Edo guber polls: Rejoice not Oshiomole

THE  much-talked about July 14, 2012 governorship election in Edo State has come and gone but contending issues around the conduct and outcome of the poll will continue to ricochet in the polity until they are resolved.
This is why the beneficiary of the poll, incumbent Governor Adams Oshiomhole, who contested on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, should be well advised not to rejoice yet or not to even rejoice at all because of the irregularities that typified the process that threw him up.
The totality of the theatrical outburst by Oshiomhole which characterised the accreditation of voters and the conduct of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has exposed the underbelly of the Governor’s stratagem: To incite the people (just in case the election did not favour him) by raising the alarm that the electoral body was working in cahoots with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Edo to rig the election in Edo South Senatorial District of the State.
But I was not deceived by the diversionary tactics employed by the Comrade-Governor.  Reflecting on his allegation and condemnation of INEC and its Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, while the accreditation was still in progress on the election day, it is now apparent that Oshiomhole pulled a fast one on the main opposition party (PDP) which was conned into believing that the Governor’s rigging plan had been frustrated by the INEC whereas the plan was working out perfectly.
Oshiomhole had said: “If accreditation is to stop by 12pm and by 11 am (it is after 11 am now), there are no materials in some polling booths, it then means Prof. Atahiru Jega and INEC have no plans to conduct election.  The whole idea is to frustrate the people so that they will not be able to vote, and they will declare a fake result.
Prof Jega and INEC have been an embarrassment to the nation.  I am in shock with all the arrangements they have made sensitizing the people; and, I told them, INEC needed to be sensitized.  INEC is the weakest link in the Nigerian democratic chain.  I have no faith in what INEC is doing in Benin City.
“This is designed for where majority of the people are denied the right to vote and this time around, I have told them this country either decides on whether to move on or move back; I see sponsored editorials saying whatever happens we will go to court, but today we have to sort out the issues once and for all”.
In fact, a statement by his Chief Press secretary, Peter Okhiria, wherein the Governor’s condemnation was contained, further quoted Oshiomhole to have said he held Jega responsible for the failure of the election and for disenfranchising the people as INEC had connived with the PDP to involve in scientific rigging.
According to Oshiomhole: “They planned it and executed it this way.  It is a shame that they have programmed this to embarrass the Nigeria nation.  If INEC do not allow the people to vote and they pronounce the winner there will be trouble….
Fifty five percent of voters are in Edo South and 40 percent in Benin City, and they think they can deprive the people the opportunity to vote.  Prof. Jega has failed us because I wrote a petition that they are buying voters card.  We will all go to court before God. They know that if it is two people remaining they will not vote for them”.
These were the intimidation, blackmail and high drama that Oshiomhole introduced into the process, thus making an objective assessment by political watchers extremely difficult.
He played the mind game and succeeded in demonizing the INEC and the PDP in the minds of Nigerians as entities who were out to rig the election in Edo State and particularly in Edo South Senatorial District.  With this, attention was diverted from the ACN and the totality of its rigging plan, which was then clinically executed.
The outcome of the poll in which the PDP did not win a single local government area raises a critical question against the backdrop of the huge mobilization and campaign by the party?  Is the ACN claiming that its government has built infrastructure in every nook and cranny to deserve widespread support; such that it would win the entire Esanland and even the home base of the PDP candidate, whereas, Oshiomhole himself admitted during the governorship debate that his government had built about 20 percent of the infrastructure and that he would continue to do more.  So, it is clear that it was not about development in the neglected rural areas.  If it was not, then what happened?  How did the ACN do it? Time will tell.
But curiously, at the end of the day, Oshiomhole ended up being the beneficiary of an election which he claimed was fraught with irregularities.
Trust Oshiomhole’s incredible capacity to approbate and reprobate on the same issue.  He had quickly turned round to rationalize the alarm he raised and the allegation he made.  And the whole world is probably no longer amused about his repulsive disposition and antics.
Well, the ball is in the court of Edo PDP to explore post-election options that it deems appropriate.  If it decides to go to court, then Oshiomhole should be well advised not to rejoice yet.
BESIDES, there are feelers that there is a question mark on the education qualifications Oshiomhole filled in his INEC form.  The PDP had published an advertorial signed by its State Publicity Secretary, Mr. Matthew Uroghide, in some newspapers on July 12, 2012, in which it drew the attention of Edo people to the issue.
This may present a serious ground for litigation, except the PDP does not want to pursue that option for reasons that may be best known to it.  And even if the PDP chooses not to go to court, Oshiomhole should not rejoice because ill-gotten victory will not endure.
But the PDP’s reaction to ACN’s post-election euphoria has been that the election was fraught with irregularities.  Even if that line is not pursued in court by the party, the message has been clearly delivered.
According to the party, in a statement issued by its Chairman, Dan Orbih: “Just before the close of polls of the July 14, 2012 governorship election in Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, in a reaction before the media, strongly indicted and accused Professor Attahiru Jega and Edo State INEC of colluding with Edo PDP to compromise the integrity of the election.
This accusation which arose from the Governor’s observations on the conduct of the election is also published in the national newspapers of July 15, 2012 and especially on the front pages of the Sunday Vanguard and Tribune newspapers.  In the accusation, Governor Oshiomhole said he will ‘…fight this [INEC] debauchery’.
“Edo PDP agrees totally with Governor Oshiomhole that the election was fraught with high and pervasive irregularities.  In addition to the Governor’s observed ‘high and pervasive irregularities’, Edo PDP wishes to record the following facts and to make them public: That Edo PDP had, before the election, opposed the use of currently serving NYSC members in Edo State to conduct the elections.  Facts abound everywhere that NYSC members used as INEC officiating staff became agents of the ACN, served its purpose and subverted the voting process.
“That in several units, voters were deliberately prevented from voting through non-provision of authentic voters’ registers. This action disenfranchised a lot of the voting public in those units; that party agents of the NCP, SDMP, LP and CPC at the polling units became agents of the ACN in order to compromise the process.
Some of these agents are known ACN members; and that the released results show a pattern of figures being prearranged.  There are infallible reasons to believe that figures had been allocated to the various voting units in the 18 local government areas long before the election took place.
“That INEC officials at polling units illegally permitted the use of photocopied and cloned voters’ cards to vote at the centres.  This gave rise to multiple voting from people who were not qualified to vote at those centres.  It also made it possible for vote figures to be bloated and falsified.
You will recall that Governor Oshiomhole at the stakeholders meeting of July 6, 2012 in Benin City tendered some of these cards to INEC Chairman Professor Jega as exhibits; and that of the over one million, two hundred registered voters for the election, only a little over six hundred were accredited, a development that was deliberately orchestrated to deregister a larger percentage of voters and deprive them of their right to vote.”
Well, against the backdrop of the above, it will be the height of criminal arrogance for the ACN and its candidate to continue to present to the world the saintly mien simply because they have not been exposed for what they are: scientific riggers.
After all, the opposition raised the alarm before the election but the world was deceived by their “one man, one vote” mantra, which the PDP seemed to be genuinely committed to, but which to the ACN was a façade to garb its rigging plan from public perception.
Mr.  CALLISTUS OMOREGIE, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Benin City, Edo State.

Why We No Longer Blush: Corruption As Grand Commander Of The Federal Republic Of Nigeria By Niyi Osundare

Prof. Niyi Osundare

(Lecture delivered under the Auspices of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, Monday July 9, 2012).
Talking Points
•    Nigeria is a kleptocracy: a state ruled by thieves
•    We no longer blush because we have lost our skin
•    Corruption is Nigeria’s fastest-growing industry
•    If Nigeria does not kill Corruption, Corruption will kill Nigeria
•    Our fate is in our own hands
The SNG Example
     Something happened in this country in the very first week of this year that we can never forget: Nigeria’s civil society rose with one voice, one vision, one purpose, one agenda fuelled by extraordinary patriotism and irrepressible anger. The government of President Goodluck Jonathan had removed, against all warning and remonstration; against all hint of commonsense and fellow felling, the so-called ‘subsidy’ on the price of petroleum products, thus plunging the proverbially rickety Nigeria economy into a fatal tailspin, and the Nigerian people into needless agony and deprivation. And he sneaked in this cruel decree on the Nigerian people on the very first day of the year, no doubt as a salutary New Year gift from a caring, God-fearing leader.
President Jonathan’s drastic action and his uncharacteristic ‘No going back’ bravado thereafter came as a surprise to many people. Personally, I began to wonder: how could this fledgling president have braved a monster that defied the antics of the tricky Babangida, the murderous Abacha, and the morally indifferent Obasanjo, his illustrious predecessors in office who kicked and caviled at the ‘subsidy’ beast but only succeeded at nibbling at its toes? What gave Jonathan the ruthless courage to drive the IMF sword to the hilt into the Nigerian body? What gave him the confidence that he could decree that punitive price hike and get away with it? I came to the conclusion that the president must have been strengthened in his resolve by his reading of the Nigerian malaise. Afterall, his predecessors in power as well as all public functionaries have always treated Nigeria as a lawless fiefdom where public opinion counts for nothing, and Nigerians, the people over whom they rule, as civic orphans without alagbawi (advocate) and olugbeja (defender). “Let’s go ahead with the subsidy removal”, I could hear presidential advisers in their caucus, “we know Nigerians: they will only shout for a few hours and then go back to business as usual. We know Nigerians: they will quickly adjust”.
But in January this year, that mindset and its cynical calculations found their graveyard in Lagos, in Abuja, in Kano, in Kaduna, in Ilorin, in Ibadan, in Ado Ekiti. To protest the price hike, a coalition of Civil Society groups and the Nigerian Labour Congress called out a strike that shut down the country for a whole week, finally exacting a 33% climbdown in the decreed price. That reduction may look small, but the pressure and organization that brought it about, and even more important, the consciousness and will power generated by it,  total up to an impressive chapter in the annals of Nigeria’s civil society organization. For, what I saw at Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park which served as the epicenter of the struggle, was not just the demonstration of anger and enactment of protest; it was the platform of possibilities, of rising screams awaiting distillation into a unified voice; of a people sick and tired of their dehumanization; a people ready to throw off their yoke and demolish the sickening notoriety of Nigeria as  ‘big for nothing’ country; masses saying to their rulers “Behold, we are PEOPLE/HUMAN; we demand to be treated as such!” It was a people who saw CORRUPTION, not oil subsidy, as the source of the country’s woes and bane of its people’s welfare.
And what a crowd that was at Freedom Park! What an intermingling of people beyond ethnic, religious, political, even personal barriers. For one long week, Nigerians saw themselves as people united by their common degradation at the hands of some of the most corrupt and most insensitive rulers in the world. Their diverse songs coalesed into a chorus of protest and anthem of resistance. For the first time in their beleaguered lives, many Nigerians found an avenue for the expression of their humanity; they had the rare opportunity to join others in the singing of their own song of defiance. Professional bodies responded with an infectious spontaneity: medical doctors/personnel in overcoat and other accoutrements took care of the weak and ailing free of charge; musicians, movies stars, and other social celebrities fired up the crowd; many food-sellers sold at reduced prices. Violence kept its place in the netherworld: the police found no work for their eager truncheons. In a manner reminiscent of similar gatherings at the Tahrir Square in Cairo at the height of the ‘Arab Spring’ revolts, Muslims in the crowd took time out for their prayers while adherents of other faiths formed a ring of solidarity and assurance around them. I wish a video footage of the Freedom Park events in January could be sent to our rulers to show them how united Nigerians are capable of being when motivated by a noble purpose and trustworthy, committed leadership.
So there we had it: the parable of Freedom Square: the selfless, rigorous, imagination that went into its conception; the thoughtful, meticulous method that was behind its organization; the exuberant, positive intelligence that saw it through. President Jonathan’s soldiers came too late: by the time they swooped in to cordon off the Square, the deed had already been done. The irrepressible  Nigerian spirit had already registered itself. The events of the first week of this year have shown that it is possible to make the voice of resistance carry in this country; that we are not the dumb, feckless bums that we are thought to be; that unity among the people of Nigeria is not the distant hope their rulers have made it out to be. Above all, it has demonstrated the immense potentiality of civil society in the engineering of change and sociopolitical momentum. And to coast home to the specificities of today’s lecture, it has shown that Nigerians know the meaning, import, and ramifications of CORRUPTION as the cankerworm in Nigeria’s body politic and poison in her soul. And, what’s more, that they are ready to do something about it!
The Save Nigeria Group, the principal civil society organization behind the January strike, deserves more than the cursory appreciation and gratitude that the constraints of time and space permit me to render in a lecture of this kind. We have seen this group before, sometime in 2010, when the former President Yar’Adua lay critically ill in a Saudi hospital, but a cabal whose satanic dominance and influence derived from Yar’Adua’s continued hold on power, insisted that the president must continue to rule, even from the grave. A bizarre and absolutely confounding absurdity threw Nigeria into a state of ludicrous paralysis. Hobbled by characteristic opportunism and tragic inertia, Nigerian politicians wringed their fingers and gnashed their teeth. The Nigerian people gasped and wondered. The outside world chuckled at this latest act from the unedifying drama of Africa’s delinquent giant. The president’s terminal illness was about to plunge Nigeria itself into a terminal coma. The Save Nigeria Group rose literally from nowhere and took up the challenge, rallied the Nigerian people, and marched on the National Assembly. The quaintly coded, ludicrously escapist “Doctrine of Necessity” passed by the Nigerian Senate as a way out of this utterly absurd imbroglio could not have come without the intense moral and political pressure from the SNG and similarly concerned Nigerians.
Thus, in its short existence as a pressure group, conscientizer, public opinion mobilizer in Nigeria, the SNG has taken up the role of ombudsman and tribunal, a kind of moral opposition in a country where the commonality of crime and mutuality of corruption has made a reasonable differentiation between/among the political parties a difficult if not futile exercise.
How, then, can I proceed with this lecture without paying due homage to the patriotic zeal and visionary acumen of Pastor Tunde Bakare (who, by the way, I’m meeting for the first time today!), founder and motivating force behind the SNG, a pastor who, unlike many other men and women of the cloth in Nigeria, has never failed to see the vital link between the religious pulpit and the political platform; one who like the prophets of old, is never afraid of telling truth to power – and making sure that power hearkens and heeds. I cannot review his political activities in the past decade or so without recalling the role of the advocates and practitioners of liberation theology which facilitated the end of military dictatorship in South America, or Rev Desmond Tutu who confronted the Apartheid behemoth with the stinging arrows of moral conscience. No country that I know has ever attained the heights of human development without a vigorous and consistent tradition of public opinion the type that is so helpfully evident in the SNG’s Rescue-and-Salvage Mission. Pastor Bakare, may your tribe increase!
The Cankerworm Called Corruption  
     When some three weeks ago, Yinka Odumakin, prominent member of the SNG and, in a manner of speaking, its unacknowledged Minister of Information (and Strategy?), broached the idea of this lecture to me, he already had some sense not only of the likely burden of the lecture, but also the possible wording of its title. “Why We No Longer Blush”, he said more in the manner of a suggestion than a dictation. Personally, I do not respond favourably to prescribed titles. The poet in me always prefers to plumb his own depth for possible terms and denominations. But Odumakin’s phrasing issued from a steady fountain of passion and patriotism; the conviction in his voice was both palpable and infectious. I gave a tentative nod, and for a good four days, I rummaged through a bunch of possible titles. But the suggested phrase kept coming back to my mind as a result of its uncanny appropriateness. I finally decided to meet Odumakin half-way by amplifying his suggested title with my own subtitle; and that is how the full title of this lecture was born.
Why is it that Nigerians no longer blush? How did we come to lose our sense of shame after losing our sense of propriety and proportion? How did we come to develop a skin that is so thick that no arrows of degradation, no needles of dehumanization are ever sharp and violent enough to penetrate our body and rouse our senses! How did our nerves slide into their present state of stupor? How did we plunge into this state of dysconsciousness? Catastrophes that would shake normal societies to their very foundations hit and leave us unfazed. Tyrants in military uniform whipped us with scorpions; only a few of us protested.
Now their civilian inheritors are scourging us with serpents, and many of us respond with ‘ranka dede!’. Politicians and other public functionaries empty public treasuries and squander our patrimony/commonweal right before our very eyes; we pray to God to aid their effort. Time there was when these public thieves stole our money in millions of naira; now they do so in billions and trillions; and many of us urge them on and envy their luck.
Are we a psychologically intimidated, morally weakened, and politically wasted people so indolent about their rights, so unmindful of our dignity? Are we so reprobate that we become so forgiving, so oblivious of the crimes of those who rule us because we have lost the capacity to recognize their malefactions as crimes? In other lands, public figures go to jail for pinching our equivalent of 50,000 naira; in Nigeria, the huger the amount you steal the higher you go on the national order of merit, the closer you get to victory in the next election. As the inimitable Wole Soyinka has so aptly put it
  
    You thief ten kobo they put you for prison
    You thief ten million na patriotism. . . .
    They go give you chieftaincy and national honour
    You thief even bigger, dem go say na rumour
    Monkey dey work o, baboon dey chop
    Sweet pounded yam, someday i go stop
When, some 30 years ago, the illustrious Dele Giwa typified Nigerians as having gone beyond ‘shockability’, he should have reserved his remarks for the present Jonathan-led, PDP-bled crowd of insensate Nigerians.
As it was in the Beginning
     But things have not always been this bad, this dismal. Nigerians have not always lived in the present kind of moral desert. Time there was when we knew the difference between wrong and right, when shame coupled with remorse was the dreaded consequence of wrongdoing. Let me share with you a story I heard from my father, a story which illustrates the astonishing difference between the moral order of those days and the degenerate laxity of the so-called postcolonial era.
As this story goes, a young man in another part of town  was beginning to give everyone around him a cause to worry. Already well into his thirties, he had no job; he hated farming, the major occupation at that time because it was hard and dirty. He was apprenticed to one or two trades, but he never waited long enough to complete his training in any of them. The extended family then called him and asked what exactly he would like to do for a living. He said the business of buying and selling was his prime choice, the one he dreamt about all the time, the one that would bring him the fortune and freedom he needed. And he insisted on doing this in some big and faraway town where his need to make profits would not be compromised by family obligations. His family taxed its members, raked together a tidy sum for him and sent him off with all their good wishes.     
About six months later, it was Christmas time, and this young man returned to town, looking conspicuously prosperous. People wondered which shone the loudest: the gold chain around his neck or the gold strap of his exotic wrist watch. On Christmas day, he floated a feast whose lavish extravagance beggared a royal banquet. About five goats and countless chickens collided in his giant cooking pot, while all the palmwine tappers in town knew where to direct their kegs that day. The great feast was about to start when the guests sent for my father to join them. The first messenger came; my father refused to go; then the second. The third reported with the sardonic warning that whoever failed to get to the feast when the fireplace was still hot would only have himself to blame if all he met were half-picked bones and the loud belches of the punctual guests.
At this point, my father felt the need to clarify a few issues, and said something to this effect: Let me explain myself now before outsiders begin to explain it for me or read hostile meanings into my absence at our brother’s feast. He is our brother, and I have nothing against him. I know the way to our brother’s house, and I have been there many times before without being persuaded to come. And it is not that I woke up today of all days and could not find my appetite. But the question for our brother is: ibi se ti reo ree? (where did he get the money from?). Is this not the same young man for whom we had to collect all our toro, kobo (all our little pennies) some six months ago? How could he have made the profit that could fund the feast whose extravagance the whole town is talking about? No one who has made money the hard, honest way squanders it the way our brother is doing. So, without any envy or ill wish, I ask our brother again, ibi se to reo ree?.
My father never attended that feast; and as the story goes, there were some members of the celebrant’s molebi (extended family) who never did. Christmas over, the pots and pans went back where they came; the revelers dispersed; our young man returned to his ‘station’. But about two weeks later, when the new year was still very new and remnants of yuletide jollifications floated on the wings of the harmattan wind, an uncharacteristic hush fell on the town. The young man, that generous thrower of the Christmas party, was back in town. Only that this time he was securely handcuffed and sandwiched between two hefty policemen who had come to search his family house. The town was later told that the young man was charged with all kinds of crimes ranging from massive theft to embezzlement. He was already working hard for a one-way ticket to prison.
Ibi se ti reo ree? (Where did he get his money from?): that was the question people asked in those days when our society’s head stood confidently on its neck, and all manner of thieves and criminals never found their way to power from where they could choke us in their moral effluvia.
All kinds of interpretation could be read to this parable of a story. The society that serves as its setting is not a perfect one; otherwise that feast would have been boycotted by everyone. But it was a society that still had a conscience and where moral dissent was still the norm. Furthermore, it was a society where the Law still had its way and the restoration of order and good governance was still possible. It was a society which still operated by a hallowed observance of the rubric Aa kii (We do not do....i.e. it is not done; it is forbidden). It was a society of law and order; crime and punishment; good behavior and adequate reward. It was a society which recognized abomination (eewo) and kept it at bay; a society which put a healthy distance between oode (inner room) and aatan (the dunghill) in their literal and figurative senses. It was a society where people still blushed.
As It is Now
     Ibi se ti reo ree? (where did he get his money from?). Now, wind forward the reel. Welcome to present-day Nigeria. Welcome to our moral desert and political jungle where the Law has been turned into a limbless ass; where order has gone under, where the criminal is Hero. Our world is upside down, like the bat of night. Crime pays. The criminal is hero. Let us consider three iconic cases.
A couple of months ago, justice finally caught up with James Onanefe Ibori, the famous ‘thief in the state house’, the ex-governor of Delta State of Nigeria, who stole over 10 billion naira of state money which he squandered on lavish estates and cars abroad while dumping huge sums of the people’s money in coded and un-coded bank accounts all over the world. Ibori’s case is so chronically symptomatic of the hopeless rot in the Nigerian system. Here was a man with a brimming rap sheet featuring criminal convictions both in the United Kingdom and Nigeria, but who wangled his way through our rickety legal and political wilderness, and ended up as governor of a state and one of the shot-callers of the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP). Many times he was taken to court in Nigeria to face the monster of his criminal past, but each time he was discharged and acquitted. (I remember one of his court appearances in Abuja at which the presiding judge said something to this effect: Yes, you are James Onanefe Ibori, but you are not James Onanefe Ibori. Pontius Pilate could have done better; but then he would have been infinitely less rich from the chests of cash that must have purchased that famous equivocation). And after each court ‘victory’, rented crowds trooped out in the streets of Asaba to welcome home their illustrious governor, conqueror of Abuja, the one and only Ogidigbodigbo of the universe! Church services were held in his honour to thank God for his victory and evoke hell fire on his traducers. When, in his post-office, post-immunity period, the EFCC tried to bring him in to account for his stolen wealth, he executed a rapid escape, headed for Delta State and holed up himself in his native village where armed home boys rolled timber logs on to the roads and drove off the anti-graft operatives intent upon his arrest.       
These boys as well as all the other political jobbers and parasitic spongers who facilitated Ibori’s comprehensive criminality and sheltered him from the scorching sun of justice, are well beyond the possibility of ‘blushing’. Hardened and dehumanized into the status of small criminals who owe their livelihood to the machinations of a bigger criminal, they were not concerned about the source of Ibori’s wealth. All they knew is that their son had brought in their own share of the federal loot - a case of one thief stealing from another thief. With this kind of moral anarchy, how can anyone ask ibi se ti reo ree? Who the hell in present-day Nigeria has the mind for that kind of useless question?
But in the civilized tradition of the United Kingdom, that question is of paramount importance. When it was asked and Ibori provided no credible answers; when they opened back the book to his previous felonies, when they confronted him with unassailable evidence of his rampant thievery and allied transgressions, they gave him enough years to keep him sober in jail. More than anything else, the Ibori case has put in bold relief the difference between the British legal system and the Nigerian legal anarchy, the difference between civilization and barbarism, between orderly jurispudentiality and capricious legal ad-hocism, between the rule of Law and the rule of thieves.
This may sound strange to some people, but all things considered, Ibori was just a scapegoat whose case blew into the open at the most inauspicious time. There is something almost Shakespearean in the unfolding of the Delta man’s unraveling . Were  Umaru Yar’Adua still alive today, James Onanefe Ibori would still be gallivanting up and down the terrain of this unfortunate country in his capacity as one of the principal financiers of the Yar’Adua presidential campaign, who has therefore earned his enviable status as a formidable power broker and the de facto second most powerful man in Nigeria. But death, that inscrutable juggernaut, took his powerful beneficiary away and exposed him to the whimsical wiles of a Vice President he once despised and whose presidential emergence he did everything possible and impossible to thwart. Put another way, Ibori’s final conviction is absolutely no indication of the health of Nigeria’s legal cum political system. On the contrary, it is a powerful pointer to its medieval rot and dysfunctionality. And, finally, Ibori is just one tiny (though significant) pimple in a body politic ravaged by a plague of boils. There are infinitely bigger, more rapacious thieves among Nigeria’s public functionaries today, walking freely and calling the shots because their own lid has not been blown. Who still has the capacity to blush in a country ruled by thieves?
Now, before you start thinking that the Ibori saga was unique and that the people’s toleration of his crime was unbelievable, consider the case of another big party wig from the same party, from another part of the country, convicted for blatantly illegal manipulation of contract awards in his position as Chairman of the board of Nigerian Ports Authority. When chief Bode George got a two-year jail term (considered as grossly in-commensurate with the gravity of his crime), his “teeming supporters” thumbed their noses at a Nigerian legal system that was so blind to the proverbial imuniti which should naturally serve as shield for a man of the Lagos chief’s military and political record. Many even couched their anger in sardonic rhetorical questions: Ki lo se teni kan o se ri? Owoo baba ta na sope o ji?  (What did he do that no one had done before? Whose father owned the money they said he stole?). And, to back up their protest in a typical Nigerian fashion, on the day the Big Chief completed his term in jail, “teeming supporters” in dazzling aso ebi lined the route from the prison gate to his house, chanting party songs and other vocal ammunitions of perverse resistance. A lavish party followed, crowned with a thanksgiving service in which the officiating clergy berated the Chief’s political enemies, and beseeched God to shower him with further blessings. The Lagos sky was rent by the resounding “Amen” of party chieftains, “teeming supporters”, and kindred spirits. Tell me, with this sanctification of crime and beatification of the criminal, could anyone in the crowd have asked: ‘Ibi se ti reo ree?’
Let us move quickly now from the debauchery of Nigeria’s political gladiators to the iniquity of electoral functionaries who facilitate their ride into office. Remember Maurice Iwu, the Ebola Professor who infected Nigeria’s body politic with the plagues of the 2003 and 2007 polls (who can forget the infamy of the Ido-Osi jumbo numbers in a hurry? Certainly not Femi Orebe, my compatriot and intrepid columnist!). Well, when he finally left office and retired into well-earned comfort, he was treated to an uproarious homecoming by an appreciative crowd including kinsmen and women, party faithfuls, (for he was profitably faithful to the ruling party), honourable legislators, and musical celebrities. Did anyone in the crowd ever ask their son to give account of his years in office? Were they ever concerned that their son supervised an electoral heist of such phenomenal enormity that nearly tore Nigeria apart and which brought the country the searing contempt and opprobrium of the international community? Did any of them blush at the abysmally low esteem in which their son was held by an honest sector of the Nigerian population? Blame not the Iwu clan, for he has equally famous antecedents in Nigeria’s history of ignominious election umpires. Blame them not for in obodo dike Nigeria, the rogue politician is man of the people; the thief is hero. Our skin has become so coarse, so thick, our blood so pale with perfidy that we have lost our capacity to blush.
     If Nigeria does not kill corruption,
     Corruption will kill Nigeria.
That was my somewhat epigrammatic rejoinder some two months ago, to a touchingly thoughtful memo by Mobolaji Aluko, the Nigerian academic and public intellectual, on corruption in Nigeria and the possible role of the country’s elite in stemming its spread. Corruption kills by blighting our blossom, frustrating new shoots while stunting the growth of the old stem. Like a virulent weed, it does not just smother the good crop; it shoves aside its carcass and usurps its place. Thereafter, it starts reproducing itself in multiple folds, carving out the entire terrain in its own image, developing new shells and shields against possible assaults, completely erasing every trace of the old virtuous order, and taking on a false originary aspect. Its operational lackeys are degradation and decay; its ultimate harbor is death. Consider the ubiquity of death and mayhem in our country today and you appreciate the more the absolutely morbid repercussions of corruption.
The last day of May and the first three of June this year shocked Nigeria with a near-apocalyptically morbid timeline:
Thursday May 31: 8 loaded petro tankers burnt to carcass on the Lagos Ibadan expressway
Friday June 1: over 30 vehicles private and commercial caught fire and roasted on the same Lagos-Ibadan expressway
Saturday June 2: a Nigerian cargo plane overshot the runway and killed about eight people in faraway Ghana. Poor Ghana became a victim of Nigeria’s culpable incompetence.
Sunday June 3: Father of all disasters. Nigeria brought the tragedy home; DANA airplane crashed in the densely populated village of Ishaga-Agege near Lagos, killing all 153 people on board and some half dozen on the ground.
That same day, Boko Haram, Nigeria’s dreaded Nemesis, exploded their trademark bombs in Bauchi, dispatching over a dozen Christian worshippers in a bloody inferno.
     In four short days, Nigeria harvested a bulk of tragedies that many countries do not experience in many years. This cluster of calamities came in such a breathless succession and with such alarming reverberation that some Nigerians felt the country was just one bang away from Apocalypse. Some saw it as a sign that Jonathan’s rule had brought Nigeria a fate that is the exact opposite of his first name (Goodluck). Some were already seeing it as the first hint of the unraveling predicted for 2015. But the rational, hard-nosed discerned the pattern in it all, sensing the deleterious implication of Nigeria’s number one killer: corruption.
To know what these incidents have to do with corruption, let’s ask the following questions:
Why has the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, the principal artery connecting the rest of the country to its commercial heartbeat of Lagos, remained a death trap in the past 10 years? What has happened to the loudly touted plan in the past five years to rehabilitate and expand the expressway? Is the company called Bi-Courtney still interested in the ‘concessioning’ arrangement? And, by the way, what about the billions of naira budgeted for road rehabilitation every year? What happened to them?
What, if not corruption, is responsible for the presence of so many patently non-roadworthy vehicles on Nigerian roads? Time there was when Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO’s) made sure only fit and proper vehicles plied the roads, and the traffic police took care of the sanity and competence of Nigerian drivers. Now, the VIO has literally disappeared, and, with the right bribe to give, you could speed along with your brakeless vehicle and kill as many people as your tyres can crush.
What about those long articulated vehicles and loaded petrol tankers which pummel the roads with their heavy weights and park anywhere that suits their tyrannical fancy? What became of the Nigeria rail system that should have relieved the road of their heavy haulage? Is it true that we have the bribing generosity of trailer magnates to thank for the untimely demise of the Nigerian railway? Pray, to which cabal do we owe the death of the once active Nigerian railway?
And, regarding the planes, why is the Nigerian air space full of Tokunbo aircraft? (As if the carnage being wrought by Tokunbo automobiles on our roads is not enough!). Why is the Nigerian sky littered with cheap, creaking carriers from foreign scrap-yards, refurbished jalopies imported to serve as shortcut to wealth for their ruthless owners and one-way ticket to death for Nigerian passengers?
How are the inspection schedules and oversight procedures of planes plying the Nigerian space handled? Is it true that some ‘inspectors’ certify airplanes in the manager’s office, declaring them air-worthy after collecting their brown envelopes or bulging Ghana-must-go’s – without ever laying their eye on the very object of their inspection? There were rumours that this kind of malpractice contributed to the crash of Sosoliso airplane in Port Harcourt on December 10, 2005 and the Bellview one just two months before - rumours that have been blowing in the wind ever since owing to the non-availability of the post-crash investigation reports
And so we ask: where are these reports? Why have they not been made public? Why have the recommendations therein not been implemented? On whose shelves have they been gathering dust?
There is a sinister pattern to these catastrophes, a sickeningly predictable chronology to their narratives. First, the predisposing condition: a corruptly compromised equipment that is nothing short of an accident waiting to happen, lives true to expectation and precipitates a tremendous catastrophe. Then a ritual of oohs and aahs, gnashing of teeth and rending of garment, and profuse outpouring of condolences. Then a visit to the disaster site by the president and the governor and a gaggle of other public functionaries, complete with a formidable press crew. The team perform (what a word!) a guided tour of the disaster site; the president manages to shed a tear or two, proclaims before the camera how broken-hearted he is; declares a period of national mourning; talks tough about the cause of the accident, and promises to bring to ‘bring to book’ all those responsible for it; sets up an investigation panel; then heads out for his next overseas trip. Weeks later the panel submits its report with full publicity fanfare. The president thanks them for their patriotic service, repeats his former threat to ‘bring to book’ all those responsible for the accident; accepts the report and dumps it in the national archives. End of story. Well, no, until another round of accidents  and . . . .
Investigations without end. Reports without result. Recommendations without implementation. Crimes without punishment. This is the sorry order in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We learn nothing from history, and that is why for us History frequently repeats itself as a running mix of tragedy and farce. We are like that nanny goat in the tale whipped countless times for a repeated offence. Buffeted by political banditry, anesthesized by gross religiosity, inundated by injustices which stink to the high heavens, our senses have been dulled, our nerves critically undone, our sense of reality twisted to look like something straight out of the theatre of the absurd.
Or what could be more absurd, more jaw-droppingly nightmarish than the present sensational bribegate involving the Right Honourable Farouk Lawan and the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on the probe of the oil subsidy scandal? As the story goes, Honourable Lawan, chairman of this committee, is alleged to have asked one of the oil magnates for a hefty bribe so as to remove his company’s name from the list of those being penciled down for investigation and possible sanction. But he barged straight into a setup and went home with marked dollar bills. By the time he began to badger his affluent briber for the outstanding balance of the three-million dollar deal (after collecting the initial 620,000 dollars), the police were already knocking on his door. In the past three weeks or so, our minds have been smothered by the slush and sleaze of this unedifying saga. Now our Honourable Representatives are trying to set up another committee to investigate the disgraced investigators.
     
Round and round in a cycle of shame
The bribed, the briber, all the same
In a land so decrepit, so decayed
Justice always denied, for ever delayed
To think that this unforgivably silly charade is what our so-called elected representatives are making of a serious scandal involving the oil subsidy, the removal of which precipitated a virtual shutdown of the country in the very first week of this year, subjecting millions of our people to untold suffering, and in some cases, death. From the very beginning, we never trusted the Jonathan government’s propaganda regarding the existence of subsidy, nor were we persuaded by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s IMF-induced campaign for its removal. Many argued that the problem with Nigeria’s oil business was not the so-called subsidy on the price at the pump-head, but the wanton hemorrhaging caused by vulpine oil cabals who collected billions of naira as subsidy on oil which they never supplied. The Nigerian government had, therefore, been subsidizing corruption all along, and was bent on getting the Nigerian people to cough out more for that ignoble purpose. The people said no in January, and the thunderous reverberations of their voices gingered the House of Representatives into instituting an investigation.
To be sure, the Farouk Lawan ad hoc committee started off on a salutary note. Its initial revelation of millions of dollars collected as phantom subsidy by oil companies endeared it to the Nigerian people whose strong suspicion it only served to confirm. For once, the people thought they were about to crush the subsidy conundrum and expose, at last, the cabal that held Nigeria to such exploitative ransom. The canonization of Lawan and his committee was just about to begin when the Otedola dollars threw a wrench into the works. Now attention has shifted from the reports of the committee to the misconduct of some of its members. The oil cabals must be laughing in their sea of subsidy dollars while many Nigerians are still wondering: is this the end of the probe? When will President Jonathan and Dr. Okonjo-Iweala ask Nigerians to submit their backs for the yoke of another “subsidy” removal?
Round and round in a cycle of shame. . . . Just a few months before Lawangate, there was Hembegate. In a classic case of “YOU HEMBE ME AND I’LL OTEH YOU”, Arunma Oteh, then Director General of the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) surprised the whole world with the allegation that the chairman of the committee set up to probe her had earlier demanded from her a bribe of 44 million naira. Before then, Honourable Hembe was said to have also received travel funds, including estacode, from SEC for a foreign trip he never made and the money for which he never returned. Again, a carefully calculated distraction had supplanted the main issue: serious allegations of mismanagement of funds and reckless spending preferred against Ms Oteh became a side item in the panel’s menu of egregious entrees. The accuser had become the accused. Up till now, the nation has not got to the bottom of the serious allegations against the SEC Director. As usual, in response to public outcry and anger, the Very Honourable House of Representatives referred the case to its Ethics and Privileges Committee for further investigation, the outcome of which may never see the light of day.
Round and round in a cycle of shame. . . Before the two
‘-gates’ above there was Elumelugate. In 2007, Dimeji Bankole, then speaker of the House, surprised the entire nation with the revelation that the Obasanjo government had invested 16 billion dollars in the power sector with nothing practically to show for it except the conspicuous darkness that enveloped the nation. In January the following year, the House Power and Steel Committee chaired by Godwin Elumelu was mandated to probe the power sector in respect of the alleged 16 billion dollars. After an extensive tour of power project sites all over the country, the committee wrote and submitted a report containing a searing indictment of many of the major players in the country’s power sector, including the President himself, and recommended them for possible sanctions. It was at this crucial juncture that the allegation of a 100-million naira bribe was hurled at the committee. Again, the case was referred to the House Ethics and Privileges Committee which investigated and cleared the Elumelu committee which then went ahead to submit its report. Then, this macabre drama by the very honourable members of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, as brilliantly captured by Samson Ezea of The Guardian on Saturday:
Curiously and shockingly, virulent verbal attacks were launched against Elumelu. Nigerians were amazed at the effusive manner majority of the members cursed the recommendations, making many to wonder whether these were the same people that spoke so “patriotically” in praise of the report when it was submitted. (p.50)
After reading this one feels like screaming as Kunle Ajibade did a couple of years ago: What a Country! Thereafter, Honourable Elumelu was arrested by the EFCC for mismanaging the 5.2 billion naira rural electrification contract funds, an allegation he took to a Federal High Court where he was cleared though the presiding Justice declared that he and some of his committee members still had a case to answer.
     Dear listeners, at this juncture, I find myself wondering with the Narrator in my play The State visit:

How many, oh how many shall we count
Of the teeth of Adepele:
There are twenty incisors, fifty canines,
While uncountable molars lie buried
In the caves of the jaw
    From every indication, it appears that those in positions of authority in Nigeria especially in the political and economic spheres have been waging an undeclared war on the country’s resources and general welfare. And it is a war that is savage in its method and dehumanizing in its impact. I have never seen or heard of a country in the world in which public functionaries are as pathologically perverse, blindly rapacious, brutally cannibalistic, and callously unpatriotic as the ones that hold this unfortunate land in thrall. Consider the mind-boggling scam by the Pension Reform Task Team and the two billion naira cash discovered cruse and raw in the home of one of the officials. Two billion naira of pension funds in a country where old, feeble pensioners starve to death in their little hovels or collapse from exhaustion on mindless “verification parades”! What about police bosses who embezzle funds meant for the welfare of the Force (For an instructive story of Tafa Balogun, one of such bosses, see Wale Adebanwi’s A Paradise for Maggots: The Story of a Nigerian anti-Graft Czar, a meticulously detailed, eloquently written biography of Nuhu Ribadu, a book that should be compulsory read for every public official in this country – from the local government councilor to the President, from the micro-finance banker to the Central Bank governor).
What about suspected public officials and the EFCC’s revolving door? Again, another narrative with a shameful chronology: allegation of extensive graft, arrest, arraignment, brief detention, (with all the publicity razzmatazz), then bail, and silence, Finis. . . . Virtually every former governor since 1999 has gone through this deceptive ritual. Dimeji Bankole, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, went through his own motions recently, with the same result. Somehow, the huge sums the ‘arrested’ officials are suspected to have stolen/embezzled/mismanaged resonate in the public domain for a while, then fade away as we move on to further, bigger scams. The Nigerian people have seen and heard about so many colossal sums being stolen that they have lost their awe for numbers.
Time there was when millions raised the brow      
And a millionaire was deemed the super rich
Then came the billions and their ceaseless itch
And now we talk in trillions in a tall and tidy row
We have not only lost our capacity to blush; swarmed by the grossness of fraud-fraught numbers, we have also lost the ability to count. Or to put it another way, we have been afflicted by a chronic number fatigue. Those who steal the nation’s money have not only ruined our economy by devaluing the national currency; they have also impoverished our spirit and devalued our capacity to be human. Nigeria today is suffering from moral inflation: outwardly big and bloated, internally empty and weak.
Corruption, Nigeria’s fastest-growing Industry
     Let’s face this fact: corruption is the fastest-growing industry in Nigeria today. It is the real money-spinner, the oil which lubricates the engine of Nigeria’s politics and economy, a sine qua non in business deals, a desideratum for advancement in all spheres. Come to think of it. How/what would our politics be without corruption?  If our electoral processes were less corrupt, how would judges on the Election Petition and Appeal Court get a few ‘gifts’ to secure them in their retirement? What about the lawyers who rake up their billions from litigating cases that should have been determined in the polling booth? How would the Distinguished Senator and Honourable Rep. live up to their billing as lawmakers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without securing millions of naira from acts such as anticipatory approvals, or incidents such as Lawangate or Hembegate? If you are in the aviation sector, how can you boost your profit margin if you refuse to bribe oversight officers and inspectors whose duty it is to pass your rickety, octogenarian air plane as eminently air-worthy and litter the Nigeria sky with flying coffins? If you are a banker, how can you join the big league of billionaires without cooking the books, proliferating unsecured loans, liquidating your bank and running away with the money while hundreds of depositors perish from the stress engendered by your fraud? Yes, indeed, corruption is Nigeria’s most viable industry, the largest employer of labour, engenderer of an economy that knows no recession. In obodo dike Nigeria, corruption pays; it pays handsomely.. . .  And this is why we no longer blush . . . .
The Way Out
     Corruption is one hell of a demon which virtually everyone in Nigeria talks so about, but which only few are ready to confront head-on. This is because, as hinted above, corruption is the very lifeblood of Nigeria’s politics and economy. As run in this country, the so-called presidential system does not only feed on corruption; it actively encourages it: the huge deposits expected from office seekers, the large sums that exchange hands among party ‘stakeholders’; the perverse tradition of patronage through booty-sharing and largess-dispensation; the shocking combination of immunity and impunity by public functionaries; the absolute lack of transparency and accountability.
It is in the light of the above that we must appraise President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent statement on asset declaration vis-à-vis corruption. Boasted the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces:
It is personal and I don’t give a damn about that [asset declaration]. The law is clear about it and so making it public is no issue and I will not play into the hands of the people. . . . I declared (assets publicly) under late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua because he did it, but it is not proper. . . It is not the President declaring assets that will change the country
The Nation, Mon.June 25, 2012, front page.
   And President Jonathan sees all this as ‘a matter of principle’. Whose principle? What principle, you are tempted to ask? For him, asset declaration is ‘personal’, ‘not proper’; it will lead to ‘play[ing] into the hands of the people’. Again, which ‘people?’, you want to ask. Can it be the Nigerian people  to whom he owes his mandate and to whom he swore to be transparently accountable? ‘I don’t give a damn’, swaggered the once God-fearing, meek-looking Jonathan, with an egregious arrogance so redolent of his “No-going-back” braggadocio when he unleashed that untold agony on the Nigerian people in the opening hours of this year, and his unilateral re-christening of the University of Lagos as a grand May 29 gesture . ‘I don’t give a damn’: that must have been his reaction to the public outcry when Gitto Construzioni General Nigeria Limited, a company with substantial construction business deals with the Nigerian government, refurbished a church in Otuoke, his hometown as a ‘friendly’ gift, and the President and his entourage trooped to that church to give thanks to the Lord for his blessing.
Watch out, Nigeria: a new Jonathan seems to be emerging, one who confuses cockiness with confidence, tactlessness with toughness, strong-manship with statesmanship. Is Nigeria witnessing the rise of another ‘African President’, obstinate even when wrong, intolerant even of positive criticism? President Jonathan’s combination of naivety and amorality is as profound as it is injurious to the health of this country. Can a corruption-compliant ruler really lead a corruption-free country?
The American people know the answer to that question (And I am using the America example since the United States is one country in the world Nigeria is aspiring to copy). That is why they hold their leaders to high ethical standards. That is why those leaders treat them with unstinting respect. In the first quarter of this year, President Obama made public his tax returns, and later his total assets. Mitt Romney, though a presidential candidate, followed suit. Those are leaders who ‘give a damn’ about the just, the proper, and the decent; leaders who know that ‘the President declaring asset [can] change the country’. Those are leaders with demonstrable respect for their people and the rule of law.
To fight corruption in Nigeria we must first get our rulers to change their attitude to the ruled via the rule of law. And we must do this by changing our own attitude to those in the position of power. Too often we the Nigerian people encourage the criminality of our rulers by kow-towing to their every whim and caprice; we invite their disdain by denying ourselves any claim to self-respect; we court their oppression by readily offering them our backs to ride upon. We cow when we should kick; we temporize when we need to toughen up. We smile when we should smite. We need to change the Kabiyesi Syndrome that forbids the asking of critical questions and the insistence on having them answered. It is the typical Nigerian attitude to power that has turned our rulers into aseyiowuu (the one who does as s/he pleases), and encouraged them to corrupt the immunity innocently enshrined in the constitution into the impunity of criminal rulership.
Let us interrogate the way the Nigerian system pampers public officials with extravagant emoluments: the bloated cabinets at all levels of government, the slew of personal assistants, special advisers, ministers of, ministers for, ministers on, ministers under, ministers to, and suchlike spongers who constitute a drain on the national economy. Not to be forgotten: the estacode regimen and its use and abuse by functionaries in the political realm as well as those in the civil service. Let every Nigeria ask their councilor, assembly man/woman, representative, and senator today: how much exactly do you earn? What is the difference between your stipulated salary and your actual income? How much is your constituency allowance and how much of it actually goes to your constituency? Let us ask the president and the governors: how much exactly does the nation spend on security votes? How is the money spent? Where is that ‘security’ in a country so beleaguered by wanton violence?
We need to ask these questions and more because experience has shown that Nigerian public functionaries steal so greedily while in office so as to stow fortunes away for the continuation of their extravagant lifestyle when their term is over. (For instance, a governor, minister, senator, permanent secretary, or vice chancellor already used to flying first/business class at public expense, or being fussed over by a crowd of ‘personal assistants’, will have a serious withdrawal problem letting go of these privileges and perks. The solution? Steal all you can in preparation for the rainy day!
Nor can/must we forget the issue of religion and its ironic role in the sanctification of corruption in Nigeria. It is a known but hardly acknowledged fact that Nigeria boasts one of the highest church/population ratios in the world and yet ranks as one of the most corrupt countries on planet earth. As concerned compatriots such as GA Akinola, Biodun Jeyifo, Ebenezer Obadare, Eddy & Bene Madunagu, Okey Ndibe, Festus Iyayi, Pius Adesanmi, Ogaga Ifowodo, Abimbola Adelakun, and others have frequently observed, for the most part, religion in Nigeria is nothing more than superstition, a crafty mask, and grand pretence. This is particularly so with the country’s swelling ranks of Prosperity Gospel preachers, those faith-vendors who purchase sins and sell forgiveness at equally exorbitant prices. If you are poor, we are told, it’s because of your sin; if you are jobless, it’s because you’ve strayed from the straight ‘n narrow way. Absolving the creators of the corrupt socio-economic system that turns its victims into paupers and social cannibals, these preachers portray every crook in power as God-chosen, even when that power  has come through rigged elections and murderous brigandage. They conduct thanksgiving service for notorious political jobbers and perform homecoming ceremonies for returnees with looted fortunes. When the wealthy crook hands them the key to a luxury car (or private jet), they shower the ‘cheerful giver’ with blessings, beseech God to ‘prosper his ways’, and extol his virtues to the heavens. Hardly do they ever ask, as father did in those days: ‘ibi se ti reo ree?’.
And, very important, Nigeria’s super-structure and the phenomenality of corruption. This may sound rather far-fetched to some people, but one of the ways of tackling graft in this country is to address the structural corruption in the very composition of Nigeria itself. The present rickety, loosely assembled contraption with all its Lugardian paralysis is riddled with dissonance and disconnect. A succession of visionless, close-minded rulers has made the country both loveless and unlovable. To many Nigerians, Nigeria is ‘their country’, some distant no-man’s-land where you go to scoop your own fortune and take your loot back to your own clan. They may call it stealing in Abuja, but as far as the home crowd is concerned, you have only brought back your/their share of the ‘national cake’. The cases of James Ibori, Bode George, and Maurice Iwu mentioned above owe their peculiarity to this kind of double consciousness and moral ambivalence. The erudite political scientist, Peter Ekeh, has put this mentality down to the existence in Nigeria of two republics: the primordial/ethnic/pre-colonial and the modern/national/post-colonial, the former exacting near-sacred loyalty, the latter begrudged with faint political observance. This curious situation has led to the relativization of morality in Nigeria, as what is wrong and condemnable in one republic is but right and commendable in the other. In a nutshell, to solve the problem of corruption in Nigeria, we must first face head on the issue of the national question.  
And finally,
     If Nigeria does not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria. Corruption has taken over the commanding heights of  Nigerian society. It is, without doubt, the Grand commander of the Federal Republic. Like a frightfully aggressive cancer, it has metastasized to the vital cells of our body politic, and the debilitating symptoms are everywhere: perverted moral values, a rig-prone electoral arrangement designed to throw up criminals in place of leaders, fraud-choked banking and finance system, irregular power supply, dry water-taps, death-trap roads, death-dispensing hospitals, a progressively illiterate educational system, global notoriety, . . . .. Melo la o ka leyin Adepele?. (Oh how many shall we count/Of the teeth of Adepele?. . . .) The malaise is massive, the dysfunctionalities are daunting. But we must NEVER allow this situation, grim as it is, to plunge us into cynicism and despair. Yes, indeed, Nigeria is worth fighting for. And this fight will have to be carried out by the people of this country. The soldiers have shown by their many years of misrule that our national salvation is not in their hands. The present gaggle of civilian rulers is proving to be no different. At no time, therefore, is the role of civil society more crucial, more imperative than the present. Let there be more of the coalition of civil society organizations that brought Nigeria back from the chaos that ensued from the politicization of President Yar’Adua’s illness; the type that forced the “No going back” Jonathan to back down on his callous, inequitable fuel price hike. This country has enough to make life comfortable for ALL of us and generations yet unborn. Let us begin to ask: Why are a few Nigerians so rich and the rest of us so poor? Let us go beyond this and engage in a massive civil action for change, knowing full well that our fate is in our own hands. It is organized massive action from the Nigerian people that can eliminate the canker worm of corruption that is sucking the lifeblood of this bountifully endowed but criminally misgoverned country. We must make sure that we kill corruption before it has the chance of killing Nigeria.
     I thank the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) for inviting me and you for being such an obliging audience.
     Yio see se o  (May it be possible).
Niyi Osundare
Ibadan, July 5, 2012 

The Last Stone.

BY PIUS ADESANMI

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. But the people came upon the preacher and saith: if what thou sayest is true and all is indeed vanity, what sayest thou of King Jona, our taskmaster, and his wife? And the Preacher saith unto the people: who is King Jona?

Whereupon the people spake about their tormentor and his wife and the abomination of desolation they hath wrought upon the land. And they saith: O preacher, thou knowest not King Jona and his wife? And they saith: our ground and inheritance brought forth plentiful. But whilst we perish of hunger, King Jona and his wife apportioned our possessions unto themselves, unto their children, and unto their children’s children. And when they hath filled their house with our portion, King Jona saith unto himself: What shall I do, because I have no more room where to bestow my fruits? And he saith, this will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

After King Jona hath said these things, his wife’s heart was greatly gladdened. And she summoned Orontolum, Renokrim, Abatimus, and all the other palace servants and saith: now that the inheritance of the people hath yielded plentiful for my husband’s barns, it is meet that we call a great feast for all the lords of the land so we can rejoice and make merry. Go ye now and bring forth musicians who play the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp and all kinds of music. Bring forth the best robes and put it on my guests; and put rings on their hands and shoes on their feet; and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it; bring forth the best wine from the bridegroom’s store in the land of Cana; and let us eat and drink and be merry.



And as they made merry, one of the lords of the land rose and did obeisance to King Jona and his wife and saith: O great King, because it is appointed unto thee to rule over this land forever and to fill thine barns with the fruits and goods of the people, it is meet that we name this district after thee and in thine honour. Whereupon King Jona saith: o worthy servant, so let it be written, so let it be done. And the choice district of the city bore King Jona’s name henceforth. And another servant rose and saith: O king, it is meet that we also name a road after thine wife, our mother. Whereupon King Jona saith: o worthy servant, so let it be written, so let it be done. And a choice road in the city bore the Queen’s name henceforth.

And one of the lords, who came from the home district of King Jona, rose and did obeisance and saith: O great King Jona, although thou now liveth in the city by the rock with the Queen our mother, it is meet that I appoint her one of the supreme courtiers in our home district. And there was great rejoicing in the hearts of King Jona and his Queen at this announcement. And while they tasted wine, King Jona commanded his servants to bring the golden and silver vessels so that his lords and their wives and their concubines might drink therefrom. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

And the people saith unto the preacher, behold King Jona has built bigger barns to store the fruit of the people which he hath apportioned unto himself; behold a district is named after him; behold a street is named after his wife; behold his wife is appointed a supreme courtier in their home district. Before our own eyes, King Jona and his wife store up great treasures on earth and no moth or rust is come upon them and thou sayest that all is vanity? Pray, preacher, where is the vanity?

And the Preacher went out and departed from the temple. And the people came to him and taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the worldly treasures of King Jona and his Queen and the glory of them. And they saith to the preacher: behold, with our eyes and out of our poverty and deprivation we behold the glory and splendor of King Jona’s barn. Pray, preacher, where is the vanity?

And the Preacher saith unto them: see ye not all these things? See ye not King’s Jona’s treasures which he took from the people and apportioned unto his own inheritance? See ye not his mighty castles and his barns full of the fruits of the people? See ye not the district named after him and the street named after his wife? Verily verily I say unto you, there shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down when the appointed time comes. For all the fullness of King Jona’s barns shall come to nought and the souls of the foolish who build bigger barns for their earthly fruits shall be required of them. And that which was named after them today shall be erased and named after their successors. For vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

And great fear is come upon the people for they look into the Preacher’s eyes and saw the truth.

Edo Governorship: A Debate Marred By Innuendoes

| JOHNSON MOMODU But for Solomon Iyobosa Edebiri, the candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in the July 14 governorship election in Edo State, whose responses to questions were spot-on and helped to moderate the tension occasioned by innuendoes that Governor Adams Oshiomhole of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Major-General Charles Arhiavbere (rtd) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) hurled against each other, the July 5 governorship debate organised by the Nigeria Election Debate Group (NEDG) and aired live by the African Independent Television (AIT) could have passed for a platform of raw and undisguised personal attacks. Well, the reason Edebiri did not join in the fray or was not drawn into the arena of conflict is understandable.  The permutations and calculations do not accommodate or position him as a force to reckon with or a game changer of sort in the election. In other words, Edebiri is far away from the odds of winning the election, and therefore, it is needless to say whether or not the odds favour him. He is, in fact, no threat to the two frontline candidates. So, in essence, he has been working at his own pace and not ruffling any feathers, especially as demonstrated during the debate when he was waxing utopian in his own world, sandwiched by Airhiavbere and Oshiomhole. Although the organisers had, from the outset, clearly stated the ground rules for the debate, they could not enforce one of the rules that forbade candidates from leaving the issues to attacking personalities: Oshiomhole emerged as the greatest culprit on this score. In his bids to respond with equal venoms to Airhiavbere’s sharp interrogations of his opaque governance style and penchant for disobeying court orders, Oshiomhole had embarked on a voyage of blackmail and intimidation when he said that he had information that Airhiavbere left the Army under questionable circumstances. But Airhiavbere, unlike Oshiomhole who was forgetting the questions after addressing extraneous issues, said he would not join issues with Oshiomhole on his retirement from the military. On two occasions during the debate, Airhiavbere had answered questions on his background that was capable of building trust and the length of his military career, explaining how he spent forty-two and a half years in army uniform. He said he won all the honours that were there to win: Forces Services Star (FSS), Passed Staff College (PSC), Meritorious Service Star (MSS) and Medal of Honour for commanding meritoriously the Army Finance Corps as Director, and that because he was an invaluable asset, the Army extended his service by more than a year. He said he was redeployed as a Directing Staff to the Institute of Policy and Strategic Study (NIPPS), where he was a participant in 2007 and graduated as one of the best students, from where he retired from the Army in July 2011. It was on the second occasion when Airhiavbere was clarifying the issue of length of service, raised by Ide Eguabor, one of the panelists, that Oshiomhole, while taking his turn, left his question unanswered and went for the person of Airhiavbere, who must have shocked him by resisting his strategy to drag him out into making a public show of the structured and disciplined system in the military in the public, because Oshiomhole had made a spurious allegation which was a counterpoise to the proposition by Airhiavbere that it was immoral for the governor to award contracts without due process and divert public funds to build a mansion and other structures in his Iyamho Village. Oshiomhole, who had all this while shied away from publicly responding to the building, laboured hard to diminish the import and impact of the scandalous project. He was economical with the truth as he danced round the issue and tried to dismiss the opposition claim that the project was more than N10 billion. But at the end of the day, it was clear that Oshiomhole did not convince anyone, not even himself, that his hands were clean. After pontificating on his capacity for propriety right from his years as a labour activist, he had admitted not to be a saint, but a decent human being.  But how decent is he?  One thing I know is that if there was nothing of such as claimed by the opposition, Oshiomhole would have taken the press and concerned groups on a tour of the place to put a lie to the claim. Nevertheless, one must commend Airhiavbere for putting Oshiomhole on his toes and enervating him by exposing the underbelly of his government.  The PDP candidate faulted the process of awarding contracts without following due process as well as wasting billions of naira on some road infrastructure such as the 6.82 kilometres stretch Airport Road, which, according to him, had gulped over N11 billion. But rather than fault Airhiavbere’s claims, Oshiomhole said: “He (Airhiavbere) keeps on talking about advertising contracts but he was at the army at that time, (and) I don’t know what time he had to look out for tenders.”   Airhiavbere challenged Oshiomhole on his failure to conduct local government election, even as he has continued to defy the provisions of the law and the constitution by keeping in office appointed Transition Committee Chairmen for Local Government Areas in the state.  Besides, he said that the governor gleefully defied a court judgement nullifying the appointed committees.  It was shocking that Oshiomhole’s answer to that was that it was a general problem that was not peculiar to Edo State. These are the critical issues. I must admit that Oshiomhole is good at talking.  He is also very clever in all his ramifications.  That was why he was able to circumvent the real issues and played up other issues around Airhiavbere and other leaders of the PDP; that was why he was able to run the NLC as president from 1999 to 2007 and deployed it for his economic empowerment. When he was asked to talk about his background in his opening gambit at the debate, he cleverly sidestepped his education career and dwelled on his activities in the labour union. By so doing, he denied the Nigerian people of hearing from the horse’s mouth whether or not he only attended a modern school as claimed in some circles and how he got into Ruskin College, London, that is always on his bio-data. If he was proud of his education background, he would have talked about it. Indeed, it would not have taken Oshiomhole more words to capture his education career than he used for his self-adulation as a global phenomenon.

There Is Alternative To Oshiomhole.

| IYOBOSA UWUGIAREN

Let me start this piece by sharing this story concerning my local government area with you. I was at the headquarters of Orhionmwon local government council, Abudu, recently. My mission was to have a chat with the chairman of the council’s caretaker committee appointed by Comrade Governor Adams Oshiomhole about three years ago over issues bordering on the sorry state of the LGA. I am an indigene of Urhonigbe town, the largest community in the local government area. Even though I knew the acting landlord was in the office, an aide to the LGA boss told me he had travelled to Benin City for a meeting when I visited his office. However, despite efforts made to frustrate my mission, I eventually met with one of the key account staff members of the council who should know the inner working of the council.
 Although I introduced myself as a journalist, I told him from the beginning that my discussion with him would be off the record. I requested to know from my source why the impact of the council in the administration of the local government is not being felt in the council — even in the common area of sanitation and community roads — in spite of the millions of naira the council receives monthly as revenue allocation from the federation account.  Expectedly, it was tough getting my source to talk. However, hesitantly, the senior account officer later explained the monthly frustration of the council.
Hear him: “In almost four years, Orhionmwon local government council has received over N162 billion from the federation account —with an average monthly allocation of N130 million. But, every month, the state government only gives us a fraction of it to pay salary and we do not know how the rest is shared or deployed. The state government usually tells us that the money will be used on behalf of the council.”
As I was able to understand from my source, my local government is not alone in this attitude of the state government under the leadership of the self-styled comrade governor. The criminal looting of the LGs’ funds is the same in all the local government councils monthly. From the Ministry of Finance’s record, Orhionmwon is one of the LGAs that receive the lowest allocation in the state, while Oredo LGA, which is the highest, receives an average of N158 million monthly. Yet, it is shocking to hear that the councils have little or nothing to show for the huge allocation they receive monthly.
Perhaps, that explains why Oshiomhole has refused to allow a democratic government in the councils in the last three years. For him, it appears the councils have become a conduit pipe to loot LGs’ funds for personal use.
Check the Ministry of Finance’s record also: Edo State has received well over N550 billion from the federation account since Oshiomhole came to power; this is outside the LGs’ monthly allocation and the internally generated revenue that runs into billions of naira monthly. Yet, we are told that the state had borrowed billions of naira from commercial banks for a few capital projects being executed in the state.

Like I have earlier stated in this column, what many outsiders are celebrating in Edo State today is massive fraud that has been perpetrated in the state in most of the four years of Oshiomhole’s regime. And these are the real issues that will determine how the good people of the state will vote on Saturday. In spite of several threats and intimidation that I have received from Oshiomhole’s aides, let me restate my position that I am one of many indigenes of Edo State who strongly believe that the comrade governor has failed to live up to the huge expectation of the people, especially taking into consideration the quantum of financial resources that have been made available to him since he assumed power almost four years ago. His so-called achievements are more of the media’s making. The people of Edo State know better. I admit that his media aides have done excellent job of manipulating the public in favour of their master. And, if people outside Edo State were to decide the Saturday governorship election in the state, Oshiomhole would surely score 99.9 per cent of the total votes. Apparently overwhelmed by the dirty propaganda of the governor’s spin doctors, most naive people outside the state wrongly believe that Oshiomhole is unbeatable in the election. They believe he has performed excellently to deserve a second term. But, unfortunately, the reality on ground in the state is far from what these people are saying; and, for sure, this group of people will not vote on Saturday; they will not be there when the good people of Edo State will come out in large numbers to decide who will govern them in the next four years.

But, give it to the propaganda unit of the Oshiomhole Campaign Organisation peopled by information management experts: while they have so far been able to deceive and manipulate most people, especially those outside the state, about the pseudo monumental achievements of Oshiomhole in the last four years, their limitation is that the impact of their activities is not being felt in Edo State, because the people of the state cannot see the so-called achievements which the outsiders are celebrating. If there is a monumental achievement of Oshiomhole’s regime – as some naive people are compelled to believe -- why is the self-styled comrade governor allegedly bribing the electorate in the state today to allow him to repeat his class? I thought his achievements today would have been campaigning for him.
The people of Edo State are very educated, enlightened and very patriotic; they reward excellence when they see it. The fact that Oshiomhole has, in the last few weeks allegedly opened the state’s treasury for his campaign organisation for all kinds of inducement is a pointer to the popular belief among the people of the state that their governor has refused or failed to meet their expectations in the last four years. Today, the people of Edo South are worst hit: they have been dehumanised and impoverished by Oshiomhole’s government, which is why it is very easy for the governor and his aides to bribe some of our people today with peanuts for vote. That is why the governor even thinks that by bringing Aki and Pawpaw, the diminutive Nigerian actors, or 2-Face for them to see at rallies, our people will vote for him.
The facts are there: In the last few days, Oshiomhole has been going about with a chopper in Esanland— at the expense of taxpayers — campaigning. This action, to me, gives credence to the fact that the governor is afraid of his people; it questions his claim that he has rehabilitated all roads in the area and brought succour to the people. And, like somebody asked, if he had done so well for the people, why did he choose to travel in a chopper rather than on the roads he claimed to have rehabilitated?
 We should challenge the governor to account between now and Saturday for public funds expended on chartering the chopper; otherwise, they should punish him by denying him their votes during the election on Saturday.
True, the people of Edo State have a rare opportunity to make a point this Saturday and send a clear but decisive message to Oshiomhole: they are not ready to continue with a governor that serves his people more on the pages of newspapers rather than increasing their well-being. It is an opportunity for them to free themselves from the punitive and exploitative tax policy of Oshiomhole and say enough is enough to the criminal pillaging of their common wealth. If we miss it, we shall be doomed.

Edo's Budget of Progress.

By Nasir ElRufai

From a hopeless budget in the Bauchi of the Northeast, a sensible one in Lagos of the South-West and an opaque budget in Benue of the North-Central, our focus this week is on the South-South state of Edo with a view to assessing how self-reliant, fiscally prudent and accountable the state is. It is one of the states where a Fiscal Responsibility Bill has been presented to the state House of Assembly but has not yet been passed into law. While the state benefits from the 13% derivation fund as a marginal oil producing state, this fiscal advantage does not translate to any significant edge in financial transfers and key indices when compared to other states in the Niger Delta region.
The Mid-Western Region was created in 1963 from Benin and Delta provinces of the old Western Region, and its capital was Benin City. It was renamed a province in 1966, and in 1967 when the other provinces were split up into several states, it remained territorially intact, becoming a state. In 1976 it lost Ughelli to the new Rivers state and was renamed Bendel state. Edo State was formed on August 27, 1991 when Bendel State was split into Edo and Delta States. Geographically, Edo is bounded on the north and the east by Kogi State, on the west by Ondo State and on the south by Delta State. It had a population of 3,233,366; 1,633,946 males and 1,599,420 females according to the 2006 Population and Housing Census, making it more populous than Botswana and the Gambia.
As a marginal oil producing state, one of Edo’s principal mineral resources includes crude oil though in tiny quantities compared to other Niger-Delta states. Others resources are natural gas, clay chalk, marbles, granite, limestone (an estimated 10 million tones reserve),gypsum, feldspar (useful for glass production), kaolin(huge deposits which have not been exploited) and a reserve of about 90 million tonnes of bentonite. While bentonite has wide industrial usage, much of the required amount for local consumption is still imported. These minerals are potential revenue sources for the state. Agriculture is the predominant occupation of the Edo people. The major cash crops produced are rubber, cocoa and palm produce. In addition, the State produces crops like yams, cassava, rice, plantains, guinea-corn, and assorted types of fruits and vegetables.
Col John Yeri served as first Military Governor of Edo state till 1992. Others who governed the state include; John E.K Odigie-Oyegun (1992-1993), Chief Lucky N. Igbinedion (1999-2007), Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor (2007-2008) and most recently Comrade Adams A. Oshiomhole. Oshiomole was sworn into office November, 12 2008 after the appeal court declared him the winner of Edo state gubernatorial election of April 2007 under the political platform of AC. Prior to his election as Governor he was the president of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
Oshiomole’s activism dates back to his days at the Arewa Textiles Company where he was union secretary. He became a full-time trade union organizer in 1975. In 1999, he became president of the Nigerian Labour Congress. He was publicly recognized as man of the people and openly challenged the government where policies were not in favor of the workers. The emergence of Adams Oshiomole as governor of Edo state came as a delight to many who were familiar with his activities and achievements as leader of the Nigeria Labor Congress and believed he would make a difference by actively being in government. Both Nuhu Ribadu and I broke ranks to attend his fundraising dinner and supported his candidature over the PDP candidate. Against this background, Oshiomole had the popular vote and naturally, the masses believed that his antecedents will enable him to use the resources of the state judiciously and in the best interest of the citizens.
Edo State Government’s budget totaled N150.9bn for the 2012 fiscal year; with N64.5bn (43%) recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure slightly higher at N86.4bn (57%). It falls short of the international standard requiring about 70% of expenditure for capital projects, but may be justified by Edo being an old sate with more maintenance burden that new build-outs of infrastructure and facilities. Edo’s personnel cost is 19% of the overall budget and is higher than the state’s IGR of N23.9bn by N4.8bn.This means that the state, if solely dependent on its IGR would not be able to sustain personnel costs much less invest in development projects. The state’s IGR of N23.9bn is only a third of its recurrent expenditure of N64.5bn and therefore insufficient to sustain those expenditures. The state government needs to be shrunk in size and cost.
The high recurrent expenditure cuts across the different sectors in the state, with health and education as understandable, but not in others. The Education sector has N14.1bn allocated for recurrent expenditure while capital expenditure for the sector is half that sum N7.7bn. About N4.3bn is expended on recurrent costs within the health sector in while the capital expenditure is slightly lower at N4bn. Works is the only sector with a allocation in favour of capital spending. It also got the lion’s share of the budget (N36.5bn) and of that amount, only N190m is for recurrent expenditure. Commendably, residents and visitors to the state applaud the current government’s effort at building roads in Benin City after a decade of neglect under PDP governments.
Edo leads all other states in the South-South zone in educational attainment in terms of numbers admitted to Nigerian Universities in 2007/2008 with a total of 3,569 while Bayelsa had only 434. The 2010 National Literacy survey statistics indicate youth literacy in Edo as 89.7%. Edo however has the lowest percentage of adults literate in English 73.5% in the south-south zone. Although the state was previously recognized as the “miracle centre state” because of the high incidence of exam malpractice prevalent there, the state was adjudged best overall in WAEC examinations in 2008 according to an advisor to the Governor. Hopefully the increase in capital expenditure to the sector from N5.6bn in 2011 to N7.7bn in 2012 would be a step in the right direction in support of education for the state.
Regarding health in the state, in 2011, Women Health and Action Research Centre stated that out of 100,000 women that enter labor rooms, 50 of them do not come out alive. Studies including data from Edo state indicate maternal mortality reflects the national average. It seems that maternal health is currently not given the priority it deserves by the state government. Of the N8.2bn allocated to health, about half the amount (N4.3bn) would be expended on overhead and personnel costs.
Despite Edo being a predominantly agrarian state, a paltry N1.5bn (about 1%) is allocated to the sector. Only 0.9% (N812.4m) of the capital budget is allocated to the sector. How this is supposed to aid development in the sector is an open question.This sector deserves to be given more attention if the state is to boost its IGR, employment and rural incomes.
Most of the state’s IGR is from taxes. The state increased its IGR projections from N18.5bn in 2011 to N23.9bn for the 2012 fiscal year but only made about 58% (N10.7bn) of its projections in actual revenues. For 2012, approved tax estimates are N16.9bn (71%) of the total IGR figure. The amount has increased from N13.9bn estimated in 2011. However, the state fell short by about N5.4bn (39%) of its projection in 2011. In 2011, the state projected its statutory allocation to be N45.7bn but received N22.4bn. In spite of all the above, it still estimated receipts of N56bn for 2012.
It is evident, even to a layman that continuous over-estimation of income that constantly falls short will surely lead to a deficit budget. In fact, the Edo state budget has a deficit of about 14% (N20.5bn). Its total receipts amount to about N130bn, made up of N115.4bn recurrent revenue and N15bn capital receipts while total expenditure is about N151bn. The budget makes no mention of how this deficit is funded. In 2011, the Edo state government was only able to balance out its revenue deficit by virtue of income which was not included in the estimates but was paid by the Federal Government, namely; excess crude oil reserve fund (N9.4bn), multilateral debt refund (N3bn) and refund of 0.75 commission charged on Paris club debt refunds (N436.2m). Perhaps that is what it expects to do in 2012.
The Edo State Government has attempted to correctly prioritize its spending by allocating the bulk of the funds to the major sectors of the economy as thus; Works (N36.5bn), Education (N21.8bn), Health (N8.2bn), Transport (N642m), Energy and Water Resources (N2.0bn), Environment (N18.9bn) and Agric (N1.5bn). Interestingly it categorically lists the state security vote as N4.5bn which is highly commendable compared to Bauchi’s allocation of a massive N17.6bn.
Edo ranks 21 in the ease of doing business rankings in Nigeria. It ranks 16 of the 37 states in ease of starting a business.  On average, it takes 45 day and 60.5% of one’s income to start a business in the state. Unemployment in the state is 17%, below the national average of 21.1% but considering that the state is home to two large Universities which churn out graduates yearly, it is imperative for the government to create a thriving environment for SMEs which would not only reduce unemployment and saturation of the state civil service but will also boost the economy of the state.
In Edo state, 39.4% of the population is food-poor and cannot afford proper meals daily, 47% are absolutely poor, 57.9% relatively poor and a little below half the population (47%) survive on less than a dollar a day. Overall, Edo’s poverty ratings lie in the middle among the south-south states with Akwa-Ibom, Rivers and Bayelsa slightly better while Delta and Cross-Rivers are much worse off.
The spending priorities in Edo indicate a high cost of governance which is unsustainable given the state’s earnings. The government is spending so much to maintain its staff at the expense of developmental investment. The situation is further worsened by falling revenues and repeated “over-estimation” of its revenues. The government incurs expenses without commensurate revenue flows in the university it owns and several state owned companies. A typical example would be education which receives about N21.8bn but generates less than 2% (N355.3m) in revenues through fines and fees. Virtually all its SOEs return nothing to the government coffers and should be privatized. The state should also aspire to be like Lagos which makes every MDA a significant revenue centre.
The present government of Adams Oshiomhole must be commended for its efforts at improving the state compared to the work done by its predecessors. But as with everything in life, there is room for improvement if continuity is sustained.The state is blessed with abundant resources which have barely been tapped and converted to cash-cows and apart from tax earnings which cannot even sustain its recurrent expenditure, the states’ major financing source is the Federation Account.
Without handouts from the Federal Government, will the state exist in the form it does now? The answer is no. Has the state provided a thriving environment for SMEs to play an active role in its economy? It is trying but needs to do more. Is the government investing in physical infrastructure and human capital or is it just maintaining what it has inherited? The state's performance in education and spending on roads answer this question affirmatively.
As Edo citizens go to the polls in July to elect a governor, it is my belief that the Oshiomhole administration has done well enough to be re-elected compared to the previous ten years of lethargic and violent PDP governance in the state. We hope the voters will make the right choice and the elections will be free, fair and credible. It is not too much to ask after the needless murder of Olaitan Oyerinde, may his soul rest in peace.