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

“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

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!

“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?

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?

“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

"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

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!