The North Is Not Poor (2)

By Aliyu Aliyu

MEDIA: The north’s lamentation over the years of a south-western dominated press and biased media coverage and reportage of events concerning the region has not birthed world class media options – the type Al Jazeera unleashed upon the world to the consternation and humbled admiration of CNN, BBC and others in the league. Knowing full well the role of the media in shaping public opinion and setting the news agenda, one of the pillars of politics in the South-West and perhaps its greatest political figure alive established The Nation newspapers, and the duo of TV and Radio Continental.
Another political figure from Ogun State founded the Compass Newspapers; and yet another undying flame from the south east established the Sun Newspapers. From Ovation to Genevieve, True Love, Complete Fashion, Arise, City People, Four-Four-Two, Research gate, where are we taking the lead?  In which of these sectors do our magazines flourish? Aviation, Agriculture, Automotive and Parts Construction, Consumer Goods, Business, Banking, Finance, Education, Environmental Issues, Food and Drink, Healthcare, Information Technology, Tourism, Logistics, Real Estate, Security, Telecommunications or Transportation? The north is left out of these niches.
How many TV and radio stations exist in Lagos alone? As at the last count I had listed a dozen TV stations and 28 radio stations. How many are there in the entire 19 northern states?  Where are the north’s media moguls both serving and retired who worked both on the national and international scenes? Are they not inspired and equally challenged by Ben Murray Bruce’s accomplishments with the Silverbird Group.
Out of the “ blues’’ came Jimoh Ibrahim’s National Mirror like a thunderbolt. In no time National Mirror has carved a niche for itself on newsstands despite the perceived saturation. Every day I stop by to take a glance at the headlines at the vendor’s, the one question I ask myself is where the north’s voice is in the newspaper and magazine industry. Not a single magazine exists that celebrates northern excellence and showcases the few success stories of the region. The only semblance to that came by way of the stint of the novel publication Sardauna Magazine which started out as a Student’s Union magazine in ABU. But it should interest you that Sardauna Magazine’s success had to take Rilwan Hassan, a Yoruba boy (though he calls Zaria home which is beautiful) to birth. Since 1962 when ABU was established nobody thought of the idea till Rilwan came by. Daily Trust, Leadership, People’s Daily and now Blueprint cannot do it alone for the north both as a voice and as a platform. The TV stations here in Lagos consciously avoid them during their headline reviews.
Academics: The north no doubt has men of great intellectual alertness and sound disposition of mind and judgment but is it not laid bare for all to see that the ratio of scholarship in the north pales to near insignificance when compared with the South West? How many northerners are actually pursuing second degrees or Ph.Ds? How many of our professors and Doctors are lecturing outside northern universities like Ife, Nsukka, Unilag, Ibadan, etc? How many of our professors and Doctors are lecturing in foreign Universities? I know quite a number of Nigerians who are lecturing in Harvard,  Cambridge, Oxford, School of African and Oriental studies and a host of others and you can guess where they are from. How many private universities are there in the north? Ogun State alone has 10. How many private schools (primary and secondary) are in the north and of those that do exist aren’t they established and run most competently by non- northerners?
From ABU to UDUS to Maiduguri to UNN, Uniport, Unical, Abraka etc you find south westerners and south easterners in search of education and not just that they are excelling in academics in all of these institutions and beyond. But how many of our Modibbos, Faizals, Jatuas, Ishayas, Mainasaras, Asabes, Rakiyas, Altines or Asmaus are in other institutions of higher learning outside the north?
Who else other than Prof. Ayodele Awojobi would have challenged the department of engineering in ABU to finish a four-year degree course in three and go on to become the first African to be awarded a Doctor of Science (DSc) at the Imperial College London, a degree which Wikipedia says is “only exceptionally and rarely awarded to a scholar under the age of forty.’’ He remained “the youngest professor ever in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Lagos, and the first ever to be expressly promoted from associate to full professorship within a week’’
Who else other than Dr. Chike Obi would have been the first Nigerian to earn a Ph.D in mathematics? Who else other than Prof. Teslim Elias would have become Governor of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London? Which other woman would bag a Ph.D at the age of 26 other than Dr. Tope Adeyemi or rival Miss Adejoke Ogunlana as the youngest lecturer in Nigeria at age 22?  Would it ever have happened in ABU, BUK, UDUS? And even if it did happen would it still not be them? Who else other than Peter and Paul Imafidon (the wonder twins) would have made history in far away Britain becoming the youngest ever mortals to pass A level mathematics at age seven?
Since the establishment of WAEC in 1952 and JAMB in1977, who have been the top 10 students year-in year-out? Northerners? Certainly not! Is the north comfortable that in 2011, only 17 out of the 18,000 secondary school students who sat for the National Examination Council examinations in Gombe State, made five credits? What is the SSCE enrolment ratio that exists between say Yobe and Bauchi states on the one hand and Imo and Ekiti states on the other?
Permit me to ask: Which primary school did Dangote, Dantata, IBB and company attend? And what is the state of those primary schools today? Has Adamu Ciroma, who has been in government since independence; and so remained until he got tired and made way for his wife to carry the baton served as a catalyst to re-modeling his primary school to be one of the best in his state?
Is it any wonder that the reference bookshops from Zaria, to Kano, Minna, Kaduna, Sokoto, Maiduguri etc are not owned by northerner? We aren’t even among the big players in the books and stationery arena, yet year in year out thousands of students go to ABU, FCE Nuhu Bamali Polytechnic, FUT Minna, UDUS etc to get an education.
Private Enterprise and Professionalism: Last year I started to write a number of articles which I later abandoned among which are: ‘’ Entrepreneurship and the Northern abyss‘’, ‘’Tony Elumelu, Jim Ovia and the rest of the north’’ and  ‘’Before Dangote’s Exit’’ among others. While a great number of the articles did not develop beyond their proposed titles, the inspiration behind their themes remains the same till this moment. Is it not worth asking today as ever before how many northern business enterprises dot the northern landscape? How many northern concerns provide consultancy services for services ranging from the establishment of new businesses to accelerated performance, growth or evaluation of existing ones?
How many retired policemen and women, personnel of the State Security Services (SSS), National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) or the Armed Forces have gone the way of private security consulting? Need I say of course their inputs would have contributed significantly in the fight against the book haram wave of terror?
Just the other day I watched a documentary on the power sector reforms and as expected not a single consultant from the mass of consultants spoken with were northerners. Not a single energy consultant, analyst or expert of northern extraction. The only northerner I saw throughout the duration of the documentary was as expected in the government cadre! Yet from ABU to BUK, UJ, UDUS et all, our universities have departments of electrical engineering. To what use have our northern scholars put their Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Oxford and RGU trainings among others? Where are the gurus and thinkers of the region?
How many northerners have pursued ICT know-how to compelling levels of expertise? Of all the Microsoft certified Web developers, Microsoft this, Microsoft that; Oracle this, Oracle that; and the Java masters among other ICT levels of excellence I read about, northerners aren’t usually on the list. Who are the custodians of ICT expertise in Nigeria: its mastery, deployment and maintenance? Who are the pioneers and trailblazers of enterprise solutions?
The bulk of the legal luminaries and chartered accountants in this country come from a particular section of this country and the north doesn’t belong in the league. Any need to lose sleep over that? Who are the country managers, the trail blazing figures, of Nokia, Samsung, Standard Chartered Bank, Citi group, Ericsson, Siemens, Huawei, HP, Baker Hughes, Saipem, Coberon  Chronos, Toshiba, Accenture, Google, Ernst and Young , Price Water Coopers (PWC), DFID , World Bank, UNICEF, UNIDO etc? They certainly are not northerners.
Do we constitute the majority of pilots or aeronautic engineers in Nigeria even when NCAT is in the heart of Zaria? Who else but Imoleayo Adebule, 23, would be Nigeria’s youngest pilot? Do we run the most outstanding agencies in the heart of the north providing a one-stop shop for human resources solutions from recruitment to training; and outsourcing etc? .
Is it a case of a lack of platforms to showcase our achievements or the deliberate neglect or downplay by the media (dominated by the south west) that has consigned us to the back seat and to so remain or both and even more? Do names like those of FRA Williams, Afe Babalola, Diya Fatimilehin, Jide Taiwo & co, Osas & Oseji challenge the north?
Dear reader, how many northern owned franchises do you know? Shagalinku? Yahuza? And then… Well I’m scratching my head in case you aren’t. I could bet on both my eyes that if either or both businesses belonged to a Yoruba or Igbo man, Shagalinku would have been serving hot tuwon shinkafa  and man shanu in London and America in the least; and Yahuza would have been selling his suya on the streets of LA (Los Angeles), Dubai and Malaysia (lest I forget, Toks Odebunmi is already doing so in London and Kehinde Olajide has taken Zobo to the next level in the U.S). Interestingly, very recently I met a young and sharp boy in Unilag (University of Lagos) who had put arrangements in place to buy Yahuza’s franchise and spin money for himself in Lagos. No dulling.
Saharareporters

Northern Nigeria: The Disconnect Between Our Leaders And The Rest Of Us

By Zainab Usman

It is becoming a tired cliché to note that Nigeria is a country with vast potentials which have remained unrealized due to socio-political and economic challenges of which dearth of transformational leadership is at the heart of all. Again, it is common knowledge that this leadership deficit is more severe in northern Nigeria relative to other parts of the country.
A disturbing yet overlooked dimension of this leadership conundrum however, is that leaders who ought to be responsible for identifying the problems and finding solutions seem to have little understanding of what these problems are, they prefer to ignore them or both, and hence have little or no solutions to them. The leaders are also becoming progressively disconnected from the ordinary people and their concerns.
MISPLACED PRIORITIES
The summaries of various communiqués of meetings and fora involving northern political leaders (mainly the Northern Governors Forum) and most northern elders (mostly former public office holders) of recent, on the North’s numerous problems are baffling and frustrating as it is apparent the agenda of these meetings typically have little to do with the region’s gargantuan economic, socio-political and security challenges. Neither do the final recommendations.
The themes of these meetings usually revolve around increased revenue allocation to northern states from the Federal Government, lamentations over existing conspiracies to “marginalize” and “destroy” the North; emphasis on the North’s “turn” to produce the next President in 2015; hollow, rhetorical lamentations on the decline of the northern economy and the need to revive agriculture, countering the Boko Haram insurgency and occasionally, a passing reference is made on the need for good governance, and in the end, these ills are ascribed to bad leadership and that’s  about it. These meetings typically produce virtually no solid, detailed, implementable blue prints on how to methodically, systematically and effectively address the North’s well-documented problems.
As the communiqués and press briefings for these meetings become public, one’s hopes of tangible solutions are further dashed by the crushing realization that our leaders are running round in vicious circles. At best, they gloss over the most critical problems, and at worst, their recommendations have practically no bearing on these problems. While the last meeting of the Northern Governor’s Forum belatedly established a committee to propose ways of addressing the insecurity in the North, it is an open secret that many of the governors have their eyes set on and are working towards contesting the 2015 presidential elections. Recently, at least two prominent northern leaders have made the case for revisiting the Federal Government’s revenue allocation formula, while at least three northern elders have variously “advised” that President Jonathan “renounces” any intention of  contesting in the 2015 elections to “defuse political tension”.
While I am not disregarding the importance of these issues, there are more critical issues requiring the immediate attention of our leaders on which the fate of ordinary people and the region as a whole hang. The problems bedeviling northern Nigeria can be broadly classified into four distinct but interrelated categories: the steady economic decline of the region over several decades, the breakdown of social cohesion, the insecurity especially the Boko Haram insurgency and the gradual decline of the North’s political influence at the centre. The disturbing fact though is that the priorities of our northern Governors and many of our northern elders, are skewed towards the North’s access to political power and how to bring back the Presidency to the North come 2015 while the more important economic, social and security challenges are of secondary importance to them.
CRITICAL PROBLEMS REQUIRING URGENT SOLUTIONS
As our leaders and elders focus on these non-issues, one wonders how these would actually translate to a better life for the ordinary northerner when 8 out of 10 people in most northern states live in abject poverty, how President Jonathan’s shelving of his 2015 ambition would translate to better equipped schools and medical centres, or how abrogating the Onshore-Offshore Dichotomy Bill and revising the “unfair” distribution of Federal revenues will attract needed investments to a region where in many state capitals it’s a herculean task to find one large departmental store (an indicator of modernization), when the current revenues are clearly being mismanaged. These are the leaders and the "voices" of the North and from what they talk about, one can reasonably conclude that these are their main priorities.
The tragedy here is that not only is there an acute misdiagnosis of the numerous problems bedeviling the North and its people by our leaders and elders, those ideally best placed to know the problems and formulate solutions, but that even their proposed solutions to the misdiagnosed problems are deficient, while the region continues to decay, collapse and burn, literally. Few of our “leaders” and “elders” have for instance, actually proposed realistic and pragmatic steps in containing the Boko Haram insurgency, the most glaring manifestation of this decay and impending collapse.
Beyond the usual mantra on the need “to engage in dialogue” with the sect, is there any concrete plan on the sequence of events that would follow in the event that the sect does agree to negotiate and is somehow convinced to lay down its arms whether by an amnesty-type cooption into the system or via another means? Is there a blueprint on integrating the brainwashed flock back into society, to guarantee the safety and security of those who agree to cease fire or for massive disarmament of arms now overflowing the North? Is there any incentive (or protection) to encourage those who genuinely want to renounce violence or to convince the militants that it’s in their best interests to lay down their arms in an environment where upward social mobility for the unprivileged is almost non-existent even to the educated ones? Are there plans for engaging these youth and other legions of unemployed, disillusioned and frustrated young men and women in our northern cities to prevent their co-option by other such anarchist groups? If any of such plans or proposals exist, they surely haven’t been regularly featuring in the communiqués of these fora involving our northern leaders and elders.
THE DISCONNECT
Consequently, as our leaders and elders focus on issues which seem to have little bearing on the lives of the rest of us, we the rest are increasingly dissociating ourselves from what they have chosen to prioritize, while the rest of the country is moving ahead and increasingly dissociating itself from the North as a whole. Some of our leaders speak on behalf of the North and we wonder whether they are really speaking on our behalf. They speak of the North but we wonder if these are really the aspirations of the ordinary people.
While our leaders and many of our elders attribute the North’s underdevelopment to a lower share of federal revenues, many of us see how some non-oil producing states south of the Niger, some of which receive comparatively less revenues from the federal purse are embarking on relatively more transformational policies: free health-care scheme for pregnant women, children, the physically challenged and senior citizens in Ekiti state; free education policy from primary to university level in Imo state; the rail transit system and other transport infrastructure in Lagos etc. At the same time, we see our own state executives, spending N2.7 bn ($17 m) on Ramadhan gifts, more than that state’s entirely monthly revenue allocation or jetting-off to Saudi Arabia for the lesser hajj in August as Boko Haram and Joint Military Task Force (JTF) slugged it out, further traumatizing the already battered residents.
We wonder when the communiqués of these meetings by our northern leaders and elders would shift focus from their obsession with the 2015 elections which is still 3 years away or revisiting a controversial revenue allocation formula laid to rest or from endlessly whingeing about a conspiracy to “cripple” the North by others or the over-flogged flashback to a glorious era of Northern agricultural buoyancy of decades past, and when the agenda of these meetings would actually table viable blue prints for economic rejuvenation of the region -- viable proposals for mechanizing the largely subsistence agriculture, making grants and credit available to farmers and SMEs, subsidies and assistance to the comatose industries, attracting investors and development partners with business friendly policies, tax breaks and land leases; exploiting the abundant mineral resources in the North such as gold in Zamfara which dubious (local and foreign) businessmen and impoverished villagers are already mining illegally anyways; employment generation schemes; road-maps for investments in health-care, education and transport infrastructure; engaging in massive enlightenment campaigns for the masses on their civic rights and duties, the list is endless. We wonder when these communiqués would demonstrate seriousness on the part of our leaders and elders to start looking inwards for home-grown solutions which are all around us.
Little girls crushing stones at home, to obtain gold in a remote part of Zamfara state. Source: Environment360
GENERATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF NORTHERN LEADERSHIP DEFICIT
It is worth noting that leadership deficit is not unique to the North as it is a general Nigerian problem, and arguably a global phenomenon. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, writing in June 2012 identifies two components of the global leadership deficit prevalent in many countries -- generational and technological. When this is applied to the situation in northern Nigeria, it becomes apparent that the disconnect between our leaders and the rest of us has much to do with the little generational change amongst those responsible for aggregating and articulating the North’s aspirations, with mostly the same people who have been in the thick of things since some of us were in diapers, whom we’ve read about in social studies textbooks in primary and secondary school, still dexterously recycling themselves continuously back in power – as governors, ministers, legislators, permanent secretaries, board members of parastatals – still calling the shots today.
The incredibly persistent longevity of many die-hard power-brokers in northern Nigeria has ensured that few neophytes have been genuinely groomed as successors. This situation of course is connected to the technological dimension of this leadership deficit which beyond the use of modern technology in governance, refers to the stale, archaic and retrogressive approach to leadership as a consequence of this generational gap, with little input of fresh ideas and approaches to governance. Therefore, the same top-down, gerontocratic and quasi-feudal approaches to leadership of decades past is very much the norm in the North today, increasingly incapable of addressing present-day 21st century challenges. In fact, a former Head of State of northern extraction (in)famously remarked that Nigerian youths are not ready for leadership.
Looking at northern Nigeria through the prism of generational and technological dimensions of leadership deficit put forward by Friedman enables us to understand the disconnect between what our leaders and elders regard as the North’s aspirations and what the rest of us really think are our aspirations, that they seem not to realize this gap exists, that the communication gap is widening and that it potentially has grave implications.
Now the danger is that as the North’s problems and aspirations keep being misdiagnosed, ignored and misunderstood by our leaders, with wrong solutions prescribed to non-issues, our problems continue intensifying rapidly, entrapping us further into the cavernous stranglehold of poverty, underdevelopment, political instability and conflict while other parts of the country forge ahead. According to a May 2012 report (PDF) by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID), 7 out of 10 young women aged 20-29 in North-West Nigeria are unable to read or write, compared to just about 1 out of 10 young women in the South-East; while maternal mortality rate in the North-East is 1,549 deaths per 100,000 women, three times above the national average of 549 deaths.
As stale and musty ideas that pervade the northern atmosphere continue choking the very life out of a long comatose region with approaches that reinforce rather than address the glaring contradictions and atrocious inequality in the North, it is no wonder the incident of violent crime – something alien to the North jut a decade ago – is now a daily occurrence as the spate of drive-by shootings and assassinations have increased exponentially.
As our leaders and elders have chosen to focus on non-issues, pointing the blame outwards rather than looking inwards, conducting sincere assessments and proposing solutions, even the narrative about northern Nigeria outside the country is changing. I have come across many references to northern Nigeria on international websites and blogs as the “poor” “backward” or “violent Islamist North”, while Google image searches of our major northern cities such as Kaduna or Kano routinely produce stomach-churning images of mangled corpses of bomb blast victims, burnt vehicles, or arrested suspects of one vicious crime or the other.
GOING FORWARD
We need new approaches to our multifaceted economic, social and political problems as the current stale and archaic ways of thinking are grossly inadequate and incapable of addressing our numerous 21st century challenges. In order to do this, we ought to realize that leaders like all human beings are driven by self-interest, and as such they are not by default prone to accountability or altruism. It is pressure from citizens that forces leaders to act in the collective interest. It is agitation by ordinary citizens especially labour and trade unions in post-war Western Europe that was instrumental in pressuring the political elite to make inclusive social reforms of hitherto exclusive and aristocratic political systems and implementation of welfare policies (such as health care, housing and employment benefits which exist to this day) to cater for the less privileged.
Thus, a huge responsibility lies with northern academics, intellectuals, commentators, analysts, professionals and just about anyone concerned about their own future (or lack of it) and that of their children to continuously and consistently speak up on these burning issues that affect us all and ensure they are brought back onto the agenda of our leaders and elders. It is just not enough to assume our characteristically fatalistic position of “Allah Ya isa” or “God dey” and then resign ourselves to this sordid fate that certainly awaits us!
The intellectuals and columnists of northern extraction should beam the spotlight more on what state and local governments are doing with the same vigorous consistency that the activities of the Federal Government are scrutinized - how revenues and resources are managed, how investment decisions and contract awards are made, etc. because our governance challenges are mainly under the constitutional purview of states and local governments, and for the most part, information on the activities of these sub-national governments is a black hole of sorts.
Public opinion moulders should provide information to ordinary citizens on what these governments are doing, whether they are living up to their responsibilities, highlighting and applauding the efforts of political leaders who are performing well so that a performance benchmark would be set for others and proposing concrete recommendations no matter how idealistic they might seem. Public debate and public opinion moulding are enabled when conversations are started on important issues that others can relate with, build on and carry along and thereby creating mechanisms for vigorous discussions, actions and demand for accountability.
For our leaders, they ought to realize that the situation in the North today is completely unsustainable and it doesn’t require the clairvoyance of a seer to foresee the imminent disaster of chaotic proportions that awaits the North as a whole. Thus it is in their own self-interest that the North is brought back from this dangerous precipice, by providing good governance we tirelessly complain about and being true representatives of the people and their aspirations at best to ensure the region does not tear itself apart and at worst maintaining the grossly unequal, predatory and destructive status quo.
For some of our “elders”, who have had rewarding careers in public service, they could use their good names and influence in proposing concrete steps towards containing the Boko Haram insurgency and plans for reviving a post-Boko Haram North. They could also take their campaign abroad to counter and disprove some destructive narratives emerging in some Western publications (at the prodding of some Diaspora based Nigerian lobby groups) that Boko Haram is a religious war against a certain religious group in northern Nigeria.
With their influence, some of our elders could also play instrumental roles in enlightening the masses on their civic rights and duties, what to expect from the government, being more proactive to demand accountability from their representatives at the grassroots level, resisting electoral fraud and selling their votes for peanuts and so on. Importantly for other “elders”, it is just time to BOW OUT, as the standing ovation has long died down, RETIRE for good and allow others to take the stage. Overall, more links between the citizens and the state need to be established with more communication channels between the leaders and the led.
Really it is time we woke up from our deep complacent slumber and started playing our roles in rescuing not just our future but our present from this steady free-fall into the dark pit of misery and underdevelopment. For in the end, what will probably kill the North faster than any insurgency's bullets and bombs is our own silence, complacency and lack of pro-activeness in demanding accountability from our leaders and representation of our interests in their actions.

Independence lecture: I need more time to develop Nigeria – Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday pleaded with Nigerians to allow the government to work first before unleashing criticism on them.

The president said this as part of his remarks at Nigeria’s 52nd anniversary lecture which held at the auditorium of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja.
President Jonathan condemned political conflicts and what he referred to as media war against government activities and called on Nigerians to be patient because the issues of development are not like a hundred meter dash.
“I will plead with us as Nigerians that whenever we elect a government into power, whether in the local government level, at the state level or at the federal level, at least for the sake of the country allow the government to work before you go into unnecessary overheating of the system,” he said.
“When you think about Power for example, everybody knows that even if it is only infrastructure or even to provide water, there is nothing that you use the magic wand to provide for the people, it takes time,” Mr Jonathan added.
Delivering the lecture titled Nigeria: Security, development and national transformation, former Ghanaian president, John Kufour asked – what is responsible for the stumbling block in the transformation of a country seen as the giant of Africa? He also attempted to answer it-insecurity on the part of the citizens.
Stumbling blocks to development
Mr Kufour said only a government that delivers on security and development could earn its continued stay in office and that despite their diversity, Nigerians as individuals are proud, intelligent, industrious and entrepreneurial.
He however regretted that this resourcefulness had not yet impacted fully to the advantage of the nation or to the rest of the continent which expects Nigeria to become a major growth pole.
The former president said with the appropriate policies and institutions in place, Nigeria could fulfil that expectation.
He said: “The challenge is to accelerate the pace of development by using institutions of the Federal Constitution as a nursery ground for producing leaders who are national in outlook and with a missionary zeal to transform this nation.
“This will help to mould the contending ethnic and religious groups into harmony and help to remove the perceived mutual distrust among them.
“Leaders so emerging would not be limited to championing the causes of their home state, tribe or religious group, but rather focused on deeds and pronouncements which convincingly and positively impact on the entire citizenry of the federal republic.
“Nation building is the systematic evolution of the political, economic, social and cultural well-being of all the various component parts of the state.
“Indeed the transcendent factor should be the common citizenship of all the stakeholders no matter the tribe, gender, religion, economic or social status as your Constitution stipulates.
Mr Kufuor identified history, tribe and religion as factors that conspired to put a major stumbling block in the path of Nigeria’s destiny.
He advocated the cultivation of a national identity based on shared values, tradition, history and aspirations.
He said Nigerians should develop a high national consciousness where they consider themselves first as Nigerians before anything else, saying, those in leadership should also share in the vision of one nation and one people.
The former President said political leadership must collaborate with businesses, public organisations and institutions to ensure that public security is guaranteed to maintain a stable environment for development of both the people and the state.
“If there is no security, there is no liberty and if there is no liberty, life is not meaningful and society reverts back to the law of the jungle i.e. the survival of the fittest and man’s primary objective of forming a state is defeated,” he added.
Leadership infidelity
An Economic Historian and a discussant at the event, Professor Ihedu Ivwerebo, said Nigeria has been attempting to enshrine democratic system which is a culture. He said all the past 13 years experience was part of the culture.
He stated that the challenge facing the country was leadership infidelity.
“The elites are unfaithful to Nigeria that made them. They go out and speak evil of the country”, adding that, impatience of Nigerians that we ought to have arrived was also contributing to the challenge.
Leaders should listen
The Director, Center for Democracy and Development, Jibrin Ibrahim said the crisis of insurgency, indigeneship, access and control over petroleum, political crisis was also a problem.
“The conflicts we have are deep and serious but we have the resilience to subdue them. Presidents don’t transform a society except the people play a major role in the transformative process.
“Nigerian leaders play minimal roles in transformation. Unions and the masses demonstrated against military rule. The January protest in which I was part of, the issue was not fuel subsidy but massive corruption.
“It is too easy when you are in power to think all powers are with you. Those in power should listen more to those out of power as we search for the way out.”
The Secretary to Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, said the lecture marked another critical milestone among programmes of independence. He said deeper knowledge of national issues would offer solutions to national problems, assuring that the President will remain committed to discussions.
ChannelsTV.com

Ailing Patience Jonathan Can't Make It To UN General Assembly, Doctors Say

First Lady , Mrs. Patience Jonathan

By SaharaReporters, New York

SaharaReporters has learnt that a team of doctors attending Nigeria’s ailing First Lady, Patience Jonathan, have ruled out the possibility of her joining President Goodluck Jonathan when he travels next week to New York City. Mr. Jonathan is on his way to New York to attend this year’s session of the United Nations General Assembly.
A presidency source told our correspondent that the president and his wife had hoped to be in New York together in order to quell speculations that Mrs. Jonathan’s health condition had turned dire. However, the source revealed that the president’s wife went through two relapse episodes during the week and had to be put under intensive care. “The doctors in Germany have informed us that she cannot – and should not – go on a long trip at this time,” said the source.
Another source also indicated that Mrs. Jonathan was unlikely to return to Nigeria this weekend as the Presidency had hoped.
Our  sources disclosed that it was now unclear how long Mrs. Jonathan would remain in a hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany. “The plan was to take her on the trip to the United Nations in order to silence critics and reporters that revealed that Madam was not on vacation but in a precarious medical state,” said one of the sources.
SaharaReporters had broken the news three weeks ago that Mrs. Jonathan was airlifted to Germany after she reportedly had “food poisoning” in Dubai. In response to our exclusive, aides of both Mrs. Jonathan and the president denied that the First Lady was sick and claimed that she merely traveled abroad “for a moment’s rest” at an undisclosed location. The aides added that Mrs. Jonathan was fatigued from a strenuous calendar that included hosting a meeting of African First Ladies in Abuja.
In the face of official concerted efforts to cover up Mrs. Jonathan’s condition, SaharaReporters learnt from sources within the Presidency that the ailing First Lady had undergone surgery in Germany after she was initially treated for infections arising from a procedure she undertook in Dubai.
So far, the Nigerian Presidency has not made any official pronouncement on Mrs. Jonathan’s condition. President Jonathan, who last week cut short a state visit to Botswana, has maintained stoic silence since the story broke.
Meanwhile, Mr. Jonathan will be accompanied on his New York by 11 ministers as well as the governors of Bauchi, Delta and Akwa Ibom. Mr. Jonathan and his delegation are expected to arrive in New York on Monday.
 

Jonathan’s economic policy ‘failing’ — UN

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In what appears to be an indictment on President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the United Nations, in a report has said that Nigeria’s unemployment rate has increased in the last two years under Mr. Jonathan’s watch, from 21.1 per cent in 2010 to 23.9 per cent currently.

The report shows that about one in four Nigerians are currently unemployed. Nigeria also has one of the worst youth unemployment rates in sub-Saharan Africa as 37.7 per cent – two in five – of Nigerian youth are unemployed.

These were stated in a 291-page publication called ‘The African Economic Outlook 2012’, and jointly published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA; the United Nations Development Population, UNDP; the African Development Bank Group; and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.

The publication, launched on Thursday in Addis Ababa, was presented by the Director, Economic Department, NEPAD division of UNECA, Emmanuel Nnadozie. The publication, which is the 11th edition, however, described Nigeria’s economic growth in 2011 as “robust.”

The robust growth recorded in Nigeria’s economy, according to the publication, was driven mainly by the non-oil sector, and in particular, telecommunications, construction, wholesale/retail trade, hotel and restaurant services, manufacturing, and agriculture.

 Premium Times

Jonathan agrees to reverse N5000 note plan

President Goodluck Jonathan has agreed to reverse his administration’s plan to introduce the 5000 naira note.
The currency restructuring, announced by the Central Bank of Nigeria, would have seen the unveiling of the N5000 note as the highest naira denomination while lower currencies were to be converted to coins.
Weeks of public outrage criticizing the policy culminated in the Senate and the House of Representatives, approving separate resolutions on Tuesday, demanding that the plan be suspended.
Mr. Jonathan met with the leadership of the two arms hours after the National Assembly sessions on Tuesday and assured that any “approval given in the regards can be reversed since it is the wish of the people,” lawmakers informed about the decision said Wednesday afternoon.
It remains unclear whether the president has issued a directive to that effect.
Premium Times

Crash of domestic airlines: N86.7bn intervention fund under threat

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By UCHE USIM
As various experts and government seek ways of keeping domestic airlines in business, 10 of the local carriers have accessed N86.7 billion out of the N300 billion intervention fund earmarked for the aviation and power sector by the Federal Government.
The airlines had for a long time lamented that part of the their challenges was commercial banks’ unwillingness to offer them credit facilities at lower interest rates, a development they said prevented them from operating optimally. Consequently, the airlines wrote several letters to the government for assistance and that forced government to come up with the intervention fund, which was packaged by the Central Bank and Bank of Industry.
The airlines also accused government of not coming to their aid, unlike what obtains in developed economies. Reacting to the damning allegation, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Aviation, Capt Usman Shehu Iyal, while speaking at a recent Senate Committee on Aviation public hearing in Abuja, said 10 airlines, so far, have been given a total of N86.7 billion from the intervention fund at interest rates of between 2 and 7 per cent, while they have between 10 to 15 years to repay the loan.
Air Nigeria is the lead beneficiary with a total sum of N35.5 billion, followed by Aero with N20 billion. Arik Air has accessed N15 billion, Kabo Air N6.66 billion and Chanchangi Airlines N3.4 billion. Others are Dana Air N618 million, Caverton Helicopters, N1.348 billion, Overland Airways N805 million and FirstNation Airways N271.7 million. Iyal urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Bank of Industry (BoI) to monitor the usage of the money accessed by the airlines, as their claims that the government has abandoned them to their fate was not true.
Out of the 10 carriers that benefited from the bail-out loan, Air Nigeria and Chanchangi have closed shops, leaving a backlog of unpaid debts in their trails. Other beneficiaries like Dana Air and FirstNation are not officially grounded but have temporarily vacated the scene and are eagerly awaited to get back into operation. What has become worrisome to Nigerians is that some domestic airlines have packed up, while others are limping, despite accessing the funds. Commenting on the development, an aviation consultant, Akin Olateru, said the problems of the airlines go beyond intervention fund, as most of them do not have a sound business plan.
“They do not have a workable business plan. Give each airline N500 billion, they will still collapse, with the type of plans they have. This is where I blame the NCAA. if the CBN can determine who appoints a bank MD and board, as a regulator, I see no reason why it cannot in a more sensitive industry like aviation. Moreso when they’re not prudent in their spending. Rather than ploughing it back into the business, they spend their proceeds on other matters. “There’s also the problem of owner-management syndrome, where an inexperienced owner unduly interferes with the plans of the professionals. Also, they do not do proper route/equipment analysis, before venturing into the skies. Some of them are plying routes with the wrong airplane. It’s like fetching water with a basket,” he said.
The carriers themselves claim their problem is beyond intervention. At the public hearing, the Managing Director of Arik Air, Chris Ndulue, and the Chairman of IRS Airlines, Ishaku Rabiu, maintained that the industry was being crippled by high operating costs. They cited fuel, navigational charges, import duties on aircraft and spares, Value Added Tax (VAT), among others as part of the factors militating against the stability of the domestic airline industry in Nigeria.
According to them, with all these in the face of short-term loans at high interest rates from Nigerian commercial banks, it was impossible for airlines to operate profitably. Investigations by Daily Sun reveal that the airlines have not applied the intervention fund judiciously, a development that made the status quo to remain. At a recent rally organized by workers of Air Nigeria, they indicted the Chairman of the airline, Sir Jimoh Ibrahim, of diverting the N35.5 billion intervention fund into his private estate. Also commenting on the development, an aviation analyst, Olumide Ohunayo said it was regrettable that the Nigeria has recorded close to 20 failed airlines within the last four decades.
“They come in boasting of excellent airplanes, strong financiers, well-trained crew/support staff, good technical partnership and sound business plan. They arrive amidst fanfare, glamour and glitz but within few years, they develop weak wings and in most cases fly into oblivion unceremoniously. That is the case of a typical Nigerian carrier whose life cycle hardly exceeds a decade. Today, Nigeria has recorded close to 20 failed domestic airlines in the last four decades and still counting.
The carcasses of some of their airplanes still litter many airports across the country”, he stated. Regrettably, analysts say the dead airlines have robbed the Nigerian economy about 1.2 million direct and indirect jobs worth trillions of naira. This is aside financial crunch workers, their families and dependants were exposed to because they often close shops without paying staff entitlements.
Their demise has also forced experienced professionals to eke out a livelihood in other fields after spending huge amount of money developing themselves in aviation. For the parastatal agencies that rely on the 5 per cent revenue from airlines Ticket Sales/Cargo Charges (TSC) for their operations, the failed airlines have made them lose billions of naira annually.
The worst hit is the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority that relies strongly on the TSC. Each time an airline packs up, its revenue diminishes. Other losers are the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET). The list of the failed airlines is endless. From the national carrier, (Nigeria Airways Limited), Okada Air, Harco,
Harca to more recent ones like ADC, Sosoliso, Bellview, Capital, Albarka, Spaceworld and Dasab, Nigeria seems to have become a cemetery for short-life airlines. In the last 12 months, four Nigerian airlines have stopped operations either temporarily or permanently. They are FirstNation, Air Nigeria, Dana and Chanchangi.
That the surviving Nigerian carriers (Arik, Aero, IRS and Overland) are limping operationally speaking is stale and painful news.
The Sun