FURIOUS FRANK NAIJA TALK

Shock Therapy: Jeffrey Sachs Prescription for Nigeria

2012-02-06T12:47:00.001-08:00

Professor Jeffrey Sachs is a well known and widely respected American economist who remains the youngest economics professor in the history of Harvard University. His success in prescribing solutions to developing countries problems is at best mixed. His best and most influential work was in Bolivia where his economic prescription helped reduced that country’s hyper inflation and stabilized the polity. He spend considerable time in studying Bolivia peculiar problem and at the end, his plan which includes ending government subsidies, eliminating import quotas, helped reduced Bolivia’s hyperinflation from 11,750% to 15% per year from 1985 to 1987. It is hard to argue against his success in Bolivia until you examine the results of the same prescription in Boris Yeltsin’s Russia.

It is against this background that one can better understand his strong support for the Nigeria’s government sudden removal of petroleum subsidy on January 2, 2012. Professor Sachs went further than any Nigerian government official to argue in his Op-ed in the New York Times that “when Nigeria won relief on its external debt in the mid-2000s, the savings on debt service were actually redirected to meaningful social investments in states and local governments...” I seriously doubt any Nigerian government official can make this claim with any modicum of seriousness. In actual fact, at the government sponsored debate held in Lagos before the withdrawal of subsidy, virtually all the government official in attendance attest to the fact that Nigerian people are right to be skeptical about any promised dividends from the subsidy removal given previous results. What we know from the National Assembly probe is that the surplus gained during the mid-2000s was largely expended on an ill fated attempt by the Obasanjo’s regime to amend the constitution to gain an additional third term.

The problem with Professor Sachs’ prescriptions for Nigeria is a fundamental lack of understanding of Nigeria situation. In Bolivia, Professor Sachs spends considerable time studying the problem of Bolivia and even lived in that country. At most, Sachs barely knows the fundamentals of the Nigerian economy. It is apparent that he thinks Nigeria has a centralized economy when in actual fact Nigeria economy is oligarchy driven. Majority of the national corporations are in actual fact owned by the few oligarchs who used them as tools to further their nest, inflating contracts and influencing policies as they go. This indeed also explains the failure of Sachs’ prescription for Russia. It would be recalled that Sachs advised Russia (under the Yeltsin administration) for two years from December 1991 to January 1994. As Nancy Holmstrom and Richard Smith pointed out the drastic decreases in industrial output over the ensuing years, a near halving of the country's GDP and of personal incomes, a doubling of the suicide rate, and a skyrocketing unemployment rate is indirectly traceable to Sachs’ prescription for Russia.

One can only hope that on Professor Sachs’ next trip to Nigeria he will ask his Nigerian host to show him where the “meaningful social investments in states and local governments” in the mid-2000’s really are. If they are honest they will probably point him to the Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts where they stashed the funds, but I will not bet on it!

More on Trip to Mother Africa

2012-02-06T10:39:00.000-08:00

12-19-11 Bugs Everywhere

I killed ten bugs in my room last night, it was very scary. Today, my Mom and Dad left to go stock up on food, while they were gone, one of my grandma-I am required by tradition to refer to all my Dad’s sister as grandma (another peculiarly Yoruba-ish respect thing)- gave us lunch. We had rice and drank this water that came in sachets. We were suspicious of the water at first but eventually we all drank it. About an hour after my parents got back, Daniel and Sam suddenly said their stomach hurts. Sam went to lie down but Daniel decided to go play outside, as it turns out that was a good decision, he threw up on the dirt outside, and we didn’t have to clean any of that up. 15 minutes after that he threw up again. Then like 10 minutes after dinner Sam threw up and it smelled worse than Daniel’s and after that I wanted to throw up.

After cleaning up Sam throw up, my Mom asked me what we had for lunch and we told her. She said that the sachet water was “pure water” and since we weren’t used to it that’s what made Sam and Daniel throw up. So I’ll pretty much remember this day as a day of gross smelling throw up. This stinks! And also it turns out we’re going to Akure on Wednesday, I can’t wait!

12-20-11 Lost in the Forest of One Thousands Demons

We got lost today. Here’s how it all started. My Mom dropped us off at my Uncle’s house so she could run some errands, Sarah and Daniel played with my cousins, while Sam, David and I read our books. I finished two of them. We had PB & J sandwiches as a snack. And these delicious noodles called Indomie for lunch. Then my Mom came to pick us up. After about 15 minutes of driving I realized we were lost apparently my mom realized this too, because she pulled over and asked for directions the guy said to go straight. In Africa, every passerby you asked for directions will always first tell you to go straight. After another 15 minutes, she asked another person and again this other person said go straight too. I was beginning to think road should never end. 10 minutes passed she asked another person and received the same answer. It is now I missed our GPS we left in Spokane, but then will it work in Africa?

Now, I was angry and felt like this whole town was playing some horrible joke on us. After another 15 minutes of driving on this insane “straight” long road we were finally home. I had never been so happy to see new our house at Ilesha.

12-21-11 Lost Again

Today we got lost again! My Dad’s sister in Akure invited us to stay till Friday and we accepted, we left at about 6:20p.m, which is when the sun goes down in Nigeria and its dangerous to drive on Nigerian roads at night. But we ‘ve never been a very safe family. Then the arguing started, my Dad decided to go a way that would show us the farm his maternal grandpa used to take him to, but my Mom said that way wasn’t safe. Finally, since he was driving my Dad decided to go his way. But his way was bumpy and rocky and my Mom wanted us to turn back but the road is too small and we couldn’t. Eventually we found a place where we could back up and turned around and we did. But we didn’t know where to go so we just chose a direction and drove that way till we found the main road. When we got to Akure, I saw all my cousins once again and cheered up. We sat and watched TV and talked till the power went out and everyone went to bed.

12-22-11 A walk around the Neighborhood

The power was out forever today. Later we went on a laptop on to facebook. We sent friend request to one others so that when my family goes back to Spokane we can stay in touch. It was actually cool for once, so we took a walk around the neighborhood. On our walk we saw tons of kids playing with dirt and adults sitting together in clumps on porches having parties. So when we got back to my cousins house we decided to have our own little party we ate oranges and drank juices we talked about school. All my cousins go to boarding schools. So I asked what it was like they said it was O.K. Then the power came back and we watched T.V. for the rest of the night.

12-23-11 Indomie Noodle for Lunch and visit to the ZOO

Today we woke up and did our usual morning ritual which consists of us brushing our teeth, taking showers, eating breakfast, and doing our Kumon and homework. Then we watched T.V. then had Indomie Noodles for lunch. At about 3:00 pm my Dad told my siblings and cousins that we were going to a wildlife park. We were super excited so we hurriedly put on our shoes and socks. I wish I could tell you our excitement hadn’t been wasted but I can’t. Here are the reasons why our trip to the wild life park was horrible. One, there was no guides or people walking around the park to make sure you are o.k. So if you get lost then there’s no one to find you. Two, all the animals looked sad and underfed. I wanted to let them out of their cages but my Dad said I couldn’t. Three, most of the animals were hiding so I didn’t get any good pictures. Finally we got back home from the horrible wildlife park and watched T.V., ate dinner and went to bed.

12-24-11 Christmas Eve

Its Christmas Eve today and I’m so happy!! We left Akure today but my family also split ways. My Dad, my siblings except Sarah, my aunty children in Akure except Ty went to Ilesha while my Mom, Sarah and my aunty went to Kabba to see the latter’s husband’s mom. They’re coming back on Monday but I’m sad I wont b e able to spend Christmas with my little sister. When we got to Ilesha, I found out that every cousin I had on my Dad’s side was spending the nigh at our house. The names of all the cousins on my Dad’s side at our house are: Bose, Kenny, Yemi, Nife, Tosin, Feran, Bolu and Praise. My Dad told me all of them were staying till Tuesday. I was excited to spend time with my cousins. The rest of the night we watched a bunch of African movies, which were hilarious because a bunch of people died, and the people used magic to kill them. We went to bed at about 12:30 p.m. all the girls slept in my room and all the boys in Sam’s room. It was a fun day.

12-25-11 Christmas Day

Christmas this year was probably the best Christmas ever. First, we went to my uncle’s church, I could barely sit through the service. Then we went through giving rice and vegetable oil which we bought with the money we raised from mine and Sam’s widows and orphans fundraising in Spokane, to the widows around my Dad’s old neighborhood. After that we went to a party my grandma had for all her friends. I had to say “hi” to almost all of them and so did all my cousins and siblings. My Dad could tell we were getting restless so he said we could go. We were really excited because we were going to Erin-Ijesha waterfalls. Erin-Jesha waterfalls are these waterfalls that have 7 levels you can climb up everyone says that they pre really fun to climb so my Dad said we could go. Kenny, Tosin, Bolu, Praise, Daniel and David stopped at level 2 but the rest of us decided to keep going but in the middle of levels 4 and 5 we really started to wish we had brought some water. Finally, we made it to level 7 and we immediately knew the climb was worth it. You could see everything from up there, lush green foliage et al. It was beautiful. We quickly descended when we got back down to level two we all had a huge water fight. Everyone was soaking wet when we left but we all agreed to had been the best day of our trip so far.

12-26-11 Another Wedding Introduction

We went to a wedding introduction today. It’s where the two families meet each other eat, drink, talk, be merry and exchange gifts with each other. Kids really didn’t have anything to do there so it was super boring. When we got home my Dad made my cousins, siblings and I stand up and say 5 things about ourselves. He said the person who remembers the most people’s 5 things he would give them #200 naira. Yemi won that contest. Just then grandma came in and my Dad says that we should make movie about our family history. So got out the camcorder we all gathered around my grandma and she told us where she was born, who her parents were and etc. It was pretty interesting since she let us ask a bunch of questions. I found interesting facts like that in college, my grandma dropped out of school because she joined wrong gang. Everyone laughed when they heard that. Making the movie was a lot of fun and I know that I’ll be sad when my cousins leave tomorrow.

12-27-11 Missing you

All of my cousins left today, I’ll miss them a lot but I’m happy I’ll get to see them again next year (?). After my cousins left it got really boring since there was no one to talk to and I couldn’t use Kenny’s phone to go on the Internet anymore. I thought about talking to my siblings but that’s like torture. So I ended up helping and talking to my Mom in the kitchen. It was nice talking to her again I hadn’t realized how much I missed her until now. She told me about her childhood and I listened carefully. After I finished talking to my Mom, I went outside and played with Daniel and Sarah for a little while. They were playing with dirt and my Mom got so mad when she saw that they got their clothes all dirty.

12-28-11 Empty, Bare and Alone

My Mom told us that we’re going to Abeokuta tomorrow and from there to Lagos and eventually to Spokane. We had to pack up most of our stuff and that took forever and when we got done the house was bare. It looked to empty and write alone and I felt like giving it a big hug, but didn’t since it’s a house. When we were done packing Mom told us to write a list of all the foods here that we want to bring to Spokane with us. We argued a lot over the list until my Mom said to put everything that everyone wanted on the list and she would decide what stays and what goes. After that I went to my room and read my book and played some games on my kindle. Then I hung out with my siblings until dinner and after dinner, bedtime was here.

The Genesis of King Jonathan and his Coterie of Profligate Special Advisers

2012-01-17T14:56:00.000-08:00

“It is not a feasible excuse to blame the clouds for the rain that floods one's front room, if you have failed to repair the roof” – Anon

Many Nigerians are crying foul that they had been deceived by the pretence of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s transformational agenda. They believed that they voted for him because he claimed he understand what exactly is wrong with Nigeria and has the panacea to fix the country. There is no doubt that many Nigerians bought the campaign mantra that a “shoeless” president may govern better since he might know where it hurts. The fuel subsidy has exposed the underbelly and paucity of this monstrous deceit. The subsidy regime announced by the regime on January 2, clearly exposed the emollient presidential campaign of Goodluck Jonathan as nothing more than an inveigle dissemble preened to perfection so the People’s Democratic Party can continue its misrule.

My argument is that Nigerians should have known better and if we do not learn this lesson now we may yet fall foul of the credulous glib of the destructive party again. There are several acts of the regime immediately before and after the election that should have forewarned Nigerians about the fact that this is not a government for the people. It might have been elected by the people but the government clearly revealed his hands as been pro-PDP elites and foreign institutions more than pro-people of Nigeria.

First of all, the government immediately after the election set up a transitional committee headed by retired General Theophilus Danjuma. The panel amongst other recommended that the president pruned down the number of ministry and parastals sucking the Nigeria economy down the drain. What did the government do? It expands the executive arm of the government. It created more special adviser than any other government that has ever ruled Nigeria, including pernicious military rule. The regime in June 2011 sought and obtained the approval of Senate to appoint 20 special advisers to assist him in running his government. The President with acerbic impunity and in apparent breach of legislative directive went ahead to appoint at least 24 advisers as at the last count. A quick sample of some of the advisers clearly reveals the mendacity of the regime. There is a special adviser on New media (Twitter and Facebook), who is attached to the office of the special adviser on research and strategy even while the special adviser on Media and publicity exist separately. All of whom by the virtue of their designations have staff attached to them with benefits ordinary Nigerian can only dream about.

Even after the outcry of the Nigerian people following the subsidy upheaval, instead of reducing the bloated executive arm of government, the president announced a 25% pay cut for all political appointees. The joke here is what exactly were these special advisers doing to advance good governance and reduce corruption- the main bane of the country?

Here is the truth, you do not borrow to finance a bloated government and then come back to balance the books on the back of the poor by withdrawing subsidy that is more attached to inflation than any other thing. Even the devil and its mother-in-law know that anytime price of petroleum went up in Nigeria, it is a clarion call to all traders, jobbers and shop owners to increase prices of goods and services.

We are already being taxed for government inefficiencies. Why should you increase our tax by 116%? The song that keeps coming up on this issue is never going to go away: Practice what you preach. Former minister of the Federal Capital Territory a little while ago asked a pointed question that is worth repeating: “the Minister of Agriculture recently “bought 150 Toyota Hilux vans for monitoring projects. “What are they for? A few years ago, the Minister of Agriculture bought the same type of cars for monitoring.” They should stop all these useless spending it will not add value. The federal government has no land, agriculture is basically a state government and private sector affairs these are expenses that don’t make sense.

The Guardian newspapers published on January 5, 2012 reported that of the 21 parastatals under the federal ministry of education (with two supervisory ministers), from august to December 2011, activities of the two ministers were wrapped around eight parastatals and yet the other parastatals have upwards of 200 staffs and structures. Some of the “obscure parastatals” according to Guardian includes “Nigeria French Language Village”, “Nigerian Arabic Language Village” et al. The sheer waste of resources and money by this regime boggles the mind.

This again, is why we need to start practicing true federalism if we are not going to fall prey to more subterfuge taxation by the corrupt government at Abuja. All these one size fits all is stupid. Agricultural needs of Shaki in Oyo state are quite different and distinct from that of Dutse in Jigawa state. There is nothing the federal government interstate regulatory regime could not do through joint interlocal regional agreement with States using states expertise and technical staff.

Finally, the president’s party controls both arms of the National Assembly, it is time for that party to push for a legislative Act that will reduce and permanently limits member’s allowance and benefits. The biggest state legislatures in the world is in the State of New Hampshire (USA) and their member’s take home pay is less than $100 per month, while the average cost of maintaining each of our federal legislator is $2.1million per year. That is the reason why some of them will kill, maim and rigged election to win office. They are not in it to serve the people but their pockets.

President Jonathan is right, yes, we need a transformational agenda albeit not the ones he is currently carrying out. The only thing that will save our democracy is a government for the people and not the ones elected by the people to lead them to penury.

Blogging my way through my First Visit to Africa

2012-01-11T07:36:00.000-08:00

Today I yield these pages to a smart 11 year old who made her first trip to mother Africa late last year. I trust you will find some of her observations of our country and culture poignant.

My First Visit to Mother Africa

12-7-11 My Big Family Trip to Africa

Today, we took off. I feel like I can see everything from up here. I love flying. I’m really excited to be going to Africa for the first time but nervous too. Exciting because I can’t wait to try new things and see my extended family for the first time but nervous because what if my family doesn’t like me or if something goes wrong at my Aunt’s wedding. I know this trip will change me in many ways but for the better or worse I can’t tell yet. (And my first stop is San Francisco).

12-8-11 Safe Landing in Lagos

Finally we’re in Lagos, Nigeria. The first thing I noticed about Nigeria was the heat at the airport-Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos State Nigeria. Stepping outside the plane, you are immediately stung by about 91 degrees heat wave. You feel like throwing up. Your entire body convulsed into a broiling broth, finding a way to churn your entire system upside up. Strangely, not many of the Nigerian born travelers felt the sting. Perhaps they were not coming from frigid winter weather of inland northwest of the United States of America into a raging inferno and boiling cauldron of Lagos tropical weather. The comfort of the arrival lounge of the airport is no comfort; the wings where few air condition are working had open windows with airport staff standing nearby. The sections with malfunctioning air condition hummed like drones. Strangely, everyone took it in his or her strides; it was like I am the only one feeling the pinch. Everyone seems to be oblivious to the boiling cauldron of an airport. No one complained to the airport staff, they all seem to have accepted this normal. So off they go, as if this is expected of every airport in Nigeria. Even some who flew with us from Atlanta and saw the excellent service at Atlanta and Houston said little about the appalling condition of MMIA.
Stranger still is the treatment of those who carry Nigerian green passport. There is a long waiting line with few custom officials attending to them, whilst foreigners visiting Nigerian are quickly attended to. One Nigerian with US and Nigerian passport standing in front of us, could not bear it any longer so he tried to use his US passport to check in, but he was told that he needed to have obtained Nigerian visa before traveling. He tried to get back to same place on Nigerian passport long line but was rebuffed by others. Then the loud argument started. OMG! Everyone had an opinion on what should happen to him and they all want to express it at the same time.
The first member of my extended family I met in Nigeria, was my Aunt Kemi and her son, Daniel. Aunt Kemi drove us to her house at Surulere, behind the National Stadium. Lagos is a bustling city with modern houses and structures competing in a macabre dance with old dilapidated structures. Every thing points to a faint attempt by planners to impose their will on the city, even as its inhabitants and developers struggles to thwart all of such efforts. There are signs of government intent to demolish illegal structures on some building whilst new building are being built on the same drainage with government approval plan painted with black ink on the fence. One imposing billboard proclaims: “This is Lagos!” Welcome is a luxury every one-can ill afford in Lagos, every soul is on the move. Everyone is trying to get to some place in hurry and if they had to crush the car ahead of them to get to that destination they do not mind. The only one standing around is either selling you some China made wares or begging for your money.
My aunt Kemi drove like a New York cab driver, she yells at other road users who might not be paying attention and scream at men driver who may be trying to take advantage of her feminity. As she drove us to her house, I noticed most houses had gigantic gates and high fence; I asked her why? She said incase armed robbers comes to attack you. Later my uncle Yemi and Dapo came over and had dinner with us, and since it was Uncle Yemi’s birthday, we had cake. After the cake, we packed up our suitcases and luggage in Uncle Yemi’s car, since we are spending the night at his house. That house is where I am sitting on his couch writing this journal entry.

12-9-11 Nothing really happened

Nothing really happened today, Auntie Kemi showed us where to buy sandals, and then she took us to the mall. Shortly, after that we went to this interesting hair salon, which is bare of any equipment, and my mom got her hair done. Oh and earlier in the morning my Dad left to go to Ilesha, his village in preparation for his sister’s wedding. Tomorrow we are going to Ilesha and it’s a four hour drive and I wish we were flying.

12-14-11 Delicious Suya

I just got back from my aunt’s who lives in Akure, hence the gap in my journal from 12-10-11 to 12-14-11. She took Sam and me with her to Akure, Ondo State. When we got there, she took me to do my hair, it took three hours to make my hair pretty like an African queen. The three seemed like three years or at worst an eternity, but the folks who work there talked to me the entire time so it wasn’t that bad.
After they finished my hair we went back to Auntie’s house for dinner. We ate this awesome spicy red meat called “suya”, it was so delicious.
As soon as we finished , we start to watch T.V and play hide and seek in the dark with Sam, Feranmi (Fern), my 11-year-old cousin. It was pretty fun. We stayed up till 3:30 a.m. On the third day, I didn’t wake up till 2:00pm we ate lunch then we drove back to Ilesha. When we got there, I found an astounding sight, the house my Dad had been building for more than a year was now practically done, it looks really awesome and my Dad said I could paint my own room. And I am going to be a bridesmaid in the wedding. I’m not that surprised, I knew there had to be a reason why they kept measuring me before we left Ilesa to Akure.

12-15-11 Nigeria Standard Voltage is 120

After getting to the new house at Ilesa, all I did for a few hours is my homework and Kumon and read. Then I ate lunch. After that people started coming so I met a bunch of extended family members, most of them are nice. We tried to set up our Wii but I won’t work. My Dad explanation is that it carries US standard voltage of 110 and the Nigerian standard voltage is 120. There are frequent power outage and surges so that is why almost everyone including us has a generator connected to their home. Just before I went to bed for the night, I tried on my pink bridesmaid dress. It is actually more of a darker pink design all over it and it looks beautiful.

12-16-11 The Engagement Party

The engagement party was today, it was awesome! There was dancing and singing, it was so loud you had to shout to talk to the person next to you. Interesting enough, this do not bother anyone around, even some mothers with little infants tucked at their back went about the party with aplomb. I can just imagine the earplugs of the kids exploding. One nursing mother even sat in front of the public address system breast-feeding her baby with reckless abandon.
On a good note, I finally met my aunt’s “hubby to be” he seems okay. He is very quiet, and unassuming. I wonder what is going on in his mind. In fact what do spouses to be think about a day before their wedding….hmmm. (note to self: food for thought).
I also met Nifemi and Murewa, my cousins from Akure, which meant they are all Far’s siblings. Everyone likes Nifemi, but they all call her Nife, Nigerians are just like Brazilians-they gave their kids long names and then later devise a shorten version of such long names. I wonder why they don’t just named her Nife. When I asked Dad, he said something to the effect that African names must necessarily reflect the spiritual world Africa lives in (or words to that effect). Nife is 14 years old, cute, brainy and very quiet-which of course explains why many likes her. She had just got back from boarding house. She attends a gifted school called Federal government Academy in the northern part of the country. She told us that a bomb recently went off at a church near her school. The northern part of the country is notorious for religious clashes between adherents of Islam and Christians. Nife came back from boarding school last night, which probably explains the reason why I didn’t see her while I was at Akure. One thing I found out about her later is that she is bossy sometimes. I later understand that being older than you means that the elder boss the little ones. Nife’s brother bosses her so she boss they and me expect me to boss my little ones…on and on like that without end. Nife, however is also very blunt and I like her. She is also one of the bridesmaids, along with my other cousin and Yemi-Uncle Boye’s first daughter, me.
Murewa is 16 years old and also goes to boarding school, we really didn’t talk much to each other, but he’s cool. By the way, did I say I can’t wait till the wedding tomorrow.

12-17-11 The Wedding

The wedding “proper” (to use my Dad’s words) was a blast. The church service was super long and boring though. I felt like I wanted to sleep during it but the reception was WOW! They served Jollof rice and fried rice with chicken for lunch and on every table they had little blue bowls filled with candy – I still do not know why Nigerian called candy “sweats”. It was delicious and they also had this awesome punch that was to die for. As usual my nurse Mom, threw cold waters on my excitement by saying that the reason we all liked it is because Nigerian punch is extra sweetened by fattening sugar.
I also talked to some of my new uncle’s relatives- in case you are wondering, my Mom insist that I should called my aunt’s new hubby uncle. When I asked why, she said are you going to call him by his name? She said that is very disrespectful. It all comes down again to title. Why do Nigerians like titles before their names? Any way, my Aunt’s new family is fairly nice. They are from the ancient Oyo town, but the husband is a stockbroker based in Ile-Ife, another ancient town in Yoruba’s lore. In fact the Yorubas believed the whole world descended from heaven and landed at Ile-Ife. When I asked my Dad for veracity of that story, he said it is all mythology.
The dancing at the reception is probably my favorite part, since we got money from dancing. Here’s how it works, if they throw money at you, it is called spraying, but you have to make sure you pick it up quick, as there are street urchins called “area boys” who will quickly pick it up and pranced away. At the end of it all, I was super tired after the reception so as soon as we got to the house I fell asleep.

12-18-11 The Goodbyes

Today we said goodbyes to everyone that came for the wedding, since most of the people invited do not live in Ilesha. Most often came early before the wedding and stayed at our house until it was over and now we had to say goodbyes. We had got used to most of them. One thing about African is the togetherness, I think the idea of nuclear family is alien to the African culture. For more than a week, these folks had lived at our house and felt at home even though some had to sleep on bare floor.
After everyone left, we started to tidy up the house, there was dirt all over the floors, pounded yam wrappers, candy wrappers, water bottles et al. It took a couple of hours but eventually, trust my Mom everything was tiptop!
Then we (kids) got to pick our rooms, I chose the room next to the bathroom since I share with my little sister and she pees ten times a night (only kids room are not self contained, all the other rooms had bathrooms and restrooms enclosed). At about 6:30 pm my Dad got all of us together to take a walk around the neighborhood. We saw lots of forest but no animals. We came back around 7:00pm and ate dinner. I then had to do my journals, which is what I’m doing now.

More to come next month

Nigeria Unity and the Politicians Wars

2011-12-01T16:41:00.000-08:00

News out of Nigeria can sometimes be very depressing, you really have to do your level best to keep yourself sane, especially given the frenzy pull to the abyss its politicians often pulled the nation. Just this week, we learnt of the death of Alex Ibru, founder and publisher of the Guardian Newspaper-the flagship of Nigeria's journalism. The man who single handedly changed the face of newspaper journalism in Nigeria. One could argue that without the advent of Guardian newspaper in the mid-80s Nigeria fiery brand of journalism would have remained comatose after the dizzying height Babatunde Jose and others had catapulted it in the '70s.

We also heard this week about the death of Dim Emeka Ojukwu. The man who personified everything about Nigeria's birth from colonialism and yet did a lot to pull the entity into an abyss. Ojukwu by accident of birth is a consumate Nigerian. Born in Zungeru, to one of Africa's first millionaire merchant. Ojukwu rarely spend any of his formative years in south east Nigeria. At various times he went to school in the north, Lagos, Ilesa and London before he joined the military.

He is a man who could speak any of Nigerian major languages fluently and yet he led a putsch to divide Nigeria and he nearly succeeded to dismember the nation but for the genocidal hunger unleashed on his people by the Yakubu Gowon led federal government in Lagos.

The fact however remains that the rationale advanced by his seccesionist government and ractify at the ill fated Aburi accord remains an albatross on the Nigerian nation. Every clauses of the Aburi accord, rings true today as it was then. Resource control, right to religious freedom, trade and commerce all of which precipitated the civil war and included in the resolution advanced at Aburi are now issues on all agenda advanced by agitators of the proposed sovereign national conference. Perhaps the only point of dissent I have with Ojukwu is what he did subsequent to Biafra. Ojukwu post Biafra, nearly destroyed the legacy of fairness he had burnished for himself. He fraternized with all and every dictators that ever reigned in Dodan Barracks or Aso Rock. At one time he even went on a junket accross western countries to canvass support for the most pernicious and evil ruler that ever ruled Nigeria-Sanni Abacha!

Let me also state, that whilst I support Ojukwu call for freedom for all Nigerians pre civil war, I however believe in the sanctity of Nigeria. The unity of Nigeria should be "sanctum" and non negotiable. Sadly, it is politicians like the post civil war Ojuwku that did a lot and continue to do a lot to put clogs in the wheel of advancement of the Nigerian people through their divide and rule mendacity.

The poor in Kafachan, are not any different than the poor in Umuaiha or Ipetu Ijesha! Whilst the politically rich and well to do can afford to send their children to schools abroad the poor "vulcanizer" and bricklayer in the slums of Ajegunle are stuck on surviving on a less than a dollar a day. Every time I travel in Nigeria i weep at the sufferings of the people and grit my teeth in disgust at the politicians who fan the embers of discord among the Nigerian people. Sadly, the education of Nigerians is a task for every well meaning Nigerian. And you can start today, by refusing to fight the politician phoney ethnocentric wars! Let them bring their own kids to work as party thugs and die for their ill conceived vitriol. Nigeria unity should be non negotiable!

Will Bayelsa Gubernatorial Election Imbroglio Predict PDP’s Plan for 2014?

2011-11-18T15:29:00.000-08:00

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is widely acknowledged to have departed from his predecessors well known penchant for meddling in administration of election during the last election. Professor Attahiru Jega, INEC chairman, was allowed to pick his staff and conduct the election to the best of his abilities. Other than allocation of funds, and provision of security, the presidency step out of the way of the commission. Should we expect the same scenario to play itself out as we march gradually towards the next presidential election?

Recent events in Bayelsa state seems to point to a negative answer to this loaded question. Bayelsa is the home state of President Goodluck Jonathan. He was once a deputy governor and governor of that state before he ascended to the post of vice president and subsequently president of our dear country. What is happening now in PDP’s Bayelsa gubernatorial electoral politics had been described as the very worst of Nigerian politics and likened to a battle for the very soul of our democracy. Every news story on the debacle speaks of contempt for due process, arrogance of power and stark display of naked dictatorship. It confirms everything some of us have always known about the so called People’s Democratic Party. A party without any fundamental ethos and democratic values other than to win election by every means possible, legal or illegal.

According to the Nation online, “the state was supposed to have carried out ward congresses on Monday, November 14th, but it turned out to be a farce. The party headquarters deployed men and police from Abuja, gathered the delegates and other party faithful, and whisked the materials to Abuja after misinforming the party men and women that they wanted to pay a courtesy call on the governor who never saw them.” In a party known for giving establishment support to all its incumbent governor, the party seems to have thrown the current governor under the bus, for no reason other than a perceived disagreement with the commander in chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is as if what we have in our constitution is an imperial presidency and not a constitutional one.

To ensure that everyone knows where the sitting governor’s problem comes from, the federal government on the eve of the gubernatorial primary suddenly disbanded the state security outfit without any reason. This was quickly followed by declarations of interest by other party men, loyal to President Jonathan.

What does this story portends for our democracy? First of all, we need to understand that we cannot rely on President Jonathan to defend our hard earned democracy. He is no different from every other PDP dictators the party has thrown up in our faces since 1999. More importantly we need to seriously push for a sovereign national conference that will devolve more powers to our local and state government. A federal police force is a veritable tool in the hands of dictator for destruction of our democracy. It is time to stop believing the ruse that Goodluck is any better than Obasanjo or Yar’adua before him. They are all fruits from the same poisonous tree aptly called PDP- People’s Destruction Party!

The Second Comming of Ngozinomics: Balancing the Books on the Back of the Poor

2011-10-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

“The definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power”

- E.E. Schattschneider “The Semisovereign People” (1960)

Most economists agrees that many factors contribute to economic growth, ranging from the productivity of the work force, shares of private savings available for private investment, increased public expenditures that help spurs growth during recession, reduced tax burdens that will encouraged private investment and spending by the large swath of the population, to list just a few. Sadly none of these matters in Nigeria, since the current ruling class in Nigeria is fixated on one thing and one thing only: Petroleum subsidy. Every government in Nigeria including the most profligate and corrupt almost inevitably look at the supposed petroleum subsidy as the anti-dote to all Nigeria economic woes. It was never about the structure that makes the world fifth exporter of crude oil, one of the biggest importers of refined petroleum oil. Never about the poverty of ideas that have rendered the manufacturing sector of the economy comatose due to the high cost of nonexistent electricity.

And now we are back to the beats again, thanks largely to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s “unconstitutional prime minister”: Ngozi Okonjo Iweala. The last time she was in the saddle as minister of finance she pushed for the removal of the same subsidy. At that time she promised that she is doing it for own good and it will be the last time. She promised it will fix our economy and spurred economic growth. Well, if anything was spurred it was the bank account of the politicians. She also successfully negotiated some of Nigeria debt and got kudos for her effort. All of these in turn spurred Ms. Iweala’s personal profile with World Bank and IMF, her erstwhile boss, who in turn promoted her as managing director.

Now, she is back with the same gambit, she believes she can fix Nigeria’s economic woes by removing all petroleum subsidy. Everyone in government believes this is the right thing to do. What do they care? They do not shop where ordinary Nigeria buys food. What is more, their kids do not attend the failing schools they promised to fund at the end of the last exercise; and when they or their progenitors fall sick they simply fly to the best hospitals in US, UK or South Africa; while the poor and the dispossessed get to deal with the attendant ripple effects of the removal of subsidy at home in Nigeria. To adopt a popular refrain from political science, one can conclude that the flaw in Nigeria’s ruling class petroleum subsidy mantra is that their heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent. Evidence shows that every time politicians ginned up this excuse, prices of foodstuffs and household goods rises steeply. The attendant inflation is a self fulfilling prophecy. The funny thing is that their excuses get irritating and embarrassing each time they bring it up. They claim the subsidy encourages illicit export of subsidized products: and my answer to that is whose job is it to guard the porous border? The poor farmer in Kafachan? They also claim that prices in some part of the country are different from others: again my answer is whatever happens to price control unit commission? And why are there no prosecutions of erring fuel stations owners? Are they too powerful?

There is no doubt, that the ruling class in Nigeria is populated with “fanatics” who have a fetish attachment to removal of subsidy. They dismiss logic, knowledge, morality and intellectual integrity in favor of this “sacred fixation” with removal of petroleum subsidy. To the ruling class in Nigeria, removal of petroleum subsidy is “sine qua non” for economic growth. It does not matter if it flies in the face of every logic. No effort to explore any other alternatives. As Upton Sinclair wrote in 1935, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." “Ngozinomics” is back again, we are in trouble. Who will save us from our politicians masquerading as economist?

Of Auto Pilot, People Pilot, God Pilot and the Challenge of Visionary Leadership in Nigeria

2011-09-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

“Someone had written in the papers: is Nigeria on auto pilot? I tell them
that Nigeria is not on auto pilot, God is in-charge and God will take us to the
destination he has destined for us” –President Goodluck Jonathan

According to one of Nigeria’s burgeoning online newspapers, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, recently waxed philosophical on who is in charge of our dear country. In an address at an interdenominational service ahead of Nigeria's 51st Independence Anniversary in Abuja, he absolved himself of any blame as God is in charge. Even though he initially cautioned himself before addressing such an important issue before a largely Christian gathering, he made some highly inflammatory statements that we need to dissect “seriatim”.

One would have wished that the president had heeded his own words and just attend the service without making any remarks. Sadly, his voice of reason was crowded out by the tug of faith and now he might have created more problems for the country through his ill-advised philosophical rant. First of all, he stated: “You have been praying for us but others are praying that we shouldn’t move an inch, especially those of us who are politicians.” So who are those praying against his government: Moslems? Atheist? Bloggers? Critics? Journalist? Make your pick. When viewed in context, “others” here could only mean those who are non-Christians i.e adherents of other faiths. But is this what the president of Nigeria really has in mind? I seriously doubt that. After all one of the oaths he sworn to uphold is to an unalloyed fidelity to the Constitution of Nigeria which places strong emphasis on the secularity of all its institutions including the presidency.

The second thing that jumps at me from reading the text of the president address is this amorphous claim that it was not the vote of Nigerians that got him to Aso rock. Here I quote him again: “But God knows why I am here as the President even though I don’t have any of these attributes or characters. But through your prayers, God placed me here.” In other words, those Nigerians who went to great length to vote for him and many who stayed back in the rain and sunshine to protect their vote did all that for nothing, as he only got to Aso rock thanks to the prayers of Christians which in turn moved God to placed him in Aso rock.

Again I asked if this is what the president really meant and I doubt that. Let me say I am no theologian, but I seriously doubt God has a hand in Yar’adua’s death. Even if the good Lord did, I doubt he likes Goodluck better than Pastor Tunde Bakare! I seriously doubt God will want to have “neither part nor lot” in a political party such as People’s Democratic Party. In short, if Christians truly desires to see change in Nigeria, they are better of heeding the admonishing of Christ to “watch and pray”. Any politicians telling them to close their eyes and pray will soon take off with their loot while they and their children’s children pay the debts.

As Fredrick Douglas once remarked, “I have found that to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.” Herein lays the tricks of modern day religious purveyors. Again as Douglas reiterated in his clarion call to reason against blind faith, “I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clear case of stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in”. Those who profit from the perfidious religious tote bags of Nigeria will want Nigerians of all hue to focus on the religious and ethnic differences between them even while they loot the country. They anoint themselves as bearers of religious symbols and standards even while they commit the most heinous crimes against the people of God. Douglas hatred and contempt for similar ilk in his days is worth repeating: “I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He, who sells my sister for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity…We see the thief preaching against the theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! All for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. The dealer gives his blood stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other-devils dressed in angels’ robes and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.”

Next, the president threw a red herring: “don’t need to be a lion. I don’t need to be Nebuchadnezzar. I don’t need to operate like the pharaohs of Egypt. I don’t need to be a military general. But I can change this country without those traits.” I don’t know where the president got this “delusion” from, but I have never read any newspaper in and outside Nigeria where anyone enjoys him to be a pharaoh, a military general or a Nebuchadnezzar. All we asked is for him to uphold the oath he took to enforce the laws of Nigeria, no matter whose ox is gored. All we asked is to bring culprits of religious riots to book be they Christians or Moslem. All we asked is for the president to act as commander in chief of Nigeria! If he likes he can use servant leadership or commander leadership, all we asked Mr. President is for you to lead! Enough of sending your godfather to placate law breakers even as dissidents shoots and kill innocent bystanders. All we asked is that Nigerian government under your leadership moved quickly to rescue Nigerian traders of “Igbo extraction” from Libya before you kow towed to Western demand to recognize Benghazi’s rebels murdering every black person in the street of Tripoli. Mr. President, we do not care if President Obama offered you praise or Ban Ki Moon gives you an award, your loyalty is not to these masters but to the Nigerian people and the earlier you realized that the better for your regime!

By far the most revolting of all the statements made by the president is this: “Some people were saying; is Nigeria on auto-pilot? And I say yes. Nigeria is being piloted by God himself. There is no pilot, no matter the number of hours he has to his credit flying an aircraft that can take an airline to a destination if God wants to stop it half way. God is in charge and God will take us to the destination he has for us. It is not going to be easy but God using you and us; we will go to where we want to go.” We all know the folks who flew jets to the Twins Towers on 9/11 believed they were been used of God! You can be sincere in your religious belief and still be sincerely wrong! Many have proffered that God was using them in the name of religion even while they make their adherents to drink poison. Even the good book says “Where [there is] no vision the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy [is] he” Mr. President, stop hiding behind God cloak and start keeping the law so and you and all of us can be happy! It is almost six months into your term, and yet there are no clear directions or vision on how we are going to generate more electricity, repair our epileptic power supply, rebuild our dilapidated infrastructure, assure security for every Nigerian in every part of the country, restore the faith of all Nigerian citizens in the Nigeria experiment, educate our citizens for the challenges of the twenty first century, and provide in a succinct form a foreign policy direction for the whole country.

Mr. President, our greatest concern should not be, as Abraham Lincoln rightly once said, whether God is on our side, it should be that we are on God’s side, for God is always right. It is not right for a country that is the fifth largest producer of oil to lagged last in income generation and poverty. It is not right that a Nigerian citizen with southern progenitor, born in Zungeru cannot claim to be a citizen of Niger state. It is not right that corrupt politician who supports your election can walk freely and flaunts their ill gotten wealth while the common thief that stole his neighbor’s goat for hunger linger in jail without trial because of a corrupt judiciary. More than anything else, God may be counting on you to steer the ship you thought was on auto pilot, but was actually heading to disaster. This is because all we currently see in the driver’s seat are rogues on steering wheels, save for a few smart technocrats who have no say in the party that controls the pilot’s license, more appropriately described as people’s destroyer party! Mr. President, God is counting on you to steer this ship to safety.

Katsina Alu’s Escalation of Nigeria’s Judicial Rot as Banal Descent into a Dark Abyss

2011-08-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

“Nigeria is chaos. But the chaos is created, organized by the government.
Chaos allows it to stay in power.” –Richard Dowden “Africa: Altered States,
Ordinary Miracles” p.6 (2008).

Nigeria defies logic. As one writer rightly pointed out, by any law of political or social science it should have collapsed or disintegrated years ago. It remains a mystery while Nigeria, which is clearly a failed state, still works. We know for a fact however that it partly works thanks to the resilience of its people. The leadership of Nigeria, political, social, religious and economic, have all being doing their level best to tip the nation over time and time again; but despite their best efforts, the country still remain standing albeit to the utter chagrin of its destructive greedy leaders.

One of such exercise in leadership betrayal of the people of Nigeria is the attempt by the outgoing Chief Justice of Nigeria to destroy Nigerian judiciary by every means possible even as he takes his exit from the judiciary. The genesis of his latest antics lies in the personal battle he is waging against his nemesis, the equally outgoing president of the Nigerian Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami. Chief Justice Katsina Alu readily receives an assist from President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, whose electoral victory is being challenged in a court presided by Justice Salami.

Nigerians are used to “kangaroo” tribunal set up by ousted military junta who used to deploy them to settle scores during their days. One of the then military tribunals convicted the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti of having foreign currency in his possession after coming back from a foreign trip. Such tribunals are usually set up hurriedly with appointees selected by military fiat from those who will readily carry out the dictates of the junta. They are usually asked to preside over incidents that were legal at the time of its occurrence but were now retroactively legalized and made punishable by term of imprisonment and even death. What Nigerians never imagined is that even though military rule is a thing of the past, their legacy lives on.

More importantly, it seems the Nigerian Judicial Council (NJC), albeit, the one presided over by Chief Justice Katsina Alu, learnt a thing or two from military rule. The NJC hurriedly meets without quorum and without giving opportunity to the accused-Justice Salami, and proceeded to sack the president of the Court of Appeal on the ground that he did not apologize to the Chief Justice over an ethical issue that was not a ground of dismissal as stipulated under the constitution of Nigeria, even whilst a case challenging the jurisdiction of NJC is pending in court. President Goodluck Jonathan gave its imprimatur to this illegality by approving the sack of Justice Salami and appointing a replacement which he believed will do its bidding at the electoral tribunal. That conjecture is rightly justified since there is no rhyme or reason to the presidency stand giving the fact that it had earlier enjoined the parties to maintain the “status quo ante”

Nigerian leaders and politicians often try to pretend that its bad image is some Western media conspiracy against Nigerian and Africa. The truth is that Nigeria’s popular image falls short of the reality. Our problems are mostly self inflicted. No thanks to the mindless and mendacious leadership abundant in the top echelons of our country. I have no doubt that Justice Salami’s problem lies solely in the current regime self interest. Nigerians home and abroad need to stand up for the integrity and independence of the judiciary by appealing to President Jonathan to reinstate Justice Salami immediately, allowing him to serve out his term as president of the court of appeal; even as we institute an enquiry into the cause of the rot in our judicial system.

Jonathan’s Six Year Tenure Constitutional Amendment Bid: Bad Time, Wrong Priority

2011-07-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan received a lot of goodwill from many people home and abroad for his humility and the way and manner he assumed the leadership of Nigeria without any “grandstanding,” massive rigging and “vote buying” common with many of his predecessors. My fears today is that much of that goodwill will be fritter away on the altar of self perpetuation in office. Yes, I know his press minders like the newly minted, former gadfly; Reuben Abati, denied that his boss is planning to elongate his tenure through an amendment to the constitution. This is definitely beside the point, Nigerians no thanks to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, has heard this tale before and clearly knows where this is heading.
Former President Obama’s commerce secretary and the new US ambassador to China once defined priority of government as follows: “focusing on results that people want and need, prioritizing those results, and funding those results with the money we have.” When one measures President Jonathan’s new policy roll out on constitutional amendment vis a vis the turmoil and economic precipice Nigeria currently finds itself, one would find that no matter how laudable the idea of constitutional amendment to provide six year tenure may be, it is a wrong priority for this government at this time in the history of our nation.

As many have argued, there are many problems facing our body polity greater than politician six year term tenure issues. We have civil wars going on in the northern part of the country, no thanks to Islamic militants under the guise of Boko Haram. The Niger Delta militancy problem with its attendant frequent kidnapping and bombing yet unresolved. The Nigeria market sector is at its all time low. The prices of goods and services defied inflationary or any economic metrics or trends in its downward spiral. Our manufacturing sector that used to be the leader in Africa has all but succumbed to death in the hands of our comatose power sector. And now coming out of its inaugural cabinet meeting, the issue of six year term for political office holder is all that the federal government could think about? What is wrong with the leadership of our country? Don’t they get it? Nigerians want functional government and not political jobbers!

Every commentator on constitutional amendment readily agrees that we do need to constantly examines and reexamines our constitution with a view to make it better, but not at the expense of addressing bigger and more pressing issues affecting the generality of Nigerian masses. What should be the priority of our government in Nigeria? Our federal legislature spent the last four years giving billions of Naira to corporations and governmental agencies saddled with power generation without any oversight whatsoever. The refrain we often get from them is that they are busy amending the constitutions to enable federal legislators have more control over political party executive committees. And now we are going to embark on the same fruitless exercise. Are these folks tone deaf? Maybe what we need is a constitutional amendment asking our elected leaders to simply do their job!

The ludicrous argument advanced by the presidency in support of this mindless exercise is that elected officials are often consumed by electioneering and campaign during the four years that the time between elections is barely enough to get things done. The logic is that if we gave them six years they will be able to use four years for electoral campaigns and two years for governance. Do these people even listen to the logic of their argument? In other words they seem to be arguing that they need more time because the time they have now is barely enough to carry out any of the public task as they are consumed by their own ambitions during the four years. Here in the United States, members of the House of Representatives are elected every two years, and you hardly find them pleading for more time. Most congressmen travel back to their district sometimes every weekend or during the holiday to feel the pulse of the people and find out what is going on in their district. Nigeria federal legislatures received funding for constituency offices but rarely open any in their district. Some who for the fear of EFCC have offices, barely staff such offices, as a result their contact with their constituencies are nonexistent.

I believe it is high time for all Nigerians to demand from our president and his party what are the priorities of his government. You can do that today by sending an email to him or posting a message on his Facebook page. Is he the president Nigerians toil and struggle to elect or is he another Olusegun Obasanjo? He needs to come out and tell us as we are sick of Peoples Democratic Party shenanigans!

2011-06-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

“Productivity is a measure of output from a production process, per unit of
input” –OECD Compendium on Productivity

The next war in Nigeria may have nothing to do with Boko Haram or Niger Delta, but all to do with labor and productivity. Currently the federal government of Nigeria and the states are in a logjam on who is responsible for the non implementation of the new minimum wage for public sector employees. The federal government and labor organizations claimed that they reached an agreement in principle that binds all state government to pay the agreed wage increase which seems substantial when you consider the paltry allocation each state gets from the federal purse. The various state governments claims they are not party to that an agreement even though they were invited to the negotiations. I believe at the heart of this grotesque imbroglio is the antiquated idea that workers earning should be fixed monthly irrespective of output.

I think the parties are putting the cart before the horse, any attempt to determine an arbitrary wage increase without an appreciation of productivity is bound to fail. What is more, it actually breeds corruption. Even though the supposed increased wage may look and sound substantial one needs to look at it against the backdrop of the huge inflationary trends in Nigeria. Every benefits of publicized wage increase to workers in Nigeria often invariably leads to arbitrary increase in cost of living and expense.

An arbitrary fixing of wage may also be the main reason why civil servants rarely stays at their job post as they are busy looking for other means to support their family. Anyone who thinks earning the newly set minimum wage will help increase productivity is dreaming. The new wage cannot feed a family of two for a week. So workers earning such pay will basically sign in and then run around looking for contracts or have a shop somewhere where they could make ends meet.A serious reform will overhaul the entire civil service, stream line jobs, state by state based on the needs of each community. The federal government for instance is top heavy without any commensurate performance and impact on local community. Some of the state government are so bloated and irrelevant to the community they are meant to serve. For instance, there is no reason why the Federal government should be involved in building houses, at best it should encourage states to pull resources together such as would encourage interlocal cooperation that would ensure prices of building materials such as cement et al would not be too exorbitant. The FGN should of course help such states access funds by providing guarantees for such interlocal agreement. Nigeria is perhaps the only "federal" government where the central government directly repairs and build road networks including putting up sign post on the so called federal highways, which in itself is an aberration.

A true federal government ensures regional government carried out its will through smart deployment of resources through federal legislation that tied funds to interlocal cooperation among local government and state governments. Duplication of services between federal, states and local government will be reduced and accountability will be better ensured. The current scenario makes for a bloated federal government.Who in their right mind, would for one second think if the Lagos-Ibadan expressway or Lagos-Benin expressway had been a primary project of regional governors with the same access to funds that FGN had invested on these roads for the past 12 years will still remain comatose and eyesore as it is?Heck the Lekki road that was concession-ed after the former is going at a faster pace than Lagos-Ibadan road where nothing but the signboard announcing the award of the contract had been in place for more than 2 years!

It is always difficult to make federal government accountable in the current scenario; a smaller federal government will put focus on “lazy” state and local governments. All the popular changes we have witnessed so far in the fourth republic have all come from visionary state government, be it Donald Duke’s Cross Rivers state or Governor Fashola’s Lagos. Democratic efforts for change in government in places like Ogun State, Imo State and Nassarawa state also come from state citizens tired of inept state government who are not doing anything for them. Whereas it is easy for politicians at the federal level to blame Federal Government ineptness on sharia, militants, Boko Haram, or any ethnic palaver, it is much more difficult for governors like Gbenga Daniel to blame lack of portable water in Ijebu Ode on sharia!

We need increased productivity but it can only come after a smart reform that will ensure that we do things differently and that will ensure we get maximum productivity from our civil service even while we paid them well for their services. It is suggested that such reforms must neither be political, nor political party driven! We are currently running a civil service with colonial mindset in the 21st century!

When Will Nigerians Enjoy Stable Electricity?

2011-05-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Nigeria and the highlight of my visit is the pervasive darkness when night falls. Thanks to Fashola, things are not as bad in Lagos, but the problem have left night life and the attendant economic activities after 7:00pm comatose in every other states.

I am no friend of Obaigbena's Thisday, but his rag sheet did a thorough job a little while ago on this issue. I archived it then and I will reproduce it for those of you interested in the history of power generation in the last twenty years. Btw, as I reiterated earlier, I just came back from gidi, and I will in a short while write up my impression on what I found. For now, we should commend efforts by the likes of Fashola on this issue.
Here you go:

From ThisdayWhen Will Nigerians Enjoy Stable Electricity?
THISDAY’s Investigative Team: Kunle Akogun, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, Stanley Nkwazema, Chika Amanze-Nwachuku, Ike Abonyi, Ali M. Ali, Patrick Ugeh and Julius Atoi, 04.07.2008

Ever since President Yar’Adua complained that $10 billion had been spent on the power sector between 2000 and 2007 without commensurate result, the nation has been awash with stories of scams and shocking revelations. What is the state of the power projects today? What went wrong along the line? Who is lying and who is telling the truth on the amount of money that was spent? Why is Nigeria still in darkness despite all measures applied since 1999? What is the way out? THISDAY investigates and reports Power to the People? What Obasanjo Met… When Chief Olusegun Obasanjo assumed office as President on May 29, 1999, the power sector – represented by generation, transmission and distribution – was on the verge of collapse. The nation was constantly in darkness. The National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) had its acronym reinterpreted: Never Expect Power Always.

Even the feeble attempt to make it look like a publicly owned company, with the change of name to National Electric Power Plc (NEP Plc) only gave more mischievous ammunition to the public who defined the new acronym as “Never Expect Power, Please Light Candle”. The entire economy ran on generating sets as NEPA could only muster 1,500MW, out of a projected need of 4,000MW, for transmission and distribution across the country.

The diagnosis was that epileptic supply was a product of the dilapidation of the power infrastructure in the country. The generating stations were not being serviced; transmission lines were routinely vandalised; and the distribution transformers were worn out without replacement of parts or service. NEPA itself was in a sorry state as corruption was the order of the day. The accumulation of these inefficiencies brought a height to the decay and periodic system failures that had variously thrown the entire country in darkness. Obasanjo inherited four thermal stations: Egbin, Ughelli, Sapele and Afam.
There were also three hydro electric stations at Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro. Whereas the installed capacity was 3,500MW, production had shrunk to as low as 1,500MW. Out of the 78 generating units in the country then, only 28 were generating electricity and feeding a paltry 1500MW into the nation’s economy. Hope raised and dashed… Obasanjo, having lamented the rot, set out to address the problems. He started on a wrong footing, many would say, by appointing a seasoned lawyer and politician, Chief Bola Ige, as Minister of Power and Steel, rather than a technocrat who would have understood the terrain better because of the technical nature of the sector.

Ige promptly promised that by the end of 2002, Nigerians would experience uninterrupted power supply, a promise he was forced to retract when he was confronted with the enormity of the problem later on. Obasanjo would later say in 2007, more than six years after the assassination of Ige, that the former minister “did not know his left from his right”. But when Obasanjo set out to address the problem in 1999, he had the objective of turning NEPA around within the first six months. Generation increased same year, obviously not as a result of his ingenuity but because of the rainy season which had improved power generation at the hydro stations.
In March 2000, he set up a Technical Board for NEPA with Senator Liyel Imoke as chairman. Obasanjo released funds for the importation of spare parts and new transformers for the reactivation and rehabilitation of generating, transmitting and distribution infrastructure. The Federal Government was said to have spent $1.3 billion (N1.319 billion) for the supply, installation and commissioning of additional materials and spare parts for the completion of major rehabilitation work for NEPA’s 330Kv and 132Kv circuit breaker at major power stations located at Afam, Sapele, Kainji, Egbin, Ikorodu, Akangba and Jebba. Total generation rose to 3000MW by December 2000 and 4000Mw by the end of December 2001. In generation, the reactivated Afam, Delta 11 and the injection of the AES-Enron Independent Power Project into the Egbin unit had brought 276MW, 150MW and 270MW respectively into the national grid. The Abuja Emergency Power Project and the Agip IPP at Kwale (Delta State) also imputed 150MW and 450MW respectively to the power pool.

To achieve the set target, the government embarked on rehabilitation of another set of 20 generating units at the various power stations to bring additional 1,500MW of electricity into the system. In the area of transmission, government awarded 26 contracts for the re-enforcement of existing lines and substations and another 30 contracts for the construction of new lines, which increased the transmission capacity by 2000MVA, while in distribution, the Federal Government installed 1000 power and distribution transformers, which brought another 420MVA of electricity at 33Kv. Additional 4000 distribution transformers were also delivered. This was expected to increase distribution capacity by another 1600MVA. The Imoke-led Technical Board focused mainly on generation through rehabilitation of old units and by the time its assignment was over in December 2001, Obasanjo was setting new targets for the power sector: 10,000MW by the year 2005. There was considerable debate then on what the government should do: privatise NEPA or keep funding it?

This was a major decision to be taken on the future of the utility. If the decision was for privatisation, it meant government had to stop pumping funds into NEPA; if the decision was to continue funding, there was the perennial issue of government inefficient management of utilities in Nigeria. While the debate was on, and a decision was finally taken to privatise, there began a phased withdrawal of government funding. NEPA began to run its activities with an increased drive for commercially generated revenue. The marketing staff were given targets to meet – a situation that developed into complaints about “crazy bills” from consumers nationwide. In the meantime, works had virtually stopped on the rehabilitation of older units at the power stations as the power sector reform bill – designed to liberalise the sector – lay untouched at the National Assembly. Gradually, with reduced funding and a reliance of the old turbines, the power situation continued to decline and the nation was thrown into darkness again.
To be cont'd

Post Election Blues: Is it time for Real Democratic Governance in Nigeria?

2011-04-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom
cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are
not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which
dictatorships are made"– President Frederick Delano Roosevelt, USA.

The much awaited election to state and federal offices is over in Nigeria and one can only pray that discussion will shift to real governance in Nigeria. However, if history is any guide one should not expect much in terms of governance, policies and programs. If anything at all, the victors usually take all, no thoughts are given to forming a government of national unity. And of course, the vanquished heads to court, disputing every vote obtained by the opponents. As things goes, nothing gets done, the citizenry went back to their penury until the next election circle when politicians dole out gobs of stolen funds as campaign “settlement”.

As FDR rightly argues in the quote above, true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence, as necessitous men are bound to remain in bondage. For there to be true democracy in Nigeria we first have to fight to create structure that will breed free and fair election. As long as the economic situation remains anemic politicians and political jobbers will always found a way to take advantage of the rot in the system.

This is why efforts by Lagos and Osun states government to create jobs through programs which encouraged private and public employment opportunities should be commended. A viable Nigerian state will remain a mirage until we restructure our country to reflect true federalism espoused in our constitution. No true federalism governs from the center with the hope of a trickle down democratic dividends. The government closest to the people of Nigeria remains the least funded in our polity. Strengthening Nigeria’s local government through adequate funding and oversight ensure accountability.

Recent bloodshed and violence following the presidential elections could be directly traceable to the Nigerian mindset that often wrongly believes that whichever region has his/her son or daughter at the center stands at a better advantage than others. As we found in the southwest, and as I am sure the people of south/south and southeast will soon found out, things are not often as they seem. If the protesters in the north had stop to ask themselves what economic benefits had accrued to them when Northern Nigerian sons had ruled at the center they would have been better served to focus their energy on voting out political jobbers at their respective state houses instead of unleashing their anger on defenseless National Youth Service Corps members.

We are a nation of deep passion and allegiance, which unfortunately often get deployed in the wrong direction. It is high time we start directing that energy and passion in restructuring our country so it could be better serve its citizens. Nigeria needs true federalism before it could deliver the true dividends of democracy to its citizens. There is a promise that with a sizable opposition in the federal parliament, we may begin to explore this direction but as V. O Key states: “There are two radically different kinds of politics: the politics of getting into office and the politics of governing”

Bashorun J K Randle and his Diatribe on Role Model in Politics

2011-03-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials
smoke the same hashish they give out." – I. F. Stone

Perhaps the most important political “sour grape” of the current electoral campaign season in Nigeria remains the Lagos State Gubernatorial Debate. Ever since Oyo state had been taken over by warlords and “political godfather”, Lagos state has become the cynosure of all eyes when it comes to free and fair elections. That state has now for all intents and purposes become the oasis of democratic dividends since the advent of the third republic. Thanks largely to its highly intellectual populace and urban setting, Lagos state is now the pace setter state in anything democratic and economic developments.

The Lagos state gubernatorial debate was therefore keenly watched by most Nigerian in Diasporas. I was fortunate to watch the debate posted by one of the “forumers” on Nigerian most popular soccer forum: The Cybereagles. Before watching the debate we had argued back and forth on the intelligent questions that we expect each candidate will ask their opponents. For instance, we had hoped that at least one of the candidates will acknowledge the good work being done by Governor Fashola with a follow up question on how he plans to reduce the increasing debt portfolio of the state.

You can then imagine our horrors, when in actual fact rather than ask sound questions about the management of the state, the contestants regaled the audience on who can shout the loudest and hurl the vilest abuse on each other. At the end of the day, Governor Fashola came out even better than he went in. He out-thought, out-smart and out-strategize all the contestants in tow. He understood the state like the palm of his hands and knows what the problem with the state are and the solutions to those problems some of which he is already tackling. Even the question one would expect to trip him, like the issue of striking medical doctors was sufficiently explained by the Governor with gusto! He traced the genesis to the lopsided revenue allocations between the state and federal government.

The most embarrassing participants are the one we had all expected will perform well, for example: Bashorun J.K. Randle. To call his performance a meltdown will be doing injustice to those words. First of all, to whom much is given much is expected. As an astute accountant, we all expected that he would have done his homework on the “ballooning debt” of the state and as such will be able to proffer solutions on how to tackle it. Instead, he started out in jest talking in his opening statement about how his Chelsea football club beat Governors Fashola’s Manchester United that weekend. Then, he asked a rather innocuous question about the lack of access to the state governor. On its face, this would have been a sound question if and when asked by a private citizens complaining about government neglect of a community initiative. It turns out that his complaint is entirely hinged on a pecuniary interest to him alone. He wanted Fashola government to bend the rules in his favor with respect to a house he had built on top of drainage. When the governor draws his attention to that fact, he drew umbrage. From that point onwards he started sulking. He got unhinged, and started behaving erratically.

His answer to every other question often dovetails into an incomprehensible ranting and talks of lack of respect for elders. This is very common with Nigerian of all hue. Once we lost an argument we take refuge in age, as if the age of Methuselah has anything to do with Solomonic wisdom. To top it off, at the end of the debate, he refused to shake hands with Governor Fashola. Unbeknownst to him that he still has a live microphone on at the end of the program, he loudly rant: “Awon Omo ti o le ko” which could literarily translated meant: “Kids without home training” while refusing to embrace the governor.

And now, we learnt from a report in Guardian newspapers published on Friday March 11, 2011, that his latest grouse is that there are no more role models in politics. Well, he needn’t look too far for that reason. All he needs to do is look in the mirror. There is a great need for us to respect the office we are seeking. You don’t disrespect that office by publicly calling the occupant of that office a kid with lack of home training, just because you are older than the current occupant. He also twisted or out rightly misunderstood the governor’s response on the lack of access to him.

The governor stated in that debate that building on drainage is a criminal activity and if Bashorun Randle wishes to resolve that case he should contact the attorney general of the state. Nigerians often speaks against nepotism but will look the other way when they are the ones perpetrating such evils. To erect a monument to honor a past hero, instead of going through your elected representative in the state assembly we often tries to up ended the process by going directly to the governor and then complain bitterly later when rejected.
Bashorun Randle has little or no temperaments that will enable him handle the combustible politics of Lagos. Thank God for that debate, we learnt more about him in that debate than any other candidate on the podium. We know one thing: He is not fit for the office he is campaigning for.

Bribery and the Nigerian Psyche: More from Dowden

2011-02-07T16:33:00.000-08:00

More from Dowden:

[b]About Lagos[/b]

Can Khartoum and Lagos be on the same planet, let alone the same continent? While Khartoum dozes safely in an eternal haze, Lagos bursts with dangerous energy. Lagos is like a Hong Kong feeling it's fallen behind, a New York without the good manners. But unlike the prodigious creativity of New York or Hong Kong, the maelstrom of frenetic motion seems like some monstrous machine that has broken its drive shaft, gone into hyperdrive and is whirling intself to pieces. Seems? Impenetrable, incomprehensible to outsiders, Lagos survives. It pulsates. It grows. It works.

So does Nigeria. By any law of political or social science it should have collapsed or disintegrated years ago. Indeed it has been described as a failed state that works. Recalling the image he had used in his novel [i]A Man of the People[/i], Chinua Achebe, Nigeria's celebrated novelist, wrote of Nigeria in 1983, 'this house has fallen.' Maybe, but some peoople are living fabulously wealthy lives amid the ruins. And others survive and get by. How? it's a mystery. The secret lies in the layers of millions upon millions of networks, personal ties, family links, ethnic loyalties, school fraternites, Church connections and scores of other unrecorded, informally organized bonds of trust that make things happen. (This ha its advantages and disadvantages, for one it provide a social security which the government ought to put in place, but the demerits is that it feeds nepotism and cronyism. Lets continue with Dowden) . Forget the government, the formal structures. What makes Nigeria works is a matrix of social, political and economic connections that ensure most people get food and shelter. The hidden wiring also creates Presidents, makes fortunes and prevents wars. But it also ensures that the vast majority of Nigerians are kept outside the ruler-owner circle, never given the chance to fulfill their- or Nigeria's - potential.

A successful Nigeria could transform the continent in the twentyfirst century. Its resources grow more valuable as they become globally scarcer. Among the world's biggest oil producers, it is becoming one of America's main suppliers. Gas too has come on stream and production is expected to double and double again in the decade. Its 120 million plus people- or is it 140 million? The numbers are disputed like everything else in Nigeria- are a quarter of sub-Saharan Africa's population and among them are astonishing talents.

In business, law, science, art, literature, music, sport, Nigeria produces phenomenonally talented individuals as if its superheated society throws up brighter, hotter human beings than anywhere else.

[b]Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA) [/b]

It is ironic that most people's first experience of Nigeria is MMA at Lagos, named after the only ruler of Nigeria whom almost all Nigerias revere. Murtala Mohammed came to power in 1975 in a coup committed to order and efficiency. The airport named after him became a monument to disorder and dishonesty. Visitors vie with each other to recall their most bizarre and alarming experiences there. In 2000 the pilot of a British Airways flight from London taxiing his Boeing 747 for take off suddenly saw logs in front of him strewn across the runway. He jammed on the brakes and, as the plane juddered to a halt, figures scurried beneath it. they unlocked the hold and unloaded the baggage into trucks before escaping through a hole cut in the perimeter fence. The police arrived a comfortable two minutes later.

Europeans and Americans, coming from lands where spontaneos offers of help are rare, are often enchanted by the warm welcome they receive in Africa. At Murtala Mohammed it can burn you. With smiles wider than their faces men offer to sort out customs and immigration for you, carry your bags or find you a taxi. unsuspecting visitors who have accepted have been robbed, kidnapped and even murdered. Officials in uniform, often the biggest hyenas of all, tell you, 'You are in big trouble. Come with me' and lead you to a side room to explain how the 'problem' can be solved. They keep your passport and say, 'Please wait here, until you pay up. Two hundred dollars is a modest opening bid.

If someone influential does not meet you, you find yourself floundering in a pool of piranhas. It is the same when you leave. Once, after three weeks of exhausting Nigeria, I arrive at the airport carrying a couple of masks I picked up at a tourist shop. While I wait to check in a huge Nigerian family seeing off their daughter joins the queue behind me. The daughter is going off to study in Britain and carries the biggest suitcase i have ever seen. It exceeds her weight allowance. Having very little baggage, I offer to take some of hers. It is a calculated risk. Arrest for being an inadvertent drug carrier at Heathrow seems preferable to being a friendless foreigner at MMA. The family is deeply grateful.

Then I come face to face with a huge, square-faced, scowling woman in the uniform of a customs official. 'open,' she snaps without even looking at me. She gazes with lacy heavy-lidded eyes at my belongings. I usually pack my smelliest washing at the top of my bag when expecting customs trouble but she insists I empty it. She spots the masks and her eyes light up.
'Where is your export certificate?' she demands in the voice of one who has asked an unanswerable question. 'Every item leaving Nigeria needs export certificate from the National Museum -like this.' And she whips a green form from under the counter, clearly kept there for dramatic effect. I try to explain that these masks were made recently for tourists and are not old art, but she knows better. 'this is our heritage that you Europeans are stealing. i shall arrest you." she waddles off telling subordinate, 'arrest this man'. The British Airways staff ignore me, even though I am their passengers. But the family with the daughter going to England weigh in to defend me. The mother turns out to be a solicitor and tears into the customs officials. they are polite but they can do nothing. the boss has gone, leaving orders that must be obeyed. A stupendous slanging match ensues. then the man ordered to arrest me winks at me and helps me repack my bag. I take out my wallet but he shakes his head and points to the departure gate and encourages me to slips away quickly.

I wander casually up the airport concourse still puzzling at Nigeria's ways, while the family and the officials exchange angry insults. After a minute or two the family breaks off the battle and joins me, laughing and celebrating my escape. i am just about to go through immigration when a traffic blow crashes down on my shoulder. I reel round to find myself looking into the eyes of the Amazonian customs chief. 'Where you go now? You under arrest. You have stolen Nigerian heritage property and now you try to escape. you in big , big trouble now. Come!' she shouts, grabbing my arms and dragging me off.

The family grab my other arm and I am pulled in half as I am yanked this way and that across the concourse. A crowd forms. The nice official who had helped me pack intervenes again and has a word in the woman's ear. Then he returns gravely to me. 'she needs an apology' he announces and tells me to deliver it in her office. I assume she could not be seen to take a bribe in full view of all the passengers but would be happy to accept dash in the privacy of her office.
I follow her, clambering over the check-in desks and making my way through dimly lit corridors to her important looking office. She squeezes herself behind her desk and fiddles with some papers. Then she launches into a lecture on the evils of European colonialism and neo-colonialism and the looting of Nigeria's cultural heritage. She makes me promise I will never, ever again try to take any object of art out of the country without a certificate - even if it is bought from the airport tourist shop. I grovel and apologize for my wickedness. A smile breaks across her fearsome features and i reach for my wallet. But she puts up her hand and the smile disappears. She looks shocked. I mumble goodbye and totter towards the door completely confused. Can it be that, after all, this woman, head of customs at MMA is letting me go free? Has the customs department, Nigerian officialdom, Nigeria itself, become honest? As I close her office door, the nice official who had managed my rescue springs the trap. 'fifty dollars for negotiation,' he demands.

I pay.

In the next installment, a member of the Brigade of Guards took bribe from Dowden during his visit to Aso rock to interview OBJ!

Two Views of Nigeria from Different Epoch: The More Things Change The More They Stay the Same

2011-01-31T13:47:00.000-08:00

Nigeria is chaos. But the chaos is created, organized by the government. Chaos
allows it to stay in power. –Richard Dowden “Africa: Altered States, Ordinary
Miracles p.6

Many have argued that the Nigeria we have now was not the Nigeria the colonialist left for us. This revisionist history is often perpetrated by educated journalist who should know better. All it takes to know where Nigeria was before independence is to read books about Nigeria before and after independence, but they won't do that. Very often this romanticised opinion of Nigeria's colonial Eldorado are mere figments of lazy journalist who do not have the time to read.

Recently I picked up two books to read while I spend time at home with my kids. The two books are by two different authors. The first book by Vernon Bartlett is titled "Struggle for Africa" and published in 1953 by Praeger inc. The entire ninth chapter of this book is dedicated to "the New Nigeria." The second book by Richard Dowden is titled "Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles" published in 2009 by Public Affairs Books and foreworded by Chinua Achebe. Here again, the entire sixteenth chapter was devoted to everything Nigeriana.

Both authors travelled widely in Africa, visited and lived in Nigeria for a while. Their uncanny observation of our social political state is both compelling and sad to boot! Much as I struggle with the fact that these authors are neither African nor sympathisers, I had to remind myself that they do have a stake in the future of our dear continent-all human kind should. Afterall every human being on our planet earth can trace their roots to Africa. Vernonn Bartlett is a famous British journalist, one-time London Times foreign correspondent, News Chronicle foreign affairs advisor, author of fifteen books. Member of British Parliament for twelve years and British diplomat to the United Nations. Richard Dowden is director of Royal African Society and spend a decade as Africa editor of the Independent, and then another decade as Africa editor of the Economist. He has made three television documentaries on Africa, for the BBC and Channel 4.

I intend to excerpts huge chunks of these books in coming months, because as we march towards the next election we need a lot of reflections on how we got here and what needs to change.

So folks here you go, let's start with Dowden (remember he wrote this in 2009):

Everyone has a Nigeria story from beyond the normal bounds of credibility. Some are terrifying. Most are funny. Nigerian politicians try to pretend that its bad image is some Western conspiracy against Nigerian and Africa. The truth is that Nigeria’s popular image falls short of the reality. It is not just white visitors who fear it. Other Africans do too.

By any law of political or social science it should have collapsed or disintegrated years ago. Indeed it has been described as a failed state that works. Maybe but some people are living fabulously wealthy lives amid the ruins. And others survive and get by. How? It’s a mystery. The secret lies in the layers of millions upon millions of networks, personal ties, family links, ethnic loyalties, school fraternities, secret societies, Church and Jumaat Mosque connections and scores of unrecorded, informally organized bonds of trust that make things happen. Forget the government, the formal structures. What makes Nigeria works is a matrix of social, political and economic connections that ensures most people get food and shelter. The hidden wiring also ensures that the vast majority of Nigerians are kept outside the ruler-owner circle, never given the chance to fulfill their –or Nigeria’s- potential.

A successful Nigeria could transform the continent in the twenty-first century. It’s 120 million plus people- or is it 140 million? The numbers are disputed like everything else in Nigeria- are a quarter of sub-Saharan Africa’s population and among them are astonishing talents. In business, law, science, art, literature, music, sport, Nigeria produces phenomenally talented individuals as if its superheated society throws up brighter, hotter human beings than anywhere else. The leader who manages to harness and direct all that energy- physical and human- will create a formidable country that will change African and the world. Were it to implode like its neighbors, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire, the human catastrophe would be unconscionable and it would take much of West Africa with it. Nigeria lives on the edge.

Colin Powell, the then American Secretary of State, once let slip the opinion that all Nigerians are crooks. (It is interesting that few years ago, he appeared as guest at an event organized by a Nigerian publisher in London, without any mention of that allegation. If all Nigerians are crooks, one of my friends asked what is a former Secretary of State doing in the midst of crooks?). All? Maybe not, but a lot of Nigerians dedicate their lives to fulfilling the stereotype. And being Nigerian they are also often world class. An official of the US Drug Enforcement Agency spoke in awe of the Nigerian drug smuggling gangs. “We thought we knew most of the tricks of the drug trade until we came up against the Nigerians” he told me. “Then we realized we were just beginners.”

One area in which Nigeria seems to be deficient is political leadership. With the possible exception of Murtala Mohammed- and he was murdered seven months after coming to power-the country has not had a single decent leader. When Achebe wrote the lines “This house has fallen” in 1983, talking about the house left behind by the colonialist and taken over by “the smart and the lucky and hardly ever the best”, he was writing about Nigeria. Politics in Nigeria is a business career. Any politician who does not end up a multi-millionaire is regarded as a fool. Not many Nigerians are fools.

In 1996 a commission of inquiry discovered that the $12 billion surplus revenue from oil resulting from the high price during the Gulf War was missing. Much of it was in offshore accounts controlled by President Ibrahim Babangida. None of it was ever recovered. When Babangida’s successor, Sani Abacha, died in 1998, his family were forced to pay back $2 billion stolen during his five year reign. But they were allowed to keep the $100 million that he stole before he seized power. Many Nigerian think that $2 billion is small change compared to what he actually stole.

Corruption is such an important part of the Nigerian political scene that politicians can be quite open about it. Ahmed Sani, the governor of Zamfara state, admits to taking money when he held a senior position at the Central Bank. He says it was given to him by Abacha when he brought cash from the bank to the presidential villa.

Yet the rulers who steal Nigeria’s future and a poor man who steals a yam at the market are judged very differently. Pinch a yam in the market and you will have a petrol-soaked tyre jammed around your neck and set alight. Trouser a billion dollars of state funds and everyone laughs and fawns on you. No big man in Nigeria has ever been punished for theft, though under Olusegun Obasanjo’s rule one or two of his political enemies were asked to resign and give back some of what they had stolen. Corruption exist everywhere, but Nigeria’s hilariously brazen corruption puts it in a different league. Elsewhere it is conducted behind closed doors or by nods and euphemisms. In Nigeria it is open and it is everywhere.

Corruption pervades Nigerian life so broadly and deeply that is hard to imagine life in Nigeria if it were suddenly to end. Without a little something a policeman will not investigate a crime, a journalist will not write up a politician’s speech, a politician will not speak to a constituent, a tax inspector will not sign off your tax return. You may suddenly find your telephone does not work. It has been mysteriously disconnected or ‘tossed’ as the Nigerian say. Or your electricity is cut off. When you try to find out what has happened you will be presented with a demand to a ‘quick quick’ reconnection charge.

In Nigeria every contact between an official and an individual seems to involve an extra payment, that personalized VAT. To check your name on the voters’ register, to get a passport, to pass through a roadblock, all involve a few note changing hands. Even when I want to interview President Obasanjo, the staffer escorting me slipped Obasanjo’s bodyguard a few naira. It was not asked for, just slipped discreetly from hand to hand. Why was that necessary? What relationship did that cement?

Nigerian politics appears to be a zero sum game. The popular assumption is that if the Hausas are in power, they are eating well so the Yoruba and Igbo must be losing out. Northerners will tell you that they should be rulers because that is what they are good at, and that Yorubas should be the civil servants and Igbos the businessmen. This ethnic stereotyping is countered by the Southerners’ proposal that the presidency should rotate between regions. The assumption- spelled out shamelessly at political rallies – is that each group may suffer for a while but every decade it will also ‘eat’ – meaning gobble up the national resources. In other words, the elite of each region of Nigeria will take it in turns to loot the country. Faced with these alternatives no wonder the military has been allowed to rule for so long in Nigeria. Everyone fears that political breakdown will lead to strife: a bare-fisted, free-for-all fight to the death.

Nigeria is famed for its sudden explosions of violence, usually in cities where a politician has stirred up his own ethnic group or co-religionist to try to wipe out a rival. These brief explosions regularly leave 400 or 500 dead in a couple of days when gangs to thugs take up clubs, machetes and knives. Whole suburbs are burned down – often with people locked in their homes. Then it stops as suddenly as it started. The incidents rarely make more than a paragraph in the Western press. The world sighs and moves on. Violent Africa.

On the contrary, I sometimes feel Africa is not violent enough. If Africans fought back sooner against theft and oppression instead of allowing themselves to be slaves to the rich and powerful, Africa would be a much more peaceful place. Instead African patience allows exploitation and oppression to thrive until everyone loses their temper and explodes.

Nigerians are probably no more “tribalist” than any other human communities. Nigeria’s size in fact makes it more of a melting pot than many smaller African countries and most Nigerians can trace many ethnicities in their family trees. The root of the problem is that the Nigerian state depends not on constitution but on a commodity: Oil.

Religion reinforces some of Nigeria’s political divisions but it is not the cause of the division. Nigerians are deeply religious, the vast majority Christian or Muslim. When religion overlays ethnicity and culture, it is easy to claim God or Allah backs your cause. Ahmed Sani – the man who took money to Abacha when he worked at the Central Bank- used up the cash Abacha gave him to get himself elected as governor in 1999 but he needed to get elected again in 2003. In his first term there had been widespread lawlessness and robberies in Zamfara state to he suddenly turned religious, reintroduced full Sharia law to please the largely Muslim electorate and started chopping the hands of thieves. He also demanded that the state be officially Muslim and at one stage he even ordered the destruction f all Christian Churches. This easy political stunt nearly split Nigeria in two. It led to judicial stoning and amputations and caused scores of deaths in Muslim-Christian clashes and riots. It also got Sani re-elected. He nearly ran for President in 2007.

And now Bartlett, (again remeber he wrote this in 1953):

Nigeria, like Gaul, is divided into three parts. "Whatever you do," they said to me in the Northern Region, "don't be misled by those people in the South. Lagos doesnt in the least represent the opinions of Nigeria." In the Western Region they criticized the East: had I managed also to visit the Eastern Region, I should doubtless have heard similar criticisms of the West. I had expected some rivalry between the larger tribes- the Hausa and the Fulani in the North, the Ibo in the East and the Yoruba in the West. I had not expected the British officials also to feel such regional loyalty.

The northerners, as Moslems, have been slow to develop schools, and the southerners are therefore inclined to treat them with contempt.

One of the commonest words in West Africa is "dash", which is West African for 'backsheesh". A patient in hospital has much more hope of getting the medicine or the treatment the doctor ordered if he 'dashes' the African nurse or orderly. Too many African civil servants are ready to accept bribes, although the service they render has already been paid for by the State. It is perhaps not so much that the man who does something for an African expects a bribe; it is rather that the African expects to show his appreciation for services rendered. It is the outcome of a personal relationship which does not fit in with the idea of impersonal service to the community. But this tradition of courtesy is all too likely to lead to corruption.

The European is violently criticized but he is slavishly imitated- in his bad behavior as well as his good. In the Island club in Lagos- the only club I have found in Africa where Europeans and Africans manage to forget the color of each other's skins- most of the Africans, who include many of the Ministers and higher civil servants, drink imported Dutch beer at two and three pence and bottle; the Europeans generally dring the local product at ninepence.

Prices of Nigerian exports have risen so steeply, and the African change of status has been so sensational, that a certain nouveau riche ostentation is easy to understand. The disquieting side of it is, however, that the wealth will, for many years to come, be dependent on European advice, technical help and capital, and the tendency to dismiss them as unnecessary.

What the white man can do, one is assured, the black man can do. Hence the enthusiasm throughout black Africa for the advantages of education. This enthusiasm is pathetic, inspiring, depressing, according to your way of looking at things. Pathetic, because the people are prepared to make such sacrifices to attain it and have such exaggerated ideas of the happiness and contentment it will bring them. Inspiring because the changes being wrought by it, for good or ill, are so tremendous even in the remoter hamlets. Depressing, because there is still so few Africans who understand that an ability to quote slabs from Shakespeare or to solve some fairly simple mathematical problem does not carry with it automatically the ability to rule other men wisely.

The desire to run one’s own country, even if one runs it badly, is a natural desire, especially if the existing overlords are men not only of another but even of another color.
But the riots in kano in May of 1953 have made it necessary to re-examine a constitution introduced with such optimism a bare two years earlier. The result is that too much of this desert-like country (speaking of Kano) is given up to cash crops, and too little to food, so that there is too much to spend and too little to eat. A man who is suffering from malnutrition may have a smart new bicycle, the African’s equivalent of a motor car.

The small group of business men with more money but less prestige, and little of the official’s paternal sense of responsibility for the African’s development towards independence.
The women of West Africa have done several things the women of East and Central Africa have not yet managed to do. They have emancipated themselves sufficiently to persuade their menfolk to carry some of the burdens and to do some of the agricultural work-near Lagos I almost ran over a cyclist with a pickaxe, a hoe and a spade balanced on his head. Elsewhere in Africa, the men have the wealth, in the form of cows; in West Africa, the women have it in the form of bales of cotton.

I went from Kaduna, the capital of the Northern Region to Ibadan, the Western capital. We were flown in an alarmingly small machine by a pilot who sported an enormous beard. The only event occurred when he handed back a slip of paper which I thought would give us the usual details of height, speed, and estimated time of arrival. Instead it had only the words: “Arsenal nil. Newcastle United one,” The result of the greatest soccer match of the year.

2010-12-13T16:02:00.000-08:00

Final Manifestations: Reflections and Lessons Learned from the Southern Freedom Movement and Leadership

Burns (1978) tells the cynical story of a Frenchman sitting in a café who hears a disturbance, runs to the window, and cries: “There goes the mob. I am their leader. I must follow them!” (Cited in Van Wart, 2008, p. 16). This is exactly the way I felt about leadership before attending the class on administrative leadership. But if anyone were to ask me today if leaders do make a difference, I will answer with an affirmative YES! Before this class, I was generally cynical about leadership and often view theory of leaderships as too prescriptive and less descriptive. I used to think that leadership cannot be taught or learned. At the end of the class, I come away with a deep understanding of leadership that makes a difference, my study of the Southern Freedom Movement made a deep impact on me emotionally and philosophically.

First of all I learnt that leaders must not only have goals, but must be willing to revisit their goals to ensure that those goals meet their aspirations and the aspirations of their followers. The Southern Freedom Movement leaderships from the very beginning knew what they want: freedom from Jim Crows laws, and they pursued that goal with an unparalleled zeal and commitment. They revisit their goals very often, identify those who support their goals and work with them. Invite those who oppose them to see those goals as not selfish goals but an aspiration common to all men. They couched these goals and speak of it in constitutional and religious terms that all men could relate to. In his letter from Birmingham jail, Dr. King states: “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights” (Dinar, n.d.). The leaders of the movement make this goal clearly discernible in terms and language everyone could understand. Here is how Dr. King portrays these goals in his speech at the Mall:
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." (Americanrhetoric.com)

In contrast the local southern leaders appealed to their tradition and culture which is not totally inclusive. Millions of white Southerners found champions in politicians such as Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, who both cultivated and exploited for political gain a deep anti-civil-rights sentiment. In his 1963 inaugural address, Wallace declared: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” (Sokol, 2008). These leaders never gave a clear and succinct picture of why the south should continue this tradition. As a result when whites were asked questions and prompted to defend segregation, they could not precisely say why segregation should prevail. They fell back on tradition, conservative values, and twisted constitutional logic and legalisms. A good example of this befuddlement occurred when students of Northview High School were asked directly about desegregation in February 1959 in one of the documentary we watched. When asked why he did not want black students at Northview, one of these students could only say “I don’t know why, I just don’t” (PBS, Eye on the Prize documentary). This I believe is the leadership deficit that plunged the Southern United States into turmoil and instability during the civil rights years.

The second important lesson we talked about in class is the crucial need for a definite process that will lead to the goals. The Southern Freedom Movement settled on Nonviolence, the white local leader chose force and brutality. One of the most interesting “recent perspectives on the struggle for civil rights in the South is David L. Chappell’s, “A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow” (University of North Carolina Press, 2004) which stresses black prophetic religion as the decisive force in what was, in effect, a cultural battle. He points out that black southern leader were driven by a deep sense of realism, indeed a form of conservativism” (cited in Will Thomas, online blog, 2008). The Southern Freedom Movement also learned a lot from other movement before them, particularly from Mahtma Gandhi’s struggle for India’s independence from Great Britain. Between these two rich sources, the leaders of the Southern Freedom Movement picked up Nonviolence and the use of religious symbols, songs and imageries. In one of the Hope interviews we watched, Bernice Johnson Reagon, spoke of the impromptu nature of the songs. They sing deep from their hearts and the passion they would have used to react in violence against segregation they concentrated in songs, marches, bus boycotts all non violent. Dr. King eloquently expressed the importance of process to the struggle in these words:

“I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate
neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the
black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent
protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church,
the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this
philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am
convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white
brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who
employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent
efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace
and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would
inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare” (Dinar, n.d., ¶ 22)

Another crucial lesson I learned from the Southern Freedom Movement is the unity of purpose between the leaders and the followers. Those who follow Dr. King, Rev. Abernathy et al. do so because they deeply believe in their convictions and genuineness of purpose. In contrast, the local southern white elected leaders were being led by the mobs. They are like the Frenchman in the cynical story I referred to in paragraph one. They are in it, because of the perquisite of the office. They ran for office on the platform of segregation not because they genuinely believe that blacks were inferior, (at least not all of them), but because that was the only message they thought would win the election for them. As Jason Sokol (2008) suggests “Many whites denounced the “Civil Wrongs Bill,” holding that such federal laws imperiled their own rights. They clung to the notion that rights were finite, and that as blacks gained freedom, whites must suffer a loss of their own liberties. On the precarious seesaw of Southern race relations, whites thought they would plummet if blacks ascended”

Another discovery I made with the Southern Freedom Movement is the level of planning and strategies required for a successful movement. Protests do not just happen by accidents. We watched in the documentaries weeks and months of planning before the event took place. Dr. King painted a picture on the planning that goes into a non violent movement demonstration as follows: “In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community… On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation... Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community... As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us…We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the byproduct of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change…Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day” (Dinar, n.d.).

The march on Washington was also meticulously planned in detail: “Operating out of a tiny office in Harlem, Rustin and his staff had only two months to plan a massive mobilization. Money was raised by the sale of buttons for the march at 25 cents apiece, and thousands of people sent in small cash contributions. The staff tackled the difficult logistics of transportation, publicity, and the marchers' health and safety. Attention to detail was crucial, for the planners believed that anything other than a peaceful, well-organized demonstration would damage the cause for which they would march” (CORE, n.d. ¶ 5). The only time the southern local leaders planned and have strategies that march the freedom movement, the protest and marches failed. The irony here is that the strategy was not force or brutality, it was non violent. As police chief of Albany, Georgia, Laurie Pritchett, nonviolent response to demonstrations, including the mass arrests of protesters and the jailing of Martin Luther King, Jr., was seen as an effective strategy in bringing the campaign to an end before the movement could secure any concrete gains. Pritchett’s nonviolent approach left an indelible imprint on King, who later wrote of his indignation at Pritchett’s use of ‘‘the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral ends of racial injustice’’ (King, 1964, p. 99).

The lessons I learned from this class is a need to have a core of value that transcends our self interest (Loeb, 2010). The class on administrative leadership have upended my long held notions of leadership and set me straight on transformative leadership. As public administrators, I ceased to look at my work as someone carrying out orders, from above. As Van Warts noted, “one of the enormous challenges of great leadership is the seamless blending of the more operational-managerial dimensions with the visionary leadership functions” (2008, p. 22). This is where I found myself at the end of class, ready to take up the challenge of leadership with purpose, vigor and passion. My work as a public defender is forever transformed by this experience.

The Evolution of the City of Spokane’s Complete Street Policy Agenda Setting: An Examination of Players, Institutions and Structural Impact on Policy

2010-12-13T15:53:00.000-08:00

The Evolution of the City of Spokane’s Complete Street Policy Agenda Setting: An Examination of Players, Institutions and Structural Impact on Policy Formation

Introduction
Humans and democratic governments are often problem solvers. Many of the social and technological advances made throughout history are solutions to problems: food and drug administration policies were meant to be a solution to incidence of fake and counterfeit drugs. At the same time, there remain many social problems that people believe should be “solved” or, made better. These social problems require government action be taken because services required to alleviate public problems become “public goods” that can only be provided by government actors (Birkland, 2005, p. 125).

Description of Policy Problem

Occasionally, the solution established in one arena, over time may create problems in another sphere which in turn require unique solutions. One of such instance is the complete street policy. Current streets policies are geared primarily to cater for automobiles; this creates concerns for pedestrians, and cyclists with problems such as traffic safety, traffic congestion, and public’s accessibility to services, and businesses. The confluence of businesses, citizens, and institutions, gave voice to the problem of automobile-centric streets policies and led to the agitation for complete streets.

While no singular definition exists, the most popular elements of complete streets include: sidewalks, bike lanes, special bus lanes, modified medians, transit stop improvements, pedestrian signals, and curb extensions (National Complete Streets Coalition, 2009). On April 5, 2010 Spokane City Council passed a resolution (City of Spokane Ordinance # 2010-0018), expressing support for the complete street concept and requesting that a complete street ordinance be drafted as component for the street standards (Appendix A). The ordinance formally sets complete streets on the City’s institutional agenda. This paper analyzed the evolution of the policy process, by identifying the players, institutions and structures that made significant impact on the policy formulation, formation, and agenda setting.

Theoretical Foundation

Myriads of literature provide a wide variety of theories for understanding how communities and societies formulate their public policies (Luton, 1996). Each theory provides unique insight into aspects of the complex dynamics involved in policy formulation and development, but none provides a perfect and complete explanation of those dynamics. Since no theory can be identified as perfect, it is incumbent that I review major theories I used with the hope of highlighting their strengths and weaknesses and to provide a rationale for the theoretical foundation I chose.
The primary theoretical foundation for this paper is the pluralistic model. Pluralism is defined as a “concept referring to a society as composed of diverse interests and groups which compete to achieve their social and political objectives and share in the exercise of political power” (Luton, 1996, p. 41). Truman (1971) defines the term “interest group “as a shared-attitude group that makes certain claims upon other groups in the society” (In Theodolou & Cahn ed. 1995, p.41).

Both group theory (propounded by Truman) and Robert Dahl’s (1967) pluralism explains public policy by focusing on the manner in which interest groups drive its formulation and substance (In Theodolou & Cahn ed. 1995). Competition among interest groups results in some kind of compromise, accommodation, or victorious coalition. This is clearly evident in the many groups that coalesced to push for the passage of the complete street ordinance. Diverse groups such as downtown business interest, Northwest cycling league, Spokane realtors association all came together to push for the passage of the ordinance (Appendix B). As self explanatory and descriptive as pluralism may appear, it does have some limitations.

Miliband (1969) suggests what is wrong with pluralist-democratic theory is not its insistence on the fact of competition but its claim that none of the major organized “interest”, is able to achieve a decisive and permanent advantage in the process of competition” (In Theodolou & Cahn ed., 1995, p. 59). As Schattschneider (1960) famously put it, “the flaw in pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent” (In Theodolou & Cahn ed., 1995, p. 417). Luton argued that the pluralist position that government acts as a neutral referee is dubious, “government takes sides through its structures, its rules and laws, and through a systematic consensus about what does or does not legitimately fall within its purview” (1996, p. 44). My observation of the complete street policy ordinance process highlighted the forceful influence of public institutional players like Spokane Transit Authority (STA), Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD), City Engineering Services Department (CESD). Some, if not all of these institutions organized symposia, seminars, and lectures favorable to the policy. They also stand to gain from the adoption of the policy in terms of budgetary increase and visibility. In one of the seminar hosted by STA & SRHD at YMCA, it was clear to all attendees whose side the government was on. Presentations by public administrators were all pro-complete streets. As Salisbury points out, “the relationship between interests and government institutions is dynamic and protean. As interests gain or lose clout, the institutions through which they seek to wield their influence change in structure and mission” (quoted in Luton, 1996, p. 44). When the relationship between institutions and interest groups become so intertwined that they become codependent, the subgovernment process theorists call it the “Iron Triangle” (Birkland, 2005, p. 61). In the complete street policy process, it will be foolhardy for anyone to imagine that Northwest Cycling League has the same influence as the Spokane Realtors Association.

However, faulty the logic of pluralism may appear, its main problem is not lack of structure or descriptive references within the policy cycle, its “political problem result from its defense of the existence of true democracy as distinct from pure democracy” (Luton, 1996, p. 45). As a panacea to this particular pluralist limitation, Heclo, (1978) came up with issue network theory. He argued that it is not so much that the notions of “iron triangles” and “subgovernments” were wrong but that they are “disastrously incomplete” (in Theodolou & Cahn, p. 47). He said, “Looking for a few who are powerful, we tend to overlook the many whose webs of influence provoke and guide the exercise of power” (In Theodolou & Cahn ed., 1995, p. 47, see also note*1). Pluralism may not have addressed all the objections of the elite theory, but the fact that its theories are fluid and open represent advancement from the conspiratorial approach of the elitist theory and this is why I choose it as the theoretical foundation for this paper.
Political systems theory has the potential to incorporate insights from all of the theories discussed above.

David Easton defines political system as all those activities and institutions involved in the formulation and execution of social policies that are binding upon society-the authoritative allocations of values (cited in Luton, 1996, p. 47). This is why the model depicted in Appendix B, includes both the micro-community public institutional players as well as micro-community private players. Political system theory like the other theories of public policy making has its problems. One of its problems is also its main strength: Linearity. It often “innately” depicts a conservatively static set of interrelationships in a way that appears to freeze them into a particular configuration (Theodolou, In Theodolou & Cahn ed., 1995, p. 4). Appendix B shows that my model is diametrically different and distinct from Easton’s system model principally because I seek to describe a local rather than a national political system. These changes are not significant departures, because as Luton (1996) explained “all systems are constructs of the mind and the tests of a system construct are whether it coheres and whether it assists understanding” (p. 49). Another advantage of my theoretical foundation is that it is easier to follow the complex web of interactions reflected in Appendix B. Neither the pluralistic model I adopted nor its local application to the peculiar Spokane system leaves the political system as some kind of black box containing unnamed authorities that make binding allocation of values in conspiracy and secrecy.

As part of the theoretical foundation of this paper, I deployed a version of abstract process theory as Luton (1996) did, particularly the version that focus on a more microscopic level of policy making called “Incrementalism”. Luton described incrementalism as “decision making involving minor adjustments of the status quo that arise from the application of rational thinking limited by the human capacity for rational thinking, time and cost constraints, and the need for compromise, bargaining, and adjustments among a diverse set of participants” (1996, p. 37). Unlike the wholesale approach adopted by the city of Tacoma, Washington (National Complete Street Coalition), the city of Spokane opted for an incremental adoption of the complete street policy. This is due to the unique Western and Moralistic political culture evident in Eastern Washington. By Western, I meant the distinctive regional political culture that has evolved in the American West. Populist and progressive traditions have shaped this culture.

In Spokane, the public sector is viewed both as a marketplace (individualistic) and as a commonwealth (moralistic). It is expected to both respond efficiently to demands and take positive action to improve the community. Citizens of Eastern Washington abhor taxes and excessive government spending and yet they want good streets and first class developmental projects. This conundrum often forces elected officials and public administrators to an uncomfortable compromise where most developmental project is done through incrementalism. Beginning from the late twentieth century onwards, Spokane’s local government structure shows signs of a moralistic political culture, reflected in the professional management of government and non-partisan leadership for city government (Luton, 1996). As I made manifest in this paper, the adoption of the ordinance to develop the complete street policy was minimalistic and gradual in approach largely because of this unique political culture. In short, the process fits perfectly into Lindblom's (1959) "science of muddling through" (in Theodolou & Cahn ed., 1995, p. 113). Concerns over cost split the city council into two camps, and at the end two of the council members voted against the resolution setting the policy on institutional agenda, even though the ordinance is merely symbolic (Snyder I, 2010).

Murray Edelman (1964) views policy as being either material or symbolic. “Symbolic policies can be used to either divert public attention or to satisfy public demand when no substantive benefits are being provided” (In Theodolou & Cahn ed., 1995, p. 7). One could argue that the complete street ordinance in Appendix A is merely symbolic and that it is meant to satisfy public demand evidenced by the community of private, public, and institutional players itemized in Appendix B. This could also be explained in terms of the unique moralistic culture of the West.

General Survey of the Players and Their Roles

Appendix B contains micro-community public institutional players who played key roles in putting the city of Spokane complete street public policy on the institutional agenda. The local government institutions of greatest importance are the Spokane City Council and the City of Spokane Mayoral office. Unlike the times when Luton wrote his book on the politics of garbage, the city government now operates a strong mayor form of government, but the city council still wields considerable influence over policy decisions. This may be due to the fact that the current mayor rose from their rank to the mayor’s office. She often defers to the city council than any of her predecessors ever did. Prior to Mayor Mary Verner’s election, the city is often known for the bitter rivalry between the city council and the mayor’s office. The second strong mayor, late Jim West, brought a lot of hubris and persona to the office that almost dwarfed the influence of the city council. He was replaced in a recall election following a personal scandal; and the then city council chairman stepped in as interim mayor for two years before the election of Mary Verner.
As Birkland (2005) argues, the actors in the policy process can and must interact with each other to advance policy proposals. This explains the dynamic relations between the City Council, and the Mayor’s office on the one hand, as well as the public advocacy groups, community activist, and other stakeholders before the passage of the ordinance. To understand how these interactions work, an understanding of a policy domain and policy community is important (Birkland, 2005). In this case, Spokane City Council is of course the primary actor, but there were no obvious consensus among the members of the city council, as the council voted 5-2 to pass the ordinance. Spokane citizens played a key role and will continue to play a key role in the next phase, and implementation stages of the process, chiefly through attendance at community workshops, and making comment at city council meetings. During the city council discussion on the policy, the two council members who voted against the policy requested seven different amendments to the resolution (Snyder I, 2010, ¶ 1).

The policy community involved in the passage of this ordinance consists principally of mutually reinforcing relationships between related interests (Birkland, p.97). These includes “institutional actors” (Cahn, In Theodolou & Cahn, 1995, p. 201), such as the City Council, and Mayor’s office; agencies i.e. Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD), Spokane Regional Transportation Council (SRTC), Spokane Transit Authority (STA), City of Spokane Engineering Services Department (CSESD); and private interest groups such as, the YMCA, AARP, and consultants- Futurewise (a nonprofit planning and environmental public policy interest group). They all came together to develop the initiative (Snyder II, 2010). All of these players made deft use of old and new media to move the complete street issue from the systemic agenda to the institutional agenda.

The influence of Mark Fenton in rallying all the disparate groups together during his visit to Spokane in the fall of 2009 helped focus the issue in the community, attendees left the talk energized and ready to make a difference. Two micro-community players- Jon Snyder- he ran for his council seat on the platform of better and complete streets, and John Prosser, Spokane’s plan commissioner, played key roles. Snyder introduced the bill at the council meeting and John Prosser's membership of the SRTC ensures that the issue of complete street was brought up in every board meeting. The important contribution of Kitty Klitz, an online campaigner and supporter of complete streets was crucial; she was also instrumental in rallying youth votes that brought Snyder into office (Spokane Complete Streets on Facebook, n.d.).

Key Players and Influences: Their Relations and Impacts

A thorough understanding of key player’s relations, influences, and impacts on the Spokane complete street policy should start with an appreciation of the importance of agenda setting to the policy process. John W. Kingdon (1984) asked two important questions: “Why do some subjects rise on the agendas, while others are neglected? Why do some alternatives receive more attention than others?” (In Theodolou & Cahn ed., 1995, p. 105). The answer to this as it relates to the complete streets policy lies in a deep understanding of “agenda setting” and what Birkland (2005) calls “window of opportunity’ (p. 116). The reason being that an agenda is a collection of problems, understandings of causes, symbols, solutions, and other elements of public problems that comes to the attention of members of the public and their governmental officials (Birkland, p. 110). Issues usually move from the largest level of the agenda called “the agenda universe” to the systemic agenda which consists of all issues that are commonly perceived by members of the political community as meriting public attention and as involving matters within the legitimate jurisdiction of existing governmental authority (Luton, 1996). And from there to the institutional agenda, which contains the “list of items explicitly up for the active and serious consideration of authoritative decision makers” (Birkland, p. 111).

The issue of complete street has always been on agenda universe of Spokane city council every time the street department comes up for consideration. What elevates the complete streets issue from agenda universe to the systemic agenda was the visit to Spokane by Mark Fenton, a street activist, pedestrian advocate and PBS host in September 2009 to promote pedestrian walking in Spokane (Outthere, 2009). In an interview with “Outthere” monthly for the event, Mark challenged his listeners to “be a change agent in the community. And that would mean step up and ask city council, policy makers, county commission, neighborhood organization to continue to build our walkways and bikeways. That may be the shove the planning commission needs” (Outthere, 2009, p.10). After the event, the staff, volunteers and listeners of Spokane public radio who had thronged the event, resolved to organize a well publicized bike to walk the same month. Public radio in Spokane is well known for their public advocacy and progressive approach to community issues. Their alliance with the publisher of Outthere monthly, Jon Snyder, galvanized the issue from agenda universe to the systemic agenda. The election of Jon Snyder on the platform of complete streets with unanimous support of cyclist association, private citizens and business community provided the fillip for this elevation.

The shocking death of Stephen W. Shockley on December 18, 2009 on the corner of Elm/Cannon and Francis Avenue in North Spokane however brought the issue onto the institutional agenda. Shockley was walking his dog around 6:15 pm that fateful evening when he was struck by an automobile on notorious Francis Avenue. His death, according to the Spokesman review newspaper, was the seventh fatal automobile-pedestrian crash in Spokane that year. “A year when traffic deaths in Washington State reached a 50 year low except in Spokane County” (Spokesmanreview.com, 2009).

Kingdon’s (1984) streams metaphor of agenda change listed three ways in which groups pursue strategies to gain attention for issues when “windows of opportunity” opens (Birkland, p. 116). The first is through electoral change which can lead to reform movements. The 2008 national elections that brought Barak Obama to the white house in the United States unleashed an unprecedented progressive to Spokane City Council. Complete streets issues is a progressive ideas pursued mainly by Democratic leaning interest group. Snyder says “I feel that that progressive wave has always been there in the city [but] it hasn’t always been represented by the folks on City Council. (Appendix D).

Kingdon’s second stream is what he calls “changes in our perception of problems” (Birkland, 2005, p. 116). In his analysis, there is a difference between a condition and a problem. “We put up with all kinds of condition every day and conditions do not rise to prominent places on policy agendas” (In Theodolou & Cahn ed., p. 106). Citizens of Spokane had a different view of automobile accidents following the television report about the untimely death of Stephen Shockley. The old media which consists mainly of local televisions stations and newspapers such as the Inlanders Newspapers, a democratic and progressive leaning free newspaper, particularly highlighted the statistic on the automobile deaths (Excerpts in Appendix D). Edelman (1988) argues, “The spectacle constituted by news reporting continuously constructs and reconstructs social problems, crises, enemies, and leaders and so creates a succession of threats and reassurances” (in Thedolou & Cahn ed., p. 382). This also confirms Iyengar & Kinder (1987) experiments that the position of a story in a television broadcast affects agenda-setting (In Theodolou & Cahn ed., p. 297). All the local television news broadcast started their lead story with another angle on the death of Mr. Shockley. The reinforcing impact of perception on agenda is also highlighted by the fact that micro-institutional players like SRTC, simply regurgitated the news stories on their website. SRTC is a federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. MPOs provide coordination in planning between the public, cities, the county, the state, and transit providers (SRTCblog, 2009).

Perhaps, the most significant impact is the influence of new media through the use of blogs, Facebooks, Myspace. A citizen, by the name Kitty Klitz, created most of these sites and used them to maximum effect. An online Google search today yields a total of 26,400 hits, all of which were created either by her or citizens acting on her leads (Google.com results, 2010). She is also the brain behind the involvement of Futurewise, an environmental public interest group based in Seattle. She convinced them to open offices in Spokane and got involved. The news of Shockley’s death went viral online moments after the accident. Photographs of Francis streets with billboards obstructing traffic went up on every interest group website including democracyinaction.org, completestreet.org. On most of these websites the death of Shockley was not only attributed to automobile accident but incomplete street. The National Complete Street Coalition (NCSC) included it in its compilation titled “The Consequences of Incomplete streets: death” series (NCSC, 2009). These documents were in turn forwarded to macro-community players like congresswoman Cathy Rodger McMorris, who represents Eastern Washington in Congress as well as Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray.

The third stream in Kingdon metaphor refers to changes in the policy stream that can influence the opening of window. The election of Jon Snyder to Spokane city council by a coalition of outdoor enthusiasts, conservationist and upscale South Hill residents represented by listeners of Spokane public radio fits this stream. Prior to his election, Jon Snyder was the editor and publisher of Outthere monthly, an outdoor publication that co-sponsored the visit of Mark Fenton to Spokane in September, 2009. After his election he publicly made complete street his primary reform agenda (Appendix C). One of his campaign fliers has since been included in all promo fliers used by complete street advocates even after his election (Appendix D). He started a blog during his campaign which he has maintained to this day. He posted information on the voting process by the city council on his website during council consideration of the matter.
Perhaps, the most important micro-community private player with considerable influence is the citizens of the city of Spokane. Many of them participated in public workshops, speaking out at meetings, city council hearings, Facebooks comments, providing spoken and/or written comments on the scope and extent of complete streets. The diversity of comments on the financial involvement of the city explained the decision to opt for incremental implementation of the policy. Spiegel (1968) contends that “no other issue is as vital to the success of solving America’s urban crisis than the viable participation of urban residents in planning the neighborhoods and cities in which they live and the social programs which directly affect them” (cited in Luton, 1996, p.193-4). Luton suggest three model typology of citizen participation: a “co-opted participation” model where citizens, administrators and public officials maintain good relations and support each other to work for the agenda of officials, “prudent participation” where citizens and government officials maintain good relations but are willing to conflict openly when circumstances warrant it; and “confrontational participation” where none of the parties expect good relations on a definite substantive agenda (Luton, 1996, p. 195). Citizens’ involvement before the passage of the ordinance generally fell under the co-opted participation typology.
The Micro-community public institutional players like SRTC and SRHD depicted in Appendix B, were willing to accommodate citizens input. They work with YMCA and other micro-community private players to organize workshops and seminars where complete streets policy and fiscal implications were thoroughly explained to attendees. Selznick (1949) identified formal cooptation as a common strategy used by public administrators to ensure that citizen participation supported administrative goals. Camilla Stivers (1990) believes that citizens are improved through meaningful participation and that public administrators have an obligation to society to encourage that improvement. As Luton (1996) argued, “no matter which flag is flown, a common element emphasizes serving the customer- and, in the context of government, to a significant degree that means the citizens” (p. 200). Scholars however suggested that citizens regard themselves as owners of government and not customers (a useful summary appears in Luton, 1996).

Conclusion: Who or What Determines the Complete Streets Policy

The study of agenda setting is a fruitful way to begin to understand how groups, power, and agenda interact to set the boundaries of political policy debate (Birkland, 2005). This paper shows that agenda setting, like all other stages of the policy process, does not occur in a vacuum. What the complete street process shows is that citizen’s opinions do count, especially in an era of new media where mass mobilization of population is “a click away” through the internet (Notes*2).

Most of the actors agreed that citizens led initiatives like the complete streets experiment are where the future of public policy agenda setting lies. My examination of citizen participation suggests that public officials and administrators often underestimate their impact at their own perils. If the coopted, prudent, confrontive models of citizens’ participation have any relationship to practical reality then government officials would be wise to identify which participants fit which model and relate to each differently. The benefits gained by meaningful citizen participation may come at some cost in efficiency and community cohesiveness where a confrontive model prevails. Overall however, communities almost certainly will benefit from the energies, and skills enlightened citizen participants contribute in informing and advising government officials.

In sum, Councilman Jon Snyder may have contributed more than any other elected officials given his readiness to follow through with the implementations of the policy even before substantive ordinance is enacted by the council. He has since required CSED and streets departments to provide evidence of compliance with elements of complete streets before passage of their departmental budget (Brunt, 2010). In the end, what determines the passage of the ordinance is the “window of opportunity” created by the death of Mr. Shockley and the attendant media attention, as well as the democratic and moralistic culture prevailing at the time. Looking back now, the policy may not have passed if tabled today given the current budgetary woes the city is facing. Additionally the fact that both the citizens’ agitators and institutional actors are willing to considerably scale back their expectation and its fiscal impact helped the easy passage of the complete street ordinance.

Nigeria's Politics of Garbage: Efficiency vs Virtue and Grandstanding

2010-10-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

"We have reached a moment in time when the national condition seems neither
lifeless nor deathless. It’s like the barren but sensuous serenity of the
natural world in late autumn, before Thanksgiving, containing the promise of
rebirth and the potential for resurrection." - Anon

I woke up this morning, sad but lifted. Saddened by the events going on in Nigeria but lifted and comforted by the promise of a new Nigeria. A Nigeria that currently only exist in my dreams. But dreams are good. For out of dreams come the seeds of liberation and progress. The news out of Nigeria is constantly filled with "stuffs" that is engineered to make you angry, despodents and give up on her. I have been there, but today I chose to believe in her and my dream for her.

Who could have "thunk" as one of my malaproprism proned friends quibbed that the same week Ekiti state received good news about their electoral freedom, Amos Adamu will get nabbed for bribery and corruption? It even get better, Adamu's defense according to the BBC is that he is innocent as he is merely asking for the money so he could build FIFA standard facility in Nigeria. Apparently he forgot that he had received more than the sum of money he was demanding from the fake US officials from Nigeria's coffer to build the charade of a stadium at Abuja for the commonwealth games.

Any way, Adamu was not the focus of my optimism on Nigeria and neither the people's democratic party stalwarts in southwest, Nigeria who had gathered at Ogun State government house to discuss how they lost Ekiti. In what seems like a macabre news story straight out of PDP mad as hell handling of everything Nigeria, PDP officials whines to Governor Daniels about how the erstwhile governor of Ekiti state had reached out to President Jonathan to help influence the outcome of the judicial decision out of Ilorin appellate court. Can you believe a public official discussing this watonly and openly before a crowd of journalist! It is apparent that PDP officials had no shame left with them anymore. So what do they expected the president to have done, call the presiding judge and offer to fly him and the members free of charge to Dubai for shopping? Kai! Na wah o! Again the story got murkier, the ex-governor of Ekiti state was quoted by Daniel to have wondered why President Jonathan would congratulate the new governor few minutes after the announcement of the appellate court decision. Is he president of Nigeria or president of PDP?

Any way, we digress again, that is not the source of my optimism, my hope this morning lies in the fact that I firmly believe Nigeria could be fixed. I have been working on a book on Nigeria political culture and the impact on the efficiency of our public administration. As I strongly subscribed to Wildavsky's theory that the political institutions that people construct are shaped in conformity with their political culture.

Where we are now as a nation is where the United States of America was before the progressive era reforms between 1893 to 1920. Before then corruption, nepotism, "spoils" system was rampant in the United States during this era. But what the progressive reformers did was not just to appeal to the emotional basic instinct in man and blame everything on corruption as we are doing in Nigeria presently trying to fix things through politicized anti-corruption hearings. The progressive reformers fuse the arguments regarding "the immorality of governments with arguments regarding its potential effectiveness by emphasising the doctrine of efficiency" to quote Larry Luton's book of the similar title.

In 1894, Theodore Roosevelt told the First National Conference for Good City Government: "There are two gospels I always want to preach to reformers.... The first is the gospel of morality; the next is the gospel of efficiency." I challenged any of the readers to look around our public administration landscape and tell me if they could find three efficient public organization. And yet, when you look at some administrations widely celebrated in Nigeria for good performance, the thing that sets them apart is efficiency. Be it, General Murtala Mohammed regime, Lateef Kayode Jakande (as governor of Lagos state), Mohammed Marwa, Donald Duke, and lately Governor Fashola.

They all won because they focused on politics of garbage: clean streets, paved roads, orderliness, efficient service, it is only after they accomplished this that they simultaneously focused on the anti-corruption issue. In the last few years, we have had presidents whose sole focus of his administration is anti-corruption even whilst his appointees are inept in delivery of demoractic dividends. Today most urban residents in the United States take for granted that some garbage collection and disposal service will be available, they may actually forgot the rapacious wait in the chaos of Ojuelegba for an accident-waiting-to happen molue, but that has not always been the case. Jakande focused on the provisio of affordable housing and created an housing revolution in Lagos. Marwa focused on clearing the streets of debris during the Abacha regime widely known for its rapacious stealing of public money and yet Lagos state citizens adore him till date. Before him, Lagos residents wallowed in filth and garbage under the regime of Olagunsoye Oyinlola who could not find bitumen to tarred the road to the governor's office at Alausa!

Here is where it gets interesting, Oyinlola is from the southwest, Marwa is from Adamawa. Marwa focused on efficiency without care to ethnicity, and performed in the midst of the most corrupt government Africa had ever known. Oyinlola despite it's lack of performance was rewarded by Osun state PDP with the mandate to govern Osun state. This is the politics of garbage that I am talking about. You can look at it and get optimistic or you can look at the negatives and get depressed. The battle ahead of Nigeria will be fought in the arena of garbage: between those who are trying to clean it up and those who are profiting from the filth. There is a need to make a scientific argument for efficiency in the governance of Nigeria and no one is doing that now.

Furious Frank

Columnist as an Embarrassment: Can someone tell Abati to stick to “Comedies” or is it “Commentary” on Nigerian Politics only

2010-09-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, I stopped pointing out the many fabricated facts and outright falsehoods, passed off as political commentary by the Nigerian pundits. Most of these write ups are often laden with conjectures and suppositions, all in a bid to fit their parochial subjects, which sadly often turned out to be the latest Nigerian governmental officials who have refused to play ball with them. That was a while ago; the subject of this write up however writes for a newspaper popularly called “the flagship of Nigerian journalism.” This newspaper and her many avid readers expect that its journalist and columnist set the standards for others to follow. In actual fact, the Nigerian Guardian newspaper did a lot during the military years to set those standards, thanks to the efforts of Olatunji Dare, Aman Ogan et. al. It was therefore an embarrassment to read a piece by that paper opinion columnist: Reuben Abati titled “Terry Jones don’t burn the Quaran.”

First of all let me state that the issue he commented on should concerned Nigeria and Nigerian. Every opportunity I have had here in America to address this issue, I have had to remind Americans that when Terry Jones burn the Quaran, the primary concern should not just be about an envisaged attack on Americans soldiers but the Christian churches that will be burnt, the many Muslims and Christians that will be killed, burned and maimed by fanatical religious fanatics in northern Nigeria and other places.
What drew my umbrage with respect to Abati’s piece has to do with his lack of understanding of the issue he chose to comment on and the many factual inaccuracies inherent therein. Abati writes:

There have been rather curious attempts to argue that this is all about free
speech and human rights. New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg says for example that
the action may be wrongheaded but Jones and his supporters are protected by the
First Amendment. “He has a right to do it”, Bloomberg said. It is the same
freedom to do it that Imam Feisal Rauf, the leader of the group planning
the Cordoba Centre in New York is flaunting; in his own case, he wants to build
a mosque close to the site of the 9/11 incident at Park 51, and call it “Ground
Zero Mosque”.

To set the record straight, Mayor Bloomberg never said that Imam Feisal Rauf was “flaunting” the freedom to build the Cordoba center, Abati probably made that up. A little “goggle” by Abati would have revealed to him that Bloomberg actually supports building that “mosque”. Secondly, the coalition never intended to name it “Ground Zero Mosque”, it was not meant to be mosque in the first place. Again a little Google would have revealed that it was meant to be a cultural/community center operated by moderate Muslims where the many virtues of tolerance will be enhanced. Thirdly the cultural center is not any near the site of the 9/11 center than the many other businesses and pornographic center, some of which are closer to that hallowed ground. Finally, here in America, you don’t pick and choose when to abide with the first amendment. All you can do is appeal to the “better angel” of Terry Jones as President Obama did. It is commentaries like Abati that many gulags and dictators seized upon in Africa to sealed off news media offices or ban importation of newsprints. Abati should have known better.

Most importantly, comparing the Quaran burning to the fabled ground zero mosque, as Abati did in his piece smacks of ignorance and may I say “copy and paste” journalism which is very common with Nigerian columnist who lift news commentary from blogs and other foreign news media. Those who make this comparison in America are most often from religious rights political activist, who argued that the “two ideas are both constitutionally protected bad ideas.” The truth is they are completely unrelated and non-equivalent. Perhaps, the only similarities they share are that they are constitutionally protected! In fact, how can anyone even compare Muslims building a community center in their neighborhood on one hand, to a deliberate attempt to insult a religion that is dear to about 1.5 billion souls around the globe! There is absolutely no link whatsoever between the Park51 cultural and community center plan and the Quaran burning stunt by Terri Jones. I wonder what Abati is thinking when he wrote this piece. But there is more, he wrote:

Both Jones and Rauf are sick clerics; their proposals smack
of insensitivity, intolerance, and outright recklessness. This of course is
the dilemma of democracy and liberty. Democracy is said to be illiberal if it
places direct checks on the expression of rights, it is described as liberal
when it carries the banner of almost limitless rights. But no one should
have the right to endanger society or humankind.

Calling Imam Rauf a “sick cleric” is like calling Pope Benedict sick for planning to build a Catholic community center for tolerance and understanding near the site where Christians killed Muslims in a reprisal attack in Jos, recently. It is totally uncalled for and smack of insensitivity and ignorance on Abati’s part. And by the way, can someone tell Abati, that there is a distinct line between constitutionalism and democracy. Don’t throw around words you don’t understand. And every constitutional democracy has checks and balances. Your right to swing your arm stops at my nose, but that does not makes it “illiberal.” Words like liberal democracy is now well defined that you don’t expect journalist of Abati’s standard to compare it to limitless rights.

Here is a lesson Nigerians and particularly people like Reuben Abati can learn from Americans handling of the Terri Jones saga. Pastor Jones had a total of 30 members in his church, he expressed his intent to burn the Quaran to the press. The press did not censored him, the government did not send “Nigerian police force” to conduct an “extra judicial killing” on him, “Boko Haram style.” He received a phone call from the Secretary of Defense-equivalent of our defense minister in Nigeria- and appeals from Hillary Clinton-secretary of state, and President Obama not to carry out his stunt. The imam of a nearby mosque in Florida met with him and they jointly addressed a press conference! That is what you get when you operated under constitutional democracy. If you killed Terri Jones, like we did to the head of Boko Haram, “extra judicial style”, you simply make a martyr of him and help him get more followers, who will continue the mindless stunt. These and many others are the lessons Nigerians and Reuben Abati should learn from this incident and not a call excoriating democracy and liberalism. I hope Abati’s newspaper will give this piece the same coverage they gave to him every day, but I am not banking on that!
Francis Adewale
Tioluwanimi@yahoo.com

Between Theory and Practice: An Examination of Public Private Partnerships Implementations in Sub-Saharan Africa

2010-08-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

Competition, Risk Sharing and Transparency:

Public-private partnership advocates regard market-driven competition, shared risk, and transparency as essential prerequisite for successful PPP that achieve their intended purposes and protect the public from excessive risk (Schaeffer & Loveridge, 2002). An examination of the very nature of PPP as currently practiced in African will prove that these public protections often proved elusive in project implementations.

Market-Driven Competition: In theory, a substantial fraction of the benefits from private provision comes from marshalling the pro-efficiency forces of competition. The paramount importance of such competition to successful PPP in developed countries has long been understood and documented by Donahue (1989), Kettl (1993) and others. In Africa however, two major impediments to robust competition stands out: deregulation and project related barriers.

Most PPPs in sub-Saharan Africa often requires special waivers of competitive procurement laws. Advocates of PPP insist that government procurement and financing rules that allegedly impede government capacity to operate as efficiently as private sector should be waived for PPP (Williams, 2003). The consequence can be ironic indeed: Contracts hailed as models of market discipline are then awarded to well-connected companies on a sole source basis, unencumbered by market forces (Bloomfield, p. 401, 2006). This exact scenario is what happened in Nigeria in 2003, when the Obasanjo regime signed a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) Public-Private Partnership (PPP) contract with Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), for the construction of the second terminal at Murtala Mohammed Airport (MM2). The new airport terminal was opened in 2007, with a directive to all airlines to move their operational basis from the publicly operated First terminal to the second terminal in accordance with the PPP contract signed with Bi-Courtney (Usim, 2009). The exemption from competitive procurement rules paved the way for the private developer team to invent their own billing rates and rules with little or no regard to the user of services at the airport. It is interesting to note that when confronted with the monopolistic tendencies of concession contracts in Africa, advocates of PPP often echoes the sentiments expressed below by executives of Bi-Courtney:

“Bi-Courtney has always wondered why in construing ‘concession’ in Nigeria
public private partnership scheme, the word ‘exclusivity’ has always been
interpreted to mean private monopoly,” he said. “Monopoly must be distinguished
from exclusivity.”He argued that a concession contract is for a business
operated under a contract or license associated with a degree of exclusivity in
business within a certain geographical area. “This is to say that exclusivity is
a feature of any concession contract and not private monopoly. Exclusivity is
one of the safeguard to ensure returns for the concessionaire. This is more so
because concession contract do not endure in perpetuity,” he said (Nnodim,
online ¶ 13, 2009)

Of course, this is at best a distinction without forms or the difference between six and half a dozen; given the fact that “airlines who currently patronize Bi-Courtney’s MM2 are allegedly complaining of prohibitive charges which stem from the monopoly the BOT agreement confers on Bi-Courtney Aviation. The exclusivity clause in the BOT Agreement forbids even the Federal Government of Nigeria from improving or expanding the old terminal (MM1) at the Murtala Muhammed Airport. It also states that all scheduled domestic flights in and out of airports in Lagos State “shall during the Concession Period operate from MM2 and that no new domestic terminal shall be built in Lagos State” (Osa-Okunbor, 2010).

Additionally it is also instructive to point out that theoretically the envisaged competition inherent in PPPs often took place ex-ante, i.e. during the bidding stage, since the ultimate provider of any services will almost certainly become a monopolist. Consequently, if there are not enough competent bidders or bidding consortia to make the process competitive, there is less of a guarantee that Africans will get value for money (Bettignies & Ross). Others argued that there is still a social gain to the communities where the services are provided efficiently and competently. In his analysis of two water supply PPPs in Point Noire and Congo-Brazzaville, Tati, submits that even though the foreign company was widely touted as superior in skills and manpower with an imposing head office in Italy, the local private provider actually outperformed the foreign company and outlasted them in delivery of portable water (Tati, 2005).

With regards to project-related barriers to competition, one needs to note that some public-private partnerships are undertaken under conditions that render meaningful competition difficult or impossible to achieve. For instance, when the conditions of the project is such that requires provision of substantial up-front financing as well as construction services, the pool of eligible contractors can be significantly reduced; as such only the largest companies with access to massive private capital usually apply. The high cost of developing proposals for long-term complex contracts can also be a deterrent. Under these circumstances, a competitive proposal process may not generate meaningful competition. For instance, the Nigerian Natural Gas Escravos contracts required bidders to invest substantial funds in investments in the local communities and investigating the existing problems. The only bidder at the time is Chevron, an incumbent multinational corporation who has long standing contractual relationship with Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation; they also happened to be the corporation that created the problem they were asked to clean up before making a new bid!

Risk Sharing and Risk Shifting: PPP are often described as innovative and collaborative undertakings in which the public and private sectors share the risks, responsibilities, and rewards (Savas 2000). Performance contracts that commit the private partner to specific results are held to be the key to successful risk allocation in public-private partnership contracts.

However, implementing and enforcing effective performance guarantees can be problematic for unstable African governments and as such those benefits are not always capture (Forrer, Kee, & Zhang, 2002, 47). Typically, an ideal PPP in Africa, often involve very fat profits, no risk, government subsidies and monopoly control (Farlam). The well known “currency and political risk” often occasioned by change of policies due to unstable government are often insured by World Bank, IFC, IMF and other multilateral institutions or by the Western countries Export/Import banks. Demand risks are also covered by subsidies by African governments, even when they know going in that the majority of the people that will be serviced might not be able to afford the cost that will be charged by the private managers. In short, virtually all the attendant risk were often passed on to African tax payers and users, whether in user fees or in country’s debt repayment.

Even though countries like South Africa has PPP manual, setting out the steps for risk-adjusted model, with detailed risk identification, impact, mitigation, matrix and test affordability, most PPP contracts risk are still heavily weighted against African government, due largely to the unequal financial positions of the parties. The contract warranty terms have often been found to be weaker than those typically found in conventional construction contract in western countries (Bloomfield, 2006). This is a problem that has more to do with each party’s financial capability, and expertise.

Transparency: As stakeholders, African citizens deserve accurate information regarding the contractual obligation incurred on their behalf. In theory, long term public-private partnerships concession contracts promote accountability through transparent procurement procedures and written contracts to which the public has full access (Domberger, et.al).
However, some have argued that the information citizens receive regarding the budgetary implications of major PPP projects is often inadequate, inaccurate, or misleading (Altshuler & Luberoff, 2003, 32-35). Most of the concession agreements are often signed sealed and delivered in foreign financial capital like New York, London and Tokyo, far away from African capitals with little or no scrutiny by African press. For instance, there is an ongoing controversy in Nigeria on the true status of agreement signed between Bi-Courtney and the Nigerian government to manage the airport terminal. Bi-Courtney insists that it has 36 years to run the airport terminal while the Nigerian government claims, it has 12 years to manage the terminal (Osa-Okunbor, 2010).This will not have happened if the agreement is subjected to public scrutiny as it is done in most western nations before the commencement of the contract. There are no public disclosure legislations in most African countries, and even where there are, routine contracts are tagged “top secrets” and thus rendered unreachable to journalist and activist who seeks to unravel their contents.
What is more, most of the terms of the long term contracts and concession arrangements are not even made enforceable in African courts; they are mostly subjected to arbitration and mediation abroad. It took members of the Ogoni communities in Nigeria, more than 23 years before they could obtain redress in US Federal Court against Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company for the environmental degradation and pollution of Ogoni fishing villages while executing a PPP contract in Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta (Ogunbayo, ¶ 2, 2009).

Most African government rule over their people with little or no regards to legitimacy, and accountability. Elections and the polls therefore count for nothing. Very often, African government enter into PPP arrangement without having to obtain voter approval, comply with statutory debt limitations or report PPP lease obligation as debt (Wallison, 1996).
Thus even though the ability to bypass the public appropriation process through innovative financing methods is often regarded as major advantage of PPP, it should be noted that avoiding restrictions on debt is not the same as avoiding debt (Bloomfield) . As Donahue argued public ignorance resulting from deliberate deception on the part of public officials and others is “engineered ignorance” (1989, p. 32). In this case, there is no doubt that there are powerful incentives and considerable opportunities for politicians, private developers, and public servants to mislead Africans.

A particularly egregious case of abuse of PPP is typified in the Kenya road corruption case earlier referenced. There the government in power secretly used PPP as a vehicle for obtaining cash loans in form of concession fees paid directly to the politician account at the onset of the contract. The private contractor then adds these as user fees spread over the life of the contract (Farlam).
Historically, corruption has been an enormous problem affecting public procurement in Africa. PPP deals are often susceptible to corruption because the deals are far more complex and thus choice of companies cannot be reduced to the single variable of price, and as such it offers greater latitude for manipulations by foreign or local firms or government officials that are hard for the public and anti-corruption systems to spot. For instance twelve multinational companies (MNCs) were found to have bribed the former head of Lesotho Highlands Water Project and, according to the Lesotho prosecuting authorities, these MNCs were the prime movers in initiating the bribes. One of these companies, Acres international, was debarred by the World Bank from its contracts for three years in July 2004 (Farlam).

Harris (2003), argues that the private sector generally has more incentive to minimize costs and reduce leakages from corruption than the public sector ( p.33). But the possibility of lucrative companies taken over by cronies or relatives of those in government is highlighted by the incident in Tanzania where a power purchasing agreement (PPA) signed between the government and an independent power producer in 1995 was described as “public-private partnership at its worst”(Farlam, p.39).

Long Term Savings Estimate: Among the alleged benefits of PPP, at least in the West, is the promise of significant cost savings to the public. In an era of limited public resources and expanding public needs, citizens are rightly supportive of governmental initiatives aimed at delivering public services more cost effectively (Collin, 1998). The credibility of cost saving estimates depends, of course, on the data, methodology and assumptions used to calculate savings (Bloomfield, 2006, p.405). Lacking access to these details, African citizens must rely on their government willingness and ability to develop accurate and reliable financial forecasts before committing public resources to long-term contracts. In the absence of hard evidence, Africans are asked to stay cheerful and trust the good intentions of others (Blowfield, 2004).

When the cost saving estimates disseminated to the public are based on flawed calculations, unrealistic assumptions or outright falsehood as in the following examples transparency is diminished. In South Africa for example, the requirement for empowerment of black entrepreneurs have been affected by a system called “fronting,” where companies appoint nominal black directors or shareholders to win contracts but are in fact managed, and owned by foreign firms (Farlam, p.48). Similar reports abound in Tanzania where a 10 year lease agreement at the container terminal at Daresalaam port requiring 50% reduction of expatriate was circumvented by creative accounting “gymnastics” (Farlam, p.39). The extent of the disillusionment with PPPs implementation in water, sanitation and electricity in sub-Saharan Africa are such that an associate at an international legal firm described PPPs as a failure in Africa (Ogunbiyi, 2004).

It may be that these cases are the exceptions to the rule. It is to be hoped that the cost saving claims for PPP are based on reasonable, realistic calculations and assumptions. But these troubling examples underscore the public’s vulnerability to erroneous, biased cost-savings claims that appear to be aimed at selling PPP to African governments rather than informing the public of the full financial implications of long term contracts and obligations. The complex and sophisticated financial and contractual arrangement offered by PPP has been turned essentially into a veritable avenue for corrupt government official to siphon money from the national coffer using this public service project as an unlimited credit card to line their pocket.
TO BE CONT'D

Between Rhetoric and Realities of PPPs in sub-Saharan Africa Countries

2010-08-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Overview
Many of the governments in developing countries are looking to public-private partnerships (PPP) to radically improve infrastructure networks and service delivery to their people. They hope that the model where the state shares risk and responsibility with private firms but ultimately retains control of assets will not only improve services but also reduce unemployment, higher prices and corruption (Farlam, 2005). This paper will show that in theory, PPPs may have the potential to solve sub-Saharan Africa’s infrastructural problems but in practice, PPPs suffer many of the same ills that afflict privatization and public tendering before it (Figure 1).

The paper will draw on plethora of literature on PPPs to show that theoretically, these innovative contracts may offer substantial public benefits, including improved service quality, risk sharing with the private sector, and cost savings (Grimsey & Lewis 2004). The paper will also draw on specific illustrative case studies dealing with ongoing or abandoned PPP contract to show that PPP is not a magic formula that will fix a country’s problem and may actually create more problems due to its complexities (Bull & McNeill, 2007). Attempt will be made to explore some peculiarly African, “practical impediments” to achieving the market-driven, risk sharing and transparent competition envisaged by disciples of PPP (Farlam).

This review of PPP will also suggest that African government must fundamentally improve their systems for dealing with the private sector to realize the efficiency and effectiveness gains that these partnerships promise. The paper will concludes with an examination of the panacea that may bring the benefits of PPP to sub-Saharan Africa through investment in specialized expertise, effective contract management, and strong governance structures. Above all, it will recommend that a sustainable infrastructural and service delivery mechanism must necessarily include a mixed method that combines the benefits of market to the rising middle class in Africa, with the benefits of public delivery to the rural poor (Warner & Hefetz, 2008). The commitments of all stakeholders to the actualizations of any of these arrangements cannot therefore be overemphasized.

Introduction:

The term public-private partnership is used in slightly different ways with the result that a concise definition to which all will agree is elusive (Bettignies & Ross, 2004). Wettenhall argues that “there is often little precision in how ‘partnership’ is used, and belief that what it refers to is ‘a good thing’ seems much more a matter of faith than of science” (2003, p.80).
South Africa has the greatest cumulative experience of public-private partnership in sub-Saharan Africa, with over 50 such partnerships in development or implementation since 1994 (Farlam, 2005). I will therefore seek to adopt the definition proffers by the South African National Treasury:

a contract between a public sector institution and a private party, in which the
private party assumes substantial financial, technical and operational risk in
the design, financing, building and operation of a project (PPP manual, 2004,
pp.4-5).

It is imperative to point out however, that PPP is not a creation of Africans or that of the sub-Saharan Africa’s government; in fact the public-private partnership concept draws its main momentum from the entrepreneurial government movement in the West, with its emphasis on capturing the benefits of private sector techniques such as market-driven competition and performance contracting in the 1980s (Yergin & Stanislaw, 1998).

The 1990s saw a revolution as governments in developing countries urged on by multilateral institutions, like World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) adopted the new paradigm of private provision of infrastructure services. The boom grew rapidly, reaching a peak in 1997 (Harris, 2003). By 2001 however, annual investment flows began to decline in the wake of the East Asian financial crisis (Figure 4). The optimism of the mid-1990s as highlighted in the documentary movie “Commanding Heights” has now been replaced by a widespread pessimism (Figure 2). Annual investment flows to private infrastructure projects in developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa are down (Figure 4). Projects have been renegotiated and some have been re-nationalized or cancelled. Investor interest in private infrastructure projects in developing countries is also subdued, while there are signs of popular discontent (Harris, 2003).

Despite this decline, anyone reading contemporary theorist of PPP will think it is a magic wand that can fix all infrastructure and service delivery problems of Sub-Saharan Africa. The primary reason for this is that most of the literatures on PPP are generated by advocacy groups, think tanks, and private consultants who has successfully reinforced the message of the long term benefits of PPP by an avalanche of favorable publicity, enhanced by the megaphone of such respected financial and multilateral institutions such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations. The impact of such pseudo intellectual blitzkrieg on the potential benefits of PPP are so pervasive, that one writer described it as something that “can make theorist swoon” (Klitgaard & Treverton, 2003, p.16).

In practice, however, the challenges and complexities posed by PPP arrangements have “brought many African governments to its knees in debt”, with attendant streets protest, riots and outright overthrow of regimes found sympathetic to it (Harris, p.7, 2003). As we will show shortly, many PPP projects that were reported and promoted as low-risk, cost saving initiatives has saddled many African countries with high-risk, costly obligations for decades to come (Tati, 2005). We will examine several independents studies with similar findings on plethora of projects all over sub-Saharan African continent.

It is important to emphasize that some successful cases have been reported as well. For instance, in 1996, the government of South Africa (SA) and Mozambique (MZ) signed a 30 year concession for a private consortium, Trans African Concessions (TRAC) to build and operate toll road from Witbank, SA to Maputo, MZ. The road has been judged by many as huge success, and now touted all over Africa to show the viability of PPP where users are willing and able to pay. It has also reduced overloading on heavy vehicles and boost growth of tourism in MZ.

Critics however argued that high transportation costs along the toll road mean that “small-scale traders and informal businesses, and hawkers lose out to large-scale and organized traders and businesses” (Soderbaum, 2004). Others argued that for every single successful PPP project, there exist a litany of other abandoned projects by multinational corporations and financiers in Africa (Tati). For instance following, the success of the SA-MZ experiment, the Kenyan government attempt to build a similar toll road at its northern corridor is now moribund following accusations of “attempted corruption” (Farlam, 2005, pp. 11-12).

In general, however, the dearth of comprehensive, reliable data from African government on the performance of PPP projects requires that researchers had to rely largely on anecdotal cases reported by industry groups and other advocacy organizations (Moore, 2000, p. 25). The cases that will be discussed in this paper are therefore offered as a reality check on the largely uncritical publicity that PPP have garnered. I also hope to draw on my extensive knowledge as a public infrastructure lawyer in Africa, prior to my emigration to the United States.
Some argued that the main benefits of public-private sector partnering are the flexibility to accommodate change when operating in an uncertain environment, improve communication, transparency and better dispute resolution (Domberger, Farago, & Fernandez, 1997). Other posits that partnerships by its very definition require a fiduciary relationship with a mutual goal and that, the private party in PPP goal is set up to make maximum profit for its share holders (Grimsey & Lewis 2004). For most government in Africa, PPP are convenient arrangement to avoid public sector labor unions or to deflect blame on non delivery of democratic dividends (Bettignies & Ross).

Drawing on illustrative cases, this paper will now proceed to explore some of the practical impediments to putting theory of PPP into practice in sub-Saharan Africa and offer observations aimed at strengthening African government management and governance in this high-risk area of government contracting.
TO BE CONT'D

Nigeria Pathetic Exist from the World Cup

2010-06-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

I am still fuming, and I hope no one tries to explain this early exit away on the ground of lack of money. Nigeria spend more money on world cup preparation than Ghana. We paid twice for hotel for crying out loud and one of the hotel we did not even get to spend one night in it.

The disgraceful performance of the present crop of players wearing Nigeria national colors is only matched in mediocrity by the maladministration of Nigeria football federation, which unfortunately since the demise of Ikhazobo continued to redefined "ineptedness".

Meanwhile, Ghana's Black Stars grit and determination continues to surprise all other African countries. Even though we had one of the easiest group pairings at this world cup Nigeria pathetic displays often defied any abysmal low standards we had set for ourselves since the glorious days of Super Eagles of Africa in circa 1994-98.

We are now at a point in our soccer life as a nation where we need to reevaluate our sports administrations. Given the immense investments we have put in sports in the last 2 decades, what with the hosting of age group competition: U 17, U 21, Chogm, All Africa games, Nations cup et al. Questions need to be asked if we are truly cheating ourselves when we used grown ups for age group competitions. We do not currently have a world class player in the current world cup, compare to the 1990s when you could count at least 7 Nigerian players with world class qualities.

The sadness of Nigeria early exit was further compounded for me by the sad exit of Team USA, my adopted country. I had pinned so much hope on this US team given their impressive display at the Confederation cup. The good thing about the team though is that US soccer is growing in leaps and bounds and sky is the limit for soccer in the US. I have confident in the next crop of players that will eventually take over from the likes of Landon Donovan and others.

I hope lessons of this world cup will be learnt by all.

A Review of National Performance Review: From Red Tape to Result Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less

2010-05-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

On September 7, 1993, with officials and media present on the White House lawn, President Clinton and Vice President Gore stood against a backdrop of forklift trucks loaded with volumes of federal rules, procurement rules, and personnel rules to speak of a vision of government, cleared of bureaucracy and freed of red tape and senseless rules, as follows “We intend to redesign, to reinvent, to reinvigorate the entire national government” (Arnold p. 407, 1995). Seventeen years after that momentous occasion, it is sad to note that the rhetoric of reform and political reality of the National Performance Review (NPR) is like all the other promised reforms before it, an attempt to mask the complexities of the administrative state and separation of power doctrine in populist accent without any gain to the public.

The article detailed four key principles that will tackle the “government problem”: (1) Cutting red tape, (2) Putting customers first, (3) Empowering employees to get results, (4) Cutting back to Basics: Producing better government for less. One common thread in all this is that they are all recycled ideas from private sector. First of all, as Luton (2007) argued it is difficult to measure red tape with any “objective reality” (p.533). What is more, citizens are not customers, and cutting to basics meant a reality check that will admit that employees did not make the policies that is preventing government from producing better government for less.

It was Dwight Waldo (1981) who states that in the United States, “nearly all contemporary public problems can be framed in terms of relating the political to the administrative” (p.73). Despite repeated attacks on its assumptions, the politics-administration dichotomy is alive and kicking in modern public administration. It has even been argued that cotemporary public administration theory as a prescription for administrative system is torn by separation of powers and partisan politics (Arnold 1995). It is from this paradigm one is best situated to view the Clinton/Gore NPR reforms of the administrative state.

In the rhetoric before and after NPR, the regime perceived government as provider of services whose performance can be improved through techniques and concepts borrowed from the recent history of corporate restructuring and reinvention. As novel as this may sound to the regime, this rhetoric resembles the Progressives apolitical approach to municipal services (Carroll 1995). NPR primary focus, which is to “make our government work for the people, learn to do more with less, and treat tax payers like customers” (Shafritz, p.552, 2007) is eerily similar to progressive demand to remove political considerations and other extraneous factors from service provision.

NPR spoke to and validated a widespread, public distaste for big government and the regime took advantage of this to cut government expense and jobs, whilst creating revenue that pays for his new initiatives. Sadly however, the promise of projected savings was more appearance than reality as the Congressional Budget Office reported that NPR had systematically inflated the savings projections attached to its recommendations (Arnold, p.415, 1995). Thus at the end of Clinton’s tenure the federal government ended up adding more layers of “red tape” than it met when it assumed office.

Historically, beginning from 1905, governmental and administrative reforms had always been premised on scientific and technical necessity, which enabled the justification of expanding presidential power. The progressives expanded governmental activity, and administrative capacity, foresaw a positive, administrative state (Arnold, 1995). This perception of reforms changed, beginning with President Carter, Reagan, and Clinton who all pose reorganization as “a weapon against government” (Arnold, p.412). The shifts from technical efforts to improve administration, to frontal public assaults on the “bureaucracy problem” (p.304) makes NPR produces winners and losers.

The Clinton administration however overestimated its ability to implement some of the recommendations of NPR, for instance, of the 117 "action" items in the main body of the report, at least 60 require explicit action by Congress. Many others, if implemented without close consultation with Congress, might provoke congressional efforts to overcome them. This has led many scholars to conclude that NPR is merely an attempt to consolidate presidential powers at the expense of the separation of powers enshrined in the constitution. It “advances a strong if not radical Hamiltonian approach to administration” (Carroll, p. 307). Some of the red tape the NPR would eliminate defines the extent and jurisdiction of administrative power and procedures.

In conclusion, one could argue that to the extent that NPR seeks to apply private sector reorganization to public governance, it ignores the reality expressed in The Federalist Papers, the Constitution, and American history. The primary purpose of the federal government is to establish and maintain a legitimate framework for reconciling differences among citizens and groups in pursuit of national values to create a more perfect union and not to sell products and services to customers. The result of the NPR exercise is a narrow and distorted view of government and public administration.

Finding a Better Carrot for Public Employee Optimal Performance

2010-04-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

Finding a Better Carrot for Public Employee Optimal Performance: Understanding Public Service Motivation, Perception and Emotional Intelligence

Paul Tribly, the main character of James Hynes' novel, Kings of Infinite Space, works in a fictional bureaucracy called, Texas Department of General Service. He soon came to the realization that there are zombies lurking around his office. He also found the corpse of a homeless man next to his cubicle who keeps saying “Are we not men?” (Crabtree, 2004). For many public employees, this feeling might be familiar. Employees are motivated to work in public service for many reasons. Motivation is defined as “the drive or energy that compels people to act with energy and persistence toward some goal” (Berman, Bowman, West & Van Wart, p. 195, 2010). The story of Paul Tribly and its queer public service motivation comes to readily come to ming this week as I read the following informed journal which I tried to summarize below:

A. The Impact of Public Service Motivation on Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intentions

Leonard Bright (2007) in his article titled “Does Public Service Motivation really make a difference on the Job satisfaction and Turnover Intentions of Public Employees” seeks to answer the question of the degree of impact of public service motivation (PSM) on job satisfaction and turnover intentions of public employees. He defined PSM as “altruistic intentions that motivate individuals to serve the public interest” (p.151). The subjects of his study are two hundred and five (205) public employees selected from public health care agency located in the states of Indiana, Kentucky, and Oregon. The study finds that PSM is significantly and positively related to Person-Organization (P-O) fit; and P-O fit was found to be significantly related to job satisfaction. P-O fit was also found to be related to turnover intentions of the respondents. Most importantly however, when P-O fit was taken into account, public service motivation had no significant relationship to job satisfaction, and turnover intentions.

What I took out of this study, is that PSM, might be a good recruitment tool, but may not be the best retention tool for human resource managers, when P-O fit is an issue. It is imperative that managers need to constantly ensure that employees are in the right job, the fact that an employee expresses a desire for public service is not a reason to put him/her in a job he is ill-suited for. One needs to note however that the subjects of the study are mostly public health care employees, a group well known for high rate of burnouts and turnover due to the nature of their task (Branin & Griemel, 1997).

B. Between Motivation, Worker Attitudes and the Perception of Effective Public Service

The second article I read this week on the similar topic is by the dynamic duo of Boardman & Sundquist (2008). They derived their data from the National Administrative Studies Project II, which surveyed managers in information management at state-level health and human service agencies. The authors were motivated for this study by the notion that perceived public service efficacy (PPSE) and its conceptual precursors could motivate public servants, based on the assumptions that workers care about providing useful public services and as such that care ultimately affect the levels of their motivation-related variables.
The study finds that PPSE is related to organizational commitment and job satisfaction, and negatively related to role ambiguity. They found that its impact is substantial, even edging out those of well-established variables-organizational commitment, and role ambiguity in their basic model. They however, admitted a fundamental flaw common with all survey research: the risk of “Common source bias” (p. 531). They hoped that future research will use multiple source data sources rather than a single survey.

C. Who are the Public Employees with High Levels of PSM?

This is the question Leonard Bright (2005) again seeks to answer in his article titled “Public Employees with High Levels of Public Service Motivation: Who are they, where are they, and what do they want?” The article builds on theoretical framework of PSM proposed more than a decade earlier by Perry and Wise (1990). The article goal was to describe public employees with high levels of PSM in terms of their personal characteristics, management level and monetary preferences. The data for the research was obtained by job survey mailed to randomly selected public employees of a large county government in the State of Oregon.

The results of the research revealed that employees with high levels of PSM were significantly more likely to be female, managers, and likely to have greater levels of education than were public employees with lower levels of PSM; but the author admitted that the study may have undersampled men. The latter may explain the obvious disparity with the author’s finding in 2007 referenced above. I agreed with the author’s view that public service managers need to identify workers who are interested in tangible rewards and those who are motivated by altruistic PSM related motives.

D. Impact of Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Politics on Public Employees

Vigoda-Gadot & Meisler (2010), in their article titled “Emotions in Management and the Management of Emotions: The impact of emotional intelligence and organizational politics on public sector employees” used data obtained from two municipalities in Israel to argue that emotional intelligence (EI) has a moderating role in the relationship between organizational politics (OP), and emotional commitment (EC). One of the most salient findings of this study was the direct relationship established between EI, and job satisfaction and the opportunity it gives to personnel managers as a tool for performance indicator. The result however finds negative relationship between EI, and burnout, exit intentions, and negligent behaviors.

Again, it is imperative that generalizing this study without any regard to context may be an overreach; whilst EI may be a relevant consideration in job performance and efficiency of law enforcement and other security agencies workers (Turner, 2009) it may not make any difference for example, to an information analyst with the City of Spokane.

Conclusion

I found all the above reading informative and enlightening. They gave me an opportunity for introspection as a public servant. I have had to ask myself all week, if I am truly motivated by altruistic motives in my work as public defender. The joy and satisfaction I found in my work are often when a ninety year old lady accost me at a gas station, thanking me for saving her grandson from a life of drug after I talked to him in court.

But very often, I look at my job, like Paul Tribly, haunted by the ghost of those I could have helped and make a difference in their lives as public servant. At the same time, there have been occasions when I do wish that I am in private practice making money to secure my family’s future. The lesson I found here for human resource managers in public service is to be a little more cautious with monetary incentives and other tangible rewards, if we manage solely by stick and carrot, we will only get a part of the energy and talent that people have to offer. The fact that an employee has a high PSM is not a reason to assign him just any task or job he is ill suited to do.

God Help Nigeria? Running a Country on Prayers, Club Rules, Bow and Go without any Accountability

2010-03-31T10:49:00.000-07:00

“You have our prayers; we also hope that when you get there as you represent us, you represent us well. There are traditions that we follow, and if you belong to this club, you must also obey the rules and regulations of this club. You can take a bow and go.”
–Senate President David Mark

I was stunned when I read the above quote made by Nigeria senate president David Mark during the ministerial screening of Senator Sanusi Daggash. Much of what we have in Nigeria as governance is often a smokescreen for “old boys club.” There is no transparency in the governance of the country. Decisions are made perfunctorily; administrators and politicians are often reactive instead of proactive. Little or no attempt is made to engage in forward-looking, rational decision making. Accountability counts for nothing, it is all about membership in an exclusive governing class called PDP!

Public policies in Nigeria are not grounded in sound decision making. Someone once said that public policy is a type of decision, a decision not about what is, but about what ought to be and what ought to be done to get us there. When analytical thought process are not involved in public policy decision making, the result is the current “mess” the whole country has found itself. Lewis Irwin defined public policy analysis as “the systematic consideration and selection of logical alternatives in light of carefully applied evaluative criteria.”

In Nigeria, the acting president nominated ministers to serve in the federal cabinet, one of whom had accused the National Assembly of financial mismanagement, specifically he alleged that some senators “inflated budgets for personal gains.” Before the hearing the senators had threatened to grill Senator Daggash. He in turn simply deflated their over bloated ego by throwing down an olive branch, saying he was misled in making such accusations. He then appealed to the senators’ sense of camaraderie. Following which they all kissed up and make up, all is forgiven, all is well. Nothing was said about the initial allegations other than the claim that he was misled. No attempt was made to get to the root of the allegation. And this is happening in a government avowed to root out corruption and mismanagement.

Larry Luton defined policy analysis as “an attempt to bring into policy making, good reasons, better information, thoughtful consideration, conscientious framing of the problem, informative/persuasive evidence, plausible consequences.” No one forced this regime and their political party, Peoples Democratic Party, to make anti-corruption and energy generation, the fundamental plank of their party platform and public policy. But having adopted that platform, the citizens of Nigeria at least do deserve that they put serious thought to tackling the hydra headed problem of corruption and energy generation in Nigeria.

The acting president also re-nominated Architect Nuhu Somo Way, former Minister of State for Power. The Yar’Adua regime abysmally failed to meet the 6,000 MW set by the government. You would expect the senate to take the re-nominated minister to task for this monumental failure, here is what the minister said at the screening, “I met a program of 6000 megawatts project and we were assigned to pursue this program to ensure that it is executed. By the grace of God, we were able to improve the power situation in the country to a level which is not commensurable to the mandate.” This is an admission of failure, but what did the senate do, they reward the minister with another mandate. The question is to go do what?

Here is the minister excuse for failure “We were faced with a challenge of what we could not control, that is the source of fuel and this source of fuel is gas. I am not trying to put a blame to anybody, I am just trying to say that we did rehabilitate our plants and got up to 5200 available generation capacity as at the end of December, last year. But we had stranded facility of 1500 megawatts due to inadequacy of gas. This inadequacy of gas cannot be blamed on a single source. We know the challenges we went through, they are challenges of security, vandalism, challenges of inadequate funding contributed to some of the issues that militated against our achievement of 6000 megawatts.”

My beef with the minister’s explanation is this, “how in the world can you claim with a bold face that you did not know that you will face the challenges of security, vandalism and funding when you rolled out the energy policy?” Where is the requisite policy analysis expected from such an exalted office of the minister of federal republic of Nigeria? We are not talking of “force majeur” or an act of God for crying out loud! Before the announcement of the policy, everyone in Nigeria knew about the problem of vandalism, inadequacy of gas and security except the minister!
This to me is the real problem with Nigeria, the problem of values-based directionality! Ideas are bandied around, public policy are announced with fanfare, with no one putting any thought to a serious analysis of the public policy just announced. Our journalists are often “participe criminis” in this enterprise. No one called out anyone? As long as palms are greased, things go on. Like the National Assembly, it is all bow and go!

The most disgusting part of the charade is watching this government officials put everything down to prayer. Sometimes I feel like screaming at my television, pray for what? God gave you brain and intelligence for a reason. God had already performed his part by blessing Nigeria with unlimited resources in minerals and some of the best brains out of Africa! Just put to use what you have! Analyse your policy and look at all alternatives, think before you roll out the next drum and for crying out loud, sack ministers who failed and stop rewarding them with new appointment!

Understanding Focus Group Emotional Roller Coaster

2010-03-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

On July 20, 2009, John Berry, Director of the Federal Office of Personnel Management decried the way government workers have been "denigrated and disparaged" in recent decades, and was delighted that President Obama understands the value of service and will not be throwing around 'bureaucrat' as a slur towards our workers." (Washingtonpost.com, July, 2009 ¶1).

Few days after his laudatory statement, Mr. Obama was quoted as follows: “If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need." In an instant retort, Mr. Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, deplore the use of the word bureaucrats for the federal workforce, because it is derogatory. He cited a 2004 study, which found that the term “federal government workers” receives a favorable response from 71 percent of those surveyed, but the term “federal government bureaucrats” receives only 20 percent -- a drop of 51 percent with one word (Washingtonpost.com, August, 2009).

This is the news story that came to mind as I finished the required reading for this week. In the first study, Garrett, Thuber, Fritschler & Rosenbloom (2006), explores how senior federal managers like John Berry above, perceive campaign bureaucracy bashing using focus group data conducted by them. They found that senior government managers “do internalize negative messages about themselves and their agencies” and that this environment hampers recruitment, retention, training and important working relationships with political appointees that may end up affecting effective program management and policy implementation (p.237).
They used qualitative research methodology to explore the impact of bureaucracy bashing on relationship between senior managers and political appointees. The flexibility of focus group methodology enables them to ask open-ended questions (Creswell, 2009); compare to quantitative methods such as surveys and questionnaires which would have restrict them to asking participants identical close-ended questions. However, qualitative methodology is only as useful and as strong as its link to the underlying research questions and the rigor with which it is applied (p.201). As we found in the news story cited earlier, focus group research is a poor choice for predicting future action in settings yet to emerge since focus group discussants will articulate their views in terms of their own present experiences, e.g John Berry view of Obama. Participants are also often emotional in answering open-ended qualitative focus group questions and thus bring their value judgment to bear on the questions.

In the second reading, Robin Jarrett (1994) used a focus group, qualitative research to corroborate existing ethnographic studies of the impact of structural and cultural dynamic among never married African-American women. She underscores the importance of qualitative and ethnographic data, over quantitative census and survey data, for understanding family processes and dynamics (p.45). She suggested 3 directions for future research on the same topic and concluded that focus group data not only expand the structural explanation of poverty, but also highlight the humanity of the people who are too starkly described by statistical profiles and policy regulations (p.46). This writer tends to agree with this conclusion given my on personal experience.

In early 2001, a national poll conducted by National Public Radio (NPR), the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University's Kennedy School asked nearly 2,000 Americans 18 or older, "Which is the bigger cause of poverty today: that people are not doing enough to help themselves out of poverty, or that circumstances beyond their control cause them to be poor?" Respondents were roughly equally divided between "people not doing enough" (48 percent) and "circumstances" (45 percent). About 50 percent of the more affluent people polled believed that the poor were not doing enough to help themselves, but so did about 39 percent of the poor. The poor were more likely to blame "circumstances" than themselves for their financial hardship (NPR.org, 2001). The Study by NPR is a quantitative study with generic close-ended questions; one could only wish that they had asked the poor themselves open-ended questions like Jarret did in her study. They would have found answers like that of Lois: “I got three kids and not married, that don’t mean I’m running the streets all the time. I’m at home helping my children” (Jarrett, 1994, p.44)

The advantages of qualitative focus group research should not however close our eyes to its obvious limitations. Focus groups are generally a poor choice when quantitative information is desired. The small size of focus groups makes any estimates of quantitative proportions unreliable, even if the members of the focus group are representative of the target population (Neuman, 2007). By the same token, focus group research is a poor choice for multivariate research, where one again needs the stability of large random samples to disaggregate the effects of explanatory variables through statistical techniques (Lichter & Crowley, 2002).

In conclusion, it is evident that the primary reason mixed methodological research approach is gaining wide acceptance in recent years (Creswell, 2009 p.203) is because of the strengths and limitations of both quantitative and qualitative research approaches.

Necessity and Excesses of Administrative Action, Evidentiary Adjudication and Executive Control of Bureaucracy in Constitutional Democracy

2010-01-28T16:42:00.000-08:00

According to the New York Times, what may be the most controversial fraction of a second in television history, the momentary baring of the singer Janet Jackson’s breast during the halftime show of the 2004 Super Bowl, is heading back once again to the Third Circuit Court of Appeal (Stout, 2009, ¶ 1). The Supreme Court set aside an earlier ruling by the Third Circuit that had overturned a $550,000 fine imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on CBS for the “wardrobe malfunction,” as the fateful moment has been described.
The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Court of Appeal to answer one solitary question: “that while the FCC may not have violated administrative procedures in justifying its actions, are the FCC's indecency rules so vague and enforced in such a haphazard manner that they chill free speech or are otherwise unconstitutional?” (Oxenford, 2009, ¶ 1).

It is against this backdrop that I found the required reading not only informative but exploratory as well. The incessant difficulty in keeping the balance between “underregulation and overregulation” is often the bane of administrative decision making as well as its challenge and vibrancy. (Rosenbloom, 2003, p. 9)

The explosive growth of the United States federal government and its agencies after the Second World War led to what many scholars often described as the “Administrative State” (Rosenbloom, 2003, p. 11) or “Administrative Presidency” (Cann, 2006, p. 36). Administrative Law grew out of the attempt by the legislature, executive, and the judiciary branches to prevent the modern administrative state from trampling upon citizens right.
It is instructive to note however that bureaucracies are themselves a creation of necessity. It is impossible in modern society for the few elected officials to perform all the roles of government. Even if we elect as many of them as we can, elected officials may not have the technical “know-how” required to administer these agencies. As Cann (2006) pointed out all modern presidents often complain that their worst problem was not the Soviets, not the oppposition party, but rather, the very bureacracy meant to help them govern. (Cann, 2006, p. 23)

Even though presidents are most often powerless in establishing most agencies of government, they often found an indirect way to control the activities of these agencies. The executive branch of government exerts numerous controls over both nominally “independent” administrative agencies, and those squarely within the executive. These controls run the gamut from the power of appointment, reorganization, termination, to supervision of an agency’s rule making authority as well as use of Attorney General Opinion rendered in specific instances. (Fox, 1992, p. 45).

It has been argued that presidential power is untramelled with regards to foreign affairs. (Cann, 2006, p. 25). Presidencies also exercise controls over bureaucracy through the concept of “impoundment” (Cann, 2006, p.26); “executive privilege”, and when congress expressly delegated power to the presidency to reorganize agencies. (Cann, 2006, p.26)
Another tool of presidential control of agencies is staff removal. Cann (2006) found that the Constitution is silent on president’s power to remove those he or she has appointed. (Cann, 2006, p. 29) This lacuna may be the reason why recent congressional investigations focused on whether the Department of Justice and the Bush White House wrongfully dismissed eight assistant US attorneys for political purposes hit a brick wall in Washington, DC (Johnson, 2008, ¶ 5).

As we found in the CBS’s case, most agency decisions often impinge on constitutional rights of citizens and corporations. This is one of the reasons why congress enacted the Administrative Procedures Act: To ensure that administrative decisions are not just fair but manifestly seen to be fair. For instance, FCC is an independent agency of the United States government, created, directed and empowered by Congressional Statute (47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154). The Third Circuit in its ruling stated that the standard of review of agency decisions is governed by the Administrative Procedure Act, (APA) 5 U.S.C. § 706 and thus found FCC to have violated the APA. CBS Corp., et al. v. FCC (2008).

The primary criticism of agency adjudication policy making is that it is mostly done “ex-post facto” i.e after the deeds had been done. The court struck down the FCC's Jackson decision in large part because it concluded that, while the FCC had announced a new policy regarding fleeting “expletives” in another case, for more than 3 decades, it never extended that ruling to fleeting “images” CBS Corp., et al. v. FCC (2008).

In the CBS case, it is apparent that evidentiary adjudication is not a participatory problem-solving exercise. A CBS apology was rejected in place of a hefty fine. There was also not an opportunity for congress to exercise its oversight functions whilst the case was pending at the commission. There are however plethora of advantages to evidentiary adjudication; it is flexible, it provides agencies’ staff and directors with unique opportunities to resolve their policy differences and arrive at compromises often in an incremental fashion. For instance, in a notable confrontation over the FCC's local telephone competition rules, then Chairman Michael Powell was outflanked by Republican Kevin Martin, who formed a majority with the FCC's two Democratic commissioners (Werbach, 2003, ¶ 6).

Adjudication is also preferred as a means of making decisions that is often required by constitutional procedural due process. It affords opportunities for decision makers to “feel the pain” of those affected by their actions, so they could apply equity and compassion in reaching their decision. President Barrack Obama’s primary criterion for appointment of Supreme Court justices is empathy (Ruggeri, 2009 ¶ 2).

As Rosenbloom (2003) argued, the Supreme Court requires a maximum and minimal standards protection before individuals or corporations can be deprived of a benefit by administrative action when procedural due process applies. The case of Goldberg v Kelly (1970) and Goss v Lopez (1975) outlined a fundamental fairness doctrine that is often fact specific.

Adjudicatory orders are often enforced by civil sanctions such as cease and desist orders, forfeitures, product seizures, recalls, revocations suspensions of licenses and financial penalties. However, Congress must expressly delegate authority to impose punitive sanction to agencies in an enabling statute. Congress enacted the Alternative Dispute Resolution Act (1990, Suppl. 1996), in part as response to increased lawsuit against administrators in their personal capacity. There is indeed a dire need for Congress and the Executive arm of government to take another look at APA with a view to advancing its overall objective and reinventing our government for the challenges of modern time.

References

Administrative Dispute Resolution Act 5 U.S.C. § 571 (1990 & Supp. 1996).
Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706 (1946).
Cann, Steven J. (2006). Administrative Law, (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
CBS Corp., et al. v. FCC, 535 F.3d 167 (Third Cir. 2008).
Fox, William F., Jr. (1992). Understanding Administrative Law, (2nd ed.). New York: Matthew Bender
Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970).
Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975).
Johnson, Carrie. (2008, September 29). No Grand Jury for Gonzales: Report to call for continued probe of U.S. attorneys’ firings [Electronic Version]. The Washington Post, Retrieved January 19, 2010, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/28/AR2008092801057.html

Oxenford, David. (2009, May 16). Janet Jackson Case Sent Back to Court of Appeals - Could There Be An Even Greater Impact on Broadcast Regulation? Broadcast Law Blog. Retrieved January 19, 2010, from http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/tags/fcc-indecency-fines/

Rosenbloom, David H. (2003). Administrative Law for Public Managers, Boulder, Co: Westview Press.
Ruggeri, Amanda. (2009, May 26). Obama Choice of Sotomayor is a Political Balancing Act: Sotomayor could prove to be a tricky target for Republicans [Electronic Version].U.S News & World Report. Retrieved January 19, 2010 from http://www.usnews.com/mobile/articles_mobile/obamas-choice-of-sotomayor-is-a-political-balancing-act/index.html

Stout, David. (2009, May 4). Lower Court Told to Revisit Ruling in Super Bowl Show [Electronic Version]. The New York Times. Retrieved January 19, 2010 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/business/media/05fcc.html?_r=1

Werbach, Kevin. (2003, February 19). The Real Michael Powell: The FCC chairman is Al Gore in Republican clothing. MSN Slate Online Magazine. Retrieved January 19, 2010 from http://slate.msn.com/id/2078879/

Democracy made in Nigeria: Government vide Email and Facsimile by an incommunicado and Sick President

2009-12-18T15:59:00.000-08:00

“The President can exercise his powers through the vice-president and
ministers while on his sick bed and that is what he has been doing. For example,
the Chief Justice of Nigeria wrote a letter to the President and copied me that
he would be retiring on December 31, that the President of the Court of Appeal
has just retired and that their replacements have not been screened by the
Senate. I sent the letter to the Principal Secretary to the President who
transmitted same to the President who approved it and sent it back to me.”

- Nigeria Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael
Aondoakaa (SAN)

If the above quote beggars believe, be comforted that you are not alone. I bet many observers of Nigeria stunted political growth could not have imagined the latest meme from Aso rock. For the first time we have a sick president, who is purportedly ruling Nigeria vide email and facsimile from a hospital bed in Saudi Arabia. For weeks, President Umaru Yar'Adua has been hospitalized at King Faisal Intensive Care and Research Centre, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for what staffers say is a serious heart condition. With no clear successor, Nigeria is roiled by uncertainty and many of Nigeria prominent citizens have called for his resignation.

Curiously, Nigeria primarily law officer, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, came out with the above shocker and then went further to enthused as follows: “The powers of the President are not exercised territorially. Yar’Adua can exercise his powers anywhere in the world, on the plane, at the meeting of the United Nations or even on his sick bed, as long as he is not incapacitated by the sickness.” While this statement may be an accurate restatement of the letters of the laws, at least as it relates to the exercise of the powers of president of Nigeria, this is not the applicable, given the current scenario.

We know for a fact, that when the president of Nigeria travels to the United Nations, or anywhere outside the shores of Nigeria it is for a short duration of time certain and we not only see him exercise the powers of presidency when he represents Nigeria, he manifestly do so vide public appearances when he meets with other head of state and sign binding treaties on behalf of Nigeria. Most of these events are well covered by the press, local and international and Nigerian of all hue could clearly see the president in action.

It is also interesting that Mr. Aondoakaa, clearly left open the answer to the questions most Nigerian wants the presidency to answer and that is: Is the president of Nigeria “incapacitated by the sickness” he is suffering from? How can Nigerian confirm the bare assertions of the president aide that the president is ail and hearty without any proof whatsoever in the form of doctor’s report and photographs of the president working from his hospital bed.

Nigeria’s current constitution mirrored in large part, the Constitution of the United States of America, and the two constitutions required that the president by a letter addressed to the National Assembly is required to inform the senate president of his intent to proceed on vacation, at which point the vice president shall act on behalf of the president.

What we have going on now in Aso rock is an amorphous arrangement where the president’s physical and health condition is only known to his private secretary and retinue of “hangers on.” The latter in turn tells the country that the president is healthy and that he is exercising his presidential powers on a sick bed in far away Saudi Arabia.

How can anyone prove to Nigerians that the letter transmitted to the president at Saudi Arabia was read by him? How are we sure that the subsequent response by the “president” was not the work of some private secretary at the hospital? How can anyone confirm that the president was of a sound mind when he responded to the said letter, given the very serious ailment the president suffers from?

In an open and transparent democracy the president health or indeed any other government official are never shrouded in secrecy. Everything is done in the open. We know for a fact that this is not the first time the president had had to visit the Emergency Room of Hospital. During the presidential election campaign, I recalled vividly, the efforts by the staff of the then presidential candidate, and now president Yar’Adua to reach the media with the information that he is alive. I know a colleague who was even allowed to place calls directly to Yar’adua at his hospital bed and who talked directly with the president to clear up the issue of his health. It was clear then that they needed the people’s vote to at least claim some legitimacy with the electoral perfidy they later performed on the Nigeria people. And now that they are in Aso rock the Nigerian people do not deserve to know who is ruling them? This to me is the message being sent by the ruling People’s Democratic party to Nigerians of all hue.

To demonstrate the stupidity of the current state of events, even militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta, whom Yar'Adua brought into peace talks only weeks ago, now worry they have no "good faith partner" to negotiate an end to attacks that have cut into Nigeria's oil-dependent economy. The president health is of a great concern to all Nigerians and should not be micro-managed by “leeches and sycophants” who are hell bent on using a “comatose” president to further their destructive agenda on Nigeria.

Already the rumor mill is bustling with tall tales of the shenanigans going on in the corridors of power. Some of which may or may not be grounded in reality, but as long as the president health remains an issue available only to an exclusive preserve of PDP top echelons, Nigerians should not keep quiet. We should continue to ask for answers and demand that the “junta” in government follows the rule of law and the constitution no matter how abase their conduct may be.

OF PDP, POLITICAL THUGS AND BRIGANDAGE GOVERNMENT

2009-11-25T12:17:00.000-08:00

"Violence is taboo, for not only does it produce answers to please, but it lowers the standard of information." -Col. Robin Stephens on Churchill government refusal to torture German war prisoners

Nigerians are under siege by their own government. Millions of Nigerians are political prisoners in their own country. The “political jackals” ruling Nigeria have turned the whole country into a mass “concentration camp.” Their word is law and the rule of law meant nothing. Elections count for nothing! Accountability means how much they can steal from the coffers of government while the generality of the masses groan and grope in darkness. And now, a new twist by the new fangled “PDP-o-crazy,” it is called political “thuggerism”.

In the dying days of the second republic, one of the vaunted policies of the ruling elites then, particularly with Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria, is the use of thugs by politicians as entourage and cavalcade of motorcades filled with motor parks tout carrying cudgels, machetes and guns. The politicians of the second republic knew then that they are not governing the people by consent of the majority. It is as if they have reached a point when they realized the charade they called democracy no longer stands any credibility, albeit with their stolen mandate. They knew they lacked every modicum of legitimacy so they have to force the people to respect their power.

This is exactly where we are now, with our hard won democracy. We lost, they won! And now, they will not stop at the subjugation and subversion of democracy, they want to show us they are lords. Lords over our lives with a maniacal thirst and hunger for violence the worst of the Khmer Rouge goons will envy. Pick up any newspapers in Nigeria and you are bound to found a news report about an attack on Nigerian civilian masses that happens to cross paths with PDP politician’s motorcade and thugs.

In Ekiti, we read recently about how the governor of Ekiti state, his wife, “hangers on” and thugs personally arrested some journalist and bloggers monitoring the state during election and subjected them to slaps, violence and humiliation for daring to challenge their hold on power. And now, we read about the savage attack on the chairman of DHL, Otunba Ade Raheem Kolawole by the thug installed by PDP as chairman of Ilesa-West Local Government Council Area of Osun State. This by the way, is not the first time Mr. Fadipe had wantonly attacked the citizens, he sworn to defend and protect. And incase anyone thinks Fadipe is acting alone, just take a look at this excerpts from a news paper in Osun State, the “Osun Defender” on where Mr. Fadipe got his marching orders from:

“According to investigation conducted by OSUN DEFENDER on the alleged atrocities
by Fadipe during the week, the embattled politician was gallivanting around in
violence because he thought that Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola was enjoying his
hostility against his people. Premising his action on the defence of the
embattled governor who suffered a political defeat in Ijesaland during the last
year’s controversial governorship election in the state, Fadipe believed that
the state helmsman, and his deputy who hails from Ijesaland would always shield
him even in the face of raw violence against his people. Meanwhile, records of
bloody political violence in Ilesa have been traced to Fadipe; but managed to
sail through from the long arm of the law, because of the suspected authority
backing. Thinking that he had secured a license for the monopoly of violence,
the rattled politician then constituted himself into a jungle-law, visiting
unguarded anger on the career officers and council workers at any slight
disagreement.”

The message from PDP here is simple, “if you vote for us, we don’t care, we will win anyway. If you don’t vote for us, we will still win and then come after you with our thugs; we will installed that thug as your local government chairman or governor and then use them to unleash terror on your community.” Is this the democracy my friends and colleagues died for at Great Ife? Is this what we bargained for when we fought against military misrule?
The tale of bloodsheds and brigandage by PDP abounds all over Nigeria, from Anambra intra-party bloody duels to the war of cousins in Niger state, the fratricidal conflicts in Sokoto and of course, the upcoming presidential elections “tsunami”. It is evident that our dear country is in serious dire straits.
What with the economy at it’s lowest ebb since the days of SAP and austerity measures, an absentee presidency, a government runs by corrupt ex-governors and their retained counsel, who by the way, happens to be the attorney general of the federation, the ship of state of Nigeria is indeed heading for dangerous waters!
This is why I called on all well meaning, Nigerians at home and abroad to take one final stand for democracy during this upcoming presidential election. Yes, there will be violence, and yes the election will not count as the enemies of Nigeria enjoy the status quo! We can still make the difference by joining the pro-democracy forces within and outside Nigeria. If you are a Nigerian abroad, write a letter to your congressman and let him or her know that one out of every 4 black people is a Nigerian and if the next election is again allowed to be stolen by marauder in PDP, we may have a crisis of monumental proportion that will eclipse west and central Africa. The refugee crisis that may follow another Nigerian civil war will surely bankrupt the entire world economies. The whole world needs to act now, to forestall another Nigerian internecine civil war!
They need to insist on a transparent electoral commission whose chairman is nominated by the Chief Justice of the Federation. An Electoral commission with representatives from pro-democracy groups and other interest groups in Nigeria is imperative. The United States and other democratic country need to make it known to Aso rock that violence as a form of governing is antithetical to democracy. They need to insist that free and fair elections are prerequisite to democracy. The war on the Nigerian people by PDP must stop now!

Ibori’s “Smoking Gun” Against Ribadu: Pathetic, Sickening and Laughable

2009-10-06T16:38:00.000-07:00

“Patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings” –Samuel Johnson

Sometimes you wonder if the so called Nigerian leaders ever think before they open their mouth. We learnt recently from the indicted former governor of Delta State, James Ibori that the erstwhile EFCC boss, Nuhu Ribadu approached him on a plot to unseat a certain “sick Yar’Adua” through the use of INEC! I mean INEC! The same INEC hand picked by PDP stalwart to do their bidding? Yes, indeed if it sounds incredulous, you are not dreaming, this is Ibori’s damning evidence against Ribadu.

The allegation, which is a red herring in itself, is not worth responding to, but like everything in Nigeria if you don’t you are damned. If I were Ribadu, I will simply put out a short sentence asking Ibori to simply appear in London and stop taking cover under an entrenched corrupt attorney general in Nigeria. If you have nothing to fear, face a real prosecution in London and not the contrived “make believe” currently orchestrated by your retained counsel in Federal Ministry of Justice and the “comatose” EFCC.

Here is the good thing about the allegation; it gives us a window of opportunity to the workings of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s illegitimate government in Aso rock. I have often wondered why Yar’Adua buys into everything Ibori sells. I know the latter funded his campaign for presidency, but that should not make him a lap dog of Ibori. Well it’s clearer now. We know nothing scares Nigerian rulers, be it Abacha, IBB or Obasanjo like a plot to unseat them. Even if the allegations are contrived by a self seeking corrupt security chief or ex-governor as it is in this case. Nigerian insecure rulers will buy into it and hound the accused to the gates of hell.

We saw that playbook with Abacha and Al-Mustapha contrived plot against Diya and others. We saw that with Obasanjo’s allegations against Atiku. All you need to finish your enemies in Nigeria is to accuse them of trying to overthrow an illegitimate and totally insecure marauder in power at Aso rock. All hell will then break loose, the insecurities of the rulers in Aso rock is so real that they will stoop at anything to fight whoever challenges them. In fact they don’t care if the nation burns, as we witnessed through Abacha or if they upended the democracy that brought them to power as Obasanjo did with Nigeria hard won democracy. They see treason in everyone and everything. They are so insecure because they know they have no legitimacy.

There is however a more substantive part of Ibori’s ranting that needed to be addressed by Ribadu: the allegations that the latter requested funds for a certain EFCC football club and communicated with Ibori and a certain “businessman” who are being investigated by his organization. Ibori asserted that he had documentary evidence and should be made to produce them. One can only hope they are not the same “forged documentary” evidence he used to absolve himself of theft conviction at Abuja High Court. Ribadu should also be allowed to defend himself. It is clearly a conflict of interest if these allegations were true. But how do we know what the truths were. Ibori destroyed his own cause when he engaged in jejune allegations. We know he (Ibori) can get away with anything in Nigeria, since he currently controls the rein of justice through his hired gun in the Federal Ministry of Justice. We know he can’t lose with Michael Aondoakaa in charge, after all the latter hold his position due largely to Ibori.

It is interesting to read Ibori include our justice system in his nefarious plot. No one sane person will accuse Nigeria judiciary of the same corruption evident with our political class particularly in PDP. We know that our judiciary can be better managed by prompt and dedicated trial track, but the system works. It has a way of “weeding out” bad eggs, something we can’t say of PDP. In fact you get rewarded with higher post if you stole your way into an elective post in Nigeria, just ask Bode George, et al. The judiciary on the other hand swiftly dealt with purveyors of bad justice. Where are the Bassey Ikpemes and Ibrahim Auta of yesterday? Long gone with their name in infamy!

What Ibori confuses is that the judiciary does not commence criminal proceedings in Nigeria. The Federal Ministry of Justice does and who is in charge of the Federal Ministry of Justice? And as we learnt recently, Michael Aondoakaa’s law firm still have retainership from corrupt ex-governors, he is currently tasked with prosecuting.

Now, if Michael Aondoakaa’s Ministry of Justice, neglected to bring all the evidence against corrupt ex-governors before the court, you can’t blame the judiciary. In fact, we learnt recently that it took pressure from online bloggers before he reluctantly agreed to give fiat to EFCC to start prosecuting corrupt ex-governors. Here is where Ibori find comfort, he knows he can win in Nigeria and may spend the rest of his life in jail if he appears in London. The allegation that his wife and concubines whom he funneled stolen money through in London are behind bars is just an “argumentum ad misericodiam”- a mere appeal to pity. If you don’t want your third wife arrest and indicted, then don’t try and use her to launder stolen money for you. Period!

He also makes a ludicrous reference to Ribadu using Britain’s “colonial” justice system to prosecute him. First of all, I don’t think Ribadu has such powers. Secondly the Metropolitan Police department is not the same as Nigeria Police Force where personality and “who you know” determines who get prosecuted. With respect to the “colonial” connection: Is it now you realize Britain is our former colonial master? Why didn’t you check that fact when you are busy transfer Delta State statutory allocation to your British bank account? The last time I checked it was not Ribadu who kept millions of dollars in these “colonial banks” in Britain.
We know that Ibori may get away with the crimes he committed against the people of Delta state for a while, but the long arm of justice will eventually catch up with him one day, and that day will be for the people. As we say in Nigeria, “one day for the thief and another for the owner!”

Everything Cries out for Leadership in Nigeria

2009-09-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

"One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency."-Arnold Glasgow

The dearth of leadership in every facet of the Nigerian life is approaching an epidemic proportion. It is like an entrenched cancerous growth, the more you sliced it, the more gangeranous it gets. The saddest truth is Nigerian of all hue knows what ails their country, but like the proverbial elephant in the room, no one is talking about it; or rather those that should talk are benefitting from the status quo, so they stay mum.

The truth is even if more people talk about the rudderlessness of our nation, what are we going to do about it? Nothing! We are currently being held hostage by a government we had no hand in electing or selecting. The People's Democratic Party (Nigeria's nemesis party) consist of men who like their forbears of the 1980s, do not need our legitimacy before they rule us. We are a nation in bondage, tormented by impostors in Abuja who had only their self interest as guiding principle.

This week, I took out my pen and did a checklist on every sector of the Nigerian life, to see the type of leadership we have in place, and I must tell you, it is quite embarrassing. On the economy, we have the head of our stock exchange deeply involved in the Transcorp mess. And by her own account she had no idea how the corporation she ran as the CEO wasted over 2 billion investor's fund. Not too long ago, the doctors in our teaching hospital went on strike; they were quickly followed by University professors and academic staff of Nigerian university. Our attorney general spend his time defending corrupt ex-governors, than he does standing up for the constitution. Our press, the singular light we had during the dark days of Shagari's misrule is currently comatose. Journalist are 3 pence per diem and they will sing your praise if the price is right.

Our judiciary which had always stand up for the masses are so overburdened with backlog of cases that an electoral petition against a sitting governor recently took 4 years before a final decision removing the "election rigger" was handed down by the Supreme court.

One area of the Nigerian life that had always been a beacon of hope and light is the Nigerian national team-the Super Eagle of Nigeria. Sadly, the leadership here too is wanting. We have all but lost world cup slot to Tunisia due largely to lack of visionary planning by competent leaders; even though we spend large amount of money on presidensitial task force on world cup qualifier. We have a football federation tasked with managing soccer in Nigeria, supervised by the ministry of sports, with the House and Senate oversight in tow; and our president thought it fit again to assemble a money wasting task force whose only contribution is to junket abroad on national dimes. And yet we still can't qualify for the mundial in South Africa! Sadly, no one is asking any questions, it is just business as usual in Abuja.

As long as money is changing hands nothing gets done. The ship of state in Nigeria is tottering on the verge of collapse and our Nero fiddles whilst Abuja burns. Afterall, who will tell "oga teacher" that he just lost his father. Election, that tested mode of accountability for politicians the world over, means nothing to current politicians stalking our lands. Like one of them campaigned recently in Ekiti, "if you vote or not, PDP will still win."

It was the Late Chief Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi who in his letter of rejection of Yar'adua's Greek gift reminded us of the sorry state of Nigeria in these immortal words:

Furthermore, since the President came to power on May 29, 2007, the masses of
our country have been groaning in unprecedented poverty as a result of lack of
direction, The directionlessness of the Federal Government has been
characterised by the following, amongst others: collapsed infrastructure, total
paralysis of the health sector at all levels, constant nationwide power failure
and the attendant negative effects on all sectors of the economy; pervasive
unemployment, thereby generating increased armed robbery cutting across all ages
of our people; debilitating homelessness, retrogressive educational programmes
and policies, which have made no Nigerian university to be ranked within the
first 500 universities in the world, and no effort is being made by the regime
to improve on the humiliating situation.Put simply, the Federal Government is a
total failure, worsened by lack of direction and leadership

We are indeed a nation in perpetual turmoil, bereft of visionary leaders, so join me in my prayer for leadership for our dear country:

GOD, give us men!
A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts,
true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor;
men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps.
-Josiah Gilbert Holland

The Perfidious Hollowness in Dele Momodu’s “Shame on Us” Africa Tour

2009-08-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

“Flatterers are the worst kind of traitors, for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing, but so shadow and paint thy follies and vices as thou shalt never, by their will, discover good from evil, or vice from virtue. - Sir Walter Raleigh
There is something pernicious in a columnist who devotes himself in blaming the people of Nigeria for the folly foisted on the polity by the same leaders he devotes his entire career praising and adulating. That columnist happened by the way to be This Day’s gypsy writer: Dele Momodu, a self confessed purveyor of junk journalism, someone whose claim to fame is etched in flattery of celebrities; from Shina Peters to M.KO. Abiola; from Dora Akunyili to Terry Wayas of this world.

One can safely conclude that Dele Momodu had never found a government official he can’t flatter, because he never found a Nigerian government official he cannot patronize. The sad state of journalism in Nigeria is such that some of our journalism has turned patronage into a profitable enterprise. First they will take a deliberate jibe at a celebrity or political office holder, excoriating him/her for a well deserved non performance in office. Once you do that, pronto the particular politician will come running to you for favors. You then load your subsequent write up/column with the usual pejoratives praising their supposed “sagacity”, something you have suddenly discovered after you met with him/her.

Meanwhile, the people these so called government official are supposed to serve continue to suffer with little or nothing to show as democracy dividends. This indeed is where the likes of Dele Momodu hurt not only their credibility but the very institution of journalism that brought them into prominence. We all know that in journalism, to be persuasive, you must be believable; to be believable, you must be credible; to be credible, you must be truthful.

In his latest article in This Day, Momodu, consistent with his latest itinerary which allows him to junket around Africa on behalf of a corporate behemoth like Globalcom Network, get into a rhapsodic state of effusive praise for the host country president. What is not lost on us his readers is that we invariably know that this is usually a hollow attempt to launder the image of that president because it has recently approved GlobalCom business license.

Most salient readers knows that every time Mr. Momodu travels to any African nation two things will invariably follows: An effusive praise of that country leadership; be it Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and now Benin Republic, followed by an invective laden, crocodile tears about the sorry state of Nigeria. His latest installment follows his most recent trip to Benin where he found Benin to be an Eldora do where Nigerian are running in drove to due to the misrule of his friends in power.

The irony apparently is lost on him as he devoted three paragraphs in the same column to an effusive praise on President Umaru Musa Yar’adua; for settling a dispute between a member of his cabinet, and the Executive Director of National Communication Commission. He concluded that Yar’adua is a good man, because the latter reads newspaper.

My first retort is to yell, “Yes you are damn right he reads newspaper! I bet he reads your columns filled with flattery. After all, “the art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy.” When you keep blaming the customs man at Seme’s border whilst you excused the corruptions of ministers and ex-governors why will he not read the garbage you spew every week!”

The one thing that jumps out at me from his latest piece is the amount of "arguments" constructed on things like "I am beginning to think” , “it would probably”, “I should be able..” , “We were forced to think..”, “It was my conclusion”, “you probably...", "I bet you...", "I'm sure you...", and the like. Assumption is piled on supposition, mixed with profanity, and sprinkled with pejorative, in an endless series of virtuoso displays of muddled thinking. No serious attempt to think through the policy permutations that led to the status quo on both sides of the border. No serious effort made to excoriate the authorities involved in the misrule going on in Nigeria. No attempt to challenge the re-branding crusade of his patron, Ms. Akunyili.

It is as if Momodu’s tortured logic bestrides the gargantuan facts like a colossus. Why would any serious governmental official take such write up seriously? An exercise in flattery superimposed with a contorted attempt to blame the masses for the wrongs of their leaders. Like Samuel Johnson famous quote: “"Men who stand in the highest ranks of society seldom hear of their faults; if by any accident an opprobrious clamor reaches their ears, flattery is always at hand to pour in her opiates, to quiet conviction and obtund remorse."

One can safely opine that the “shame on us” tour of Momodu is better directed exclusively at the “us” exemplified by Momodu’s and his cohorts in power. It is self evident that the mischief of flattery by the likes of Momodu’s perpetuates the corruption going on in Nigeria; as Edmund Burke rightly pointed out “Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.”

Of PDP, Ekiti State Electoral Fraud and the Snub from Obama

2009-07-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

When we warned the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that stealing elections has consequences they never listened, and now they know. The price for stolen electoral mandate in the 21st century world is rising and you either choose to live as a pariah in the committee of nations or respect the will of the people. Any tyrants, be it, Iran or Nigeria that will not allowed the will of the people to triumph in a free and fair election should prepare itself for world opprobrium. The days when dictators use the East, West divide to prolong the subjugation of their people, a la Mobutu Sese Seko, Haile Mengistu and Jonas Savimbi is over!

The current occupants of Aso rock in Nigeria don’t seem to get this message. President Umaru Musa Yar’adua encouraged by his co-traducers in PDP, conspired to steal the electoral victory, the Ekiti people won for themselves at the polls through “mago mago” electoral fraud and he expects the world to take him and his fraudulent government seriously? Nah! It is not going to happened. We are no longer in the 1970s or ‘80s, if you want legitimacy and respect from the international community, then have respect for the will of the people, a will that should be freely expressed vide the ballot box.

I often laugh when I hear the “misfit-minister” of information, Dora Akunyili, talks about her new money making scheme, i.e. the re-branding of Nigeria image. Here is the truth; nothing can re-brand our image better than having a free and fair election. What part of free and fair election don’t they get? Electoral disputes is bound to happen, but an open and brazen stealing of an electoral victory in the presence of foreign observers will neither get us a seat at G8 summit nor G400, (if they ever expand the field)!

Just this week, the senate published the names of debtors of failed banks. The lists read like a compilation of who is who in PDP. They are not just debtors, by the way, they were directors of some of these failed banks and they used their top perch atop the banks to give out loans to themselves. In a sane and democratic country, everyone on that list would have been arrested and locked up in jail awaiting trial or put on electronic home monitoring before trial like Bernie Madoff. In Nigeria, they are celebrated, in actual fact, one of them, who once had his daughter served as minister under former president Olusegun Obasanjo informed the press that he owed no dime. He made no explanation as to how the bank he founded and managed went under. Here is the problem these folks looked at themselves as being above the law, and they are. Why wouldn’t they? The senate that is probing them, are themselves mired in corruption saga every 3 months.

There is an internecine war going on in Niger Delta, no one in government in Abuja, have any clue on what to do to nip it in the bud. They have fumbled and wobbled through an obvious crisis that they knew going in. This is what happened when you win a kangaroo election. Which of you readers can recall any statement by President Umaru Musa Yar’adua before his election on how to address the Niger Delta? Zilch! What was his campaign position on the Nigerian power problem? None, because the election that brought him to power was not really an election but a selection by the ex-president Obasanjo. He picked whoever he fancied and anoints him to be president. There were no serious campaigns. No debates, in fact as a matter of principle no PDP presidential candidate has ever attended nationally televised debates organized by government owned NTA. It is beneath them to campaign for office. They have the power and they can do whatever they want. Who are we mortals to challenge their murderous stranglehold on power?

This is where we are in Nigeria; many countries in Africa are moving on to the 21st century. No thanks to Obasanjo, Yar’adua and the behemoth called PDP we are back in the Stone Age. Democracy in Nigeria is a big joke to the politicians, if it were not, they wouldn’t have laugh in our faces with that Ekiti election. The only folks who still take democracy serious in Nigeria, are the suffering Nigerian masses, who still troop out on Election Day to exercise their vote, even though they know, PDP will still play “hanky panky” with their ballot

Now, the PDP government wants President Obama to add fillip to their stolen mandates by visiting them in Abuja. It is not going to happen. When the Washington post correspondent asked a Nigerian official about the Obama snub, his retort is what snubs? He then made reference to the recent visit by the president of Russia as comparable to Obama’s visit to Ghana. What a dot! Maybe he thought the world is still stuck in the cold war era. That game is so ‘70s! Perhaps maybe they should made do with President Medvedev, their new found friend. More so, when you consider the fact that Yar’adua and Medvedev looks like marriage made in heaven. They are both childishly weak impostors. Imposed on their respective country by their predecessors, whose anti-democratic credentials is uncanny to say the least. They both have the enviable record of stealing elections, sending their goons to invade and close down independent press offices. They are both surrounded by corrupt oligarchs with stolen wealth. That is a marriage made in hell!

Even though it looks like they won a victory when they stole the Ekiti gubernatorial election, the war is not over yet. Every stolen mandate is a further nail in the coffin of the impostors in Abuja. They will fall like Abacha before them. They will rue the day they stole the mandate of the people. The Nigerian people may be patient, but they are not docile. They understand that their country is under subjugation by perverse, corrupt and mindless oligarchs whose directive principle is their belly; and whose obligatory service is first and foremost to their bank accounts. The hand of justice may be short now; it will soon grow to catch up with their perfidy! What else can we say, thank you Obama for ignoring Aso rock. You did not snub the Nigerian people. You snubbed their corrupt and apoplectic regime in Abuja!

SOYINKA: BETWEEN AMNESTY AND AMNESIA

2009-06-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

This month I yield this pages to the nobel laureat, Uncle Wole:

Between amnesty and amnesia

By Wole Soyinka Friday, June 26, 2009

Bleak as the Delta situation appears to be, given the recent escalation of violence, we may actually be approaching a stage of possible resolution – touch wood! This is why, albeit with much reluctance, I feel I should respond publicly to the spate of entreaties and expressions of anxiety coming my way over my perceived adoption of a ‘siddon-look’ attitude towards the troubled region.
Soyinka

Such pressures have increased dramatically over the past few days, following – perhaps non-coincidentally - public responses by presidential candidate Pat Utomi, Ambassador Segun Olusola and others to President Yar’Adua’s latest offer of an Amnesty offer to Delta militants.
Let me begin by conveying my full endorsement of the position of these two. The offer of amnesty is worthless if it is not all-inclusive, and embraces those who are currently in state custody and/or on trial. The attempt in some quarters to confuse issues by refusing to separate the principled militants, such as members of MEND and its affiliates, from the opportunistic mercenaries and criminals, has always struck me as dishonest and diversionary. Separating the wheat from the chaff is a simple enough process, one that can be undertaken by a miniaturized Truth and Reconciliation version of the South African original, adapted to our own unique set of circumstances – and preferably with a change of emphasis that substitutes ‘Restitution’ for ‘Reconciliation’, keeping the latter on the agenda however as the implicit, ultimate destination. This has always been my position even over the South African process.
May I comment here also that the excitement over the ‘discovery’ of documents in one over-run insurgent camp, implicating well-heeled citizens as backers of the resistance has been nothing but amusing.

Did anyone seriously believe that it was nothing more a bunch of ‘rascals’ who have bent the nation, literally, over the oil barrel these past years? That ‘respectable’, high-placed citizens, including many not from the oil-producing region, did not share their yearnings?
Rascals? Extortionists? Hostage takers? Thrill killers? Since when was any liberation movement throughout history exempt from its quota of deviants! Was the Nigerian Federal Army itself even free of such human dregs when it was launched to prosecute a war dedicated, with all due sanctimoniousness, to ‘keeping the nation one’. We shall bypass for now, the question of what, and whose nation it has proved – an imperial delusion, or the genuine product of a people’s will? The urgent task for us at this moment to climb out of the pit of amnesia, recall that the army was not without its quota of psychopaths, looters, mass murderers and rapists – one of whom even became a Head of State, headed for a Life Presidency.

Those who wish to dispute that had better visit army records and find out whether or not Sani Abacha – whose name is still proudly flown on Abuja streets - had been recommended for dismissal from the military for ‘conduct unbecoming’ during the Civil War. Ironically, he obtained reprieve from yet another Head of State whom he later attempted to reward with a first-class ticket to the Great Beyond. These are not irrelevant asides – we must learn to cast a glance backwards periodically in dealing with the present. Records are also available, internationally, over the criminal conduct of sections of the Nigerian contingent of the ECOWAS ‘liberators’ in Sierra Leone, despite the heroic virtues displayed the Army as an entity.

My withdrawal into a seeming ‘siddon-look’ posture over the Delta has been inevitable, a product of disgust and bitterness over callously wasted opportunities. Disinterested but concerned interventions with the Obasanjo government, and next, its present offshoot, have not been wanting. I know of several – including from the diplomatic Corps, individually and as groups, speaking both for their governments and from their own concern as observers on the ground, but will restrict myself to the one in which I have been personally involved – the Nobel Laureates’ initiative.

That Commission, after a extensive visitation to the embattled areas, with frank exchanges with the people of the Delta at grassroots – or more accurately, at the deepest mangrove roots level – with government officials and representatives of oil companies, forwarded its recommendations to the government. The Nobel document, let me hasten to add, proved to be quite in tune with prior recommendations and agreements entered into between the government and Delta representatives. In tandem with his predecessor Olusegun, President Umaru Yar’Adua must be made to recognize that he shoulders a moral and political responsibility for failure to make a decisive breakthrough in the quest to terminate hostilities in the Delta region. Much of the toll of death and destruction could, and would have been avoided if only these two rulers had lived up to their charge.

I should reveal at this point that the Nobel initiative did not end with a transmitted report. David Philips, Secretary to the Commission, sought and obtained an audience with President Yar’Adua in New York during his visit to the United States for the 2008 THISDAY event – NIGERIA MEETS THE WORLD. He came away from that meeting with uncomplimentary observations on the lack of informed seriousness on Yar’Adua’s part over this ticking time-bomb. Phillips concluded that he expected nothing of value to emerge from his meeting with the Nigerian Head of State, any more than could be expected from the Commission’s report itself. He has been abundantly proved right. The Delta crisis is not the Middle-East dilemma, and does not require the high-powered serial rituals of negotiations that still characterize the Middle East, or indeed the Yugoslavia scenario in a not so distant past. The matter is straightforward. As MEND statements have periodically emphasized, the Delta crisis is the mere purulent tip of the Nigerian boil, now prodded into a violent eruption in a particular region. Over and over again it has been stressed that nothing but a holistic approach to internal re-structuring will serve the nation.

Not only is this historically inevitable, such an approach provides a context within which the aggrieved oil-producing areas can feel a genuine relatedness to the national question.
The stubborn retention of the status quo, and its manifest rejection by component parts, is at the heart of the Delta crisis. President Yar’Adua’s lackadaisical approach towards these contentious issues has become increasingly clarified as not one of governance indifference or lack of understanding, but of complicity through inaction. It is studied and purposed, the complement of the frenetic inaction of his predecessor. The only difference is that the Ota farmer fabricated a lot of deceitful motions – what I have termed frenetic inaction - to provide a cover for ensuring the status quo, while his successor cannot be bothered with such pointless exertion. His preference is the posture of a somnolent spider that has learnt to outwait and outwit noisome flies.

Is the Delta crisis an exception? Not in the least. The chronic concession of amnesty through national amnesia cannot extend that far, not even in this nation of self-censured memory. Parallels surround us in Yar’Adua’s treatment – or more accurately, neglect – of burning issues. Candidate for the most provocative is unquestionably the continuing retention of the INEC head, Maurice Iwu, in his theatre of gross abuse of national trust, where a people’s democratic yearnings have been treated with contempt and derision in the confidence of immunity.

It is not for nothing that MEND, in a number of its dispatches, has stressed not just the flawed antecedents of the Nigerian project in general, but the incorrigible cabalism of governance that makes a mockery of the democratic process, and thus robs the citizens of dignity and voice. MEND has interjected its communiques with reminders that the Delta contestation is a product of the desperate sustenance of the very immorality of the Nigerian state – and the continuing, corrupt desperation of power. That MEND took pains to state this in such stark terms is superfluous; even without this denunciation, the insolence of the democratic exercise of 2007 cannot be discounted as a crucial factor in the stiffening of militant intransigence in the Delta.
Governance is built on trust.

Trust is earned through transparent legitimacy. “ONLY A FEW TAKERS FOR GOVERNMENT’S AMNESTY OFFER” - reports an international headline. Surprise? “There is widespread distrust among Niger Delta’s Youths for government’s amnesty offers”, continues the sub-heading. Yes, indeed, that summative word – distrust! How has the Obasanjo-Yar’Adua diarchy acted to erase a distrust that began since Isaac Boro and his colleagues took to arms against a rapacious Nigerian state? What adjustments in approach – beyond tokenism - has the state made in its policies since the Ogoni tragic forewarning? Yet even far more ancient calluses of mistrust have been peeled off in other histories, and the Delta could have been relieved of its own by now, if the government had acted with transparent sincerity in general spheres of governance. After two years in power, can one objectively state that this is a government that deserves the trust of Nigerians?

Umaru Yar’Adua made several avowals of intent on taking office. He even backed his words up with one or two credible moves, such as disowning and dismantling his predecessor’s scaffolding of governance by illegality - witness his compliance with some long obstructed judicial directives and the bravura order of new investigations into unsolved political murders etc. However, just how far have these been pursued and sustained? Beside those few gestures, the nation has been confronted with nothing but the immobility of will, punctuated by sudden spasms that generate spidery vibrations, only to subside without any effective result. One’s anxiety therefore is that the Amnesty reach-out, and its potential, may end as yet another cocooned victim of purposed inertia.

Amnesty, after all, is something that Yar’Adua should know about. The Nigerian nation has granted his government an amnesty that has now endured two years, and is set to run its full four-year course. In my political dictionary, there is no political offence graver than organising, condoning, participating in, or benefiting from, the thievery of a people’s political will. On taking office through the gba’ju e tactics of the last incumbent, Umaru Yar’Adua made noises that conceded that a robbery had indeed taken place – an excellent starting point that paved the way for the people to reconcile themselves to what amounts to no more than a political Amnesty. But then, what steps has the beneficiary of this generosity taken to ensure that we put an end, once for all, to this cycle of electoral impunity that steadily takes its toll on a people’s forbearance? What are the concrete, not rhetorical measures taken?

The answer is easily read in the Uwais Panel report on electoral reform. Instead of principled and transparent pro-activity on the document, presidential efforts have been committed to attempting to water down or expunge critical recommendations, so that the commencement of implementation is currently stymied under procedural delays even as the next election looms ever closer. Knowing how ressure of time was deliberately fomented, then exploited, by the Head of INEC – the Institute for National Electoral Chicanery - it surely should be clear to the nation by now that our electoral organizing genius is, without question, being encouraged to utilize the same alibi of ‘decision-making’ to justify what is already looming as another electoral debacle, in which last-minute disorganization will be used to confuse and befuddle the electorate and the electoral process.

The tribunals - and judiciary – will then be coopted once again on the interminable rounds that surrender the electorate to another cycle of aggravated assault and eventual concession of – Amnesty to the seasoned, incorrigible, and cynical assailants. The fount of all electoral malfeasance rests firmly in the director’s chair. So firmly, so confidently is our man that he offered to instruct the United States of America how to run their democratic elections. Not surprisingly, that reluctant student, Barack Obama, decided to give the Iwuruwuru Nigeria Incorporated school a wide miss on his way through the African continent.

Other credibility gaps? Status quo – no, retrogression - on power generation. Status quo on electoral reforms. Status quo – no, again - retrogression on anti-corruption pledges. Related to that of course, the presidential ‘absenteeism’ throughout the Nuhu Ribadu travail and its nationally embarrassing denouement. The retention of an openly, repeatedly compromised Attorney-General, despite the spirited and elaborately argued case for his removal by the Nigerian Bar Association and others.

The unprincipled removal of the Head of the Law School, Lagos, for no other crime than presiding over a formal event, a normal feature of an institution that trains its students to be defenders of the fundamental right of free speech. For a president that swore to restore the integrity of the judiciary, and thus of justice, this certainly was a high water-mark of matching word to deed. Presidential torpor over the Halliburton scandal while the point man, the Attorney-General scurries to and fro, filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.
A head of state consistently rumoured to be so weak as to be barely able to receive the accreditation letters of foreign envoys nevertheless finds sufficient motivation and energy to invade the politically charged zone of Ekiti for a heated electoral re-run, sending – yes, exactly what signals to the nation? Or shall we diverge to the insensitive, nauseous extravaganzas of the self-declared Servant-Leader’s daughters’ betrothals, weddings etc., reminiscent of those decadent Roman days that have bequeathed to the world the expression ‘fiddling while Rome burns’?

That truly is leading by example! Shall we anatomize the discredited company that the President so clearly loves to keep? But why continue? I know that I have repeatedly described Yar’Adua as a president on permanent sabbatical, but professors do not proceed into unproductive hibernation during this physical absence from teaching – indeed, very often, much ground-breaking work is done during this period, and the question under constant study has been: what grounds has this incumbent has been breaking during his two years of sabbatical retreat? Our findings – the ground under the feet of democracy, the completion of the mission embarked upon by his predecessor. Two years have been more than sufficient to test President Yar’Adua’s sincerity, and it has been found wanting. The mistrust that is voiced by the Delta militants only responds to vibrations from the web of deception that Umaru Yar’Adua has spun around his hibernation.

As I stated at the ‘Town Hall Meeting’ in London – that plain, ordinary, routine, and legitimate entitlement to community gathering that Yar’Adua’s representatives in London made such strenuous efforts to scuttle - a passive posture may disguise systemic aggression.
That is commonplace actuality. It lies at the core of certain forms of martial, or indeed marital art, since either form of conflict is often conducted on such terms – a cultivated passivity on one side as strategy for the attrition of the opponent’s resistance. It is only a matter of time before the latter discovers how weakened he has become.

Yar’Adua’s strategic indolence is in that mode. He has been given two years to prove otherwise; he has used both years of comatose affectation to lull the nation also to sleep. Nothing is happening, yawns the citizenry, as it dozes off, or else sleep-walks aimlessly.
Wrong. Just like the godfather, the Spider never sleeps. No, indeed, I have not been indifferent to the Delta crisis – very much the contrary. My position is that, after decades of military dictatorships that have brought a nation to its knees where she had no choice but to endure the dribble of international opprobrium, TEN, repeat TEN years of amnesty to post-military civil governance is no longer an act of generosity by any people, but a sign of resignation and/or supineness. Nevertheless, we need to remind the one to whom the nation’s over-extended arm of accommodation has been stretched that his government is not emplaced on any high moral ground that permits quibbling or dawdling over this offer of amnesty.

Well, the gesture is on offer, and will, I am confident, be soberly and positively considered by the disaffected region. To ensure the result desired and deserved by the nation, it must be backed by structures and procedures that testify to its sincerity, with transparent guarantees placed before the nation. It should not be rejected out of hand by the militants – this we must also strongly urge - despite the fact that the offer comes from one whose credit has been exhausted.
Some of that credit-worthiness can be regained and injected into the process through a serious encounter that brings both sides together, brokered – I strongly recommend - by international neutrals. This is not a novel solution, on the contrary! It had been embarked upon several times before, only to be abandoned through passive procrastination, punctuated by acts of bad faith – such as the ill-considered appointment of a chairman of deeply flawed credentials for one such exercise. Was that a mere error of judgment? Or was it a diabolical exercise in advance sabotage?

Finally, should such an Amnesty be broad enough to embrace even the criminal opportunists of the struggle? Absolutely not. That would be as much as to say that Amnesty also embraces those accused, or proven guilty of war crimes, such as the officers who took part in the cold-blooded shooting of two brothers – among similar, less publicised crimes – against the innocent citizens of the Delta region. Indiscriminate bombings and saturation bombardment of villages ‘suspected’ to harbour sought militants must be investigated and the guilty charged. Orders began somewhere.

Those orders were given, and those orders were carried out. Who gave the orders? Has Umaru Yar’Adua yet launched a commission to enquire into the extra-judicial, cold-blooded murders of the two Gbaramatu brothers? I hope not. There is no need for a commission. Names, locale, time and witnesses – including video records - are sufficient to have initiated an internal enquiry that should now move to the public sphere as criminal proceeding. Will Yar’Adua seize this chance to dissociate himself from the peacetime massacres that became commonplace under his predecessor, and commit the nation to a humane morality even in time of war?

That question hangs for now but, like the question of detainees, constitutes a strand in the fabric of Amnesty that will either enfold the militants or catapult them deeper into the violent zone of alienation.

These are the choices before Anansi, the spider of West African folk-lore, and current tenant of Aso Rock. Those who dispute this categorization are destined to become fodder for that seemingly inert web that is spun ever wider, and with so little energy, while the rest of the nation sleepwalks, mesmerized by yet another receding chimera: Vision 2020. The question posed by the Delta region however, in tune with the rest of the nation is: whatever happened to Vision 1960?

AGAINST KANGAROO ELECTION: THE MUCH NEEDED CALL FOR NIGERIANS TO STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY

2009-05-07T17:12:00.000-07:00

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The verdict is in, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, the party of the occupiers won, the Nigerian people lost! The earlier some of us in the pro-democracy movement understand this fact the better for us. Anyone that thinks the Yar’adua’s government of occupiers, with their corrupt ex-governors will voluntarily conduct a free and fair election and hand over power to winners of such an election is living in cuckoo land.

The recently concluded rerun election in Ekiti, clearly shows that our democracy has reached a dead end. What do you expect? It is only in Nigeria we asked robbers to guard the bank. The so called People’s Democratic Party is determined to end any hope of the Nigerian people for democracy in Nigeria. I had warned of their perfidy ever since they contrived to impose Obasanjo in 1999. The very heart and soul of PDP is antithetical to democracy. You don’t expect a party formed by corrupt and convicted ex-governors and militricians to “mid-wifed” democracy. I said then that the so-called Africa’s biggest party is a gargantuan fraud; a criminal enterprise set up to perpetute the subjugation of the will of the people of Nigeria.

It is sickening to read how Nigerian mainstream newspapers lump the opposition party together in their post mortem analysis after the Ekiti state rerun election. One Nigerian columnist went so far as saying that all political parties in Nigeria rigged, and that the fact that PDP out-rigged the opposition is a sad end that justifies the means!

To me the stupidity in this argument is astounding, I mean, is this the same opposition parties harassed left and right by PDP’s installed soldiers and police men? Who controls the electoral process and personnel? Can anyone in its right senses explain the trip to Aso rock by Maurice Iwu, the supposed impartial electoral officer of the nation to the president on the eve of the election? Can anyone explain to us why PDP officers were the only one permitted in that meeting? Can anyone explain the reason why soldiers were deployed to Ekiti state even though AC had warned of the attempt to use soldiers to foster violence and quell opposition to any protest of the stolen mandate? What business has Maurice Iwu had to do at Aso rock on the week of the election? Why did he avoid the press corps at Aso rock? Why was he smuggled out of Aso rock so his pictures could not be taken? And can the president explain to us what Iwu is still doing at that post; months after his term had expired?

Imposition of candidates is one of the cardinal and directive principles of PDP. They have no sympathy for free and fair election, all they know to do is how to steal election. They have never won a free and fair election in Nigeria and they are not about to pretend to do so. Anyone that argues that opposition parties in Nigeria have access to rigging needs to have their collective examine. I did not see any AC police officers in Ekiti. AC has no control over who prints the ballot papers and where they are printed. They have no control over who get to appoint the resident electoral commissioner. We now know that the resident electoral commissioner for Ekiti state was installed into office by PDP national patron, Olusegun Obasanjo, who used her to send a message briefly to his party about his control of the apparatus of power and election in southwest, when the REC was incommunicado briefly after the rerun. And as soon as Aso rock got the message, they appeased him and she sends her back to complete the task. So she came back to extinguish the little hope the Ekiti people, nay all Nigerians have left for free and fair election in Nigeria. The results she had refused to accept based on the fact that they were concocted and her conscience would not let her; turned out to be the result she gave her imprimatur to, once she got back from Abuja vide Abeokuta or is it Ota!

Many have said we have a long way to go when it comes to election, but I actually think we have not started. The same seeds they sown in imposing candidates on the Niger Delta people that breed MEND is what they have started in Southwest. They that sow the wind shall reap whirlwind. Only a fool will continue to participate in an election organized by the present regime in Abuja. It is time for the oppositions to realize that democracy is on a hiatus as long as PDP remains in power at Abuja.

The Ekiti governorship election rerun clearly demonstrated that campaigns meant nothing, ballot boxes and votes count for nothing. Just take a cursory look at the jamboree they had when the president and other PDP officials came to campaign in Ekiti, they promised nothing to the Ekiti people. They have been in charge at the governor’s office for more than 9 years, they never pointed to any achievement they made in office. They neither run on their record or promise to run things better, they came to taunt the Ekiti people. They sang to Oni, their candidate, “even if you don’t campaigned you have won!” They know they can get away with it, because they owned the ballot box, they owned the center. Nigeria is an occupied nation, the earlier we know that, the easier it becomes to throw the bum out of power. You don’t appease an occupier by participating in a kangaroo election.

Some say, “But the oppositions are in power in Lagos, Edo and Ondo states” My answer to that is simple: how did they get there? Did any of the governors in the aforenamed states win elections organized by PDP? The governors in Edo and Ondo states won largely thanks to tribunal verdicts. If the tribunal had ordered a rerun the oppositions stand no chance under Iwu and his band of PDP anointed electoral officers.

Democracy is no longer on life support in Nigeria, it is dead! And like my colleague, Femi Falana pointed out in his press release we cannot blame the people of Ekiti State. They gave their all, they always stand up against those who steal their votes, and it is time for Nigerians of all hue to stand up too! The historic resistance of the Ekiti people should be the spark that will start a conflagration in our nation. All democratic and progressive forces in Nigeria, should like we did in the time of Abacha forge an organic alliance to mobilize Nigerians to take their political destiny in their own hands. It is time for patriotic Nigerians to stand up for democracy.

THE TAINTED ELECTION IN EKITI STATE AND OLAGUNSOYE OYINLOLA STEWARDSHIP

2009-04-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps, the most to be dreaded,
because it comprises and develops the germ of every other [enemy].”

-James Madison 1795

Nigeria democracy suffered another shock recently when we learnt that a sitting governor privately called for brigandage and militarization of polling booth. The governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, was purportedly caught on tape telling local ruling party politicians that he will supply them with army uniforms, arms and ammunition so they can rig this week's hotly contested runoff elections in Ekiti State so as to favor the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
This is to ensure victory for the governorship candidate of the People's Democratic Party, Segun Oni. Mr. Oyinlola, a retired army general, apparently made the brazen promise to help rig the election by intimidation, during a meeting in Ado Ekiti, the state capital on April 2, with the 16 PDP chairmen of local governments.

My first reaction when I read this, is to laugh, and then I caught myself, suddenly I realized I am laughing at the demise of democracy in Nigeria. A democracy many of friends and colleagues died for on the campus of Obafemi of Awolowo University. A democracy the likes of Colonel Olagunsoye Oyinlola (rtd) did their best to crush through the barrel of their guns. The same democracy they hijacked from the Nigerian people through rigging and corruption. The democracy they are now doing their very best to stamp out completely.

Whoever expects the likes of Oyinlola and his co-travelers’ to fight for and stand for democracy is day dreaming. What we have in Nigeria today is a government of occupation imposed on Nigeria by militricians in civilian clothing. A government imposed on the Nigerian people by the will of a few entrenched interests in PDP. A government that is not accountable to the electorates as they are selected and imposed on the people by the powers that be in Abuja. Nigeria political experiment is worse than the ongoing imbroglio at Gaza, for one the people of Gaza elected the Hamas; we in Nigeria never elected the “self imposed” government ruling us in Abuja.

I am not holding my breath on any accountability by Oyinlola or the PDP; after all this is not the first time their nefarious acts will be publicly exposed by vigilant Nigerian. I recall their shenanigans at the Osun State Electoral Tribunal, where the same governor, his legal counsel and the Tribunal chairman were exchanging text messages on how to conduct the election petition to the exclusion of opposing counsel were the tribunal was sitting.
I am sure Oyinlola will continue to deny ever making the statements attributed to him in Ekiti as he did earlier when he denied the text messages exchanged with the Justice Thomas Damar Naron, the Osun state tribunal chairman.

I am also not holding my breath on the ability of the Nigerian mainstream media to continue to follow this story and force the attorney general to prosecute Oyinlola. The attorney general, Michael Aodoanka had made it implicitly clear to Nigerians that he is beholden to the ruling party that appointed him in the first place.

One thing is certain; the legitimacy of the election in Ekiti state is now under a cloud, that cloud can only be cleared by a free and fair election devoid of any militancy and brigandage. The people of Ekiti should be able to hold Oyinlola accountable for any atrocity that might be committed during the election.

They have been outsmarted by the genius of those who smuggled an audio tape recorder into that meeting. We need more of such citizen’s valiancy if we are to rescue our democracy from charlatans like Oyinlola. I am sure they are already scampering around for another strategy on how they will rig the election.

They usually resort to this type of strategy because they know the people of Nigeria and indeed the electorates in Ekiti state cannot believe their bunkum! Oyinlola stewardship in Lagos and Osun states where he had been governors as military administrator and selected governor is littered with uncompleted projects, embezzled funds, nepotism and bribery of traditional rulers to subvert democracy.

And now, democracy is again on trial in Ekiti state, no thanks to the war declared on it by the occupied governor of Osun state.

CONFRONTING THE PROBLEMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA FROM TOP DOWN

2009-03-30T15:39:00.000-07:00

The gruesome and fatal death of Mrs. Elizabeth Yakubu, has again brought to the fore the endemic problems of domestic violence in Nigeria. According to the news story published online by Sunday Sun, March 29, 2009, Mrs. Yakubu was purportedly hurled down by her husband from the third floor of their house by her husband, Yusuf Yakubu, a 47-year old Senior Inspector with the Nigeria Customs Service.

It is instructive to state that Mr. Yakubu for the record, is denying the charge, he claims that his estranged wife took the fatal plunge herself following his refusal to allow her leave for her house shortly before midnight on the fateful day. Even if that were to be true, his admission still warrants at least a charge of criminal false imprisonment, a veritable tool in the hands of domestic violence perpetrators.

According to the report, Mr. Yakubu’s problem with his wife always starts when he drinks. Alcoholism and drug abuse most often are gateway to domestic violence. The report states that “Anytime he was drunk, he would turn her into a punching bag. She was always leaving him, but he would always go and beg her, saying he had changed.”

Sadly, in Nigeria we have no program geared towards addressing this type of problem. Most of our politicians are men anyway and they are active perpetrators themselves. I recall reading sometimes ago about a Nigerian first lady who boasted how her husband, the then Nigerian president, take pride in whipping her with a horse whip in front of her children if she refused to follow his instructions.

In Nigeria, a woman is expected to follow her husband instructions no matter how warped and illogic that instruction might sound. Nigerian Christians and pastors are directly culpable for this. They stressed the fact that the husband is the head of the wife. They stressed “the head” in the scriptural references they use to justify their stand even to the detriment of the biblical injunctions to husband to love their wife as Christ love the church. No Nigerian church, Pentecostal, orthodox or otherwise have any program directly addressing the prevalent problems of domestic violence in Nigeria. I have also not found any Islamiyya group combating this evil in our society.

Nigerian pastors will often preach against the many evils of “gays and lesbianism” in America and western society whilst they ignore “the specs” in their own eyes. The Imams in the North will rather preach a vitriolic sermon about the neglect of sharia laws in the north than address the injustice against women in many “purdahs” in Nigeria.

We are a nation with culture, they say, but how long will this culture that openly permits the neglect, abuse and discriminations against women last. There are many Yakubu’s in Nigeria who gets drunk at the beer parlor on his way home from work, and gets home to smack their wives around. In Nigeria, neighbors don’t call police to report a domestic violence, when you asked why; they say “we don’t wash our dirty linen in public.” Often time, my retort to them is that this is not just a dirty linen it is a crime. One of the laws my criminal procedure lecturer at the Nigerian law school stress “ad nauseam” is assault and battery. If we don’t report battery against defenseless women and children we should not expect help when those children grew up to invade our homes with armed gangs.

I asked a many Nigerian what aspect of Nigerian life needs immediate attention in what I called “priority of government” series (POGS). The unanimous agreement I got from my unscientific survey points inevitably to security. Not power generation, I guess Nigerian have resigned themselves to living in darkness for the rest of Yar’adua’s regime. No one even mentioned the global financial meltdown or the Nigerian stock exchange imbroglio. Everyone is uniformly concerned with the problem of armed robbery and violent crimes in Nigeria.

In a country where politicians hired armed gangs to run their campaigns Nigerians have cause for concern. I informed a friend recently that I am as impressed with the extreme makeover Governor Fashola is giving Lagos state as everyone else, but all these will be to no avail as long as the problem of security of life and property continues to “dog” the populace.

And it all starts with law enforcement, Nigerian don’t trust their security and para -military apparatus. The police officers carry guns at every “road blocks” and yet you can’t find them around when armed robbers strike at the same location. Sometimes the citizens of Nigeria can hardly distinguish between the armed robbers who invaded their homes at night and the one who invaded their pockets at the road blocks. The Nigerian army will forever live in infamy for the crimes committed against the Odi people on the order of then President Obasanjo.

Someone once said “in the state of lawlessness” it is illegal to be lawful. This is the state we are in Nigeria. This is why husband beat their wife with impunity and nothing happens. This is why we are raising kids who all they know is abuse, physical, mental and political. We have an attorney general that openly cuddles corrupt governors, and will do anything to ensure the long arms of the law will not reach his former clients.

Mrs. Elizabeth Yakubu’s life was wasted by her husband, just as Nigerian government in Abuja is wasting our hard earned democracy “while we stand aside and look.” Like Bob Marley sang years ago, “some says it is just part of it, we’ve got to fulfill the book” as our Imams and pastors regurgitate to our ears at every Sunday and Jumat services.

I say it is time to start a conversation with the pastors and imams and asked them why they keep as friends politicians who mortgage their congregation’s future. It is time to ask them why they refuse to engage the husband who drinks and beat his wife and kids all because he pays a fat tithe and offering.

Francis Adewale
Spokane, WA

AN INFORMED CITIZENRY AS A BULLWARK AGAINST BAD GOVERNANCE IN NIGERIA

2009-03-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

“The truth is, for our democracy to work it needs not just an engaged citizenry,
but an informed one. We've known this since this nation's earliest days. …
"Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of
the people," they wrote, are "necessary for the preservation of their rights and
liberties." -Lee Hamilton “The Center on Congress Indiana University”

The impetus to write this piece came from no other place but Lee Hamilton brilliant piece where I extracted the quote above. I am going to be borrowing heavily from his writing. But let me take the liberty to give a little background to this piece. We learnt recently from This Day newspapers that Lagos State government and indeed Lagos State governor maybe doing an awesome job. Thanks to a columnist from ThisDay Newspapers, Simon Kolawole who wrote “My write-up today should help us understand the Fashola Phenomenon and put things in proper perspective. We can then ask: what can the rest of Nigeria learn from this?” The article went on and on to extol the many virtues and achievement of Fashola to the exclusions of all others.

When I first read this piece my mind immediately went back to ThisDay’s earlier hit piece on the same Lagos state governor. I am sure Mr. Kolawole, as editor of Thisday newspapers know one thing or two about that piece. Here is my riposte on that saga: “In a news story that is clearly a cut between an “hit piece” and an otherwise intelligent investigative report, we learnt of the shenanigans and hypocrisy of the former governor of Lagos State and his connections with the disgraced Abacha’s family friend-the Chagoury’s; as well as the multi billion naira awarded to the latter’s company-Hi-tech Construction company by the Lagos State government.” Thisday ended that news story titled “The Abacha Henchmen’s Chagoury Take Over Lagos” with a clincher “this article is the first in Thisday series on state government.” That was over 6 months ago, nothing but laudatory praises have appeared in Thisday. We are still waiting on their expose’

To Thisday newspapers all of that is water under the bridge, they have patched up with Tinubu, Fashola and the Lagos state government and it is back to business as usual, but to those of us who fought to enthrone the same democracy they are frittering away we are not done yet.

Thisday is not alone in this “jankara” journalism. The Nation newspapers purportedly owned by Tinubu acolytes fought back with their own hit piece on Thisday and its publishers. Other newspapers around the same time “led concurrently for three weeks with damning exposure of questionable award of pension by Gombe State House of Assembly to Governor Danjuma Goje. When adverts from Gombe State and friends of Gombe State started appearing in the pages of this newspaper and other newspapers, nothing was heard of the Goje pension saga” according to a Nigerian blogger who had observed this shameful practice.

This “jankara” journalism practice is also extended to corporate Nigeria. A GSM service provider gave tariff free lines to major columnists and editors. “This Greek gift has ensured that this company does not get the truth about the company activities reported. When any columnist or editor runs out of weekend cash, or money for staff salary, a not too favorable report is done, which is automatically followed by an advert or appearance on the cover of the weekend edition/centre page special report or pull out from the affected corporation or individual. This is how Nigerian media runs.”

When I started a column about Nigerian columnist I received a deluge of emails and text messages from Nigerian, most of whom wanted us to call them out. Many Nigerian can see through these shenanigans but do we have enough informed Nigerian to do something about this charade? One elderly Nigerian called me from Washington DC, an accountant by profession, he was so bitter about the piss poor state of Nigerian journalism that his son said he almost broke his vein speaking to me on the phone. He said he wanted me to concentrate on Reuben Abati. He wondered why I feature more positive and above board columnist like Sonala Olumhense and Okey Ndibe when I could have devoted more space to graft seeking columnist like Reuben Abati, shaming them every week. I told him my attempt is to show there is a better way. He concluded by reminding me that up till now, no one, not even the management of The Guardian newspapers have been able to come up with a reasonable explanation about how and why Reuben Abati accepted land titles from former FCT minister El-Rufai even whilst he writes glowing article about the latter’s tenure in Abuja.

Getting the basic facts right is essential to governing well, especially in a democratic setting. One of the most critical job facing political leaders in a society as complex as Nigeria is to forge a consensus among many people and interests holding competing views. This is difficult enough to do when everyone agrees on the underlying facts; it is virtually impossible when there is no agreement on them. Voters' misperceptions, in other words, can become formidable obstacles to the functioning of our representative democracy. This is why an informed citizenry is imperative for a successful democratic experiment and an articulated media without ulterior agenda is synthetically unavoidable if our experiment is going to last.

Misperceptions develop for many reasons. It can be wearying to sort through all the sources of information—the media, advocacy groups, the Internet, politicians, commentators—on any given subject. And there are always political leaders, lobbyists and others who are willing to let misperceptions linger. After all, if all you need do to win an election is bribing a few journalists why bother with campaigns.

By the same token, there is no single fix. Part of the answer lies with Nigerian growing members of Congress and other public officials, who have a responsibility to correct public misperceptions. Part of it lies with the media, which in recent years has shown a worrisome tendency to downplay its role as even-handed, in-depth civic educator and to focus on entertainment or once-over reporting. Part of it lies with civic groups—some of them do their level best to counter the flood of misinformation, but they often seem outmatched. Lee Hamilton wrote this about politics in the United States of America, but you can apply this mutatis mutandis to the on going situation in present day Nigeria.

In the end, the burden lies with each of us as citizens. A lot of powerful groups and interests in Nigeria try to manipulate public opinion, and they're very good at it. Yet a democratic society depends on its citizens separating the wheat from the chaff, forming good judgments, and putting pressure on their representatives to act accordingly. If ordinary people can't do this or don't want to devote the time and energy, the country suffers. No matter how good our leadership, if we don't have discriminating citizens, this nation will not work very well.

There is an old observation that a society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves. Living in a democracy may be a basic right, but it is also a privilege, and it is one that must be earned by living up to the fondest dreams of our founders for a well-educated and knowledgeable citizenry.

One good thing about the state of media in Nigeria is that the traditional media no longer have sole control of the message. Thanks to the innumerable Nigerian online bloggers populating the internet. A stark contrast between the approach of the traditional media and online blogosphere could be seen in the coverage of a certain Professor Gabriel Oyibo, who claimed have answered questions that Einstein tried to address until he died regarding the origin of the universe. Nigeria Guardian Newspapers through its United States correspondents Laolu Akande published a glowing tribute “celebrating” the achievement of the so-called Oyibo, based entirely on claims made by him. Several months after the publication the said professor surfaced in Abuja and was hosted and feted by Nigeria University Commission, apparently acting on the news report of Guardian.

Thanks to Elendu reports, who dispatched their reporter, Omoyele Sowore to investigate Professor Oyibo’s claim, it turns out many of the professor’s claim are either downright fraudulent or laden with delusions. You can read his report here. In that report Sowore took the pains to verify every claim and contact every institution referenced by Guardian newspapers. At the end of day Guardian newspapers got eggs on their faces, but don’t think that is the end of the saga. It turns out Professor Oyibo is an Idoma who happens to come from the same region as the current attorney general of the federation, Michael Aondoakaa, a man who had sworn to do everything in its power to exterminate eviscerate the very real threat the Nigerian blogosphere posed to their murderous hold on power in Nigeria.
Here is where you as a reader come in to help defend democracy in Nigeria. We all needs to be better informed. Don’t take everything you read from the traditional media or that you watch on NTA or AIT as gospel truth. Challenged them by writing a rejoinder, if they refuse to publish your piece sends it online. Let’s tell them we would no longer sit idle whilst they destroy our hard earned democracy. A better informed citizenry is a requisite vanguard to an enduring democracy.

NIGERIA JUDICIAL ELECTORAL VICTORY MIMICK DEMOCRACY

2009-03-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

NIGERIA JUDICIAL ELECTORAL VICTORY MIMICK DEMOCRACY: BETWEEN AGAGU, MIMIKO AND THE STOLEN MANDATES

“Well I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead.
But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountain top. And I
don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its
place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And
He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen
the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight,
that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.” –Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr.

At the pace we are going in Nigeria, we may end up redefining what democracy truly mean. We are getting to a point where election and electoral victory is just a process. The most important victories we have witnessed so far in Nigeria nascent democracy have all come from the court. No thanks to our “wuru wuru” and “mago mago” fraudulent electoral officers. Victory on Election Day matters little. Turning out the vote and mass appeal and followings by the electorates count little.

We learnt again through the judicial victory granted Oshiomhole and Mimiko by the Court of Appeal that democracy truly needs an independent judiciary to survive. You can spend millions on “get out the vote,” you can go out on election day to knock on doors and appeal to the voters to turn out “enmass” to vote for your candidate, nothing is assured. If you are a politician planning to contest in the next election, you are better advised to save enough money not just to pay for posters but also to pay lawyers to defend your mandate if you ever won! This is the new face of democracy, a democracy for the people, by the people through the court of appeal!

There is nothing inherently wrong in judicial victory on electoral matters, we should be happy that we have independent judiciary willing to stand up for what is right. But then you ask? Why does it have to get to this level before the right thing is done? Why can’t Mr. Iwu get it right? What does he or anyone gain from subverting democracy by stealing the people’s mandate?

And by the way, are we sure the judiciary will always get it right? You only need to look at the electoral tribunal in Osun state to see how a subverted judiciary can make a mess of the process. In Osun state the chairman of the Electoral Tribunal was caught exchanging text messages with one of the counsel to the petition before him. It turns out the text messages were not just greetings, they happened to contain briefs on how to win the case he is supposed to be an impartial arbiter on. That case is still pending in the Court of Appeal and the court’s decision is been eagerly awaited by many pro-democracy activists in Nigeria and abroad.

To echo Comrade Oshiomhole ““truly, truly, now we can discuss democracy. From the point of view of making democracy work, we can discuss democracy. From the perspectives of reforming democracy, now we can discuss democracy. From the hallowed chambers, through the courts, from gavel to gavel, now we can discuss democracy,”

Friends, it is time to tell us what you think? It is time for Nigerians to stand up for democracy.

NIGERIA’S YEAR BEST POLITICAL COLUMNS

2009-01-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

“Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation."- Eugene V. Debs

Today, instead of commentary on commentaries, I will try and pick the best of 2008 political columns from Nigeria about Nigeria. I am sure many of the readers here do not agree with my picks so I urge you to send your own picks to me and I will try and include as many of your picks in the column next year. Send your picks to Tioluwanimi@yahoo.com

Sonala Olumhense: Number one on my list of course is perhaps the most widely read online Nigeria political column titled “Keep Sahara Reporters Alive.” In it, Sonala Olumhense, acknowledged and praised the arrival of citizen journalism in Nigeria and deflected the attack on it by agents of the status quo. Let me quote him:

“I am a student of good journalism. Good journalism empowers. Good journalism
builds. Good journalism is the only foundation on which the democratic state can
flourish. But good journalism is difficult journalism. Good journalism must hunt
down the facts, as inconvenient as they might be. The more important the facts,
the more difficult they are to hunt down. Still, the difficulty of obtaining
information or ensuring the accuracy information does not diminish the burden of
responsibility on the journalist. That, of course, is the ideal. The dwindling
quality of Nigerian journalism in recent times is stark proof of how difficult
this standard is to meet. Our journalism thrives—sadly— on commentary, not
reporting. Nigeria has 130 million columnists; our only limitation is editorial
space. In recent times, the Internet has permitted the arrival of Citizen
Journalism as an important genre in this trade.”

Mohammed Haruna: Let me confess that I was tempted to pick Mohammed titanic battle with Dr. Olatunji Dare but instead I picked this piece titled “Between God, Obasanjo, Yarádua And The Rest Of Us.” The article was published onlineI want the reader to judge if Mohammed is right or wrong:

“As with his Third Term agenda, Obasanjo’s attempt at playing God by imposing
someone of doubtful health and another with a question mark over his integrity
on Nigerians as president and vice-president may yet come back to haunt him.
Already, he is known to have complained about Yaradua’s reversal of several of
his policies. Who knows, he may eventually overcome his infirmity and live long
enough to completely dismantle his benefactor’s obnoxious legacy… In the
meantime the rest of us should learn at least one big lesson of the predicament
Obasanjo has plunged us into by imposing a dubious presidency on the country.
And this is simply that if it ain’t broke, as the American’s would say, don’t
try to fix it. This policy of power rotation that has since become a convention
of our politics was a foolish attempt at fixing a system that was not as broke
as we imagined. In any case, the policy is patently undemocratic, even
anti-democracy. God may be the final word in whatever we plan or do but He gave
us the faculty to distinguish between right and wrong. In other words we owe
ourselves to do our own bit before we leave the rest to Him.”

Okey Ndibe: I am also tempted to pick virtually all of his columns this year, principally because he writes with clarity, and panache. He is always a joy to read any day. In this piece titled “A motion against moving forward” he captured the subjugation of Nigeria by its politician in a more poignant way. Hear him:

“The statement about carrying along all stakeholders is just as hollow and
dangerous. It implies that Nigeria does not belong to all its citizens, but to a
small clique of alleged stakeholders. Pry further and it becomes clear that the
so-called stakeholders are men and women who have privatized the nation’s
treasury. They are, in other words, men and women whose stake—if Nigeria were a
polity founded on observance of the law—should be in jails. Nigerians appear in
danger of being sold another toxic deal in the alleged name of moving the nation
forward. Over the last three weeks, I’ve been told by several sources that a
quiet discussion was going on among “stakeholders” to solidify a consensus on
Nigeria’s contentious 2007 presidential election. And, according to these
sources, the emerging consensus is for the presidential electoral tribunal to
affirm the legitimacy of Umar Yar’Adua’s “election” as president.”

Kole Omotosho: My final pick is titled “The Care of Times” published by The News Magazine on December 9, 2008. Here Professor Kole Omotosho explores the relationships between African tyrants and the resigned stagnation of their subjugated citizenry. Hear him:

“What is clear from all these examples is that, yes, time takes care of these
monsters but it is usually not without the help of some human hand, some human
push. Times change. There was the end of the cold war that made the type of
yo-yoing between East and West as exemplified by Siad Barre impossible. Perhaps
the price of commodities will fall to such an extent that they become dirt cheap
and those who own them, especially oil, would no longer command instant and
uncritical respect.”

There you go folks, those are my picks, what are yours? Please note that in making your picks you are allowed to pick those political columns that are not readily available online. Email your own picks including, author, dates of publication and publishers to Tioluwanimi@yahoo.com.

Happy holidays

.

NIGERIA POLITICAL PUNDIT ROUNDUP: FROM AUNTY DORA TO SERIOUS MUSINGS

2008-12-26T14:40:00.000-08:00

Nigerians are a very interesting lot. Political punditry in Nigeria is definitely not a dying vocation in Nigeria. Following last week commentary, a reader asked: “How do you define a good political column from a bad one?” I am sorry to report that I do not know the answers. But that's OK: Neither does anyone else. In fact, any answers you hear will almost certainly speak less to motivations than to actual bias. What we do know is that some are better than others. Some are “419” who rent their column for a fee payable immediately and/or upon patronage. Some Nigerian columnists are just outright political hacks, without any pretense to objectivity whatsoever. They are not ashamed to sing the praises of their benefactors in power and or sing the “nunc dimitis” of those that have either not pay up or are on the verge of losing power.

A good help in understanding sound political columnist in Nigeria is history and predilections. Is this writer objective enough to lay aside his/her preconceived notions before pontificating about Nigeria? Is he or she a rabble rousing political hacks installed by a political party in the media to advance their campaign platform? You will very often find a consummate journalist turned columnist who takes his job and objectivity very seriously. The difference between objective political columnists can often be found in their predilections. We all know the difference between David Broder’s column in Washington Post and Michael Gerson in the same paper. The latter is an erstwhile Bush White House speech writer turned columnist whilst the former is the doyen of political news reporting in Washington DC. In the peculiar Nigerian settings, one can also compare Ebenezer Babatope’s political commentary columns in Nigerian Tribune newspapers to the informed commentary of Ebenezer Obadare a consummate journalist and a professor who also write for the same paper. Here is this week comment on commentaries:

Mohammed Haruna: This week Mohammed responded to a rejoinder to his column by his erstwhile colleague, Jonathan Ishaku. Here is a reason why many Nigerian journalists are afraid of taking on Mohammed. “Since Mohammed Haruna likes to quote past utterances as explanations to present events…,” Ishaku said, “one also needs to remind him of some of his own past utterances and actions which disqualifies him as a fair commentator of public affairs.” Ishaku went on to list the many sins of Mohammed, some of which are ad hominem. Mohammed Haruna not only eviscerates every points leveled by Ishaku against him, he also characteristically admitted an error that led to the deaths of thousands of Nigerian during the Kafachan riots. As editor of the then New Nigerian, Mohammed allowed a paid adverts that later inflamed the tensed religious riots in the North. The mistake Ishaku made is that he never knew the price paid by Mohammed for that fatal error:

“Not only was the New Nigerian not alone in carrying such adverts and
statements, Ishaku told a blatant lie when he said I got away with it and even
got the bonus of a hefty reward. Yes, I got rewarded alright, but it was not
with a ticket to go to Hajj. Rather it was with four days in detention at the
State Security Services (SSS) cell on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. I am not aware
that any newspaper chief executive has ever been detained for carrying paid
adverts.”

Mohammed then ends this week column with a reference to our last week column, which he wrongly attributes to one of our readers who forwarded the piece to him in an email. (Please note that in a private email exchange with Mohammed he acknowledged the confusion caused by our reader). Again we quote him:
“In a nation divided by faith and ethnicity,” he said, “we expect our political columnist to at least be a journalist, sworn to an oath unperturbed by any bias.”
I have no problem with bias because only God, the Omniscient, sees things from all angles. Like it or not we are all born into a tribe, religion or region and we are bound to see things through those prisms. However while I have no problem with bias as such I do have one with the kind which is so deep that those who cling on to it never want to hear any thing negative about their side in a dispute or any thing positive about the other side. And this, I am afraid, is the problem with much of Nigerian journalism”

Dele Momodu: This week “Pendulum” add a new fillip to his praise singing column, calling a lady not related by blood or lineage an aunty. (I know many here will say it is an African thing.) The lady in vogue this week is Dora Akunyili. Characteristic of the swinging pendulum of Dele’s pen, she deserves all accolades not because of her achievements at NAFDAC but because:
“Her daughter was getting married in Cote D’ivore and we had offered to cover it free of charge. It was our modest contribution to a woman who had worked tirelessly at protecting our lives. She never forgot the simple favour. I was so moved to tears when she turned up at my mum’s funeral last year, all the way in our little town of Gbongan in Osun State. She stood by us like an Iroko tree as if the dead was (sic) her mum.”

Herein lays the incestuous relationship between the mainstream media in Nigeria and Nigerian government official. “You rubbed my back and I rubbed yours.” The only person who suffers in this relationship is the Nigerian masses who ended up reading half truths in their trusted newspapers. You can bet that more “simple favor” will continue to flow in this relationship between Dele Momodu, his Ovation magazine and Dr. Dora Akunyili. We haste to point out that out of over 3000 words used by Mr. Momodu in this week, only one terse paragraph made reference to the mismatched of the portfolio assigned to Ms. Akunyili, a qualified pharmacist, now assigned to the ministry of “misinformation.” We all recall that other write up have condemned the assignment, and some even called Ms. Akunyili to gracefully resign. None of that came up in Mr. Momodu as he is busy looking forward to the day when the ministry of information will placed $10, 000 advertorial in Ovation celebrating Nigeria independence day whilst many dies in Nigeria’s Niger Delta!

Okey Ndibe: By far some of the best columnists in Nigeria and the ones I usually look forward to reading are Okey Ndibe, Sonala Olumhense and Mohammed Haruna. I intend to excerpts Okey’s column without any comments just to amplify his well reasoned argument to those not accustomed to reading him:
“Nigerians who are plain tired of the Yar’Adua regime’s claims to living out the rule of law found reason last Thursday to be nauseated. A Federal High Court in Enugu convicted former Governor Lucky Igbinedion of Edo State on a one-count charge of corruption. His punishment? To pay a fine of N3.6 million. That’s not even a slap on the wrist; it’s a pat on the back – or even a lover’s hum in the ear!.. This isn’t rule of law; it’s ruse of law. It broadcasts that there are two Nigerias and two sets of rules, one set for commoners, the other for the lucky few who call themselves “stake holders.” The whole shocking episode, make no mistake, was orchestrated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The shenanigan began when the anti-corruption substituted its initial 191-count charge of corruption, money laundering and embezzlement against Igbinedion and his colluding companies with a 24-count charge. .. Justice Kafarati’s sentence is the kind of sanction likely to fertilize corruption, not stem it. Here’s what it proposes to the collection of crooks who misrule Nigeria: steal, as much as you want, you’ll live to enjoy the fruits of your treachery! Steal millions of dollars; pay a few thousand in fine – and absolutely no jail time.”

Sonala Olumhense: As I stated above, I love reading any piece from Sonala and his columns are always a treasure in my days at Great Ife. This week he wrote about the attack on the alternative media in Nigeria, particular the attack by Yar’adua and Aondoanka on Nigeria bloggers. I will quote him seriatim:

“I am a student of good journalism. Good journalism empowers. Good journalism
builds. Good journalism is the only foundation on which the democratic state can
flourish. But good journalism is difficult journalism. Good journalism must hunt
down the facts, as inconvenient as they might be. The more important the facts,
the more difficult they are to hunt down. Still, the difficulty of obtaining
information or ensuring the accuracy information does not diminish the burden of
responsibility on the journalist. That, of course, is the ideal. The dwindling
quality of Nigerian journalism in recent times is stark proof of how difficult
this standard is to meet. Our journalism thrives—sadly— on commentary, not
reporting. Nigeria has 130 million columnists; our only limitation is editorial
space. In recent times, the Internet has permitted the arrival of Citizen
Journalism as an important genre in this trade. One of the most important
organizations in the Nigerian environment is Sahara Reporters (SR), about which
I wrote here on 10 August 2008.

Let me give a brief background to the issue, a few weeks ago, some Nigerian politicians found to be politically aligned with the Federal Attorney General, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, took out a newspapers adverts accusing the publishers of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, of owning “landed properties” in New York. The farcical nature of the allegations is that they went on to list as properties owned by Mr. Sowore, a building that belongs to Colombia University dormitory in New York!
As SR comes under this life-or-death assault, I say to those who feel that it is making an important contribution: shout it out, don’t whisper it. Similarly, if you feel that SR is wrong, shout it out, don’t whisper it. However, you are a hypocrite if you say you support the tenacious sacrifices being made by nationals for you and me, yet stand by while they are ripped apart.As one who believes that Sahara Reporters and Mr. Sowore are fighting for me, I say: Speak up! Speak up; those who loot and abuse should not prevail over those who merely report their crimes against the people! Speak up; go to the SR site and put your support where your mouth is! Speak up for your children and your country!

Onochie Anibeze: Lastly, we consider another “column for hire” writer. Anyone familiar with the many musings of Onochie will know that he always write a flowing tribute on every newly appointed Sports minister, praising them to high heavens. Well, you will not be disappointed. This week he turned logic on its head. Many will recall that when Abdulrahman Hassan Gimba was appointed sports minister, he sang his praise to high heavens. Now that he has been removed Mr. Anibeze wants you readers to know that Gimba was a round peg in a square hole. Perhaps he forgot that he told us then that “someone without sports background could excel as sports minister if he took time to learn and adopt some managerial expertise,” which is usually his code words for consultancy fees. Well, it is either Gimba did not pay well or that his money had run out. Now, Mr. Anibeze wants you to know some of the stories of maladministration committed by Gimba which he could not report on whilst he was on assignment at the Olympics. He now tells us that Mr. Gimba simply stayed put at his hotel in China, refusing to motivate the athletes. He (Onochie) in turn was attending all the games and reporting on all of them and yet omitted then to inform us that our minister, with thousands of dollars on “estacodes” did nothing but watch games in his room.
The question is why is he doing this now? The answer is simple; there is a new sheriff in town that needed to be courted and patronized. The old is gone, the new is here. Hear him: “It is on this note that I welcome Sanni Ndanusa as the new sports minister. Ndanusa’s appointment could be likened to those of Tony Ikazoboh and Emeka Omeruah who once headed the Nigeria Football Association before becoming ministers. They were on familiar terrain and performed well.” We would be here to tell you what Anibeze had to say, once Sanni refused to play ball and he get attacked for not clapping for the national team when the team is down 4 goals to nil!
Sometimes I wonder how a journalist like Mr. Anibeze lives with themselves.

ABBREVIATED NIGERIA PUNDIT ROUNDUP: WE READ NIGERIA ONLINE COLUMNIST SO YOU WON’T HAVE TO

2008-12-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

Today, we are starting a new online review of Nigeria political commentaries and their often “inane” and “jejune” take on black Africa’s largest democracy south of the Sahara. Every week, beginning from today, we shall endeavor to bring you the “behind the scene” intrigues that often get parlayed into Nigeria political column. Given the vast array of political column on Nigeria politics available online, we would only review a few popular columns. So here goes this week:

Mohammed Haruna: There is a reason why Mohammed became the first Nigeria syndicated columnist, he is never afraid. Today following the deluge of “text rejoinder” he got as a result of his last week column, titled “On the media and the Genocide in Jos” he decided to take all his detractors head on. Only in Nigeria will you find a “syndicated columnist” willing to reprint an ad hominem attack on his person: “For pure venom, however, the text that took the cake was the one that said I was a “BASTARD CONCEIVED from a busted CONDOM” If you think that is hilarious you have not been reading Mohammed.
By far however the most salient of his “wordsmith” this week, is his self admission that he is first of all, a muslim before he wears his journalistic hat:

“True, as a Muslim, I inevitably see things from an Islamic point of view and
tend to be more tolerant of wrongs committed by fellow Muslims. This is only
natural and human. What would not be natural or human is to turn a blind eye on
such wrongs. As a journalist and columnist I have not done so.”

The problem with this admission is that Mohammed’s syndication is mostly funded by Christian readers. I still admire his forthrightness but in a nation divided by faith and ethnicity we expect our political columnist to at least be a journalist, sworn to an oath unperturbed by any bias. I commend the rest of the article to my readers.

Dele Momodu: Any time we read any write up by Dele, we make sure we have with us a “patrono-meter.” We are sure many of our readers have never heard of that word, well you need it to make sense of the “patronage-driven” Dele’s columns. Here is one Nigerian columnist you can easily predict who is paying him presently. If you ever need to “rent a column” just contact “This Day” newspapers and specifically asked for Mr. Dele Momodu. Sadly, we all know things used to be different for Dele Momodu, especially those of us who knew him at Obafemi Awolowo University-“Great Ife.” One can only conclude that things started turning south for him after the demise of his benefactor- Late Chief Moshood Abiola. We fondly recalled his eviscerating article on the Ooni of Ife, where he criticized the latter statement urging protesters to go vote in Late General Sanni Abacha “kangaroo” elections
This week, Dele focused on Ghana, in a column titled “And Ghana Did it Again.” In it his reader will find him heaping effusive praise on his next door neighbor, and president of Ghana, for conducting a free and fair election. The big chunk of his praise however goes to former president Jerry Rawlings. Many of us who have met Dele in London’s social circles and pubs drinking with Rawlings can only laugh.
The whole article is riddled with inaccuracies, conjectures and outright falsehoods, but for lack of space we will restrict ourselves to the followings:

“Today, the Ghana Cedi is largely at par with the dollar. Ghanaians have won the
confidence of the international community. They obtain visas of usually
difficult countries with unbelievable ease. Students can obtain up to a five
year visa to the United Kingdom and the United States of America. What is more,
Ghana only recently found oil in commercial quantity.”

Really? We all know elections in Africa are usually free and fair on election days. The problem has always been the counting and rigging that follows days after the election, as can be readily attested by the events in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. In Ghana we know as of fact that the “Ghana’s presidential election on December 7th, the candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, got just over 49% of the vote, while his opponent, John Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), got nearly 48%. Since neither crossed the 50% threshold to win outright, a run off will be held on December 28th” So why the premature celebration by our columnist? The answer lies in the candidate he is pushing to win the election. The other problem with Dele’s write up is emblematic of all his other writings, conjectures. To get a more accurate assessment of Ghana we need to refer to the United Nations Development Program which ranks Ghana 135 out of 177 in its Human Development Index. Behind Papua New Guinea, war ravaged Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, and Haiti. We also know that Ghana is “Well endowed with natural resources, Ghana has twice the per capita output of the poorer countries in West Africa. Even so, Ghana remains somewhat dependent on international financial and technical assistance as well as the activities of the extensive Ghanaian Diaspora.”
How anyone will use student’s abilities to obtain visa as evidence of development beats me!

Femi Adesina:

“I do not recall when last (if ever) I spent the better part of four days in
Owerri, the famed Eastern Heartland, and capital of Imo State. But that was what
I did last week, from Wednesday to Saturday.”

Approximate number of times, Mr. Adesina wrote an article pontificating about South Eastern Nigeria since he started his column on Saturday February 28, 2004 =95!

“What was I doing in the land of the Mbadiwes, the Mbakwes, the Enwerems and the
Ohakims?”

Duh! hello! You are being paid to pontificate on Nigeria and not just events that happened in Lagos alone! The land you gave to the Mbadiwes had produced a commissioner born and raised in Ibadan.

“Consider this array of intellectuals and captains of industry who delivered
papers at the summit: Prof ABC Nwosu, Prof Pat Utomi, Prof Bart Nnaji, Chief
(Dr) Cosmas Maduka, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, Dr Ndi Onuekwusi, and many others…The
lesson? Next time an Igbo man moans or bellyaches that he’s marginalized because
of the civil war, I’ll just tell him to shut up. The Igbo nation has put that
period behind, and is marching ahead, strong.”

Really? So your conclusion is that since you attended a meeting where some Igbo sons and daughter who had been a beneficiaries of the “rent an Igbo to justify the looting” governance in Abuja, all Igbos are now precluded from raising the issue of marginalization? By the way, who pays this damned fool to write a column in a newspaper with 80 % South Eastern Nigeria patronage?
“

I came form Owerri convinced that the key to the development of this nation lies
in regional integration and cooperation. Enough of waiting for the centre to
wave the magic wand and manna will fall from the sky. Governors of the various
states should break their artificial borders, join hands, and move their regions
forward. Didn’t we see it in the days of Western, Eastern and Northern region
with their respective premiers? Lightning can strike twice, surely.” (Emphasis
mine)

You mean the days when the Tivs, Ofas and the Jukuns were constantly complaining of marginalization in the north? Or when the Ijaws, Kalabari, Urhobos, Ishans et al were at the receiving end of hegemonic rule by the majority ethnic group in the South? What did we saw in the days of the regional premiers? The beginning of corruption in Nigeria at least that is what all the Coker report et al tells us. Of course the so called regional premiers made the civil wars inevitable with their parochial allegiance to ethnic politics.

Okey Ikechukwu: writes in the Punch on the Web

“… called for political and spiritual mentoring of the leaders of tomorrow….We
saw serious political mentoring in the first and second republics. Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Mallam Aminu Kano, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and many other
national leaders were part of a conscious sifting political process that was a
veritable recruitment machine for political and other forms of leadership. At
that time, the concept of political godfather was under-stood in the best sense
of this vandalized concept. The godfather is your earthly guardian angel who
takes trouble to ensure that the best in you is actualized; for your own good
and for the good of the world around you. That was the spirit of god fatherism
in the First Republic. It is also the spirit in all mature polities. The
godfathers are custodians of values, ideologies and tendentious traditions they
wish to promote. They are not robbers.”

Sometimes, we wonder if Nigeria pundits bother reading their history books. If we have our way we will mandate a compulsory historical study of Nigerian politics as prerequisite to becoming a Nigeria political pundit. Herein lies the many lies in the excerpt above, Chief Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Dr. Azikiwe are not political and spiritual mentoring leaders Nigeria badly needed in the 21st century. Chief Awolowo’s is a good administrator who can’t stand criticism and dissenting opinions. History clearly shows that he is a tenacious ideologue only for his views. He was neither ready to build bridges and work with his opponent nor can he stand any team of rivals. Dr. Azikiwe on the other hand had little or no principles when it comes to power. He will wine and dine with anyone even as long as he is accommodated and patronized in the corridors of power. Sir Ahmadu Bello is at best a northern “hegemonistic” patriot, who is more interested in courting and raising “god sons” who will defend the parochial interest of his region to the detriment of Nigeria’s federal democracy. None of them produced an illustrious son of Nigeria. They all raised political children dedicated to dismembering Nigeria than uniting it. Here is a quote that gives us a “bird eye-view” of their leadership acumen:

“The Nigerian ministers, in or out of
office, are an interesting lot. …. They are paid exceptionally good salaries for
Africa-up to 2, 500 pound sterling per year, which is more than a British PM
gets. Some in the regional Houses have names picturesquely representative of the
eruptive flux that has created modern Nigeria. …they are also inclined to be
somewhat doctrinaire, to be painfully sensitive and unsure of themselves, and to
be carried away by splinter partisanship… At one juncture, when they were
quarrelling ferociously, Awolowo and Zik sued each other for libel for
considerable sums; the two awards more or less canceled each other out. Then,
after the crisis in 1953, the two began to work together again, each keeping his
own sphere of influence, with Awolowo stronger in the West, Zik in the East. But
in 1954 and later came other bitter quarrels, and split venomously once more.”
(excerpts from John
Gunther “INSIDE
AFRICA” published, 1955 by Harper

That to us is the leadership they bequeathed to Nigeria, riven with rivalry and contention.

THE AONDOAKAA MADNESS CONTINUES: WHO IS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY?

2008-11-26T16:21:00.000-08:00

“No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would
certainly bias his judgment, and not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With
equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and
parties at the same time.”
-James Madison

It is about time we asked this question: who is actually running Nigeria? Who is the president of this country? Who is making decisions affecting the lives of millions of Nigeria? Yes, we do have a president in law, ensconced in Aso rock, removed from the realities of daily grind. A president Nigerians rarely see. A president who rarely perform any public functions outside the insular enclaves of Aso rock. Perhaps the only time Nigeria gets to see him live, is when he is on his way to another exotic hospital location in Saudi Arabia or Germany.

The reason we ask this question is that Nigeria is tottering on the “precipe” of outright chaos. We have a “mad dog” attorney general out on the loose, giving press conference and arresting any Nigerian at a public event because they are not properly dressed. In a country governed by constitution! I know, he now claims he never asked anyone to forcibly remove the erstwhile EFCC chairman at a public event recently. His visage however betrayed his true intents. Whilst it is comforting to learn that the so-called presidency had had to back away from the stance of its attorney general. One is still at a loss whilst the same presidency will not caution or at least rein in the renegade attorney general. The attorney general of the federation has turned the prosecution (or should we call it persecution?) of Mr. Nuhu Ribadu a directive principles of this government. It is as if there are no corrupt governors to prosecute anymore? The entire Federal Ministry of Justice is seized in frenzy, an ad hominem attack of one man. And what was his crime? He successfully prosecuted the corrupt governors who bankrolled the present regime. The Attorney General is now the prosecutor and the judge in the many trials of Nuhu Ribadu. I asked again, who is running this country?

Some of my friends have argued that Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, probably deserved what he is getting, given his predilections to selectively prosecute the enemies of his masters whilst they hold sway over Nigerian, but is this the best and only way to make him account for his acts or inactions during his turbulent reign as EFCC chairman? Is the present government not indirectly turning Ribadu into a martyr? Why not take legal action against him if he broke the law? Why take all these extra-legal means? And how on earth can a member of the Nigerian bar Association and attorney general of the federation justify the self-help means the federal government has so far used to humiliate Mr. Ribadu? Who is running this country?

We have a president who looks very sickly in every attempt he had made in the last 2 months to pretend normalcy. Every attempt by the press to get information about his health is often met with arrest or closure of the journalist and the media organization respectively. Even an online blogger was recently arrested by the amorphous secret service at Murtala Mohammed Airport, only for the government in Abuja to denied knowledge of the arrest. Again I ask who is running Nigeria?

Francis Adewale
Spokane, WA
U.S.A

NIGERIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE TRADES FOI FOR COVER UP OF PEUGEOT 407 SCANDAL!

2008-10-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

“If we must win the fight against corruption in our country, we must eschew friendships, tribal ties, consanguineous relationships, generational solidarity and face the facts of each case as we see them”

-Festus Keyamo, Lagos lawyer, in his letter to Hon. Dimeji Bankole, Speaker,
House of Representatives asking him to explain the controversial Peugeot
purchase deal.

I wrote sometime ago that the fight on corruption was dead on arrival in Nigeria. Once Farida Waziri was enthroned as EFCC chairman by Honorable Dimeji Bankole and his coterie of “do-nothing” legislators, we are sunk! And now, the chicken is coming home to roost.

I am one of the few who are willing to give Hon. Bankole a chance to prove us wrong. After all, until a few years ago, he was one of us, Nigerian abroad. He knows what representative democracy means, he understood the fiduciary nature of the call for public service. In fact he got his present position as Speaker, after his predecessor had been disgraced out of office for corruption related affair. So when the news broke about the Peugeot 407 scandal currently rocking the House of Representative in Nigeria, I could not help but lament how we Nigerians continue to ignore the lessons of history.

Let me posit here however, that Hon. Bankole is yet to defend himself of all the allegations so unlike some I will refrain from reaching any conclusions on that issue. The issue I really want to address is the ongoing charade at the House of Representatives Committee on Ethics and Privileges. At the hearing, the committee members made it explicitly clear they are not really interested in finding the truth about the scandal rocking the house, but are more focused on ferreting out information about the “whistleblower.”

They want to know how Mr. Keyamo got his information and not if the allegation were true. When it got to the turn of Newswatch, the Executive Editor of Newswatch, Mr. Bala Dan Abu, who stood in for the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine, Ray Ekpu, was available and he again was interrogated on the source and authenticity of the magazine’s story on the scam. No attempt was made to first investigate the allegation by staff of the house. None of the administrative staff implicated in the scandal was brought to the hearing.

Mr. Abu told the committee that while the news magazine stood by the content of its story, it had no further presentation, additional information or submission to make.
“This is the magazine I edit and I cannot deny any information contained in it. We stand by all the information contained in our story. It is not as if I have additional information,” he said. You would think the House members will stop here and start asking the right answers instead of red herring. Well, you don’t know them.

And then the members asked the blackmail question, here I will quote the account in Thisday published online on October 30, 2008 “verbatim ad literati”: The House members asked “On whether there was still need to push for the enactment of the Freedom of Information Bill (FoI) in the face of the prevailing situation where the mass media procure official secrets and publish stories such as the car purchase scam.”

Tell me what has the FOI bill got to do with an inflated contract? It was not as if they doubted the veracity of the document submitted by Mr. Keyamo. In actual fact they were astounded that an ordinary Nigerian will have access to a public document. Document that should and ought to be made available online by every democratic government for scrutiny by the public and tax payers. There you go folks, our distinguished House of Representative now engages in blackmail. The implication for the press is to stop any probe of the House expenditure and budget if they want to pass the Freedom of Information bill. This I called the ultimate blackmail.

For me, I have reached an inevitable conclusion that we cannot trust the present Nigerian politicians to pass the freedom of information bill, the political parties and politicians in Nigeria today will be committing political “hara-kiri” if they passed the FOI bill. It will cut off the source of their ill-gotten wealth. Nigerian masses and activist have to prepare themselves for a long slug fight to a constitutional amendment if Freedom of Information were to become law in Nigeria.

Francis Adewale
Spokane, WA
U.S.A

WHY NIGERIA AND NOT JUST THE NORTH IS UNDERDEVELOPED

2008-10-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts."

-Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former U.S Senator from New York

Nigeria’s mainstream media is characteristically myopic in outlook. Nigerian journalist and news editors of today rarely hide their ethnic prejudices and preconceived notions. The smart journalist of yore used to hide and camouflaged it, but of late it has become increasingly embarrassing. You can see through these shenanigans with the way they celebrated and headlined otherwise somber reflections of the state of Northern Nigerian economy by its leaders and business executives in their news reports on the Northern Nigeria Economic and Investment Summit organized by the Conference of Northern States’ Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (CONSCCIMA).

A cursory reading of the discussions during the summit clearly shows that every problem highlighted as the cause of the ongoing economic malaise in the north is clearly applicable in any part of Nigeria. Indeed the whole of Nigeria economy is on a slump whilst the federal government is fast asleep.
In the news report on the summit, we learnt from the Bauchi State Governor that there cannot be any investment in the North when there is no peace in the region:
“The North is very backward; at least the death rates among our women and children indicate so. But the truth is that there cannot be investment, where there is no peace. Is there peace in the North? We know how religious riots drive away the investors,”
The fact is everything the Governor stated here is equally applicable to the southern part of Nigeria. The only metrics the north could be said to be below the south is education. And the south had“head-start” thanks largely to the initial rejection of western education by the North during the colonial time.

The economy of the southern part of Nigeria is also in ruins. The biggest companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange are oil companies owned largely by foreigners, northern Nigeria investor and a smattering of Obasanjo created millionaires, all of which gave a semblance of affluence in the midst of abject poverty. Where are the Cadburys and the cocoa derivatives industries like Cadburys and Food specialties of Nigeria? Whatever happened to the industrial park in Ikeja, Warri, Enugu and Port Harcourt? The big companies in southern Nigeria today are not manufacturing or introducing innovative products, they are all glorified money changers and bureau de change called universal banks.

If you want to talk about wars and riots, it is as much a problem of the south as it is with the north. We all know about the full fledged war going on at the Niger-delta. Only the brave will bring investment and manufacturing companies to Ibadan where miscreants recently took control of the state government aided and abetted by their god father. Need we mention the macabre dance in Aba where allegiance to Okija shrine determines who gets to live and govern the state.

At least the northern Nigeria leaders are talking about their problem. What is the south doing about the mass killing going on in the Niger Delta? When was the last time the fractured south addressed the problem between the Modakeke and Ife? Or the fratricidal war for the very soul of Warri by ethnic warlords.

The Lagos-Ibadan-Enugu press can continue to celebrate mediocrity all the want, I am not happy with the state of my country. This is not a time to finger point. These times called for action from educated Nigerian. It is time to educate the electorates to the impending catastrophe that the PDP government is foisting on all of us. It does not matter whether you live in the north or south.

As my good friend and a consummate Nigerian, Finance Minister, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman pointed out during the forum: “It is not enough for you (referring to the army generals and former governors) to stay in the comfort of your homes and complain. You must show interest on who is representing you. The point I am making is that you must take up challenges. Nature abhors a vacuum. You cannot do it alone by staying in your comfort zone. You have to take the challenge.”

BAD JOURNALISM AND THE RETURN TO AUTHORITANISM IN NIGERIA

2008-09-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

Nigeria woke up this week to a return to an age old military rule tactic: closure of media house. In this case, the government closed a privately owned broadcasting house. A government supposedly elected by the people for the people. It is hard to defend Nigeria’s comatose profiteers masquerading as journalist in Nigeria. The news item that led to the closure smacks of perfidy and appear to have the hands of the enemies of this regime all over it.

The present state of mainstream media in Nigeria is pathetic to say the least. What stops Channels Television from checking the story out with the regime, given it's well known access to the regime especially when Baba Gana Kingibe was still in government? We know how they lobbed easy question to the president and edited out the president coughing fits to camouflage the health of the president during their interview with the president sometimes ago. An interview arranged at the behest of Kingibe to burnish the image of the president when the going was good.

We are in a journalistic era where facts are considered an inevitable hindrance to preconceived agenda and truth is slaughtered frequently to appease the god or goddess of patronage. But the extreme depravity of Nigeria journalism should never be a license to return to military dictatorship. As long as the present regime surrounds itself with “militricians” in “agbada” we will continue to have problems with our democracy.

My first response when I watch the Channels TV broadcast of a fabricated Yar’adua’s retirement is élan. I said to myself, here is a golden attempt by the regime in Abuja to show their democratic credentials by suing the proprietors and journalist of Channel’s Television and thus made Nigerian journalism more accountable.

You can of course imagine my disgust when I woke up the following morning to learn that the Federal Military Government, oops, sorry the democratic Federal Government of Nigeria invaded the premises of Channels television without a search warrant, ransacked the premises, drove out the staff and locked up the station! What manner of democracy is this?

A government desperately searching for legitimacy would have given itself a massive goodwill if it had done the right thing: sue the bastard! Why is legal process so antithetical to the present regime? The answer is simple; their very foundation is grounded in tyranny.

To quote Nigerian Guardian editorial of Thursday, September 18, 2008, “But to revoke the license of a broadcasting station, intimidate the leadership of NAN and incarcerate officials of the two media houses is a sad throw-back to the era of military tyranny, and the authoritarianism of the Obasanjo years.”

In other words, no lesson learnt, nothing has changed. In actual fact if you asked Nigerian if they had received any “dividends of democracy” from the Yar’Adua regime. Their first retort is Yar’adua who? The president imposed on Nigerian by Obasanjo is hardly known outside the PDP “chop make I chop” circles. A president that has spent more time in hospital bed than the actual act of governance cannot be expected to deliver “dividends of democracy to anyone.

I am one of the few that are willing to give Yar’adua’s a chance, and he may yet surprise us, but my hope gradually turns forlorn everyday when I watch the macabre dance going on in Abuja. Hirelings and sycophants are in control of our government. The so called elected leaders have abdicated governance to their “godfathers.” We are “toast!”

We have a lame duck vice president, who hardly performed any duty when the president is away on his numerous hospital beds. We have larger than life Secretary to the Federal government who was recently ousted for plotting to overthrow the regime he sworn to serve. We have a political party, whose interest lies in protecting the interest of its rich members to the exclusion of the masses of Nigeria. How can we make progress in these circumstances? I would not be surprised if the president and the vice president did not know about the closure of Channels Television Station until the news broke out this week. Of course, what do you expect when you make a retired military general with little or no democratic credentials your national security adviser!

Nigerians are very religious, they pray for their president everyday. I think they need to start praying for their country democracy rather than the health of their president. The longevity of this democracy is hanging on a balance. We have a full blown war going on in the Niger Delta. Our stock exchange took a hit and doesn’t appear to have enough life left in it. The fight against corruption is now a footnote rather than a headline. Corruption is pervasive, whilst government is in abeyance. It is as if governance in Nigeria is on an extended vacation. The problem is the officials appear to have bought a one way ticket to vacation, hence return trip is not promised. In their absence, no one is in control. God help Nigeria.

Nigeria in retrospect: Day Babangida overthrew Buhari

2008-08-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

Today again I yield these space to a recent article published by Nigerian Compass

Day Babangida overthrew Buhari

Wednesday is the 23rd anniversary of the coup which ousted Major General Muhammadu Buhari and brought General Ibrahim Babangida to power.
GABRIEL AKINADEWO writes on the mistakes of Buhari and the survival strategies of his successor.

After one of the meetings of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) in early July, 1985, the then Chief of Army Staff, Major General Ibrahim Babangida told the Head of State, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, that it would be necessary for him to embark on tour of army formations in the country. Babangida was not asking for too much as those formations were under his office. Babangida also told the Commander-in-Chief the need to boost the morale of officers and to upgrade the infrastructural facilities in the various divisions, brigades and barracks. After a few minutes, the request was granted by Buhari. When Babangida left, Buhari thought about what some officers told him a few weeks earlier of an impending putsch. Although the details were vague, he was told that Babangida was part of the plot to remove him from office. But the problem was that Buhari was not the type of officer who was crazy about office. Again, before he made any move, Buhari would demand for a cast-iron evidence. So, when Babangida came, telling him the need to make the army boys happy, he dismissed the earlier thought. What he did not know was that Babangida was only using the tour as a decoy to perfect the final strategy for the plot which after its success on August 27, 1985 was hailed as a ‘palace coup.’It was no accident of history that Babangida became head of state 10 days after his 44th birthday.

To observers, he had, for years, planned to become the most powerful Nigerian. He was only waiting for the right time and when the chance came, he grabbed it immediately. During the December 31, 1983 coup which ousted Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Buhari was the General Officer Commanding (GOC), 3rd Armoured Division, Jos. Babangida was the Director, Army Staff Duties and Plans. Although Babangida was older, Buhari was senior in hierarchy and he commanded troops. So, it was generally agreed that Buhari should lead the new regime but the moment Babangida was made the Chief of Army Staff, he put machinery in motion which paid off 20 months later.Three factors contributed to the success of the coup. The first was that the then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Major General Mamman Vatsa, did not really push Buhari enough to move against Babangida. Vatsa was closer to Babangida than Buhari because they were course and soul mates. And most of the officers used for the August 27 coup, especially the General Officer Commanding (GOC), 2nd Mechanised Division, Ibadan, Major General Sani Abacha, were also close to Vatsa. Vatsa knew that the plot was thick and he tried to warn Buhari but Buhari’s non-challant attitude weakened him. When he also told the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Major General Tunde Idiagbon of the plot, Idiagbon merely replied: Let them try. When the Babangida group knew about this, the rumour came out that Vatsa was ambitious to become the Chief of Army Staff and that was why he wanted to discredit Babangida.With that, Vatsa ‘soft-pedalled’ and that gave Babangida the advantage he needed.

Also, since Buhari became the Head of State, he did not promote himself till he was removed. A disciplinarian, he believed that the rot left by the civilian administration must be cleared first. He thought first about the country before himself. Believing that Babangida was loyal to him, he left the army completely under his care. That was why he was easily overwhelmed. When any report came to him, his belief was that the evidence must be strong before any move was made. That was why it took months for him to retire Lt.Col* Mohammed Aliyu Gusau because he was waiting for evidence indicting him in the import licence scam, an evidence which was eventually supplied by the Nigerian Security Organisation (NSO) led by Alhaji Rabiu Rafindadi. With the retirement of Gusau, Babangida, his closest ally, felt threatened and moved swiftly to actualise the plot against Buhari. In other climes, half of the evidence gathered was enough to nail Babangida. In Adolf Hitler’s Germany, Hitler was told about the impending move against him by General Ernst Rohm. Röhm was Hitler’s long-time, right-hand man. They were arrested and imprisoned, together with others, after the Beer Hall Putsch fiasco in 1923. Rohm also worked for the emergence of Hitler in 1933 as the Fuhrer. But the moment Hitler learnt that Rohm was plotting against him, he decided, alongside Heinrich Himmler and Herman Goring, that Rohm must be sacrificed. Rohm was executed without trial during the purge of the SA - the so-called ‘Night of the Long Knives.’ in June 1934. Following his arrest by Hitler himself at the resort of Bad Wiessee on June 30, Röhm was held briefly at Stadelheim Prison in Munich. There, on July 2, he was visited by SS-Brigadeführer Theodor Eicke (then the Kommandant of Dachau) and SS-Sturmbannführer Michael Lippert. Lippert, on Hitler’s order, shot Röhm at point-blank range after he refused to commit suicide with a pistol given to him. Also in Ethiopia, the plot against General Mariam Mengistu failed because he moved fast. Mengistu who was in East Germany, returned to crush the rebellion. He ordered the Presidential Guard, supported by militia units, to surround the Ministry of Defence, isolating the key plotters. He detained the entire Ministry of Defence as well as the Commanders of the four Ethiopian Armies; grounded the Ethiopian Air Force and summarily executed hundreds of officers.

The Commander of the 2nd Army, General Demissie Bultu, was beheaded. So, the procrastination of Buhari led to the success of the coup against him. The third success factor was that Babangida planted key loyalists in strategic units of the military, a move Buhari was not aware of. As Head of State, Buhari’s isolation from the military was given a high priority by the Babangida group. It began almost as soon as he came to power in 1984. While he was fixated on purely political national issues with religious fervour, he did not notice that specific officers were being quietly placed in specific operational positions to lay in wait like ‘sleepers’ until they would be called upon to strike by the very service chiefs he had naively placed his trust in to run the armed forces on his behalf. Lt. Col. Halilu Akilu, a Grade 1 Staff Officer in the Directorate, was smuggled into the office of Director of Military Intelligence while Lt. Col. M.C. Alli went to Britain and the United States for an official engagement. Alli deputised for Col. Aliyu Mohammed who had left for a course at the Royal College of Defence Studies after assisting to overthrow Shagari. Akilu was Babangida’s ‘main-man’ in the intelligence community, a counterweight to Alhaji Muhammadu Lawal Rafindadi, Buhari’s loyal head of the NSO. In the actual execution of the coup, Babangida also played a smart one. He chose the celebration of the Eid-el-Kabir, when he knew security would be relaxed and alertness not at the peak, to strike.

On August 26, muslims headed for mosques for morning prayers on Sallah day at the Ikeja Cantonment, but there were strong indications that a change of government was imminent. Buhari, the Commander, Brigade of Guards, Lt. Col. Sabo Aliyu and Buhari’s Aide-de-Camp (ADC), Major Mustapha Haruna Jokolo tried to find out details to no avail. Idiagbon had already travelled to Mecca, together with Vatsa and a few others. Aliyu was reported to have asked Akilu, his friend it it was true ‘some boys’ were planning to overthrow Buhari but Akilu told him there was ‘nothing to fear.’ Determined to know what was about to happen, Aliyu and Jokolo left the State House to find out happenings in the barracks. They were driving round Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Ikeja, seeking information and checking on the status of units, unaware that they were being monitored by Akilu’s men. When it was about 9 pm and because the time for the actualisation of the operation was close, the order was given for their arrest at the Ikeja Cantonment gate. Buhari tried to reach Abacha in Ibadan to no avail. He also told one of his aides to get in touch with Babangida in Minna. All the efforts were fruitless. It was then he realised that he had been outsmarted because Major General Domkat Bali, the Chairman, Joint Chiefs, had no Army to command to counter the impending putsch. At the designated and pre-arranged time, units in Lagos sped toward their objectives. Officers and soldiers of 123rd battalion, 245 Recce battalion, 201 Armoured HQ battalion, the 6th battalion at Bonny Camp and the 93rd battalion at Ojo Cantonment were mobilised.

To prevent anti-riot policemen(MOPOL) from being used, even if it was going to be a fruitless exercise, the Lagos State Police Command headquarters at Ikeja was cordoned off. Lt. Col John Shagaya, the commandant of the 9th Mechanised Brigade, Lt. Col. John Madaki, commanding officer, 123 Guards Battalion, Ikeja and Major Kefas Happy Bulus, acting commanding officer, 245 Recce Battalion, Ikeja played active role in this. Armoured Vehicles and storm troopers were detailed to move to the Radio House in Ikoyi and State House, Dodan Barracks. Babangida gave the task of arresting Buhari to officers he trusted. When Majors Abubakar Umar Dangiwa, Lawan Gwadabe, Abdulmumuni Aminu and Sambo Dasuki arrived the State House, Buhari was waiting for them. He was later whisked away after he was given the chance to dress in his official uniform. After the arrest of Buhari, it was clear that the coup had become a success story.

Then, Colonel* Joshua Nimyel Dogonyaro, Director of Manning (“A” Branch) and concurrent Director of the Department of Armour at the Army Headquarters, announced that the Buhari regime had been deposed. Hours later, at about 1 pm, the more familiar voice of Abacha, who was to become the Chief of Army Staff, announced the appointment of Babangida as the new Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Babangida immediately took the title of ‘President’. The position of Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters was eliminated. Navy Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, then Flag Officer Commanding, Western Naval Command, was appointed to the new position of Chief of General Staff (CGS) at the General Staff headquarters. The first thing Babangida did was to remove the control of service chiefs and GOCs from any direct relationship to any other officer.

They reported directly to the new Commander-in-Chief. Obviously, he didn’t want what happened to Buhari to repeat itself in his regime. He scrapped the NSO and detained Rafindadi for close to three years. Gusau was recalled from retirement, promoted Brigadier*, and became National Security Coordinator, later GOC of the 2nd Division and Chief of Army Administration. Akilu was promoted Colonel, retained directorship of the Military Intelligence and became a member of the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC). http://www.compassnewspaper.com/news.php?extend.2882

A Rejoinder to Northern Nigeria Governors Press Release

2008-07-31T08:57:00.000-07:00

Today, I yield these pages to an illustrious son of Nigeria, the Late Yusuf Bala Usman, the article below is a good riposte to the recent rantings of Northern Nigeria governors. Let no one think that the underpinings of this articles applies only to the North of Nigeria. The same argument can be made of the southwest, where the gerontocratic leadership in cahoot with feudalistic traditional rulers have made mess of the gains highlighted by Dr. Usman in this article. In the East, the rapacious ex-governors holds sway. Nigeria is currently on the throes of death, with bayonets drawn from all sides by rabid ethnic traducers who used the ignorance of the Nigerian peoples to set them against each other in the name of "tribalism" whilst they loot the coffers of the nation. Please read on:

Political Economy and Political Stability in Nigeria in the Early 21st Century*
by Yusufu Bala Usman,
CEDDERT, Hanwa, Zaria, Nigeria.
Being A contribution to the Workshop on the Survival of Democracy in Nigeria, Royal Tropicana Hotel, Kano, Wednesday, 27th September, 2000.

The little contribution I am going to attempt to make to this workshop is on the subject of, Political Economy and Political Stability in Nigeria in the Early 21st Century. This takes care of what was in the provisional title, as set out in this workshop’s programme, and even goes beyond it. Political economy covers education, employment, and much more, including political stability, whose nature, forms, root causes and pattern, cannot be properly understood with the outlook which imposes an arbitrary distinction between politics and economics; a distinction which, as you all very well know, does not exist in real life. The central theme of this workshop, according to its programme, is the survival of democracy. And, since the country is now operating under a democratic constitution, the main issue before us is, the growth and stabilisation of this democracy in it. A democratic form of government is being established in this country over the last fifteen months, after fifteen long years of military dictatorship. Like everything else in natures and society, this form of government has to grow in order to stabilise and survive.

A cardinal requirement for this is that those who have taken on their shoulders the responsibility for operating this term of government have to be clear-headed as to what this growth and stabilisation involves. They have to understand, and make their followers understand, what the establishment of democracy means beyond winning elections by hook-or-by-crook, and sharing the legal and illegal spoils of office. This contribution is aimed at drawing the attention of the participants at this workshop to some of the realities of the Nigerian political economy which will determine whether this democracy grows and survives or whether it breaks down and is overthrown. Some of these realities, even the organisers of this workshop, from the way they have formulated its theme, seem to want to evade. But, before going into all these we need to seek to clarify what political stability, in general, and the stabilisation of democracy, in particular, means in the context of our country in Africa and the world in these early years of the 21st century.

Political Stability

The political stability of any form of government has to involve the stable realisation of the political essence of that form of government. The political stability of a communal gerontocracy in villages and small towns headed by elders under an age grade system, means the continuation of the exercise of power by those who have reached the appropriate age at various levels of the system. The political stability of a feudal monarchy means the continuation of the exercise of power by the heirs of the dynasty or dynasties who produce the monarch.

The political stability of the type of democracy provided for in our constitution means the continuation of the exercise of power by those freely elected by the people of this country for specific periods with definite mandates which conform with the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy clearly defined in chapter II of the Constitution. The opening sections of this chapter makes this very explicit, providing that: 13. It shall be the duty and responsibility of all organs of government , and of all authorities and persons exercising legislative executive or judicial powers, to conform to, observe and apply the provisions of this chapters of the Constitution. 14(i) The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a state based on the principles of democracy and social justice (2) If is hereby accordingly declared that- (a) sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority (b) the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. Therefore, the political stability of our democracy does not mean the stability of the power of any civilian elected to rule any way they want. There can only be political stability for our type of democracy if those freely elected rule in accordant with the fundamental objectives and Directive Principles of state policy and in words and decide make the security and welfare of the people the primary purpose of government. Most of you elected to hold office under this Constitution who have taken solemn oaths on the Holy Koran or the Holy Bible to carry out your duties in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution like to behave as if these Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles do not exist, or if they do they are merely words intended to decorate a document whose only use is to get the soldiers out and get you into official and give you the keys to the public treasury. This is why even before this democratic form of government has taken-off it is threatened with political instability. But instead of facing up to your clear constitutional responsibilities you used all sorts devices to evade them in order to rule the country, as if that is all you were elected to do.

Compartmentalisation

One of these devices is the compartmentalisation of the country into the so-called six geo-political zones, which?? This outlook has now become so pervasive that the organisers of this workshop can conceive of a serious discussion of democracy surviving, or not surviving, in six States in a federation of thirty-seven states, without any consideration of the fact that if democracy does not survive at the level of the Federal Government where sovereign power lies, it cannot survive in any part of the territory under this government.

This retrogressive outlook which squeezes the complex geographical, cultural, economic and political diversity of the country’s thirty-six States and seven hundred and seventy four local government areas, into six so-called geopolitical zones arose from the divide-and-rule agenda of the military dictatorship led by the late General Sani Abacha, and of its NADECO rivals, both sides of which shared an interest in reducing the political crises arising from the annulment of the June 12th presidential elections to an ethnic and regional conflict between the Yorubas and the Hausa-Fulani and between the North and the South. This outlook has no basis in the actual geographical, cultural, social economic and political realities of the country. Let us take the so-called North-West Zone for example. At what level of the physical and human geography of Nigeria, does Kano, Jigawa, and Kaduna States belong to the same zone with Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara, and not with Yobe and Borno, in the case of Jigawa; Bauchi, and Gombe in the case of Kano; and Niger in the case of Kaduna and Kebbi? At what level of political culture, political activity and political behaviour do the inhabitants of these States belong together, more then with others? What is the empirical evidence for this geo-political cohesion? Linguistic? Is it that these are the states where the Hausa language is predominant? Then why not call them linguistic zones and not pretend that they have some geo-political unity, separate from the others? But then can you call the North-East Zone, or the North-Central Zone or the South-South linguistic zones? This creeping separatist mentality may be a convenient cover to promote tribalistic politics with which you can evade your Constitutional responsibilities of ensuring the security and welfare of the people because not only at the level of politics, but even at the level of the climate, the hydrology, the demography and the economy the states of the so-called North-West Zone, like those of the other zones, are so interdependent with one another and with parts of the neighbouring countries of Benin, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, that they cannot do without one another.

All I want to do here is to draw your attention of how wittingly or unwittingly we get our minds imprisoned by conceptions which have no basis in the realities of our existence and in the Constitution and yet which makes assume that we can meaningfully discuss the survival democracy in some states of a federation and not in others and not at the level of the Federal Government.

Misrepresentation

Besides promoting a narrow and tribalistic political outlook this compartmentalisation allows for misleading characterisations which also allow you the elected public officers to run away from your Constitutional responsibilities. One of there characterisations, is the one found in the them of this workshop referring to these seven states as “economically weak” The reality on the ground is that these states are not economically weak in the context of the Nigerian Federation and of West Africa and, in fact, of the whole of Africa.

This misrepresentation arises from the myth that the Nigeria has an oil-based economy, and the states which have no oil wells and no significant proportion of the plants of the manufacturing sector are economically weak. But almost everybody knows that the states in the so-called North-West Zone are not only well endowed with vas natural and human resources for agriculture, livestock-rearing and fresh-water fisheries and a wide range of domestic crafts, extensive commercial activity. The facts as is brought in Table 1, are that minerals, including petroleum have never exceeds more then 14% of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product. Agriculture, including livestock, and fisheries in the last two decades accounts for around 40% of the GDP. If you consider the serious limitations of the Federal Office of Statistics, the Central Bank, and the other organisation computing Nigerian economic statistics, particularly in relation to the rural economy and the vast so-called “informal sector,” in both the rural and urban economy, the agricultural sector is likely to account for more then 50% of the country’s GDP. Out of this a significant portion comes from the states of the north-west. So how can they be “economically weak”?

Let us take one basic determinant of the strength of an economy which is the capacity for the production of food. Amongst the foodstuff essential for human nutrition are proteins, derived from legumes and livestock. The states of the north-west produce over 70% of the beans produced in this country in the period 1992-1995 as Table 2, illustrate. These states have for the years 1991-1995 produced up to over 50% of the cattle , goats, and sheep, inspected and slaughtered in the country, as Tables, 3,4, and 5 respectively bring out. These states is properly governed can double and treble this output in the next few years. These states are not economically weak” therefore. They are economically backward, because even in the sub-sectors of agriculture where they are leading, like in the production of some of the most basic protein-rich, foodstuff, this strength is not reflected in the living conditions of the people of these states. And since an economy is basically the utilisation of natural resources with human capacity for human needs, when the living condition of a people incapacitate them that economy is backward, it is retarded, not weak.

Malnutrition

The gap between the resource endowment of the economy of these seven states and the living condition of their people is clearly brought out in the fact regarding the under-nourishment of children in these states. The nutrition health and the general welfare of the children in any society is one of the best indicators of the general living conditions of the people in that society. Here you have states which lead the rest of the country in the production of foodstuff, particularly protein-rich beans and meat, but the children of these states are much more under nourished then children in other states who are not so well-endowed. As Table 7 bring out 43.1% of children under five in Nigeria are stunted largely due to poor nutrition but the figure for the north-west is 50.4% while that of the south-east is 36.6% and 35.6% in the south-west! This is very revealing about the political economy of the states of this zone, where the children of those who produce a significant amount of the protein-rich beans and meat for the country are under-nourished and suffer from being under-weight wasting and stunting, with long-term consequences damage to their capacity education, training and for mental and manual labour in adulthood. But it is not only on the area of nutrition that these states are backward, severely damaged, but also in almost all other areas of child welfare, as Table 7 illustrates with regards to prenatal care, delivery, vaccination, infant mortality under-five mortality and the occurrence of diarrhoea. Thus, the people of these states who are damaged by malnutrition, although they are major producers of food also suffer in other areas of their welfare, in spite of the fact that in terms of the revenue allocated to their local and state governments, they have not being at a disadvantage, as Tables 8, 9, and 10 bring out clearly and which you are more then familiar with.

Lack of Infrastructure

In the period June, 1999 to May 2000, in your first one year in office, the local and state governments of the seven states of the north-west received a total of 92.5 billion naira from the Federation Account. The local governments receiving N22.5 billion and the seven state governments receiving N30.0 billion with a total population of about 30 million this means for every single men, women, child and infant you received a total of N1,733.3 which you have solely sworn to use for their security and welfare. There are no indications in terms of their living conditions that you have used these billions of naira as you have sworn to do. The fact is that far from the state of north-west being economically weak, their economy is actually well-endowed but it is very oppressive and exploitative of the producers of the wealth.

A ruling class made up of local, states and federal government bureaucrats, military officers politicians, traditional rulers, businessmen and religious leaders has established a strangle-hold on the lives of the peasant farmers, pastoralist, traders, craftsmen, workers and artisans in these states. The areas of health, water supply and education as the tables here illustrate are ones in which the rapacious role of this elite is most clearly illustrated. While as Table 11 bring out the national percentage of household with water supply from pipes and boreholes in 1993-1994 was 31/7%, it was only 26.3% in the states here. That was seven years ago. The situation is much worse now, even for our households in the most favoured areas of the GRAs. The pipe-borne water supply system has virtually collapsed in most of the major urban centres, in spite of the hundreds of billion of naira local state, and federal government funds and foreign loans allocated to waters projects now and over the years. The water situation of the majority of the people in the rural areas and the high-density urban areas is a disaster. If we turn to electricity supply we find on Table 12 that while the national average of households having access to electricity in 1993/94 was 33.63% it is below half of that at 16.5% in the seven states of the north-west.

This economic backwardness of the state on this major economic infrastructure is not just because somebody in charge of NEPA at the parastatal, or ministerial level, from another region has deprived the area of electricity. For most of the last decade the top executives at the parastatal and the ministerial level and
some of the biggest contractors of NEPA were from the states in the north-west!
They are morally and politically responsible, together with other local government and state government top officers for this serious retardation. There is no held to go around looking for 9 Yorubaman, an Iboman or a Christian to blame!

Crippling Manufacturing

The backwardness of the states of the north-west is a result of the highly exploitative and parasitical activities of the section of the Nigerian ruling class dominant in these states. Their capacity and parasitism is brought out over how they have not only undermined the major industries established here like the Sokoto Cement Factory, the Kaduna Refinery, the Katsina Steel Rolling Mill and the Fiat Vehicle Assembly Plant in Kano, but they rose in arms against the P.R.P Government of Kaduna State, when in 1979-1983 it set out to establish fourteen industries in Kaduna State, some of which were agro-allied, in order to build up on the states leading role in the production of agricultural inputs into the food beverages and related industries. As a result of their rapacity of the seven states of the north-west, as Table 13 reveals, had only 53 out of the 330 food and beverages industries in the whole country in 1994, which is about half of the 104 located in Lagos and Ogun states many of which rely directly on food inputs from the states of the north-west.

Plundering Education

The level of parasitism on the part of the rulers of this parts of Nigeria is far-reaching. For, the local, State and federal government funds allocated to this part of the country and formally assigned for educational development are systematically stolen by a highly organised education industry mafia, to the extent that the peoples of the area are some of the most educationally backward in the country. The level of backwardness cannot be covered-up with the evasive tactic of calling these “educationally disadvantaged-states.” There is no question of any disadvantage as the budget of these states in educational sector makes clear. When billions of naira are allocated to education and yet the percentage of unqualified primary school teachers in 1995/96 in Katsina State was 76.31%; in Sokoto and Zamfara States it was 72.54%; 59.55% in Kebbi States; 59.18% in Jigawa States; 58.00% in Kano State and 31.02% in Kaduna State. The national average of unqualified primary school teachers is 24.05% giving Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara States the distinction having 300% more unqualified primary school teachers then the national average. Anambra, Ogun, Osun and Oyo record on 2% of their primary teachers being unqualified!

These states of the north-west are clearly just backward educationally because of the rapacity, of their ruling elites, because in these states there are the institutional provisions and the funds available to train the hundreds of thousands of secondary school-leavers and College of Education drop-outs to become qualified primary school teachers. But this is not done and among the reasons is that the local and state governments and the federal agencies, want to minimise the amount of money they pay teachers and for the running of the schools. They believe these are better taken and put in their own pockets, so that they can continue run around the country calling their states “educationally dis-advantaged,” while they are actually the most educationally-advantaged section of the Nigerian elite, since they make so much money from education! Even for the Technical Colleges, for the training of bricklayers, plumbers and electricians, and such essential technicians these states which have a very poor system for apprenticeship training in the private, sector have barely 12% of the total enrolment in 1997-98, far below what they need, in terms of population, area and other resource endowments. In the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination of 1995, 44,2999 student from the seven states sat for the paper on English and only 1,185 passed, that is 2.6% passed. In mathematics the percentage that passed was 5.1% and in Physics it was only 2.5%. Out of the 4,870 who sat for Physics from Katsina State, only thirteen passed, giving it a failure rate 99.8%!

It is not surprising therefore, that in the UME admissions to Faculties of Agriculture of Nigerian Universities in 1998, out of 3,069 candidates admitted only 99 came from these seven largely agricultural state, which are not up to the 128 admitted to read agriculture from Lagos State, which barely had any significant agricultural sector in its economy. The 3.2% admission from these states to read agriculture is about the same in engineering and environmental technology, where out of 11,782 candidates admitted on 3.6%, that is 428 are from these seven states, less then half of the 1,167 admitted to those faculties from Imo State alone. The percentages admitted from these states, into the medical science faculties and into the basic sciences were 3.9% and 2.6% respectively. Table 19 reveals that this backwardness is not just in the physical and natural sciences it extends to admission into the faculties of administration, art, education, law and the social sciences. The situation is equally disastrous if not even more dangerous with regards to admission into the polytechnics as Table 17 reveals. At this crucial of education essential for the training of essential middle level manpower for the economy the percentages admitted from these states for the two years 1996/97 and 1997/98 are 0.02% from Jigawa State; 0.11 from Kadna State; 0.12% from Kaduna State; 0.03% from Kebbi State; 0.005% from Sokoto and 0.004% from Zamfara State. The seven states had only 0.31% of the admissions in that year!

Conclusion

The seven states of the north-west are not economically weak and educationally disadvantaged. They are economically exploited and educationally plundered. Their people are held in the grip of an oppressive system which rapidly enriches those in power and authority in the public and private sectors and impoverishes and dispowers the majority of the citizens.

This process of the enrichment of the few and the impoverishment of the many generates resentments, insecurity and violence. The attempt to channel the resentments away from the rich and powerful who are actually responsible for it, and direct it to take the form of communal ethnic, religious and regional hatreds and phobias, entrendies a particular type politics, most easily described as the politics of fear. This type of politics seriously retards the growth of civic consciousness and civic responsibility necessary fro democratic political activity to grow and survive, because it turns politics into a jungle with predator and prey and not an activity by citizens contesting and cooperating in working out the best way of running their affairs.

This type of politics has to be oiled with vast amount of money largely acquired illegally and is therefore/inherently subversive of the rule of law and the
supremacy of the Constitution. It s inimical to any form of stability, particularly democratic stability as provided for in our Constitution.

The choice before you, the elected public officer shouldering the responsibility for ensuring the growth and survival of democracy in our country is stark. You either go ahead with this type of politics and see this form of democratic government collapse on top of you with all the dire consequences to your limbs, lives and property, or you change course and follow, in your own interest the difficult path of genuinely democratic politics as provided for in the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of the Constitution. You have solemnly sworn to uphold and defend.

OF FASHOLA, TINUBU, OBAIGBENA AND THISDAY CHICKEN COMING HOME TO ROOST

2008-07-22T17:38:00.001-07:00

“If Nigeria were to die and an autopsy was to be performed the media would be the cause of death” – Anonymous

A little while ago, I wrote about the impending danger that the new brand of journalism now perpetrated by This Day Newspapers posed to Nigerian fledging democracy. In that piece I submit respectfully:
“There is a new way of doing business, especially if you are a newspaper proprietor in Nigeria and it will make you rich, I mean “stinking rich,” and you don’t have to employ a journalist to run your newspaper anymore. The new deals can be called Award Ceremonies, Pop music concerts and Fashion Show Extravaganza. All you need do is announce through the front page of your national newspapers that you are organizing an award ceremonies for companies and government “parastatals” and agencies. The crassness of the deals lies in its buffooneries. There is no semblance of merits in such an award. All it does is get these private companies and government agencies tripping over themselves to advertise in such newspapers. It is interesting to note that the winners of such awards end up locking down an advertising contract with such newspapers.”

I had stated then that the problem I have with this brand of journalism is the inherent “damage it does to the already “battered” integrity of journalism in Nigeria.” Sadly, I could not have been more prescient. I hate to gloat but for once I am proud to say “I told you so.”

Today we learnt that indeed the chicken is coming home to roost for this brand of journalism. In a news story that is clearly a cut between an “hit piece” and an otherwise intelligent investigative report, we learnt of the shenanigans and hypocrisy of the former governor of Lagos State and his connections with the disgraced Abacha’s family friend-the Chagoury’s; as well as the multi billion naira awarded to the latter’s company-Hi-tech Construction company by the Lagos State government.

The problem I have with This Day report is the timing. When did they start working on this story? Since most of the reports referenced deeds and incidents that happened during Tinubu’s years at Alausa why did they sat on the story until now? What motive is behind publishing it now rather than on the eve of election? The reason I say this is that publishing such a story would have enabled the electorates in Lagos State exercised a better judgment in returning someone that is not a lackey or stooge of Bola Tinubu.

The more troublesome problem and the question This Day editor and publishers need to ask is why give the Governor of the Year Award for distinction in infrastructure development to Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola when the same construction company made all the infrastructure development available? It is interesting that the paper now claims it made the award to Fashola based on the wishes of its reader, but then is that not an indictment of the newspaper itself? Could they not be found culpable of misinforming their readership by highlighting musical jamboree and awards to the detriment of actual work of journalism?

Another question I would love to have the publisher answer for us is this: What nexus if any, is there between the Lagos State government refusal to grant a permit for This Day permanent center for jamboree and fashion show and the publication of this news story at this time?

The problem with the ongoing saga is that none of the parties come out of this clean. The Lagos State government had already sent out its “tax goon’s” to This Day corporate office to find out if they had been paying tax regularly. The problem with that is it stinks! Everyone knows this is the same tactic that General Abacha would have used when a newspaper published something unsavory of his regime. So what the Lagos state government is doing is merely confirmed the hypocrisy of its so called democratic ideals. They played into ThisDay story lines when they take a vengeful stand instead of taking every effort to respond to the story accurately and introspectively.

ThisDay newspapers on the other hand will go down in history as contributing to the “demise” of Nigeria democracy more than any other media if it refuses to desist from promoting crass journalism over and above its new found “constitutional duty of the press to hold governments accountable.”
It is not too late for the parties to sheath their sword, roll up their sleeves and helps Nigerian democracy expose pervasive corruption, rebuild crumbling infrastructures and laid a good foundation for black Africa’s largest democracy.

DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN OSUN STATE: THE SAGA OF ELECTORAL PETITION TRIBUNAL AND EXPARTE COMMUNICATION WITH COUNSELS

2008-07-09T17:15:00.000-07:00

It is a settled maxim of law that you have to hear the other party in any judicial proceedings. The Latin maxim aptly states “audi alteram partem.” It means that any and all judicial official is required in every democratic judicial institution to avoid “ex-parte” communications with any of the parties and their counsels before the court. All communications and conversations with the parties and their counsels must be made in open court room or in chambers with all the parties and/or their lawyers present. This by the way is the first thing a budding lawyer is and would be taught at the law school. Any attempt to circumvent this settled principle will taint the entire proceedings and thus rendered whatever outcomes a nullity!

This basic constitutional and administrative law principle readily sprang to mind when I read a recent exclusive news report from “The News” magazine about the improper triangular telephone conversations between counsels to the governor of Osun state, the incumbent governor, as well as some members of the Electoral Petition Tribunal in Osun State.

According to the news magazine in its story titled ‘‘The Scandal of Judges, How Osun Tribunal Was Compromised;’’ it claimed that it had obtained “authentic, incontrovertible and unimpeachable” phone logs containing conversation between the counsel to the governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, and his lawyer, Otunba Kunle Kalejaiye. “The truth is that we have the logs of all calls and text messages made by Kalejaiye and Justice Naron in the last six months to colleagues, friends and family members, and those made to them,” the magazine stated.

Now, let me say that I applauded the journalist who uncovered this story and wish them “more grease to their elbow” as we usually call it in Nigerian-ese. My problem however is their subsequent press statement that they have phone logs of conversation in the last months to “colleagues, friends and family member.” Even if they do, statements such as that should never have made it to the pages of news papers. We all have rights to privacy and the journalist will be “pushing it” if they think the court will protect their right to freedom of information if they start boasting of illegally obtaining phone conversation of lawyers, judges and their family members.

However, what is fair game is any “ex-parte” phone logs between the judicial officers of the tribunal and the counsel to the governors. The phone conversations between the governors and his counsel are well protected under Attorney/Client privileged relationship. The conversations between the counsel and any of the judicial officers outside the legal frameworks permitted by the tribunal rules and procedures are unfair, unjust and contrary to the rules of any democratic principles anywhere in the world.

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 specifically provides in Section 36 subsection 1 that “In the determination of his civil rights and obligations, including any question or determination by or against any government or authority, a person shall be entitled to a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a court or other tribunal established by law and constituted in such manner as to secure its independence and impartiality. “ Emphasis mine.
Subsection 3 further provides that “the proceedings of a court or the proceedings of any tribunal relating to the matters mentioned in subsection (1) of this section (including the announcement of the decisions of the court or tribunal) shall be held in public.”

What the Osun State Electoral Petition Tribunal did in this case is a clear affront on the constitution. The fact that the tribunal chairman, Justice T. D. Naron exchanged text messages with the respondent’s counsel at an “unholy hour” of the night (some of the messages and phone conversations took place past midnights or early in the morning) brings back to memory the saga of another judge who put Nigeria democracy on trial. The story of the infamous now late Justice Ikpeme who issued an injunction to stop the declaration of June 12 election in the dead of the night!

The link between the Osun State Electoral Petition Tribunal tenuous interlocutory rulings so far and the beginning of the ex-parte phone conversation with the tribunal members is there for all to see. At this point it is clear that the tribunal is sufficiently tainted that no one could expect justice will be done in this case. It is incumbent on the National Judicial Council to vacate their ruling and dismissed the panel immediately.

But this is Nigeria after all, and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is still in power, so I expect nothing will happen. It is saddening indeed that the democracy I lost some of my best friends fighting for had been turned to a nightmarish experience. A macabre dance with an hydra monster populated by evil genius pretending to be democracy messiahs in “agbada.” We are indeed in big trouble and there is no end in sight.

The potential for prosperity, peace and development is clearly all over Osun State, but the “goons” in power will not let that state move beyond their shadows. Their vicious grip on the state is evident by the mayhem they have unleashed on the state since the death of Bola Ige. There is no single politician of any hue in the state that could boast of getting into office through a free and fair election. “God-father-ism” is the order of the day.

The ongoing battle at the Electoral Petition Tribunal is a side show to the eventual battle to come, which is the next gubernatorial election. The battle between ex-president’s Obasanjo’s so called “poodle,” Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode and Senator Iyiola Omisore for the governorship jostle started recently when the latter maneuvered to have the former arrested for corruption related to the multi-billion naira Airport contract, even whilst he himself subsist under the clouds of suspicions for the dastardly and callous murder of Bola Ige. The age old adage again rings true here, when the elephant’s fights, it is the grass that suffers. In this case, the grasses are the poor people of Iwaraja, Ila Orangun, Igbajo, Modakeke, Ikire, Ikeji-Arakeji, Ijemba, Ere-Ijesa, Ifewera, et al who will wake up this morning without any functional health centers, no sanitary tap water, no motor-able road network, and of course most importantly; no government to hold accountable for the provision of basic amenities of life in a 21st century Nigeria. And yet they say we have democracy. Well this democracy is on trial and the judge is on phone busy text messaging one of the counsels before him!

AFENIFERE AND ALLEGATIONS OF ETHNOCENTRISM IN YAR’ADUAH’S REGIME

2008-06-26T14:22:00.001-07:00

Sometimes a brilliant and factually accurate message gets distorted by the harbinger of the news; the messenger often determines the reception accorded to a message. In law, there is what we call judicial estoppel. Judicial estoppel arises in equity and serves to preclude a party from gaining an advantage by asserting one position before a court and then later taking a clearly inconsistent position before the court. A court may invoke judicial estoppel either to prevent a party from gaining an advantage by taking inconsistent positions or to maintain the dignity of judicial proceedings.

I believe recent report from Punch on the Web, quoting Mr. Yinka Odumakin, the national publicity secretary of ethnocentric, geriatric and ultra-ethnic association popularly called Afenifere fits this bill. According to the text of Mr. Odumakin press release, which he titled “Yar’Aduah’s ethnocentrism stinks still.” (sic). In the actual piece itself, he disparages an attempt by Yar’Aduah’s to explain away some of his appointment as an “ill-attempt by President Umaru Yar’Adua …. to exonerate himself from real allegations of “northernisation” of power in clear violation of the Federal Character principle in the 1999 constitution.” Mr. Odumakin submits that most of the principal appointment of Yar’Adua went to Nigerians of northern origin and that this “further demonstrated that he (Yar’Adua) has a dangerous mindset that threatens the unity of Nigeria and its continued corporate existence.”

Now, I have known Mr. Odumakin for shooting from the hips, since his appointment, first as PRO and thence as publicity secretary of Afenifere, but the latest beats the cake. Mr. Odumakin’s latest diatribe brings back memories of how an otherwise patriotic Nigerian can suddenly turned an ethnic jingoist. I knew Yinka Odumakin in our days at University of Ife, as we both actively participated in Students Unionism at Great Ife. We also belong to the same collective in Ife where we gathered to engage in serious thinking over the ills of Nigeria. Then, his love for Nigeria and all Nigerians is unquestionable. We often jointly railed against the oligarchies holding our dear country, Nigeria, hostage and wish for the day when all Nigerians irrespectively of where they hailed from will occupy an office not because of the accident of their birth but on merit!

Everyone knows I am not a card carrying fan of the present regime in Abuja, just as I do not join the bandwagon of those who celebrated its corrupt predecessors. My concerns with Odumakin’s piece is the fact that it seeks to question Yar’adua’s ministerial appointment not on the merits of those appointed but because they hailed from the north. This is what he called “northernisation.” This card had always been played by ethnic jingoist jostling for position of power in Nigeria.

This is at best laughable given the fact that Afenifere is itself an ethnic jingoist organization set up to further the parochial interest of the ethnicity of the majority of its members. The aim of organization such as Afenifere is to defend the interest of the Yoruba ethnic group it represent and not the interest of Nigeria or Nigerian. And they are not alone, there is the Arewa People’s congress, the Ohaneze N’digbo, the Ijaw People’s Congress, MASSOB et al. The paradox is therefore only lost on Mr. Odumakin befuddled minds as everyone knows he is crying wolf. This is why I said the messenger sometimes kills the message.
I recalls that a couple of years ago, when former President Obasanjo was in government, the same Afenifere, actively push the then government to appoint Yorubas to position of influence in Obasanjo’s government as a condition for supporting him. They hailed him when he appointed Bola Ige, as Power and Steel minister, with little or no qualification for that position. They hailed him when he appointed the sons and daughters of Awolowo, Akinjide, Akintola, Fani Kayode et al with little or no qualification! And now, they have the temerity to question what they engineered and actively support?

I confess that if Afenifere had stopped at questioning the merits of those appointed by Yar’Adua, I would not have had any problem with their diatribe. Why not dig into the background of those appointed by Yar’Adua and bring out things that disqualified them from functioning in that position. Is Shamsudeen Usman, who had spent his entire career at Nigeria financial industry, not qualified as minister of Finance? We can query the appointment of Yayale Ahmed and Aondoakaa as minister of defense and attorney general especially given the latter conflict of interest vis a vis ongoing investigation of some of his previous clients who are corrupt ministers being prosecuted by the same ministry. But attacking them because they come from the north is at best myopic and self serving. What makes this ministry less important than the ministry of External and Internal affairs occupied by Nigerians from the southern part of the country?

The more damning evidence is that Afenifere was peculiarly silent when the erstwhile minister of health, Adenike Grange, who hails from the south west, was indicted and disgraced out of office for corruption. This should have thought them a lesson that merits should be the answer to questionable appointments and not ethnicity!
As long as we keep emphasizing ethnicity in our national discourse we will end up with government of wolves! I hope the likes of Yinka Odumakin and his Afenifere will contribute more positively to our national discourse rather than issue this type of jejune and divisive press releases.