Why Jonathan is scared– Tony Momoh

By WILLY EYA

Tony Momoh • Photo: Sun Publishing More Stories on This Section

In Nigeria, there is no gainsaying that many are now scared of the future. If it is not from the fear of the dreaded Islamist sect, Boko Haram, it is the pain following the removal of oil subsidy. And as it appears, every day comes with fresh challenges.

However, despite uncertainty in the land, one man who is not surprised with the development is national chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and former Minister of Information, Prince Tony Momoh. In this interview, he speaks on a wide range of issues. Excerpts…

With the state of the nation today, how do you feel as a Nigerian?
I feel fulfilled as a Nigerian looking at the chaos surrounding us today and this is what many people foresaw. That was why we said we needed change, which has to do with the mindset. Change here includes the political structures that we have. We also talked about change in the politics we were doing.

We needed a change in mindset by looking at issues from a principled angle of putting God first. That would make you understand that whatever you are doing is registered for you to answer to God. That one would also make you accept that there is a conscience and that conscience is always knocking on your heart when you do anything. That is change of mindset. You would say who is my judge? My conscience is my judge. God almighty is my judge but the mindset we have is manipulate the people. But the manipulation of the people would only be some of the time and not all the time. So, the change in mindset was one.

Then the change in politics in Nigeria brought Attahiru Jega, chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). We thought he could effect the change within the arrangement we have; having an electoral law, a man of integrity. I can assure you as chairman of Congress for Progressive Change that we really celebrated the coming of Jega. But in spite of what everybody says now, Jega, Nigerians, their conscience and God almighty that they serve know that what we called election was not an election. We all know that what we are still doing with elections is manipulation of votes; win at all costs and celebrate that winning without remembering our conscience, God almighty and that you can only manipulate the people some of the time and not all the time.

Then the other one is structure. We must restructure Nigeria because Nigeria cannot work as it is. The earlier we come to that, the better. So, when you say you want to change the Constitution, you are wasting your time because you are looking at the people who are changing the Constitution and who are not willing and can never agree to undermine themselves by robbing themselves of what they are enjoying. So, if you really talk of restructure, though we are talking of such fundamental restructuring that would make us look at what it is that we have today; 36 states of the federation, all of them are enjoying the same structural adjustment as the three regions were doing in 1960.

So, we have a governor, a House of Assembly and then you have the civil service structure. It was three at independence, four in 1963 when the Mid-West was created; 12, then 19, 21, 30 and now 36. And it is the same structure. The abuse of that structure was reflected when the old Bendel State was split into two - Edo and Delta. They had 18 permanent secretaries when it was Bendel and when they split it into two, obviously, it ought to be nine permanent secretaries but Edo alone had 32 permanent secretaries.

And each permanent secretary in Nigeria earns the same as his colleague anywhere in the country when we do not have a unitary civil service structure. We need change. But what I say now is that Muhammadu Buhari cried and a lot of people started saying he was shedding crocodile tears. But Buhari knew the corruption in this system. He knew the fraud and indiscipline in this system and he cried. That is manifesting now with what we have after removing oil subsidy.

I would like to talk on the fuel subsidy, which everybody is compromised or ignorant of. But then I wish Nigeria happy New Year. Whatever happens is that Nigeria cannot be fixed by God. It is Nigerians that will fix Nigeria. Nigeria is a country to be fixed by people and these people have been endowed by God as human spirits to make or mar Nigeria. What we have been doing is marring Nigeria. But since God is the creator and must restore order through the law of sowing and reaping, we would reap what we have sowed.

You said you are fulfilled because what you predicted about the state of affairs in Nigeria is coming to pass but are you not scared that the nation may even break up?
I am fulfilled because what we have always stood for is blaring us in the face now. But Nigeria will not break up and it should not break up. Two hours after the New Year, I sent out a message to my countrymen through the Nigeria world forum and of course, it would reach about two million people and I said that the heavens have not fallen. People say the heavens would fall and I said the heavens would never fall.

The heavens have never fallen and the heavens would never fall. The heavens are permanent. Even the earth would never fall. The earth has a lifespan and the clock is ticking and when it comes to the end of its life, the clock would stop. Nigeria would never make the earth fall. Nigerians are the ones to fall or rise through what they do with the power God gave them as human beings to cleanse and affect their environment. We have refused to add value to our environment. Instead of doing things to grow the environment, we are doing things to deny growth to the environment. In the constitution, we chose to work on two legs since 1999-democracy and social justice.

That’s in fact what we have been doing since 1979. Now, the thing is we have only one resource, a particular volume of money to grow democracy and social justice. It is for those who are in charge to know whether they would grow democracy at the expense of social justice or to grow social justice at the expense of democracy or hold them in such proportion to ensure there is growth. But what have we been doing? We have been growing democracy at the expense of social justice.

And that is why you would say according to what the clerk of the National Assembly was quoted to have told the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on the arraigning of former Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, that the senators take home about N360 million per annum. They are entitled to take home N11 million maximum but through all sorts of arrangement. That N360 million is given to each senator who empowers his people by buying shovels, wheel barrows, sowing machines, bales of cloth and, of course, buying motorcycles for thugs among others. After all that, he would say, I empowered my people.

That N360 million is obviously for democracy. For instance, you could say, you people should work part time because in the First Republic, it was part time. Why can’t we work part time now and make more laws like we were doing in the First Republic unlike now that we are working full time? We could say instead of giving them N11 million like we are officially doing now, let us give them not more than N3 million. Today, a senator takes home N360 million per annum and works full time as a senator and also works full time in his private business. He uses his senatorial contacts to help his private business.

You see the abuses. We are funding democracy. If you put that N360 million in a senatorial district, you would have four hundred boreholes and everybody would have water to drink. That is the choice we are making. If you grow social justice, that is reflected in the welfare and security of the citizens, you create jobs, build schools, hospitals and so on and so forth. And the government is there because of security and welfare of the people. That being the case, why not put money into education and other social services?

Now, the choice is clear that we must restructure Nigeria so that you have social justice or you have an agreement where you put more money in social justice and have less available for growing democracy. In Nigeria, we have democracy before development. It does not happen anywhere in the world. There is no place where you fund democracy more than social justice. A councilor is in full time making law for the council, House of Assembly is full time and National Assembly is also full time.

All these people are earning big money. The president, governors and chairmen of councils all have security votes. The governor has about four to five billion naira for security vote that nobody can audit. What are you securing when as a governor you do not even have power to secure the state even though you are the chief security officer of the state. This is because the police are responsible to the President, Inspector General of Police and Minister of Police Affairs.
What type of country is this that is growing democracy? But the fact is if you want to take that quantum of democracy that would grow Nigeria, you cancel the executive governor position and have parliamentary legislature with part-time legislation.

The party with the majority would pick a premier or whatever you call him and then the ministers or commissioners would come from House of Assembly elected. Now, what you have is that the people who are commissioners are those compensated for failing primaries. It does not make sense. And they owe no allegiance to anybody. Those people worry more than the elected people. They hear all kinds of complaints - my children want to go back to school, my wife put to bed. They also go to the elected people and you know they do not get more than the money allocated to them. They go to ministers and commissioners who were appointed because they lost primaries to beg for contracts. So, what is wrong with us? I am fulfilled because I have been speaking about these things over the years and nobody is listening.
On fuel, why I am fulfilled and laughing and Buhari should be fulfilled and laughing and CPC people should be laughing is that we said there is nothing like subsidy.

The amount of money we are paying for fuel is the amount that is paid by a country that does not produce fuel or petroleum resources at all. How much does it take to bring one barrel of oil and then refine it in Nigeria? This is so that when you refine it, you would have so much volume of premium motor spirit, kerosene, diesel and so on and so forth and even the residue that is used for heavy industries. All these would give you employment. How much employment have we created in using the old refineries to access those kind of resources? We give the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation 445,000 barrels a day.

They know how they distribute it for refining abroad and they send it to us to buy at a rate as if we did not send oil to anybody for refining and as if we have no oil at all, and as if we have no refineries. Even at that, it costs N34 to land a litre of fuel. We sell for N65. So, who is subsidizing who? But because of the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency and PPMC, we have found ourselves doing more arithmetic than looking at the facts on the face. Every month, PPPRA would just tell us how much they have used for subsidy and then the rest is given to be shared and there is not enough to be shared.

Then we go and borrow from excess crude account. If there is no excess crude account today, Nigeria would collapse. So, instead of attending to the fraud and corruption in the sector that generates funds for us; in the Nigeria Customs Service they tell you that they generate N70 billion every month and we start congratulating them, when as a matter of fact they make a N100 billion and share N30 billion. Then you go to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) where they give you a lot of wrong figures because there are banks abroad that are supposed to be collecting money for us and are collecting money outside what they are entitled to. Or you go to NNPC that is supposed to have 445,000 barrels a day, refine some, distribute some and they are not accounting for what comes in the area of the byproducts from petroleum. Nobody knows what is happening there.

Everywhere that money is generated in this country, there are entrenched abuses, corruption and fraud. President Jonathan knows this and in fairness to him, all these people helped to run his election. But now, what are they doing? They want to recoup and this man cannot stop the fraud and he knows that. In fact, Nigeria is broke. But what does Jonathan do? Instead of attending to the problem and dealing with people who are doing it around him, the only way out is stop PPMC giving out to anybody. Having done that, he now leaves all the money that they have been paying, which is part of the fraud and corruption, he now puts it on Nigerians through the pumps. But the fact is, where is the money going?

Where is the difference between N65 and N150 going? Do you know that many people like you think that the money would go to government for the Kolade committee and other people to use in growing the alternatives? It is not so. These monies go directly to the marketers and not into the coffers of the government. The only thing government may be gaining are the NNPC mega stations. What they generate in this rip-off would go to government and nothing else. So, all these things they say would be done like rail and so on, where is the money going to come from? The money must come from supplementary appropriation because the 2012 budget is already here where you have over N900 billion for security and you spend N3 billion on security, including Saturday and Sunday. What are you securing? We have not had much problem of security since the Nigerian civil war as we have now. We have not deployed armed forces as much as we are doing now since civil war. So, security as far I am concerned is part of the problem.

I think they generate fear for Jonathan who said is not a General when in fact he is a Field Marshal being the President and Commander-in-Chief. Unfortunately, Jonathan does not have the mindset of even a Sergeant. He does not have any military mindset. Being the President of Nigeria, he is the Commander of the Armed Forces but he is easily frightened by what is happening. When Obasanjo came in 1999, the National Security Adviser told him the security implication of his traveling but Obasanjo threw away the security report and traveled. He spent a total of one year traveling in the four years he was here.

We are always frightened by all these security reports and these are the reports frightening Jonathan everyday that he is now taking cover in Aso Rock and celebrating independence in Aso Rock. What type of country is this where the President, who people should look up to, is frightened and he takes cover? All the gates to Aso Rock, only one is open. Our president should be all over the place. The Madalla explosion, he got there after about a week or so. After the United Nations building explosion, he did not go. He said on Facebook that he was sorry, he did not want to go and disturb people who were working there. What type of country is this? The police headquarters bombing, he went there and was smiling. He shook the IG’s hands and said they were after him (Jonathan) and not after him (IG). What kind of country is this where the leader of the country puts his safety first? So, we are the ones laughing now.

Like I said, the money from fuel subsidy is not coming from anywhere. If they had put the subsidy money in the budget, you would say that the money would be diverted to these areas. So, I am emphasizing it now that the difference between N65 and the N150 per litre we are paying now will not go to government but to private pockets of those who are selling the fuel. I say it that the President is not able to deal with the ‘strong men’ in the business of oil. Someone said that the government is dealing with the poor men because it is not able to deal with the rich man.

From your vantage position, how do you feel about activities of Boko Haram?
I laugh too because I celebrate our innocence. If CPC had been formed before Boko Haram, people would say that Boko Haram is the military arm of CPC. In spite of the fact that Boko Haram was there, doing its thing before CPC was formed and before CPC became active after January 2011, people still associate Boko Haram and CPC. I am the national chairman of CPC; in other words, the executive chairman of CPC and I can assure you that we have nothing to do with Boko Haram.

We would have nothing to do with any religious organization or anybody that wants to address injustice his own way. We would address injustice in our own way as a political party by confronting injustice. They say if you cannot beat them, join them. We stand on a pedestal where we know injustice is and we will confront injustice and we will not join the unjust. People confront injustice in different way. For instance, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) is confronting injustice to the South East, the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) confronted injustice, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) confronted injustice in the Niger Delta and whether you know it or not, Boko Haram is confronting injustice. But the fact is that they have always said what they are doing and that what people say they are doing is not what they are doing.

They say that they have killed their leader. Those people who killed their leader must be brought to book. They say they will target Police, Army, other security agencies and government institutions. They said they would target their own governors who are Muslims and refuse to rule according to Islamic law - Sharia. They say their governors are corrupt and that they would target them. It was there on their video and they even published the full report where their leader was sitting down with two people holding AK-47 rifles sitting by them. It was published in the Blueprint newspaper. The new newspaper, they seem to have faith in it and they tell them their own angle. They said they have never bombed any church. So, if you hear a church has been bombed, it is not them.

They said they have never robbed any bank because they have money to carry out their operations. But they did not say where the money comes from. If you go to Taraba, Bauchi, Yobe, Maiduguri and see what they do, you would be shocked and you cannot put them in the papers. How many can you report? The thing is that late President Umaru Yar’Adua went to the Niger Delta and after discussions he started empowering the Niger Delta youths. They are all over the world today. Let Jonathan also empower the youths and all those involved in Boko Haram. Let him reach out to them and if possibly grant them amnesty. Let him start adding value to the youths in the North. Today, I think the World Bank has said that the poorest group of people in the world today are youths in the North.

The Supreme Court recently confirmed President Jonathan’s victory in last year’s general election, what’s your take on that?
Well, the Supreme Court is the last court in the land and is the last person to speak on issues of law. We accept but we do not agree. Anything you say about that judgment becomes intellectual exercise, which can only help to illuminate issues but it is to no effect. For instance, we do not agree because at least we had 12 appeals from the rulings of the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court did not look at them. If they were time bared for no fault of ours, why did the Supreme Court not refer to those matters.

They could have said even if they are time bared, there are issues raised therein. You cannot prove that INEC conducted election unless you have access to the material. We were denied access to that material. Justice Salami agreed access to that material with the cooperation of the INEC lawyer, the PDP lawyer, President’s lawyer and Sambo’s lawyer. All of them agreed that the request of the CPC should be granted. They granted it and it became a judgment of the court. When they saw what was going on, they removed Salami. They had no right to remove Salami. The only body that can remove Salami is the Senate.

I have not given up on Nigeria -Buhari

By Tony Akowe, Kaduna.

Buhari

Presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the last election, Major General Mohammadu Buhari, said yesterday he remained in the battle to make Nigeria a better place to live in irrespective of his losing the suit to upturn the result of the April 2011 presidential election.

He said he is a firm believer in a better Nigeria,come what may. He spoke at an interactive session in Kaduna with newly sworn in members of the National Assembly elected  on the platform of the party.

The Supreme Court recently ruled   that some members of the party elected into the National Assembly were not the rightful candidates and should therefore make way for those properly nominated by the party.

 The former military ruler said he had been quiet on national issues  in view of the suit filed by the party and morality demanded that he should not comment on a matter in court.

General Buhari said most of the problems rocking the CPC were self-inflicted as some caretaker committee members put in place to run the affairs of the party felt too big for their roles with the result that they insisted on having their way, or making the party pay by losing the last elections.

But he also said whatever action taken by the ruling PDP to undermine the CPC must have been informed by the fact that it identified his party as a formidable enemy that must be crushed.

 He said:”You all know what happened and this was aggravated by attempts by the ruling party to make sure that I am thoroughly undermined in my constituency and where ever I go.

“In the whole of the North East and North West, they committed lots of resources to make sure that I am thoroughly undermined and there was confusion within the party. I don’t blame them, but our members, especially the caretaker committees.

“If you were in the position of the PDP and you are the unchallenged champion with over 20 states and you identified one enemy, the CPC, what will you do? That was why I did not want people talking about the PDP when they are complaining about our problem in the state, especially in the North East and North West.

“My worst problem is that as chairman of the Board of Trustees and with the power of the constitution of the party given to me, I was in a dilemma because of subsequent happenings. Members of the party from the same constituency went to the court and tribunal; members of the party took the party to court’ the party itself was in court from the State House of Assembly to the Presidency.

“I, as chairman of the BOT and presidential candidate said I was not going to court. What will I do?  What is the attitude of the judiciary right from the tribunal to the Supreme Court? So, there was no way I could have been talking. I am effectively restrained by the constitution of the country and by decency, once a matter is before the judiciary, I am not supposed to go and talk.

“But people forgot the restraints put on me by decency, the processes of the electoral act and the constitution of my party. After the judgement at the Supreme Court, I made a statement and I can now talk to you. You don’t need to bring confusion to your own country and that is why I effectively kept my mouth shut.

“The only thing I did was to discuss with the party anytime they come and tell them my restraints and it is up to you to explain to your constituency. It is not as if I have given up anything. No, I have not given up and my address after the Supreme Court judgement showed that I have not given up.

“I said it 25 years ago that this is the only country that we have. You can get a job anywhere; but your children will ask you one day, when are we going home. So, whatever we do, we better do it well and see what we can do about our country”.

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives and governorship candidate of the party in Katsina state, Aminu Bello Masari who led the lawmakers to Gen. Buhari’s office explained that the party went to court to prove to the people of Katsina state and Nigerians that the party won the election in the state and not to obtain justice.

Masari said “what brought us here is to say thank you and pledge our loyalty to you and the CPC who has given us a mandate. Clearly looking at what has happened right from the beginning of the elections to the last election, you will see that CPC clearly won the elections in Katsina state.

“Unfortunately, due to weakness of structures, we lost the governorship seat in the state. When we went to the tribunal, we went there to prove a point not because we expected justice there. We knew that we don’t have what it takes to acquire justice because in this country, you acquire justice.

“We have proved to the people of Katsina and Nigerians that CPC won the elections in Katsina state. Again, the verdict that came from the Supreme Court was what we were expecting and so, there was no manipulation anywhere because there is no way they could have manipulated it to be what it is not.

“We are aware that after the Supreme Court judgement, a lot of interpretations and readings were going around including going to the National Assembly to make sure that the swearing in of the new members never took place.

Jonathan Must Not Waste this Crisis

Simon Kolawole Live!, Email: simonkolawole@thisdayonline.com

Question: How did President Goodluck Jonathan manage to rally the entire country against himself barely 24 hours into the New Year? Answer: He underestimated public reaction to a major public policy—the removal of fuel subsidy. And I’d like to be honest: even though I knew that removing the subsidy (or, more appropriately, fuel price hike) was always going to elicit negative public reaction, I never knew demonstrations would grow in monumental proportions by the day. Judging from past experiences, we thought the strike called by labour would be a huge success on the first day and then gradually peter out. After all, President Olusegun Obasanjo increased fuel prices nearly on a yearly basis until he left power in 2007 and the strikes and demonstrations were never as massive as what we’ve had so far.

But under Obasanjo, there was no twitter, no facebook and no blackberry as tools of mobilisation. There was no Arab Spring. There was no “occupy”. Things have changed dramatically over the years and it was Jonathan’s luck to be the first Nigerian leader to taste the bitter fury of social media-induced resentment. Apart from underestimating public reaction, Jonathan made the mistake of thinking that Nigerians have not changed. His advisers thought removing fuel subsidy was a pure technocratic decision to be taken without any serious consideration for the political backlash. They also did not do enough scenario-painting, such as who was likely to take advantage of the situation to whip up public sentiment against the government. They simply took a decision and expected a standing ovation from the citizens who are already confronted with soaring costs of living—electricity bills, toll gates, new driving licences, new number plates, and so on.

I laughed hysterically when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) started grumbling that the opposition had hijacked the protests. Can anything be more naïve? What is the job of opposition? To project and protect the interest of the ruling party? Was PDP expecting the opposition to start defending and marketing deregulation? Watching the Republicans debate in the United States, you could see the candidates make deliberate efforts to blame President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party for all the woes of America, even when they knew that he was not the architect of the country’s misfortunes. But that is politics. You tell the people I am better and I have better policies than the man in power. At the last Republican debate, the candidates deliberately ignored newly released figures which showed that employment figures had improved, with additional 200,000 jobs created. That is politics.

My offering to Jonathan today is quite simple: don’t waste this crisis. He has a rare opportunity to listen to the people and take a broader and deeper look at the entire governance structure. Fuel subsidy sparked off the crisis, but a lot of messages have been passed across in the process and it would be tragic if Jonathan missed these signals and concentrates his energy on blaming the opposition for politicising the protests. The first message is that something is wrong with the marketing of deregulation. From what I have heard most of the commentators and activists say, deregulation in itself is not bad. However, it is just one aspect of the reform we need to carry out in order to reduce the cost structure in governance. This is a very important message. Governments, over the years, usually rushed to increase fuel prices without taking a global look at the hindrances to our development and how to make judicious use of our resources. Regulated pricing is the not only problem and deregulation is not the only solution. We need to see a larger picture of our fiscal nuisance if things would ever change in Nigeria.

What exactly is Jonathan’s deregulation strategy? That is a very important question. It is not enough to have a policy that will ultimately benefit Nigerians; it is also very important to manage the entire process methodically and get the buy-in of the stakeholders. The best economic policies that ignore political realities will suffer in the public arena. Now, are we looking at a one-year or two-year deregulation programme? How would it achieve results? How do we realistically encourage local refining? Or should we just hope deregulation would automatically force licensees to build refineries? What if they don’t build even after deregulation? What options are available to us? How do we address the issue of what to do with the existing refineries? Sell them or lease out the management? If licensees refuse to build under any guise, should there be an interventionist strategy by the Federal Government? Or should we continue to rely on importation for ever?

Furthermore, in achieving the objective of deregulation, are we going to remove subsidy 50 per cent now, show the people what we have done with the savings and then remove the remaining subsidy later? In the meantime, how do we cut the rot and clean up the subsidy regime? How do we deal with those who have abused the subsidy regime over the years? What is the overall government engagement strategy for deregulation? How do we get the critical stakeholders to make constructive inputs rather than just dump the policy on them and expect them to simply fall in line? What is the communication strategy? What is the exit strategy if it doesn’t work out as expected? In public policy, these are critical questions that can only improve the quality of planning and implementation. Those who think the public have no right to make any input into the policy process are deluded; good governance is best attained when the co-operation of the different publics is gained through mutual trust and respect. If the key stakeholders had been part and parcel of the deregulation process—not just calling them to a meeting and presenting a fait accompli to them—resistance would not have been on this scale.

The second message—and the most important one for that matter—is: how do we reduce waste and corruption in government? We keep saying the citizens should sacrifice, but does it make sense for the Federal Government alone to spend N1.3 trillion on personnel costs every year (I don’t have the figures for states)? As many analysts have pointed out, do we need 43 ministers? Does every minister need four aides? Do we need 469 federal lawmakers, each entitled to aides and what have you? When I was growing up, I used to hear of Minister of Information, Youth, Sports and Culture—just one person. Today, it has become four ministries, each with the full compliments of bureaucracy! Why? How has that improved governance in Nigeria? Is that not why costs keep going up? Also, can’t we have four or five senators per state and abolish the House of Representatives entirely? Do we need both the Senate and House of Representatives? Can’t we make do with just 20 ministers?

I am aware that the Jonathan administration is trying to merge some departments and agencies, but the fact remains that it is never going to be far-reaching enough. By appointing 43 ministers, Jonathan had already lost the opportunity to make a statement that he wanted a lean government, that he wanted a break from the past. It would have been easier for the president to preach sacrifice to Nigerians if he had taken concrete steps to reduce waste and corruption in government all along. The message of sacrifice would have been better received by the populace. Many have suggested that we should reduce the number of aircraft in the presidential fleet, which is a perfect suggestion. Also, most governors take chartered flights. I can’t remember the last time I was on a flight with a governor on board. Some governors even built airports specifically to be able to take chartered flights to their states. These are wastes. Some governors appoint scores and hundreds of aides who do nothing than deplete the treasury. We need to perform surgery on all these wastes.

President Jonathan has a very good crisis in his hands. He has to decide what he wants to do with it. He can seize this rare opportunity in the nation’s history to propose wholesome changes in the way we do our things in Nigeria. He has been talking about constitution review and has even empanelled a body for that matter. The sections that we now have to seriously consider for amendment have been pointed out by the people. Everything to cut the size of government at every level must be built into the new constitution. This crisis must not be wasted.

And Four Other Things...

‘Diesel Refinery’
I guess my reference to “a refinery to produce diesel” in my article last week got a lot of people confused. This is my point: diesel was deregulated seven years ago by President Olusegun Obasanjo; same for aviation fuel. The whole idea, we were told, was to encourage investment in refineries. Meanwhile, petrol and kerosene were still regulated, meaning government was still paying subsidies to make up for the loss by marketers. It follows, doesn’t it, that enough had been done to encourage building of refineries? I mean, you could set up a refinery, sell diesel and aviation fuel at market prices, and then collect subsidies for petrol and kerosene which were still regulated.

In a nutshell, you would not be making any losses, even without deregulation! With all these incentives, nobody still built a refinery. Therefore, deregulation is not the magic wand. We need to find out why investors run away even when the prices are guaranteed by government through subsidies. My sense is that it is cheaper and easier to engage in fuel importation and make your margins immediately than to spend $1 billion to build a refinery that would take years before you recoup your investment.

Occupying with Champagne
The ‘Occupy Nigeria’ movement that emerged after the removal of fuel subsidy came in many colours. At Ojota, Lagos, the crowds kept growing day by day, defying all predictions that protests only last for a few hours in Nigeria. Doctors volunteered free treatment. A cousin of mine took 10 bags of “pure water” and distributed them free of charge at the venue. Many Nigerians from the middle class took active part, trekking lengths to take part in the protests. An in-law told me on phone: “Simon, it’s not that I can’t afford N141 per litre but the government must cut down on wastes too! This is the time to take back Nigeria!” The organisers took several steps ahead of the government. Musicians came to give free entertainment. Activists took turns to address the people. I will never forget, however, the story that the wealthy also took part in the Ikoyi rally. After making known their opposition to the deregulation policy, they settled down to bottles of champagne. Unsubsidised champagne, that is.

‘Hacktivists’ at Work
Last Friday, some “hacktivists”—those who specialise in hacking websites as a sign of public protest—threatened to hit the website of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). A few hours later, they succeeded in putting out a press release that members of the “fuel subsidy cabal” had been arrested by the agency. Incredibly, the statement was “signed” by Femi Babafemi, who left the agency along with the former chairman, Mrs Farida Waziri. What’s more, two of the people that were said to have been arrested were actually not in the country. One was in Ghana, another in London. Yet EFCC was said to have arrested them! It reminded me very much of the mischief that was circulated three years ago. They said President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua would resign after a “carbinate” reshuffle. The story was attributed to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). It is so easy to pick holes in these things sometimes.

Falana on Oil Revenue
A blackberry message was being circulated yesterday. It was attributed to activist and lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana. It read: “1. Crude oil productn/day-2.5m barrels; 2. Current price= $113/barrel; 3. daily sales= 2.5m x 113= $282.5 million; 4. Monthly sales= 282.5 million x 30 days= $8.475 billion; 5. Yearly sales= $8.475 billion x 12= $101.7 billion; 6. Naira equivalent =101.7 billion x $160=16.272 trillion naira per year. 7. Nigeria's budget for 2012 = 4.5 trillion naira. Now the question is: Where is the surplus going?!” I’m not too sure this came from Falana, because this figure completely ignores the budgets of 36 states and 774 local government areas which also come from the oil revenue. Neither is the foreign reserve taken into consideration.

You just might save a marriage.

“When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes. Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly. She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why? I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her! With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now. The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again. In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage. This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request. I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully. My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office. On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her. On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me. On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger. She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily. Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head. Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day. But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy. I drove to office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore. She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart. Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away. At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart. That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed – dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push through with the divorce.— At least, in the eyes of our son—- I’m a loving husband…. The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage! If you don’t share this, nothing will happen to you. If you do, you just might save a marriage. Please share. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

In Search of A Radical President

Pendulum By Dele Momodu. Email, dele.momodu@thisdaylive.com

Fellow Nigerians, I’m amazed that the fad in Nigerian government circles today is to label every critic as an enemy of government. Please, permit me to speak for myself for now. I’m not an enemy of President Goodluck Jonathan. I have no reason to be. He did not engage me to demonstrate against the Yar’Adua cabal that did everything possible to prevent him from acting as President during the incapacitation of our former President. I had voluntarily queued behind some young Nigerians who marched confidently towards the National Assembly in Abuja. No one paid me before or after. And I will do it again, whether the person affected is from the North or South of Nigeria, or even a Nigerian of Mongolian descent. I believe we must rise above this pettiness of ethnic jingoism. My participation was, and would always be, on principle.

Dr Jonathan was the Vice President at that time, but I did not hear him or his cronies speak against the rallies that were organised by the Save Nigeria Group and the Enough-is-Enough crowd. I did not see soldiers and police officers shoot guns into the skies or fire tear-gas on eminent Nigerians. We were so sure those crude days of high-handedness were gone. As a matter of fact, Dr Jonathan rolled out the red carpet to activists like Professor Wole Soyinka and Pastor Tunde Bakare. I did not hear him call the demonstrators such odoriferous names like miscreants that my dear Sister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, chose to label us recently. It was cool then to risk our lives for a man we did not know bore any iota of dictatorial instincts. Even some Federal Government officials came out publicly to address the huge crowd made up of some Lagos celebrities. How easy it was to fool us into thinking a civilised government was about to be born in Nigeria.

For a man who claims to have suffered so much in life, and for someone who didn’t have to lift a finger to occupy the highest office in our country, we expected to see a President full of gratitude to man and God. We had hoped to have a radical President who would use his exalted position to correct the ills of our nation and heal our wounds. Again we were fooled. It is ok to be fooled once but when you are fooled a second time, you are a fool indeed. Our President wasted no time in showing that it was going to be business as usual. When asked if he would contest the Presidential election, his first body language was that of a disinterested person. As days climbed days and months mounted months, it was obvious the man was more than interested. He actually craved the high office, and very desperately for that matter.

President Jonathan dived into the Presidential race like a poor swimmer. His decision would soon split his political party down the line. It endangered our unity and divided us into North and South, because of an unproductive zoning formula that had been enshrined in their PDP Constitution by the godfathers, in order to perpetually rotate our commonwealth amongst themselves. The zoning arrangement was never about attracting development to the geo-political communities. It was all about wanton greed and unbridled selfishness. But that battle for the body and soul of Nigeria would be very costly. According to facts emerging from the sources, President Jonathan, figuratively, opened the vaults of our Central Bank to fund what has been described as the most expensive Presidential primary in the world. It was not a clash of the titans but now a clash of Dollars. Our politicians are no longer interested in Ghana-must-go bags.

If the money spent to win that war was atrocious enough, the amount spent to restore peace to the party was sinful. And it did not end there. Jonathan was fighting a battle of his life on all fronts. He had the most ubiquitous Presidential candidate, General Mohammadu Buhari, to contend with. It was Buhari’s third and, possibly, last attempt. And it was going to be a battle royale. Again, President Jonathan blew money as if it was going out of vogue. Fortunately for him, Nigeria was never a country where people worried about such prodigality. Many people trooped out to try and catch their own manna from heaven. In that season of giddiness, Jonathan became the quintessential Santa Claus. Everywhere he went, he made unusual promises that would be impossible to achieve in several lifetimes rolled into one, and it was incredible how otherwise intelligent people fell for those old tricks of politics.

The elections came and some of the results were predictable. The stage was well set for the coronation of the biggest spender in Nigeria’s chequered history. I did not waste time in accepting defeat. And even went on to offer my congratulations. I was deeply encouraged by examples from Ghana where President John Agyekum Kufuor contested three times before victory smiled at him. The incumbent President of Ghana, Professor John Evans Atta-Mills, also suffered the same ordeal three times before he eventually won the race. The story of America’s Abraham Lincoln was all too familiar.

It takes time to convince a nation of substantial doubters about the seriousness of any mission. When I came to live in Lagos in 1988, Chief Moshood Abiola was one of the most abused human beings in Nigeria. He was called names his parents did not give him by political opponents. He was even told, sarcastically, that the Presidency was not for sale. But the brilliant, and extremely generous man, must have been a good footballer. He knew that to score a penalty, you had to keep your focus totally on the ball and the net and not the crowd.

For me, the fact that I went all the way and did not blink was a great achievement. No one would ever doubt my good intentions and qualifications. I saw what the uninitiated would never see. I gained a wealth of experience, and a better knowledge of my country. So I had no reason to begrudge Jonathan. There is always the hand of fate in human journey. There would have been no Olusegun Obasanjo without Murtala Mohammed. There would have been no second coming of Olusegun Obasanjo without Moshood Abiola. There would have been no Umaru Musa Yar’Adua without his elder brother, Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and Olusegun Obasanjo. There would have been no Goodluck Jonathan but for Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

Barely 48 hours ago, no one would have dreamt that five Governors would soon fall from grace to grass. Such is the way of God. There is always a reason for every situation. Who knows if God raised up Jonathan to keep Nigeria as one or to break it up. It took a Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev to change the history and configuration of the Soviet Union. Our own President Jonathan loves to call himself a transformer. Either for good or for bad, a transformation must lead us somewhere. Any discerning mind can see that Nigeria is headed in a direction I’m sure Jonathan himself did not contemplate. I had no doubts in my mind when such a man broke all of Nigeria’s political records in one fell swoop that God was up to something again. The ground was being prepared for our next leap into the orbit.         

Anyone who has followed the stories of my life would attest to the fact that I have been in the struggle since the Ali-must-go days in 1978. I love my country with an uncommon passion. While I may not wear the looks of a typical radical, I have always been ruled by my conscience. It would have been easier to use my contacts to my personal advantage but I’m reasonably convinced that that alone would never guarantee my happiness. I have always chosen to speak on behalf of the voiceless. A true radical, according to Abiola, was a man who was ready to put his personal comfort at risk. The Soyinkas, Fawehinmis, Agbakobas, Falanas, Shehu Sanis, Joe Odumakins, and others have friends in high places but this did not stop them from speaking the truth. Our duty as citizens of Nigeria is to seek good governance and competent leadership.

A critic is not an enemy but a friend who keeps a smart leader in check. If the leader succeeds, all the glory would go to no one but the leader. How can those asking you to do the right things become your enemy? What I expect President Jonathan to do is to first transform his person before he can transform Nigeria. And I will give him a few tips, free of charge.

He must be ready to radically change the way government is run in Abuja. It starts from cutting our budget drastically. He must slash all salaries and allowances of public officers by at least 50 percent after a meeting with political leaders. He must stop all frivolous contracts and concentrate on revamping our disgraceful infrastructure. The Presidential fleet of aircrafts should not be expanded beyond what it is at the moment. Our Air Force needs all the money it can get to become the pride of our nation. It is the same with our Navy. Our armed forces in general parade very bright officers but are handicapped by lack of modern facilities and incentives. Our ragtag police are begging for serious attention.

The Presidential villa need not be a Saudi palace. It should be a place where we assemble our best brains to think through our complex problems. All foreign travels must be kept to the most essential ones as determined by the Foreign Ministry. The biggest task before our President is how to cut waste and increase revenue at all levels. I have had the great privilege of working in poorer African countries and can see how they are managing their poverty well. Why can’t we manage our own wealth to the benefit of our citizens? The President would do well to stop being a ceremonial leader. Let him jump in his jeans and shirt and go on the streets, and in the woods, to see reality first hand. He can study the life of Chairman Mao of China and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. The PDP way of doing things will never lead Nigeria to greatness. The road to greatness is always littered with thorns and pains. The jamboree in government must stop.

It is shameful that we are spending trillions of Naira every year without any visible progress. Nigerian politicians have no respect for money. We call figures that most calculators would find difficult to unravel. And yet we have nothing to show for it. That is the reason the anger of the people is turning violent. That is why the army of unemployed youths would find comfort in sleeping at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park endlessly. It is the only hope they can see. And government must protect their rights too. The recent crisis has thrown up fresh challenges, that if President Jonathan must succeed, and survive in power, he needs more than luck. He would have to demonstrate that the people of Nigeria would never be taken for granted again.

The grammar and vocabulary of “fuel subsidy removal”

Written by Farooq Kperogi.

inSha

Epochal changes in society can, and often do, inspire new fashionable vocabularies and expressive styles. The social turbulence that the sudden increase in the pump price of petrol stirred in Nigeria activated many hitherto passive vocabularies and brought to the surface many distinctive usage patterns in Nigerian English. I chronicle a few of them below.

1. “Subsidy.” Perhaps the biggest linguistic gain of the petrol price hike embroilment of the last few weeks is the promotion of the term “subsidy” to the front burner of the linguistic consciousness of Nigerians of all social classes. Before now, “subsidy” was a passive terminology that was used only by the highly educated stratum of the Nigerian society. Now almost every Nigerian knows what it means.

A clear marker of the integration of this otherwise “big,” formal word into the everyday speech of Nigerians is its continuously creative vernacularization and humorous contortions.  For example, a protester in Kano inscribed the following words on the back of his T-shirt: “Subsidy is my soul.” This simple yet pithy catchphrase captures the depth of the helplessness and angst of the Nigerian masses in the face of government’s overt economic hostilities against them. Similarly, because the angry protests that accompanied government’s action led to many deaths in such cities as Ilorin, Lagos, and Kano, Nigerians coined the term “subsidie” to capture the slaughterous character of the moment.

Interestingly, when the word “subsidy” first entered the vocabulary of the English language from about 1100 to 1450 by way of Norman French (the language of the French men who conquered England in 1066 in the Battle of Hastings and colonized it for over 300 years), it was spelled as “subsidie,” according to the Oxford Dictionary of English.  The word is derived from the Latin “subsidium,” which literally means “assistance.”

Music of lamentation and anger over the misery that the petrol price increase has visited on ordinary Nigerians is now called “subsidy blues.” YouTube is suffused with scores of “subsidy blues” from upstart Lagos musicians.

“Subsidy” has even made inroads into the lexis and style of Nigeria’s native languages. There was, for instance, a popular social media joke during the protests that said a Yoruba couple had a son during the petrol price hike crisis and decided to name him “Subsideen” to mark the circumstances of his birth. This is obviously a play on such names asMuyideen, Sharafadeen, Shamsudeen, etc., which Yoruba Muslims have a particular fondness for. The female version of Subsideen is “Subsidat,” also a play on such popular female Muslim names as Rashidat, Muyibat, Habibat, etc.

There is another joke about an Igbo man whose wife gave birth to a son during the “subsidy crisis” and who chose to name the son “Chibusubsidim,” which stands for “God is my subsidy.”Other Engligbo ( i.e., English with Igbo inflections) “subsidized names” (as oneNigerian blogger creatively called it) are Chukwubusubsidim (a male name, which also means “God is my subsidy”);Nkechisubsidilanyi( a female name that translates as“one that God has subsidized for us”); Chinwesubsidi (a female name that translates as “God owns all subsidies”); Subsidibuifeoma (a female name that translates as “subsidy is good”); Chukwuemekasubsidi ( a male name that translates as “Thank you Lord for the subsidy”); Chinasubsidisikasi ( a unisex name that stands for “God is the ultimate subsidizer”); Chukwukasubsidi ( a unisex name that means “God is mightier than subsidy”); Nkesubsidinye (Engligbo for “born as a result of subsidy”); and Ikesubsidi  (a male name that means “the power of subsidy”).

All these names are creatively humorous lexical and semantic contortions of such popular Igbo names as Chibuzo, Chukwuemeka, Ifeoma, Nkechi, Chinwezu, etc.

The Ibibio version of the “subsidy” jokes said a child born in Akwa Ibom State during the petrol subsidy removal crisis was named “Subsi-obong.”Another was namedSubsi-abasi. Obong means chief or king in Ibibio.Abassi means God. It was also said that during the mass protests the commonest form of greeting in the Yoruba states of Lagos, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, and Ondo was“ekusubsidi” in mimicry of such formulaic Yoruba greetings as “ekuise” (for someone who is working), “ekufaji” (for people involved in a conversation), etc.

2. “Fuel.” For some reason, the word “petrol” seems to be receding from the active idiolect of Nigerians. It is being replaced with “fuel”—in more ways than has ever been the case before. In both American and British English, fuel is not synonymous with petrol. Among its many meanings, fuel is the umbrella term for all substances that produce energy such as coal, petrol (which Americans call gasoline or gas for short), kerosene, diesel, etc. So, technically, government didn’t remove subsidy on fuel; it only removed subsidy on petrol.

But I have come to accept “fuel” as Nigerian English’s synonymous term for petrol or gasoline. When I write for a Nigerian audience, I too habitually—and intentionally— interchange the two terms. Curiously, in their coverage of the Occupy Nigeria protests, even the American and British news media appeared to have accepted the Nigerian usage of “fuel,” at least in their headlines. This is perhaps because they assumed that the price hike also involved products like kerosene and diesel.

3. “Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).” When Nigerian newspapers don’t call petrol “fuel,” they call it “premium motor spirit.” No other variety of English in the world calls petrol by that name. None of my American friends, for instance, had the slightest hint what the term meant when I asked them if they ever encountered it. So I concluded that it probably came to Nigerian (media) English by way of British English.

It turns out that the term has no currency even in British English. My research showed that from the late 1800s up to the late 1930s, business rivals of Carless, Capel & Leonard (now renamed Petrochem Carless Ltd), one of Britain’s first oil companies (which also invented the term “petrol”) chose to differentiate their product by calling it “motor spirit.” But when “petrol” became a generic term by the 1930s “motor spirit” went out of circulation. It’s amazing that our journalists still use this long-dead British archaism in their reportage.

4. “Cabals.” This became a part of the active idiolect of Nigerians during the dying days of the Umar Musa Yar’adua administration when a renegade group within the administration alleged that the president had been held hostage by a “cabal.” Now Nigerians talk of the “oil cabals” that is reputedly the beneficiary of government’s multi-billion-dollaroil subsidy payments. This is all creative, except that cabal can’t be pluralized when we are talking about just one conspiratorial clique of power and influence peddlers in the oil industry. The plural form of cabal is legitimate only when we are talking about different cabals, such as the Yar’adua cabal, the Jonathan cabal, and the oil industry cabal.

5. “Palliative.”Nigerian government officials have said repeatedly that they would put in place “palliative measures” to help working-class Nigerians cope with the dramatic increase in the cost of living that has attended the sharp increase in the pump price of petrol. But a palliative, properly conceived, only temporarily relieves pains without curing the cause of the pain. That means government will only relieve the grief it afflicted on the people in the short run and thereafter leave the people to wallow in their agony and distress forever. It is obvious that this is not what the government wants to be understood as saying, although that is indeed what they have in mind. Here is a classic case of incompetent grasp of grammar betraying the real motives of people in power.

Opening Pandora’s Box

 FATIMA AKILU

Things will never be the same. It is official: Pandora is out of the box and cannot be placed back in. She has now grown too big for her old home. In a clumsy attempt to generate more revenue for its insatiable coffers, the government has allowed its citizens to glimpse under its skirt and the vision is not pretty. The greatest entertainment is currently being provided free of charge courtesy of the government.

From our armchair we are beginning to decipher the many truths and lies behind what is now universally thought of as one of the country’s worst-timed and implemented policy. The weekly soap opera provided by the newly awakened House of Representatives has lain bare what people have suspected for a long time – namely that Nigeria in the hands of a few different citizens would have been the envy of the world.

Our consciousness as citizens has been pricked; we are now spending our days crunching numbers and wondering aloud how a country can allocate huge amounts of money with such carelessness. It is obvious that budgets are seldom tied to development plans, while it seems chief executives have an inordinate amount of power when it comes to allocating how funds should be directed. It is also becoming clearer that the needs of the citizens are not uppermost in the minds of our chief executives when it comes to deciding how our national cake is shared.

The government’s nakedness has not been a pretty sight. We now know that it is fat and bloated, disease-ridden and full of black scars. We have also seen that a lot of the pillars holding it up are too far gone and not fit for service. For years they have fed on the fat of the land, handed to them on a platter by the people whom they have treated with nothing but contempt. Now that we know that the emperor has no clothes, the psychological advantage they held over us is no more. We can look them in their naked eye and dare them. We know now that we have the power collectively to make them blink. 

We are at the point of separation – a parting of ways between the governing and the governed. Is divorce then the next step? They should be afraid, very afraid. All the key elements for a permanent separation are there: contempt, lack of trust, disrespect and deep-rooted anger. While it is true that the present administration inherited a lot of the problems that has brought us to this sorry state of affairs, it had an opportunity to reverse the trend. It did not but seemly carries on with the same decrepit template perfected by its predecessors.  We are beginning to scrutinise the 2012 Budget, a budget conceived before the separation. And now we understand that they had intended to go on with business as usual.

For the past few years, the government has done almost nothing for its people. All jobs, even minor contracts that have in the past provided succour to the people, they have unilaterally split up between senior members of the executive and the legislature .Majority of companies getting jobs in Nigeria now belong to them.  Never mind that half of these jobs are never completed yet their companies collect monies in full. At their hands we have become perpetual losers.

Left to fend for ourselves, we have devised all sorts of ways to survive. Many have become traders or shop owners due to the virtual impossibility of making a living through other means. Others are investing time and energy in the fastest growing industry we have currently – that of crime.

Development is about vision, humility and a pride and commitment to changing the lives of as many as is possible. It begins but is not confined to leadership. It is about solid values that place humanity above oneself. It is about national pride, the feeling that you want your country and its citizens to be and to have the best in the world. It is about a confidence and a belief that you can guide that process by doing the right thing at every stage. In this case it could have started with the national budget; it should have been a people’s budget, one that would have put the needs of a hundred and sixty million Nigerians above that of five or ten million Nigerians.

But it did not. It was consumed with paying itself, thus, the consumption of 75 per cent of its allocation to servicing pay roll. While I am not of the view that public officeholders should go without pay, I also hold that a government that is determined to do the right thing would have used a more creative approach to cut it many frivolous gluttonous expenses, not  budgeted only to serve itself but  channelled such funds to its neediest.

A government that cares would not allot its first priority to its personal comfort but would have first ensured that its people are taken care of first.

It is becoming clearer that money or the uneven allocation of resources is the root cause of our many different strands of terrorism. The Niger Delta boys were silent when they were paid, and the Boko Haram group has made claims that they had been paid monthly by some governors. They are simple agitated when this payment ceased.

Many of the unemployed had come to view this payment both in the Niger Delta and some northern states as social welfare. Without jobs and means to earn a living humans still have to survive. That’s why some countries provide social welfare to the unemployed.

What Nigerians need overwhelmingly is not to be paid to keep the peace but a means to earn a living. We want budgets to be primarily about job creation so that our children can live in hope and dignity. Without that there is no peace, and that is why the citizens are on the brink of divorce from their government.

As anyone who has travelled on this road knows, divorce is nasty. With its many victims and collateral damages some never recover and most will remain tainted. Nigerians are really not ready for a divorce but with Pandora firmly out of the box, the government must woo us all over again. They must begin to regain our trust, and it has to start with ensuring that the 2012 budget is a people’s budget reflective of our wishes.

Communication has broken down in this marriage because of years the government has ceased to listen to us. They must come back to the table with their mediators and begin to listen to us. The poisonous friends that have led government down this road must be shed. This is a time to reconcile. If handled carefully, this marriage will emerge stronger than ever.

God save our crumbling giant.

Why I’m still close to Obasanjo-Bishop Kukah

Written by Rakiya A.Muhammad and Abdulfatai Abdulsalami, Sokoto. 

Foremost nationalist and Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Dr Matthew Hassan Kukah, speaking in this interview on why and how those in government should earn the trust of the people, also dwells on why he remains a close friend of former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, among other issues. Excerpts:

It’s four months now since you became Bishop of Sokoto Catholic Diocese. How is the challenge of being Bishop different from that of being Father?

Sokoto is very quiet, very peaceful and very warm; warm in terms of the way one has been received. It has been extremely encouraging. I have also been amazed at different delegations, people taking the trouble to personally come and pay respects.

But how is the experience of being a bishop different from a Reverend father.

It’s just like you are a member of a football team and may be suddenly you become the captain. You have to try and develop a vision, but I am not unaware that despite being the bishop, I am still the newest person. Everybody else knows Sokoto better than me.  My main interest now is first of all to explore what the challenges are together with my priests and sisters. I have had series of meetings with the various groups within the Catholic Church. I have also had meetings with members of the Christian community. Frankly, I find it not so much of a challenge; it’s been a very good experience to me.

What efforts have you made to cement the relationship between Christians and Muslims in the North-West?

I really don’t like using the words Christians and Muslims. I came to do a job, principally to be a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I happen to be in a place called Sokoto and I consider myself a witness to these people irrespective of what their beliefs may be. The reception I have received has been extra-ordinarily warm. I have covered the four states that make up this diocese: Kebbi, Zamfara, Katsina and Sokoto. Each of these states that I visited, I met the state governors. Where they weren’t available I met with the deputy governors. The reception, as I said, was extraordinarily warm.

Why is the condition of Nigeria getting worse in spite of our prayers? Asian countries that don’t engage in so much religious activities have better economies. How do you explain this?

That question should be the subject of a book, seriously. The reason why we are praying so much is not because we love God. The reason is that there is nobody, nothing else to cover our nakedness and our want. It is like living in an orphanage and, for me, to locate the superfluous expression of Christianity   by our people, you have to connect it to the total failure of government to deal with very basic issues, which we are now conscripting God to do on our behalf and on behalf of government.  As I often say rather jokingly, if you set out from one end of Nigeria to another, you don’t know whether you will have a safe journey. You are afraid of armed robbers, you are afraid of checkpoints, you are afraid of bad roads, the cloud of fear that drives you is what produces that obsession with relying on God for you to arrive safely. So when you get from one point to another the first thing you say is thank God I have arrived safely. You cannot say this is how to get a job in Nigeria.  You cannot say this is how to pass examination in Nigeria. You enter into the university now and you cannot rely on your intellectual capacity to graduate.  The lawlessness in our society is what produces so much prayer. But true service to God enables you to be honest, to be sincere, to be transparent.   But we have a society that is obsessed with theft; stealing is a god that is prevalent in the bureaucracy. Bureaucrats are praying that they would be posted to a place they will steal money very quickly. You are now listening to politicians crediting their electoral success to a particular spiritual man of God. We don’t know whether politicians win elections because INEC has done a good job; we don’t know whether politicians win elections because we have voted for them or maybe some witchdoctor or some spiritual man has already announced that they are going to win election. The man who is stealing election is trusting God that he would steal the election successfully; the man who has lost election is trusting God to restore his mandate. This is a society that is bereft of any intellectual input in policy. That is why criminality, armed robbery, banditry, and theft are sitting side by side with churches and mosques. Being a Muslim is not just about going to the mosque, being a Christian is not just about going to church and this is why I continue to worry that we are one of the most corrupt countries, yet one of the most church-going and mosque-going communities.

Are you saying the situation is helpless or how do we get out of it?

It is not a helpless situation but time is not on our side. People are getting increasingly very angry and feeling very frustrated. Government doesn’t command the kind of loyalty and respect that it ought to command. Ordinary citizens don’t trust government. I think government should win the trust and confidence of ordinary people.

After the elections in April, Southern Kaduna became engulfed in violence. What are your thoughts on this matter?

Violence in Nigeria is like a sick man. One moment, there is a boil in your ear, another day there is a boil in your mouth, there is a boil in your armpit, on your toe. Violence defies geography and this is why it is so worrying. Otherwise very peaceful communities are now exploding left, right and centre. There are clouds of grievances hovering around the entire country. These grievances are based on different perceived notions. The grievances have got a lot to do with historical perception of relationship even with communities and that is why I always worry that we continue to frame this thing as if we have problems between Muslims and Christians. A lot of the problems you  have in  many parts of southern  Kaduna are purely and simply  the questions  of law and order.  It is about regulating the behavior of particular institutions. For example, a very critical question arises: how are we going to deal with the problem of pastoralists and the relationship between them and farmers? It has always been a cat and mouse relationship. When I was growing up in my little village, I knew my father had a reputation with a lot of these Fulani people because every farmer would rejoice at the thought of Fulani people passing with their cattle and deciding to settle on their farm. I mean this is what I grew up with. If you don’t have a country in which the rule of law is the driving force, people are going to do as they like.  Let me go back to where I am most familiar with. My younger one is the chief in my village. I wasn’t at home, but I read in the New Nigerian of an initiative which I thought was wonderful. In our locality, we have four different ethnic groups: Hausa, Fulani, Baju and Kulu, but we have had a problem with the Baju people, which goes back to the last six or seven years. The young man had the diligence to approach the Baju people, although we are no longer fighting. It was something that happened many years ago, but he still felt it was necessary to deal with the issues of trust. There were series of meetings they had with the community, with their chief and so on. Then subsequently they now had a meeting with the Hausa, then had a meeting with the Fulani, and then finally they decided to bring all the different groups together on the 10th of December. They brought everybody together made up of all these ethnic groups. People sat together; let’s put this behind us.  My argument is that the government will try its best, but reconciliation would never come as an external agency. People have to sit down and heal issues. With government, committees are set up, commissions are set up, nobody knows what government is going to do because government occasionally gets stuck. Those of us from outside always say we want the government to release the report or to act on it. But sometimes, it may not be politically convenient. In my view, government should support local initiatives that communities embark on.

Government must quickly get its hands around the problem before violence becomes an industry because once it becomes an industry and people invest in it you are going to have a problem but the irony will be that the more it festers, the more people who are benefitting from it directly or indirectly take advantage of the situation and then you just find the system spiraling and spiraling and spiraling. I  mean people who produce arms would have nothing to do with their arms  if there are no wars that are fought. It is not about how much money you want to spend buying equipment, it’s about how much gari we are going to put in the stomachs of our people because that is the greatest shield against violence. If you are not able to feed your people, you are not able to accommodate the people and guarantee them the basic things of life, you are going to continue to have a system of violence.

You worked closely with President Olusegun Obasanjo. Why do you think Obasanjo didn’t totally remove fuel subsidy?

I didn’t work with Obasanjo. I have never worked for anybody, any government. I have had specific assignments. I have had relationship with everybody but in the case of Obasanjo I had a relationship with him during my work with Oputa Panel and Ogoni. Also, I worked with late President Umaru Yar’Adua because I served at the Electoral Reform Committee. I have worked with President Goodluck Jonathan because we continued the work with Ogonis  up till when we  handed in our report. To come back to your question, the fuel subsidy issue is a conversation that went wrong. It is not about economics in my view, it is again about trust. Let me answer your question very briefly and tell you what I have always thought. If I were the president of Nigeria and I see that there is great potential of taking money from this area, the first thing is to appreciate that ordinary citizens everywhere in the world don’t trust politicians, don’t like politicians; they consider politicians an evil that they have to deal with. This is the truth and they should therefore appreciate that politics is to face being misunderstood. Therefore the least a politician can do is to try and earn the trust of his people. Now, given the way this election went and given the issues that are still on, given that ordinary citizens know that this process just like other processes have been driven by corruption, why do you think that you can convince a Nigerian that you take a few hundred billion naira or dollars and place here and turn your back and imagine that you will come back and find your yams there? We are used to the fact that whatever a Nigerian politician finds, he would consume. That is the psychological feeling that ordinary Nigerians have. Therefore it is wrong to assume that you will simply tell Nigerians that we are going to save this money for you and that we would take care of you. No, because we are used to not being taken care of. I would have said for example when Obasanjo left we were told that the issue of the railway for example, we were supposed to have a railway line running from Lagos to kano in 50 months, which means that by 2010 we ought to have been running it but just like everything else, when Obasanjo left, the crooks in the system who had lost out in the contract started blackmailing everybody. Then poor YarAdua cancelled the contract. It took us more than one year and then these guys re-organized themselves and came back and said okay the contract has been divided into I think three or four, in keeping with where the teeming elite are located and they now called it stand alone project from Lagos to Ibadan to Jebba and Minna and Kano has been divided and distributed but we do not know when the railways will be completed. If I were the president of Nigeria, I would have called a meeting of the people dealing with the railways, and say to them: how long do we still have to complete the rails from Lagos to Kano? If they give me six months I will tell them please can we make it two months? What do we require to complete this job? If they told me what is required to complete the job, I will be more than happy to give them the job. Meanwhile I keep mum. The first textrunning of that train, I will be on that train  from Lagos to Kano and as soon as we arrive Kano, I will stand up and address Nigerians and say to them, do you know what, you see this train, this is just the beginning of great things, because if we can find the money, you will go from Kano to Maiduguri, from Maiduguri to Yola, from Yola to Uyo, from Uyo to Port Harcourt. We will criss-cross this country with railway lines but I need the money. Nigerians would say please tell us, what do you want us to do? Ordinary Nigerians would have forgotten completely about all the stealing and looting and we could now say that President Jonathan we are sure that we can trust you, take everything that you require to do the job; but for now we have seen nothing. We are supposed to hold on to the straws that are flying in the wind and just hope that when this money is saved it is going to be judiciously used for our good.  Nigerians are saying we didn’t trust you yesterday, we are not about to trust you today, till you earn our trust.

So, you don’t know why Obasanjo didn’t totally remove the subsidy?

I think Obasanjo was probably not unaware of the social consequences of the decision when a lot of other things were not yet in place and like I said it is only right because where we are now, the government has put the cart before the horse.  It is now struggling to say this is what we meant to do and like I said to a senior government official you should learn a lesson from Lamido Sanusi and Islamic banking debate. I didn’t know that Islamic banking was what ordinary Nigerians thought it to be. I thought that non-interest banking was actually something that we needed to explore but unfortunately that project was shut down not because of anything but because there is also something to be said for timing. I am convinced that president Goodluck Jonathan has all the best of intentions, I think he genuinely means well but as this problem stands now, it is definitely not the way to go.

You said recently that removing fuel subsidy is worse than the effects of Boko Haram violence. Can you explain this comparison clearly, sir?

Frankly, I was talking of it from the point of view of the instability it will trigger. We are now at a point in which you need all the support that we can get. What we are looking for  is how to build trust and I have always argued that Boko Haram is just an aggregate of all levels of frustrations by ordinary Nigerians. It is just that in their own case, they are bold enough to kill themselves, maybe there are a lot of other people who feel resentful about a lot of things and my argument is that I think the government should not offer these people such a wonderful opportunity to create the kind of instability that we do not need. On this issue the timing is wrong, it is not that people don’t know what the issues are. People don’t need to be persuaded, we should be asking ourselves how did we get to this point in which our people don’t trust us? If the last time someone went to the hospital something happened, they left scissors in somebody‘s stomach, they now decided as a result I am not going to the hospital; showing up and promising this person that things would change is not good enough. Maybe Nigerians are wrong but this is the perception and our perception has empirical justification. We are used to our common will being squandered. You are reading the papers about how much Nigerians are buying up Dubai, how much Nigerians are buying up the beach heads of Ghana, about how much Nigerians are investing in Gambia, about what Nigerians are spending in South Africa. Does it make sense for goodness sake that here in Nigeria, we don’t have a record of a public officer being yanked off from the line and facing trial. We don’t have a record of a public officer who is serving a prison term because of what he/she has stolen. Look at what has happened in Uganda, look at what has happened in America. Every day when you open a newspaper from China to Japan to America to everywhere, look at the case of a young man who lost his job in Britain just the other day. What was the reason? He organized a party and people were dressed somehow. Everywhere in the world, public officers have a minimum code of conduct of what is acceptable or not acceptable.  It is only in Nigeria that we don’t have a single code of conduct.

You have actively participated in major government conferences on the review of Nigeria’s constitution. What is your take on the 7-year single tenure dream of President Jonathan?

The president was just expressing a point of view. If a president wants new term of office, he would draft a bill and send it to the National Assembly. I have spoken with some of the president’s handlers that I know and they said there isn’t a bill. I have asked journalists whether anybody has seen a bill; they say they haven’t seen a bill. So, what are we talking about? It is a question whether the president has right as an individual  to express a point of view but of course it probably means if you are a president you probably do not have a point of view because you may be misconstrued but again like every other thing in Nigeria, I don’t think it’s about tenure, it is not about how long one wants to stay in power, for there are a lot of very fundamental questions relating to how people enter and get out of power and how we can make politics less of a criminal enterprise and more of an institution that people can come in and come out and how we can build a political system that really goes back to some of the principles of  building a good society. I feel like saying perhaps we should bring our politicians back to the classroom  just to let them understand that the essence of politics is how you build a good society. That is why I am saying trust is very important. You can be the most generous person in the world, you can be the most committed patriot in the world but if people don’t trust you, if your own children don’t trust you, I think it is not how much you are paying their school fees, if your children don’t trust you and you still insist in sending them to the best schools something will give somewhere.  If  I were the president of Nigeria one of the things I would try and say is okay since I am getting into this problem that I know we are never trusted how are we going to do? Let me give you an example: I was telling my priest yesterday. I said look, as a priest, I was one of you just up till four months ago and I know that as a priest we always assume that the bishop has all the money in the world, all the money in the  diocese so I want a new car. If bishop doesn’t buy it, it’s because he just doesn’t want to. This is how I used to feel. Now I am a bishop only for three, four months, I now have to ask myself, how am I going to earn your trust? So, I said okay, what we are going to do is when next we have a meeting, I will pull out all the records, everything that we have. Let everybody see. Once you have seen everything that we have, then we can start. Maybe we have more money than you ever dreamt of, maybe we don’t have as much as you dreamt of. Perception is very important. If you become a local government chairman in Nigeria today, you will know yourself that people are saying we local government chairmen are only just distributing money.

How can this perception change?

That’s what I am saying; if I become a local government chairman today or a governor or a president, one of the questions I would ask is how do I earn the trust of my people? Frankly, a president doesn’t even have to have the capacity to answer that question but this is what advisers, people who have been there before will tell you about what to do and how to do it. Earning trust doesn’t necessarily mean people like you, no. That is not the point. In fact, sometimes  the most hated public officer with time turns out to be the people that have done the best for their country. It’s like a child growing up especially now that the whether is very cold. Very few children love their mothers to be woken up at 5.30 in the morning and told to have a bath to start getting ready to go to school. Children cry their way to school. It’s going to take them another 20 years before they look back with gratitude. In the same way, I am convinced that earning trust is not the same as being liked. No sensible leader would want people to just love them. The less you perform perhaps the more likely people are going to love you. If you are going around distributing public funds to people, they may actually like you but it also means that you are writing your signature on water. Because no sooner do you stop distributing the money than your memory goes. That is why the key word is trust.

Is Nigeria’s problem spiritual or manmade?

Nigeria’s problems are not spiritual. What is spiritual about pressing a switch and seeing light? It’s science. What is spiritual about entering a train and going from point A to point B? It’s science. Our problem is incompetence and the only way we can look at the future is to look back to science. I mean religion would remain very important in our lives but that is not where we should be looking at in terms of solution to many of our problems.

You’re a great friend of Obasanjo. What is behind this relationship, because he’s one man Nigerians take pleasure in vilifying?

Obasanjo is a good friend. He came for my installation and I really appreciate that but frankly let me tell you I have been to school, I consider myself an educated Nigerian and I try to deal with human beings as I see them and the best answer I can give you is what late Stella Obasanjo said when she was asked about her husband. Stella said, do you want to rate him as a president, or as a husband? They said okay rate him as a president. She said as the president of Nigeria, I would score him about 80% because whatever he is doing I know how much sacrifice he is making to raise this country. As a father I would score him, I think she said about 40 or 50%, as a husband I think she scored him 25%, so really if you ask my relationship with Obasanjo actually; I tell the story in my book, perhaps one of the things that has brought us together is  our own passion for this country and I believe that whatever it is you may say about him, one thing you can’t take away from him is his deep love for this country. He made mistakes like everybody else but those who are fighting Obasanjo are fighting him for their own reason. Those reasons relate to business, they relate to ambition, they relate to power, they relate to contracts, they relate to all kinds of things. When I spoke at the American University, I said to Atiku, he is my friend and Obasanjo is also my friend but as a priest I believe that it  is actually the best that I can do. I cannot refuse to talk to you because somebody had told me that you are a thief. I am in the business of reconciliation and the good thing about my relationship with Obasanjo is nothing has connected me with him relating to  contract, privilege, opportunities  because these are the things that spoil relationships and many people who wanted contract or wanted different things and had problems with Obasanjo expect me to inherit that problem. I have no problem with the man. As I said we have a perception about where this country ought to be. But I would mention it to you, there are one or two things that Obasanjo  did for which I would not forget him in a hurry. I come from Kaduna State. Before Obasanjo became president, from when Kaduna state was created not a single person, not one from Southern Kaduna had ever been appointed an ambassador, a federal permanent secretary, or a minister to represent Kaduna State; not one. It was when Obasanjo became president that Senator Isaiah Balat became the first person from Southern Kaduna to be appointed a minister. He is not the first person to be a graduate. By the time Obasanjo left, about four or so different people have been appointed ministers, including Mrs Nenadi Usman. By the time Obasanjo left Martin Agwai was the chief of Army staff, he then became Chief of General staff, followed by General Lukah. When we had reception for Agwai, I was there. Obasanjo was there. I got there after he had left but I called him later on because he went from there to go and greet my late friend’s widow in her village and I called to thank him but  he said nobody should thank me because the people I appointed were the best that were available  at the time.