By Angela Ukomadu and Tim Cocks

Dolls dressed in local attire in workshop at Surulere, Lagos [Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye]

LAGOS (Reuters) – With a booming economy in Nigeria and more black children than anywhere else in the world, Taofick Okoya was dismayed some years ago when he couldn’t find a black doll for his niece.

The 43-year-old spotted a gap in the market and with little competition from foreign firms such as Mattel Inc, the maker of Barbie, he set up his own business. He outsourced manufacturing of doll parts to low-cost China, assembled them onshore and added a twist – traditional Nigerian costumes.

Seven years on, Okoya sells between 6,000 and 9,000 of his “Queens of Africa” and “Naija Princesses” a month, and reckons he has 10-15 percent of a small but fast-growing market.

“I like it,” said five year-old Ifunanya Odiah, struggling to contain her excitement as she checked out one of Okoya’s dolls in a Lagos shopping mall. “It’s black, like me.”

While multinational companies are flocking to African markets, Okoya’s experience suggests that, in some areas at least, there is still an opportunity for domestic businesses to establish themselves by using local knowledge to tap a growing, diverse and increasingly sophisticated middle class.

There’s no doubt about Nigeria’s economic potential. Economist Jim O’Neill has this year popularised it as one of the “MINT” countries – alongside Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey – that he sees as successors to the first wave of emerging markets he dubbed the BRICs (Brazil, Russia and India and China).

With around 170 million people, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country by far, and its economy is growing at about 7 percent, vying with South Africa as the continent’s largest.

Several multinational firms have been here for years. Drinks group Diageo, for example, now sells more Guinness in Nigeria than in the beer’s traditional home market of Ireland. South African grocer Shoprite has seven profitable stores in Nigeria and plans to roll out hundreds.

While Western economies struggle, the appeal of emerging markets for toymakers is clear. Between 2006 and 2011, developed countries saw toy sales grow just 1 percent a year, versus 13 percent in emerging markets, according to Euromonitor data.

But in Nigeria, basic goods aside, consumerism is in its infancy, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs.

“When it comes to sectors like spirits or beer, or even cement, all the international players are already there,” said Andy Gboka, London-based equity analyst at Exotix LLP Partners.

“Other sectors, such as toys or less-developed industries, provide a huge potential for local companies.”

TAILORED TO LOCAL TASTES
Mattel, the world’s largest toy company, has been selling black dolls for decades, but said its presence in sub-Saharan Africa was “very limited”. Furthermore, the firm does not “have any plans for expansion into this region to share at this time,” according to spokesman Alan Hilowitz.

There are good reasons for foreign companies to be cautious.

While Nigeria sees thousands of births every day, two thirds of children are born into families unable to afford anything off the shelves of most toy shops.

Multinationals also cite poor infrastructure and corrupt port authorities as reasons for steering clear.

South Africa’s Woolworths pulled out of Nigeria last year, blaming supply chain problems, though analysts said it also misread the local clothes market.

The longer companies such as Mattel wait, however, the more time Okoya has to build his business and shape consumer tastes.

At a small factory in Lagos’ Surulere suburb, his workers stitch brightly patterned West African fabrics into miniature dresses and “geles” – traditional head gear.

Nigeria’s three largest ethnic groups of Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa are represented in the “Queens of Africa” range so far, highlighting the growing sophistication of consumers – and the need to tailor products to local tastes.

The dolls go for between 1,300 Nigerian naira to the special edition 3,500 naira, while cheaper “Naija Princesses” sell for 500 to 1,000 naira apiece. Okoya makes a profit margin of about one third, and as well as selling at home, is increasingly shipping to the United States and Europe.

He plans dolls from other African ethnic groups, and is in talks with South Africa’s Game, owned by Massmart, a part of Wal-Mart, to sell to 70 shops across Africa.

Like Barbies, Okoya’s dolls are slim, despite the fact that most of Africa abhors the Western ideal of stick-thin models.

Okoya said his early templates were larger bodied, and the kids didn’t like them. But he still hopes to change that.

“For now, we have to hide behind the ‘normal’ doll. Once we’ve built the brand, we can make dolls with bigger bodies.”

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2014. 2:46 a.m. [GMT]

Beyond prohibiting same sex marriage and civil union, the Nigerian Same Sex (Prohibition) Bill, which Mr. President has just assented to, provides dangerous grounds for massive infringement of fundamental rights, not only of homosexuals, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and the transgender (LGBT), but also those of heterosexuals. The Same Sex Act (Prohibition) Act should therefore be reconsidered before the ink with which it was written dries up.

First, a general overview of the Act is presented. (This analysis is based on the Bill that had been in circulation before Mr. President granted assent). The Act consists of eight (8) sections. Section one prohibits same sex marriage or civil union. Section 2 prohibits solemnization (celebration) of same sex marriages or civil union in places of worship, including churches and mosques. Section 3 declares that only marriages contracted between a man and a woman (heterosexual marriage) are valid in Nigeria. Section 4 specifically prohibits the registration, sustenance meetings and processions of gay clubs, societies and organisations. Though the section restrictively uses the term ‘gay’, it is suggested that the provision of section 4 applies equally to the lesbian, bisexual and transgender. The same section 4 prohibits direct or indirect public show of same sex amorous relationship. Section 5 provides for offences and penalties under the Act. Persons who enter into same sex contract or civil union are liable, upon conviction, to 14 years imprisonment. Any other persons who register, participate in their organizations, meetings or processions are liable, upon conviction, to 10 years imprisonment. Section 6 provides that the State High Court has jurisdiction over offences committed under the Act. Section 7 is the interpretation section while section 8 provides for the short title.

Section 1 (1) of the Act prohibits marriage contract or civil union between persons of the same sex. It states further that such a marriage or civil union, as the case may be, is not only invalid but also illegal and void. Even if it were conducted in a foreign jurisdiction where it is lawful, it is unenforceable in Nigeria. Parties to same sex marriage are not entitled to the benefits, which are conferrable on parties to valid heterosexual marriages. Though the Act does not list the benefits, the benefits of a valid marriage, in law, usually include:

· Work related benefits such as tax concessions on account of expenditure on the other spouse, medical care for the other spouse (and children of the marriage), paid leave from work to take care of the other spouse in the event of sickness or emergencies, and so on. Other benefits include:

· Right of inheritance by the surviving spouse;

· Right of surrogate decision making in periods of emergencies or incapacities, such as when the other spouse has to undergo surgery, and

· Evidentiary privileges as contained in section 187 of the Evidence Act, which provides that a spouse is precluded from disclosing confidential marital communication, except in proceedings between the couple. None of the parties can also be compelled to disclose confidential communication without the consent of the other.

Section 4 sub section (2) prohibits “public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly”. What is meant by “public show of same sex amorous relationship” is not defined. Similarly, what is meant by “indirect” or “direct” public show of same sex amorous relationship is not defined. Section 4 sub (2) of the Act is therefore nebulous, ambiguous and equivocal and could be subject to multiple interpretations and abuse. The implicit danger in this particular provision is that anybody, whether homosexual or heterosexual could be wrongfully or erroneously arrested and charged with “public show of same sex amorous relationship” when they simply hug or hold hands with persons of the same sex who may be ordinary friends between whom there is no “amorous” relationship.

The press has reported that several persons have already been arrested under the Act in different states of the Federation. According to a television station’s news item a few days ago, the following number of persons have been arrested: 12, 6, 6 and 160 in Oyo, Imo Anambra and Bauchi States, respectively. Though the circumstances of the arrest are not disclosed, the victims are most likely to be poor people; the rich who also engage in homosexual behaviours are not likely to be victims of abuse by the police.

Section 5 sub (3) of the Act criminalizes witnessing, aiding, abeting the solemnization of same sex marriage or civil union, or supporting the registration, operation, processions, meetings or sustenance of homosexual clubs:

Any person or group of persons that witness, abet and aids the solemnization of a same sex marriage or civil union, or supports the registration, operation and sustenance of gay clubs, societies, organisations, processions or meetings in Nigeria commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a term of 10 years imprisonment.

By the provisions of section 5 sub (3), anyone who advocates registration of homosexual clubs, organizations or societies may be liable to being charged under the Act. Even though a person may not be homosexual, lending support to the operation, sustenance of homosexual organizations has become an offence. Even if an individual does not have homosexual orientation, it is now a crime to support and/or participate in meetings or processions of homosexuals.

Section 5 sub (3) of the Act therefore violates the following universally recognized fundamental rights which are also guaranteed under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN) 1999, as amended:

· The right of association guaranteed for “every person” under section 40, CFRN, 1999.

· Freedom of expression, ‘including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference’, guaranteed under section 39, CFRN, 1999.

· Freedom from discrimination, which is guaranteed under section 42, CFRN, 1999, which provides that no one shall be discriminated against on the basis of the circumstances of birth.

· Freedom from unequal treatment which is guaranteed under the preamble to the Constitution, which declares that the Constitution is based on the principle of equality and justice.

Even if it is admitted that laws tend to regulate behavior on the basis of the standard acceptable to the majority at any point in time, the law should not stifle in any way, the right of the minority to campaign or canvass for alternative viewpoints and world outlooks. The comprehensive assault on the right of association and peaceful action of homosexuals and those who may support their right to enjoy fundamental freedoms (of association and expression) is an indirect challenge to the foundation and survival of Nigeria’s constitutional democracy. Unless the attacks on fundamental rights contained in the Same Sex (Prohibition) Act is challenged, the majority would have unwittingly lost the moral right to resist future breaches of their fundamental right to association and expression on other issues of interest.

It is suggested that rather than the State being preoccupied with regulating and criminalizing purely personal voluntary relationships among adults, to the extent of attacking fundamental rights of association and expression, the State should be more concerned with fighting corruption which destroys the capacity of the State to attend to the wellbeing of ordinary people, which may also partly be at the root of social processes leading to varied orientations in sexuality.

Femi Aborisade, an Attorney-At-Law is a Human Rights Activist, a Labour Consultant, and can be reached through: aborisadefemi@gmail.com

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014. 1:21 a.m.

Stop Making Policy Statement in Church, Archbishop Kaigama Tells Jonathan – Sahara Reporters by Rudolf Okonkwo

Archbishop Kaigama of Jos

In the usual say-it-as-it-is of Nigeria’s Catholic hierarchy on Nigeria’s politics, the Catholic Archbishop of Jos bared his mind in a short but pungent and covering-all-the-bases interview with Rudolf Okonkwo for Sahara Reporters:

“If I have to meet the governors or the president I wouldn’t have to hide my disappointment … Our leaders are not giving their best to the nation … I will treat [a gay person] with great understanding and love, with great compassion.”

Read the brief send-them-a-message report at the link below: TOLA.

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/saharatv-stop-making-policy-statement-church-archbishop-kaigama-tells-jonathan

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2016. 10:32 a.m. [GMT]

Femi Aborishade’s article on the stupid bill on same sex prohibition was well written. He really hit the nail on the head when he implied that his article could get him arrested, depending on how the bill is interpreted or misinterpreted. It means a lawyer who wants to represent gay rights could be thrown to jail.

I have seen or heard of very stupid bills before but apparently even our monthly “Aro-mental Sanitation Exercise”, apologies to Late Uncle Bola Ige, pales by comparison. I had argued that the Aro-mental Sanitation order fell short of stipulating when a man should sleep or eat; if it could force everyone to start cleaning at the same time, regardless of whether the premises are clean or not, then why not go all the way? Aro-mental clearly has no regard for a citizen’s choice in the matter, as if cleaning the premises once a month is better than doing it every day.

Another stupid law came from the Lagos House when it wanted whoever drove against traffic to be brought before a psychiatrist. Sounds fine, until you realize that the offense was committed by nearly half of Nigerian drivers while the country could not boast of 500 psychiatrists.
No doubt other laws that are arguably stupid have been passed all over the country by legislators who seem to think their job entails legislating against anything that takes their fancy. Not enough rain in the North, well, legislate against it. Too much in the South, legislate against it. Armed robbery everywhere, legislate against armed robbery. It is ironic, but this is the mindset that gave rise to the duplication of state resources when EFCC, ICPC, etc were born. You would think that our statutes supported corruption in the first place. If something is not working as planned, you would expect a careful study to find out what went wrong with a view to fixing it, instead of simply creating another monster in its place. So, when EFCC1 stops working, do we create EFCC2?. Tufiakwa! Obviously, some people still need to be aware that it takes more than legislating to restore law and order, and that when it is done, legislating should come last.

Apparently these laws or decrees pale beside the same sex prohibition in respect to usurping the rights of an individual. Unfortunately, the extent to which this prohibition stays unchallenged says a lot about governance in the country. Alas, it would also say a lot about the governed who would accept anything thrown at them. Above all, it shows that those at the helm of affairs hardly know much about homosexuality.

Before we examine the bill in detail, some questions need answers:

a) Who is gay? Who exactly is a homosexual person?

b) In what ways have gay activities been creating problems for the society?

c) What is the population of gay people in Nigeria?

d) Who are the people that can be relied on as authorities on gay matters?

Of course, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered before we start wasting resources on any issue. Else, we will wake up one day and find that a bill has been passed that bans the eating of armadillo flesh in Nigeria! As our elders would say, we would be wasting time treating a minor rash while overlooking leprosy.

However, homosexuality does exist, and in every part of the world too. But before we talk of the numbers, let us agree and understand that authorities on this subject are in the department of Social Studies, Anthropology or similar schools. This is not to say that one has to hold a degree in these subjects before s/he can discuss the subject, but it sure helps to educate oneself on a topic before debating a bill about it. Nevertheless, it does mean that the mere opinion of anyone, no matter how righteous s/he may feel, does not make him an authority. I daresay that a good number of our legislators have either been listening to people who they erroneously assumed are authorities but who are in fact ignorant on gay matters, or such legislators have something to hide.

Here is fact Number One that may have escaped Abuja:

Scientists the world over have concluded that homosexuality affects nearly ten percent of every population. (Today the term “gay” commonly refers to a man-man relationship, but some people still use it for the woman-woman as well. For the sake of brevity, the word “gay” in this article refers to all forms of homosexuality). The figures have been consistent. When every significant population studied returned the same figures (of nearly 10%), the scientists have no choice but to accept that every nation has nearly ten percent of her population homosexually inclined (gay, lesbian, transvestite, etc). Now, I am not aware that a comprehensive (or any for that matter) study of the subject has been done in Nigeria. So, one could argue that the case for Nigeria is different. Perhaps so, but unless we carry out such studies, then we have no basis passing bills on the matter. If less than 1% of Nigerians are homosexually inclined, for God’s sake, why waste time and resources, especially when we have not been told how this tiny segment has been hurting us? On the other hand, if the figures of previous researchers accurately reflect the situation in Nigeria, then we should think again before passing a bill against 15 million or more people.

The implication of the findings of researchers is enormous. As noted earlier, their figures point to roughly ten percent of every significant population. A significant population under the circumstances means any large number of people that were not carefully chosen. If you randomly pick people and the number is large enough, as in several thousands or more, then the nearly 10% rule comes into play. We are then talking of nearly 10% of Nigerians; nearly 10% of students; nearly 10% of children; nearly 10% of soldiers; nearly 10% of police; nearly 10% of voters; nearly 10% of clerics; nearly 10% of legislators; nearly 10% of every extended family, etc. In short, unless, you specifically pick your friends, nearly 10% of them must be homosexually inclined if they number in the thousands. So, if these people have been around us all this time and we did not realize it, then we can safely conclude that they have not been doing anything to hurt us.

A common reaction when people first hear of these figures is denial. “No, not my family,” is what you hear over and over. When that happens, don’t argue the point; in time reality will sink in. Some would say, like I used to before I became knowledgeable on this subject, that homosexuality is a foreign, man-made ailment; a way of life that the homosexuals chose. I have since watched many people in the vanguard of the war against homosexuals quietly retreat to the background when a close member of their family was “outed”. Unfortunately some homosexually inclined individuals are part of the war against homosexuality, principally because they do not understand the subject or do not quite know who they are.

Fact Number Two that may have escaped Abuja:

Research has been consistent in telling us that we have no say on our sexuality. In other words, you are not heterosexual simply because you chose that way over being homosexual. This means that your sexuality is determined by nature, rather than your upbringing or your choices. You cannot choose your sexuality more than you can choose the colour of skin you were born with. This is very difficult for many people to accept, as they refer to various sections of scriptures to buttress their claim. They easily overlook the fact that the scriptures were written by people who by today’s standards, are largely uneducated, and could only reflect the thinking of their times. Thus, there are bound to be errors here and there, even as the totality of the scripture improves a follower spiritually. Isolating specific portions therein for the sake of arguments or proving points, is to say the least, counter-productive. Again, perhaps the situation in Nigeria is different. Maybe homosexuals in Nigeria are different from others the world over in that they choose to be that way. However, we will not know until we take the pains to find out.

I am not in any way homosexually inclined but I have studied the subject long enough to know that there is hardly anything anyone can do about it. Then there is also the up side of homosexuality. A significant number of marriages between homosexually inclined opposite genders lead to respected relationships. In other words, if you see a couple that has what could be termed an ideal marriage lasting decades, chances that one or both partners is or are homosexually inclined is more than the nearly ten percent we would expect on account of the gay population. This is because such relationships have been built of mutual respect for each other rather than the pleasure of the other partner’s body. Another point that can be argued one way or the other is this: far more than nearly ten percent of the actors in the ancient industry of prostitution is homosexually inclined. At first, one would reject the idea, saying “How can a prostitute be gay?” In actual fact, it is very easy; it is far easier to give what you don’t have. Prostitution comes naturally to a gay person while a heterosexual has to learn it.

Some time ago, Nigerian Bishops on learning that some of their counterparts in Europe ordained gay people took it upon themselves to fight this new invasion of holy righteousness. They threatened to leave the fold, and enjoined all others in the African Continent not only to condemn this invasion but to also distance their churches from the Anglican fold. A conference soon followed, and in the end, it took a bishop from Southern Africa to drum the point home when he claimed that his church was for the righteous and sinners alike. Funny, but was that not what Jesus taught? Did He not also enjoin that you judge not so you would not be judged? It is painful when we don’t learn from the mistakes or events of other nations. For a long time, Europe and America refused to accept that homosexuality was natural. Eventually they relented after exhaustive studies had been carried out. Whoever follows the tortuous path it took them soon realizes that their decisions were not based on mere wishes or opinions but on firm and scientific studies, the results of which were reproduced over and over and in other lands. Alas, instead of learning from that experience, we choose to reinvent the wheel.

A born-again person of any discipline is as dangerous to the whole society in general as s/he is to the discipline specifically: s/he can wreak havoc on the society at large in the name of the discipline, thereby alienating a section of the society. The discipline can be religion, sports, indeed any subject, including sexuality. I am certain that this point is not lost on Pope Francis. His injunctions recently point along this direction, even as some Catholics would deny it. I am sure too that Nigerian Bishops, indeed all those at the forefront of the war against homosexuality, can take a cue from the Papal statements.

RELATED ESSAYS:

http://emotanafricana.com/2014/01/21/nigerias-same-sex-prohibition-act-a-critical-analysis-femi-aborisade/

http://emotanafricana.com/2014/01/21/i-will-treat-a-gay-person-with-a-great-understanding-and-love-catholic-archbishop-kaigama-of-jos-archdiocese/

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014.  4:15 p.m. [GMT]

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/cbn-governor-sanusi-accuses-pastor-adeboye-aiding-corrupt-rogue-banker-akingbola-evade-jus

You may be interested inthe following essay, especially the latter part, “UPDATE”.

http://emotanafricana.com/2012/11/16/t-i-b-and-other-not-distressed-nigerian-banks-tola-adenle/

The “Northern” Blackmail of Nigeria
PREMIUM TIMES
by Femi Aribisala

UMYC is the United Middle-Belt Youth Congress [there was the old Middle Belt Congress of the First Republic.]

The North is currently at war with itself. The Boko Haram has become an instrument for further Northern division and impoverishment. It has started an intercinine war where some Northern Moslems have been killing Northern Christians. Undoubtedly, the effect of this scourge is dividing the North politically along religious lines will be evident in future elections.

I have never voted in a Nigerian election. I have only ever voted once, but it was in Britain and not in Nigeria. As a Commonwealth student in England in the 1970’s, I was allowed to vote for the re-election of Harold Wilson’s Labour party. However, I am seriously thinking of casting my vote, for whatever it is worth, in Nigeria’s forthcoming elections in 2015. There is only one reason for this. I am determined that a “Northerner” must not be the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

CRY BABIES
I have nothing against the North per se, but I have reached the conclusion that it would be unhealthy for Nigeria’s next president to come from the North. To accede to the insistence of certain loud Northern politicians that the North must produce the next president, is to send a wrong signal to the North. The North has become the spoilt-child of Nigerian politics. It always has a grudge when it is not in power. This must be discouraged.

When Moshood Abiola, a Southerner, won the election in 1993, the Northern elite conspired to scuttle it. When they finally succumbed to a Southern presidency in 1999, some of them nevertheless sought to make trouble by politicizing sharia. When Jonathan won in 2011, there was instigated rioting in the North. Some of the elite even decided to sponsor terrorist activities in disgruntlement. This terrorism has now backfired, to the extent that it is now beyond the control of its initial sponsors.

The North has to learn to live without political power at the center. The rest of the country has learnt to do this over the years, as the Northern elite have monopolized power. But Northern politicians seem to believe political power is their entitlement. As a result, the “Northern” blackmail is now in full swing. Certain spokesmen of the so-called North are threatening to hold the country to ransom come 2015, if a Northerner is not elected the president of Nigeria. They are saying: “It’s either our way or no way. If we don’t get the presidency, then Nigeria cannot continue.” This is poppycock!

VAIN THREATS
Adamawa Governor, Murtala Nyako, says: “we must stop President Goodluck Jonathan’s attempt to go for second term, as that will lead to civil war.” Who exactly are the “we” Nyako is talking to here and who is going to start this civil war? Senator Joseph Waku of the ACF (Arewa Consultative Forum) says: “President Jonathan should not even contemplate making any move to contest the 2015 election because such will be catastrophic.” I am curious as to what the catastrophe would be.

Junaid Mohammed says there will be mayhem in Nigeria should President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP rig the 2015 election. Junaid is a Second Republic politician. When Northern Shehu Shagari rigged the election in 1983 and won by a “moonslide,” Junaid did not declare mayhem on Nigeria at the time. When the election was massively rigged for Northern Yar’Adua in 2007, we did not hear of mayhem from the likes of Junaid. But with the probable re-election of a non-Northerner, Junaid is threatening violence. Well, the violence will consume no one but Junaid himself.

Precisely because of these bombastic threats, it will be impolitic for Jonathan to decide not to run in 2015. The entire nation must call the bluff of these power-hungry Northerners. Let us see what they will do if Jonathan not only runs, but is re-elected. These threats are irritating and vain. Southerners do not throw these tantrums when Northerners are in power. The Igbo are a major ethnic group in Nigeria. They have been denied the presidency for virtually all of Nigeria’s 53 year history. Yet, they are not crying wolf. They are not threatening fire and brimstone. But those who have monopolised the presidency for 38 out of 53 years are the ones shouting till they are blue in the face. What cheek!

It is not the birthright of Northerners to rule Nigeria. It is the prerogative of all Nigerians to decide who will be our president. The ethnic chauvinists of the ACF have no right to determine who Nigeria’s president should be or where he or she should come from. If the president of Nigeria does not come from the North for the next 20 years, there is nothing the ACF or anybody else can do about it.

SMOKE MIRRORS
The ACF position is just so much smoke and mirrors. The body does not speak for the North. It is simply the mouthpiece of certain Northern politicians who are indolent and are craving another opportunity to loot the treasury at the center. The fact of the matter is that the North no longer exists if it ever did. It is hardly a homogeneous political entity. More than any other part of Nigeria, the North is deeply divided between the haves and the have-nots. After 38 years of deception and betrayal by Northern politicians, the Northern poor do not need to be told that such mouth-organs as the ACF and NEF (Northern Elders’ Forum) have little or no interest in their plight.

The North is currently at war with itself. The Boko Haram has become an instrument for further Northern division and impoverishment. It has started an intercinine war where some Northern Moslems have been killing Northern Christians. Undoubtedly, the effect of this scourge is dividing the North politically along religious lines will be evident in future elections.

Moreover, as was evident in the 2011 elections, the far North no longer shares traditional affinity with the Middle belt or with the North Central. The far North voted en bloc for Buhari, while the Middle Belt and the North Central voted en bloc for Goodluck Jonathan. Abuka Onalo, president UMYC (United Middle-Belt Youth Congress) insists the people of the Middle Belt are not Northerners and have never been treated as Northerners by the Hausa/Fulani. He says they are: “now remorseful of their roles in past actions of spearheading Northern interests that did not benefit their people.”

BACK ROOM DEALS
Nyako maintains Jonathan signed an agreement with some northern governors in 2011 to serve for a single term of four years. This position raises a number of annoying questions. Who exactly are these northern leaders and what special place do they have in the selection of a Nigerian president that anybody needs to make an agreement with them? Nyako and his colleagues are dreamers. Whatever role they presume to arrogate to themselves in Nigerian politics is a result of their delusion. Goodluck Jonathan did not need them in order to win the last election.

In 2011, Jonathan lost to Buhari in all the far northern states of Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara. Nevertheless, he still went on to win the election at the center with a plurality of over 10 million votes. Therefore, it is immaterial whether or not he made an agreement with these Northern jokers. Those he is alleged to have made the agreement with could not even deliver their side of the bargain. Nevertheless, Jonathan went on to win the election. That should tell these pretend power-brokers that they are actually irrelevant in the Nigerian political equation. Under the circumstances, it is preposterous to now insist Jonathan must keep his part of the alleged bargain. Clearly, the bargain, if it ever existed, was a waste of time.

It is disrespectful to Nigerians for Nyako to have the audacity to say that, in a democracy, a group of Northern governors reached a private agreement on who should be the president of Nigeria. That is balderdash. Perhaps we should just cancel elections altogether and have Nyako and his friends decide every four years who should fill what posts. These people are just fooling themselves. The fact that Jonathan subsequently became president should not obscure the fact that their presumptiveness was shown to be false. The governors could not deliver the North to him. Obviously, they had no control over Northern voters.

One-term agreements

ONE-TERM AGREEMENT
For 38 years, when Northerners ruled Nigeria, there was no talk of any agreement with anybody to serve for a delimited period. Balewa signed no agreement for six years. Gowon entertained none for nine years. Murtala did not deem it necessary to put any pen to paper. Shagari ran for a second term without making a treaty with the South-South. Buhari succeeded Shagari without thinking it was high time a Southerner became head of state. Babangida replaced Buhari for nine years without signing an agreement with anybody. Rather than entertain Southern rule, Abacha truncated it. After five years, he reached an agreement with himself to succeed himself. After Abacha came Abdulsalaam; yet another Northerner.

But once Obasanjo, a Southerner, became president; the Northerners started talking about an agreement that he should only be president for one-term. The same irritating noises are being made again now that, for once in the history of Nigeria, a South-South man is president. For this very reason, under no circumstances should the next president of Nigeria come from the North. In the interest of national unity, these cry-baby Northern leaders need to be taught a lesson. I repeat: the presidency of Nigeria is not their birthright. If these characters don’t know this by now, 2015 is the time for them to know it.

People like Professor Ango Abdullahi of the NEF claim to be against President Jonathan on the grounds that his government has not performed. Pull another leg! The North is not known to produce good presidents. Yar’Adua was a remarkably lousy president. He was also the most tribalistic president in Nigeria’s history. He ignored federal character and filled the government with Northerners. For example, under him, the Minister of Finance, Minister of National Planning and the Governor of the Central Bank were all from Kano. The NEF kept mum even when a sick Yar’Adua was holed up in a Saudi Arabian hospital, while his Northern acolytes went on a looting spree of the treasury, forging cheques in his name.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2014. 3:50a.m. [GMT]

2015 ELECTION, TRUE FEDERALISM & CORPORATE NIGERIA   By D.H. Habeeb

The coming 2015 elections into the States’ Houses of Assembly, the National Assembly and the all-too-important Presidential election, promise to be a watershed in the annals of electioneering in Nigeria. If successfully conducted, this next round of elections starting on the 14^th of February 2015, incidentally, also a Valentine’s Day, ought to signal, after the country’s completion of sixteen years of unbroken civil rule, an end to the spectre of electoral failure and the resulting disruption to democratic institutions and structures in Nigeria. It will indeed be an epochal event if, this time, election results truly representative of the electorates’ wish are declared so as to avoid the doomsday prediction of many commentators for corporate Nigeria.

The contending forces are shaping up and are massing in readiness for any form of political onslaught that may break open after the declaration of the beginning of electioneering. The alarming vortex of political activity is not only in the present gale of decampment and realignment of political tendencies all over the country but, also in the frightening subsumption of virtually every facet of our national life to the centrifugal dictates of politics: almost every state in the nation is going through hard times occasioned by dwindling revenues from the Federation Account not totally unconnected with feverish electoral preparations for power at the centre by concerned stakeholders.

Not a few people have advised that with the political parties at fever pitch in terms of preparations for this election whose stakes are supposed to be quite high, the election umpires, INEC, under Professor Attahiru Jega, should rise up to the occasion by ensuring that a most credible election representative of the wishes of the people, is offered Nigerians. But why must election to power at the centre always be like this? Why must elections always be fraught with a lot of anxiety and palpable fear for the continued existence of the country? Why must it be needed for a viable opposition party to empty into another one in the bid to ‘capture’ power at the centre? The answer to these questions can simply be found in the skewed federalism that Nigeria practices.

A federalism that vests so much power at the centre at the expense of the country’s federating units, and that treats every tier of its three-tier administrative structure like vassals, is an arrangement for constitutional confusion and governance mayhem. Such federalism engenders fiscal distortions in the accrual of resources to the component units and disempowers the states from embarking on many people-centred projects and programmes. It fixates interests on the centre and renders the seeking of political power away from that of advancing the causes of the ordinary people to one that is merely a conspiracy to appropriate the nation’s resources.

Despite the lopsidedness of the country’s power configuration and not minding the hues and cry about the absurd fiscal federalism that has virtually consigned supposed federating states to beggarly existence, every successive federal administration seems not to give a hoot about this crippling and most egregious absurdity. Almost all the systemic dysfunctions in government can be traceable to the practice of this alien-type of federalism that is at cross-purposes with the essence of such a successful and practical national power configuration in other climes. In Nigeria unfortunately, our type of federalism is totally subverting of the will and the development initiatives of her units of federation which are the states.

The obsession to be in power at the centre derives from the inescapable reality of the federal government as the ultimate dispenser of patronages in Nigeria. With the systemic dysfunction in almost all the country’s economic sectors and the attendant value-summersault, there is an unbelievable pressure to run for political office particularly, to run for the presidency which is generally believed as the allocator of all the nation’s resources.

Every ethnic group in Nigeria may make pretensions to indifference when commenting on the mania for power at the centre but, if truth be told, the current tension in the country is the result of the action and reaction of forces wanting to return incumbent president of the country, Goodluck Jonathan, against those forces opposed to the continued political dominance of the South-south for another four years. To the extent that our skewed federalism has put up the presidency as the most plumb political office with virtually limitless power in the aggregation and dispensation of resources, to that extent will political parties battle themselves almost to the death in the attempt to corner the national patrimony.

The sanitization of election efforts of the present federal government can only be meaningful when cognizance of this predisposing tendency towards a zero-sum-game during presidential elections, is duly taken. Ijaw militants would not be spewing out threats and dire consequences concerning obstacles against the realization of Jonathan’s second term if the coming presidential election were in a country with a proper federal constitutional arrangement; similarly, if pragmatism had not supplanted reasonableness and rectitude of action on the part of the opposition, parties would not have banded together to form strange bedfellows as eclectic arrays of politicians without any unifying ideological sameness, have now done in the single minded pursuit of wielding this politically lopsided power.

It is necessary for sane minds to look into the direction of the power configuration in this present federal structure to allay the fears of an impending implosion every time there is the possibility of change in the power calculus of the country.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2014.  9:35 a.m. [GMT]

The Imperative of Patriotic Pragmatic Interventions of the Left in a Failed State

By Femi Aborisade

[This is one of those technical papers that this blog is privileged to receive from time to time, papers that have pleasantly continued to surprise the likes of me about their popularity.  Well, I have only taken a cursory look through it but I mean to read it this coming week when I will be left with nothing to do but read for several hours!  I strongly recommend it.  TOLA.]

“O great Emperor, I bring birthday felicitations, and a gift for you!”, the Peasant said.

Xu Chi [the peasant], prostrate and trembling with fear, replied tremulously: ”Majesty, I humbly beseech you to wear this bracelet from today onwards. As it says on the bracelet, everything shall pass. Your days as Emperor shall pass. Your happy days shall pass …”

AN OLD CHINESE FABLE

I wish to express profound gratitude for the privilege of being invited to deliver this lecture to mark the 50^th birthday of one of Nigeria’s finest revolutionaries, Comrade Mark Adebayo.

This lecture is structured as follows:

• Conceptual clarification
  • The left
  • Patriotism
  • Pragmatism
  • Failed state
  • Key indices of Failed state in the context of Nigeria
  • How to transform the lives of ordinary people
  • It will pass!

The left: what is meant by “the left”?

The concept of the “left” in left-right wing politics refers generally to people who advocate change against the status-quo, with the goal of building an egalitarian society. The left concept therefore refers to heterogeneous characters of change agents, organizations or movements, ranging from Marxists, pro-democracy and civil rights activists, militant unionists, progressive opposition political movements and political parties, to liberal political trends against conservative political trends. Depending on the context and history of the affected country in discourse, “the left” includes change agents operating either within the civil society or those who wield state power, to one degree or the other[1].

Patriotism: What is patriotism?

Patriotism[2], by its dictionary definition means “love of one’s country,” which suggests a sense of personal identification or special concern for the wellbeing of the country or preparedness to make sacrifices with a view to promoting the country’s good.

The Russian novelist and Philosopher, Leo Tolstoy[3], opines that, among others, patriotism is immoral. To him, patriotism is immoral because it implies a promotion of a country’s interests at the expense of all other countries and by any means, including war, if and when necessary. It thus runs counter to the most basic rule of morality, which discourages doing to others what you would not want them to do to you.

George Kateb[4], an American political scientist, in agreeing with Tolstoy, has also contended that even though a country has a delimited territory, patriotism is a product of the state of mental confusion  – a readiness to die and to kill for an abstraction, a figment of the imagination.

Even though not everybody who expresses patriotic ideas may advocate extreme measures of going to war to advance the interests of their countries; even though not all persons who use the concept of ‘patriotism’ imply undue promotion of the good of their country at the expense of the interests of other countries, even though the idea of a country may not be that imaginary at the backdrop of delimited territory and identified population, what I want us to take away from the conceptions of Tolstoy and Kateb is that in reality, it is more productive to express commitment to the interests of particular categories or segments of a country’s population as opposed to that of a ‘country’. Virtually every social policy can be segregated along the lines of the class of people who benefits or who loses. In other words, it is more meaningful to advocate issues from the point of view of what advances the greatest good of the greatest majority rather than from a nebulous “patriotic” point of view. And I know that much of the time when a lot of activists talk of “patriotism”, what they mean intuitively is concern for the wellbeing of the poor majority rather than the abstract “country” as such. But it is important that we use more precise terms that convey our real intentions in order to avoid unintended ambiguities, confusion or disorientation.

Pragmatism: What is pragmatism?

Pragmatism[5] is a conception that states that an idea is true (and should be embraced) only if it works in reality or only if it has practical relevance. In other words, an idea that appears not to have practical effects is false and should be rejected.

An American philosopher and psychologist, William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) gives an example of a pragmatic idea. He suggests that so long as a religious belief has value in real life, then it is true because it serves a utilitarian value. For instance, if a religious belief provides practical value of spiritual comfort to its believers, then it is true.

However, an ethical problem in pragmatism arises where, for illustration, a religious belief which gives comfort to its adherents employs violence against members of other religious beliefs. The ideology of Boko Haram may provide utilitarian value of comfort to its devotees but at what costs to hundreds of lives being lost almost on a daily basis?

Another example of the ethical problem of pragmatism: privatizing importation of petroleum products may have relatively stabilized supply of the products, the critical concern is at what costs to the larger society? What is the cost of having to subsidize that process of supply of petroleum products?

Yet another example of the ethical problem of pragmatism: Supposing the material life of the majority were better served under a dictatorial political regime, would political authoritarianism be “true” and acceptable just because it serves the interest of material wellbeing of the people relatively better?

Thus, what appears pragmatic may neither be just nor sustainable on the long run, particularly from the point of view of the general happiness of the greatest majority.

THE CONCEPT OF A FAILED STATE: WHAT IS A FAILED STATE?

A failed state is one whose central government is characterized by the following features[6], among others:

• Loss of physical control over much of its territory;
• Loss of a monopoly of the legitimate use of force;
• State illegitimacy
• widespread criminality and insecurity;
• Inability to provide reasonable public services;
• Widespread inequality;
• Extensive corruption,
• prevalence of phenomena of refugees and involuntary movement of populations;
• Group Grievance;
• Sharp economic decline;
• Uneven Development;
• Brain-drain, and
• environmental decay.

There is no doubt that judging by the above characteristics, Nigeria is a notorious and prominent member of the League of Failed States. Between 2005 (when the United States Think-Tank Fund for Peace began the publication of Failed States Index, FSI) and 2013, Nigeria’s scores out of 100 have hovered between 84.3 and 100.7, where a score of 100 represents total state failure.

Implication of conceptual definitions

From the definitions of the key concepts in the topic of our discussion, it may be clear that whereas our key concern is how to transform the lives of the poor majority in a failed state, it may not be too appropriate to describe the project simply as “patriotic” or “pragmatic”. It may be sufficient to discuss what the irreducible minimum programmes for such a project requires.

The rest of this paper is devoted to highlighting the indices of a failed state in the Nigerian context and the corresponding tasks that flow from there.

KEY INDICES OF THE FAILED STATE IN THE CONTEXT OF NIGERIA

Unemployment

Unemployment rate has been rising phenomenally, as shown below[7] graphically. By the findings of the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, unemployment increased from 21.10 per cent in 2010 to 23.90 percent in 2011. Indeed, between 2006 and 2011, unemployment rate averaged 14.6 percent rising to an all time high of 23.9 percent in December of 2011.

In 2012, The Minister for Finance and Co-ordinating Minister for the economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala lamented that the rising numbers of the employed were disturbing. According to her,

We are happy that the economy is growing. But we are not satisfied with the growth. It is not inclusive. It is not creating jobs. We have over 1.8 million job entrants every year. The quality of that growth is not what we want…[8]

However, against the stark reality of increasing menace of unemployment, Dr. Iweala recently started to play politics and trivialize the problem of unemployment. In her answers to the 50 questions posed to her by the House of Representatives, she claimed that her government created 1.6m jobs, making the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) her source, as follows:

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) a total of 1.6 million jobs were created in the past year[9].

First, the NBS did not state anywhere that 1.6 jobs were created in the past year. Second, the NBS recognized that as some jobs were being created, job losses were also occurring. Third, the NBS findings were based, not only on the public sector, but indeed in both the public and private sectors, as well as the informal sectors. Fourth, the NBS findings took account of not only full time jobs, but also part time and seasonal jobs. Fifth, the factors, which the NBS took into account before claiming there was job creation included “expectation of new opportunities”, “seasonal growth” and “others”. Most importantly, the NBS reported specifically and directly that:

“Job creation in the Public sector is the only area to exhibit a decline from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the first of 2013, of 2.43%.”[10]

Corruption 

It has been posited that there appears to be a relationship between corruption and the smooth operation of the machinery of government such that corruption is a reflection of the extent of the failure of the State. Where the state has totally failed, impunity is at its peak and individuals within the corridors of power tend to do just anything, knowing full well that s/he would not be held accountable. The indices of corruption in the context of Nigeria are further explored below.

Privatization as looting

That privatization in Nigeria is nothing but looting may be best illustrated by the experience of NEPA/PHCN’s privatization.

At one of the handing over ceremonies, which took place at Abuja, the vice-president, represented by the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo[11], said the assets of the PHCN have now become the property of five Generation Companies (GENCOs) and 10 Distribution Companies (DISCOs).

In spite of the fact that PHCN has been privatized, government has continued to invest in it for the interest of the new owners of electricity distribution (DISCOs), generating and transmission companies (GENCOs). For example, following the sale of PHCN, President Jonathan was reported to have said:

“Going forward, this administration is committed to providing all elements that are necessary for our private sector partners to succeed in providing Nigerians with uninterrupted power supply. To start with, the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company, NBET, the off-taker, has been provided with a capitalisation of over $750 million, positioning it to carry out its mandate without financial constraints.”[12]

The five (5) privatised GENCOs are:

• Geregu Power Plc,
• Ughelli Power Plc,
• Egbin Power Plc, : New Electric Distribution Company, NEDC/Kepco Consortium
• Kainji Hydro Electric Plc: handover to Mainstream Energy Solution Limited.
• Shiroro Hydro Electric Power Plc.

The 10 privatised DISCOs are located in the places stated below and owned by the companies listed:

• Abuja: Interstate Electrics Limited (owned by Emeka Ofor)
• Benin: Vigeo Power Limited (owned by Gbolade Osibodu).
• Eko: West Power and Gas (or[13] Integrated Energy Distribution and Marketing Limited)
• Ikeja: (reckoned to be the largest electricity distribution network consortium in the country )New Electric Distribution Company, NEDC/Kepco Consortium (or[14] Integrated Energy Distribution and Marketing Limited).
• Ibadan: Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company Plc to the Integrated Energy Distribution Company (IEDC).
• Jos: Aura Energy Limited.
• Kano: Sahelian Power SPV Limited.
• Port-Harcourt:
• Yola, and
• Enugu.

The buyers were initially expected to pay 25% of the ‘bid value’ (i. e. purchase price) of the assets. The companies were required to pay the 75% outstanding balance[15] of the purchase price after 90 days after signing the Purchase Agreements. In respect of the 25%, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) claimed it received the total sum of about $469m (precisely $469,031,940.46), as follows[16]:

• Vigeo Consortium, the preferred bidder for Benin Distribution Company (DISCON), paid USD $32.25million,
• Transcorp/Woodrock Consortium that paid the sum of $75 million for Ughelli Power Plc,
• CMEC/EUAFRIC Energy JV paid $50,249,965 for Sapele Power Plc.
• Kann Consortium which paid $41 million for Abuja Distribution Company;
• Aura Energy paid $20,464,968.15 for Jos Distribution Comp any,
• Mainstream Energy Ltd paid $59,467,500 for Kainji Power Plc,
• Sahelian Power SPV paid $34.25million for Kano Distribution Company.
• Amperion Power Company Limited, for Geregu Power Plc, paying the sum of USD$33 million,
• Integrated Energy Distribution & Marketing Company, for Ibadan and Yola Distribution Companies paid USD$42.25 million and USD$14.75 million respectively,
• NEDC/KEPCO, paid USD$ 32.75 million for Ikeja Distribution Company, and
• West Power & Gas, paid USD$33.75 million for Eko Distribution Company.

The following companies were reported not to have paid the 25% bid sum (i. e. as at the time the online publication was posted):

• Power Consortium (Port-Harcourt Disco),
• Interstate Electrics Limited (Enugu Disco) (owned by Emeka Offor), and
• North-South Power Company (Shiroro Power Plc)”.

In another publication, it was reported that the BPE raised N600m on account of the 25% bid value. If 25% of a sum equals $600m, the remaining 75% equals $1.8bn, assuming all the successful bidders paid in full. The total purchase price of the privatized assets therefore sums up to $2.4bn (that is, $600m plus $1.8bn).

However, successive regimes in Nigeria had invested so much into NEPA/PHCN. According to a Minister of Power, as at 2013, government had invested $35bn, in the last ten years, on the basis of $3.5bn investment per year. How could government hope to justify selling an asset worth $35bn for $2.4bn? Is this exercise looting or privatization?

Under the regime of President Obasanjo, not less than $16bn was invested in NEPA/PHCN, and the following persons/companies were said to be the beneficiaries of the contracts[17]:

$16 BILLION SCAM IN THE POWER SECTOR

Source:  Uwodi, Sam (2007). Fresh Facts Newspaper, April 21 – 27 pp.1-2

The Chairman of Vigeo Power Limited, Mr. Victor Osibodu, in his address said that history would “forever remember President Jonathan for this bold step.’’ Abiodun Ajifowobaje, Managing Director, Ikeja Distribution Company (IDC) also commended the Federal Government for the feat, describing it also as a watershed[18] in the history of development of electricity industry in Nigeria. But the left must not give up the fight against privatization. That the handover of all the assets took place without resistance is a reflection of the organizational weakness of the Nigerian left. We have a duty to advocate reversal of the privatization programme.

An interesting aspect of the sale of PHCN is that former heads of State and their business lackeys who had ruined NEPA/PHCN and made it impossible for it to perform are the ones who have shared or partitioned PHCN. Gbola Subair[19] of the Nigerian Tribune reported that the former head of State,

“General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s company, Integrated Energy Distribution and Marketing Limited, won four distribution companies that were created out of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). They are Ibadan, Eko and Ikeja distribution companies … Also, the company, as the sole bidder, won the Yola distribution company”

NNPC & Non-payment of $50bn into the Federation Account

The most recent evidence of the unprecedented degree of corruption is the revelation by the Governor of the Central Bank, Mallam Lamido Sanusi Lamido, that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) failed and/or refused to remit about $50bn (precisely $49.8bn) to the Federation Account between January 2012 and July 2013. This represents about twice the national budget (of about N4trillion) for each of 2012, 2013 and the proposed 2014 budgets.

According to the CBN Governor, documentation revealed that out of the crude oil lifted within a period of 19 months valued at over $65bn, only about $15bn (or 24%) was paid into the Federation Account, leaving about 76% of the proceeds unaccounted for. Though Mallam Sanusi appears to have revised himself, saying the amount unaccounted for was about N10bn, it is clear that he must have come under tremendous pressure to so recount.

Oil theft

At the recent World Economic Forum this year, the journalist who interviewed President Jonathan and others expressed surprise that the Federal Government was doing nothing about oil theft of about 200,000 barrels (or $21.6million) per day being stolen. This amounts to 73 million barrels per year or about $8bn per year, at an average price of $108 per barrel.

If the sum of $21.6m per day were invested in any social service sector, changes of revolutionary proportion would have taken place.

Oil subsidy

Another key area by which the poor people of this country are being shortchanged is in the area of so called fuel subsidy, which is used as a basis to defraud.

Henry Boyo[20] has explained that if it is true, as claimed by Bernard Otti, the Group Executive Director, Finance and Accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that the $8.49bn (about N1.4tn) of the unaccounted funds which were not paid into the federation Account) was used to pay fuel subsidy, then the bulk of the national budget is consumed between fuel subsidy and debt services.

In 2012, the sum of N881bn was initially budgeted for fuel subsidy. Later, an additional budget of N161.6bn was made. The estimated subsidy for kerosene was about N200bn. If the $8.49bn (or N1.4tn, on the basis of N165:$1), which Otti claimed was spent on subsidy claims without legislative approval is added to what was appropriated, then, the total sum for fuel subsidy in 2012 would amount to N2.64tn or 56.2%. If we add the budget for debt services (N600bn) for that year, then, about 70% of the national budget for 2012 went for debt services and fuel subsidy.

If the trend of N2.64tn allocation for fuel subsidy is maintained in 2014 and the analysis of Boyo is extended to the 2014 proposed budget, then, with N712bn for debt services, the total allocation for these two items amounts to N3.35tn or 72%of the total budget of N4.6tn. That would leave a bare 28% for all other expenditure subheads. The 2014 budget is therefore best described as fuel subsidy and debt service budget. When we consider that the bulk of personnel cost is actually for political office holders, it is clear that the annual national budget is nothing but a mere ritual in which the interests of the downtrodden are usually excluded.

Establishment of AMCON

The establishment of AMCON is another key way by which public wealth is used to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of public goods such as education, health care, housing, water, etc.

AMCON stands for Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria. It was established in 2010 following the promulgation of its enabling Act. It functions as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) through which non-performing loans (loans which the beneficiaries are no longer repaying) would be absorbed by the CBN. In line with this objective, according to the AMCON Chief Executive Officer, Mustafa Chike-Obi[21], when AMCON came into existence, “there was a loss in the system [i.e. banking system] of over N3trillion depositors’ fund. What AMCON did was to take that loss, and it is managing the loss”. As the Chief Executive Officer put it in the interview, “if there is no AMCON, most of these banks will not be in existence today … most of them would have died”.

AMCON is funded mainly by the CBN contributing N50 billion annually into a sinking fund while the banks contribute only 0.3 per cent of their total assets[22]. In addition, government has directly given to AMCON, N10bn[23].

According to the press, President Jonathan’s Economic Advisers are among the debtors, owing N1.3 trillion of the debts absorbed by AMCON[24]. The AMCON list of debtors[25], according to the 17 September circular issued by the CBN comprised 113 companies and 419 individuals. The companies included Femi Otedola’s Zenon Petroleum and others that were allegedly involved in the fuel subsidy scam, estimated at US$6.5bn[26].

PPP – Public Private Partnerships

PPP is another mode by which resources are siphoned from the public sector to the private sector at the expense of destruction of capacities in the public sector. Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) refers to joint funding or management of an enterprise by the state and the private sector. Though such partnerships take various forms, in all of them, the preoccupation of the private partners is to make or maximize profit. Like contracting out/outsourcing, it also has implication for cost-cutting as the state frees itself from the responsibility for employing those working in the joint ventures and paying pensions, and so on. Those working in the joint ventures are thus left to the whims and caprices of the private employers who tend to fix pay and conditions of service arbitrarily as opposed to adopting the framework of collective bargaining.

Instead of PPP, the left should advocate Public-Public Partnerships (PUPS), among governments, public institutions or agencies on an international basis, to build capacities in the public sector.

Governments enter into joint ventures with the private sector under PPPs. In this way, the ruling class dispossesses poor people of their land and enriches so-called private developers with land compulsorily acquired from poor people under the Land Use Act. Many of the so-called private developers lack the capacity to provide houses. So, they end up selling the land at exorbitant prices to individuals. Alternatively, they demand initial mortgage deposits, which only people who have taken questionable government contracts can afford.

Income inequality

The wide income inequality in Nigeria may be demonstrated by the emoluments for the National Assembly members. The 2014 proposed budget sets aside N150bn for salaries and allowances of the 469 National Legislators. Apart from this, there is N100bn budgeted for Constituency projects. Given the tendency for many of the legislators to do what they like with Constituency projects funds, it can be concluded that a typical legislator appropriates that fund for his or her own benefit or ego satisfaction. Therefore, an average national legislator earns over N533million per annum, on the basis of N250bn being shared by the 469 legislators. This, in a country where the minimum wage per month is only N18,000 and N216, 000 per year.

The example of a member of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, which typifies the experiences in other State Houses of Assembly, will drive home the point about how legislators regard Constituency projects’ funds.

In an interview with Premium Times, Hon Baba Ibaku, a member of Nasarawa House of Assembly admitted that each member of the State House of Assembly collects N10m every three months but said:

“…What is N10 million? If I want to spend money for my people, I can spend nothing less than N100, 000 in a day. .. So, what are you saying?

… What is this money for? If your wife is sick and I carry her to the hospital, how do I quantify that? If I take people to hajj, how do I quantify that? For the past six years, how many people have I sponsored to Jerusalem? Will I use my father’s money to do that?

… If you want to balance your story, ask the governor from January to date, how much has the state received and what has he done with it? Go and ask the commissioners how much their ministries have received and what they have done with it.”[27]

In the same interview with Premium Times journalist, Hon. Baba Ibaku cited the practice by which a colleague of his seeks to ‘empower’ ordinary people – by distributing motorcycles: “You put these questions to Honorable Muluku and he referred you to me. Were you not on earth when Muluku bought motor cycles and distributed?”[28]

Wastages on Construction of Mansions

The construction[29] of five mansions for the Vice President of Nigeria and the four top leaders of the National Assembly, namely, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and their deputies, is costing a fortune for Nigeria.

According to the Federal Capital Territory Administration, since the inception of the project in 2010, a minimum of N1.5 billion has been appropriated annually, in respect of the top national assembly leaders only. The construction had to be suspended because the beneficiaries rejected the location of the buildings on the ground of insecurity. New budget allocations had to be made to meet the cost of constructing new ones in the in the Three Arms Zone in the city centre (believed to be the most secured area, where the President himself lives) while the “old” structures are being converted to guest houses for the same persons.

The FCT is also constructing a new home for the Vice President, at the initial cost of N9 billion, but was later proposed to be raised to N16 billion.

Meanwhile, these five top government officials (the VP, and the top national legislators) are already accommodated in government buildings.

INEQUALITY AT THE ROOT OF POVERTY: HOW TO TRANSFORM THE LIVES OF ORDINARY PEOPLE

The foregoing shows that the poverty of the majority is derived from unequal access to power and wealth. Internationally, findings have confirmed that the top 85 wealthiest individuals in the world have fortunes that equal the collective wealth of the poorer half of the world’s entire population of 7 billion individuals[30]. Also, nationally in Nigeria, studies published by the IMF[31], have shown that of the over $700bn that had been realized in oil revenues alone since 1960, eighty five per cent (85%) of this sum accrues to only 1% of the population while 99% of the population struggle over 15% of the remaining resources.

Thus, Aliko Dangote of Nigeria is ranked No. 1 richest person in Nigeria, No. 1 Africa’s richest person and about the 25^th richest person in the world, with $20.8bn net worth, as at November 2013[32]. Dangote’s wealth, it must be acknowledged, is built over hostility to trade unionism, high price of cement, which makes it difficult for ordinary people to build shelter over their heads, among others.

Therefore, in order to effectively tackle pervasive and corrosive poverty in the society, attention must be paid to advocating, at the minimum, the implementation of the provisions of Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

The reality is that none of the existing ruling parties can be relied upon to champion this cause. Indeed, the existing ruling parties are pre-occupied with deleting the socio-economic rights provisions from the Constitution, if they have their way.

We must campaign that the philosophy of government in Nigeria must be pro-ordinary people. To this extent, public wealth must be used to provide institutional support for the weak and vulnerable members of the society and not to satisfy the greed of the few rich.

Making the wellbeing of the poor as the essence of governance would mean that public office must be regarded as service not business. To this extent, we must advocate that public office should be made unattractive to people whose preoccupation is to make money. Therefore, political office holders (elected and appointed) must be placed on the national minimum wage, plus incidental allowances for any service or activity they carry out while in public office. This would ensure that resources are available to attend to the welfare of the majority.

IT WILL PASS!

From today, let us take solace in just three words: IT WILL PASS!
These words are from a story in Chinese folklore. The story[33] goes thus:

The great Chinese Emperor, Liu Bang Chew, would be sixty the next year, and an epoch-making event was planned to celebrate this milestone. The gifts started pouring in. Horses, camels, bales of raw silk, spices and exotic perfumes. Gifts they all were. They came in their torrents. The provincial governors, noblemen, and even peasants, all tried to outdo each other in a frenzied, sycophantic display of admiration.

The sheer deluge of gifts was such that an entire city had to be emptied to accommodate them. Alas, these heroic efforts did not impress the Emperor, as he disdainfully dismissed the gifts as being all too common-place!

Then, a simple peasant, Xu Chi, arrived the Palace gates after traveling 2,000 miles on foot from the northern provinces. After a month of groveling before the guards, he was granted imperial audience.

“O great Emperor, I bring birthday felicitations, and a gift for you!”, the Peasant said.

“Peasant, your gift had better be an improvement on what I have already seen, or I shall decree that your head be separated from the rest of your body!” The Emperor gravely declared.

Xu Chi, the Peasant, hurriedly produced his gift. It was a peculiar gift, indeed. It was a bronze bracelet, and on it was the inscription: IT WILL PASS.

“Peasant, what sort of ridiculous gift is this? How dare you insult the throne in such an infernal manner?” The Emperor roared.

Xu Chi, prostrate and trembling with fear, replied tremulously: “Majesty, I humbly beseech you to wear this bracelet from today onwards. As it says on the bracelet, everything shall pass. Your days as Emperor shall pass. Your happy days shall pass. And, no matter the form of adversity, it will also pass, for there will always be light at the end of every tunnel. With the words on this bracelet shall you console yourself in your days of sorrow, and laugh at yourself when you take yourself too seriously. And with the same words shall you caution yourself in your days of glory and conceit. For, indeed, Great One, nothing is of any real and enduring importance in the annals of man, except the value it is given by man. Yet, My Lord, ultimately, life is nothing if not pure magic, for when all is said and done, all things usually turn out for the best. And at the end of it all, only one entity will remain; eternal, divine and unchanged: The Almighty, your Creator.”
With tears in his eyes, the Emperor, who had never as much as touched all his life, got up and embraced Xu Chi:

“Surely, this is the wisest man in all of China!” He proclaimed.

And as the Executioner sadly and regretfully sheathed his sword, the Emperor knighted Xu Chi, and pronounced him Grand Counsellor of China, second in rank only to himself. From peasantry to nobility. From grass to grace.
It will pass.”

What I want us to take away from the above folklore is not resignation to fatalism that a state of life would pass without action. What I want us to take away is that with conscious action, with consistent and persistent efforts, the triumph of the people and the collapse of a system that favours a few at the expense of the majority are inevitable. This is the lesson of history, nationally and internationally. The era of poverty-stricken life to which our people appear to have been condemned shall also pass. The era of a few living in stupendous wealth while the majority wallows in poverty shall equally pass!

Slavery was an abominable and difficult socio-economic phase of life in human history but that phase passed! Colonialism was a harrowing experience for the colonized peoples but the colonial era also passed! The era of Military dictatorship was awful with indefinite detention without trials for many of us. Though many were murdered in detention and others poisoned, the era of military authoritarianism passed. So also, the current civilian misrule where the ruling class rules in the name of the people but against the interests of the people, this era too, shall pass!

Intervention as an imperative!

Ake[34] argues that “somebody has to determine that development is desirable, that a particular kind of development should be pursued and in a particular kind of manner.” This demonstrates that desirability of development, the kind of development and the manner of attainment are neither accidental nor objectively determined. Ake argues that the state is a specific mode of capitalist domination and represents contradictory interests and forces. It is impacted by the nature and effectiveness of capitalist hegemony and by the capacity of the dominated and oppressed classes to deploy effective counter-forces in reaction to their domination. These go a long way towards influencing the possibility of development. The degree of effectiveness of resistance by the dominated tends to determine the extent to which the state uses scarce resources for developmental programs or for building the arsenal of terror required by a militarized state.

It should therefore be appreciated, from Ake’s conceptualization, that citizens should not look up to their governments for solution to societal problems. They should look up to the amount of pressure they can bring to bear on their governments to effect positive changes. No government in the world does anything willingly in the interest of the marginalised without pressure from below or without the threat of pressure from below.

It should be realised that what makes a difference in the general quality of life of poor people in different countries is not the government but the level of alertness of the have-nots to organise and fight in defence of their interests.

Though winning political power would guarantee an enduring change in the lives of the people, this goal is better achieved by building the political forces of the ordinary people through welfare issue-based campaigns linked with advocacy for the right of independent candidates to stand elections and the freedom to form political parties without the requirements of having structures on a nation-wide basis. Fundamental changes cannot be brought about on the platforms of bourgeois parties that are hostile to pro-people proletarian programmes and perspectives.

PRINCIPAL INTERVENTION-GOVERNING PRINCIPLE

If the left forces in Nigeria would be successful in decisively influencing the course of history, it has to establish an organization or organizations that is/are committed to supporting the struggles of all the poor strata, without discrimination. We have a responsibility to build an organization(s) that would decry injustice wherever and whenever it rears its head, without discrimination, no matter who is involved, poor or rich, regardless of racial, ethnic, gender, political and religious backgrounds of victims.

For example, even though some of us are neither members nor sympathizers of any of the ruling political parties, we have a duty to decry the barbaric attacks on the right to peaceful protest as we currently witness in Rivers State. We must never allow them to subject us to having to take permits before we exercise the universally recognized freedom of association and peaceful action, guaranteed under section 40 of the country’s Constitution. Indeed, the Court of Appeal in the case of Inspector General of Police v. All Nigeria Peoples Party & ORS (2007) 18 NWLR (Pt. 1066) 457 has declared the requirement of permit before holding rallies and protests, not only as illegal but also unconstitutional, a relic of the colonial era.

Though some of us are neither members nor sympathizers of any of the ruling political parties, we have a duty to condemn attacks on freedom of expression as symbolized in the recent arrest and detention of the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nazir El Rufai, by the State Security Services, SSS. We must not allow the dark days of detention without trial under Decree 2, to be reinvented. If El Rufai has committed any offence known to law, the proper step to take is to institute an action in the court of law against him.

We need to build an organization(s) capable of giving all the required support to workers and pensioners who are fighting. Tens of thousands of workers (eg PHCN workers) have lost their means of livelihood to privatization. The severance benefits of many of them are yet to be paid.

We need to build a mass movement against privatization and in the process unite the employed workers with their brothers and sisters who have been rendered unemployed.

We have to develop an alliance with students who are groaning under the yoke of commercialization of education and unprecedented increases in school fees in many states of the Federation.

We owe a duty to build campaigns against imposition of Emergency Rule (without necessarily supporting Boko Haram) and insisting that governments invest in social security schemes. The disastrous Boko Haram phenomenon tends to heighten ethnic tension and ethnic nationalism in Nigeria. Yet, we have a duty to keep explaining that the interests of the poor classes in all ethnic nationalities are the same, just as the interests of members of the ruling class of all nationalities are equally the same. As Lenin[35] once explained:

On the hoards of joint stock companies we find capitalists of different nations sitting together in complete harmony. At factories, workers of different nations work side by side. In any really serious and profound political issue, sides are taken according to classes, not nations.[36]

Numerous examples could be cited to drive home the point made by Lenin: the leaderships of all the ruling political parties are from the various ethnic groups. Not one ruling political party called out its members to support the January 2012 unprecedented mass action against perennial increases in the prices of petroleum products; the experiences of non-payment of national minimum wage cuts across all geo-political zones of Nigeria, and so on. On each of these issues, positions are taken, not on the basis of ethnic affiliation but on the basis of class status. The poor, including workers, the unemployed, farmers, artisans, traders, and so on, should therefore not be hoodwinked by the deceptive bellicose nationalism of the bourgeoisie or aspiring bourgeoisie.

We need to actively give organized support to the struggles and yearnings of ordinary people in the oil producing areas and demonstrate that those of us outside the oil producing areas are not only concerned with issues relating to stealing of oil wealth by the ruling class but also with the plight of the people in those areas.

We have a responsibility to build an organization(s) that would not be indifferent to the plight of the poor strata when they come under attack. We have a responsibility to build an organization(s) that would be the tribune of the people; that would act as the sword of justice for the repressed, the suppressed and unjustly persecuted.

It is only in the process of such activities, guided by non-discriminatory principle, that we could succeed in building a virile political force, the alternative political force, separate and distinct from the ruling bourgeois political parties, strong enough to influence the course of history, not only in the battles for improvements in the material lives of ordinary people, on a daily basis, but also in capturing political power and bringing about system change in the interests of the downtrodden, on the long run.

FULL TIME ACTIVISTS

This task cannot be achieved by individuals who make inputs only in their free time; the task cannot be achieved without having full timers who devote the entirety of their time, labour, thinking and life to the work and who are maintained by the contributions of members who share the dream.

IT WILL PASS!

The opulence of the few rich and the dispossession, repression, exploitation and suffering, which poor people are going through today will pass! It shall all pass and become history with the triumph of the people – but only if we/the left organize(s) on the basis of the 3 C’s – correctly, consistently and courageously.

This paper was delivered at the 50th Birthday Celebration of activist, Comrade Mark Adebayo, held on January 30, 2014, Lagos, Nigeria.

Femi Aborisade, Esq. has his Law Offices at

ABOPE Chambers, 6 Olukuewu Close, Off Liberty Road, Ibadan, Nigeria

aborisadefemi@gmail.com

FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2014. 1:41 a.m. [GMT]

On the 30^th of May 2013, the Nigerian House of Representatives passed a bill to outlaw gay marriages and to crackdown on gay rights activists as well as criminalize public display of affection between same-sex couples. The penalty for violation was prescribed as a jail term of up to fourteen years imprisonment. On Monday the 13^th of January 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan signed the bill; thereby, criminalizing same-sex relationships, defying Western pressures over gay rights and provoking a groundswell of criticism particularly from the United States.

The cultural taboo against homosexuality and the social odium attached to it, are so strong in certain African cultures that the prevalent notion in years gone by was that the sexual orientation either did not exist or, if it did exist at all, was an ‘affliction’ of only those living along the fringes of African society. The fact that homosexuality does not even have proper linguistic equivalents in many cultural dialects also led people to think of it only in terms of some remote and marginal occurrence. This columnist for example, is yet to come across an authentic Yoruba name for the alternative sexual preference.

However, rarely has an issue in contemporary times aroused as much passion either way or, been discussed and constantly fought over, and, perpetually on the front burner of public discourse, as the issue of homosexuality’s acceptance as a credible and legitimate alternate lifestyle for mankind. Ever since Harry Hay ignited the homosexual spark in 1951 via the Mattachine Society, the first ever national Gay Rights Organization in the United States, the gentle wind of awareness started by the Gay-rights activists of yore has now turned into strong hurricanes threatening to tear asunder all kinds of human formations and institutions, be they social, political, cultural or religious, by the sheer burgeoning force of gays’ numerical strength and influence around the world!

In the consciousness of most people and within the world of heterosexuality, homosexuality is a very complex and difficult lifestyle to comprehend because the straight sexual preference seems to be innate. Scriptural censure against homosexuality signposts the odiousness of the condition while even nature and, the barrenness in offspring of same-sex unions, even from a Judeo-Christian perspective, suggests the futility of such an unnatural lifestyle. Nevertheless, as the American Psychiatric Association felt when it removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders in 1973, there must be an irresistible sexual chemistry that predisposes some people to be attracted to same-sex kind.

In the face of the 1948 Alfred Kinsey report in “Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male” that revealed that homosexuality was far more widespread than was commonly believed, many other same-sex movements like the Daughters of Billitis, the first lesbian rights organization, sprung up in 1955 in San Francisco, and in 1962, Illinois in the United States became the first state in the union to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults.

As many of the industrialized nations have found out, the “coming out of the closet” of homosexuals in the past often were preceded by periods of denials where gay tendencies would be sacrificed at the altar of maintaining straight lives. This world of make-believe gradually gave way to one of gay activism demanding equal rights and acceptance.

People began to show in the late 70’s some benign understanding of such a sexual preference so strong and so irresistible as to force otherwise successful celebrities in different earthly endeavours to risk forfeiting their fame and fortune by announcing their homosexual inclinations. In Europe, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender, (LGBT) awareness is higher in countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway but there are still countries like Cyprus and Russia that still continue to uphold laws that criminalize same-sex unions.

The greatest boost for the Gay rights campaign however came in 1980, when the United States Democratic National Convention at New York’s Madison Square Garden, took a stance supporting gay rights. Probably out of the realization that the gay political strength in the calculus of power in the US can no longer be overlooked, the Democratic Party became the first major US political party to give gays this much needed endorsement. Subsequently, States such as Wisconsin, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey etc., followed in relaxing the restrictions on same sex unions.

In a judicious use of its numbers and influence, the international homosexual lobby has been able to garner some political power which it wants to leverage on in acquiring social acceptance and equality of rights for gays everywhere. The recent passing of a bill by the normally conservative British MPs legalizing same sex marriage in England and Wales and only awaiting official assent from the Queen, is demonstrative of the potency of the gay rights lobby.

Nigeria as a sovereign country reserves the right to pass laws that square up with the time-honoured practice of her traditions and the vibrancy of her cultures. At the same time, it is also instructive to understand that the bill as presently passed and signed into law by the government will have little or no effect on the country’s underground homosexual community whose population, according to sexual behavioural experts, has now been put at about 25 million!

The federal government should appreciate that it is pretty difficult to ban an alternate sexual preference simply by legislating it out of existence and that, human beings are at their most hypocritical when it comes to matters of their private sexual preferences: it is quite conceivable that some of the outwardly most implacable opponents of gays are themselves, like have been revealed in many instances in several such crusades, closet homosexuals. Some high profile U.S televangelists, spitting and pouting fire and brimstone on adulterers and gays on the pulpits, go to have romps at night with gay prostitutes and women of easy virtues where they engage in orgies of depraved sex!

For a truly heterosexual male who does not harbor any gay tendencies, it should be pretty unusual for any glamorization of homosexuality or its lifestyles, to change an already innate heterosexual predisposition. Unless it can be linked to crimes and perversion of the youth, homosexuality in Nigeria should be consigned to the borderline of acceptance where it had quietly been for so many decades.

The unaccustomed dispatch with which the homosexual bill was debated, passed by the National Assembly and signed into law by the President, brings to the fore a latent capacity for efficiency and sense of purpose by the two arms of government which unfortunately, have not been made to bear on more fundamental issues of living: security of life; provision of welfare beyond subsistence level; democratization of access to the good things of life and the possibility of the realization of one’s dream in the Nigeria project; etc.

Apart from squaring up with religious injunctions with which this column wholeheartedly agrees, the prohibition of homosexuality will only make sense if all other spiritual sanctions in the Bible, Qur’an or Torah, are criminalized. Hey, how about those folks bowing to other gods besides the only one God of whom the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:2-17, said in the first commandment: “I am the LORD your GOD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me”. Shouldn’t we give these fellows fifteen years in the slammer? Should those who swear falsely by His name not get at least ten years?    

SUNDAY, February 9, 2014.

Political commentators on Nigeria have always agreed on her practice of an amorphously skewed variant of federalism as being the bane of the country’s under-achievement in all indices of national development. The amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914, having been achieved virtually without the consent of the different ethnic nationalities, paved the way for the crafting of the pre-independence constitutions in total abstraction away from the natives, thereby bequeathing by the colonial administrators, a geographical entity beset with fundamental problems of structure and political balance.

A deeply heterogeneous entity of more than 300 ethnic nationalities of diverse culture and religious persuasions, Nigeria, with those many potential fault lines, could not have been expected to operate any constitution other than the federal one which allays the fear of domination by any part through having an arrangement whereby the federating units and the federal government have coordinate powers with certain areas of national responsibility delegated to the centre.

In his seminal book, Thoughts on Nigerian Constitution, the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in underscoring the importance of the right constitutional arrangement for political stability had said:“In our view, three factors combine to produce political stability: the type of constitution, the form of government, and the caliber and character of political leaders in and outside of government.”  After a penetrating and virtually exhaustive look at the causes of political strife in countries that adopted the wrong forms of constitution, Chief Awolowo concluded, inter alia, that for a bilingual or multi-lingual country, a federal and not a unitary constitution is most suitable and that the constituent states (federating units) are better arranged on a linguistic (ethnic nationality) basis.

Ever since the publication of Chief Awolowo’s first book titled Path to Nigerian Freedom, published 67 years ago in 1947, where he first pushed for federalism as the best form of constitution for Nigeria, pre and post-independence political agitators have been united in the advocacy for this form of constitution. All the pre-independence constitutions right from amalgamation in 1914, the 1922 Clifford all the way to the 1958 Lyttelton constitutions, prepared the groundwork for the emergent constitutional confusion, political upheavals, instability of government and ethnic suspicions that later bedeviled Nigeria. Even when the division of the three constituent regions into twelve states was achieved by former military ruler, General Yakubu Gowon in 1967, ostensibly to allay the fears of northern domination in the country’s structural configuration, it could not achieve the objective because of the inherent absurdity of the pretensions of a military government, unitary both in outlook and organization, to want to further the ends of a diffusion of powers –the essence of federalism.

It was after this epoch in the history of the agitation for fairness and equity amongst the different peoples of the country that politicians, particularly of the progressive hue, took it as a mantra of activism to make a re-structuring of the country along the line of true federalism as an irreducible minimum for further participation in the Nigerian project. No better champions of this cause come to mind than Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his political tendency as the All Progressive Congress (APC) leader’s whole political essence, seemed to have derived from ceaseless agitation for the convocation of a national conference to adopt a true federal constitution for Nigeria.

So ingrained was this notion in the political consciousness of virtually everybody familiar with the politics of Tinubu that a fellow traveler along this same agitation-for-true-federalism route and, the Jonathan administration’s nominee for the chairmanship of the 13-man Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue, Senator Femi Okurounmu, plainly did not believe initially that this same Tinubu could distance himself from the possibility of the attainment of their desire when it was finally offered by the current federal government. Without any bias against the reasons adduced for snubbing the planned confab, it seems rather unusual for a politician of Asiwaju’s caliber not to realize the pragmatic importance of conceding to gradualism when drastic and precipitate political changes seem impossible in fledgling democracies such as ours.

In the opposition of the APC to the planned confab is a discernible penchant for politicians to become mere obstructionists to progress and captives of illogicality. When, out of seemingly procedural differences, politicians elect to be the very antithesis of their former identities, then, a curious agenda must be in the offing. When politicians remain ensconced in a world of wishful thinking, they are forced to deny reality and consequently, they must reflexively oppose anything proposed by their perceived adversary: even if this happens to be a former article of political faith!

The embrace of Afenifere, both the old and the Renewal Group, of the proposed National Conference stems from a realistic appraisal of a chance to start to correct a political error of amalgamation which has continued to be the albatross of many a regime in the life of independent Nigeria. For the APC to aspire to rule an entity like Nigeria, without the requisite understanding of the need to address this same fault line at the slightest opportunity, is akin to reveling in mindless opposition rather than following the dictates of realpolitik.

As a matter of relevance, it needs to be mentioned that the Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, convened a Mini National Conference between the 4^th and 6^th of February, 2014 at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State where participants were drawn from the traditional institutions, elders statesmen, academics, public sector practitioners, politicians, legislators, jurists etc. The Conference was designed to evolve an Ondo State position paper ahead of the forthcoming National Conference. The Conference brainstormed exhaustively on the nature of the federation, inaccurate population figures, State and Religion, security problems, form of government and sundry other contentious issues of constitutional importance. Ondo State has been the only state to evolve a position paper to be harmonized with, or form the basis of, the southwestern Yoruba position at the planned conference.

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2014.

How could a country that wants to turn from the culture of wastefulness and brigandage have forty-five (45) Directors in a single Ministry?  That is the simple question this write-up wants to ask.  During Shagari’s supposed profligate presidency (1979 – 1984), I knew a “federal” ministry – a major one – that had a single Director; what has changed?

First, a little reminder:

Professor Viola Onwuliri, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is the same person who had a so-called “Town Meeting” all over North America a couple of years back to meet Nigerians without ever really attempting to meet them because she did not want protests during the gas hike protests.  What to do?  She had a few to feast at a tiny Nigerian eatery and while you can check out a report this blog presented back then, here are some words on marble by the same minister now caught in another web – oh yeah, along with the perennially quoted among Nigeria’s most corrupt officers:

“it [the gas price hike] was not half as bad as the media portrayed it” …  We have one hundred and sixty million people. If two million are on the streets, then that means one hundred and fifty-eight million are in their homes.”
[See Below.]

The problem this time is a reported collusion between the minister – yes, she’s still there – and Nigeria’s Attorney General Adoke, a guy who’s been reported many times as being in the midst of corrupt practices.  At one point, he had to run out of the U.K. where he had been at a hotel concerning Ibori’s matter, a hotel that had its phones flooded when a UK-based NGO gave it out!

The subject of this essay is very much in view but the principals surrounding it need to be brought into view.

To be promoted to Director level, a “federal” civil servant – to borrow a description from WAZOBIA for those named to be ministers – joined “Nigeria’s millionaires”.

How could a country that wants to turn from the culture of wastefulness and brigandage have forty-five (45) Directors in a single Ministry?  That is the simple question this write-up wants to ask.  During Shagari’s supposed profligate presidency (1979 – 1984), I knew a “federal” ministry – a major one – that had a single Director; what has changed?

The story of Onwuliri and Adoke can be found at the link below:

RELATED STORIES

http://emotanafricana.com/2012/01/23/minister-onwuliris-town-hall-meeting-a-readers-reaction-explanations-on-the-short-essay/

http://emotanafricana.com/2012/01/24/still-on-minister-onwuliri/

http://emotanafricana.com/2012/01/20/words-on-marble-from-nigerias-foreign-minister-viola-onwuliri/

And to read the 45-Director scandal, please check out Sahara Reporters‘ story at:

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/how-45-directors-ministry-foreign-affairs-colluded-nigeria%E2%80%99s-attorney-general-and-minister

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Jomiloju Tunde-Oladipo

Check out the brimtime.com story at:

http://africansuntimes.com/2014/02/9-year-old-nigerian-is-microsofts-youngest-it-certified-engineer/

AND THEN, THIS:

Dallas area home to huge health care frauds

dallasnews.com, By Jim Landers

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2014.

THE SUSPENSION OF MALLAM SANUSI LAMIDO:  AN INDICATION OF CORRUPTION FIGHTING BACK

The suspension of SANUSI LAMIDO SANUSI as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria is nothing but a fight back by the powerful forces of corruption in the structure of the Nigerian State. It is sad that a regime that seeks to be perceived as fighting corruption can have the effrontery to suspend a CBN governor who has been revealing leakages in the fuel subsidy scam in Nigeria.

The position of the law is that the right to suspend must be expressly stated; it cannot be implied (See Warburton v. Taff Vale Railway Co. (1902) 18 TLR. 420). Section 8(1) of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007 provides that the Governor and Deputy Governors “shall be appointed by the President subject to confirmation by the Senate”. In the same way, the proviso to section 11 (2) of the CBN Act  states that the removal of the Governor, Deputy Governor and Director of the CBN by the President is subject to being supported by two-thirds majority of the Senate. From the foregoing provisions of the CBN Act, there is no provision for the suspension of the CBN Governor, Deputy Governor or Director. The suspension of MALLAM SANUSI LAMIDO SANUSI is therefore not only illegal, it is ultra vires the powers of Mr. President.

The legal fight to resist the illegal removal of MALLAM SANUSI LAMIDO SANUSI should not be left to Sanusi alone but should be taken up by the National Assembly. The National Assembly should not only reject the nominees of Mr. President to replace MALLAM SANUSI LAMIDO SANUSI, it (National Assembly) should also invoke the provisions of the Supreme Court (Additional Jurisdiction) Act, No. 3, 2002 CAP S16, LFN 2004 and challenge the patent illegality of the suspension of MALLAM SANUSI LAMIDO SANUSI at the Supreme Court.

Although I do not agree with MALLAM SANUSI that the NNPC ought not to be subsidizing kerosene on the ground that a Presidential directive had allegedly terminated subsidy on this product, which is used by majority of poor Nigerians, however, the import of SANUSI’s position, which we should not lose sight of, is that fuel (petrol and kerosene) subsidy has been used as a pretext of looting public wealth by a few. From this standpoint, Sanusi and the anti-corruption cause he represents should be supported by well meaning Nigerian masses.

Femi Aborisade, Labour Consultant and Attorney-at-Law

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2014.

Fresh concerns have been raised over the security of lives and property of schools in Osun State as a Federal High Court hearing a suit seeking to halt merger and reclassification of schools on Wednesday, 19th February 2014, again adjourned hearing to March 27 to be addressed on jurisdiction.

While a recent essay by Sonala Olumhense in Sahara Reporters  – see below – details why he’s been against the minister’s work in government for a while:  being the “arrowhead of the Transformation Agenda” that has gone nowhere, including the president’s refusal to declare his assets and Iweala’s antecedent as an important part of former President Obasanjo’s  National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) that also went nowhere, my opposition to her, as well-known on this blog and a little earlier stemmed from her indefensible role in Nigerian government.

My opposition to her coming a second time and then being retained was based at first on her role after retired General Obasanjo’s (rGO) presidency when her passionate words about Nigeria’s liquidation of her indebtedness were changed into equally-passionate plea for more loans.  It would later spill into the areas that Mr. Olumhense wrote about, and in case some of those passionate words she said about a liquidation that she oversaw, including Nigeria reportedly paying $100,000/daily or thereabout to a consultant, here are excerpts that worried many, including this blogger when she turned around soon after leaving rGO’s government and called for more loans for Nigeria:

“ … it [debt relief] will be like a second independence … giving us the freedom to focus …something our children will appreciate …” Ngozi Iweala.

The call for fresh loans was in South Africa as I first wrote in an essay for my rested Sunday essays for a Nigerian newspaper in November 2010 when I questioned her [then] company’s “opinion poll” in “The Politics of ‘opinion polls’ in Nigeria’s elections”; that essay was published on this blog on the second day it came into being on March 31, 2011.
I had believed the findings of her eponymous NOI (Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Polls, NOI which had reportedly collaborated with America’s Gallup Poll so cookie-cutter strange that I wrote: Dr. Okonjo-Iweala left NOI-Polls to become Managing Director at the World Bank in 2007 although she remains the “founder”, according to www.noi-polls.net … NOI-NGO may “collaborate” with America’s Gallup Poll but is that enough to make its findings on Nigeria unassailable – or even credible?  I say, not really …While not doubting NOI-D’s patriotism, her earlier call for new loans after showing us the way out of loan bondage, AND the implied assent to continued foreign loans – see below – are not in Nigeria’s interest.   Gallup may be American biggie but steering the public is not unheard of.  Obama’s blowout of McCain never registered in the big polls in 2008; ditto his earlier trouncing of Hillary.  I suspect NOI-NGO; Nigerians should, too.

As for Dieziani Madueke, here is my reason in that essay for her unsuitability to return as Petroleum Minister:

Mrs. D. Allison-Madueke: If President Jonathan wants to be taken seriously about his determination to conduct Nigeria’s business NOT as usual and fight corruption or, pardon me, if Nigeria was another country, Mrs. Madueke would not be on his ministerial list for the simple reason that too many allegations are flying around about the woman. In the “other” country, Mrs. Madueke would not only have been forced to resign after the oil block story broke before Jonathan’s swearing in when she took off for a foreign trip purportedly for a medical condition but her name would not go near any ministerial list. Her name has also appeared on the Railways financial mess list.

There are several essays on this blog, including ones in which I suggested she and Dieziani Madueke NOT be returned as ministers when the ministerial list was released, she for not being qualified by way of  what I stated as divided loyalty: first to donor countries and their commissioned Agent, The World Bank and, perhaps to a lesser degree of commitment, to Nigeria; Madueke, of course for all the accusations against her which, at the very least, needed to be investigated before she was returned.  That essay, titled “Nigeria’s new ministerial list portends a future that is Nigeria’s immediate past” opined that:

Now, when the CBN Governor, Alhaji Sanusi’s suspension was announced, Iweala’s reported statement has confirmed that she’s reduced herself – may be she was always one, anyway to one of those presidential spokespersons who would say anything to remain relevant with their principal. She reportedly announced that she “endorses” the removal of Sanusi and that it would not affect the economic indices.   May be she and the president’s inner circle would say a quick assurance was needed to assuage the feelings of the international markets or whatever but here are words about Mrs. Alade, perhaps the shortest acting governor the Central Bank has ever had; they were reportedly uttered by Iweala.  And being a woman, one would think Iweala, who actually spoke these words, would have been able to help the president score a big political point not only with women as an Administration that would put the first woman up as CBN governor – I’m not thinking of the illegality of bypassing the Senate – but also that would earn the confidence of the international financial markets, a competent and qualified woman with experience.  But no, Madam Iweala is as politically-minded as any Nigerian non-”technocrat” politician:

“The Minister expressed confidence in the competence of the new Acting Governor of the Central Bank, Dr Sarah Alade to manage the institution and ensure the continuation of the monetary policy focus that prevailed under Mr Sanusi Lamido,” the statement said.

“She recalled that Dr Alade who was Deputy Governor in charge of Policy has been a key player in the formulation and execution of the policies of the CBN under Sanusi and is therefore in a good position to continue with the policies.”

But Iweala is too wrapped up in politics and too unmindful of her unprecedented powerful position to think of her place in history.  By 2012, I had written that she really should resign if she’s holding a position where she could not make a difference if the president was not going to listen to her suggestions if that was why the economy was not improving.

Dr. Iweala’s problems have since ballooned.  Here is from a January Punch editorial after she wrongly and deliberately misrepresented what The Punch said at a forum in far-away London on the subject of import waivers, a matter that has shown the minister as either not knowing what was going on in agencies that she supervises OR she’s hiding material facts:

The minister’s propensity to defend scandals and question even credible findings is distressing. How do waivers for aircraft to accommodate the luxurious lifestyles of state governors boost the economy or create jobs? How many jobs were created by the N450.7 million waivers to massage the First Lady’s ego to host the African Women Peace Mission, an NGO? How about the waivers given to the National Sports Commission for “motor spare parts”? Or the N141.2 million to the Delta State Government in 2013 for furniture? Nigerians need explanations also for the waiver of the N5.9 million to the Maiduguri Central Mosque in 2012 and N14 million for the “Watchtower Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses” to import “building materials and cabinet parts for kitchen door drawers.”

http://saharareporters.com/report/waivers-fraud-punch-newspaper-rips-okonjo-iweala%E2%80%99s-tedxeuston-london-speech

And, of course, the essay by Olumhense earlier referred to confirms Dr. Iweala as being part of the reasons why the economic problems in the country remains and why she’s one of those that should have long left the current administration without being asked to go.  Below is the link to Olumhense’s essay.

http://saharareporters.com/column/dear-mrs-okonjo-iweala-sonala-olumhense

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2014.

Jonathan, Sanusi and Bankole – The Punch

BY SABELLA ABIDDE

Just the other day, I was thinking of evil doers. I was thinking of all the terrible things that happen in Nigeria on a daily basis. And I was thinking of Albert Einstein
who believed that “the world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it …

When aggregated, Boko Haram has killed seven or more Nigerians every day for the past two years. (As this article was going to bed, news flew in that about 29 schoolchildren were slaughtered by Boko Haram insurgents in a secondary school in Yobe State.) Nearly all the major officials responsible for the nation’s security are still in office. And the Jonathan administration is still in place.  [The count has reportedly gone up to 43 by the late hours of Monday, February 25. Ngerian Time. TOLA]

Follow the link below to check out Ms. Abidde’s essay which may contain what we all know – as many may want to say – but about which nothing is being done:

http://www.punchng.com/opinion/viewpoint/jonathan-sanusi-and-bankole/

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2016.

President Of Ijaw Youth Council Advocates For Legalizing “Bush” Refineries – Sahara Reporters

[In Nigeria, there is a law against bunkering - "bush refineries" which this organization whose leadership was sworn in by a high court judge wants; it matters little if the judge is a state or "federal" high court judge. ]

“We believe that the government of the day will take this opportunity to build the capacity of our people in this regard. …we will have saved the environment, we will have created jobs and above all, our environment will be sustained,”   -  President, Ijaw Youth Council

The President of the Ijaw Youth Council at a meeting in Yenagoa on Monday, advocated for legalizing bush refineries and oil bunkering in the Niger Delta.

President of IYC, Udengs Eradiri, said the government’s effort to resolve oil theft over the past 50 years hasn’t worked, “We think that it is time for Nigeria to chart a new course. And in charting a new course, we will be promoting the legalization of bunkering in the Niger Delta.”

He added, “…our people have shown to the world that the same technology they used in producing local gin is the same technology they are using to produce diesel.”

Oil bunkering is done either through hacking into an oil pipeline to steal crude and taking crude from leaking pipelines. Bush refineries are used to refine the crude for selling. A government-funded study found between 2009-2011 $10.9 billion was lost in revenue from oil theft. A Joint Military Taskforce to combat oil theft has reduced the number of bush refineries but the practice persists.

President Eradiri said the problem of oil bunkering would be over if it was legalized and the refined oil was handed over to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company. It would also end fuel scarcity.

“We believe that the government of the day will take this opportunity to build the capacity of our people in this regard. …we will have saved the environment, we will have created jobs and above all, our environment will be sustained,” he said.

President Eradiri made his remarks during a swearing in of national executives of the Ijaw Youth Council.

Justice Ebiyerin Umukoro, a high court judge in Bayelsa performed the oath of office on Eradiri and other national officers …

You may wish to check out the rest of the report at:

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/president-ijaw-youth-council-advocates-legalizing-bush-refineries

MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2014.

In the same vein, it is the height of absurdity in the history of empires and their colonies for a former colony to glamourize a period of servitude by honouring the imperial head of the former colonial overlords. The award to the Queen of England is historically flawed for the above reason.

As if this absurdity was not flagrant enough, the most bestial ruler ever to preside over the affairs of Nigeria, a despot of satanic persuasion under whose rule the country plumbed the depths of depravity, late Gen. Sani Abacha, still of frightful memory, was given an award for, of all things, prudent management of the economic resources of the country … ascribing fiscal prudence to Abacha is like crediting Adolf Hitler with racial tolerance and harmony. The Sani Abacha, that was the military ruler of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998, was incapable of any good deed …

NIGERIA’S CENTENARY AWARDS:  MATTERS ARISING

After the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Pius Anyim Pius made the case for celebrating Nigeria’s centenary by saying it will “present us an opportunity to count our blessings as a nation, celebrate our dexterity and resilience as a people and resolve to launch into the next century with renewed determination, hope and expectations”, the promoters of the year long celebrations came out with a “Concept Document” which outlines the major events of the Nigerian centenary celebration. In addition to making possible the erection of a Millennium City which, will be a revolutionary approach to urbanization in Africa and champion private sector role in projects of significant magnitude, Nigeria’s Centenary should, according to former military Head of State General Abdusalm Abubakar, “be a time to rebrand, rejuvenate and pursue the true ideals for Nigeria”.

It is a matter of historical record that the amalgamation of Nigeria occurred in the year 1914.  One hundred years after her artificial creation, the geographical expanse known as Nigeria is, in the year of our Lord 2014, in an orgy of celebration of her centenary. While one hundred years in the life of a nation is a notable achievement, however, a national revelry marking a hundred years of tumultuous and forced cohabitation of the people, is a tad incongruous.

A nation with a checkered political history noted more for her serial political upheavals, ethnic tensions, religious intolerance and the promotion of primordial cleavages over and above integrative nationalistic and patriotic instincts, should in the main, be grateful to God for surviving all the centrifugal forces of an implosion. If there is ever a historical justification to mark Nigeria’s one hundred years of corporate existence, such justification should be in the mystery inherent in the reality of a century’s cohabitation of more than 300 disparate ethnic nationalities!

Such a nation should be cautious of the causes of the past civil war, be mindful of the landmines ahead and be prepared to structurally tinker with her power configuration in such ways as to allay the fears of the domination of one ethnic group by the others particularly, in a deeply heterogeneous setting. That is why the Jonathan administration’s acknowledgement of a compelling necessity for a National Confab to fashion out our parameters for living together is most welcome at this juncture.

However, this column is at pains to reconcile the harrowing experiences of Nigeria’s nationhood with the unrestrained celebration of a centenary which was made possible rather through sheer providence than sustained efforts at nation-building. It is even remarkable that so far, despite the very tragic loss of lives of countless school children and innocent people in another orgy of senseless murder that signposts the enormousness of the nation’s security challenges, the centenary celebrations are still not limited in scope nor, are they subdued in fanfare.

So far, one very contentious part of the celebration is the Centenary Award. To recognize someone for distinction in service that goes to promote the ideals of nationhood; to honour the memory of founding fathers who labored to get independence from the colonialists; to celebrate excellence in achievement, industry and hard work, awards and honours may be bestowed on deserving Nigerians. However, to be indiscriminate in the choice of awardees, to be oblivious of the inappropriateness of recognizing historical misfits and to be unaware of the psychic violence inflicted on the public through the celebration of satanic despots, is, like Professor Soyinka said, “ a disservice to history and a desecration of memory”.

This column is hard pressed to find a justification for giving posthumous awards to Lord and Lady Lugard: a couple, on whose 1914 amalgamation effort, the jury is still out. To celebrate the duo implies that the amalgamation done without references to ethnic affinities, cultural sameness and linguistic commonality was absolutely right. This is an instance of the valorization of colonial heresy and misadventure in African history. In the same vein, it is the height of absurdity in the history of empires and their colonies for a former colony to glamourize a period of servitude by honouring the imperial head of the former colonial overlords. The award to the Queen of England is historically flawed for the above reason.

Nothing demeans the awards however, than the ones given to the military heads of state. Every Nigerian ruler dead or alive, got the award apparently not because of any outstanding contributions to the promotion of the overall progress of the country but, because such ruler was present at the helm of affairs at the time. Why, should any military incursion into the governance of any country be rewarded when the present trend is to confine the soldiers to the barracks and let them shine and glow in their core competencies? It is abundantly clear at least, in developing countries, that the main reason for the military wanting to be in civil governance is to highjack power to preside over the resources of the states!

As if this absurdity was not flagrant enough, the most bestial ruler ever to preside over the affairs of Nigeria, a despot of satanic persuasion under whose rule the country plumbed the depths of depravity, late Gen. Sani Abacha, still of frightful memory, was given an award for, of all things, prudent management of the economic resources of the country! Even if this were not the work of an inventive genius in the Centenary Award committee of the Presidency, ascribing fiscal prudence to Abacha is like crediting Adolf Hitler with racial tolerance and harmony. The Sani Abacha, that was the military ruler of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998, was incapable of any good deed except by default.

His inclusion therefore in the honours roll was an insult to other awardees and it was no surprise that Professor Soyinka and a few others felt scandalized by this egregious absurdity. While this column admits to not having the eclectic array of information, intelligence and facts that constrain those at the helms of affairs to arrive at seemingly unpopular decisions, nevertheless, certain choices of government need to be assessed properly for their offensiveness to public sensibilities and sensitivities.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2014.  1:32 a.m. [GMT]