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Tag: Umaru Musa Yar’Adua

  • Dreaming the past

    Dreaming the past

    “When responsibility is entrusted to an incompetent person expect the end of time”   Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

    The above quoted Hadith was particularly in reference to leadership in any given society. When the Prophet was to send Mu’az Bn Jabal to Yemen as Governor, he asked him a pointed question as a way of confirming that his choice was right. He said asking Mu’az: “how will you govern the people in that country?” The latter said he would use the laws of Allah as contained in the Qur’an. Then the Prophet asked: “and if you cannot find a relevant solution in the Qur’an? Mu’az said he would use the Prophetic tradition (Sunnah). Then the Prophet further asked: “and if relevant solution is not found in Sunnah? Mu’az said he would adopt the consensus of opinions of learned scholars’’. Then, the Prophet asked: “and if you cannot get a consensus? Mu’az said he would use analogical deduction based on the three sources of law mentioned above. Thus, with Mu’az’s satisfactory responses, the Prophet technically confirmed the four sources of Islamic law by which any leader in an Islamic society should govern. The summary here is that governance should be by law and not by whim. 

    Thereafter, the Prophet counselled him as follows: “when you get there, my dear Mu’az, endear yourself to the people and do not be hostile. Be kind to them and do not be wicked. Be lenient with them and do not be harsh. Be considerate with them and do not be dictatorial. Be compassionate to them and do not be sadistic. Be sensitive to their plight and do not be indifferent. Be transparent and do not be seen as corrupt. Be a man of your words and do not be seen as a liar. Fulfil your promises to them and do not renege on such promises. Be trustworthy in utterances and actions and not be seen as a betrayer of trust. There are three signs by which a hypocrite is known. When he talks he lies; when he promises he reneges and when he is trusted he betrays. Remember that a leader is like a shepherd who cannot claim to be successful in a day until he has coasted home the last sheep in his flock. And every shepherd shall be asked by the Almighty Allah about what he does with the flock in his care’’. 

    Thus, the historic conversation between the Prophet and Mu’az confirms that good leadership is the bedrock of peace, decency and progress in any society. Today, many countries including Nigeria are dangerously restive because of deviation from that yardstick by irresponsible leaderships. A nation without a responsible leadership is like a body without head. Such a nation is likely to wander aimlessly and indefinitely in the wilderness of life just like the Egyptian gypsies of yore even as her citizens wallow helplessly in abject penury.                  

    Man ordinarily takes food for granted until he faces hunger where food is not available. He takes sound health for granted until he falls sick. He takes freedom for granted until he becomes a prisoner and he takes peace for granted until he faces war. One of the signs of living in a bad time is to keep remembering the good old days with nostalgia. Such is a confirmation that the past is better than the present. This is the situation in which overwhelming majority of Nigerians find themselves today in a country naturally and abundantly enriched with milk and honey.

    Who could have believed some years back that this same country called Nigeria might become a beggars’ own country one day? When political calamity engendered by economic mismanagement struck Ghana in the 1980s, Nigeria was the only rescue haven in Africa for hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians who trooped into this country for all sorts of jobs including menial ones. Thus, from that experience, one would have thought that a lesson had been learnt by Nigerian leaders never to subject the citizens of this country to a similar misfortune. But alas, the situation in the past 40 years or there about has proved otherwise. Ironically, the reality today, is that the citizens of this sixth largest oil exporting country in the world have become beggars being deported from a onetime calamitous Ghana that sought and got economic rescue in Nigeria. The same Ghana is today a model for Nigeria virtually in all things that is decent and civilized.

    God, in His infinite mercy does not create any living thing without adequate provisions for its existence. He endows individuals and nations with wealth in time and space as a trust. But He does not physically come down to manage such wealth for anybody. Neither does He give anybody the authority to redistribute it. But in the end, the managers of such wealth will be asked to render account on how they manage it.  Individuals and nations become humanly and materially rich only by Allah’s will at the place and time divinely earmarked for it. Any manipulation of such wealth by certain greedy cabal can only pave way for an untold calamity.

    Read Also: Minimum wage: Were labour unions daydreaming?

    Like a fly in a bottle of wine which drinks and drinks till it dies in there, today’s Nigerian rulers see their position as an opportunity to suck Nigeria’s oil wells dry at the expense of the masses to whom those oil wells rightly and legitimately belong. These rulers have forgotten that if the oil reserve had not been divinely meant for this generation it could have been discovered and consumed by many generations long before ours.

    Nigerians of today have found themselves in a dream land. They are not only dreaming of what they ought to be as against what they are. They are also dreaming of the good old days in this same country that once gave them the confidence to build hope in their future as well as that of their children. That hope has practically become forlorn. Without necessarily sounding pessimistic, if there is any expectation for an ordinary Nigerian today, it is for death as despair is currently the song of destiny.

    Telling the history of Nigerian oil cannot end with the present generation. It surely extends to the future. Where are the founding fathers of Nigeria especially those who strove for the discovery of oil? Was the current  situation their dream? Even as Prime Minister and Premier respectively, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto borrowed money from banks to purchase a car and build a bungalow. They never possessed more than those even when their political contemporaries were accumulating empires.

    It is easier to be a legatee than to be a legator. The greatest spendthrifts are those who do not know the source of money in their possession.

    It is rather ironic that oil wealth which serves as the source of fortune for many countries is the main source of Nigeria’s misfortune. At least this country was economically steady and progressive before the so-called oil boom. At least there was no oil money when Nigeria went through a civil war for 30 months without borrowing one kobo. Why has oil boom become oil doom?

    In his nine years in office as Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon took the price of PMS from 6k to 9.5k per litre. After him was General Murtala Muhammed an obvious man of the people who never tampered with the price of oil till his death in 1976. It was General Olusegun Obasanjo who first took oil price by a leap moving it from 9.5k to 15.3k in his three and a half year reign from February 1976 to October 1979. In his own three years and three months in office, President Usman Shehu Shagari never tampered with the price of oil. And General Muhammadu Buhari who succeeded him maintained the status quo as he never increased fuel price even by one kobo during his 20 month rule. Thus, between 1979 when Obasanjo left office and 1985 when Buhari was overthrown, the oil price remained same and Nigeria did not fail as a nation.

    When the self-styled Military President Ibrahim Babangida took over in1985, his first focus was on oil. It was he who moved the price of PMS from 15k to 70k in his eight years of governance. But by far the greatest leap of oil price in Nigeria was introduced by Chief Earnest Shonekan an interim Head of State who took the price from 70k to N5 within the 87 days of his illegal rule.

    Then General Sani Abacha the maximum despot who forcefully high jacked power in October 1993 moved the price of PMS from N5 to N11 within his five years in office. That was an average of N1 increase per year. When Abacha died in 1998, General Abdul Salami Abubakar became the Head of State and virtually concentrated on oil. He can be called Nigeria’s Head of oil fields. It was he who took the price of PMS from N11 to N20 within the ten months he ruled Nigeria. When General Obasanjo returned to office as elected President in 1999, his first port of call was oil. Capitalizing on the precedent laid by General Abdul Salami Abubakar, he went ahead to raise the price of PMS from N20 to N70 within eight years he spent in office.                             

    Now, to prove that the removal of the so-called oil subsidy by previous rulers in Nigeria was a child’s play, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan decided to surpass them all even if all Nigerians would go to the gallows. After consultations with various stake holders and interest groups including traditional rulers, religious leaders, Labour Unions, ASUU and NANS, all of whom objected to any removal of subsidy at this precarious time, Mr. President decided to go ahead with his plan not minding any contrary opinion. His argument was that facilities like roads, hospitals, schools, refineries and rail system must be provided even if at the expense of the lives of Nigerians. And such removal must be done at a time when the feeding allowance of his family and that of his deputy is unilaterally fixed at about one N1billion per year. Mr. President is calling on Nigerians to sacrifice while the cost of his medical services in the Presidential clinic is about N1.2 billion even as another N300 million is earmarked for replacement of his kitchen utensils. For his trips abroad in 2012 alone about N10 billion is earmarked. But to show a good example of sacrifice for the nation, he and his Ministers have resolved to cut their salaries by 25% though we are not told the amount of each cabinet Minister’s salary. And nothing is said about their undisclosed allowances. That is exhibition of power for you.

    Thus by the signature of one man appended to an obnoxious policy imposed on the populace, it is certain that many lives will be lost, many marriages will collapse, many children will drop out of school and many agreements will crumble causing irreconcilable rifts. These did not happen in the time of Yar’Adua because there was no cause for such.   

    With YarÁdua as President, Nigerians did not see their newly rekindled hope ending up in a paroxysm of despair as the case today. Until he came on board as President, every other person that ruled Nigeria except Shagari and Buhari had claimed that there was subsidy on oil.

    Due to his short time in office, Yar’Adua might not have been perceived as a great achiever but the few achievements he recorded were quite remarkable. If those achievements had been sincerely inherited and maintained, Nigeria would not have been plunged into such a quagmire as we are witnessing today.

    At least with his few achievements, many ‘FIRSTS’ can be attributed to him in the history of Nigeria. For instance, he was the first Nigerian President to publicly declare his assets and those of his wife on assuming office. He was the first Nigerian President to publicly admit that the election which brought him into office was flawed thereby promising to reform the electoral process the machinery for which he sincerely put in place before his demise. And he congratulated the Labour gubernatorial candidate, Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State who won a court case against a PDP Governor Olusegun Agagu in the spirit of political sportsmanship. Yar’Adua was also the first Nigerian President to confess that there was no subsidy on petroleum products and therefore reduced the price of PMS (petrol) from N70 to N65 per litre. Not only these, he was also the first Nigerian President to declare amnesty in a warless situation to ventilate a conducive atmosphere for permanent peace. If he were alive and remained in the saddle the present situation of uncertainties would not have arisen. Perhaps that was why he called himself a servant leader.

    Yar’Adua as a mortal being might have his own weaknesses, nevertheless, his short period as President wrought a remarkable foundation for this country. If he had not displayed the ingenuous tactics of declaring amnesty at the time he did, the story of Nigeria would have been quite different today.

    Nigerians continue to remember the good days of Yar’Adua today because the foundation he laid for a new beginning in those days has begun to crumble so soon in the hands of his successors. Just two years before her centenary celebration as a country, the President is telling Nigerians that the security problem in the country is bigger than a civil war and he can hardly handle it. In such a situation, who will save Nigeria from the prediction of the West? Meanwhile, the federal government has agreed in concert with Bornu State government to pay a compensation of N100 million to the family of Muhammad Yusuf, the leader of Boko Haram who was killed by the police in their cell in 2009. The big question is WHY NOW? And who will compensate the families of several scores of many other Nigerians who were killed subsequently?

  • Seven notable legacies of late President Musa Yar’Adua

    Exactly nine years ago, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua breathed his last. The Katsina-born died after suffering from Pericarditis.

    Despite the many intrigues that trailed his sickness and eventual death, Yar’Adua is still well respected and acknowledged for many changes in the nation’s polity. This is despite the fact that he was in office for just three years.

    Below are some of the changes he made for which he remains beloved:

    • Reduction of fuel pump price. Yar-Adua is the first Nigerian leader to carry out downward reverse of hike in fuel pump price. As soon as he was inaugurated on May 29, 2007, one of his first actions was to reduce fuel price from N75 to N65. This act was widely praised by Nigerians.
    • Niger Delta Amnesty Programme. The former Katsina State Governor initiated the Niger-Delta Amnesty Programme which saw hundreds of youths in the oil-rich Niger Delta empowered. This was contrary to the popular notion that he would clamp down on the restive youths who were blowing oil installations for their grievances. The programme was well-received and doused tensions in the region, thereby shoring up oil production with many of the ex-agitators rehabilitated.
    • Abuja-Kaduna rail route. Though he never lived to see its completion, Yar’Adua initiated the Abuja-Kaduna rail route. Thankfully, President Muhammadu Buhari went on to commission the project in July 2016.
    • New Minimum wage. Workers would remember the late President for initiating the move that led to the N18,000 wage on February 22, 2011 when the Senate approve the new wage. It was Yar’Adua who inaugurated the Presidential Committee on National Minimum Wage headed by Chief Justice Alfa Moddibo through the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed. The new wage was approved by his successor President Goodluck Jonathan following recommendations of the committee.
    • Dredging of River Niger. After 40 years, Yar’Adua recommended the dredging of the River Niger, which he couldn’t sadly see through until his demise.
    • Declaration of Assets. He had the honour of being the first Nigerian leader to declare his assets. He declared he had ₦856,452,892 (US$5.8 million) in assets, ₦19 million ($0.1 million) of which belonged to his wife. He also had ₦88,793,269.77 ($0.5 million) in liabilities. His plan, clearly, was to set a good example for public office holders and discourage corruption.
    • Release of Lagos councils’ funds. For almost four years, former President Olusegun Obasanjo refused to release federal allocations to Lagos state, claiming the creation of 37 Local Council Development Authority(LCDAs) by former Governor Bola Tinubu was a misnomer. But Yar’Adua, within months of assumption of power, reversed the widely criticized presidential order and released all the withheld allocations, running into billions, to Lagos.

     

  • PDP and the plea for forgiveness

    The top policy-makers of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) think, in self-delusion, that they can take for a fool’s ride the swarming number of Nigerian workers, tax-payers and voters whenever they so desire.

    That, truly, was the attitude that they betrayed when, in what was an after-thought or shallow show of remorse, for nearly two decades of maladministration, by the PDP, they unsealed their beaks and begged Nigerians to forgive them.

    Since Nigerian voters are no fools, it’s doubtful whether they will hearken to the plea of the PDP for a long time to come. Recall that the sixteen years of the PDP administration, which featured President Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, was the longest by any democratically-elected political party in the history of this country.

    Recall, also, that out of a misplaced sense of security and invincibility or an exaggerated sense of privilege, the same top-policy makers of the PDP, parroted, for a fairly long time – in a show of arrogance – that their party would “govern or rule Nigeria for sixty years”. The party succeeded in governing for only a quarter of its leader’s projection.

    By the PDP’s plea to Nigerians for forgiveness, the party’s chairman, Uche Secundus, who made the plea did so from the mistaken belief that Nigerians have no sense of history. And even if Nigerians were to give a nod to that plea, the PDP leaders should not delude themselves that they would be brought back to power in 2019. Is it that the PDP wants to come back to power to continue with crass leadership, especially gargantuan corruption for which it was – and still is – famous?

    The PDP does not deserve to be forgiven by Nigerian voters who it has hurt so badly. If it were, indeed, remorseful – that it had sloughed its ugly wasteful financial habit, it should not have dollarized its recent Port Harcourt convention.

    That dollar jamboree was an indication that the PDP leaders would rather the Naira sinks in exchange to the dollar. Besides, Nigerian voters are waiting anxiously for the PDP leaders to convince them that their presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is not being economical with the truth concerning his tax declaration.

    That’s the same Atiku who was, for eight years, Nigeria’s vice-president. He is a nomadic politician who has flirted with diverse political parties in his bid to become president. He should tell Nigerian voters his role in the poor performance of the PDP up to the period when the recent recession set in.

    Given the harrowing experience of bad leadership, under the PDP, Nigerians – especially voters – have come to the conclusion that there is a grave danger in forgiveness. They have resolved never again to trust the PDP, rather so naively as they did to have allowed it to misdirect the affairs of the country for nearly two decades.

    And if the leaders of the PDP were, indeed, contrite for their maladministration between 1999 and 2015, they should realize that Nigerians now have a renewed sense of history. Therefore, Nigerians would rather the Buhari administration be given a second chance so that he would remain in power until 2024.

    Hopefully, within the distance, Boko Haram would have been history, that it rightly deserves, and the economy back firmly on its feet based, primarily, on a robust contest between agriculture and crude oil.

    Nigerian tax-payers, whose tax money was squandered, and voters, whose invested trust and confidence in the party were shattered, have resolved that the PDP as a party and its leaders should be denied further role in the politics of the Fourth Republic; into the political Siberia should they all be sent. That was the ringing statement that they made in 2015, when the voted massively for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    And yet, as most Nigerians who cast their vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Muhammadu Buhari – its presidential candidate in the 2014 elections, would honesty attest, the unusually long years of the PDP dominance of the Nigerian political firmament was an agonizing period of the locusts. And the ugly effects are still being felt today: if, it’s not the recession that the PDP bequeathed the Buhari administration, it was the culture of mindless and flagitious looting of the country’s treasury by its members at all three tiers of government.

    If it was not Dasukigate – a corrupt and treacherous betrayal of public trust, in which more than two billion dollars meant for the motivation of the Nigerian military and purchase of top-class materiel for its operatives was shared amongst a handful of top PDP officials, it’s the ongoing insurgency by the Boko Haram terrorists group, the attendant destruction of life and property in mainly the North-East geo-political zone and the kidnap of Chibok and Dapchi school girls in the region.

    Time there was, during the sixteen years of the PDP administration, when Nigeria was so buoyant that crude oil – upon which her economy was heavily dependent – sold for nearly $150. Whatever happened to all that huge funds? The PDP leaders should explain in detail to the Nigerian tax payers and voters that they expect to vote for them in 2019 general elections.

    Sixteen years of PDP administration was, therefore, a grossly mismanaged opportunity for political advancement and sustainable economic opulence. With such an egregious record of criminal profligacy in the management of the economic fortunes of the country, why should the PDP, however deep its contrition, be ambitious to govern this country again? With the PDP’s poor performance, Nigerians were bitten by a venomous snake and they have always been suspicious, since then, each time they saw a rope.

    Whichever way you look at it, the PDP would go down in the history of political development in Nigeria – for as long as the Fourth Republic lasts, say – as the party to have proudly invented or invited terrorism of a monstrous proportion – a la the Boko Haram group – to the country.

    Left to the PDP, amidst Dasukigate, Boko Haram would have been a way of life: let there be countless camps of internally displaced persons; let villages be torched or flattened by impoverished explosive devices (IEDS) and let there be an open field of deserted villages and towns.

    But it’s on record that for his gallant fight against Boko Haram, Dasukigate and ocean-deep corruption, and that very well explains why at, Buhari was crowned as the continent’s foremost fighter of corruption a recent summit of the African Union, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The PDP should be thanked for its gargantuan corruption which not only made that unique crown possible, but also sharpened Buhari’s integrity profile!

    On account of the huge corruption perpetrated by the PDP, it’s been argued that Nigeria’s economic development has been set back by nearly 30 years. Indeed, the World Bank and some development economists figure that given the depth to which the PDP has drawn the Nigerian economy, it would require nearly $280 billion, in the next twenty years, to rebuild the devastated parts of the North-East geo-political zone, re-tool the country’s four refineries so that they could be efficient to purify crude oil for local consumption in place of wasteful importation of the product, improve upon security, roads, health centres, education and reactivate such ports of Warri, Onne, Koko, Port Harcourt, so as to ease the huge burden on the Lagos ports.

    It’s to the credit of the Buhari administration that it unearthed the Dasukigate. Otherwise, what the PDP meant by Dasukigate was that it could plunder the Nigerian treasury at will and go almost unscathed. And, so, let the country’s military be starved of sorely-need funds and the Nigerian economy should, naturally, collapse.

    If Nigeria was going to be a failed state – a country in which insecurity reigns supreme and teeming graduates of tertiary institutions roam the streets, in search of non-existent jobs, so be it.

    • Uzuakpundu, a former senior editorial staff with the Daily Times, writes from Lagos.

  • President Buhari arrives Zamfara, addresses traditional rulers

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday in Gusau, Zamfara, presided over a town hall meeting in continuation of his tour of troubled areas across the country.

    The News men reports that the President in company of his aides landed at the Gusau helipad at about 10.40a.m after taking off from Umaru Musa Yar’Adua international airport Katsina.

    The governors of Sokoto and Kebbi states, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal and Atiku Bagudu respectively, some cabinet ministers, traditional and religious leaders, top government officials were among those that received the president.

    President Buhari reviewed a parade mounted by the Army and Air Force.

    Read Also: Former Delta commissioner hails Buhari’s anti-graft war

    He is scheduled to address traditional rulers and other stakeholders during the visit, and condole with families and communities that suffered from various forms of violent crimes in the state.

    Zamfara has witnessed cases of attacks by armed bandits with hundreds of innocent people killed and property worth billions of naira carted away or destroyed.

    The recent attack by bandits at Birane village in Zurmi Local Government area of the state left over 50 people dead.One of the most notorious bandits, Tsoho Buhari, popularly referred to as Buhari Daji, was recently killed by a repentant cattle rustler in the state.

    NAN

  • 2018 UTME: Parents threaten to sue JAMB

    Some aggrieved parents of the candidates who sat for the on-going Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB are threatening to drag the board to court following lots of complaints that characterized the exercise in the state and the mal-functioning of the technical facilities deployed at some CBT centers which caused candidates to continue the examination, with only 20 minutes left for the submission of the papers

    Investigation by the Nation revealed that centers that were hardest hit by loads of technical deficiencies which led to last minutes changing of examination centers and cancellation of others, include: The Dialogue Computer Institute, AL-Qalam, Barda International School and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua University all within the Katsina metropolis

    At AL-Qalam University there were cases of mal- functioning of the cyber system thereby causing most candidates to wait for hours before the situation could be rectified and writing their papers only with 20 minutes remaining for submission

    At Barda international school, the system kept fluctuating in the examination hall, as candidates were held up until the systems get restored eventually, but the remaining time according to them was insufficient for them to write anything meaningful.

    Read Also: JAMB directs UTME candidates to check results online

    A visibly angry parent who accompanied her daughter to the center and who doesn’t want to be named ,said she was afraid her daughter may not pass the examination as she wasn’t given sufficient time to write the paper due to the failure of the server

    She said’’ we may have to find a way to force JAMB to repeat this exercise, even if it involves going to court, because it’s no fault of ours that the equipments weren’t functioning’’

    Another parent who simply identified himself as Alhaji Mohammed whose ward wrote at the Barda International school, said that he a had already lodged a complaint with the state zonal  coordinator

    When contacted through the telephone for her reaction to these complaints from the parents and candidates, the state Coordinator for JAMB, Hajara Tambari, admitted experiencing technical hitches at the early stages of the examination in some centers, especially system failure which delayed the examination particularly in Al-Qalam University center on Friday March 8th

    She said’’ we are making sure things run smoothly and ensure a hitch free examination, yes we had technical challenges but they are being addressed’’

     

  • Obasanjo, Yar’adua, Jonathan blew over N70trn oil money in 15 years – Adio

    Obasanjo, Yar’adua, Jonathan blew over N70trn oil money in 15 years – Adio

    Executive Secretary, Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Waziri Adio, Tuesday said that the administrations of Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and Goodluck Jonathan blew over N70 trillion earned from sale of crude oil and gas between 1999 and 2014.

    Adio disclosed this in his office during an oversight visit by the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs.

    The NEITI boss insisted that unless the country developed a prudent way of expenditure, it is likely to be in for difficult times in the years to come.

    He noted that it was unfortunate that despite the huge earnings from sales of crude oil over the years, the country was unable to account for over $100 billion in the excess crude account.

    He urged the Federal Government to immediately develop a saving culture that would ensure slash on government spending to the interest of the country.

    Adio said: “Let me inform the committee that we discovered that between 1999 and 2014, the country spent over N70 trillion it received from oil and gas alone. That is a whole lot of money. What is sad is that it was spent without the country being able to show anything for it. I think it is quite unfortunate.”

    “For the sake of emphasis, however, I think if previous administrations had developed a culture for prudent management of resources, Nigeria ought to have over $100 billion saved in the excess crude account. So, going forward, it is necessary for government to think about saving a lot more, and do all it can as well to cut down on wasteful spending if the nation must make progress.”

    On the challenges confronting the agency, Adio told the committee that the country risked suspension from the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), if the agency failed to complete its audit report by a given deadline which comes up in December this year.

    The NEITI boss also decried the paucity of funds in the agency due to late releases by the Ministry of Finance.

    He blamed lack of funds for the inability of the agency to conclude work on its audit report to the EITI.

    He noted that should Nigeria be suspended from the world body as a result of the agency’s failure to meet the December deadline for the submission of its audit report, the development would be an embarrassment on the image and reputation of the country.

    He said, “The agency has been battling with the issue of funding, and this is due to late releases. As a result of this challenge which we face, we have been unable to conclude work on the 2014 audit report.

    The deadline which we have been given is December, and this is due to the two year interval required to come up with one as stipulated by the world body. Failure to meet it may result in Nigeria’s suspension. That will be very embarrassing for us as a nation.”

    Vice Chairman of the Senate committee, Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi (Kaduna North), noted that the committee would require the effort of NEITI to close the communication gap between the agency and the upper chamber with a view to ensuring effective collaboration.

    He said that NEITI is the second agency of government among other that has not received its capital releases adequately met by the federal government.

    He described the development as “a misnomer.”

    Hunkuyi said, “All agencies have had releases between 45 percent and 65 per cent. It is a misnomer to find that your agency up till this time has got less than 30 per cent, a figure which falls short of the average releases.

    “Our focus now is to help you achieve greater heights, and this involves working with you and putting heads together so as to avoid a repeat of non-release of funds in the 2017 budget.”

     

  • “Yar’Adua a sincere, compassionate leader”

    “Yar’Adua a sincere, compassionate leader”

    The Chairman of Mosilo Group, Moses Siloko Siasia, has eulogised the virtues of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, describing the former president as a sincere and compassionate leader, who sought the best for his citizens.

    This is contained in a statement to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the death of the former President, in which Siasia noted that Yar’Adua stands out as one of the pious, diligent and sincere leaders in the country.

    His words: “It is six years today, but the legacy of late President Musa Yar’Adua lives on. He was a sincere and committed leader.”

    Siasia argued that the sincerity of the Yar’Adua-led administration persuaded the militants in the Niger Delta region to drop their arms and embrace peace for the greater good of the country.

    Yar'AduaThe former governorship candidate in Bayelsa State said: “He was sincere in achieving peace in the then restive Niger Delta area. His sincerity made it easier for the militants to drop arms and embrace the amnesty programme, which brought peace and economic boost to the country and the deliberate creation of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.”

    Siasia further described Yar’Adua as a detribalised Nigerian, who should be celebrated for his policies and contributions to the growth of the country and called on state governors in the Niger Delta to unanimously immortalize the late president by naming major streets in their respective state capitals after him.

    He urged the President Muhammdu Buhari-led administration to learn from the late leader in tackling the challenges of the country, especially in the Niger Delta.

    “President Muhammadu Buhari should be sincere in dealing with the needs of the Niger Delta people by engaging true leaders of the region to address the challenges. He should not only listen to his ministers, but consult other stakeholders in the region. Late President Yar’Adua consulted some of us whenever, there were crises in the region,” he observed.

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  • Why confab will not yield positive result

    SIR: Ever since the fuel subsidy imbroglio, I have always doubted every step taken by this present administration. And this is not because I despise the president but because I expected President Jonathan to continue from where his former boss and predecessor, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua , stopped, instead of introducing new agenda.

    Afterall, he was involved in the creation of the seven-point agenda.

    Perhaps, this government would have done better if it had continued the good works started by the previous regime.

    However, the ongoing National Conference which most Nigerians believed may be the way out of the innumerable problems that have besieged the country over time has not yielded anything and will not yield any positive result because the most salient issues have not been discussed.

    In a country where innocent people are being killed everyday; where people are being abducted everyday; where people’s lives are being consumed by bad roads; where unemployment level skyrockets every year and where students sit at home hopelessly because of government’s refusal to do what it ought to do. Are these not supposed to be the primacy of the National Conference instead of bringing the idea of creating new states when there is no unity and harmony amongst the existing states?

    Creation of new states is just like adding salt to our wound. Do we actually need to consult a  soothsayer or a prophet to tell us that we have misplaced our priority? It is conspicuous that the rationale behind the insistence of this government to hold this National Conference is to achieve its personal expediency and to achieve unduly extension of tenure. In our education system, when a pupil or a student flunks promotional exams, the result is always that such pupil or student will repeat same class but if one is to apply this system to governance, it will be a total calamity and grave consequence to even conceive the idea that the present regime should remain beyond 2015.

    However, there would not have been the need to call for any gathering if our government had done what it ought to do. Our problems are categorical and it takes readiness, commitment and resoluteness on the part of the government and its people to solve their problems especially in a country like ours. Our government needs to be more original in its dealings; only then can we have a robust and peaceful co-existence.

     

    • Waziri Mohammed,

    IBB University, Lapai-Niger State

     

  • Fish farmers deplore ‘breach of contract’

    Fish farmers deplore ‘breach of contract’

    THE Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the nation’s aqua culturists, under the aegis of Fishfarm Estate Developers Association, are quarrelling over an alleged breach of contract by the association.

    Members of the association have presented their documents on a tripartite agreement between them, the ministry and Fidelity Bank, for a systematic approval and release of the government’s special grant.

    Addressing reporters yesterday at Ogidi, Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State, National President Maurice Ebo said the agreement with the ministry and the bank was on the disbursement of funds to boost fish production and exports.

    Ebo said the implementation progressed from the time of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua until Dr Akinwunmi took over and brought in a new acting director of Fisheries.

    The union leader accused the new director, who is from the Forestry Department,of lacking the disposition to handle policies relating to the trade.

    The association was to identify and guarantee beneficiaries before the bank would pay.

    Ebo alleged that since the acting director assumed office, contracts or disbursements to fish farmers had stopped.

  • Lamido’s persecution

    Lamido’s persecution

    Last month, on November 15, to be specific, President Goodluck Jonathan took a direct shot across the bows of Governor Sule Lamido’s ship in an apparent warning to the governor to reconsider his long running confrontation with the president over the 2015 presidential elections in which both have staked their claims. On that day, two sons of the governor, Mustapha and Aminu, were picked up by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), for allegedly laundering over N10 billion through several banks in which the state holds major accounts.

    Officially, the EFFC does not take orders from the president – or from anyone else for that matter. But this is only in theory. In practice it soon became notorious under President Olusegun Obasanjo, President Jonathan’s seemingly estranged benefactor who created it ostensibly to fight corruption in high places, as his battle tank for squaring and squashing opposition elements in and out of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

    As a good student of his erstwhile godfather it seems President Jonathan has since learnt to put the commission to good use in self-service, all in the name of fighting corruption. Ask Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State and former governor, Timipre Sylva, of the president’s home state, Bayelsa, both of whom have attracted the president’s great disaffection. Governor Lamido is thus only the latest among several of those to have attracted EFCC’s attention more for their politics than for mis-governance.

    Lamido’s offence, it seems, is not only his expression of interest in the presidency. Recently, he suggested in an interview with an Abuja based radio station, Vision FM, that the president protected a corrupt minister by refusing to act on information he gave the president that the minister had collected a $250 million bribe from an oil firm. This provoked an angry retort from the president who, through his spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, said the governor’s allegation was “patently bogus” and “an unacceptable and callous attempt to unjustly impugn the integrity of President Jonathan and cast aspersions on the seriousness of his administration’s efforts to curb corruption.”

    EFCC’s picking up of the governor’s sons last month was clearly an attempt to demonstrate to the world that the governor was going to equity with very dirty hands.

    That EFCC’s action was triggered more by politics than by any concern of the president about corruption will be obvious presently. Before examining the facts, however, I should make it clear that this is not in defence of the governor against the allegation of using his sons to defraud his state.

    Jigawa, as we all know, was created in 1991. Between then and now it has had seven governors, four military and three civilians. Sandwiched between the first two military governors, one under General Ibrahim Babangida who created the state and the other under General Sani Abacha who threw out Babangida’s transition government of Chief Ernest Sonekan in November 1993, Governor Ali Sa’ad Birnin Kudu, its first civilian governor, did not enjoy much resources nor had much time nor much room for initiative to make a significant difference in the state.

    The next civilian governor, Ibrahim Saminu Turaki, did enjoy all three factors: less than two years into the fully-fledged civilian dispensation under President Obasanjo, oil money, which the country’s treasury has depended heavily upon for its revenue, became no longer an object, as oil price soared through the sky; the governor had eight years to transform the state with the state’s statutory allocation; and as civilian governor he was, at least in theory, a co-ordinate, rather than a subordinate, of the big man at the centre in the governance of the country.

    As we all know, Turaki, like so many of the governors during the first eight years of the current civilian dispensation, was a disaster. The man, as we all know, hardly sat at home to work. Instead, he spent so much time globetrotting he could not make any significant impact on his state. And, as he himself testified in the course of his yet to be concluded long running prosecution by the EFCC, he used a considerable portion of his revenue allocation, under duress he said, to help fund President Obasanjo’s infamous Third Term agenda.

    Enter Sule Lamido in 2007. Anyone who had been to the state since then, as I have, would agree that the difference between Jigawa before Turaki and Jigawa under Lamido is the difference between night and day. Dutse, the state’s sleepy capital, for example, has since become home to its civil servants who, before Lamido, used to go to work daily from Kano. And except, of course, they never meant what they said, all very important visitors to the state, including President Jonathan, have had only praise for the way the governor has vastly transformed its infrastructure in education, housing, health and road network, among others.

    So even if in the end it turns out that the governor used his sons to steal from his state, at least he has some mitigating circumstances for his alleged action. This much, I am afraid, cannot be said of many states in the country, including the president’s home state, Bayelsa, where incredibly huge gaps exist between the levels of development and the resources that have accrued to those states.

    This does not, of course, mean Lamido’s sons should not be prosecuted and their father exposed as someone who preaches what he does not practice. By all means prosecute them if you have a prima facie case against them and expose their father as a hypocrite if you can prove it.

    What, however, Lamido’s almost universally acclaimed performance means is that there are many, many, many more deserving cases for EFCC’s attention than the governor’s. Anyone with even the most casual acquaintance with Nigeria’s political-economy can reel off at least a dozen such cases before you can say the C word. But the three examples that follow are enough to prove the fact that Lamido’s case is by far more politics than about the president’s concern for good governance and transparency.

    Easily the most glaring of such cases is that of Malabu Oil and Gas, reportedly controlled by Chief Dan Etete, a former Oil minister under General Abacha. According to several newspapers, including The Economist (June 15) of London, two years ago, a consortium of Shell and Eni/Elf which had controversial stakes in the oil well, OPL 245, paid nearly $1.1 billion to Malabu, reportedly on orders of the president, as settlement over a long running dispute with Malabu on the ownership of the lucrative oil well.

    The payment was made to Malabu against the background of the fact that Etete had been a fugitive from France convicted in the country for money laundering in 2007 – a conviction upheld in 2009, following his appeal. The payment was also made against the background of the fact that EFCC was yet to conclude its investigation of an allegation that Etete had fraudulently acquired the company.

    According to Premium Times (September 30), an investigative online newspaper, the former minister, in turn shared the money paid to his company into several dubious accounts, some of them owned by close political associates of the president’s.

    Clearly this payment, which the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke, tried to rationalise away during a public hearing of a House committee investigating the deal, as voluntary with government acting only as an “obligor” and “facilitator”, reeked to high heavens of the worst form of cronyism, to put it mildly. Even more clearly Lamido’s N10 billion alleged corruption pales into insignificance compared to Malabu’s $1.1 billion, which comes to nearly N184 billion.

    Second, there was an earlier case of the president versus a publication called Spynet Magazine. In its maiden edition in August 2007, it accused him of perjury in declaring his assets and liabilities during his tenure as deputy governor and governor of Bayelsa, and eventually as vice-president under Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, as demanded by the Constitution. Days after the publication its premises were ransacked by the State Security Services and its editors detained. To date nothing more has been heard of the case. Not even after the president has angrily told the public, following persistent demands that he declares his assets and liabilities publicly as was done by his predecessor even though the Constitution does not demand such public declaration, that he doesn’t “give a damn” what the public thought of his refusal to do so.

    Finally, there is the case of the paradox of worsening insecurity in the land, especially from Boko Haram insurgency, in the face of the huge budgetary allocation to our security forces since 2009. One glaring illustration of this is the fact that the Army Chief, Lt-General Azubuike Ihejirika, has lately been complaining of an under armed and under equipped military confronting Boko Haram. The paradox is, however, not surprising, considering credible allegations that one security institution recently spent over N600 million to construct an artificial grass football pitch for the recreation of its staff!

    By all means let the EFCC go after each and every thieving government official and his relations and cronies, if the commission has good cases against them. However, since it has neither the time nor resources to do so, equity demands that it begins with the more glaring cases.

    Surely all three cases above are much more demanding of the EFCC’s attention than Lamido’s case. When the commission is seen clearly to pick and choose mostly cases of only those perceived as opposition elements, it can only open itself and the presidency it reports to through the minister of Justice and attorney general of the federation, to accusations that it is merely fighting a selective, and therefore futile, war against corruption.