) appealed to everyone as a party of change, but APC now needs to change. Change should mean more than just replacing an inept government with a new government if that new government also becomes inept.  There is still a chance for APC to reboot. But I wonder whether the spirit is there for rebooting or whether it’s just the competition for material accumulation and for selfish aggrandisement that is driving the party hierarchy. Thinking about these things is depressing. Is this the change that drained everybody’s emotional and material resources?

     

    • This is a revised version of excerpts of an old but relevant interview with The News.

     

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  • Thinking and Connecting

    Thinking and Connecting

    As a people, we are not only unpatriotic; we are also very thoughtless.

    I tell you, man, this country is full of contradictions. Here we are, a deeply unhappy set of people living in a happy land. We are among the poorest countries living with a small number of those who got stupendously rich on stolen funds. We are said to be a brilliant people who make incredibly stupid policies. We have cars and technologies and buildings cast in the latest architectural designs, yet the larger population live in hovels. We have the world’s highest number of churches and mosques yet we are the most godless people on earth. The question is, why are we so blessed?

    There is a rumour going the rounds that Nigeria’s (stolen) money is at the heart of many international banks’ and cities’ projects the world over. In short, it is rumoured that Nigerians have taken government’s funds and have sort of scattered and sowed them into various world projects, not on behalf of the people but on their own sweet behalf, yet her citizens are living in penury. Now, there are people calling for a conference on the state of the nation’s economy.

    The question is, who are the people we are going to call to that conference? Are they going to be the same old politicians and old soldiers who ran the country aground? And where are we going to dump the reports? I imagine the stores in Aso Villa are full to overflowing already with such reports. The so-called national conference reports are somewhere there gathering dust. The ex-president’s cronies came, ate and left, and nothing happened.

    Since that conference, many things have been happening in the country. News reports keep telling us how people are being killed for debts of less than N2,000. They tell us how female teenagers are running away from home and willingly agreeing to be used as baby-producing factories. They tell us how fathers and mothers are willingly selling their children for a bit of cash. Just last week, the news reported how a father sold his son for N250,000.

    Yes, we are gradually reaching the point where return will be impossible. Early in this year, poor Oyelowo Ajanaku was said to have been stabbed to death by his wife Yewande in one of Nigeria’s cities due to one pressure or the other. And this one was reported because it involved some high-profile people. Do you know the many such related cases that are not being reported because the personalities involved are not high-profile? I tell you, the Nigerian situation is beginning to get to us.

    To say that the Nigerian economy is in trouble is an understatement. I am scared about it, and I am not even an economist. I think the real economists would tell us to be more scared, if they dared. I am not sure though that many of them would fly the kite of a round-table discussion on the subject just yet. I think we should first look at our management profile and tackle a few issues. Let us tackle the root cause of our problems first before applying the plaster. It will do well to get somewhere with this fight against corruption before we pile on the salutary measures.

    Practically all Nigerians agree that the nation’s jugular has been gripped by the cold and merciless hands of corruption. The national, state and local area executive/legislative arms, large corporations, small and medium scale enterprises, etc., are all grappling with corruption. It has got so bad now that even owners of little shops and kiosks are complaining that their sales/front-desk persons are corrupt! Those ones have now learnt to inflate the price of the goods or services in their charge, give the owner the advertised price of the good or service and pocket the difference.

    In short, every Nigerian you meet now is just waiting for their chance to be corrupt. Whenever they have been placed in a position to choose between their grasping hands and the country, they have patriotically chosen to satisfy their grasping hands. This column has stated it again and again that this country’s problems can be traced to two things only: FAILURE TO THINK AND FAILURE TO TRULY CONNECT WITH THE COUNTRY. As a people, we are not only unpatriotic, we are also very thoughtless.

    Failure to think is not the result of the breakdown of the thinking faculty. After all, you think, therefore you are. I truly believe that our thinking faculty as a nation is truly intact; what has broken down is our failure to focus our thoughts on the things that matter. I have reported on these pages again and again what Golda Meir, a one-time prime minister of Israel, was reported to have said once regarding African leaders but I will report it again. She said that African leaders have no vision for their continent. All they are interested in is consumerism and displaying their egos to their neighbours’ envies. The prime minister effectively told us that African leaders cannot think deeply enough to conceive ways of bringing their countries out of poverty.

    Just imagine her country, Israel, having the kind of leadership that is common to Africa. That country would have been annihilated long ago by any of the myriads of her enemies surrounding her. So now, what Nigeria lacks in the form of external threats, she has thoughtfully provided in her own citizens. Good news: Nigeria is threatened by her own citizens.

     I am always full of wonderments. Have you noticed that nearly, if not all, the people who have pilfered from government coffers and stashed their hauls abroad still live in the country? I don’t know what for, but I keep wondering: is it so that they can see the effects of what they have pilfered on the rest of the country? Or is it to see if there is any fat chance that they can get more to nibble? I don’t know, but there they are, still hanging around and talking into microphones.

    Really, I am not too optimistic that much can come out of any conference right now until these nibblers are good and properly fixed. They are still in leadership. They are wiser than the rest of us in the matter of contriving wily ways of beating the system. They are close enough to the presidency to get policies changed in their favour and at the expense of the country. Who is to say that as soon as a solution is got to end the nation’s economic woes, these nibblers would not immediately begin to dig up ways of working contrary to the rest of us, eh?

     I honestly do not have much faith in the present crop of politicians, whatever party they may belong to, to bring out any lasting solution to the nation’s socio-economic woes or any other

    woes for that matter. Most of them are too self-absorbed to really be interested in lifting up the country. As it is, the whole country seems to be tensely still, as if waiting for something to happen to give the signal to some action or the other. This is not a feeling that calling an economic conference can cure. There is much more wrong with the country than a failing economy.

    This is a feeling that calls for something more profound; something akin to deep thinking on the part of every Nigerian of thought. This is a time that calls on every Nigerian to become a philosopher king and queen for choosing an economic, housing or health policy and sticking to it no matter what, banning non-essential imports, actively promoting Nigerian manufactured goods, relaxing import tariffs on raw materials, encouraging the people to seek knowledge and information, etc. In short, the time has come for us all to connect to the country by thinking deeply about her. Happy thinking day or week.

  • Shooting without thinking

    •Two recent incidents demonstrate impunity from uniformed men

    Abuse of might is always wrong. This is the lesson a former Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Mr. Segun Fabunmi, is probably learning the hard way. He was on December 14 sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter. This followed the fatal shooting of Ademola Ade (or Ademola Aderintola Daramola) in January 2012, in the heat of a fuel subsidy protest in Lagos.

    Justice Olabisi Akinlade of a Lagos State High Court also found Fabunmi, a dismissed chief superintendent of police (CSP), guilty of shooting and injuring three others: Alimi Abubakar, Egbujor Samuel and Chizorba Odoh.

    Justice Akinlade said: “The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the defendant recklessly shot his rifle and in the process the bullet hit the deceased. He definitely knew that shooting an AK47 can cause grievous bodily harm to anyone the bullet hit. The fact that he was on a lawful duty did not mean that he should have shot his gun sporadically.” She added: “The defence of provocation will avail the defendant. It is evident that there was no time for his passion to cool before the gun was fired.”

    The deceased, a fashion designer, was shot in the thigh and was rejected at a hospital because he could not produce a police report. The other three had testified that by the time they were taken to Ikeja General Hospital, it was too late. The deceased bled to death before treatment could begin.

    Fabunmi, who joined the police in 1984, was arraigned in May 2013 by Lagos State and tried for murder, attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm. At the time of the incident, Fabunmi was the DPO of Pen Cinema Police Station, Agege. A report said: “He led his men to Yaya-Abatan in Ogba, following reports that there was a disturbance and hoodlums were holding people hostage. The ex-DPO testified that when he got there, the hoodlums threw bottles, sticks, cutlasses, stones at him and his seven colleagues. Fabunmi said during the attack by the mob, his rifle, containing 60 bullets, went off. But he denied shooting the deceased or anyone else”

    Ironically, trigger-happy law enforcers pose a threat to the society they are armed to protect. Such dangerous official protectors constitute an unwanted threat to any civilised community.  Fabunmi’s punishment makes a correct statement about the limits of official might, and the need to punish anyone who goes beyond the boundaries.

    Lamentably, the rampant culture of reckless shooting in security circles was further highlighted by a December 15 incident in which a policeman died after reportedly being shot by officers of the Department of State Services (DSS).  Two cops were shot on the premises of the DSS in Ado Ekiti, the capital of Ekiti State, leading to the death of one of them.  Sergeant Sylvester Malik and Corporal Mough Tergwu of the Special Protection Unit of the Nigeria Police Force were attached to a former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, Dr. Femi Thomas, who was invited for questioning by the DSS. The two policemen were said to have accompanied Thomas to the DSS office.

    A report quoted a source as saying: “Nobody knew what transpired afterwards, but suddenly there were sounds of gunshots and soon after, the two policemen were lying in a pool of blood. The policemen did not quarrel with them, so I don’t know what happened. Malik was shot thrice in the stomach. It was a real mess.” This case is particularly messy because the alleged attackers and the victims are state security agents.

    It is reassuring that the Police Force spokesman, Olabisi Kolawole, said: “The culprits will be prosecuted.” Those whose responsibilities make them qualified to carry guns should handle the weapons responsibly. It is inexcusable to shoot without thinking.

  • Welcome, fresh thinking

    •A US$ 25bn fund, to roll back recession, is charting a new economic path

    During the last electoral campaigns, the All Progressives Congress (APC) pledged a regime of  change that would encompass vigorously combatting corruption, aggressively fixing the country’s broken infrastructure, massively creating jobs for the unemployed and expansive welfare spending to offer succour to the multitude of Nigerians under the scourge of poverty.

    This basket of promises was predicated on the continued availability of a substantial inflow of revenue to meet the huge financial outlay involved. Today, the ruling party faces a vastly different and less promising reality. It has inherited an economy in the doldrums.

    Ever since the drastic drop in the price of oil by almost half last year, the country’s revenue earnings have plummeted severely. This implies the virtual fiscal crippling of an economy almost totally dependent on oil exports and one which failed to utilise earlier prolonged periods of fuel price buoyancy to build a diversified economic base with a solid infrastructure network.

    Apart from colossal budgetary underperformance, the national currency has been considerably weakened and external reserves grossly depleted. Thus, most states are practically insolvent and unable to perform the basic function of meeting wage obligations to their workers. Economic growth has slowed to about 2.35%, which is reportedly the lowest in a decade. Yet, basic infrastructure remains derelict and incapable of facilitating meaningful economic resurgence.

    While not hiding the gravity of the situation from the Nigerian people, the government has commendably not pressed the panic button and has engaged fresh thinking in confronting the economic challenges. It has demonstrated the resolve to defy conventional wisdom, which in the past would have dictated the introduction of drastic cut in spending, austerity measures as well as currency devaluation. Experience has shown that these measures only deepen economic contraction and worsen poverty.

    While the monetary authorities continue to do all they can to stabilise the value of the Naira, exchange rate controls introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are designed to curb non-essential imports and stanch the external haemorrhaging of foreign reserves.

    The efficacy of these measures will undoubtedly be strengthened by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo’s recent revelation, in an interview with Bloomberg, that the Federal Government plans to create a $25 billion fund through public and private financing to stem the current slide to recession.

    Explaining the rationale for the planned initiative, the Vice President said “We think that the way out of this, what some have described as an impending recession is actually to spend rather than to cut back in any way”. We believe that this is sound economic reasoning and the right way to go.

    This is particularly so as the proposed fund is targeted at investment towards improving the current abysmally low level of power supply, which is a disincentive to a higher level of economic performance as well as modernising critical infrastructure like roads and rail transportation. These investments will stimulate economic activity by boosting public works, create jobs and ultimately help evolve an investment-friendly environment.

    Another key target area of the fund, according to Professor Osinbajo, is agriculture and here the target is to enable the country achieve self-sufficiency in rice production within 24 months. Meeting this target will result in huge foreign exchange savings that could be more productively utilised to enhance further economic capacity.

    Of course, the failure of many such brilliant ideas in the past teaches us that there is a wide gulf between intention and realization. The government must, therefore, possess the political will to ensure that this worthy idea does not become the victim of the kind of corruption, opacity, nepotism, incompetence, inefficiency and sheer impunity that have often constituted the vast grave yard of grand ideas in Nigeria.

  • Critical thinking and our state of anomie

    One of the fallout of the last gubernatorial election in Ekiti State was the introduction of a new lexicon into Nigerian politics and a new “yardstick” for measuring performance. Suddenly, we started hearing about “stomach infrastructure.” In Nigerian parlance, it simply means the art of inducing voters to get their votes. Trust Nigerians, hundreds of theories were propounded as to why citizens of Ekiti State – noted for their high level of knowledge – choose to vote for their “stomachs.”

    My interest today, as always, is not politics but education, I only used the above scenario to drive home the fact that we are gradually losing – some say we have already lost – our sense of critical thinking. Most of us simply swallow hook, line and sinker whatever the government, religious, economic or business leaders say without critically interrogating them. Should we always believe what they say without subjecting same to logical reasoning? Why are we often scared to ask for the best? Why do we celebrate mediocrity? And why are our institutions of higher learning not encouraging critical thinking?

    Socrates, it was who set the agenda for the tradition of critical thinking. Simply put, it is to reflectively question common beliefs and explanations, carefully distinguishing those beliefs that are reasonable and logical from those which – however appealing they may be to our native egocentrism, however much they serve our vested interests, however comfortable or comforting they may be – lack adequate evidence or rational foundation to warrant our belief.

    Socrates’ practice was followed by the critical thinking of Plato (who recorded Socrates’ thought), Aristotle, and the Greek skeptics, all of whom emphasised that things are often very different from what they appear to be and that only the trained mind is prepared to see through the way things look to us on the surface (delusive appearances) to the way they really are beneath the surface (the deeper realities of life).

    From this ancient Greek tradition emerged the need, for anyone who aspires to understand the deeper realities, to think systematically, to trace implications broadly and deeply, for only thinking that is comprehensive, well-reasoned, and responsive to objections can take us beyond the surface. Can anyone question the fact that we need deep thinking in Nigeria?

    Francis Bacon, in England, was explicitly concerned with the way we misuse our minds in seeking knowledge. He recognised explicitly that the mind cannot safely be left to its natural tendencies. In his book “The Advancement of Learning,” he argued for the importance of studying the world empirically. He laid the foundation for modern science with his emphasis on the information-gathering processes. He also called attention to the fact that most people, if left to their own devices, develop bad habits of thought (which he called “idols”) that lead them to believe what is false or misleading.

    He called attention to “Idols of the tribe” (the ways our mind naturally tends to trick itself), “Idols of the market-place” (the ways we misuse words), “Idols of the theater” (our tendency to become trapped in conventional systems of thought) and “Idols of the schools” (the problems in thinking when based on blind rules and poor instruction). His book could be considered one of the earliest texts in critical thinking, for his agenda was very much the traditional agenda of critical thinking.

    By virtue of what they stand for, higher institutions are supposed to be the pillar of critical thinking, this is the major reason research is a fundamental part of all studies. But the way things are presently, you have your answer if you attempt to measures the products of our higher institutions. I don’t have to stress this as I assume we are all too familiar with the state of education in the country.

    Let’s start from the area of pitching one ethnic group against another. There are stereotypes about almost all ethnic groups in Nigeria. Right from as long as we can remember, we are told to beware of certain ethnic groups because “that’s the way they behave.” We grow up not questioning these stereotypes and when we assume positions of leaderships they are already etched in our minds and difficult to ignore. But a critical thinker will judge people based on their character and not ethnic group.

    What about infrastructure? Currently, government at all levels in Nigeria concerns itself with the building of infrastructure. Let me state from the onset that I’m a firm believer in world class infrastructure because they make our modern existence easy. But the big question remains: while we concentrate on infrastructure, should we continue while the moral firmament of the country is tattered? Of course, the building of infrastructure is laudable, but it is only a matter of time, of course, that children who do not understand the value of hard work will destroy whatever physical structure that we build today.

    While the elite are training their children in private schools or in schools abroad, they forget that society is organic and that these well-trained children would be at the mercy of those who remain at home sometime in the future.

    I consider it important therefore that government takes an emphatic and serious look at restructuring education in Nigeria. Attention needs to be paid to the quality of teachers produced in the country.  I am convinced that the preponderance of those who end up studying education as a course in Nigeria do so because they cannot get into other departments. Although I do not have statistics to back up this claim, it is evident that a lot of teachers teach without passion. The effects are glaring for all to see.

    The absence of critical thinking can also be felt in the area of technical education. Government must give attention to technical education such that those who cannot stand the intellectual rigours of a university can legitimately invest their intellect, which every child is blessed with in other things. This is how the world got blessed with the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford and so many others. These entrepreneurs employ some of the brightest brains in their respective companies.

    We must back out of our state of anomie and begin to embrace the virtues of hard work and diligence once again. Every great and potentially great country lives by a moral code to which everyone – ruler and the ruled – are subjected. Unless this happens, everyone, wealthy or otherwise, risk a country which might crash on our heads.

    It was disheartening to hear a former Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, lamenting the decay in the education sector. It was not his lamentation that was the problem to me; it was what he said next that should shock Nigerians. He insisted that no political party in the country has a framework for education!

    He spoke at the 2014 Founder’s Day Lecture which was held in commemoration of the 105th anniversary of King’s College in Lagos last week. “Today, I do not think any party in Nigeria has a vision about education; that is the truth. I am a politician and I belong to a political party but I can tell you that there is none that has a plan and I can back this up with the statistics of the result of WASSCE (West African Senior School Certificate Examination).

    “When Tony Blair (ex-United Kingdom Prime Minister) was campaigning, he emphasised education and when he got there, he dealt squarely with the issue of education. Here we promise one thing when we are campaigning but deliver another thing when we are in office.”

    The former governor added that one of the reasons why Nigeria’s standard of education was low was not because of lack of funds but the government’s inability to effectively monitor the usage of funds which goes into the pockets of third parties instead of the schools that need them.

    He boasted that he discontinued the trend in Anambra State and the state came first in WASSCE nationwide. “In Nigeria, all we talk about is minimum wage and not minimum productivity. People are paid better here than in Ghana and other countries and yet they produce more. In Anambra we did not increase funds but only increased the monitoring. The money went where we wanted it to go,” he said. These are words on marble.

  • Thinking aloud

    It is fashionable these days to blame all our woes as a nation on Britain, the colonial master that coupled together the northern and southern protectorates of the territory around River Niger in 1914 to birth a country christened Nigeria.

    The British no doubt have had more than a hand in our fortune or misfortune as a people since we were forced to be together as a country a century ago next year, but we should take the praise for what we have done well and accept the blame for every misfortune that might have befallen our dear country.

    Among the colonial masters that Britain sent to administer Nigeria before independence in 1960, one name stood out and will forever be remembered as long as we remain a country: Lord Frederick Lugard.

    He, it was that merged the northern and southern protectorates to create the country Nigeria, so named by his girl friend then (we were told) to describe the area and the people around River Niger.

    Down the years up till independence the British sent different officials to administer the country and their decisions had profound effect on us as a people. Independence did nothing to reduce the British tendencies to make policies and legislations that have impacted well or badly on us. Remember the botched Anglo/Nigeria Defence Pact immediately after independence that was fiercely opposed by Nigerians, especially students of the University of Ibadan.

    There had been more, and one in particular that is still with us today was the decision of the British under their iconic Tory Prime Minister Mrs Margaret Thatcher to impose visa restrictions on Nigerians traveling to the United Kingdom. Prior to that time, Nigerians, as citizens of the British Commonwealth (of nations) had easy access to the UK, but Thatcher changed that and today hundreds if not thousands of Nigerians queue at the gate of British High Commission every week day seeking entry visas into the United Kingdom.

    By the way, the visa is not for free and some of them even had to borrow to raise money to pay for the visa and even some among the very few that were lucky to be granted the visa had to sell or use their properties as collateral to raise money to buy air tickets and meet other sundry expenses. Some emigrated to seek better life in the UK only to be disappointed by the reality of the situation that the streets of London are not littered with Pounds Sterling. To come back home became a problem to them, not only because of the shame of being labelled a failure by their folks back in Nigeria, but most importantly because the resources to return were not just available. So they became a burden on the British.

    And now to heap more miseries on these unfortunate/desperate Nigerians who still believe they can’t succeed in life unless they get to the UK, another Tory Prime Minister David Cameron plans to introduce a £3,000 indemnity fee for all Nigerians seeking visa to enter the land of Queen Elizabeth. The money would be forfeited to Her Majesty’s government should they overstay the time on their visa. And if and when they are caught, its straight back to Nigeria.

    Immigration is a hot political/economic issue all over Europe and even the United States and Cameron might just be pandering to the extreme right of the political spectrum in the UK who blame every economic, social and even political misfortune of the British society on immigrants, especially those of Africa and Asian origins.

    While the British are within their rights to regulate entries and even departures into their territory, singling out Nigeria and a few other so called high risk countries for this new visa regime is discriminatory and smacks of racism. Are Nigerians the only people that overstay their visa in the UK?

    It is good that the Nigerian government has decided to fight this new British visa regime, but that is not all. Our government should vigorously pursue and implement policies and programmes that would make going to Britain unattractive to Nigerians especially our youths. It is a fact that most of these people emigrate for economic reasons. Millions of our youths are not employed and in some cases unemployable. I am sure if there is something good for them to do at home they wouldn’t be rushing and desperate to emigrate to any other country. So, while the federal government fights to get Britain to dump this new visa regime targeted at Nigerians, it should also fight to create employment, make our schools and hospitals better, world class, and make the roads and other social infrastructures better. We can start with uninterrupted power supply and we would be amazed at the number of jobs, especially small scale businesses that this would create.if we can achieve this it would be thanks and no thanks to Britain.

    May be we need to fight this battle harder so as to safe our youths in particular from being exposed to the kind of sexual culture that is so pervasive in the western world including the UK. The other day Prime Minister Cameron was chiding Nigeria for our government’s (national assembly) strident opposition to same sex marriage. Leaving the insult aside that Britain still believes she can dictate to us, especially our social life, same sex marriage is alien to our culture and it is those demented few amongst us who engage in it that wants to destroy our culture and the fabric of human existence. Under the guise of protection of fundamental human rights Cameron, Barack Obama and their co-travelers in Europe and America want to destroy us and our culture, tradition and existence, we should not allow them. They should let Africa be.

    The other day some of these demented Nigerians protested against the arrest and prosecution of some members of the so called Nigerian Gay and Lesbian community by the police in a Magistrate court some where in Anambra state. It was also recently reported that some of them had a meeting in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital and even issued a press statement to that effect. What is this country turning into? Sodom and Gomorrah? I think the police should be alive to their responsibility here. Anybody that violates the law against same sex conduct or marriage should be made to face the music. The problem with our police is that before you know it, some bad eggs in he force would turn the law into an opportunity to extort and even frame innocent people. Yes our police men and women are poorly paid and badly treated, but extortion is not the way out of their plight.

    May be the government has found a way out of the problem of underfunding of the police with the recent decision to give one percent of revenue from the federation account to the police. The amount would be treated as first line charge, meaning that the money would be removed first before whatever is left is shared among the three tiers of government. This is good. But can we trust the Nigeria Police and indeed the politicians in the Ministry of Police Affairs, the Presidency and even the Police Service Commission to spend this money judiciously and for the right purpose?

    Over the years there have been reported cases of massive corruption in the police. Some former Inspector General of Police have been indicted and even convicted on fraud, in some cases, outright stealing of police funds. If they could do that with the ‘little’ that gets to them now, you can imagine when one per cent of our consolidated revenue is remitted to them in addition. But this is not enough reason to deny the Police better funding. One strongly believes that poor law enforcement and not inadequate laws is responsible for most of the crimes committed in this country, including fraud, election rigging, money laundering et al. If our police are well trained, remunerated, and properly quartered they will curb most of these crimes and our society would be the better for it. But if we leave them the way they are, then we should be pleased to live with the consequences of such a rotten system. The way you lay you bed is the way you sleep on it.

    Finally, the Sunday newspapers were awash with the photograph of President Goodluck Jonathan and Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi shaking hands at the Port Harcourt International airport. That the two are sworn enemies is not in doubt, but let’s hope this photo op is not a photo trick after all. This is hoping the hatchet has been buried. The better for the nation.

     

  • We must not stop thinking of Vivien Foe —Mikel

    We must not stop thinking of Vivien Foe —Mikel

    SUPER Eagles midfielder, John Obi Mikel has cautioned that the late Cameroon ace, Marc-Vivien Foe should not be forgotten.

    Wednesday, June 26 was exactly the 10th anniversary of the late Indomitable Lion’s Foe collapsed on the field and died after 75 minutes of the FIFA Confederations Cup semi-final against Colombia at Stade Gerland.

    The Chelsea star was one of the leading members of the current Nigeria team and remembers Foe as a magnificent player.

    “Everyone knows his name and respects his memory. We mustn’t stop thinking of him, and it won’t be any different at this tournament,” he said.

    Late Foe was only 28 but had represented a number of clubs as a professional, starting with Canon Younde in his home country, Lens and Lyon in France, and West Ham United and Manchester City in England. The 1.94m midfielder was respected and admired by his team-mates, and was a gifted player out on the field.

    In 64 full international appearances, Foe scored eight goals and represented the Indomitable Lions at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the USA and the 2002 edition in Korea and Japan. A broken leg meant he missed out on the 1998 tournament in France.