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Buhari,Regionalism......

Thursday, June 16, 2011.

By Uchenna Osigwe    The presidential election held in Nigeria on the 16th of April 2011 has come and gone but the dust raised by that election is yet to settle. Even as we wait for it to settle, or, more likely, for more dust to be raised, we can now look back at what happened before, during and immediately after the election in a more detached way in order to see the role that regionalism, ethnicity, religion and politics played in that election and its aftermath.  My question is this: Is it possible for the supporters of Jonathan and Buhari to look beyond regionalism, ethnicity, religion and politics and look more dispassionately at what those two figures represent for Nigeria? Jonathan represents the PDP. The party may call itself a democratic party, but there is nothing democratic about it. All the elections overturned in the country have been those ‘won’ by the party. Each time after rigging elections, they tell us that even if they didn’t rig, they would still have ‘won.’ That hackneyed argument involves too many fallacies the analyses of which will take us too far afield. So let me use an analogy to puncture it: It is like the student who cheats in exams and when caught, says that without the cheating s/he would still have passed. So, if you’re so sure of passing, why cheat in the first place? Except for a few exceptions, the PDP is made up of a bunch of leeches. Everyday we hear how they are stealing billions from the public purse, and this has been going on since their earlier incarnation as NPN. A close look at Jonathan’s budget shows that he has given more money to petroleum subsidies and import waivers than to critical areas like education, power and healthcare. They have simply cornered the country’s wealth and are sharing it among themselves. What the PDP is running looks like a kleptocracy, walks like a kleptocracy and quacks like a kleptocracy. Nigeria is among the highest consumers of private jets in the world, and this in a country with poor or no health care, poor or no education system, where amenities that poorer countries in the world take for granted are simply non-existent. The vision the party has for the country is a retrogressive vision. It has no clear cut principles but makes the rules as it goes. Like unscrupulous business people, all the members of the party look for are opportunities to fill their pockets at the expense of the hapless masses. Nobody represents this opportunism more than Jonathan. To start with, as a PDP member, their constitution stated that the presidency, as well as other offices should rotate around the different zones in the country. He signed on to that. So why didn’t Jonathan respect the constitution of his party? Would there have been post electoral violence if that zoning was respected? Can we ever take Jonathan on his word? During the campaign he stated repeatedly that he would not serve beyond 2015. But even before his inauguration, he let it be known that a four year-term is too short for a ‘performing president,’ (forgetting that by 2015 he would have been president for five years), even as he stated that his country needs an over bloated cabinet! He promised free and fair election, but we have credible allegations that his party wrote results that have nothing to do with the actual voting. I agree that the election was peaceful. But something can be peaceful and fraudulent. Think of 419! If the elections were free and fair, there was no way it would not have gone to a second round at the very least. PDP entered into a secret deal with some notable politicians in the south west in order to stop Buhari. Notice that the ACN says nothing anymore about the presidential election. The silence of their flag bearer is even more puzzling! Jonathan promised to fight corruption but there were credible stories that delegates to his party’s primary election were bribed in hard currency, and this was just after he shared the excess crude oil money among the governors allegedly to buy their support. We also know of a case where a bribe (in hard currency) was offered (as transport money) to the SNG group by Jonathan’s aides in Abuja! Pat Utomi accused Jonathan of spending hundreds of billions of public money in his campaign. Right now has not given up in its scheme to get a rubber stamp NASS. OBJ made the mistake of doing that in mid-stream. In the meantime the agents of the PDP planted in the CPC are doing their best to discredit their own party for daring to challenge Jonathan’s election! One of the first things Jonathan did as president was to round up some of the most retrogressive individuals in the country and give them national honours. One of them is Patricia Etteh, the disgraced former speaker of the lower house. His SGF has serious allegations of corruption surrounding him. His ministers may not be any different. Now with all these credibility problems surrounding Jonathan, many people still support him based solely on the fact that he is a Christian and a southerner, nothing more, nothing less. Indeed we have heard it said many times that it was God who ordained that he should be president at this time! Now compare a man whose brief public service has been trailed by allegations of corruption, some well documented, from the time he was governor to now that he is the president, with the man who has been in public service for much longer and has no credible allegation of corruption against him. Add to that the fact that the first has no known political philosophy, no vision to speak of. Compare that to the fact that the latter has shown what he is capable of doing with political power, and that it was largely for the good of his country, his vision having been put into action with very good results. Consider also the fact that allegations of election rigging have trailed the former, both personally and as a member of a well known election rigging party, while the latter has made no attempt whatsoever to rig elections. Add to that, finally, the fact that the former has been president almost as long as the latter has been president. The difference is clear, isn’t it? But if after all these you still want to claim that Buhari is not good enough to lead the country because he a Moslem or because he is from the north, then how do you escape the charge that you are a religious fanatic and an ethnic bigot? I’ve never hidden my admiration for Buhari, especially at this point in the history of our nation. But that makes the task I stated above a lot easier for me. I am neither a Moslem nor a northerner. So my support for Buhari is based solely on what he stands for. But let me quickly add that Buhari’s personality and the qualities that endear him to me and millions of other Nigerians have nothing to do with the accidental fact that he happens to be a Moslem and a northerner. He was neither the first northerner nor the first Moslem to lead Nigeria. But the difference between him and the rest is clear. Even Buhari’s worst enemies know what he stands for. They know that he is a man of integrity. They know he is incorruptible. And most importantly, they know that there will be zero tolerance for corruption (past and present) if he becomes president. He said he would like to know what happened to the 16 billion dollars spent in the last twelve years to give Nigerians more darkness. Jonathan can never say anything like that. Long before Sanusi Lamido Sanusi told a shocked nation that the country spends 25% of its budget on the members of the National Assembly as emoluments, Buhari had already called for a downward review of that jumbo pay. If Buhari were the president, the nation would not have spent billions for the inauguration of the president in a nation where children have no modern classrooms, where the basic amenities that poorer countries in Africa take for granted are lacking. So, when those powerful enemies of Buhari began to advance their straw man argument to paint him as a religious fanatic and an ethnic bigot, they knew exactly what they were doing: warding off a real danger to the protection of their past, present and future loot. And because they were very powerful, they were able to spread their propaganda, what with journalists who were all too willing to help in that unpatriotic mission. Even many reasonable people from the south fell for the subterfuge, especially after the violent bloodshed that followed the presidential election. But was Buhari responsible for that violence?  During the presidential campaign, Buhari was being blamed for the violence that was being instigated by the PDP wherever he went. Bombs were going off left, right and centre, and many people, including youth corpers, were killed in the bomb blasts. In Gombe state in particular, where the entourage of President Jonathan was stoned during a campaign, and their campaign headquarters his party was vandalized, the governor, Alhaji Danjuma Goje, was quick to blame Buhari’s supporters. Buhari even apologized, saying: ‘‘The governor has made this allegation against my supporters and I must say that we are not violent people but if the allegation has anything to do with any of those who received us, I tender apology for such and I want you to give my apology to the president.’’ Later, another PDP man, namely Alhaji Abubakar Muazu, accused the governor of lying about the incident in order to smear Buhari’s name. Muazu revealed that it was the governor who called Buhari and requested for a courtesy visit. It was a set up! Muazu continued: “The governor lied to the president on the issue of stoning and vandalism. The governor sent his thugs to the office to destroy and finish all the things left in the office.” Muazu also revealed the motive of the governor in planning the attacks: “The governor was only trying to give the impression that there was no security so that the president would give directive to the governor to arrest the CPC people in the state. The governor is doing it because he wants his sons-in-law contesting for the House of Representatives in Gombe Funakye and Kwami federal constituency and Dukku and Nafada federal constituency to have an easy election. He wanted to use the excuse of the attack to arrest the CPC candidates in those constituencies.” Muazu concluded that if the president had acted on that lie, Gombe would have been on fire. This is quite revealing when one considers what happened after the presidential elections in some parts of the north that literally went on fire. Is it possible that, as El Rufai, a PDP insider, stated in a recent interview, the attack on southerners was instigated by the PDP chieftains who bore the brunt of the attack in the first two days? What I know is that Buhari did not ask anyone to go to the streets, knowing that it could get out of hand. Indeed, he did the exact opposite: He asked his supporters to be law abiding as the party had decided to challenge the elections in the courts. In that statement, Buhari stated that those who were burning churches and mosques were not his supporters. Knowing that no one has been able to point out a lie this man ever told in his long years in public service, I am willing to presume him innocent until proven guilty. What many people miss about Buhari is that he is not all about fighting corruption. Here is a man with a bold vision for his country, whose word as good as his bond. The example is there for those who want to see. In his 18 months as president, he gave Nigerians a sense of belonging. Education received an attention that no other administration has given to it ever since. Nigerians began to see what it means to behave in a disciplined manner, what it means to live in a clean environment, what it means to have an economy that is worth the name, what it means to make things work. In short, what it means to lead by example. Buhari’s fight against corruption was only one aspect of his vision for the country he loves so much. Buhari, of course, is not a saint. He is often rigid in his principles. But even this weakness, if weakness it is, is what Nigerians need in a president at this point: a president who says what he does and does what he says. For Nigeria to claim its rightful place in the comity of nations, she needs a Buhari. It may not necessarily be this General Muhammad Yassim Yinusa Buhari. But it has to be somebody, man or woman, who has inculcated the values that make Buhari what he is. Give me that and I won’t care where such a president comes from, his or her religion, ethnic affiliation, or age.

April polls and INEC’s 35 percent voter turnout.

Ikechukwu Amaechi 08055069065, ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com 
 

I  had wanted to comment this week on the laughable, albeit, hypocritical lamentation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) apparatchik over the rebellion in the House of Representatives which consigned the party’s zoning formula where it rightly belongs – the dustbin of Nigeria’s political history. 

If any issue in recent times had highlighted the two-facedness that reigns supreme in the country’s political space, it is the zoning controversy. This is a policy that most people agree was, perhaps, the most altruistic that ever came out of the ruling party. Giving the primordial tendencies that fan the embers of the centrifugal forces pulling our disparate ethnic nationalities ever apart, it was one policy that could assuage the anxiety of the contending forces and minimise tension.

But the policy was sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Those who urged caution, including the former national chairman of the party, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, were called names and severely punished. Now, the chickens, to borrow a cliché, have come home to roost with the rebellion in the House of Representatives and PDP leaders, including the President are lamenting.

But that will be a topic for another day.

When I set out to write the two-part serial on the April elections titled, “In defence of Buhari,” I had no doubt whatsoever in my mind what the reaction of some Nigerians would be.

In a country where cringing hypocrisy had not only become an art, but also a booming industry, I knew the flaks would come from the vocal minority who claim to be the only patriotic Nigerians when their actions are informed by their insatiable quest for filthy lucre.

What I didn’t know, however, was that I was going to be vindicated so soon, and guess what, from the unlikeliest of quarters – the selfsame Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). I will come back to this shortly.

Suffice it to say that when I wrote the article, my goal wasn’t necessarily to disclaim Jonathan’s victory. I had argued here before the polls that the Presidential election was his to lose. Buhari lost when he was betrayed by the leaders of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) who went into an alliance with the PDP, a party they would haul over the coals when such rhetoric enhances their grip on power in the Southwest but collaborate with unabashedly when their selfish political interests are served. With former President Olusegun Obasanjo successfully putting a knife into what used to hold the North together and the calculation of the North Central political leaders that the political interest of their region will be better served if they align with political forces in the South, Buhari was out on a limb politically.

But the fact that Jonathan won an election he was expected to win did not make it free and fair. Again, I wanted to put a lie to the malicious tale that Buhari was behind the unfortunate post-election violence that claimed many innocent lives in the North, lies peddled by those who should know better.      

Now, every well-meaning Nigerian should take umbrage at the post election violence and the killing of innocent people. But I insist that we would have had the same violence in the South West if the ACN had lost the election and there was the perception among its supporters that the party was rigged out. The same thing would have happened in the South South if there was a perception that the election had been rigged in favour of Buhari.

Now, the question remains whether there is any reason to believe that the votes were manipulated? My answer remains yes. Some of the votes said to have been scored by some of the contestants in certain states and zones were simply unbelievable. The figures were bogus.

And I have been vindicated. INEC, the electoral umpire that claims to have conducted the freest and fairest elections ever in Nigeria admitted last Thursday what every honest Nigerian already knows – that only 35 percent of the about 70 million registered voters took part in the last elections. Prof. Attahiru Jega, INEC chairman, who made the disclosure through the chairman, INEC Board of Electoral Institute, Prof. Lai Olurode, at a workshop on voter apathy where the Friedrick Ebert Stiftung Foundation gave a report of its research on the elections said the poor turnout of voters was at variance with the belief that they showed much enthusiasm during the polls.

“That there exits voter apathy in Nigeria is no longer contentious,” Jega said. “Voter turnout in the just concluded general elections had provided a scientific and empirical evidence of the existence of voter apathy and disinterestedness of sections of the electorate in elections. The National Assembly elections, the Presidential election, the gubernatorial and state assembly elections concluded in April showed that voters’ turnout hovered around 35 percent. This ugly scenario has implications for popular participation and governance.” 

Yet, this is the same election where the same INEC announced a result which claimed that in a state like Imo where 1,611,715 registered to vote, that over 1,406,289 actually voted in the April 16 Presidential election and out of this number, 1,381,357 voted for President Goodluck Jonathan alone. 

But what happened in Imo was not an exception. The declared results in almost all the states were at variance with the actual votes cast by the electorate. So, how does INEC explain these massive votes given the reality of the 35 percent voter turnout?

Let me state for the umpteenth time that the April polls were fundamentally flawed and cannot be used as yardstick for determining whether Nigeria had indeed turned the corner in electoral matters. While those whose narrow political interests have been served by the outcome of the elections are ululating, there is need for caution. 

The danger we face when we decide to call a spade a hoe because it is ours is that if ownership changes tomorrow, for whatever reason, the new owners may fall back on the precedent to taunt us all, which is exactly what has happened with the PDP zoning formula in the House of Representatives.

But it is not enough for INEC to tell Nigerians that only 35 percent of registered voters actually voted in the April polls. Jega should go a step further to tell Nigerians and indeed the international community why, when it mattered most, the Commission decided to ignore its “scientific and empirical evidence of ... voter apathy and disinterestedness of sections of the electorate in elections,” to announce results that claim over 80 percent  voter turnout.  

  

Govt not fighting corruption, says Obasanjo

By Our Reporter.

Obasanjo

The Nigerian government is not fighting corruption, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said.

He also identified unemployment as capable of creating disorder in the system. 

Obasanjo spoke on Tuesday at the ongoing 100th Session of the International Labour Organisation Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. 

He said unless the person in power is ready to give his life for corruption, he would not be able to fight it properly. 

The former President also said Nigeria is not growing as widely believed, saying the indices did not suggest growth. 

“If you are going to fight corruption, it is not a one night or one day war. You have to be consistent and persistent with it. I haven’t seen that will of persistency and consistency in Nigeria because the people that are involved in corruption are strongly entrenched. Unless you are ready to confront them at the point of even giving your life for it, then you will give in and when you give in, that is the end of it,” Obasanjo said. 

He spoke on the platform of Club de Madrid. The topic was: “Meeting sustainable societies and social justice.” 

Club de Madrid is an independent non-profit organisation made up of 80 democratically-elected former presidents and prime ministers from 56 countries. 

Former Ecuador President Osvaldo Hurtado; ex President John Kufuor of Ghana, ex-Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul Karim Al Eryani and ex-Prime Minister of Netherlands Wim Kok were on the panel 

Obasanjo traced the emergence of corruption and underdevelopment in Nigeria to oil. He said, “rather than a boom, oil has become a doom” 

He described oil as “one of the misfortunes of Nigeria.” 

“Corruption came in initially with politics at independence when our politicians, after giving you contract ; you gave 10 per cent. They thought that was the way to make money for their party. 

“Ten per cent of that contract is taken to develop the party, for the party fund and all that and then of course it went beyond 10 per cent to 20, to 25 and at times, it grew so large that in fact, when you were given a job, you would just not care to do it; you would share the money or whatever they called it. 

“That was very bad; so when I became president of Nigeria, the first thing I did after my election was to establish an independent body to fight corruption. Now, that body was so effective, in fact two bodies; one was a commission against financial crimes and they were both so effective that ministers of government, the head of the police and the heads of government departments were put in jail. 

However, Obasanjo’s fight against corruption during his tenure was criticised as selective.

On unemployment, Obasanjo said: “We have all heard what my brother from Yemen has said about the situation in the Arab countries and North Africa. I want to underline the situation that will signal red alert for us in Africa. I am worried, I am apprehensive about unemployment in our continent that it has not been taken as seriously as it should be. 

“I give example of my own continent in Nigeria where we have about 120 tertiary institutions. When I was growing up, there was only one university in Nigeria. Today when you include the polytechnics to the tertiary institutions, we have over 200 institutions of learning. Each institution graduates about 3,000 students every year. You have well over 600,000 graduates every year but we are not creating 100,000 jobs every year. That is the issue that worries me and why we are all sitting here. 

“The fuse can be ignited at anytime and if it happens in Nigeria everyone will be affected and I will be the first victim.. The point is that Africa must begin to talk more about job creation,” Obasanjo said.

Obasanjo declares... Jonathan can’t fight corruption

Thursday, 16 June 2011 00:00 Francis Okeke, Geneva

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday said the current regime in Nigeria lacks the will and consistency to fight corruption because corrupt people are deeply entrenched in the system. Obasanjo, who was speaking yesterday in Geneva, Switzerland, did not mention President Goodluck Jonathan by name but said he has not seen the will and consistency required in the present government to tackle graft.

 

He spoke during a debate organised by the Club de Madrid on ‘Meeting Sustainable Societies and Social Justice’ in the on going 100th Session of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland.

Club de Madrid is an independent, non-profit organization composed of 80 former democratic presidents and prime ministers from 56 countries.

Obasanjo was asked by debate moderator Ritula Shah of the BBC if there was political will to fight corruption in Nigeria.

In answer to that, he said, “I haven’t seen that will of persistency and consistency in Nigeria because the people that are involved in corruption, they are strongly entrenched and unless you are ready to confront them at the point of even giving your life for it, then you will give in and when you give in, that is the end of it.”

Obasanjo went down memory lane, blaming over dependence on oil for the corruption that bedevils Nigeria today.

“We didn’t see beyond the oil. That was one of the misfortunes of Nigeria or regrets of Nigeria but more importantly, corruption came in. Corruption that came in came in initially with politics at independence when our politicians when they give a contract to you, 10 per cent, they thought that is the way to make money for their party.

“Ten per cent of that contract is taken to develop the party, for the party fund and all that and then of course it went beyond 10 per cent to 20, to 25 and at times, it grew so large that in fact, when you are given a job, you will just don’t care to do it, you will share the money or whatever they called it.

“That was very bad. So when I became president of Nigeria the first thing I did after my election was to establish an independent body to fight corruption. Now, that body was so effective, in fact two bodies, one was a commission against financial crimes and they were both so effective that ministers of government, the head of the police and the heads of parastatals were put in jail.

“If you are going to fight corruption, it is not a one night or one day war; you have to be consistent and persistent with it,” he said.

Other panellists in yesterday’s debate were former president of Ecuador Mr. Osvaldo Hurtado, former Ghanaian president John Kufuor, former Yemeni prime minister Mr. Abdul Karim Al Eryani and former prime minister of Netherlands Mr. Wim Kok.

In his contribution, Kufour said the world must produce leaders who must look beyond self interest and are ready to use rule of law and good governance to tackle the issues of social justice.

He added that such leaders must be able to multi-task in the areas of fighting corruption as they simultaneously create jobs and provide social security to their people.

All the panellists agreed on the need for government, employers and workers to sit together and fine-tune the existing processes that lead to the creation of decent jobs.

''Awo Family Without Awo'' In Defence of Sam Omatseye....

Monday, June 20, 2011.

Correct Me If I Am Right By Rudolf Okonkwo

By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

In 2006, I had what became my last interview with Gani Fawehinmi. In that interview, he said that what Nigeria needed was a “shock therapy.” I have been trying to interpret that to Nigerians ever since, without success. And I have been trying to integrate that into my commentary, with little success.

Nigerians are the only people I know who love their comfort zone even when the zone provides them anything but comfort.

So if there is any political party that I want to join, it is the one that will administer a shock therapy on Nigeria and get the nation out of its comfort zone. It is under this premise that I am coming out in defense of Sam Omatseye.

For some reason, our paths never crossed. Even though we were in the same media industry for sometime, I do not recall reading his works.

He obviously got my attention and the attention of many others when he wrote, “Awo Family without an Awo.”

Many people have joined issues with him, including HID Awolowo, Ebenezer Babatope, Dipo Jimilehin, and others. His own Itsekiri people came out to publicly disown him. Everyone said that Omatseye had the right to express his opinion. Then, they all went ahead to admonish him for doing that. Fair game, I say.

Omatseye was accused of insulting the Awos. The real insult is the one thrown at Omatseye by those who think the opinion he expressed was bigger than him. In what could only be an act of desperation, these people believed that Omatseye was just expressing the opinion of his paymaster, Bola Tinubu.

I want to believe that Omatseye was expressing his own opinion. I say so because from what I have since read about him, I am confident that he is not afraid to express views that are out of the mainstream. He once wrote that Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was not all that. While I disagree with him, I know that it takes a lot of guts to express uncommon opinion in a society like ours.

It would have been a bit understandable to say that Omatseye took a bite out of the Awos just to sell his three new books than to make it look as if he is incapable of an independent thought.

I am for everyman’s right to be ignorant. I am for everyman’s right to be informed. What I do not support is anyone’s right to be indifferent. There are too many Nigerians who are indifferent. The large masses of Nigerians who are indifferent are the reason it is hard to find the critical mass needed to take effective action.

I subscribe to Oscar Wilde’s argument about books when I assess commentaries. There is no good commentary or bad commentary. A commentary is either well written or badly written. Sam Omatseye’s commentary on Awo’s legacy without an Awo is a badly written commentary.

We, the commentators, do that every day. We fail to give depth to our commentary. We fail to present a sociological base for our analysis. We even censor what is important in our contributions. I happen to know many commentators. And I can tell you that if they write half of what they know, they will ‘shock the nation.’

But they won’t. And that stifles their arguments.

Nigerians love their commentators to chastise those characters perceived to be corrupt or lacking integrity, or those adjudged to be disrespecting values Nigerians hold dear – whatever those values are. Commentators who hit the hardest are hailed the most, until the commentator touches one of our own. That is when we wonder what the commentator has been smoking and demand that he provides concrete proof. If the commentator dares touch any of our infallible, like Awolowo, Ojukwu, Zik or Ahmadu Bello, then we impose a fatwa and declare his or her writing career over.

It is legitimate to wonder what happened to the children of Awo, Zik and Balewa, M.I. Okpala, Ahmadu Bello, Akintola, Orizu, Okotie-Eboh, and Akanu Ibiam. It is legitimate to believe that they are not carrying their weight or that they lost their ways- in comparison to their fathers.

To do that properly, one has to look at it from the other angles. After all, it isn’t really a bad thing. In a country like Nigeria where the playing field is not level, it may be good that these privileged children “failed.” Their ‘failure’ opened the Nigerian space for others. Otherwise, Nigerian space will be dominated by the Belewas, the Aguyi-Ironsis, the Gowons, the Muhammeds, the Obasanjos, the Shagaris, the Buharis, the Babangidas, the Abachas, the Shonekans, and the Abubakars.

Another way of looking at it is that most of these ‘successful’ parents spent their time ‘being successful’ that they forgot to raise their children. And those who squeezed the time to do so, often find that their children are overwhelmed by their parents’ success that they lost any drive to strive. Omatseye touched on that a little bit.

As far as I’m concerned, these children are free to blend with whatever crowd they want. They are free to define their own destinies. We do not have the right to impose our expectations on them. It is not a debt that they owe us. That they chose not to join politics does not mean that they are not contributing.

This larger context is what is missing in Sam Omatseye’s piece. I used to think that lack of space in the newspaper is what stops our columnists from giving this kind of context in their analyses. But David Brooks of the New York Times does it in less than 700 words.

When Omatseye wrote that Obafemi Awolowo would have divorced HID Awolowo, it touched some nerves. Though Omotseye failed to tell us why, other than her hobnobbing with the likes of Alao-Akala, I do not see his suggestion as an imagination gone wild. It all depends on what HID Awolowo has been doing. After all, Nelson Mandela divorced Winnie Mandela. Nobody saw that coming during those 27 years that Mandela was in prison and Winnie was leading the fight against apartheid.

Personally, at 96, I felt that HID Awolowo shouldn’t be blamed for whatever is wrong in the Awolowo family. I have a 100 year-old grandmother. I cannot imagine her being blamed for whatever is wrong in Ezeobidi family. But then again, my grandmother does not appear on T.V. She does not run a newspaper. She does not meet with local and national politicians. She does not run the Ezeobidi family.

On May 25, 2010, 84-year-old Queen Elizabeth II was caught picking her nose while riding in a carriage and wearing the British crown. It was not a difficult decision for the British media. They splashed the picture on their front pages.

And that, my friends, is why the head that wears the crown lies uneasy. To the media, the head that wears the crown is never innocent. And it is always a target for public scorn.

Even The Queen Mother at age 102 was not spared by the British media. They still counted the number of bottles of alcoholic beverages she drank in a week. Neither was Mother Teresa. Her critics followed her around even as she served the poor people of Calcutta. Those who cannot stand the heat have only one place to go- Greenland.

Note to Babatope et al: Admonishing old people perceived to have done wrong does not preclude anyone from attaining old age. Those who want to attain old age should simply start exercising, stop smoking, stop drinking and stop having unprotected sex. Chikena!

Awo family without an Awo, by Omatseye

Wednesday, 08 June 2011 11:25 | Author: Sam Omatseye |  

The Awolowo rebirth in the Southwest has inspired gongs, songs and rhetoric of sorts. But they have missed one point.

It occurred to me in Abeokuta last week amidst the big crowds and euphoria of the swearing-in of Senator Ibikunle Amosun as governor. In all the states from Lagos to Edo, where Awo has witnessed ideological resurgence, hardly a single family member has played a role.

So we have an Awo family without an Awo. That is an irony. But history overwhelms us with this sort of twist. Obafemi Awolowo toiled for his reputation. His roots were lowly, he toiled to school both home and abroad, launched into careers in law, business, journalism and eventually politics. He carved a niche for himself, and became the first methodical and charismatic leftist in our history.  Other leftists abounded but they did not inspire comparable drama and following.

He faced tribulations, went to jail, failed in elections, won a few, but he imprinted his ideas and legacy in the country, and no single mortal has beaten him in the history of this country. His greatest achievement was in the area of ideas, and that was how he fashioned a family. Most families are born of biology but his issued from ideology. That family suffered with him.

In a spoof of Jesus Christ, these were the men who followed him in his teachings, and endured with him in his temptations. So he formed a kingdom for them in the Southwest, in the old Western Region, presiding over his projects, his legacies and people.

 

In all of these, the family he had was not his flesh and blood. In another spoof of Christ, who were his family anyway? Those who were with him must be counted as his family. So, I combed in the ambience of Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), and I found none. I went to Ogun, I frisked the crowd under Amosun’s bower, hardly any. Around Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in Osun, I could not lay a finger. With Governor Kayode Fayemi in Ekiti, where are the forbears of Awo? Yet, I can hear the chants of Awo. Hardly in any of the inaugural speeches or any of their other public intervention would you miss the philtre and filter of Awo from these gentlemen. To parody Novelist Joseph Conrad, they are the sparks from Awo’s sacred fire, the messengers of the might within the man.

 

Already all of them are pursuing the legacy ideas of Awo: free education, free health services, infrastructural development, urban renewal and economic engineering.

Lagos has posted itself as the John the Baptist. The others are putting up valiant efforts, and the world of course is watching to see how well they will perform. It will call for great work, resourcefulness and cooperation. They are the real Awoists, and Awo was a man of rigour and vigour.

The Awo son that many expected to take after the father was Olusegun, who unfortunately died in a car crash. We shall never know if he could have pulled it off.  But the others have not shown much of the paterfamilias’ brio and depth. In the past decade, under this republic, they have blended with the wrong crowd. Even H.I.D, hobnobbed with Alao-Akala, who brought illiteracy to governance; with Oyinlola who turned the grace of office into a hell-hole of despots; with Daniel who could not arrest his quick fall into megalomania.

I wrote once that this woman whom Awo once described as the jewel of inestimable value has lost value to his cause. If he came back to life, he would have committed the extraordinary act of divorce after death. Even his newspaper, The Tribune, has so stumbled and fallen that it swims in Awo’s vomit.

Groucho Max, one of the funniest satirists in American history, said of a man that he got his looks from his father. Then he quipped, “He was a plastic surgeon.” That means the son is not his real son, or he did not inherit his natural looks. Ideologically, when we talk of Awo’s family, the chief inheritor is Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the leader of all the others. He was the one who stuck his neck out. He could have lost his life or ended his career in politics. The so-called real Awolowos who bear his surname cannot come up for mention. They are Awolowos but not Awoists. They stabbed their father in the back. They have committed ideological parricide.

The only person that made a real try was Awolowo-Dosunmu in the early 1990s and she lost roundly. She was accused of trying to ride her father’s coattail. Political families are good for democracies. They can exemplify the high ideals of diligence, dignity, ideas, character. We have seen these in such families as the Kennedys, the Adamses, the Roosevelts, the Ghandis. They just don’t claim family. They appeal to the high ideals that endeared the families to their societies.

It’s also an irony that these families are falling into twilight. Some of them have vanished. Enoch Powell, a British MP, once gave us the famous line: “All political lives, unless they are cut off midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure because that is the nature of politics and human affairs.”

Columnist Ambassador Dapo Fafowora adverted to this idea in a recent outing, and I debated it with him afterwards. I don’t believe that a political life should be judged by how it ends but what it means. The quote is often missed by many who mistake “careers” for “lives.” A political life should be judged by its legacies. If we judged Awo by how he ended, we would look at him only as the loser to Shagari. That is why I see an intrinsic mischief in Enoch’s quote. But I would agree that political families end also in failure if you judge how they peter out and not the legacy.

Awo’s legacy is alive and well. Members of other families in flesh and blood can carry on. Immediate families tend to suffer from what an author, Noemie Emery, describes as dynastic curse. The children tend to be intimidated by the standards set by the fathers. So they just don’t want to try. They feel they cannot match them or come even close.  The problem probably comes from the fathers themselves. The Adams, who produced important presidents, later gave birth to moral vagrants and drunks. The Bush daughters showed themselves as party girls when their father was contesting the political battle of his life.

But Joe Kennedy groomed his sons assiduously, and they excelled in politics. They also had a fair share of tragedies. Ted Kennedy regained his sobriety and voice in America after a season of debauchery. In Nigeria, we are seeing the Sarakis fade. A Saraki – Bukola - is wiping out the Sarakis from politics. It is a classic case of oedipal tragedy, something I predicted earlier this year on this page.

It is not late though for the flesh-and-blood Awolowos to join their father’s fold. But they must be genuine. Awo was the most important Yoruba personage in history after Oduduwa. They had stellar men like Oranmiyan, Balogun Latosa, Lisabi, Sodeke, et al. None of them had the unifying vision and organisational acumen that Awolowo gave the race. The wife, children and grandchildren should not watch others glow in his jewel without them.

Sam Omatseye Writes

Source: The Nation

What Nigerians Pay The Federal Government.

Saturday, July 2, 2011.

caption: National Security Adviser, Andrew Owoeye Azazi

By Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai

The syndicated article below was first published on July 1st 2011, in it, Nasir El Rufai wrote that several security agencies combined spend about N2 billion a day with nothing to show for it. The office of the NSA is s reportedly angry about these claims and wants Mr. El-Rufai charged for "incitement, sedition and publication of false news". The former minister and CPC chieftain is currently facing interrogation at the offices of the State Security Services in Abuja after he was arrested this morning upon his return from the United Kingdom.

 

This year, every Nigerian - all 162 million of us - man, woman and child will 'pay' the sum of N27,685 each to help run the federal government. What we cannot afford, government will borrow on our behalf to pay for its activities.

That is why the federal government, on behalf of you and I will spend the sum of 4.485 trillion (over four thousand billion) naira in 2011. This is against the backdrop that our entire oil earnings for the year cannot pay the generous salaries and allowances of politicians on the one hand, and the meagre pay cheques of other public sector workers on the other, while infrastructure and unemployment are barely getting attention.

When you walk into a government office to request for a basic service, the staff you meet may not even bother to reply to your greeting and barely has time to listen to you; the policeman that should protect you on the roadblock, stops you and demands for bribes and has no qualms shooting dead any motorist that refuses to give him twenty naira; the customs officer at the border who is supposed to stop smuggling takes a bribe and actually connives with the smugglers to bring in banned products into the Nigerian market, while harassing the traveller entering Nigeria with two new pairs of shoes; the hospital staff that, contrary to every professional oath, refuses to attend to dying patients because they are on strike; the soldiers who get so bored that they occasionally go on a rampage, using policemen for target practice. With live ammunition, of course; the politician who rigs himself into office then proceeds to loot the treasury: these are all the people whose standard of living we are spending nearly 75 per cent of the 2011 budget to pay for - and borrowing some after spending all our collections from oil and taxes!

It will cost nearly 2.5 million naira this year on average to pay for the salary and upkeep of each of Nigeria’s nearly one million federal public sector workers – in the police, civil service, military and para-military services and teachers in government schools and institutions. Whether this amount justifies the service that is rendered is left for Nigerians to decide. In all, the 49 line Ministries, Departments and Agencies specifically mentioned in the 2011 Appropriations Act will each cost an average of N49.49 billion to run.

We elect a total of 360 members to the House of Representatives and 109 Senators to make laws and enhance good governance by checking and balancing the excesses of the executive arm of government.  For this privilege, the 469 members of the federal legislature and their support staff at the National Assembly will spend N150 billion this year. It is worth noting that NASS only passed 8 bills as at the end of May 2011. So assuming that they manage to pass another 7 bills before the end of this year, it would cost the Nigerian citizen an average ten billion naira to pass a single bill! This implies that to pass the 2011 budget (which allocates N150 billion to NASS), Nigerians paid 10 billion naira. An even more interesting statistic is the cost of maintaining every legislator every year. It works out to princely N320 million per legislator per annum. At this rate, every four year stint at NASS works out at N1.28 billion per legislator. No wonder machetes, guns and thugs are used at will to "win" primaries and the elections. How many new businesses can achieve a turnover of N1.28 billion within four years with net tax-free profit in excess of 50 percent? Is this social justice?

For the NASS, even the amount of N150 billion above is just what we can see easily but is not broken down for further analysis or accountability. There is a bit more hidden all over the Appropriation Act - another N1.595 billion was tucked away for "In-lieu of accommodation for the Seventh Session of NASS" and another N200 million for "Funding of House Resolution Mandates." What these two provisions mean is best explained by those that legislated them and the executive that will release the sums! What is clear is that none of these will ever be accounted for, or audited!

Last week, I wrote about the cost of justice. I got a few things wrong because I did not appreciate fully the unique role of the National Judicial Council (NJC) in the administration of the nation's judicial system. My friend and former classmate Mrs. Maryam Wali Uwais clarified this and educated me, for which I am grateful. The NJC's budget of N95 billion covers the salaries and allowances of all judges of superior courts of record in Nigeria - that is State High Courts and their federal equivalents, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The NJC also funds the overheads of all the Federal Courts only - the Federal High Court and the appellate courts, as well as the salaries and allowances of all Federal Judicial support staff. The State Governments are responsible for the salaries of all other judicial staff (magistrates, support staff, etc.) and the overhead costs of all courts within their respective jurisdictions. It is therefore slightly more complicated to compute what it costs to keep our entire judicial system running without adding up all the budgetary allocations to the Judiciary in all 36 states. We will return to this sometime soon.

An interesting observation is the fact that the government says the problem of power shortage is a priority, yet the Ministry of Power only got 91 billion naira as total appropriation in 2011, while the National Security Adviser (NSA) controls and will spend 208 billion naira (Recurrent - N51 billion, Capital N59 billion, and another N98 billion for the Amnesty Programme!). This amount does not include the Defence budget. The Defence Ministry will get N348 billion, while the Police will get 309 billion naira. In other words, though Nigerians have never felt so insecure in recent history, the NSA, Police and Defence will spend a combined 865 billion naira - more than 2 billion naira a day, weekends included! This does not include the 36 states’ so-called security votes. Even state assembly members and local government councillors now have security votes. Clearly their security is more important than ours!

The point of these statistics is to show how expensive governance has become and how little Nigerians get in return. And the unproductive portions of our national budget have been rising rapidly in the last 4 years, to the detriment of capital investments in infrastructure and human development. Four years ago in 2007, the entire federal government budget was 2.3 trillion naira; today we are spending 4.485 trillion.  In 2007, statutory transfers amounted to 102 billion naira or 5% of the total budget. Today, transfers amount to 418 billion or 9% of the total.
This year, the federal government will spend 495 billion naira or 11% of the budget on debt servicing compared to 326 billion naira or 14% it spent the year we finally exited from the London Club debt. More telling is the 1.05 trillion naira or 46% for recurrent expenditure in 2007 against the 2.425 trillion or 54% government will spend this year. Just four years ago, capital expenditure accounted for 36% (830 billion naira) of the budget. This year, the amount for capital expenditure has fallen to 25% (1.147 trillion naira - out of which N1.136 trillion is the budget deficit - that is to be borrowed!).

To the uninformed eye, the figures may seem to represent increases in all aspects, but to what cost, and to what effect? Apologists would want us to believe that the astronomical increase in the cost of government services can be explained by inflation, but even taking into consideration the high inflationary trend (thanks to Jonathan’s profligate campaign year spending), statutory transfers in the budget has gone up by a whopping 310%; debt servicing has a 52% increase; recurrent expenditure has gone up by 131% while capital expenditure has increased by 39% over four years. In real terms however, and accounting for inflation, the total budget has increased by 33% with recurrent expenditure going up by 58% while capital expenditure has actually reduced by 6%.

Facts and figures do not lie. Every figure used in this analysis came from official government records. What is the justification for allocating such huge amounts to running the government when a staggering 30 million Nigerians are unemployed? Only N50 billion has been budgeted to create employment, forgetting that money by itself does not create jobs without a well thought out plan to stimulate small and medium scale enterprises and the creation of appropriate regulatory environments. What are the strategies to ensure that these funds are not diverted? How many jobs will be created this year or in the next four years? Are our priorities right?

All these come down to the questions: Will government’s 4.485 trillion naira budget make life any better or even provide security for Nigerians?  Can we feel the impact of this huge spending? Is the cost of governance justified? If we do not have the courage to ask these questions, we will be doing ourselves a disservice and endangering our people's future.