by Abiola Solanke

Ever since then, there have been growing outrage and calls on the Nigerian Minister of Interior, who supervises the Immigration service, Comrade Abba Moro to take responsibility and resign his appointment, but he has refused bluntly and insisted he won’t resign unless investigations found him culpable.

On November 27, 2013, the world received with shock the news that the Latvian Prime Minister, Valdis Dombrovskis had resigned his position. He resigned after accepting political responsibility for the collapse of a super-market roof that killed 54 people. According to news report, possible causes of the collapse include flawed design of the building, use of substandard construction materials and corruption. Dombrovskis achieved unprecedented success as Latvia’s Prime-minister especially lifting the Baltic Nation out of economic recession and positioning it as the fastest growing in the European Union for two consecutive years. This and many feats of his earned him re-appointment twice, but when the National tragedy occurred,he threw in the towel and stepped out.

On 24th February, 2014, Egyptian Prime minister, Hazem El-Beblawi and his entire cabinet resigned from office following widespread criticism of his Government. The criticisms peaked following large strikes in industrial cities and widespread electricity black-outs leading to his resignation. His resignation was in response to popular demand having failed to meet the expectations of the people. Mr El-Beblawi summed up the courage and together with his entire cabinet resigned from office.

On February 26, 2014, Indian Chief of Naval staff, Admiral DK Joshi resigned from office following a submarine accident off the Mumbai coast. The accident which was the 10th mishap involving an Indian navy asset and the third submarine accident in seven months resulted in seven sailors being injured while two officers were declared missing. The military chief who as at that time had more than a year to spend in service promptly took responsibility and resigned from office.

Back to Nigeria, Saturday, 16th March, 2014 was a day of National Tragedy. The Nigerian Immigration service’ recruitment exercise turned out to be a disaster as no fewer than 20 lives were lost due to stampedes across the various centres. From Abuja to Jos to Benin to Minna, it was tales of sorrows as fathers lost their sons, wives lost their husbands, brothers lost their sisters and friends lost their relations. The exercise was badly organised as no fewer than 700,000 people turned up to fill less than 5,000 vacancies. Among the dead included 5 pregnant women while scores of people were injured. It was learnt that the security officials were over-whelmed by the crowd such that controlling them became a problem and this resulted in security operatives firing gunshots into the air which many witnesses said precipitated the stampede as people began to run for safety. By the time the dust settled, no fewer than 19 lives had been lost.

Ever since then, there have been growing outrage and calls on the Nigerian Minister of Interior, who supervises the Immigration service, Comrade Abba Moro to take responsibility and resign his appointment, but he has refused bluntly and insisted he won’t resign unless investigations found him culpable. In a statement credited to him, he blamed the applicants for their ‘impatience’ and ‘failing to conduct themselves in an orderly manner’. According to Mr Moro, ‘’the applicants lost their lives due to impatience, they did not follow the laid down procedures spelt out to them before the exercise. Many of them jumped through the fences of affected centres and did not conduct themselves in an orderly exercise to make the exercise a smooth one. This caused stampede and made the environment insecure’’

Outrage followed the statement credited to the Minister with many civil societies and individuals calling for his sack, but typical of the Nigerian public official, he has refused to throw in the towel neither has he been fired! Tragedies are occurrences which at times, we don’t have control over especially the natural disasters like earthquake, ocean surges, land-slides etc. However, for man-made tragedies, people should learn to take responsibility. Just the same way a Government inherits both assets and liabilities, the Head of an agency takes the credit for the success or otherwise of his/her organisation. But then, the reverse is the situation in Nigeria. Just like the popular saying that ‘the good child belongs to the father, while the bad one belongs to the mother’. Nigerian public office holders take credits for the success of their Organisation/Agency and push the blame of failures on their subordinate staffs. During the Stella Oduah case,
the burden of blame for the over-inflated vehicles was pushed on the head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation agency (NCAA) while the Minister took accolades for the remodelling and infrastructural uplift in the Nation’s airports. What an aberration!

The comments credited to the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro are at best adding salt to injury of family members who were grieving over the loss of their relations. That someone, how much more a public official will come out to blame the dead for causing their own deaths is not only bizarre but unbecoming of a public official of his standing. In saner climes, Mr Moro won’t have spent 24 hours more at his job because if he didn’t resign, he would have been fired. But then, this is Nigeria where the feelings of the people are not respected, their voices ignored and their cries fall on deaf ears.

One wonders the rationale for inviting over half a million youths to partake in a screening exercise for less than 5,000 vacancies. Could it be because of the illicit 1,000 to be collected from each and every candidate who applied? Lots of questions are begging for answers due to the controversy surrounding the unfortunate incident; who appointed the recruitment firm for the exercise, what is the share of the Immigration Service in the 1,000 booty? Is it true that the Senate President’s wife has links with the firm? Is it true that the Minister did not carry the Immigration agency along in the ill-fated recruitment exercise? These and many more are begging for answers.

Not a few people have opined that President Jonathan is not likely to sack Abba Moro because the Minister is a political ally of the Nigerian Senate President, David Mark who is seen as a loyalist of Jonathan. The case of Moro is not surprising as it took several calls, protests and sustained pressure before the President could muster the needed political will to sack former Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah who was enmeshed in a #255Million Bullet proof car scandal. At the height of the Stella Oduah bullet proof car scandal, many civil society organisation, anti-corruption crusaders, youth groups and several individuals took to the streets to protest against her continued stay in office, but then akin to begging a Nigerian policeman not to extort you, the cries fell on deaf ears. Many have therefore opined that if it took the President almost forever to sack a Minister who had corruption charges on her neck, how much more Moro who is believed to be a
strong member of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

Nigerian public officials see their offices as a big hit and as such questions of morality of their continued stay in office are usually thrown to the trash bin. Ours is a country where even if the masses say the services of a public official are no longer needed, once the ‘ogas at the top’ do not feel or see it that way, such calls fall on deaf ears and the status quo is sustained. Public service should be seen as an opportunity to serve the people. It is a position of trust and so when people lose such trust and no longer wants such an official in office on account of corruption or gross under-performance, such officials should eat the humble pie and bow out.

For the umpteenth time, it is high time the Government addressed the growing rate of unemployment ravaging the country. It is a ticking time bomb which if not detonated, can light up the country in the next few years. The Immigration recruitment exercise has rubbished the sanctimonious platitudes of Government officials who kept misinforming us that Unemployment rate was reducing daily when in actual fact, the opposite is the case. Nigerians are eagerly anticipating how this whole saga will end. Will Jonathan muster the political will to fire Moro? Will Senator Mark save his friends face? Will Mr Moro take the honourable path of resignation? Only time will tell.

It is my prayer that God will grant the families of those who lost relations to the unfortunate incident the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Okey Ndibe

There are millions of desperate, unemployed and angry youths in every space in Nigeria. Sooner or later, sooner than later, they will realize that there’s a war on them, that their wretched condition is not an act of God, but the acts of man/woman. They will rise in fury, and there will be hell to pay!

I was going to title this piece, “Why is Abba Moro Still a Minister?” but changed my mind. In the context of Nigeria, the answer to the question seemed rather obvious. Nigeria is ravaged by human-made poverty. A society with a humane sensibility would invest every resource and deploy its imagination to fight this plague of poverty. In Nigeria, instead, the war is directed not at poverty but at the desperate poor. A culture of depraved accumulation has seized Nigeria. In turn, that culture has created one of the most pestilential crises of deprivation, hunger and disease anywhere in the world.

Deprived Nigerians are daily afflicted with the plague of a callous war on the poor.

Mr. Moro, Nigeria’s Minister of the Interior, is sitting pretty precisely because the Nigerian state has scant regard for Nigerians wounded by the festering sore of poverty. That sentence actually puts a gloss on the reality. The fact is that, far from seeking to reduce poverty and ameliorate its impact, the Nigerian polity wages an unceasing, gruesome war on the beaten down, the crushed, the poor.

On Saturday, March 15, Mr. Moro catapulted himself into the forefront of this grisly war on the wretched of the Nigerian earth. His ministry had fewer than 4800 positions to fill in the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS). The ministry invited more than 500,000 desperate youngsters to jostle for the posts. The applicants were asked to show up at stadia in different Nigeria cities to take an aptitude test that was a first step towards filling the posts. Each applicant was compelled to pay N1000 for a chance to play what amounted to a lottery with long odds.

Nigeria’s unemployment figures hover near 25 percent. And that, by the way, is going by the official data. Many Nigerians would describe the official rate as laughably understated. Getting facts and figures right is among the many basic things the Nigerian state hasn’t figured out how to do. The anecdotal hunch is that Nigeria’s unemployment rate is significantly higher.

Each year, Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of education pour out more (ill-educated) graduates into a “patronage” economy that produces millionaires and billionaires, but generates few jobs. I know friends and relatives who graduated from universities more than fifteen years ago, but have never been able to receive employment. They make do however they can. They hustle and beg and lend themselves to all kinds of political schemes—whatever gives them their daily bread.

Nigeria has a grave crisis of unemployment. The mix of desperation on the part of the unemployed, the terrible paucity of jobs, and the brainlessness of Nigerian institutions are a recipe for disaster. That disaster was actualized on March 15 when some 20 job-seekers died in stampedes at the National Stadium, Abuja and at other centers where the NIS tests were scheduled.

The tragedy is not simply in the lives lost. It’s in the vile, exploitative impulse of the Nigerian state, a monster that feasts on its own children. There were not just 20 victims that Saturday; there were more than half a million!

Let’s be clear: the Ministry of the Interior did not set out to offer jobs. At bottom, the ministry had devised a mindless scheme to exploit youngsters who were jobless, desperate and vulnerable. The N1000 fee the ministry charged each applicant amounted to a sort of scam. The ministry was able to collect more than N500 million from the desperate applicants, and had only the illusory reward of 4800 jobs to offer!

Who came up with the crazy idea of putting hundreds of thousands of job seekers in stadia, as if the unemployed were cattle fed through a chute? Who decided that only one gate should be open at the stadia? Whose idea was it to use this mass method to fill 4800 jobs?

Whether he made those decisions or not, the Interior Minister, Mr. Moro, owns them. It’s part of the principle of ministerial responsibility which is respected in every serious country in the world. If the exercise had gone well, Mr. Moro would have been entitled to count it as one of his accomplishments. It ended tragically, a monument to poor planning—and, without question, it’s Mr. Moro’s can to carry.

Except that the minister wants none of it. He’s blamed everybody else, including the dead themselves. He’s told the press that the question of his resignation does not arise. He’s berated that unknown, invisible person who decided that only one gate should be opened. He’s implied that the applicants failed to conduct themselves in an orderly manner. Mr. Moro looks at the deadly wreckage of his policy, and the only thought that occupies his mind is how to save his own job.

The minister is desperate to shirk his ultimate responsibility for the disaster of March 15. And, this being Nigeria, Mr. Moro can count on many enablers. So-called traditional rulers from his state have urged President Goodluck Jonathan not to sack their “son” in whom they remain well pleased, the needless death of 20 poor Nigerians notwithstanding. One Nigerian newspaper has speculated that Mr. Moro’s cabinet seat is not threatened because the minister has champions in high places, including Senate President David Mark.

Nigeria has never had a history of holding any public official to account. Ministers simply waltz away from the sins and scenes of their disastrous policies, their jobs intact. President “Do-Little” Jonathan revels in the tag of “transformational” president. But the president is not about to invoke the ethos of “transformation” to demand that Mr. Moro hand in his resignation. Nor is he about to serve notice to his other ministers and aides that the era of being held accountable is here. There’s little temptation for presidential firmness in this case when the dead were poor, the injured part of that wretched mass that the Nigerian state has made it its mission to decimate.

Mr. Moro is likely to hold on to his job. Mr. Jonathan is bound to go on reading speeches that contradict his actions. Hordes of poor Nigerians will continue to die from the callous policies and indifference of the Nigerian state. But here’s something that must give sleepless nights to the Moros of Nigeria. There are millions of desperate, unemployed and angry youths in every space in Nigeria. Sooner or later, sooner than later, they will realize that there’s a war on them, that their wretched condition is not an act of God, but the acts of man/woman. They will rise in fury, and there will be hell to pay!

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Saleh Ashaka

One would have expected that if nothing else, the former EFCC chairman’s name would have been among the top three in the category of outstanding bravery and public spiritedness. While the efforts of those in the category cannot be brushed aside, it is also pertinent to state that Ribadu has exuded qualities and recorded great feats that put him in the bracket of those to have been so honoured.

Much has been said about the centenary awards and the calibre of persons that made it on the list of awardees. While some have praised the selection for its painstaking thoroughness, others have criticised it for falling short of expectation or even goofing in some areas. It is pertinent to point out that while the reasons for forming an opinion may vary, what can be regarded as the greatest case of oversight if at all it was that, is the bypassing of one individual whose contribution to national development through crusade to stamp out corruption in the country has remained unparalleled.

The centenary awards which was in 13 categories, honoured those who have contributed to the making of Nigeria like Queen Elizabeth II of England, Lord Fredrick Lugard and his wife, Lady Lugard; and the heroes of the struggle for independence like Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa, Herbert Macaulay and Chief Obafemi Awolowo. There were also those honoured for their pioneer efforts in professional callings, commerce and industry, for pioneering democratic transitions etc. Many also received awards for being heroes in global sports competitions, their pioneering roles in public service, accomplishment temporary entrepreneurship, academics, as well as internationally acclaimed artists, literary icons and journalists, outstanding bravery and public spiritedness, outstanding promoters of unity, patriotism and national development, and exemplary service in the promotion of peace and moral excellence.

But in all these categories which recognized the efforts of Nigerians both alive and dead, no mention was made of Nuhu Ribadu, whose contribution to the development of Nigeria has been acknowledged globally and who till date has continued to draw a positive image for Nigeria by his doggedness in fighting corruption and other forms of financial crimes.

The impression created by this oversight if allowed to go, has the dangerous prospect of implying that bravery and personal sacrifices as contributions for the attainment of national greatness can be conveniently overlooked without the slightest challenge which could in turn discourage others from toeing a similar path since they would not be recognized in future.

One would have expected that if nothing else, the former EFCC chairman’s name would have been among the top three in the category of outstanding bravery and public spiritedness. While the efforts of those in the category cannot be brushed aside, it is also pertinent to state that Ribadu has exuded qualities and recorded great feats that put him in the bracket of those to have been so honoured.

As EFCC chairman, Ribadu braved all odds to ensure that corruption which has held the country by the jugular for donkey years and which has defied all efforts to contain it is eliminated; and in the process put himself in harm’s way several times.

Before the setting up of the EFCC with Ribadu as its head, it was thought impossible for politically exposed persons and high government functionaries to be brought to book on accounts of sleaze.

It is common to hear then when anybody is undertaking the path of prosecuting such officials, which few persons like late Gani Fawehimi have done, that the person is wasting his time.

But Ribadu came and put a stop to all that. His tenure as EFCC chairman was about the only time in the nation’s history that sitting governors would with all the immunity they enjoy be exposed for what they do to the public and made to account for such.

They were investigated and many of them got no respite until they were convicted.

The temptation of stashing public funds in foreign especially Swiss accounts began to look less inviting thereby ensuring that the much needed capital which would have found their way out of the country is retained within for economic activities. It would also be the first time that a sitting Inspector General of Police, who represents the highest in terms of hierarchy in the law enforcement arm in the country, would be investigated and jailed for graft. The danger the agency and its personnel headed by the Ribadu were exposed to in the course of carrying out their duties were confirmed in the many instances attempts were made on their lives as in one instance in Jos, Plateau State, when some of the officials were beaten and their lives threatened.

The extent aggrieved persons could go to get even was exposed when Obasanjo left government and the politicians swooped on Ribadu trying to ridicule and penalize the former EFCC boss for what he did to their ego in the course of carrying out his duties. He was eventually forced to leave the country and take up a job in Afghanistan.

He was even demoted, but the Police Service Commission reinstated him in May 2010 as an AIG.

Ribadu led the anti-graft war by example as he shunned many attempts to bribe him. He returned the sum of $15 million (About N3 billion) offered as bribe to him by former governor James Ibori. He also returned huge sums of money from people like Emma Nwude and others that he was investigating.

These are monies Ribadu would have pocketed and nothing would have happened but he chose the path of honour for the benefit of his country. Those that have been found for resisting lesser degrees of temptations like those who pick and return monies in taxis and airports have been rewarded in order to encourage them and others to uphold exemplary lives; but not Ribadu who was completely snubbed in the centenary awards.

After returning from self exile, Ribadu bore no grudges with what the system did to him but chose to continue to give his best to the country and accepted to serve in the committee which investigated operations in Nigeria’s oil industry. He later confirmed that the allegation coming out from the CBN regarding the missing money is a confirmation of the findings of his committee. He challenged a situation where the NNPC would be the producer, manager, seller of the crude, receiver of the monies, the regulator, the one that receives the money on behalf of the federal government and uses it the way it likes and remits to the government what it likes.

Many Nigerians still feel it is not too late to honour such a man so that many youth can be encouraged to a life of selfless service.

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This article was published with permission from Premium Times Newspapers

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Daniel Ojeh

It implies that ceteris paribus , Buhari has assurance of up to 24 million votes already ahead of his likely contenders should he contest in 2015. Call this a layman’s analysis of political outcomes, but it is still a reasonable basis for consideration.

It is the fundamental obligation of a State to provide social security for its citizens and in fact all persons within its territory. Any government that is incapable of meeting up that basic responsibility should consider itself a huge failure; and rather than attempting to trade blames, should pack up and leave or brace up for the indignity of a colossal electoral defeat. This is in regard of Mr. Olisa Metuh’s recent vain effort to link Gen. Muhamadu Buhari (rtd.) to the terrorist’s activities in northern Nigeria.

In fact, Mr. Metuh’s mischievous utterances lends credence to popular insinuations that the ruling People’s Democratic Party and the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan are bereft of ideas on how to curtail the nebulous activities of Boko Haram and other insurgent groups in Nigeria, hence the resort to blackmail. It could equally be, as earlier asserted by Comrade Lai Mohammed, a deliberate attempt by the PDP to divert the citizen’s attention from the mounting tension over the allegedly missing $20billion from the NNPC’s coffers.

It’s the PDP instead that has been authoritatively fingered as being responsible for the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northern part of Nigeria. It will be recalled, as was widely reported in both local and international media, that the former National Security Adviser (NSA), late Gen. Owoeye Azazi blamed PDP for the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northern Nigeria due to bad politics. Between Olisa Metuh’s and Azazi, whose assertion should be relied upon?

However, from a different perspective, I see Olisa Metuh’s unwholesome remarks as part of the usual desperation of the PDP to discredit Gen. Buhari by all means possible before the gullible members of the public. Of course, it is a recurring antic of the PDP to cook up unfounded allegations against Gen. Buhari at the eve of every election year, with the intention of diminishing Buhari’s estimation before the rational members of the public. Unfortunately, the PDP has ran out of luck this time, as generality of Nigerians have become fed up with this cowardly campaign strategy.

From every indication, the mention of All Progressives Congress and Mallam Nasir El-rufai as co-conspirators with Buhari to fuel terrorism in northern Nigeria is Mr. Metuh’s ‘smart’ strategy of obscuring PDP’s ulterior motive, which is basically to drag the name of Buhari to the mud. There is no gainsaying that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is PDP’s worst nightmare in the race for the Presidency in 2015. Recall that Buhari almost single-handedly floated the Congress for Progressive Change, the platform on which he contested the 2011 Presidential Election, barely six (6)  months to the election. Even though the electoral process was marred with irregularities, Buhari was able to muster an impressive 12 million votes!

Now I believe that all the people that voted Buhari in the last election, did so out of conviction, and not pecuniary inducement. It simply implies that if all or most of the 12 million electorates that voted for Buhari in the previous election live to see the 2015 presidential election, their support for Buhari will still be unflinching.  It is also logical to assume that each of these 12 million people have at least one person that they can convince to vote for Buhari in 2015. It implies that ceteris paribus , Buhari has assurance of up to 24 million votes already ahead of his likely contenders should he contest in 2015. Call this a layman’s analysis of political outcomes, but it is still a reasonable basis for consideration.

Worthy of note is the fact that Buhari is now part of a much larger party than the APP, ANPP and the CPC on whose platforms he contested the 2003, 2007 and 2011 elections respectively. Now with the current political structure, the APC is sure of sweeping the South West in 2015. The North West and North East are also strongholds of the APC. APC also controls parts of the South East; and in the North Central, the party is working assiduously towards galvanizing the youths for massive support. In short APC controls Lagos and Kano, Nigeria’s most populated states. So with its current structure, the party is already sure of polling simple majority of votes in the next presidential election. All the APC needs to worry about now is how it could poll the mandatory 25% of votes to be casted in 2/3rd of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.

Although the APC currently controls most of Nigeria’s strategic states, with a relative preponderance in the federal and respective states’ parliaments, experience has shown that if the generality of Nigerians must benefit from the change that APC heralds, the party must work assiduously to clinch power at the centre in 2015.

But to achieve the aforementioned objective, the APC must make it a top priority to field a Presidential Candidate in 2015 that has the pedigree, character, determination and competence to give the PDP a formidable challenge.  The APC must insist on a presidential candidate that is admired by the teeming masses and dreaded by the cabal that has held sway over the years, operating Nigeria like its personal estate. I am referring to the man who has demonstrated courage, commitment and political will to tackle indiscipline and corruption head-on; and General Muhammadu Buhari perfectly fits that puzzle! Little wonder the PDP is scares stiff of Buhari.

Since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has generously offered himself on three different occasions to serve the nation as President and Commander-in-Chief. Although the electoral umpire did not deem it fit to declare him victorious on any of these occasions amid highly contentious circumstances,  I am constrained to explicitly dispel the barrage of mendacities and campaigns of calumny that the adversaries of truth, justice, equity and development in Nigeria have concocted over the  years and fed Nigerians; with the aim of discrediting Gen. Buhari.

Without mincing words I wish to describe as utterly baseless and mischievous, the impression which the PDP and other antagonists of a united Nigeria have foisted on a strata of the citizenry; that General Buhari is a religious fanatic who is capable of Islamizing Nigeria if elected President. It is inconceivable to me, how any citizen that is privy to Gen. Buhari’s antecedent can be bamboozled by such meretricious allegations! Let us not forget in a hurry that when Buhari served as the Head of State in 1984, he had all the key instruments of the State at his disposal. yet he did not at any time contemplated to advance any policy or agenda that could infringe on the rights of Christians and members of other faiths in Nigeria.

On the contrary, it was his successor, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) that attempted to make Nigeria a registered member of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) in his tenure as Head of State between 1985-1993.  I recall vividly that some confidential documents have been leaked that revealed IBB’s huge financial contributions to the OIC from the national purse. IBB is still a bigwig in the PDP today. So the question we should ask is, is it possible for Buhari to nurse a presidential ambition for over 12 years, only with the intent to Islamize Nigeria? I don’t think so!

The only reason why terrorism is flourishing in Nigeria is because of the increasing level of poverty and the brazen neglect of the masses. These factors are traceable to high profile corruption and indiscipline in official circles. The lip-service commitment of the incumbent PDP-led government to the fight against corruption is evident in the shoddy handling of the alleged missing $20billion from the coffers of the NNPC. Imagine how far that money could go in providing employment for Nigerians, visualize how many socio-infrastructural facilities, medical equipments and healthcare services,  that magnitude of money can provide, then you will agree with me that corruption kills more Nigerians that terrorism.

Buhari, in all honesty, is a man of near impregnable integrity! His efforts in the fight against corruption in Nigeria are still unequalled. The efforts of the EFCC and ICPC pales in comparison to his War Against Indiscipline and Corruption (WAI-C) in the mid 80s. The Asian Tigers, as they are fondly called, were able to attain the socio-economic and technological heights they have reached today because they tackled corruption squarely with the death sentence. Till date, some of the structural works, facilities and buses donated to tertiary institutions across Nigeria by PTDF under Buhari’s tenure still adorn the campuses.  So how can a man who abhors corruption like Buhari be responsible for the massacre of thousands of Nigerians under any guise?

I consider it a huge relief to know that every generation of Nigerians is blessed with people who are capable of charting the right course for the nation. But due to sentiments, political conspiracies or sheer complacency, we ignore these people until they are no more. For instance Chief Obafemi Awolowo, long after his death, remains a political colossus in Nigeria. Although he never had the opportunity to rule Nigeria as a monolithic state, Awolowo’s legacies in the South West speaks volumes for him, especially in the areas of educational development; raising the political consciousness of the people and of course,  Press Freedom! A vibrant press and politically consciousness citizenry are necessary ingredients for development. No wonder all the people that opposed Awolowo then, later made detours and eulogized him, calling him “the best president we never had”. We must not allow Buhari’s strength to wear out before we wish we elected him President!

However it is very likely that if Buhari decides to contest the 2015 presidential election, he will be the poorest among the contenders. Yet, he remains the only leader that can fully declare his assets before he contests. We must be determined to shun the allure of monetary inducements in the forthcoming general elections, in order to elect leaders that can be accountable to the people. Buhari is one leader that must be feared; not for his propensity for wickedness, but to do what is right and to stand up for justice.

Let me put in proper perspective that Buhari, by his pedigree, is an elder statesman and leader of the people. Much of his decisions and actions will not be to serve his personal interest, but the interest of his teeming followers and political supporters.  Therefore the issue of whether he will contest the 2015 election or not is not entirely up to him to make. As the leader that he is, he will make his decision, taking into cognizance the wishes and aspirations of his followers.

In conclusion, I want to state unambiguously that as a former national student leader and frontline youth mobilizer, I am already mobilizing the youths for an unprecedented rally at the Kaduna residence of Gen. Buhari; where we intend to tarry for as long as it takes Buhari to come out and publicly declare his intention to contest the 2015 presidential election. I am writing this article with strong passion born out of conviction. I have taken my stand; and as they say, it is better to stand right, even if you stand alone!

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This article was published with permission from Abusidiqu.com

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Tope Tedela

”There I still was pondering many thoughts, hearing voices raging in my mind about what to fill this blank page with.”

I used to think I was a writer. I used to think I had a voice. I’ve always thought that I had something to say. However, as I stare at this blank page, a million and one thoughts hit me about where to begin. I’m not surprised though, because confusion has always been my ally. We have frequently done everything together; that was when and if anything was agreed upon to be done.

I remember growing up with everyone around me having a sense of direction, while I didn’t or so it seemed. This used to really freak me out. How could everyone around me be so purposeful yet, all I could do was watch movies, talk about them, read books and get lost in that imaginary world? All I wanted was a concrete ambition, not that lazy man’s fantasy.

I remember how in the midst of the confusion I decided, consciously or unconsciously, not to just stay aloof and do nothing. So, I engaged in a wide range of activities. I wrote articles for my church magazine, acted in plays, joined the choir and taught at a Tutorial Centre. I even worked as a PA to a family friend. I just kept moving.

As I sat mulling my life’s details and where I was, my mind wandered to my first weekend in boarding school and how I got the nickname ‘Tedinla’ (Don’t bother about what it means. If you really want to know ask your Yoruba friend). It’s funny how small things make the greatest impact because that experience gave me a tough skin but anyway, I digress.

There I was still staring at the blank paper wondering if I should write about my time as the family’s black sheep, a time when my parents wondered if having me was a mistake. It seemed I was always doing something to hurt them, from primary school straight through secondary school. I blame the latter on the fact that I detested boarding school. Could that just be another lame or lazy excuse? There I still was pondering many thoughts, hearing voices raging in my mind about what to fill this blank page with.

My mind wandered again and I thought about how I made it this far. Could it have been God’s intervention or just plain coincidence? Was it my attitude, my family background, my educational background or a simple case of being in the right place at the right time? I guess it’s a little bit of everything. As I try to gather my scattered thoughts, I think about what success truly means. Is it when I have so much cash in the bank that my great-grandchildren don’t have to worry about money? Is it when I’ve done something worthy of emulation? The questions kept coming but they did nothing to help me fill the blank paper in front of me.

I began to think of my impending deadline, when suddenly, I was jarred back to life by electricity being seized. Sigh, “NEPA” was at it again and the country was going through fuel scarcity, one of our yearly national holidays. This made me think of the malaise my country is in and I felt helpless and powerless. Yet voices of hope permeate every corner of our troubled nation. The musicians and artistes, of which I’m one, create these worlds where everything is almost perfect, and maybe the aspiration of my people to these things is what makes them sane.

I look down at the paper and see that my million and one thoughts have filled it afterall. I only hope that they have made some sense. I am Tope Tedela, here to make impact, here to leave my mark on the sands of time.

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Tope Tedela is a Nigerian actor . He tweets from @topetedela

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

by Frank Onuoha

Months after, the much touted “thousands of jobs” and “mini-power” projects that will generate the miracle mega watts are still illusory.

The United Nations is demanding that within 60 days the Nigerian government come up with answers to eight questions on increase in electricity tariff without corresponding increase in generation. These questions are contained in a Joint Letter of Concern sent to President Goodluck Jonathan. The letter which was authored by Ms. Magdalena Sepulveda Camona, Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and Ms. Raquel Rolnik Special Rapporteur on adequate housing observed that “at the end of 2012, Nigeria with a population of about 160 million people only generated about 4,000 megawatts of electricity, which is ten times less than some other countries in the region with less population.”

The latest intervention comes at the behest of a petition in lodged in 2013 by a coalition of human rights activist, labour, journalists and lawyers led by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP. In the petition, the group alleged that the implementation of the Multi-Year Tariff Order II, MYTO II, by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, in June 1, 2012 is “having detrimental impact on the human rights of those living in poverty in the country”

Under the MYTO II plan Nigerians are to anticipate a yearly increase in electricity tariff till 2016. Under the plan, consumers in different parts of the country will pay improved charges that vary according to the rating of the distribution zone where they reside. Very poor urban and rural dwellers are required to pay the same rate throughout the country under the new dispensation. “These categories of consumers,” according to a Punch Newspaper report, “will not pay any fixed cost and their tariff of N4/kWh will not vary for the next five years. However, R2 customers, the category that majority of electricity consumers belong, will have to pay more for the fixed and energy charges.”

Arguably the one notable reason the Federal government gave for introducing MYTO, was “to attract investors to invest in the power sector.” A fall out of the introduction was the news in September of 2013 that some unnamed Chinese companies signed a deal worth $1.3 billion with the government to build power plants and again in February 2014 General Electric, GE, an American multinational conglomerate corporation, signed a deal with a Nigerian bank, Stanbic IBTC, to invest $350 million in the country’s power sector.

These investments were signs of the good times to come, as several government officials made many to believe. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the finance minister, was quick to observe the “thousands of jobs for engineers, technicians and artisans during the construction phase” that will be created as a result of the Chinese deal. Dr. Olusegun Aganga, the country’s trade and investment minister elaborated that the GE deal will generate mini-power projects and “help the economic activities in the country.”

Months after, the much touted “thousands of jobs” and “mini-power” projects that will generate the miracle mega watts are still illusory. Unemployment is assuming catastrophic levels with 500,000 job seekers jostling – even losing their lives- for 3000 positions, seven of the eleven power plants that were privatized are either in the process or have shut down completely by January, 2014 and importantly electricity generation continues to plunge downward. Power generated by Nigeria’s power plants dwindled from 4517MW in December to 3563MW in December 2013, a drop of 954MW within a year. In 2014, the most the generation has gone is 4000MW.

Since 1999, well over $20 billion has been dumped on the power sector with almost nothing to show. Going by estimates by World Energy Outlook in 2010, $20 billion is more than a quarter of what is needed to provide adequate and constant electricity to all Nigerians.  In 2013 an NOI poll noted that, over 130 million Nigerians – about 81% of the population- do not have access to electricity in the 21^st century. What this means is that over 130 million Nigerians are generating power for themselves despite the fact that government continues to belabour the citizenry with huge electricity bills for services not rendered and squander same money on nonexistent power projects.

In view of the present realities, to say that MYTO is unjustifiable may be putting it mildly. It is injurious and tantamount to reaping where one has not sown. Some of the questions contained in the UN letter are particularly instructive. For instance, “what kind of impact assessments were conducted to gauge the potential impact of the electricity tariff increases on the human rights of people living in extreme poverty in Nigeria?” In May 2013, investigations conducted by Sweetcruderevealed that the Federal government through Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, generates about N3.41 trillion ($19.6 billion) annually through outrageous electricity bills, which is not commensurate with the amount of power supplied to consumers. The analysis showed that the N3.41 trillion is 110.5 per cent higher than the N1.62 trillion budgeted for capital expenditure in 2013 and 43.28 per cent higher than N2.38 trillion budgeted for the recurrent expenditure in the same year.

The revelation comes barely one year after the increase in tariff.

Another salient question is, “what mechanisms exist to ensure transparency and regular monitoring over the use of tariff revenue within the government? What mechanisms are available to address allegations of corruption, or other complains?” The whereabouts of the $1.3 billion, $350 million and other investments in the sector since the implementation of MYTO is of particular significance here. The jobs are yet to materialize; over 30, 000 workers in the power sector have been sacked, this is in spite of the agreement the government reached with the unions.

If and when the government eventually replies within the 60 days, one expects it should not be the usual steam blowing, empty grandstanding with list of “completed” projects and “democratic dividends.” It should rather spur a deeper reflection. I do not expect that the questions will lead to a revocation of the MYTO policy or the privatization, however I believe a great many Nigerians will want to see an improved power sector.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Perry Brimah

Is there top level government involvement in the terror operations decimating the north which is permitting such utility of choppers in Nigerian airspaces to ferry terrorist and terror ammunition?

More than Three Nigerian dailies have reported on the apparent use of helicopters by terrorists operating in the burning north of Nigeria. A March 18th article in Tribune , a March 23rd article in THISDAY, a March 21st DailyTrust report of a Senate hearing in which Senator Abu Ibrahim detailed the use of helicopters to drop supplies and attackers to attack Katsina; and another March 25th investigative report in DailyTrust all presented shocking details of how helicopters have allegedly been used to ferry terrorists and ammunitions in the recent terror incidents in the north, the attack on 21 Armoured Brigade, Giwa barracks precisely and the massacres in Katsina.

In these cases, helicopters are described to have been seen by locals hovering above prior to the attacks and dropping materials and reinforcements in thick forests. DailyTrust queried Nigeria’s Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, about the possibility of such unnoticed air flight, despite the acquirement of 60 million Euros worth of modern equipment by the agency, its Terminal radar Approach Control of Nigeria (TRACON) which has enabled it completely cover the Nigerian air space. According to aviation experts, it is basically impossible for unknown choppers to fly in Nigerian air spaces without being detected by government radars; this raises serious questions.

Is NAMA inefficient or are the terrorists flying below the radar?

Is the use of helicopters by Boko Haram and the gunmen who raised Kaduna and Katsina villages, killing over 100 civilians in both cases related and operated under the same command?

Is there top level government involvement in the terror operations decimating the north which is permitting such utility of choppers in Nigerian airspaces to ferry terrorist and terror ammunition?

Are the choppers able to fly ‘undetected’ because they are craft of the Nigerian military which has been possibly sabotaged and has elements participating in grand terror against the nation?

Nigeria’s north from Benue to Borno, which spans approximately 80% of Nigeria’s land mass has been wrought by unabating terror for the better part of the last five years since the beginning of the Jonathan administration. The terrorists appear to be gaining in sophistication and becoming more deadly as time progresses.

The unhindered attacks in the northeast are beginning to be reproduced in ferocity and style in the middle belt and other parts of the north as gunmen drive or ride in, fire all in sight and burn down the entire village or town in a seeming deliberate attempt to depopulate and exterminate these regions. There are many questions to be asked as pertains to the ease of operations, the seeming inability of Nigeria’s security to prevent and disrupt attacks, the enforcement not even being able to apprehend attackers after operations that last hours.

Is it paranoid to ask if there is a ploy to depopulate and destroy the north? If so, by whom and hat level of Nigeria’s security department is involved? A past Nigerian head of security, NSA, General Owoye Azazi had alerted in 2012 before he was killed in a copter crash that the sudden sophistication of Boko Haram was not ordinary but was sponsored by elements in the nation’s ruling party.

The Governor of Adamawa state, a seasoned army veteran, Vice Admiral Murtala Nyako, who understands the dynamics of war, has repeatedly perplexedly insisted that there are agents behind the terror in the north within the Office of National Security, ONSA. Most recently in a speech he gave in the United States [See SaharaReporters of March 24th, 2014] he asked, “…is the massive killing of people and destruction of property and the environment state-sponsored?”

The Governor further said, “The security situation we are … facing in Northern Nigeria today could be sponsored, financed and supported by evil minded and over-ambitious leaders of Government and the society for political gains. There is simply no person(s) in the North-Eastern zone rich enough to foot the financial and logistic bills on Boko Haram activities. Somebody outside the zone must have bought these arms, ammunitions and explosives somewhere which is easily traceable, paid the freight charges to Nigeria, cleared them at the Ports, conveyed them up-country through numerous check-points and put them in safe-houses in the States ready to be used by the appointed killers.”

Recently, a Turkish Airline senior executive confessed to being involved in dropping ammunitions for terror groups in Nigeria through the Kano airport. Does this report gain credibility based on the stupefying ability of ‘Boko Haram’ and affiliated terror operatives to gain sophistication and operate with impunity under this administration? Top level government collaboration with the terrorists will support the ‘confessions’ of the Turkish executive and will also explain the ability of choppers to fly undetected in the northern skies among other patterns of unprecedented and unexplainable successes of those terrorizing the north.

One has to question the position of Nigeria’s ONSA and Presidency in all these matters. Does President Jonathan who hails from Nigeria’s South and whose statements and body-language have demonstrated a disconnect from the north and the travails of that region, have the commitment and capacity to rescue this troubled region from the grips of marauders and ‘Boko Haram’ terrorists? Does his NSA, a dictator Babangida boy, Sambo Dasuki have the dedication, the mettle and most importantly, the desire to restore peace to this troubled region of the nation? Who is interested in decimating northern Nigeria?

There is an emergency situation in north Nigeria. This part of the country urgently needs committed and strong leadership. A dedicated and patriotic army man like ex-NSA Sarki Mukhtar from late Yar’Adua’s regime needs to be employed as a parallel Minister-of defense/NSA to oversee the engagements of the army in the north of Nigeria. Those in Abuja have failed for five years to check the situation which is now getting dangerously worse. The NATO upset of Libya has released arms, military craft and even mercenaries which terrorists and devilish politicians easily acquire with Nigeria’s ‘missing’ billions.

This administration is not tackling the issues of the north. A change in central government for one that can and will restore hope to that region as well as troubled regions across the entire nation, north to south does not seem to be happening any time soon. Pointing fingers to who is to blame for the administration’s failure will not protect life. The National conference in Abuja, apart from not being reassuring as presently constituted and under its present management, is too slow a process. A full war has been waged against the north and the north needs its regional determination and posturing to battle this war. Whatever region wishes to keep this President can do so. The people in the north are under attack from land and the air and need something to happen and to happen fast.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Olusegun Adeniyi

I am not one of those people who subscribe to the conspiracy theory that Sanusi was suspended because of his allegation that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) failed to remit some billions of Dollars into the Federation Account. However, it is also an open secret that because of the mutual distrust between him and the president, the FRCN report became rather handy.

Question: Who is the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria? Options: (A) Sarah Alade; (B) Sanusi Lamido Sanusi; (C) Godwin Emefiele (D) Jim Osayande Obazee; (E) None of the above. Please shade the correct answer.
The above is an examination question recently encountered by a friend but please don’t ask me for his name. He said he could not pick “A” because Mrs Alade, the acting CBN Governor in a period of transition, wields little or no authority. He said he could not pick “B” either because, even though President Goodluck Jonathan recently affirmed that Sanusi remains the CBN Governor, he is still on suspension. My friend said he also could not pick “C” because even though Emefiele’s appointment was confirmed by the Senate yesterday, he would still have to wait for Sanusi’s tenure to expire before assuming office. For some minutes, according to my friend, he toyed with the idea of picking “D” because, as he explained, the Executive Secretary of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) is the man who has been calling all the shots at the CBN in recent weeks. But then he demurred because he could not lay his hands on where Obazee derives his powers from. So at the end, he settled for “E” which means that today, for all practical purposes, Nigeria’s apex bank is without a substantive Governor!
Given the foregoing, it came as no surprise that Standard and Poor’s (S&P), one of those international financial agencies whose ratings the managers of our economy like to flaunt, has put a question mark on Nigeria’s “stable outlook” rating, citing dearth of new information on the country and the uncertainty surrounding monetary policies. While stating that the suspension of the CBN Governor amounted to government interference with monetary policies, S&P said it was placing the country on a credit watch for a period of one week as a result of the appeal by the federal government. “As a result, we are placing our long-term sovereign credit ratings on Nigeria on Credit Watch with negative implications,” S&P stated rather ominously.
Before I proceed, it bears repeating that I have made my position very clear about Sanusi’s gross act of insubordination to President Jonathan, especially considering the reckless manner in which he went about touting some CBN laws which he believes make him untouchable (http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/sarki-goma-zamani-goma-/172493/). As a student of power politics, I am aware, as British philosopher, John Locke, argued in “The Second Treatise of Government: And, A Letter Concerning Toleration”, that the people sometimes allow “their rulers to do several things of their own free choice, where the law is silent…and their acquiescing in it when so done.” Whatever the law cannot provide for, according to Locke, “must necessarily be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power in his hands, to be ordered by him as the public good and advantage shall require…”

Even though I am not a lawyer, to the extent that the CBN Act is silent on suspension, I believe that Sanusi was not well advised to have taken on the presidency in the manner he did. But that is just the opinion of the layman that I am. Notwithstanding my position, I am also worried that some people may unwittingly be destroying a critical institution like the CBN in the attempt to get back at one man who, whatever may be the misgivings about his style, did very well in office.

Against the background that Sanusi became CBN Governor in the middle of a global financial crisis in 2009, his intervention (by removing some bank chief executives who were dancing “Skelewu” with depositors’ funds) helped to restore sanity in the system. It is also on record that under Sanusi’s watch, inflation has been kept below 10 per cent while until recently, there was a measure of stability in the foreign exchange market. The CBN also implemented policies aimed at reducing the excessive use of cash in the system to ensure safety, improve efficiency and curb money laundering.
So, all factors considered, Sanusi has been a good CBN Governor and I refuse to be taken in by the noise emanating from those who fiddled with depositors’ money for which they were entrusted and paid dearly for it. In any case, it is not lost on fair-minded Nigerians that in this obsession to nail Sanusi, the “witnesses” being lined up are some former bank chiefs who abused their trust and were punished by the CBN. Yet it is a serious indictment on our country that the same fat cats who are being tried by the state for economic and financial crimes are also being aided by the same state, in the bid to settle score with the suspended CBN Governor. It is not right.
While I am aware that politics trumps everything in Nigeria today, those who are circumspect should be worried that the head of a small government parastatal under the Ministry of Trade and Investment should have the powers to be conducting a public investigation into the operations of the CBN with all the attendant publicity. Aside the professional breach (audit investigation is never conducted on the pages of newspapers), there is also the issue of a not-so-subtle executive interference into what are clearly operational issues at the apex bank. For those of us who can see beyond the person of Sanusi, that is very troubling and such details are also not lost on S&P and other international credit rating agencies.

Because most Nigerians still wonder how this little-known FRCN crept into our consciousness, a brief story may be necessary here. It started with the Nigerian Accounting Standards Board (NASB), a private sector initiative established in 1982 in collaboration with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN). Ten years later in 1992, the General Ibrahim Babangida administration by military fiat converted the NASB into a government parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Commerce. In 2003, the NASB Act was passed with the primary functions to “develop, publish and update Statements of Accounting Standards to be followed by companies when they prepare their financial statement, and to promote and enforce compliance with the standards”.

Following a critical appraisal of the NASB by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2010, the then Executive Secretary, Mr Godson Nnadi began a process for the establishment of a new body that would set accounting and auditing standards in the country and would be independent of both ICAN and ANAN. At about that same time, Nnadi was appointed Finance and Economic Development commissioner in Enugu State where he hails from. But his protégé and successor, Obazee (who joined the organisation after graduation in the early nineties) saw to the drafting and eventual passage of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) Bill on May 18, 2011.

The law was gazetted on June 7, 2011 as “an Act to repeal the Nigerian Accounting Standards Board Act, No. 22 of 2003 and enact the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria charged with the responsibility for, among other things, developing and publishing accounting and financial reporting standards to be observed in the preparation of the financial statement of public entities in Nigeria; and for related matters.” Both the chairman and the executive secretary are to be appointed by the president.

Ironically, while Obazee was trying to get the bill passed in the National Assembly, he got support and encouragement from Sanusi who argued that such a law would help to attract foreign direct investment into Nigeria and perhaps for that reason mobilised through the CBN and the Bankers’ Committee a whopping sum of N500 million for the construction of its International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Academy. I still wonder how Sanusi came about his theory considering that many countries, including the United States have refused to subscribe to the IFRS, preferring instead the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

When the bill was finally signed into law by President Jonathan, Trade and Investment Minister, Mr Olusegun Aganga, under whose purview the new parastatal was domiciled said: “More meaningful and decision-enhancing information can now be arrived at from financial statements issued in Nigeria because accounting, actuarial, valuation and auditing standards, used in the preparation of these statements, shall be issued and regulated by this Financial Reporting Council. The FRC is a unified independent regulatory body for accounting, auditing, actuarial, valuation and corporate governance. As such, compliance monitoring in these areas will hence be addressed from the platform of professionalism and legislation.”

What the foregoing suggests is that the FRCN is not another Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), its main function is to standardize accounting practice in Nigeria. To therefore read reports of Obazee “grilling” Sanusi, Alade as well as the immediate past Deputy Governor, Operations of the CBN, Mr. Tunde Lemo; Managing Director of the Bank of Industry (BoI), Ms Evelyn Oputu; Deputy Governor, Operations, CBN, Dr. Kingsley Moghalu and Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, CBN, Alhaji Suleiman Barau is beyond ridiculous. Because the FRCN Executive Secretary is arrogating to himself some powers that he does not have and even if he has the authority of the president for his assignment, I don’t think he is approaching it the right way.
Now, I have read all the provisions of the FRCN Act 2011 and its power of investigation is derived from Section 62 which stipulates that “(1) The Council may investigate or cause to be investigated
(a)   Any complaint or dishonest practice, negligence, professional misconduct, malpractice made against any professional; (b) any breach of the Code of Conduct and Ethics by any registered professional; or (c) any material irregularity notified to it”.
However, it is noteworthy that the section itself falls under Part V11 of the Act which is on “Review and Monitoring of Standards”, which then implies that it is targeted at compliance with standards for accounting practitioners. Even if we concede that the FRCN can investigate statutory institutions, such powers reside in the Council and not the Executive Secretary. And the Council, currently headed by Hajiya Ladi Ibrahim, (now at the National Conference representing Kogi State) has a long list of membership: Two representatives each of both ICAN and ANAN as well as one representative of each of the following: Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Office of the Auditor General of the Federation; CBN; Chartered Institute of Brokers; Chartered Institute of Taxation; Corporate Affairs Commission; Federal Inland Revenue Service; Federal Ministry of Commerce; Federal Ministry of Finance; NACCIMA; NDIC; SEC; NAICOM; NSE; PENCOM and the National Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers. The Executive Secretary who has become the judge and the jury in the so-called CBN investigation is just one member in this big Council!
Now, I must make my position very clear. I am for transparency and accountability so to that extent, I do not subscribe to the position that Sanusi or the CBN which he heads should be above the law. No, both should be held to account. But such should be done within the ambit of the law and with due regard to process. What worries me is that right before our very eyes, we are watching a systematic destruction of perhaps our strongest institution, the Central Bank of Nigeria, that has been built over time, by a Johnny-just-come Federal Reporting Council of Nigeria that has no track record. Audit investigation is not the same thing as criminal investigation, and even at that, only a court of law can pronounce anybody a criminal as Obazee’s FRCN seems to have done with its report.
I have my issues with Sanusi who was disrespectful of the president and attracted to himself too much needless media attention. Indeed, in a moment of introspection in his recent interview with METROPOLE magazine (http://bit.ly/1cPddTz), Sanusi admitted this much: “There was only one thing that I had hoped at the beginning I would achieve which I believed I have not achieved. And this saddens me a bit even though it is also the circumstances. A central bank should, as much as possible, be out of the front pages of newspapers. Apart from on monetary policy days when you announce your rates, you should just work behind the scene.”
That should be a big lesson from which his successor must learn. In the United States, a Fed Chairman (CBN Governor in Nigeria) once spent hours in Congress fielding questions at the end of which one frustrated lawmaker offered a sarcastic compliment: “You would make a very excellent prisoner of war… you wouldn’t tell the enemy a thing.” Sanusi as a prisoner of war would bring down the whole roof with his mouth! However, that should not diminish his achievements in office.
I am not one of those people who subscribe to the conspiracy theory that Sanusi was suspended because of his allegation that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) failed to remit some billions of Dollars into the Federation Account. However, it is also an open secret that because of the mutual distrust between him and the president, the FRCN report became rather handy. But the report itself reads more like the judgment of a court against a criminal than an audit review of CBN accounting process. That is why it lacks any modicum of credibility.
The elevation of the hitherto unknown FRCN into an inquisition whose first outing is to hang Sanusi clearly reduces what ought to be a serious concern for probity in high public places into a petty political witch-hunt. Nigerians know about the EFCC and its awesome powers in such matters. They also know the ICPC for what it was established to do. But for the Federal Government to stage a kangaroo accounting inquisition into Sanusi’s alleged malfeasance, as it is doing, is to further expose the nation’s financial system to international ridicule.
The nature of witnesses being called and the status of CBN officials being summoned in this laughable inquisition by perhaps the smallest of the agencies under the Ministry of Trade and Investment make the matter more injurious to the financial system. I believe that the Jonathan administration needs to handle the Sanusi matter with a measure of dexterity. Here is an administration that has repeatedly cited among its ‘transformation’ miracles some of the fiscal and monetary reforms that Sanusi instituted in the nation’s banking and financial system. It is also on record that Sanusi put himself on the firing line of public disaffection when the administration tried, without success, to remove subsidy on PMS early in 2012. Now, because the CBN Governor mismanaged the politics of his high office, the same administration is staging a public hanging of its once favourite man.
In all these, what is forgotten is that Sanusi is no ordinary public officer. He ‘is’ Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the custodian of some of our most hallowed financial secrets and the government’s accountant of last resort. What that means in effect is that unless the Jonathan administration handles the Sanusi saga with extreme care, it may find out that suspending the CBN Governor is the easier part of this charade as the ever widening international financial and domestic economic disquiet on the matter could hurt the nation very badly.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Feyi Fawehinmi

But the early days were characterised by him doing all sorts of different things as the opportunities came to him. Whereas back then he was at the mercy of crazy government policies and having to react to them as quickly as he could, today he can more easily influence government policies.

I’ve written about Innoson recently, so it was quite nice to see a long interview with Chief Innocent Chukwuma in The Vanguard this last weekend. It’s a very interesting interview that I think is far more important than the kind of ‘testimonies’ that are more common in Nigeria today.

The piece is delightfully long so I am going to pick out the things I found most interesting.

Apprenticeships and True Federalism

He was interested in reading engineering at the university. While he waited for his result he decided to report to the medicine store of his elder brother, Gabriel to occupy his time. He immediately discovered that he had a natural talent for trading. When his result came out he was unable to make the grade required for him to go for further education. By then, he had made up his mind to be a businessman, anyway.

His elder brother wanted him to learn how to trade on motorcycle parts. He was given to Chief Romanus Eze Onwuka, who became his Master. Eze Onwuka is otherwise and more popularly known as Rojenny, the founder of the first private sports stadium in Nigeria. Rojenny Stadium is located at Oba, near Onitsha

Last year, 530,700 young Germans started apprenticeships in the country. In the same year, just under 500,000 Germans started a University degree. The German apprenticeship system is legendary and so many countries have tried to copy the model with varying degrees of success. During my MBA, I had a German classmate who never went to University but instead completed his ‘degree’ via an apprenticeship with Siemens.

When a policy is that successful, you instinctively know that the policy/law trailed extant behaviour i.e. the policy would have arrived to support something that was perhaps a cultural practice. Indeed, the roots of German apprenticeships can be traced as far back as 1300 to the guild system of trades.

Today one can look at the German system that pays €650 per month to apprentices and marvel at the ‘genius’ of policy making in that country. Yet, the system would surely have started not much different from what Mr Chukwuma described above with government policy arriving much much later to lock and institutionalise the practice. A policy has a greater chance of being successful if it gives state backing to something people are already used to doing (this is why banning things in Nigeria hardly ever works).

I don’t know what the Igbo apprenticeship system is like today but at some point government policy should have stepped in to back it up and turn it into an institution. But the diverse nature of Nigeria means that the way apprenticeships work in the South East is different from how they operate in the South West or North so a one size fits all policy would never have worked (another thing that kills policy making in Nigeria).

In short, this is the kind of thing we need proper federalism for.

Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Quick

At every juncture that Innoson broke new grounds, he was always led to it by necessity. The old sayings that necessity is the mother of invention, and that in every crisis there is opportunity fit his circumstances like a glove.

For instance, in 1984 when the military intervened and introduced an economic regime that led to scarcity of all categories of goods, many companies closed down. Leventis and other companies were no longer able to supply goods and Innocent had to look for greener pasture in Asia.

He went to Taiwan and applied the same business principles he had used to win over Rojenny in Nigeria: honesty as the best policy. His Taiwan partners started giving him credit sales. The banks in Nigeria started scrambling to loan him money because he never defaulted and his business was booming

For me this was really refreshing to read because it is the same trajectory of success you would normally get in most other countries – where you start has absolutely no bearing on where you will end. Today Mr Chukwuma is settled as an industrialist – given the size of the investments that have gone into his businesses now, we can safely predict that in 10 years time he wont be selling pure water or making jeans.

But the early days were characterised by him doing all sorts of different things as the opportunities came to him. Whereas back then he was at the mercy of crazy government policies and having to react to them as quickly as he could, today he can more easily influence government policies.

Indeed, before he became an oil baron, John D. Rockefeller was an accountant. The ability to spot opportunities and seize them – taking the current when it serves – is a skill on its own. And it is a pattern that you’ll find in the most successful people across the world.

I’ve previously referred to the Nigerian government as the enemies of enterprise and traducers of trade. You always have to run your business on the assumption that the people in government are totally brain-dead and can be relied upon to do something to destroy your business. See the recent 62.5% tariffs on books as an example.

Sadly, until we can get to the point where society at large is strong enough to resist government’s madness, being nimble will always be a requirement to doing business successfully in Nigeria.

Talkin’ Bout A Revolution

I found out that the motorcycles from Leventis were expensive because they were only able to pack forty units into a 40-foot container. Because of the experience I had in motorcycle spare parts, I went there and asked them to strip it down to pieces.

That way I was able to pack over 200 units of motorcycles into the same 40-foot container, while others were packing 30, forty pieces. I will bring the spare parts down here and couple them manually. Because of my experience in motorcycles I found it very easy.

You’ll often hear of how very successful people stumbled on a simple insight that handed them a profitable opportunity. It is said that Rockefeller was watching men manually offloading barrels of oil off a train when the idea of a pipeline to transport the oil came to him.

In the case of Henry Ford, he did the revolutionary thing to double his factory workers salaries to $ 5/day when the market rate for their labour was $ 2.25/day. This has been greatly misunderstood to mean that Ford wanted to pay his workers enough to afford the cars he was making. But was this the case?

In the year before he raised wages, Ford hired 52,000 workers but actually never had more than 14,000 workers at any point in time. In other words he had huge staff turnover. Given that this was factory work, he must have been spending a fortune training workers only for them to leave after a few months. By raising wages significantly – beyond what his competition could cope with – he got rid of this problem while saving costs and increasing production from 170k to 202k cars the year after the pay rise.

Looking at what Mr Chukwuma did now – it does look obvious. But then the question to ask is why didn’t Leventis do it?

Impulse Control

He has been using it [Peugeot car] and the car is still good. When it becomes old he will pick up an Innoson car. He doesn’t have to throw away the car now

I have recently been reading The Triple Package by Amy Chua and her husband Jed Rubenfeld. It’s a really fascinating book that I cant recommend highly enough. One of the three things they highlight as recurring traits in successful groups is ‘impulse control’ – the ability to reject/resist the dominant cultural narrative in your society. So for example if you live in a society where the prevailing narrative is to live and enjoy the moment, paradoxically such a society will reward you for doing the exact opposite i.e. being frugal and saving for the future.

Or as Rudyard Kipling famously put it – if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs [...] yours is the earth and everything that’s in it.

I doubt that he suddenly became this way – it must be something he has had with him for a long long time in his business career and now, even when he can afford to splurge, he can still control the impulse to buy a Bugatti. People like him always manage to have seed capital to start something new if they need to.

The Robots Are Coming

I know that a businessman always wants to reduce cost. Reducing cost is good. But there are some costs I don’t want to reduce. There are certain things we must give a human being to do. People are looking for work. They are begging you for work.

You have work but you decide to give to a machine. I don’t want to do that. The land where I built the motor factory in Nnewi was given to me free by the community just to make sure that I employ people.

Now if I decide to use automatic where will the people work?

This bit of the interview was quite interesting. When I wrote my earlier post, I talked about using export markets as the ultimate industrial learning. The thing is that the ‘costs’ he is referring to are not just the salaries paid to the people assembling the cars (Vanguard noticed that everything was being done manually in the factory). If your competitors are automating processes and you are still operating manually, your costs are much larger than just the salaries you are paying your staff.

Whereas they can run their factories for much longer with practically zero mistakes, you will have to deal with human errors and lower efficiency. As admirable as it is that he wants to provide employment to as many people as he can, the moment Innoson becomes a global company, all bets are off and he will have to do as everyone else is doing to compete.

Furthermore, it is not always the case that technology takes away jobs. Yes, in some obvious ways, jobs will disappear but as the economist Tyler Cowen points out in his book ‘Average Is Over‘ – whereas it requires less than 100 people to support an F-16 fighter jet for one mission, a Global Hawk Surveillance Drone requires 300 people working in the background to make its mission possible. In this case, fighter jet pilot jobs have been ‘demised’ obviously, but technology has created even more opportunities that were not there before.

Mr Chukwuma need not be too worried – he will always create jobs. The problem to solve is that as his business grows and requires newer and more advanced skills, he can find the talent locally. To this end, he will have to invest in education and training such as partnering with the local University to ensure he has a steady supply of talent.

Or just build his own school even.

Why Rhetoric Matters

I liked this interview for many reasons. To turn Nigeria into a serious country, we have to consciously celebrate counter cultural people who go against the grain by manufacturing things in a country where it is more fashionable to be ‘into oil and gas’.

It’s also important to see that there is absolutely no magic to the man’s success other than sheer hard-work, street smarts and delayed gratification. There is no evidence that he ‘tithed’ his way to his achievements either or the wealth of sinners being forcefully and spiritually transferred to him.

It’s very important to elevate stories of those who played the long game and got rewarded for it to the front page. The less we hear about people throwing 40th birthday parties costing billions when we have no idea what it is they invented to make their fortune, the better. These things corrupt the body fabric of a nation.

One fascinating economic research I came across recently is by an Indian Professor, Nimish Adhia. He trawled through Bollywood movies starting in the 1950s and tried to plot the characters of heroes and villains.

What he discovered was that as economic liberalisation started to take hold in the country (especially after the Licence Raj reforms in 1991), the good guys in Indian films started to change from government officials to business men. Simultaneously, the bad guys changed from factory owners to policemen. Try to watch the whole video below if you can.

Especially around 11mins; you will see a clip from a movie called ‘Guru’ with the protagonist giving an impassioned speech in court.

The things a society talks about has serious effects on shaping the culture and attitudes of the people. The more normal it becomes to see (Hi Nollywood) and hear stories of people who did nothing more than build a business from ground up, the more people see that as a viable road to travel.

So shout out to Mr Chukwuma and Vanguard for doing this. More please!

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Dele Agekameh

In the wake of the hullabaloo that greeted the unfortunate death of more than 19 applicants at the charade recently organised by the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, I reached out to Evelyn Abiodun, my niece, who participated in the event at the National Stadium, Abuja. Below are extracts from her account of the tragedy:

“Exams into Nigeria Immigration Service holds (sic) Saturday, March 15, 2014, at 7am in your preferred exam state. Come along with a comfortable fitness wear” was what we were told. Harmless message, so it seems, but with unexpected consequence.

“The day before the ‘exercise’, Friday, the 14th of March, I set out early to get all the necessary requirements ready. The preparation included shopping in the market for a pair of white shorts and shirt, white socks and running shoes. I also went to a government-owned hospital to obtain my medical fitness pass. I had arranged all my credentials, read up some past question papers and headed to bed with my alarm set for 4am the next day.

“At 3:50am, earlier than my set alarm time, I was up from my bed, as I couldn’t put my head to rest from revising and envisioning how the day would look like. I was ready at exactly 4:45am, waiting for the taxi I had hired to come and pick me up at 5am (which cost me more than I would have paid anyway). I took off for the venue of the exercise, National Stadium, Abuja. In my excitement, I was already wearing my sport wear in the taxi because I couldn’t afford to be late or sloppy as a result of not being properly dressed before the exercise would take off.

“On getting to the venue, my head stopped thinking for a while. I was startled by what I saw. Thousands of people were already at the venue! What! At 5:30am? What were they all doing overnight? Watching the clock tick all night? Or they just woke up earlier than I did? I thought that was shocking, not until I waited 10 more minutes to see troops pouring in. And it wasn’t even 6am yet! Then, the reality of how the day would look like kept sinking into my head. I was beginning to panic at the sight of the crowd alone. It then dawned on me that this must be the jungle for ‘the survival of the fittest’ – although many people didn’t seem qualified to me (they were so old, I could have sworn they were my grandparents’ age-mate).

“As the day went on, at 7am, there was no more air to breathe, even in an open space. I was suffocating many times, as well as the rest of us. Hungry and confused, (I didn’t have breakfast because I thought we were actually going to do a fitness test), I walked around, assessed people, listened to their conversations; at least, I thought, to console myself that the crowd might actually reduce, as I saw many people who didn’t meet the requirements and there could be other reasons to disqualify many. I saw a good number of pregnant women and nursing mothers. What were they doing in this kind of exercise?

“We were tossed around like ‘zombies’ most of the time. Walking and running around, whichever direction the crowd was going, even if we didn’t hear any firsthand announcement from the officers present. Yet, there was no sign of us actually getting into the stadium and we were drying up under the sun like damp clothes, with the officers watching helplessly across the gates. We waited and kept the hope of getting into the stadium, but no sign, not even a simple address from any of the officials present. Like marooned people, we were left alone and confused for hours!

“Sometime around 12noon, to my greatest astonishment, I saw people climbing over the gates to get in. Suddenly, we were all struggling to climb the gates together; it looked to me like it might be the only way into the stadium anyway. Men and women struggling to climb and jump over the gates; it was a jungle indeed! As I tried to squeeze myself through the squash, then I noticed they had opened a small gate on the other side. I began to change my direction towards the gate instead. But that was also not an easy way to go, as it was tightly guarded by the crowd of people trying to get through. Many sustained all kinds of injuries in the process of struggling, but I was lucky to have made it in one piece.

“Having finally made it through the squash, what next? We were told to sit according to our qualifications – higher degree holders were to sit upstairs and the rest to sit downstairs. I made my way upstairs and noticed all the seats there were as dusty as a desert. The usual struggle was not as bad as it was downstairs. I got my seat cleaned and sat down, awaiting the next call. We’ve been seated for more than one hour now; I was thirsty, hungry and tired at the same time.

“I later went down to get something to eat and drink. The prices of refreshment had astronomically increased! Gala (usually N50) was sold at N100; Nestle bottled water (usually N100) sold at N200; pure (sachet) water (usually N10) was sold at N50. The most ridiculous of them all, a pack of jollof (white) rice with no meat and obviously no flavour was sold at N300! Why? N10 pencil was sold at N50, for those who didn’t come with their writing materials. Some people thrived on the suffering of others and were making cool cash on the spot. So sad!

“As we sat, we noticed ambulances going in and out. People were being rushed into ambulances. Some of them had sustained serious injuries, while some had lost their lives in the midst of it all. May their souls find rest. That was the saddest point of the day for me. We still sat there for hours; no sign of anything going on at the venue. Everybody got impatient and frustrated at the long silence and lack of empathy shown to us. I mean we were out to look for job and not to be treated like refugees.

“In no time, the anxious crowd started doing things to keep themselves busy. Some of the applicants entertained us with performances on the tracks – parades, football matches (sachet water bags were turned into football), running competition, funny kung fu practices and so on. I was sitting up there, clapping and hailing them (out of boredom). But as I watched people perform, I came to a realization: we actually do have many wasted talents in this country. If people could be so creative and entertaining, why on earth are these talents not adequately trained and utilised?

“About 4pm, when everyone was tired and many had lost hope (including me), the examination kicked off. As if the wasted hours were not enough insult, the examination was the biggest of them all! The question papers could barely go round (of course, the crowd was more than the number of papers they brought in); the questions comprised 30 objective mathematics questions only. There was no supervision or rules guiding the exam – you could actually discuss the answers with the next person and just anyone around you who knew the answer. In fact, you could answer your phone calls while you write. Everywhere was noisy and rowdy. In short, it was my greatest point of discouragement because it was obvious to me that the examination was just a cover-up.

“After I had submitted my paper (only God knows what I did in there), I left for my house, looking like I just got out of a mud fight. On getting home, I didn’t even have the energy to speak with anyone as I went straight to bed. As I lay there, I thought to myself: ‘Was it really an examination or extermination?’”

This article was posted with permission from Premium  Times Newspapers

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Abimbola Adelakun

First, how can Nyako be so certain that there is “simply no person in the North-East rich enough to foot the financial and logistic bills of Boko Haram?” Why the haste to look outside the zone? Does Nyako know Boko Haram’s operating cost before ruling out his kinsmen? There are billionaires in the North-East, some of whom show off their wealth in vanity magazines. Yet, with all the Boko Haram rampage, they have never been reported attacked.

“The arms, ammunition and explosives being used by the so-called Boko Haram are not manufactured in Nigeria. Somebody must have brought them from abroad to the scenes of attacks … Somebody outside the zone must have bought these arms, ammunition, and explosives … somebody must have deliberately substantially increased illegal drug trafficking  in the north…Who are the barons behind all this?”

– Governor Murtala Nyako

Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State recently spoke on Boko Haram’s insurgency, in Washington DC, and his theory, I admit, left me worried.

He is playing an interesting hand. His not-so-subtle theme is to suggest that Boko Haram is a tool in the hands of the Nigerian government to destabilise the North.

Nyako’s evidences are largely speculative, but I find them hard to accept because one has to first distinguish between deliberate machinations against the North-East people, and sheer failure of strategy and intelligence operations. He says, “The people in the north” have started seeing the insurgent attacks as a way of disenfranchising them so they won’t vote in 2015. For a region that has been said is likely to vote against President Goodluck Jonathan, his argument looks plausible enough to gain sympathisers.

Nyako did not stop there; he had to drag the January 1966 putsch into his laments and allege that somebody is targeting Northern leaders once again. Unchecked, Nyako’s rhetoric can ignite raw emotions and erode whatever gains the country has made since the coup and counter-coup he alludes to.

But is Nyako alone in the Boko Haram sophistry? For a while, propagandists of Jonathan have played a similar card. They have dredged up primordial sentiment by claiming terrorism is the “North” way of making Nigeria “ungovernable” for the President. They quote certain “sources” but never arrest or even cogently connect such persons to Boko Haram.

The logic is worn to death but, still, the Peoples Democratic Party spokesperson, Olisa Metuh, repeated it recently. They even created a Wendel Simlin character to accuse the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, of funding Boko Haram. They simply will not back off from sciamachy. If this mischief typifies Aso Rock attitude to Boko Haram, then Nyako might have a point about government complicity.

Except, once again, like other conspiracy theories that blame the United States, France, Al Qaeda, and everyone but Boko Haram itself, Nyako’s postulations are more questions, not enough answers.

First, how can Nyako be so certain that there is “simply no person in the North-East rich enough to foot the financial and logistic bills of Boko Haram?” Why the haste to look outside the zone? Does Nyako know Boko Haram’s operating cost before ruling out his kinsmen? There are billionaires in the North-East, some of whom show off their wealth in vanity magazines. Yet, with all the Boko Haram rampage, they have never been reported attacked. Who says Boko Haram cannot be funded by those who regularly pay the devil his dues to keep him off their backs? I am not accusing anyone but to say that there is “simply no persons” in the North-East to pay Boko Haram’s bills is to foreclose possibilities.

If Nyako is, like some of us, a truth-seeker, he should be more open-minded.

Also, who does Nyako mean by his constant reference to “somebody” remote-controlling Boko Haram? I do not understand Nyako. If he has names or serious evidence to back his claims, why not state them rather than speculate? Who is the “somebody” outside the zone that supplies Boko Haram’s arsenal, and, also increased the illegal drug trade in the north? If his people are being targeted by “somebody”, it behoves him as their leader to name and confront such persons rather than invoking spectres.

His conjecture on Boko Haram’s operations could simply be that Nyako is alienated from the strong room of intelligent information on Boko Haram. He resorts to guesswork because he just doesn’t know better. It’s not surprising. One of the interesting things about the terror war in Nigeria is that you just never have details. Compared to Al Qaeda and its leaders, you can barely even get a clear photograph of the rumbustious Abubakar Shekau who issued another ultimatum last Monday. You don’t know where he schooled or if he has a private life. Thanks to some female abductees who escaped from Boko Haram camp, we have an inkling about the terrorists and the fact that beyond their religious fundamentalism, they also have a sex life. This information on their mundane activities is important for us to have a mental forensic sketch of who they are.

There are many other things we are never told. The Nigerian government tells us 700 cars were seized from terrorists but it ends there. They don’t tell us to whom or where the cars were registered; how 700 cars were parked in a place(s) and how they were maintained. We are told the government has seized some arms from them but you are left wondering why the weapons have not been traced to the manufacturer through the serial numbers imprinted on them. It is not enough to guess which region their sponsor comes from, but the routes the monies used in their operations move through.

The paucity of information again highlights the lack of the culture of surveillance in our part of the world.

I agree with Nyako that the security process that enables arms to get into Nigeria needs to be checked but his weighty accusations and wild premises don’t say much. Admittedly, arms can be smuggled through the ports but is it only through the ports that arms enter Nigeria?

I expect the Nigerian government to react to Nyako’s bombast with far more maturity than was exhibited the last time when Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State raised a red flag. There are some situations in the life of a country that should be beyond banal politicking; the do-me-I-do-you attitude Nigerian politicians’ exhibit over life-and-death issues.

If their thinking is that the death of some rural folks in faraway North-East doesn’t really count as long as the rest of us are safe in our zones, well, they should not forget that the spectacle of their deaths corrodes our collective human dignity and, in the larger scheme of things, depreciates the worth of the Nigerian life.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Perry Brimah

Hundreds in Borno, hundreds in Yobe, hundreds in Kaduna, hundreds in Katsina, hundreds in Adamawa. No less than 16,000 of us have been killed in this violence since 2011 according to US estimates; over a million families have lost a member. Billions worth have been burned of homes, shops, properties, even documents like birth certificates…passports, family pictures.

How many more must die for you to figure out that this is not working and rise up to replace the government, the elders and the formation of Nigeria if that be?

Another 60 of us were killed in Benue state yesterday. 60! People like you and me. I could be dead, you could be dead. Is it business as usual? Is a blood sacrifice going on? I feel like I die every time a single person dies stupidly in this country of ours. Don’t you feel that way too? How can you continue your daily business knowing that for some, business is no more? Life is gone. Brothers and sisters who were here yesterday, farming and singing are no more…killed due to the stupidity of our greedy government?

Hundreds in Borno, hundreds in Yobe, hundreds in Kaduna, hundreds in Katsina, hundreds in Adamawa. No less than 16,000 of us have been killed in this violence since 2011 according to US estimates; over a million families have lost a member. Billions worth have been burned of homes, shops, properties, even documents like birth certificates…passports, family pictures.

And the government does not care. Nothing is being done to stop this bloody mayhem. Those who rampage and kill and burn our villages are never apprehended. It is no crime to the evil vampires in power once you operate as a mob and kill and burn. How long shall we sit down and tolerate this…is it because we feel far away from the most affected towns and villages? We are not so far oh!

This madness will come our way, I promise you, even our wicked President has said he is now taking off his kid gloves a tad bit because people are worried that it will come to our parts.

Dear Nigerians, some of us are rising up to protest tomorrow, 27^th March at the beckon of the JAF (Joint Action Front). Rise up! Protest with us, everybody, it is time for this murderous system and murderous government to go. This is not politics or tribalism, this is a war against evil and how long we will take it.

Not a single other innocent person needs to die. Not one single other innocent soul needs to be sacrificed at the corruption altar by the cabal who use the blood in their rituals to hypnotize and distract us so they plunder billions of dollars and operate insane oligopolies to extort us of billions more. No more blood must be shed at the cabal’s altar!

Do you see any cabal die from this madness? Do you see them being killed, their homes and businesses being burned? Is it not only us that are poor, that suffer and that die? Can you not see that the cabal have waged war against us and we are not even trying to fight back… some of us do not even know that they have waged war against us, our treasury, our economy, our security; everything, our now and our future… even our brain and conscience is under their attack. These workers of satan leave nothing behind.

Is this how those of us who were here and mature in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s watched as pogroms took place, as the peoples were exterminated openly and under government supervision and did not act? Pogroms are taking place right now, once again under our watch, will we just watch or shall we act?

The protests begin with you. You are the man to start and lead the protests. You are the soldier to seize the moment. You are the worker to fire your boss. Go out as one man today, tomorrow, you will be the one man that matters. Things must change in Nigeria. We must change things in Nigeria. These cabal have been engrossed so much in looting money that they have all lost their senses. Now they have crossed the line. It is time for us to replace all our leadership in this nation entirely, Emirs, Oba’s, Senators, Governors right up to the President. These are mostly wicked people; they watch people die in their communities in their states, in other states, in the nation and are not perturbed by it. They do not rush and set up meetings, committees, fund raisers and interventions to solve the crises. These are witches. They go now! It is time they go! Are these human beings? Are we human beings if we continue to do nothing?

Let me and you rise up and I promise you we will change this nation now. I have risen… From today, things will never be the same again.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Femi Fani-Kayode

The same way they have been behaving since the creation of the Nigerian state is the same way they are aggressively exhibiting their character at this confrence.

‘I see arrogance. I see harrasement. I see it’s either our way or no way by the same group who felt the country belongs to them only- the people who are holding this country by the jugular at this conference.

The same way they have been behaving since the creation of the Nigerian state is the same way they are aggressively exhibiting their character at this confrence.

But gone are the days when any part of Nigeria can be intimidated, can be coerced or harrassed into submission. The majority of Nigerian s have realised that 50 years of their domination, albiet illegally, has come to an end.

They must sit down now and discuss. The odds are not in their favour. The threat of boycott or walkout will not change anything. We are all equal before the law. We are all equal before God”- ADEKUNLE ADESINA ODUNMORAYO.

Chief Odunmorayo’s words shall go down in history as being a prophetic and final warning to a people that have lost touch with reality and that feel that they must always have their way in Nigeria.

The message is loud and clear and it basically says that there are no more slaves and slave-masters in Nigeria. It says that we are all equal before God and we will never go back to the old days of northern masters and southern serfs.

If the north walks out of the conference simply because they are not allowed to operate what amounts to an effective power of veto when it comes to voting, then they may as well walk out of Nigeria as well.

And if they do so, to hell with them. It is time for the south to begin to come together and insist on their rights. Some things are way and above party politics and they are basic and fundamental- this matter is one of such things.

The north does not own Nigeria and the rest of us do not live for them or at their beck and call. We all own this country and the wishes of the north cannot be forced down the throats of the south.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Khadijat Bello

”Believe it or not, my dad taught me how to know a good and tasty yam just from the appearance and since then, I’ve hardly bought a yam that wasn’t superb”

Yams are very tricky to shop for. This is because you can hardly tell from looking at the outside, if a yam is good. Many yams look attractive but on cooking them, you find they are almost inedible.

Believe it or not, my dad taught me how to know a good and tasty yam just from the appearance and since then, I’ve hardly bought a yam that wasn’t superb. Here are a few ways to know if a tuber of yam will be good in your pot:

1. A good yam will not have any holes or rotting parts; this is an obvious one. If a yam is covered with holes and funny black marks, it is very unlikely that it will taste good. This of course does not include the funny marks yams get, from rough handling for example cutlass marks.

2. It should not have any roots. A tuber of yam that has roots growing out of it, has already begun a new phase of life. It has said goodbye to being food; so it is very unlikely to taste good.

3. It should have some “hair”. There are these hair-like growths that protrude from yams. A good yam will usually have a little of this “hair”.

4. It should have white spots. There are some faint white spots that usually appear on yams. A good yam will have these white spots.

5. It should not be a “new” yam. New yams are fresh from the harvest and most of them are still filled with fluid. This is the type of yam that is slimy like water yam; and breaks into pieces very quickly, no matter how little you cook it. It’s better to wait a little for the yams to dry but unfortunately, I don’t know how to tell a new yam just by looking at it.

These tips might seem simple and strange, but I have applied these rules and they have worked for me. My dad is an Agricultural Biologist so if you won’t take my word for it, at least you can take his.

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Khadijat Bello is a writer with big dreams. She believes that life is a journey, not a destination.

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

by Zainab Okino

How can the Jonathan-led government in clear conscience preside over a huge killing field called Nigeria and still have the boldness to seek for re-election?

Everyday, hundreds of people are killed across the country. The killings are attributed to the rising threat of militia groups in Nigeria. Described by the United Nations as ‘increasingly monstrous’, the upsurge of militia aggression should be a growing concern to all except perhaps, those protected by state powers and feel sufficiently shielded.

In addition to deaths occurring from Boko Haram attacks, the growing number of militia groups is worrisome; nearly 500,000 people have fled their homes resulting in threats to food security.

The conflagration from internal conflicts can lead to regional crisis involving border communities from neighbouring countries. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, recently said that less than three months into 2014, “700 people have lost their lives in attacks on 40 villages” including clinics, schools, churches and mosques.

These days, Nigeria is in a permanent crisis mode; the killings are only comparable to that of Syria, where the state is at war with the rebels, although some might categorise the Boko Haram insurgency that way. For the fact that the government has not done much to contain these clashes and attacks, it would not be out of place to say that the Nigerian government is waging a war against its citizens. A state that fails to protect its citizens from all forms of attacks–whether it is Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, Tiv or Berom, Tarok militiamen or individual banditry–is directly at war with them.

Unfortunately, instead of the citizens to direct their anger at government whose constitutional responsibility is to provide security, they label and turn against one another.

The Nigeria of today is such that if an individual wakes up from the wrong side of his bed or has a bad dream, he can blame it on his perceived enemy and go ahead to eliminate him. Nobody will reprimand him; he may never be caught and even if he’s arrested, he will not face the wrath of the law. On a national television the other day, a young man from Kogi Central revealed how he had to kill Citizen Farouk, because he did not feel safe if he (Farouk) remained alive.

This was after an investigation by the Kogi Police Command led by the commissioner leading to the arrest of the killer. The killer in turn led the police to two different sites, where he had severed the head and buried the body separately. The killer was compelled to exhume the parts and explain his motive to the world. Going by the precedents of the past especially from that part of the country, the killer will for now end up in Koto prison and in no time released to the society to commit more crimes.

In the case above, an individual constituted himself into a law court, adjudged a man guilty and killed him. That is what the militia groups do to targeted communities. I understand communities even hire militia groups to terrorise/or eliminate their targets.

Yet in the process of planning and execution of the heinous crimes, there are no Intelligence reports to help security personnel to either stop it before it occurs or apprehend culprits. So, life in Nigeria cannot be more Hobbesian than the huge jungle the country has become; a country where impunity reigns supreme.

The rising profile of ethnic militia predisposes a fractured society, undermining the nation state in the process. However, to be sure, it is not domiciled in Nigeria alone, nor did it start with this government. Sadly its level of degeneration and enormity and the fact that not much effort is applied to halt it is synonymous with  this government. Recall the Tutsi/Hutu hate war that led to death of 800,000 people in Rwanda. It started this way and flourished because those empowered by law to protect all citizens, looked the other way, because they were not directly affected. The ongoing Balaka/Saleka war in Central African Republic is nurtured through hate and labeling, the same way we label some ethnic groups in Nigeria.

Apart from the Nigerian Civil War, where an aggrieved region/ethnic group took up arms against the state, militia war was largely suppressed until the late 90s when the Odua People’s Congress (OPC), Niger Delta militants, Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) militia sprang up. But by far the greatest threat to the state was posed by the Niger Delta militants and militia groups in the North which more often than not, is given a religious colouration. No matter the colour, candour or claims of the militia groups, they emerge, thrive and flourish when there is bad governance and in “societies which have fractured structurally and where the laid down mechanism for dealing with such pluralism has failed or is in the process of failing” according to Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi.

So you see, it’s all about the state’s capacity and leadership direction; and having the courage to address cases like these as an affront to it, and not because anyone hates the president owing to his minority status or because  he is a Christian. How can the Jonathan-led government in clear conscience preside over a huge killing field called Nigeria and still have the boldness to seek for re-election?

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This article was posted with permission from Premium  Times Newspapers

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Reno Omokri

Said Governor Oshiomhole,  “what the Edo election has confirmed is that when the President and Commander-in-Chief puts the country first and conducts himself as a statesman, not just as a party leader, credible elections are possible, because people were apprehensive that the Nigerian Army could be misused.

by Wale Bakare

Again, Saraki was at the front burner to condemn the presidency for sacking the erstwhile CBN governor in an unceremonious manner. His views corroborate those of the majority who encouraged Sanusi to challenge his unconstitutional removal from the court despite his insistence not to return to office regardless of the outcome.

There’s truth to the saying that old sins cast longer shadows. And as humans, revenge is the ultimate antidote that can be employed to make one feel spite against our transgressors. To stand up shoulder high to the presidency is no mean feat and Bukola Saraki would have been in the best position to lecture us on the challenges that comes with being a whistleblower.

The weapon of revenge is being deployed visibly on a daily basis with an uncommon desperation to clamp down on anyone with the audacity to challenge the present administration and its self-inflicted status quo. For the Jonathanians, Senator Bukola Saraki is a ‘sinner’ who would not go scot-free until he repents to do their biddings. As it stands, the momentum is fast building again and there are indications to believe that Saraki’s ‘old sins’ are somewhat worse, than his ‘new sin’.

Saraki’s travails may have started in 2011 when he voted in support of the botched PDP zoning formula then as the governor of Kwara and chairman board of Governor’s forum and his subsequent declaration to run for the presidency in the 2011general election. A consensus was eventually reached; the gladiators involved sheath their swords to ensure that Goodluck Jonathan emerged victorious. In 2012, Senator Bukola Saraki was in the news again, this time; the subject of discourse was one that will affect the future of the unborn generation.

Saraki had uncovered the biggest fraud in the history of the downstream sector.   Jonathan’s administration had spent a whooping 1.2trillion on subsidy without any traces of development. This in-depth investigation of the oil subsidy scheme went down as one of the biggest oversight function of the legislative arm for that budget year.  Saraki soon became a target of the oil cabal with the emergency interest and resurrection of his activities as governor of Kwara State.

Undoubtedly, Saraki’s overtly opinionated view is responsible for series of events that has left him as one of the frequent visitors to the anti-graft agencies annex. The allegations against him and the quasi drama that follows remind one of a ‘season film’ that may never end as a result of the different intrigues that unfolds from the last episodes.

Having scaled through the rigorous drilling and questioning for the umpteenth time at the police invitation without a clear verdict, one would expect the former governor and now Senator to go quiet and avoid issues that may pitch him against his adversaries, rather; he has continued to remain vocal using his voice as a weapon to correct the ills on national issues.

Just recently, Bukola Saraki spotted some loopholes in the 2014 Budget where he raised alarm on the N700 million daily budgeted for Kerosene subsidy, which he described as unsustainable. Saraki’s interview on ChannelsTv Sunrise programme of February 6, 2014 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGnhnnxU1FU) also gives a clear insight into the genesis of his perceived fissure with the GEJ led administration.

The defection of Bukola Saraki and the current governor of Kwara State Ahmed Abdul-fatahi alongside the national assembly and the entire party structure to the opposition party is another source of growing headache to the Jonathan’s camp and the reaction afterwards was long overdue. The substitution of the PDP Local government’s nomination list conducted by the state’s chapter of the party with relatively unknown aspirants from Abuja would eventually turn to be a disastrous decision that could prove  costly for the ruling PDP with the total takeover of the party by the Saraki led APC.

Again, Saraki was at the front burner to condemn the presidency for sacking the erstwhile CBN governor in an unceremonious manner. His views corroborate those of the majority who encouraged Sanusi to challenge his unconstitutional removal from the court despite his insistence not to return to office regardless of the outcome.

As if that was not enough a denegation, in an old fashioned style the minister of sport despite his glowing achievements was booted out of office as a result of his perceived allegiance to Bukola Saraki. Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi was the sacrificial lamb used to settles scores and even out permutations in Kwara ahead of the Jonathans 2015 ambition. In a swift reaction, the Chairman Senate Committee on the Environment Abubakar Bukola Saraki in a statement to the press said ‘’It is shameful that Bolaji Abdullahi was relieved of his duty as minister mainly because of politics and certainly not for non-performance. It is disappointing that in the interest of politics we have compromised, and invariably denied our nation the progress it deserves’’.

Other issues such as the increasing level of government’s excessive spending, the incessant attacks on the lives of innocent citizen and the lack of regard for the rule of law  are but a few of his sins – for exercising his fundamental human right. From Bukola Saraki’s response to these allegations of outspokenness, it is clear he enjoys every bit of it.

While there are no precursors that the Senator representing Kwara Central will surrender his objective stand for a slice in the largesse, it also goes without saying that the powers that be will continue the hound game perhaps until the 2015 elections are settled.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Abidemi Oderinlo

The role of every element on earth is indeed found in its nature and it is the same for man, but instead of functioning exclusively as humans, we intentionally bludgeon our role as defined by nature trying to be something beyond our reach, and creating more problems than nature itself can solve, calling on us to reverse our course and get back to nature.

It’s like being a child of your parent, a brother or sister to your siblings, a husband or wife and father or mother to your children, a friend of your friends and problem to your foes, it is being a little bit of everything without conflicting your role as an individual or duplicating your identity to function as all of this characters at the same time, it occurs naturally, a part of your natural identity and it only takes you being you for you to function in this position all at once. Your being a father or mother to your children doesn’t stop you from being a child to your own parent or uncle to your nieces and nephew and more, it all happens at once, each unique role, perfectly performed at the same time without losing your identity, it the same as well as your role as a citizen of the earth, it is natural, undeniable and cannot be transferred, abandoned or ignored, and has nothing to do with your abilities, gender, status, background, faith, color or ideology, it is part of you being a little bit of everything as long as you are human and a change of name, gender, nationality or belief does not in any nullify or change your role as a citizen of the earth.

Every element existing in this universe serves a unique purpose to maintain a balance in nature and so do I. My ability to identify and define this role substantiate my purpose for being here on earth and any attempt to abandon, shortchange, modify, reject or totally deny this role sums up to abuse, creating an imbalance that is irremediable by any other person than me, and this is true for all men it is therefore imperative for every man to first find his/her purpose as a human, find her place in the order of life and serve his/her purpose without reserve whether whole, blind, lame, deaf or dumb because only when this is done that the earth will remain livable for all and sundry for as long as it exists. The good news is that the role of every element of nature is predefined, but the big question is now, “How Do I Find And Play My Role Effectively?”

The role of every element on earth is indeed found in its nature and it is the same for man, but instead of functioning exclusively as humans, we intentionally bludgeon our role as defined by nature trying to be something beyond our reach, and creating more problems than nature itself can solve, calling on us to reverse our course and get back to nature.

We invented guns and bombs but instead of using it to hunt food, and break rocks for road, we turn it on each other and complain about war and conflict. We walked into the corridor of science but instead of curing diseases, we created more and tested it on humans just for the fun of it in the name of research. Immigrating horses are treated better than immigrating humans in the gulf of Arabia, and dove in the courts of the Vatican gets more grain and clean water than the children in war camps in Central African Republic or the Sudanese refugee camps in Kenya and yet we preach religion instead of concentrating on humanity as a single entity, either black or white. We polluted our planet by our own actions, but instead of cleaning it up with our reactions, we are thinking of running to Mars. How I wish we can just concentrate on our primary role of being humans, the custodian of the earth and north rulers or world power.

When a child is conceived, nature defines the fetus’ gender according to its needs; male or female, living the seed neither the choice of race nor nationality, only ensuring he/she joins the human race. Through education the child is groomed, and even without, the child is groomed as well and placed into an existing society to serve a pivotal role in the ecosystem of such but the excuse of choice and pleasure deludes us, and we dump our role as males, females, husbands, wives to become the opposite or nothing, abandoning our roles and leaving it to burden others, creating more irreversible problems and our biggest excuse is choice.

If homosexuality is a choice hinged on the freedom to choose a sex partner, then a word like “Incest” should not exist, it’s all a choice as long as force is not applied which makes it rape. Let’s see who will give birth to the next generation, two males or two females romping on each other like bald grapes? Our roles as humans cannot be traded on the stock market of choice, it’s a function, a role that must be played or else, a bigger irreversible price will have to be paid.

“Medical waste is posing a growing problem worldwide, jeopardizing the health of staff, patients, disposal workers and anyone else coming into contact with the often hazardous materials discarded by hospitals and other health-care sites, a United Nations human rights expert said today.”—UN.

The sad part of this development is that a good percentage of these medical wastes come from choices. George, a man suddenly gets tired of being a man and heads to the hospital to become a woman. Stella gets tired of looking like Stella and heads to a plastic or cosmetic surgeon with a picture of Beyoncé. To treat Malaria, a real sickness, one or two syringes will do the trick while an healthy George and Stella will generate a bucket load of health waste just for a pair of boobs, a new  genital and a new look. Jane was born as black as Lupita, but now she’s as white as an albino with dark knuckles and knee cap, with a skin texture that wouldn’t allow him function beyond the dark hours but her knowledge is needed in broad day light so she denies the earth her nature given value, creating a problem for others to solve.

“One in 500 children is seriously affected by facial disfigurement. One in 100 children has a noticeable facial or other feature”—BBC.

Governments spend trillions of dollars on military research every year and another truckload of billions of dollars on choice-based medical research while the real issues that affects humanity rely on philanthropy to get attention. Religion carts away trillions in tithes and offerings, seeds, zakat and more. The Imam rides with a convoy, the pastors and bishops fly and cruise and they still stand up to ask you to give your shirt to the naked, when the religious establishments are already rich enough to establish a clothing line dedicated to employing the jobless and clothing the naked. Our young and learning men lives in hostels not worthy to be ranked as jail houses for conmen, requiring only a few million bucks per annum to keep it livable and conducive for free, but instead, our congress men get billions in furniture allowances and they are still paid to sit.

Now the earth is at risk, Fukushima is busy feeding the sea with nuclear poison, Iran is nuke ready, the ozone layer is depleted and there are now two suns serving Maiduguri. Instead of war on poverty, maybe Detroit will be off the list of the most dangerous city on earth, America is busy searching for another Libya since they are unable to violate Syria, and Russia has got a perfect excuse to enter Ukraine, “we are protecting our people” they say, I wonder why the thirst for world domination. Ammunition makers are in constant production with more research on death and destruction, and we are praying and dreaming for the wars to end on the streets and the borders of North Korea. An outright ban is still on Mary-jay  the healer but Tobacco the killer is rolled out in trucks and train, christened Cigar and Cigarette, after all, a lot of research is going on to help keep lung cancer patients longer on earth. “I think I need me a gun” like the Irish would say, who knows, a Zimmerman may be driving by tonight, returning from getting some crack in the corner, all in the name of CHOICE?

We all know our roles but we just refuse to play it, my role and your role is the same, it’s only clothed in different garments of a doctor, lawyer, engineer, politician, herbalist, government, citizens and more, our role as humans is not a choice we chose or a choice we can make, it is already defined by nature and it is on us to honour our identity, find our role and play it effectively.

My first role as a human is to be a man and next a Nigerian that lives for God and men. Amen!

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Akin Osuntokun

Rather than endeavour to free our minds from the shackles and incapacitation of the bondage of crude oil, it is tragic to note that some Nigerians who stake political leadership claims would work themselves into frenzy seeking to perpetuate our dependency on oil syndrome.

It is difficult to quantify and determine the extent of damage that the politics of crude oil has wreaked on Nigeria. In this consideration I have identified my first task as the expression of sympathy for the toiling masses of the Niger Delta region. My visits to the region had been intermittent and confined to the urban metropolis of Benin, Warri, Port Harcourt and Yenagoa. For the first time, I sighted the interior islands two years ago and it was a disheartening and harrowing spectre to behold. The unique topography made it extremely difficult and exorbitant to extend pipe borne water facility to their habitation. Provision of the infrastructure will require multiples of the cost of laying similar facilities elsewhere in the country.

Yet I was not prepared for the horror of the spectacle I was about to witness. The people were defecating and taking their bath in the same creek water they scooped to drink and cook! Lest I forget, the same water was polluted with oil sleek from the operations of the illegal oil refineries that dotted the banks of the crisscrossing creeks. I did not see anybody casting fishing nets into the river. Maybe it was futile to do so.  These villagers were, so to say, in the first line of battle in the hostilities Nigeria confronts in crude oil.

My friend and escort directed my attention to the skies above; it was eerily quiescent and overcast but more importantly it was bereft of the chirping and flapping of flying birds-proof positive of toxic air pollution. Are these the people my embattled friend, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, referred to as living in affluence relative to the masses of the North-east? If only he knew. This was the reality that Ken Saro Wiwa lived and died for in a bizarre and dark episode of double jeopardy for the Ogoni people.

It is not only in the Niger Delta creeks that crude oil stood in the way of income yielding utilisation of the land for agriculture, it also did in the rest of Nigeria. The difference is that while the reality was shoved down the throat of the Niger Deltans, other Nigerians made the choice of opting not to till the ground on account of the disincentive to work fostered by the avalanche of petrol dollars. In tandem, the groundnut pyramids became level ground, oil palm plantations yielded ground to its abundantly endowed cousin, crude oil and the warehouses of farmers’ cooperative societies were emptied, locked up and had their keys cast into the lagoon. Agriculture was then reduced to the mockery of sloganeering with such fanciful epithets as Operation Feed the Nation and Green Revolution.
Meanwhile, Abuja had become alternate seat of government for the 36 state governors who gathered monthly, sometimes weekly, to queue to receive sustenance stipends and allowances from the Abuja Father Christmas. Nigeria is in a peculiar situation where we thrive on the misfortunes of others. It is in our interest that there should be war and sundry disasters in fellow oil-producing countries so that the consequent shortfall in supply will force the price of crude oil skywards.

It has become a bore to say corruption in Nigeria is synonymous with oil and in exasperation I have proposed that the Nigerian National  Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) should be privatised following the privatisation logic of (among things) precluding it as an avenue of massive public theft, leakages and wastage. The surprise is that it is not a popular prescription among critics and state actors alike. Never mind the sanctimonious posturing. Seems every Nigerian is bidding his time to do with the NNPC what others have been doing with it.

When you think of the resource curse syndrome you think of Nigeria- the paradox that countries with an abundance of natural resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources’. In corroboration of this thesis, President Goodluck Jonathan recently lamented that in the 60s, our country was ranked along with some developing countries, including Malaysia, India and South Korea. Today those countries have moved far ahead of us in several areas. These countries are specifically distinguished by the unique fact that none of them is a mineral or oil-rich country. You would have heard, for instance, that the oil palm seed specie from which the oil palm economy of Malaysia sprouted and thrived was picked from Nigeria.

As Nigeria approaches another political denouement in the form of the National Conference and the 2015 general election, a clamorous and rancorous altercation has erupted over the embodiment of our resource curse, crude oil. The altercation is usually conducted in the language of flippancy and excitation. Confounding and mind-boggling postulations on geology, international and maritime laws are espoused to invest a mirage with substance-motivated by a self-willed incapacity to see that there could be life more abundant beyond and after crude oil. And so it is that an unlikely candidate for this dubious distinction, Dr.  Usman Bugaje, rose to the occasion the other day in Kano or is it Kaduna.

I fully understand the anxiety of all of us who cannot claim patrimony of Niger Delta origins on the implications of the acceptance and incorporation of fiscal federalism and devolution of powers into the supreme law of Nigeria. And there are ways we can address this concern with adequate sensitivity and maturity-such as freezing the subsisting revenue allocation formula for the next 20 years regardless of any resulting structural review of the country.

Rather than endeavour to free our minds from the shackles and incapacitation of the bondage of crude oil, it is tragic to note that some Nigerians who stake political leadership claims would work themselves into frenzy seeking to perpetuate our dependency on oil syndrome. One of the first lessons we were taught in elementary economics class is to see diversification away from the mono cultural economy of oil as an all-important national virtue. The advanced and adult companion of this lesson is to comment and lecture in a manner that weans Nigerians away from the dependency on oil mentality.

I don’t know whether he has strayed from his original industrial diversification vision of being a vocational wealth creator (and not a portmanteau oil billionaire) but integral to Aliko Dangote’s phenomenally successful industrialisation story is a studied detachment and aloofness from the crude oil business. It is a vision that is on all fours with the cultural origins of capitalism as propounded by the German sociologist, Max Webber, in capitalism and the Protestant ethic.

Following upon the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel contrived surge in the price of oil in 1973, the Nigerian military head of state, General Yakubu Gowon (otherwise a personable statesman) famously endorsed the fast paced national regression into the culture of conspicuous consumption and casino economy with the declaration that the problem of Nigeria was not money but how to spend it. Subsequently he had no better incentive to renege on his solemn pledge to hand over power to civilians after nine-long years in office. He had to be kicked out.

Four decades later and having been thoroughly worsted by the national productivity retardation potential of cheap oil money, this is what Bugaje had to contribute to the discourse on the growth and development of Nigeria: “There are no oil producing states…. the only oil producing state is the Nigerian state itself…  Whatever mileage you get in the sea, according to the United Nations Law of the sea, is a measure of the land mass that you have; that is what gives you the mileage into the sea…and the land mass of this country, that gives that long 200 nautical miles or more into the ocean, is because of that 72 per cent of the land mass of this country, which is the North. The investment came from the Nigerian state and the territory belongs to the Nigerian state. What they claim is the off shore oil is actually the oil of the North.”

Given the present political wherewithal of Nigeria, this is as tragic as they come. The most charitable attribution that can be made for this postulation is that he meant it as an academic exercise, a polemical debate; after all he is first an academic before all other occupational accretions. It could also mean that he does not mean to be taken seriously. If that is the case, then it is an expensive joke. The notorious characteristic of sophistry is that the logic it canvasses is seldom internally consistent. A cursory glance at Bugaje’s submission reveals as much. First he attributed oil ownership to the Nigerian state…. “The only oil producing state is the Nigerian state itself” and barely a paragraph after, he contended that “what they claim is the offshore oil is actually the oil of the North”. So between the Nigerian state and the North who is now the owner of the oil?

I have a fundamental problem with any Nigerian who revels in the crude oil identity as Bugaje does.  I am not so much concerned with the veracity of his phantom proposition as the damage this kind of mentality has done; it is doing and will continue to do to the viability of Nigeria. It is a mentality that negates the potential of Nigeria for national cohesion and sustained socio-economic development. It bespeaks of obsession and fixation with a cheap source of income to which we add no value. It is a vision of Nigeria that confirms the fears that all posturing to the contrary, protestations of national unity and patriotism is all about grabbing power as a short cut to sitting over Nigeria’s oil wealth.

Here Bugaje is not talking about growing the economy, about stimulating our individual and collective creativity and productivity potential. No, it is about how to quarrel over scavenging on the spoils of a wasting asset. It is a mindset that is totally enthralled with oil and glorifies the attendant easy life over the ethic of hard work, industry and enterprise. For those of a similar mindset I recommend, as panacea, the seminal work of Dr Mahmud Tukur  “Leadership and governance in Nigeria: the relevance of values”.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

by Mahmud Abdullahi

The most fundamental of these fallacies is the belief that Nigeria is a uniquely artificial state as it was created by the British colonialists, primarily for economic and administrative convenience. 

Less than ten years after the Obasanjo administration’s National Political Reform Conference, President Goodluck Jonathan has sanctioned another such conference, to be called the National Conference, at the cost of seven billion naira. The aim of the conference, the government says, is “examining and genuinely resolving, long-standing impediments” to the cohesion and harmonious development of Nigeria; a country that just clocked a hundred years. And although the president has identified some “no-go” areas for the organizers of the conference, he might have sanctioned it in order to please sections of Nigeria’s elites that have consistently clamoured for a sovereign national conference over the years, or he may well be part of those elites himself.

Theoretically, a sovereign conference is a convention of all the groups or elements that make up a nation-state (such as ethnic, religious or interest groups) in which the existence and/or structure of that country is freely negotiated and any consensus is confirmed as law. It is essentially an overhaul of the political and institutional order, similar to the Magna Carta or the Unification of Germany. In Nigeria, it is argued by some, that such a conference is necessary if the myriads of social, cultural, economic, political and developmental challenges facing the country are to be overcome. However, any sovereign conference or even the less profound national conference, may not work for Nigeria because the major assumptions that underpin such are based on some fundamental fallacies.

The most fundamental of these fallacies is the belief that Nigeria is a uniquely artificial state as it was created by the British colonialists, primarily for economic and administrative convenience. In any random passage on Nigeria’s history one may likely come across the banal argument that the root of Nigeria’s problems is the artificial marriage of disparate ethnic groups with little in common. As such some see the need to go back in time and undo this “mistake”. While it may be true that Nigeria was born from the forceful amalgamation of different ethnic nationalities by the British, there is nothing unique about that. All modern nation-states are artificial in that sense – they are either the outcome of treaties, wars or colonialism – and the nature of the diversity of each is the consequence of the circumstances that have led to emergence of that state. Some are multi-ethnic, some are multi-racial, and others are multi-religious. Thus, nothing is unique about Nigeria’s diversity. Many colonized multi-ethnic and multi-racial countries such as India, Malaysia and South Africa are making rapid progress in areas Nigeria has failed.
Ironically too, most of the primordial identities that have been offered as criteria for the selection of delegates to this conference were also created or defined by the colonialists. For instance, the concepts of Northern Nigeria, Eastern Nigeria, the Delta, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Urhobo, indigene, settler, etc, were all created by colonial administrative officers, ethnographers and historians. It is they who also laid the foundation of the country’s middle class, labor unions, the military, academia, etc.
There is also the belief that democratic institutions are incapable managing the challenges facing Nigeria. Advocates of the conference say it is an avenue where Nigeria’s problems will be discussed and the future will be decided, as though there were no institutions that are already saddled with that responsibility. There is no issue or subject that has been discussed in the previous conferences, or one that will be discussed in the current conference, that cannot be debated in the National Assembly, the Federal Executive Council or the boardroom of one of the numerous MDAs in the country. From state creation to devolution of powers, from judicial reform to revenue sharing, all can be achieved through democratic institutions. Even secession can be achieved through the institutions and instruments of democracy (remember Bakassi?). This reduces the conference to a mere jamboree with a debatable legal basis.

The next fallacy is the notion that “Nigerians” will discuss. The conference is often portrayed not only as a panacea for an inclusive society the ultimate goal of which will be the adoption of popular, grassroots opinions in state matters, but also as an opportunity for Nigerians to have a say on how the country was created since they didn’t have the chance when the country was actually created. But then, how important is that and how exactly will it happen? How many Nigerians will attend this all-important “conversation” capable of altering the course of Nigerian history? Fifty million Nigerians?  Sixteen million? Or one hundred thousand? It must be recognized that the art of statecraft will always come down to the actions (visionary or otherwise) of a handful representatives of the people. There can never be a juncture in Nigeria’s history where any significant number of Nigerians will sit together and discuss the future of their country, and that is because Nigeria’s history is just like any other nation’s history.

The Magna Carta, which paved way for the transition of England from an absolute monarchy to a democracy was more or less an agreement between King John and the feudal barons; the pact for the Unification of Germany, which laid the foundation of modern Germany was signed by the princes of the hitherto autonomous German states; and the 1884-85 Berlin Conference on Africa, the forerunner to the Scramble for, and Partition of Africa, was attended by the ambassadors of a handful of European powers. So Lord Lugard’s (much criticized) role in the amalgamation of Northern and Sothern Protectorates of Nigeria may not necessarily be one giant, extraordinary mistake that must be revisited by the ethnic groups affected.
Furthermore, there tends to be some consensus that any national conference (sovereign or not) may be devoid of the problems that “necessitated” it in the first place. Since the problems that have bedeviled Nigeria are so grave and persistent, proponents of the conference would argue, there is need for a neutral avenue (legal or not) that will allow Nigerians to literally reset the country. This assumption is, at best, naïve, given that, historically, even the most revolutionary political developments derive from the existing order. If corruption, nepotism, mismanagement and inefficiency are the trademarks of Nigeria, then they will be the trademarks of the conference. It cannot emerge from a vacuum.
Already, it can be seen from the released list of the delegates that the responsibility of charting a future for Nigeria is placed on the shoulders of some of the most notorious architects of the country’s troubles. Some of the “exemplary role models” (for Nigerians) President Jonathan has nominated include Peter Odili, Zamani Lekwot and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha. In addition, representation is clearly skewed in favor of some groups over others. This is precisely part of the reasons why any such conference will only be part of the problem rather than the solution.

Also, the view that the conference is an end in itself is misleading. Many countries have had similar conferences, but things have largely remained the same, if not worsened, in such countries. Benin Republic is yet to witness any fundamental progress since their sovereign conference in 1990. That is also the case in DR Congo and Ivory Coast. In Nigeria too, the fact that this is about the tenth national/constitutional conference in the country since 1957 (almost an average of one conference per decade) is also an indicator that a reform/sovereign conference is no silver bullet.

Essentially, what Nigeria needs is a visionary leadership that will have the ability to tackle key challenges facing the country. Nigerians must focus on ways of improving the quality of leadership and governance and not waste precious time and scarce resources on how to organize a conference that is entirely unnecessary. At this critical juncture, Nigerians have a choice between bickering over what happened in the last hundred years, or working towards building a great country in the next hundred.

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This article was published with permission from Abusidiqu.com

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.