Teacher, Don't Teach Me Nonsense

PENDULUM By Dele Momodu, Email:  Dele.Momodu@thisdaylive.com


Fellow Nigerians, I remember the prodigiously gifted Fela Anikulapo Kuti today, as always on occasions like this. I had searched for an appropriate title for this column since I read the first of the staccato attacks against my simple-and-straight-forward piece on our thunderous Central Bank Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. Not that the sporadic reaction was unexpected after-all one would expect the CBN and its Governor to at least have some cronies. What I didn’t bargain for were the scurrilous interventions of two particular columnists who should apparently know better, Ethelbert Okere and Pini Jason.

If they must write, for whatever reason, I would expect them to do so seriously and not ignore leprosy to treat eczema. To call the CBN Governor a bully is not an abuse, it is a character-analysis of a controversial public figure. It does not warrant the crocodile tears being shed by town-criers who are weeping louder than the bereaved. Mallam Sanusi is enlightened enough to know I merely expressed an opinion. From every indication, he has put it behind him .But those who profit from confusion must hype it out of proportion. The question is, who did we slap and who’s complaining of headache?

I will ignore the other writers and concentrate on just these two, Pini Jason and Ethelbert Okere, because when you carry an elephant on your head, you should worry less about ants on the floor. To be quite honest I know Pini Jason well but Ethelbert Okere I didn’t know at all. Thanks to Google, I found some scanty reports about Ethelbert and was indeed shocked that he had passed through Thisday as Chairman, Editorial Board without my noticing his tenure.

I could not get his full bio-data but a peep into his writings led to the discovery that he is notorious for writing all manner of junk in newspapers. He has also been accused of writing fiction about Champion newspapers being sold off to former INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu. This invited the wrath of media baron, Chief Immanuel Iwuanyanwu against Thisday newspaper. (See Champion, March 18, 2011)

Ethelbert clearly used his artcles to disparage people who are not in the same political boat with him. His last port of call was the Imo State Government House, where he worked as media aide to former Governor Ikedia Ohakim. He did well as an attack dog such that he wrote an acerbic piece and rubbished the Owerri tribe of Imo state thus: “The steadfastness and cohesion for which Owerri people were known flew overboard and in their places took over envy, pettiness, jealousy, greed and even avarice…

“According to pundits, it was because the manipulators, who were recruited mostly from outside the state, saw that Owere people had compromised that gave them impetus to carry out their acts of perfidy.” Please, help me here, how many people actually go out to vote in any community that a writer would hack down an entire people for not supporting his candidate?

Ethelbert’s hatchet man’s role extends to other states where he’s often hired to help men of power. I stumbled on his column on former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani: “…the state government under Nnamani was able to execute projects which even regional government could not, and which states whose resources are far bigger, then the Enugu enigma becomes total.” (Daily Sun, June 30, 2006). Was he writing about the same Enugu state or a different state on Planet Mars?

This is the same man casting aspersions on me for merely describing Mallam Lamido Sanusi as a bully! Hear him: “Momodu lived up to his bidding namely, to use his weekly column to lambast one notable Nigerian or the other. And when he was not doing that, Momodu, former Presidential candidate, was boring Nigerians with his trite rehash of their collective history. In the article under reference, he combined what he knows bests to weave together hyperboles in painting a picture of an immitigable national hopelessness.”

These are weighty words to use against me for daring to call someone a bully. I wish to state categorically that I use my column to attack useless policies of government or its agencies and not its notable individuals who may be affected by the slipstream. I don’t know when he did an opinion poll about the popularity of my column, or if the Thisday publisher complained to him that his paper was not selling on Saturday, or if he wants to solicit for my page to restart a column. What does Ethelbert want me to rehash if not our depressing history in a country where our kids hardly know anything about their origin. I do not know of Nigerians who don’t feel a sense of acute hopelessness about our country today except the likes of Ethelbert who flood the corridors of power.

Ethelbert said I lacked intellectual rigour for quoting Wikipedia. Holy Moses! What should I have done, plagiarise, and get sued like someone has done to Sanusi lately? I was taught in elementary school to quote my sources, no matter how trite those references may be. Finally, he accused me of “probably doing an unsolicited biography on Lamido Sanusi.” May I ask, who solicited Mr Ethelbert Okere to do his jaundiced piece on me?

More revealing, but extremely pitiable, is the article written by Uncle Pini Jason, a man I hold in the highest esteem. We must thank God always for small mercies because if not for the hasty intervention of this gentleman in my matter, I would not have uncovered more damaging things he had written about me and others in the past using subliminal codes. I discovered that he had assaulted us mercilessly during the fuel subsidy saga. He had this to say about a famous man of God: “At the Ojota, Lagos, rally the politician, Tunde Bakare, a born Muslim who found a lucrative business marketing Jesus, said “this revolution has started and will continue…”

If you think that was bad enough, please wait for the vituperations he poured on those of us who demonstrated against the subsidy removal at the Nigeria High Commission in Ghana, in his article titled Hypocrites in Ghana: “The most pathetic hypocrites are those Nigerian “Andrews” who demonstrated at Nigerian embassy (sic) in Ghana…It was (therefore) pathetic watching utterly shameless Nigerians disturbing the peace in Ghana… Why in the first place is Ghana a haven for Nigerians…

“Every Ghanaian who lives abroad worked to send money home. That was the major fillip to the recovery of the economy of Ghana. Ghanaians are very disciplined and orderly people who let things work out as they should.

“But in Nigeria what do we do? It is fashionable to steal in order to own property and fat accounts abroad.” Here is a self-professed patriot fighting innocent Nigerians living in Ghana as if they have no stake in Pini Jason’s Nigeria. When did it become a crime to migrate? The Chinese are conquering Africa, why can’t Nigerians rule the world? Our brilliant brother reduced the change in Ghana to Western Union remittances sent home by Ghanaians. He forgot there was a bloody revolution expertly executed by Jerry John Rawlings, aka Junior Jesus! 

If Ethelbert accuses me of using hyperboles, none surpasses that of my boss, Pini Jason, who like Ethelbert incidentally worked as media aide to the same Ohakim in Imo State. I quote his sugar-coated opening: “I wonder how many people whose jaws did not drop in horror as they read the pummelling of Sanusi by Otunba Dele Momodu…I’m expressing my horror publicly because we must want justice not just for ourselves but also for even our enemies!” Great advice, if you ask me.

Before I’m accused of impersonation, let me quickly note that I’m not yet an Otunba. In fact, I was horrified to read that dramatic intro in Pini Jason’s The Mugging of Sanusi (Daily Vanguard, October 2, 2012), but I managed to pick a few salient points.

For example, he wrote: “Dele Momodu is the publisher of Ovation, an international magazine and a former presidential candidate in the 2011 election. And when you vie for the highest office in the land, you become a senior citizen, even if you don’t believe it. You are not expected to demean the high office you vied for or diminish yourself and your generation.” As the Yoruba would ask, Mr Police, why are you cursing?

Why is Pini Jason cursing me over an article? Is it not in the character of Presidents to rise stoutly to call their troublesome staff to order? I did the job President Jonathan should have been doing, to protect the rights of every Nigerian, saint or sinner, from the hands of dictators and aspiring tyrants. I enhanced that office by being boldly decisive. It is consistent with my belief that the same kangaroo system used to deal with sinners and bad guys would be employed someday against innocent people and saints. This was what I told Nuhu Ribadu in 2007, and it came back to haunt him, as the hunter later became the hunted.

I had received spirited attacks from Nuhu’s aides at that time but I remained committed to my views that Nigerians must determine what they want, democracy or militocracy. My position has not changed since then. It is in the nature of man to abuse power, especially absolute power. So, I didn’t set out to abuse Sanusi but to help him apply the brakes as he hurtles down the slopes to ruination in his cataclysmic approach to policies. There must be method to madness, as they say. It did not matter if I would be called names for standing on a long-held principle. Nothing can be worse than not being able to express yourself freely in a democracy others and I passionately fought for. Mba!

Mr Jason said I went physical with Sanusi but did not say how.  “Dele Momodu who cannot be described as an inexperienced journalist resorted to body punches and even ear biting.” That’s so unfair. I’m not a relative of Mike Tyson. He didn’t end the assault against me there, he continued: “Going down the literary brutalisation of Sanusi one could only put a finger on Sanusi’s sacking of some bank chief executives and his putting down General Obasanjo as a bad economist as the source of the provocation.”

No matter Pini Jason’s conspiracy theory, I wish to state categorically that I was never provoked by considerations of any sacked and/or humiliated bank executive and certainly not by his cynical remarks against Obasanjo. I was by the over-the-top aggression of Sanusi’s Central Bank to every issue they are interested in.

Someone should go back and study television clips of Sanusi’s speeches, especially during the fuel subsidy brouhaha. Those who are fascinated by the kill-and-go style are on their own, they can’t drag me into their fray.

The man who accused me of getting physical with Sanusi has written worse things about people in the past. If indeed I mugged Sanusi in my article, Pini Jason murdered Femi Fani-Kayode in cold blood, in his own article titled “A Presidency Debased”, Vanguard,

February 03, 2004:
“…But what we have been asking since Femi Fani-Kayode’s crude, vulgar, inelegant and desperate reply to Col Umar is when did the presidency descend to this cesspool where area boys bait citizens to bolekaja fight?...

“Nigeria is a secular Republic, not a monarchy or a theocracy. Nigeria must be moved away from the “folksy “ medieval state governed by the whims of “babas” based on some archaic “African culture” of obeisance to autocratic chiefs and patriarchal elders to a contractual Republic governed by the rule of law as set out in our constitution. Anybody so enamoured by his primordial social order should seek such from his village, and not in Aso Rock….”

Pini Jason wasn’t done as he went for Femi’s jugular: “Femi Fani-Kayode gave himself away as a shallow mind when he questioned Col Umar’s June 12 and pro-democracy credentials…What else does Femi Fani-Kayode have to his name except his surname?” The master of abuse then descended on President Obasanjo himself:

“When did Aso Rock become a mountain of fire and brimstone? When did we substitute sound policies with Holy Ghost Fire?..

.We should be spared the hypocrisy of those who, with one corner of their mouth spew forth incantatory testimonies of “what God has done to my life”, and from the other corner issue incendiary curses and damnation!”
Is this HOW Pini Jason wants me to tackle issues? Fela, pls come to my rescue:

ThisDay

Sorrow, Tears and Flood…

Simon Kolawole Live!: Email: simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com

Let’s be honest: something is fundamentally wrong with us in this country. One month ago, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) issued a statement warning about imminent flooding. The agency said the dams in the North had recorded their highest water levels in decades and asked for the immediate evacuation of those living along the Niger River. I can’t say if the warning served any purpose, but what we have witnessed in the last two weeks is a complete devastation of several states in the country. Hundreds of lives have been lost, including those of a traditional ruler and a whole family. Tens of thousands have been displaced. Property worth hundreds of millions of naira, belonging mainly to poor people, was washed away or destroyed.

Permit me to reproduce the NEMA press statement, signed by the head of public relations, Mr. Yushau Shuaib, and dated September 10, 2012: “The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has ordered an immediate evacuation of citizens living along the River Niger plains. This alert comes because the dams have attained their highest water levels in 29 years which is unprecedented in the history of Jebba and Kainji hydroelectric power dams. The threat has created a high risk of imminent flooding in the downstream of the river. The residents of the communities are urged to move to higher grounds for safety. The states at risk of the flood are Niger, Kogi, Kwara, Kebbi, Anambra and Delta.

“Already the agency has notified the affected states to take the necessary precautionary measures by relocating people from the flood prone areas and activated the National Contingency Plan as well as alerted all stakeholders to take necessary actions in line with their various mandates. The states are to ensure compliance with the threat in order to avert imminent loss of lives and properties that would certainly arise in the event of flooding. Furthermore, information available indicates that the gauge for monitoring the flow of water in the river has already exceeded the maximum height by over one meter. A rapid assessment team comprising officers of NEMA and the stakeholders has left for Jebba and Kainji to inspect the situation.”

To be sure, the events of the last couple of weeks are not that fresh. Before the NEMA warning, 137 persons had been reported killed and 120,000 persons displaced in the flooding that occurred between July and September this year across the country. I am not aware that any steps were taken to prevent further loss of lives. It would appear it is not the duty of government to prevent the loss of lives and property. What we have always witnessed in Nigeria is that government acts best after a disaster. By that, I mean government quickly releases money for settlements to be built and “relief materials” to be distributed. It is usually done in the full glare of the press, with impressive photo opportunities of boot-wearing governors showing sympathy by walking inside the flood.

I don’t mean to be rude, but after NEMA released the flood warning in September, what steps did the Federal Government, state governments and councils take to save lives and property? I am not talking about the distribution of mosquito nets and blankets AFTER the flood, but public enlightenment, relocation of potential victims and emergency plans BEFORE the disaster? This is a country that distributes ecological funds like cornflakes every year, yet the environmental problems that these huge budgets are meant to address continue to hamper human and economic activities. One of the biggest scandals rocking Nigeria, aside fuel subsidy, is ecological funds. It would be interesting to know how many states can convincingly account for the billions of naira collected over the years in the name of “ecological funds”.

Overall, there are three issues I want to raise over the flooding. The first is that it has become all too glaring that nobody cares about us in this country. The politicians and those we call our leaders devote too much of their energies to politicking than governance. The meetings in Abuja are always geared towards distribution of excess crude revenue, 2015 presidential election, increased allowances for members of the National Assembly and all that crap. When the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Nigerians are at stake, the attitude is always nonchalant. All over the world, global warming and climate change are issues taken seriously by governments, not just in terms of holding conferences but in applying practical steps to protect the lives of the citizens. The flooding is inevitable but loss of lives and property can be minimised or prevented altogether.

Two, it is becoming clear day and night that we are not in any way ready to manage disasters in this country. We should just continue to thank God that the country is not prone to earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes. I wonder if anything would be left. In 2002, there were bomb explosions at Ikeja Cantonment, Lagos. It was so poorly managed that more than a thousand persons lost their lives trying to run away. They ended up in a canal. The real explosions did not kill up to 10 persons! Japan had a tsunami that affected its nuclear plants last year. Imagine if it was Nigeria – we would have been wiped out completely.

Three, for those who think the latest flooding affects only the poor people, they are probably wrong. There is serious implication for food security. Farmlands have been destroyed along the Niger River. Some Nigerians just go to the markets; they don’t even know where the food comes from (some may think food falls from the skies, and I won’t be surprised). Vehicular traffic is affected, and this means a lot for commerce and transport. When the Lokoja-Abuja road was shut in the wake of the flood disaster, some travellers actually spent days on the road. Do the math for tonnes of rotten tomatoes.

This disaster affects everyone one way or the other, but even if it doesn’t affect everyone, those affected are also Nigerians. Every life is important. We may not be able to prevent a natural disaster, but we can show that we care – not just AFTER the disaster, but BEFORE it happens. Of what use is distributing mattresses and paddling canoe in the full glare of cameras to show that you care?

And Four Other Things...

MUBI MASSACRE
Have things gone so bad in Nigeria that gunmen would just invade a polytechnic campus in Mubi, Adamawa State, and kill dozens of persons without a trace? The police were initially quoted as saying suspects had been arrested, but a rebuttal quickly followed, further compounding the mystery. It would have been easier to explain if it was a Boko Haram attack; at least, that is their stock-in-trade. But talks about students’ union elections and victims being called by name before being killed actually sent chills down my system. Hopefully, there would be no copycat crime in other campuses. It’s very scary.

CYNTHIA’S MURDER
Talking about copycat crimes, I think some Nigerians have taken their love for globalisation to the extreme, with the drugging, rape and murder of Miss Cynthia Osokogu, who was buried yesterday. The 25-year-old post-graduate student at the Nasarawa State University was allegedly killed by her facebook friends in a hotel room. This is the stuff you read in foreign newspapers and snigger, telling yourself it cannot happen in Nigeria. Well, it is happening here now and the law enforcement agencies must develop speciality in tackling this kind of crime. And Nigerians must wake up to the new reality.

LAST FLIGHT TO LONDON
To Lohnan Joseph, a 26-year-old Christian from Plateau State, all flights lead to London. He was recently arrested at the Sultan Abubakar III International Airport, Sokoto, as he tried to board an aircraft scheduled to convey Zamfara State pilgrims to Saudi Arabia. Quizzed by the police, he reportedly said: “My mission is to go to London, like Herbert Macaulay did. We are Nigerians and we are the same by birth and citizenship.” In his travelling bag were the defunct French francs (since replaced by the euro) and his credentials. No passport, no visa. No problem, then.

TIMID TERRY
After admitting mouthing “f****** black c***” to Anton Ferdinand but only as a question, John Terry was set free by a Westminster magistrates court on the ground that the prosecution did not prove it beyond reasonable doubt that Terry meant it as a racial insult. The cowardly Terry got away, OJ Simpson-style, with a good lawyer. But the English FA has fined Terry £220,000 and suspended him for four matches for the same offence because his defence was “improbable, implausible and contrived”. The logic is simple. If Terry actually said the words as a question, he would have said: “Did you think I called you FBC?” Did he even need to repeat those words? Lies, lies, lies.

ThisDay

A birthday cake for impunity? (1)

 by Chidi Odinkalu

L–R: President, Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor; Vice-President Namadi Sambo; President Goodluck Jonathan; Senate President, David Mark; and a former VP, Dr. Alex Ekwueme at the cutting of the 52nd Independence Anniversary cake, in Abuja ... on Monday, October 1, 2012.
| credits: State House

Nigeria is in the throes of an epidemic of violence and impunity much unlike anything the country has witnessed before. Violence in its multi-faceted forms is by most understandings the biggest single law and order and public health problem in the country today. For the first time in our collective consciousness, such acts of violence now routinely include indiscriminate mass killings of civilians caused by Improvised Explosive Devices.

As disparate as these forms of violence seem to be, one thing unites them: our mechanisms of legal accountability seem inadequate to address them or to apprehend the perpetrators. Clothed with effective impunity, therefore, those who unleash this violence feel able not just to repeat it as often as they wish, but also to recruit many followers into the enterprise of seeming to make violence worthwhile. For many Nigerians, another Independence anniversary could feel very much like cutting a birthday cake for impunity.

Fifty two years after Independence, this crisis of violence is the principal metric of the state of evolution and disrepair of our institutions of legal and judicial accountability. The verdict they encapsulate is an unhappy one. So, what then is the relationship of violence to the evolution of Nigeria’s judicial and legal institutions? Simply put, an epidemic of violence is the opposite of a state of rule of law. It is evidence of failure of institutions of the rule of law and of a widespread lack of trust in them.

At Independence in 1960, Nigeria inherited colonial institutions that had not been tested by a free people. The Police Force bequeathed to the country in 1960, for instance, was an expeditionary institution with a century of the wrong kind of traditions and history. The judiciary, for all the admirable men (they were all men then) that administered it, was institutionally younger than the Police at Independence, but essentially also not much different in its essential philosophies. The governing organs of the legal profession were wholly owned by government. With over 28 of our 52 years of post-colonial government lived under military rule, the institutions of the rule of law were fated to suffer considerable diminution in both their efficacy and authority.

The defining landmarks in the unraveling of the post-colonial legal system have been captured in symbolic moments and snapshots. From 1961 until 1963, there were three such moments in the civilian interregnum that preceded military rule.

First, Shortly after Independence, the Nigerian legal system faced its first major test in the Treason Trial of J.S. Tarka in 1961. Tarka, firebrand leader of an opposition party, the United Middle Belt Congress, was charged with the serious crime of levying war against Her Majesty, the Queen of Nigeria – treason. This was two years before Nigeria would become a Republic in 1963. The trial somehow conveniently coincided with the elections into the dissolved Northern Nigeria House of Assembly, controlled by the then ruling Northern Peoples’ Congress. The effort to crush the UMBC failed in the short term as forces loyal to Tarka prevailed in his beloved Tivland during the elections and he was acquitted in the trial. However, the ruling party had learnt not to be outmanoeuvred on strategy.

Next, in 1962, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the Opposition in the Federal Parliament would subsequently be tried and convicted of treasonable felony in proceedings in which the then Federal Minister for Internal Affairs, Usman Sarki, denied his counsel of choice, Mr. Gratien QC, entry clearance into Nigeria. This was to precede a takeover of Chief Awolowo’s Western region.

Thus, in 1963, dis-regarding a pending Privy Council appeal (which it subsequently lost) in a dispute over who was the lawful Prime Minister of the Western Region, the government restored Chief Awolowo’s ambitious former deputy, Samuel Akintola, as the Prime Minister of the Western Region. Following the Privy Council decision in this case [Adegbenro vs. Akintola, (1963) A.C. 164], the then Federal Government established the Supreme Court, abolished appeals to the Privy Council and proclaimed Nigeria a Republic. The civilians had laid the foundations of what would define post-colonial institutional politics – that the decisions of courts which prove not to be malleable can be dispensed with at the whim of the rulers of the day.

The military would take this lesson to heart when they took over the reins of power following the coups of 1966. When the then Supreme Court ruled in 1969 in Lakanmi’s case that the events of January 1966 were not revolutionary in a constitutional sense, obliging the then military regime, therefore, to subject itself to the niceties of the written 1963 Constitution, the soldiers simply promulgated the Federal Military Government (Supremacy and Enforcement of Powers) Decree of 1970, eviscerating the decision and lobotomising the courts. Despite episodic stirrings to judicial imagination since then, our judicial institutions have never quite recovered from these grave errors by men who were inevitably limited by their youth.

The tendency of the post-colonial regimes to respect only legal advice that they liked and obey judicial decisions that favoured them would catch up with both its authors and the country. Taslim Elias, who, as Federal Attorney-General, presided over the developments narrated above, would himself become a victim of his own precedents when, as Chief Justice, he was summarily relieved of his position in 1975 with no need for justification.

A major victim of this arbitrariness was Nigeria’s criminal justice and penal system. Bola Ige, the story of whose life is well known as counsel to J.S. Tarka in the treason trials, and later as governor, political detainee, Justice Minister and himself victim of an assassination, notes in his work, People, Politics, and Politicians of Nigeria, 1940-1979, that “Nigerian authorities have become more inhumane, more intolerant and more callous in their treatment not only of those standing trial but also of those detained for months without trial….”

By the outset of the third decade of Nigeria’s independence, the consequences of this history had percolated into judicial decision-making in the first evidence of what would become a gangrene of allegations of judicial corruption. In 1986, the report of the Babalakin Commission of Inquiry into the then Federal Electoral Commission, found, in relation to judicial decision making in the 1983 elections that “allegations of corruption in high places were freely made.”

•Odinkalu chairs the Board of the National Human Rights Commission.
Punch

The Price for Financial Impunity

ijeoma.nwogwugwu@thisdaylive.com

Ever since the Central Bank of Nigeria blacklisted 113 companies and their directors, whose loans – primarily non-performing – are in excess of N5 billion and had been taken over by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, the affected debtors have been lobbying quietly to get the central bank to reverse the decision. The ignominy of being blacklisted aside, they are worried that by barring them from accessing further bank credit, the CBN has sounded the death knell on them and their businesses. Some have even argued that they need to keep borrowing to refinance their loans, raise money for working capital to save their businesses from going under and prevent job losses.

On the last point, they might be right. But the fact of the matter is if the loans were not being serviced, they were already bankrupt. As such, they have no one else to blame for their sorry state but themselves. Since the crisis in the banking system in 2009, a number of measures have been taken by the authorities to reverse the culture of financial impunity arising from financial recklessness, mismanagement of the banks and a raft of debtors unwilling to repay their loans. From bank managing directors who were summarily dismissed and dragged to the courts for insider lender and mismanaging the institutions that they ran, the name and shame tactics employed by the central bank between August and October of that same year to get debtors repay the loans, to the establishment of AMCON as a resolution vehicle for bad bank debts.

The measures notwithstanding, the bulk of the debtors who were listed three years ago still dominated the new list compiled by the central bank last month. Although the loans have since been taken over by AMCON, a cursory glance shows that like 2009, the new list was dominated by local oil and gas companies and stock broking firms. In 2009, banking system exposure to oil and gas companies and the capital market accounted for more than 70 per cent of loans that had gone bad. In effect, nothing much had changed between 2009 and 2012. The only distinguishing factor was that the same bad loans had been moved from the banks to AMCON.

The irony is that when AMCON was established in 2010, quite a few of these debtors consciously courted the banks to transfer their loans to the corporation. They felt that with AMCON, they would be under less pressure to repay their loans, could restructure them under less stringent terms and could maintain their luxury lifestyles without a care in the world. But what they did not bargain for was that the central bank would come down hard on them again until they repaid what they owe.

In defence of the CBN’s directive to banks on the bad debtors, its deputy governor, Financial System Stability, Dr. Kingsley Moghalu, told this writer that if the central bank had not blacklisted the chronic bad debtors, it would be reversing the financial system stability, which had been achieved through the establishment of AMCON. Also, the reluctance or refusal by debtors to repay their loans taken over by AMCON presents a moral hazard and could encourage others to act in the same irresponsible manner, he explained. More important, the culture of financial indiscipline, especially by borrowers who believe they are above the law and can borrow without paying back, must be stopped.

What these debtors do not realise is that by allowing AMCON to assume their loans, their businesses and assets have effectively been taken over by the Federal Government of Nigeria and they have no hope of recovering them until they repay their loans. Is it any wonder that Mr. Femi Otedola, whose company, Zenon Oil and Gas Limited, had the highest exposure to the banking system, wisely gave up most of his assets to wipe his slate clean? 

The lesson to be learnt from Otedola’s experience is that others still indebted to AMCON would have to pay up or lose the shirts on their backs. Those opting for the courts to challenge the interest charges and penalties imposed by the banks, quite frankly, are wasting precious time, because they have a negligible chance of winning their cases and would still have to pay what they owe after the law suits have run their course.

A better option for them is have the loans restructured and ensure that the loans are performing for a reasonable length of time, which could encourage AMCON to ask for a review from the central bank on a case-by-case basis. On this, Moghalu said AMCON would be required to advise the CBN on the new status of the debt. Such reviews, he added, will be periodic, may be every six or 12 months, after which the debtor may be delisted.

Another option is for a debtor, who honestly wants to pay, to apply to AMCON for working capital under a restructuring plan as provided under Section 6(1)(c) of the Act establishing the corporation. That section provides that the corporation shall have the powers to provide equity capital on such terms and conditions as it may deem fit. But on this, its managing director and CEO, Mr. Mustapha Chike-Obi places a caveat. According to him, even though there is a window to give some working capital to companies under the Act, as a regulated entity, AMCON would have to inform the CBN which must be satisfied that the debtor has the capacity to pay and will not fritter it away. Expectedly, companies that qualify for such consideration includes the airlines – Arik, Aero Contractors and Air Nigeria – as well a few others in critical sectors of the economy.

But it is not just debtors that owe AMCON more than N5 billion that the CBN intends to target. Based on information made available to this column, the central banks plans to periodically review the list and lower the threshold of bad bank debtors to N1 billion. The thinking in the central bank is that debtors with the habit of going from one bank to the other accumulating loans without repaying should also be blacklisted in order to safeguard the banking system.

In more advanced jurisdictions, debtors with a poor credit rating are not only barred from borrowing; if and where they get new loans, these loans are granted under the worst possible terms. That way, the propensity for financial indiscipline by the banks and borrowers is largely kept at bay.

Economic Stimulus vs. Savings
Under the 2013 -2015 Medium Term Expenditure Frame and Fiscal Strategy Paper presented by President Goodluck Jonathan to the National Assembly, the government is proposing a crude oil benchmark of $75 a barrel for the 2013 budget. One reason is that by establishing a conservative benchmark price, excess revenues accruing from oil sales could be saved for the rainy day.

The House of Representatives, on the other hand is proposing to increase the oil benchmark in next year’s budget to $82 a barrel. The House is arguing that by increasing the benchmark, more revenue will accrue to the government for capital spending and would reduce the budget deficit and government borrowing. 

Although the legislators may be acting out a script on behalf of their state governors and may appear imprudent, their position should not be dismissed with a wave of the hand. Almost two years ago, I wrote an article on finding a balance between stimulating the economy and saving for the future. That article still remains relevant today and has been replicated in part:

“Savings beyond planned investment is not what Nigerian needs at this juncture. What excessive saving does is to create the false impression that all is well on the surface as long as base macroeconomic indicators state so, but unemployment, poverty and income inequalities will continue to persist. What this means is that certain wrong macroeconomic actions are leading to inefficient aggregate macroeconomic outcomes, such that the Nigerian economy is operating below its potential output and growth rate.

Realistically, the best way to diversify the economy is for government to de-emphasise, not completely jettison savings, and invest more in capital infrastructure projects capable of creating new jobs and opportunities for the unemployed. The impact of investment by government is that it has a cascading effect on the economy. When it injects funds into capital projects, this results in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment involving still more income and spending and so on.

Economists term this the circular flow of income, and is inevitable because the initial stimulus starts a cascade of events, whose total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment.”

ThisDay

Benin prince counsels youths against violence

Written by Uchechukwu Olisah

Crown Prince of Benin kingdom, Edaiken N’Uselu Eheneden Erediauwa, has advised youths that constitute Community Development Associations (CDAs) in various parts of the kingdom to desist from violent acts that could endanger the peace of the state.

Prince Erediauwa gave the advice when members of the National Union of Benin Students from the University of Benin (UNIBEN) paid him a courtesy visit.

The Edaiken N'Uselu, who called on the students to work towards the eradication of cult activities which, according to him, has spread from schools to communities in the state, denounced cult activities which he said had become an instrument used against opponents on the streets in various communities.

Prince  Erediauwa also cautioned communities against selling large parcels of land to non-indigenes who would take possession of such land forever.

According to him, the communities should cultivate the habit of leasing land to those who might be interested, with a reminder to them that their children would definitely need the land in the future.

He urged the Students Union leaders and other members to be good ambassadors of the Binis wherever they were, just as he called on them to be united and work hard to bring other Benin students  within the country together.

Earlier, the leader of the Benin Students Union, Mr. Isaac Erhunmwunse Ukponahiusi, said they were at the residence of the prince to welcome him home from his diplomatic service.
Nigerian Tribune

Nigeria close to the precipice – Ex-minister

 by Olusola Fabiyi

Dr. Oby Ezekwesili
| credits: File copy

A former Minister of Education, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, has said the country is on the edge of a precipice.

Ezekwesili, a former Vice-President of the World Bank, spoke with journalists in Abuja on Sunday on the Mubi massacre and the killing of four students of University of Port Harcourt by a mob.

The UNIPORT students were alleged to have stolen laptops and telephones.

Ezekwesili said she was devastated that the students were burnt and videotaped in Port Harcourt, the state capital, by the killers.

The former minister said, “I am shaken; I am outraged, I am devastated, I feel mortally wounded.

“The situations in Mubi and Port Harcourt were terrible. Did you see the video-recording of how students were killed in Port Harcourt?

“Is this not the same country where it is emotionally difficult when you see a corpse on the street?

“I am sorry; I am totally outraged like any decent citizen of a nation that we love. The killings were barbaric, mere savagery and very devastating.

“We are getting to the precipice and we need to pull ourselves back. The government has to take full responsibility; it has to be in charge to prevent anarchy.

“The only way out is for the government to prove that it is really in charge.”

She said it was obvious that some people were acting or behaving as if there were no people in charge of the government.

“Something is fundamentally wrong with our society: To see the dastardly mob’s killing of four misguided youths (in Port Harcourt) who stole, sank my optimism. No! Even in death, these four must get justice. My voice shall be heard on this. What have we become?” almost sobbing.

Meanwhile, the National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Bamanga Tukur, has said Nigeria needs prayers in order to combat the security challenge facing it.

Tukur, after reviewing the recent killings in Mubi, added that the security problems confronting the country needed to be tackled with all seriousness.

To secure Adamawa State from cultists or terrorist groups, he said there should be concerted efforts by all to complement efforts by the security agencies.

The PDP chairman spoke with journalists in Abuja on Sunday at his residence.

He called on security agents not to relent on their efforts until they fish out the perpetrators.

Punch

Corruption: An Invitation To Revolution

  FATIMA AKILU

An abridged version of an article published in The Politico magazine in August 2012.
By Furera Isma Jumare
Recently Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, lamented that globally, 30 per cent of aid meant for development was lost to corruption in 2011, hampering the ability of countries to prosper and grow, by preventing peace, development and human rights from flourishing.
This brings to mind Nigeria, a country awash in oil wealth,  but which ranks 143rd in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (or the 33rd most corrupt country in the world). In his 2007 book “The Bottom Billion”, Paul Collier, former World Bank Director of Research Development had also called Nigeria a development failure.
In Nigeria, government agencies which have the responsibility of providing public goods and services are cesspools of corruption. It is the same thing from the federal government, to the states, and the local government councils where it is an open secret that in some cases, their statutory monthly allocations are simply shared among officers.
Sadly, no one seems to care anymore that public officers, many of whom earn less than a N100,000 a month, drive around in brand new expensive cars (paid for in full), send their children to expensive private schools, own expensive homes, and flaunt their ill-gotten wealth.
Obviously, the civil servants are aided and abetted by legislators that have oversight function over their agencies, as well as the private sector itself. For example, around 2008 the power sector probe by the Ndudi Elumelu led House of Representatives Committee on Power was steeped in allegations that members had collected a bribe of N100 million from a contractor. Elumelu and his team were charged to court, but have we heard anything anymore about the case?
Then there is  the Farouk Lawan (Mr. Integrity)/ Femi Otedola bribery scandal during the fuel subsidy probe. Here, evidence emerged that Mr. Integrity had taken a bribe of at least $500,000 to exonerate a company owned by Femi Otedola, a big player in the oil sector.
It is also clear that members of the legislature cannot help soliciting bribe regardless of the importance of whatever project, sector or ministry they “oversee”, knowing this is to the detriment of growth and development of the country, its citizens, or even the constituencies they claim to represent. In Nigeria the corruption disease has hit on such an audacious scale and now reached frightening proportions.
To add salt to injury, Nigeria ranked 156th in World Bank’s Human Development Index in 2011, falling into the Low Human Development group, and only better than 23 countries. For many years the country has fallen into that group, and now it is not likely to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015 according to reports.
This is because to achieve each of the goals requires an infusion of funds by government. And there lies the problem for Nigeria. Wherever funds are needed for a project, corruption is lurking around the corner. How on earth then did we think the country would achieve rapid development and meet the goals by 2015? Marrying the two issues of corruption and achieving the MDGs together, understanding why it would be a difficult task anyway becomes easier.
Already, looking at the overarching of the eight goals - eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in assessing the current progress of the MDGs in Nigeria reports that this goal is not likely to be met by 2015. As it is already, by 2010, 61.2 per cent of Nigerians were living under a dollar a day, according to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
But then again, for the same reason, can Nigeria meet the goal of achieving universal primary education? While World Bank statistics showed increased primary school enrolment in this case, there is a missing link. If the MDGs are supposed to be a means to achieving development, that goal should have addressed the issue of quality of education, and not just volume.
The educational system in the country has totally collapsed in terms of quality. There is dilapidated physical infrastructure, limited educational equipment and other materials, and poor quality of teaching. Of course this feeds into Nigeria’s secondary school system where for example only 10 per cent of the 110,724 candidates passed the 2011 November/December Senior School Certificate Examinations of the National Examination Council (the NECO SSCE).
For the health sector, the case of Professor Adenike Grange, the former Minister of Health who was fired for graft in 2008 is an example of corruption in high places. But also recently in July, a scathing report appeared in the equally sensational on line news media, Saharareporters.com, regarding the activities of the Federal Ministry of Health. Staff members together with those of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), were accused of stealing much of the N320 billion allocated to the ministry specifically for the achievement of the MDGs and others.
But the Office of the Senior Special Advisor to the President on MDGs is not left out of the corruption scandals; it was recently reported that the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had arrested the Benue state coordinator of the MDGs, Mr. Timothy Aikyor, and some of his subordinates, for misappropriation of between N300 million and N1 billion.
In view of all this therefore, are the MDGs attainable in Nigeria? We know that corruption in Nigeria, very much like religion, has been accepted as a way of life. Law enforcement and other constituted authority that should abhor and prevent it actually condone and fuel it. Many corruption cases have “disappeared” because of the connivance of constituted authority, but even where cases still exist, they are often tied up in bureaucracy at the courts anyway. So what to do?
Countries have been urged to ratify the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). Adopted in 2003 by the General Assembly, the instrument is the first global legally binding one meant to help countries fight corruption and recover stolen assets. Nigeria has ratified it, but if the Nigerian government is sincere in its fight against corruption, then for a start it must incorporate the convention’s provisions into our laws.
When this happens it might serve as a deterrent for those who believe they can steal public funds and hide the loot abroad.
Leadership