Viewpoint
"Labelling the attackers as Fulani is wrong. Fulani people are peaceful and live in harmony with other ethnicities. To call the killer herdsmen Fulani is a misnomer. They are just criminals and not Fulani criminals"- Vice President Atiku Abubakar, 11 March 2018, Thisday Newspaper.
Is it so difficult for us to accept the ugly truth and to call a spade a spade? Must we continue to mock the memories of those that have been slaughtered by shielding those who butchered them? Have we no shame or remorse? Are these childish semantics and infantile denials really necessary?
I have immense respect and affection for Vice President Atiku Abubakar and it stretches back for many years but this assertion shocks and surprises me. It is most unlike him to speak in this way. And I happen to know that he is far bigger and better than this.
There are however some ugly realities that we have to accept and live with in this country and this is one of them. Living in denial cannot solve the problem: it can only aggravate it and make it worse.
It is bad enough that hardly any Fulani leaders have come out to publicly condemn the activities of their herdsmen but to condemn the horrendous acts and then attempt to shield the racial identity of those behind it by saying that they are not Fulani is even worse.
Permit me to expand on this. Saying that the Fulani terrorists are not Fulani is rather like saying that Adolf Hitler's Nazis, who gassed 6 million Jews to death in concentration camps during Word War 1, were not German. It is like saying that Abubakar Shekau and his Boko Haram footsoldiers, who have slaughtered thousands of our people over the last few years, are not Muslims and are not Nigerians.
It is like saying that the white Boers who owned and ran apartheid-South Africa, who slaughtered the black African population and who regarded them as nothing more than animals that were only fit for breeding and slave labour, were not caucasians and did not originally come from Holland in western Europe.
Such assertions fly in the face of logic, have no basis in veracity, are manifestly irrational and are deeply insulting. Not only are they deeply flawed but, worst of all, they are designed to conceal the truth and obstruct any future attempt to bring the perpertrators to justice.
And if Atiku Abubakar or anyone else insists on saying that the killer herdsmen are not Fulani then perhaps they could tell us exactly what they are, who they are and where they come from?
Are they from Mars? Are they from Pluto? Are they from the moon? Or are they from the dark and sinister Vulture Mountain and the infamous "land of the bitter waters" in Futa Jalon, Guniea?
Last year Governor Nasir El Rufai told the world that they are non-Nigerian Fulanis and that they were from Niger, Mali, Chad and other such places.
Atiku has now gone a step further by saying that they are not Fulani at all, whether local or foreign! This consistent and constant denial from Fulani leaders has to stop. They must accept the fact that some of their people are naturally murderous and they must do something about it.
We must not shy away from challenging anyone who attempts to becloud this issue or mislead the Nigerian people.
It does not matter if we happen to be in the same political party or in different ones. If anyone, no matter how highly placed or respected, crosses the line or indulges in any shape or form of mendacity and deception in this matter, we must and will call that person out.
That is what leadership is all about. And this is all the more important because the situation appears to be getting worse and, if we are not careful, it may escalate into a full scale religious and tribal war that would cause Nigeria to cease to exist.
Consider the words of Mr. Magnus Oraka who is from Jos and whose community was attacked just a few days ago.
He posted a moving and emotional video from his hometown on Facebook yesterday in which he spoke with courage and passion. He said,
"This Fulani attack and killing is war against Nigeria and war against Christians. It is not APC vs PDP, it is Muslim vs Christian. We don't have weapons to defend ourselves, all we have are sticks. God Punish Buhari, God punish those of you that voted for Buhari, God punish those that are still supporting Buhari. Look at my face! I am in Jos: come and meet me!"
To butress his point about the religious dimension of the conflict, according to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) many Churches have been burnt down by Fulani herdsmen all over the country in the last three years. 60 of them were burnt down in Benue state in the last few weeks whilst over 1000 have been burnt down in Southern Kaduna alone in the last three years!
If this were simply a conflict over land rights and a struggle between tribes and ethnic nationalities why on earth are Churches being targetted by the Fulani as well?
Whichever way you look at it, clearly the victims and members of the indigenous communities that are under siege are getting fed up. Their backs are up against the wall and they are eager to defend themselves and hit back.
And given what they have been subjected to over the years and particulatly since Buhari came to power three years ago, who can blame them?
Most importantly they are under no illusion and have no doubt about who the aggressors, attackers and perpetrators are and where they come from.
The truth is that not only are these barbarians and genocidal maniacs that take delight in indulging in mass murders Fulani but they are also NIGERIAN Fulanis.
They are inspired, led, guided, funded, supported and protected by Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore and the Miyetti Allah Cattle Herders Association which are both organisations that are made up of Fulanis and that are headed by the Fulani Sultan of Sokoto and the Fulani Emir of Kano.
The Chairman of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, one Abdullahi Bello Bodejo, is Fulani as well just as are all the leaders of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association like one Garus Gololo. Finally their Life Patron is another Fulani by the name of President Muhammadu Buhari.
At one time or the other every single one of these individuals together with many other Fulani leaders such as the spokesman of the Arewa Consultative Forum, the notorious and rabidly pro-northern Fulani supremacist, Professor Ango Abdullahi, have tried to defend, justify and rationalise the outrageous and barbaric behaviour of their members and Fulani kinsmen.
They have said that the killings were inescapable, unpreventable and justified and that the Fulani herdsmen had every right to attack and slaughter innocent and defenceless people, including women and children, simply because those people were obstructing the free movement of Fulani cattle from one part of the country to another.
They also accused them of preventing the Fulani cows from eating their crops and of building houses on some fictitious and non-existent cattle routes which they claim that our erstwhile British colonial masters had allegedly granted them as far back as 1904!
Miyetti Allah itself went further by alluding to the fact that they were pleased with Buhari's luke-warm and indifferent attitude to the whole matter and indeed the way that he has run the country over the last three years and that if he was not re-elected as President in 2019 they would "burn Nigeria to the ground".
Knowing all this, for someone to now say that the killers are not Fulani is clearly an attempt to mislead the public and to befuddle the issues.
The Fulani leaders MUST accept that they own this problem and they must take full responsibility for the brutality, savagery and unacceptable behaviour of their people.
We must stop the deceit. There is no room for political correctness here or attempting to sweep the truth under the carpet. I say this because dozens of innocent people are being killed every day.
Furthermore it is disingenious and unfair to expect us not to call the terrorists who and what they really are: Fulani terrorists. We call them that because they are committing crimes against humanity and because they are members of the Fulani race.
If any Fulani leader is uncomfortable with that and do not want us to call them what they are then they are best advised to counsel and control their Fulani brothers and tell them to stop behaving like animals and killing our people.
Only a Fulani man will say that it is wrong or that it is a misnomer to call a killer Fulani herdsman and a Fulani terrorist what he is.
Such a man that is not ready to call a spade a spade cannot be taken seriously.
Let us make no mistake about it: todays struggle is not just about party politics or getting Buhari out of power in 2019.
The struggle is far bigger than that and it is essentially about securing our liberation. We are fighting to be free and to win our liberation from the hegemony, tyranny, cruelty and barbarity of the Fulani who have slaughtered our people like flies over the last three years and who insist on ruling our nation in perpetuity and turning us all into little more than paupers, beggars and slaves.
If that makes some uncomfortable it is simply too bad and it changes nothing. The truth is that it is time for us to call a spade a spade and to stop pampering the enemy or massaging his ego.
If the Fulani want to be treated with decorum, respect and affection and if any Fulani man ever wishes to have a hope in hell of being elected President of our country ever again, the genocide and ethnic cleansing that they unleash on our people on a daily basis must stop. Anything short of that is unacceptable.
Permit me to share the words of Mr. Samson Tannon Tongman who said the following:
"The agenda is bigger than Atiku. It is jihad, land grab and Islamization. All northerners must fall in line, including Atiku".
This is an insighful and deeply profound observation. It also provides a veritable explanation for the doublespeak that virtually every single northern Muslim leader, including a liberal and otherwise benign and reasonable one like Atiku, indulges in when it comes to the nefarious and unspeakable atrocities of the Fulani herdsmen and terrorists.
It appears that Mr. Opeyemi Oluyade was right when he said,
"this is the time for liberation politics, not party politics: liberation from the Fulani".
Permit me to conclude this contribution with the words of embattled Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state whose people have been subjected to nothing less than genocide and have suffered immeasurably at the hands of the Fulani terrorists in the last three years. A few days ago he hosted President Buhari in his state and said,
"On 30th May, 2017, the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore in a ‘World Press Conference’ held in Abuja, opposed the Ranching Law. They called on Fulani herders in all of West Africa to come into Benue to help them reclaim their land. In the same vein, Miyetti Allah Cattle Herders Association in their Press Conference declared that more blood will flow in Benue if the Ranching Law is not rescinded. Your Excellency, as a President that supports the Rule of Law, you will most certainly be offended by these hate speeches that may have crossed the red line. Your Excellency, how can a group claim responsibility for the killings that happened and are going about scot free? How can a group make public these inciting and criminal declarations in an organized society and are not arrested by the Police? Your Excellency, kindly order the immediate arrest and prosecution of the leadership of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore and Miyetti Cattle Breeders Association for carrying out their threats to attack Benue on account of the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, 2017".
This is wise and courageous counsel from Ortom and it is long overdue. I agree with him that the leaders of Miyetti Allah should be arrested but I would go a step further by suggesting that the organisation should also be proscribed and declared as a terrorist organisation.
From the foregoing it appears that not everyone has been fooled or persuaded by the misleading assertion and perfidious narrative that those that are carrying out the killings are not Fulani.
Governor Ortom knows that they are Fulani just as does every other discerning and sensible Nigerian.
Furthermore by stating their intention to spill even more blood and kill every soul in Benue state and elsewhere simply because of the passing of the Anti-Grazing Bill, Miyetti Allah have not only confessed to their heinous crimes against humanity but they have also relished them, boasted about them and have made it abundantly clear that they intend to kill many more innocent people, including women and children.
What more evidence do we need to prove that these terrorists and mass murderers are indeed Fulani and that they have no intention of stopping the carnage until the people of southern and Middle Belt Nigeria are either completely wiped out and ethnically cleansed off the face of the earth or are ready to submit to them, give them all their land, give them all their farms and bow to their cows?
Those that are eager to mislead the world, becloud the issues, brush the filth under the carpet and cover the tracks of these bloodthirsty beasts should answer that question.
Permit me to conclude this contribution with the following.
Every day since the beginning of this year Fulani terrorists have killed people in one part of Nigeria or the other and the number of those murdered over the last three years has entered into the thousands.
On Thursday 15th March 2018, 35 innocent people, including women and children, were slaughtered in Kogi state as well.
The state has not passed an Anti-Grazing Law, its people have not blocked any cow-grazing routes and it's Governor, a young Igbira businessman by the name of Yahaya Bello, is a bumbling slave of the Fulani and a self-deprecating acolyte of Buhari who donated 15,000 hectares of state land to the herdsmen for the establishment of the infamous cattle ranches.
For those who say that the reason that the Fulani terrorists butcher innocent people is because of the Anti-Grazing Law, blocked grazing routes, hostility to them from the local indegenous population, hatred for Buhari or the refusal to establish cattle ranches, how do you explain this?
The truth is that there is no reason for their sociopathic and genocidal behaviour other than the fact that they are murderous by nature and they wish to wipe out entire indigenous populations all over Nigeria in order to take their land, steal their mineral resources, rape their women, conquer their souls, enslave their people and break their spirit.
It is their legendry brutality that qualified them to be the slave raiders for the Europeans and the Arabs during the days of the slave trade.
No-one, not even the cowards and quislings amongst us like Yahaya Bello that sell their souls and trade their birthright to them, that role out the red carpet to receive them and that bow and tremble before them are safe or exempt from their sociopathic barbarity and their psyhcopathic savagery.
That is a bitter lesson that many in our country still have to learn.
You cannot appease a ravenous and insatiable snake and you cannot befriend a wild and hungry beast.
The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, said the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari created no fewer than seven million jobs in the first two years of the administration between May 2015 and November 2017.
The minister stated this while briefing State House correspondents after meeting with Mr. Buhari in his office in November, 2017.
“We promised jobs but what has happened is that people tried to quantify jobs in terms of white collar jobs for graduates from universities and polytechnics, but they don’t want to look at the blue collar jobs.
“Agriculture and agric value chain alone have created more than 5-7 million jobs,” he said.
Mr. Ngige said a lot of the jobs were created in rice farming.
“From rice tilling, harvesting, sending to the paddies, mills, and even where people are making the jute bags, transportation, people are getting jobs.
“So, that value chain alone from agric is enormous,” he said.
The minister also said the government has created, “millions of jobs from the N-power scheme.”
He said agencies of government such as the National Directorate of Employment, NDE, have also created jobs through skills acquisition.
He said under the NDE, the government gives beneficiaries tools to earn a living through being, “plumbers, electricians, cosmetologists, shoe makers, tilers and several other areas.”
THE CLAIMS:
CLAIM 1: The minister’s first claim here is that “Agriculture and agriculture value chain alone have created more than 5-7 million jobs.” Mr. Ngige said such jobs were created in agricultural activities like rice farming.
CLAIM 2: Another claim is Mr. Ngige’s statement that the government has created “millions of jobs from the N-power scheme.”
VERIFICATION OF CLAIMS
The three major government agencies referenced by the minister’s claims are the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development, the National Directorate of Employment and the Social Investment Programmes (specifically N-Power)
CLAIM 1: THE 5-7 MILLION AGRICULTURE JOBS
Dubawa [using the PTCIJ reference] sent a Freedom of Information request to the ministry of agriculture, requesting data on jobs created by the ministry through the agriculture value chain. The ministry failed to provide any response, several months later.
Also, a letter to the ministry of labour requesting details of the ”five to seven million jobs” was not replied.
While the two relevant ministries failed to provide any data to back up the minister’s claim, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the federal government’s repository of data across all sectors, nevertheless offers reliable data on job creation, that is not in sync with the minister’s claims.
The NBS Quarterly Job Creation Survey is a nationwide survey covering all 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with the objective of tracking the number of jobs being created in the economy within a given period.
Its findings are categorised into three groupings of: formal sector, informal sector and public sector jobs. The formal sector data represent employment generated in establishments that employ 10 persons and above, or in formal professional services that employ less than 10 persons.
With regards to the informal sector, this represents jobs generated by individuals or businesses employing less than 10 or those businesses operating with little or no structures e.g. those in Agriculture, Light Manufacturing, Trade, etc. The public sector jobs are those created in government ministries, departments, agencies otherwise called the MDAs, such as government Parastatals, academic and research institutions at federal, state and local government levels.
Since the present administration, under President Muhammadu Buhari, was sworn in on May 29, 2015, the historically relevant NBS reading that supports its job creation claim would be the NBS 2015 second quarter data. This data outlook captured the job creation position from the second quarter of 2015 through third quarter of 2016. Since no Quarterly Job Creation Survey has been published after this date, this remains the only valid official evidence of job creation in the country.
Working through the 16 months captured by the available NBS data, it was revealed that in the second quarter of 2015 after the administration came to power, 141,368 jobs were created. In the third quarter, Q3, 2015, 475,180 jobs were created while in the last quarter, Q4, 2015, 499,521 jobs were created.
In the first quarter of the second year, [Q1, 2016], 79,465 jobs were created while in Q2, 2016, 155,444 jobs were created.
The last data available from the NBS was Q3, 2016 when 187,226 jobs were created.
Thus, the total jobs created in the period under review (Q2, 2015 – Q3, 2016) is 1,538,204. That is, between April 1, 2015 and September 30, 2016, a total of 1.5 million (1,538,204) jobs were created across Nigeria in all sectors (including agriculture), according to NBS data.
This data shows that on the average, 256,367 jobs were created in each quarter between Q2, 2015 and Q3, 2016.
Considering that Mr. Ngige made his statement of creating “more than 5-7 million jobs,” over 13 months after the last available NBS job data (Q3, 2016 which ended on September 30, 2016), an extrapolation of data offers insight on what official figures for the jobs created between Q4 of 2016 and Q4 of 2017 could be.
At an average of 256,367 jobs created quarterly since Mr. Buhari assumed office, the estimated job creation for the five quarters (Q4, 2016 to Q4, 2017) becomes 1.2 million (1,281,835).
While the 1.2 million jobs is an extrapolation, the possibility that the actual number will be more than that is low as Nigeria’s economy was in recession for most of the period under review. The country only announced it had exited recession after the second quarter of 2017.
This leaves the total number of jobs created between the Q2, 2015 and Q4, 2017 as 2,820,039 (2.8 million jobs), and certainly they were not all created in the agriculture sector as Mr. Ngige had suggested.
Assuming also that all the 2.8 million jobs were created in the agriculture and agro-allied sector, it would still be a far cry from the “more than 5-7 million jobs” Mr. Ngige declared.
Therefore, claim 1 by the Labour minister that “Agriculture and agriculture value chain alone have created more than 5-7 million jobs” is therefore false.
CLAIM 2: MILLIONS OF JOBS FROM THE N-POWER SCHEME
The N-Power is a component of the Social Investment Programme (SIP) of the Buhari administration. The SIP is a major campaign promise of President Muhammadu Buhari to provide food for school kids, pay cash to poor persons and battle unemployment.
SIP is divided into four: Home Grown School Feeding Programme for public schools; Conditional Cash Transfer to poor persons; N-Power for unemployed graduates; and the Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme.
The N-Power is aimed at engaging unemployed Nigerians with a monthly stipend of N30,000. It started out in December 2016 and attracted hundreds of thousands of applications out of which only 200,000 persons were selected from across the country and currently engaged under the programme.
Even though there was another call for application early 2017, there has been no official statement on whether any of those who applied for the 2017 batch of the programme has been employed.
In terms of number of those engaged, a statement by Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in February 2018, stated that “200,000 volunteers were recruited nationwide while another set of 300,000 graduate volunteers have been pre-selected for the next round of the programme.”
Also the website of the scheme npower.gov.ng states that only 200,000 Nigerians have been enrolled so far on the scheme.
The information from both the official website of the N-Power and the office of the vice president both show that Mr. Ngige’s claim is inaccurate.
Therefore, the labour minister’s claim that that the Buhari administration has created “millions of jobs from the N-Power scheme” is also false.
May I send to you warm Easter greetings in advance. I also wish all Nigerians a joyful season, as we gradually approach the 2019 general elections, another epochal era in the political history of our great and beloved country, Nigeria.
First, please permit me to begin by acknowledging your demonstrated prowess in the proactive, timely and appropriate responses to the 2015 multiple electioneering campaigns issues of national and international dimensions, when you served as the APC National Publicity Secretary.
Sir, your deftness and clarity of thoughts in handling the emergent issues adequately elucidated Nigerians greatly. And it sufficiently psyched them to opt for the clear and rewarding choice of leadership change in favour of the incumbent APC national government led by President Muhammedu Buhari.
I believe, like most Nigerians that your inclusion into the cabinet of the Buhari Presidency and handing over to you the portfolio of Minister of Information and National Orientation was indisputable.
Apparently, it was a decision propelled by your past antecedents in information dissemination and publicity management. Many of us hailed your choice, because we felt you had the knack and the bite to assist immensely in disseminating or projecting the laudable policies, programmes and projects of the Buhari Presidency.
But regrettably, the fire in you which swelled your camp of admirers, by deflating malicious and sentimental propaganda against the establishment you represent has waned, if not outrightly extinguished in the last two years.
The next general elections are drawing nearer. And overt or clandestine malicious campaigns have been mounted against the government you serve, implicating your principal and attempting to rubbish the performance records of President Buhari. The campaigners freely downplay his enormous achievements in various sectors of the economy, with deliberately concocted falsehoods and misrepresentations.
But your office seeming to delight more in silently consenting to the free reign of these disgruntled opposition elements is spiting and spatting on the face of the APC led Federal Government of Nigeria. They brand it all sorts of derogatory names before your watchful eyes.
Nigerians are shocked at the sudden cold feet you have developed in effectively performing your official responsibilities of articulating the programmes and projects of the Buhari Presidency. This proclivity has been entrenched to the extent that even ‘Lilliputians’ in information management appeared to have inexplicably and speechlessly suppressed the enormous strength and prowess, we believed, you possessed in this professed specialty.
President Buhari and the government he leads have become a free punching bag for liars, detractors, saboteurs and enemies of the state, who hurl every falsehood to the public domain unchallenged.
These retrogressive elements are succeeding in misleading vulnerable Nigerians, with these smart schemes. But it is glaring that you have abdicated your responsibilities of enunciating a concrete agenda of information dissemination and stimulation of robust public debate among Nigerians on the performances of the Buhari Presidency.
Instead, you have consciously marooned Nigerians on the Island and donated the citizenry to the rumour mill and or, denial of information, which the opposition is exploiting maximally in plotting their evil agenda against Nigeria. You have lost the gripping touch and the engaging golden voice once accustomed with you.
Sir, where is thy golden voice? I must confess and with all sense of responsibility, humility and all fairness to you and Almighty God, that you have proven us wrong by not doing enough in the present circumstance. It is now more convenient to assert that you appear to have lost track of your responsibilities and roles, as Nigeria’s mouthpiece, as you are conspicuously not doing enough. Should we now suggest that you are better at the party secretariat and should therefore, be redeployed to the base?
I am amazed that you have not realized the whole gamut of a strategic communication of this magnitude, at a time the image of your country is severely battered and deprecated. Please, you need to adopt both conventional and non-conventional approaches, like the revival of public enlightenment campaigns, as even defined by the nomenclature of the ministry you superintend.
Again, occasional visits to states, where federal projects have been undertaken or are ongoing to interact with the people and raise platforms of awareness of the existence of such projects is imperative now.
Sir, with due respect, it is time to mount the proverbial horse and ride to prove your mettle or else I am tempted to believe that it’s either Nigerians overrated your competence or simply, you passed casually, just like one of the many indolent state governors who merely rode on the wings and benevolence of President Buhari to be shadowy super stars in the corridors of power.
We all know in reality that everything that aligns with President Buhari markets itself. But time has come to do the needful, by arresting the prevalent inactions your office has slipped into, to keep Nigerians constantly informed
I appreciate your audience. May God give you the necessary wisdom, guidance and strength to match the demands of the moment.
James Carville, the presidential advisor to former President Bill Clinton coined the phrase: “It’s the economy, stupid” as a slogan for Clinton’s 1992 run at the White House. The phrase was intended to separate his candidate from incumbent George H.W. Bush who had watched the American economy drift into a recession.
The effective campaign eventually led to Bill Clinton’s inauguration as president underscoring the fact that people care far more about economic issues – and by extension, the ideology that drives it. If there’s one thing people of different political persuasions agree on is the importance of the economy in general and how it affects their standard of living.
I was in secondary school when the 1979 elections were held; even though I was not of voting age then I clearly understood what the issues were because I was already well informed. I started reading Time, Newsweek, The Economist, Drum, Spear and other magazines and newspapers when I was in primary four! I still have a copy of October 26, 1970 edition of Newsweek magazine which has the African-American political activist Angela Davis on its cover.
For the records, Davis is a political activist, academic, and author. She emerged as a prominent counterculture activist and radical in the 1960s as a leader of the Communist Party USA, and had close relations with the Black Panther Party and the Civil Rights Movement.
I also understood the issues in 1979 because I was a beneficiary. But before delving into the issues, a brief overview about ideology will suffice. Often the term “ideology” is seen as referring simply to a system of ideas and beliefs. However, it is also closely tied to the concept of power and the definition provided by the British sociologist Anthony Giddens captured it as “shared ideas or beliefs which serve to justify the interests of dominant groups.” Its relationship to power is that it legitimises the differential power that groups hold.
It should therefore not be surprising that most governments and people approach politics through the prism of ideology. A person’s idea or belief varies from the other’s but in politics; ideas are related to one another as well as modify and support each other. While individual ideology centres on self, political ideology provides a justification for the general needs of the people.
In the American political system, there are two main ideologies – liberalism and conservatism. These have real influence in American politics and have both positive and negative reactions, but put together, they provide suitable ideologies that make America to be ahead of other nations.
When Americans see that the country is becoming “too liberal” allowing almost everything, they switch gear as was the case with the 2016 elections that brought in Trump. Or when it becomes “too conservative” by trampling on minorities rights they’ll go liberal. This allows for a critical balance.
This is why political parties that seek power formulate a set of ideas believing that such ideas will be favourable and helpful to all and provide the needed succour and dividends of good governance. No responsible government would wish to come up with abysmal ideologies.
Basically, uncomfortable and selfish ideologies such as those that encourage people to disrespect law and order or do not protect human rights, for example, cannot be useful to the people.
From the general point of view therefore, an ideology should help us to make reasonable and quick decisions that will answer the varied political questions that bother us. Careful observations have shown that present day Nigerians politicians do not have ideologies.
From their performances at all levels, it has been clearly seen that they have little or nothing to offer the country except their personal aggrandisement. They are not bothered about fellow Nigerians’ welfare, the widening inequality gap between the poor and the rich; the erosion of the middle class and they look the other way as their “countrymen” are killed etc.
Nigerian politicians are not inclined to use their power and of the government they control to make conditions favourable for people. They “shy” away from new thinking and ideologies that can place the country on a par with advanced nations.
Responsible politicians and leaders must be more inclined generally to use the power of the government to achieve a diverse set of things they view as good for the people, use government regulation to protect the environment, and ensure safety and economic viability of all the sectors amongst other noble initiatives. Considering the worsening experiences we are going through now as a nation, guiding ideologies are more fundamental now than ever. Ideologies can help make sense of the myriad of political questions that faces people.
In politics, we must be concerned to convince others that a policy we make is the right one and we must have personal and general reasons for making such policies.
Back to 1979; prior to that year, Alhaji Shehu Shagari emerged as the presidential candidate of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The stature of Chief Obafemi Awolowo was conspicuous in the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). The indefatigable and charismatic Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was unmistakable one of the most prominent faces of Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP). The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) was undoubtedly associated with the populist pedigree of Mallam Aminu Kano. The Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP) radiated the aura of Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim. Even Waziri Ibrahim’s slogan of “politics without bitterness” was widely received.
So, in secondary school I knew the ideologies of the five political parties then. In Ibadan where I schooled, I clearly remembered the UPN’s “four cardinal programmes” of “free education,” “free health services,” “full employment” and “integrated rural development.” Yes, this made Awolowo’s party win overwhelmingly in Yorubaland. But if you asked the rural folks in the south-west they would also tell you that beyond Awolowo being Yoruba they were also voting for the education of their children, jobs and the development of their area. They need not come to the “big city” to witness this development.
As part of the promise of “free education”, we were given free textbooks and lunch in secondary school. The UPN made good their election promises. Mind you, there was also no discrimination because I need not be an “indigene” of Oyo state to enjoy the free education. A similar thing could be said of the voters in Kano and Kaduna who might be poor but were evidently imbued with high level of consciousness as they were convinced that a party led by Aminu Kano could implement socially beneficial programmes. In retrospect, it is a huge irony of Nigeria’s political history that the politics of that era was considered backward by some analysts.
What about the NPN? The party campaigned on the policy platform of “national unity, “qualitative education,” “green revolution,” “mass housing,” amongst others. It is however its mass housing programme that was visible. Across all the local government areas of the country, the party built low cost housing estates that are still standing in most of the country even though Papa Awo considered them not fit for human habitation. Thousands of families still live in them to date.
So, we need ideologically-driven politics as 2019 fast approaches.
Obviously, in addition to the obvious lack of political will by successive federal and state governments to check the persistent deterioration in the quality of education in Nigeria, there are other challenges peculiar to various geopolitical zones and states.
In the northwest and northeast geopolitical zones, for instance, the English language as the main language of academic instruction is regarded by many as one of the challenges hampering the development of education. It’s increasingly, albeit largely tacitly, portrayed as one of the impediments to education penetration in the regions.
Though most of the arguments given in this regard are basically right, they aren’t necessarily instantly applicable on the regions. Some of these arguments include the fact that none of the developed countries in the world today adopts a foreign language as its main language of academic instruction. Countries like Japan, Germany, and South Korea etc. are commonly cited as examples.
Also, some of the most successful developing countries like China, Malaysia and Thailand etc. are equally cited as examples to prove that a country can get on the path to appropriate development only when it adopts its indigenous language as the main language of academic instruction.
Besides, the need for every nation to preserve and promote its language is equally one of the reasons cited by the advocates of switching to indigenous languages for academic instruction. On this point in particular, they appeal to people’s emotions so much that many people believe that keeping the English language as the main language of academic instruction implies a collective inferiority complex and is also tantamount to willful acceptance of the British neo-cultural imperialism.
Many people with this tendency go to the extreme by regarding anyone with a passion for learning and/or mastering the English language as a person with an inferiority complex who disdains his culture and language. In other words, many people effectively consider a passion for learning the English language and respect for native language, mutually exclusive. In fact, there is some sort of tacit assumption in the society that a passion for learning the English language implies unnecessary compromise in one’s commitment to moral values. Besides, there is also a widespread myth that English as a language is too hard to learn, which many people capitalize on in their demand for switching to an indigenous language.
It’s a pity this trend, on the one hand, makes many otherwise ambitious students feel blackmailed, which affects their commitment to pursuing quality education and indeed undermines their potential to attain enviable academic and professional excellence in their various fields of interest. On the other hand, it gives those with ridiculously limited intellectual ambitions the pretext to cover up their lack of enthusiasm to pursue quality knowledge.
This also explains the persistent trend whereby academic institutions particularly in those regions continue to graduate generations of supposedly educated individuals who turn out grossly deficient intellectually and yet they proceed to become teachers and lecturers thereby sustaining the cycle of intellectual mediocrity in the society, which of course perpetuates underdevelopment in the regions and the country at large.
Now, I suppose by now some readers might have already suspected me of being a person with an inferiority complex, or might have, at least, concluded that I am being too critical of the idea of switching to an indigenous language as the main language of academic instruction in the northwest and northeast.
I would ignore these and other similar unfounded assumptions, and instead focus on addressing the issue. After all, no matter what, some people would still criticize you just for the sake of it.
Well, against the backdrop of the underlying peculiar challenges in the northwest, northeast geopolitical zones or any state thereof, any attempt to drop the English language as the main language of academic instruction in favour of any indigenous language immediately or even in the foreseeable future would certainly turn out counterproductive. The unnecessary dilemma that would definitely result from this attempt would further undermine the already poor state of education in the region.
It’s simply unrealistic to compare any indigenous language in the two regions including the Hausa language, the lingua franca of the regions, with the language of academic instruction in, say, Germany or China. Unlike the case of the Hausa language and the intellectual circumstances in the northwest and the northeast geopolitical zones, the contents of the entire body of knowledge in all academic disciplines that their respective native speakers need are already available in their languages.
Therefore, for the advocates of switching to an indigenous language, e.g. Hausa, as the main language in academic instruction to succeed, they should first and foremost begin by advocating for the introduction of a huge, systematic and nonstop program to translate the body of knowledge into Hausa, then they can rightly demand for switching to it. Though there have some commendable individual and collective translation initiatives, adequate government and private sector investments remain necessary in order to achieve this.
It’s also necessary to embark on a sustained cultural reorientation campaign with a view to improving public attitude towards knowledge. Because with the current trend of public attitude towards knowledge, even if all contents of the body of knowledge are translated into, say, Hausa, I doubt if there will be any appreciable amount of change to celebrate.
Mr. President, I salute you for making time to visit the capital cities of states hit by the recent spike in killings by those who trade in the blood of the innocent.
You visited Jalingo, the Taraba state capital where the Mambilla plateau is located; you also visited Jos, the capital of Plateau state; two days ago you were at Makurdi, the Benue state capital and today you have gone to Damaturu the Yobe state capital. In all the state capitals you held meetings with “stakeholders” as part of your efforts to find a lasting solution to the madness that seem to have taken hold of our collective sanity.
Who are these “stakeholders”? How could you be sure that you are meeting the right people, who represent the aggrieved or the victims? Mr. President have you verified whether what was presented before you was not, what a friend of mine used to call “photo trick”? Anyway, this is beside the point.
Mr. President, it is now clear to me that you have succumbed to the emotional blackmail of the villains by visiting them and not the victims. The narrative in all these places that you visited was from the side of those who shielded you from going to the “theatres of war” to ascertain who did what and when. My prayer is that one day you may find time to visit those places that were attacked and meet the real stakeholders.
I pray one day that these victims will have the voice to make as much noise as is generated by those who succeeded in hoodwinking you now into making public condemnation of the likes of the Inspector General of Police (IG) because he refused to allow them have their ways.
Mr. President your current jaunts across the states have been interpreted by many as a political gimmick, seeing that presidential election is barely a year away. I disagree with those who hold this view, because I know you. You have a good heart and you will never play politics with the life of a single individual, no matter where he comes from.
But your selective visits and meetings is making my position on you untenable to those who hold the view that you place more premium on your second term than on the human life. I feel very bad whenever I hear this very pedestrian argument. Mr. President, can you please shame these nay-sayers by insisting on visiting at least the places I mentioned and meeting their leadership to enable you get to the bottom of the mess we find ourselves in? It will go along way in strengthening my position whenever I stand up for you.
Your government had bended backwards to repatriate people who willingly paid their way to Libya enroute Europe in order to escape a country they spent a lifetime condemning. Your government paid their way back to Nigeria and even gave them some stipends to take them home and all you got in return are insults. I also recently read that your government is planning on employing about 204,000 youths from the Niger Delta, which is laudable. But Mr. President all that the average farmer is asking for is to be left alone to tender to his herd and provide the protein needs of an ungrateful nation. Are they asking much Mr. President? Niger Delta supplies crude oil, which in turn provides us with foreign exchange, which we steal and establish farms on gazetted grazing reserves and stock routes.
What made the Niger Delta militant better than the pastoralist in terms of government patronage? I believe a tenth of the total monies expended in the Niger Delta will develop so many grazing reserves and stock routes.
Farmers and herders have coexisted harmoniously in northern Nigeria since time. They led a symbiotic relationship where the fodder left after harvest by the farmer feeds the cattle and the herder’s cattle fertilise the farmer’s fields for the next farming season. How and when did they turn against each other?
Going through the ‘Taraba state Open Grazing Prohibition And Ranches Establishment Law, 2017’, the first thing in all the nine page document that caught my eye was the first item on the Objectives of the law – “to promote the modern techniques of animal husbandry, particularly the rearing of livestock”, I said to myself how. How can I rear livestock in a situation where I am hunted like wildlife. Taraba state have about 72% of unutilised land at the moment, Mr. president, yet they couldn’t provide 5,000 hectares to the federal government to establish a cattle colony in order to “promote modern techniques of animal husbandry…”. These are the same people you held meetings with to find a solution? Haba!
Under your watch sir, the Fulani, whether sedentary or nomadic have been criminlaised. Crime now has a new name – Fulani herdsman. Whenever there is a crisis anywhere, innocent Fulani men or women are forcefully dragged out and killed either in their homes or while travelling. While the media frenzy on the mass burial of 73 coffins was ruling the airwaves, seven innocent travellers were hacked to death in broad daylight in the Gboko motor park. This heinous crime wasn’t worth a word of condemnation from any quarter associated with your government. Because they are Fulanis. Because they can be expended. Because they don’t have access to megaphones.
Visiting state capitals is okay as long as it is political gladiators you want to satisfy Mr. president or just to go and dine with those whose hands are soaked in blood. But visiting the theatres and seeing for yourself what human damage was suffered by those villaininsed by the media will open your eyes to the real issues.
Don’t allow yourself to be cowed by anyone Mr. President. Act presidential and do the right thing and not what you are told to do.
The World Bank’s World Development Report 2018 has shown that only about 20 per cent of young Nigerian adults who have completed primary education can read. The report said that when primary four pupils in Nigeria were asked to complete a simple two-digit subtraction problem, more than three-quarters of those asked could not solve it. It warned that a ‘learning crisis’ loomed in education, pointing out that “schooling without learning was not just a wasted development opportunity, but also a great injustice to children and young people.” The report, which was entitled: ‘Learning to Realize Education’s Promise’, was launched in Abuja on Tuesday March 6, 2018.
The report calls for greater measurement, action on evidence, and coordination of all education actors. Among the policy steps recommended were: stronger learning assessments, using evidence of what works to guide education decision-making and mobilising a strong social movement to push for education changes for “learning for all.” The educational policy in Nigeria has always considered education as an important tool of national development and human welfare. This policy position was taken so seriously in the 70s and 80s that many governments at the state level instituted free education at all levels. However, what has become obvious in the last two decades is that the policy has not been successfully implemented. It is now obvious that instituting free education does not guarantee that children of school age will be in school. This is largely because of the deepening poverty which forces children of school age to join the list of income-generating members of their families in order to sustain livelihood.
Today, making basic education universal, free and compulsory as a matter of policy is no longer sufficient. The government must take positive action by providing incentives for poor parents to put their children in school. Such circumstances in several countries like Brazil, Kenya and India have led governments to introduce massive conditional cash transfers and school feeding programmes to keep children in school. These have to be done to break the vicious cycle of poverty created by millions of out-of-school children. In any case, successive governments in Nigeria have been slow in adopting these measures. During the launching of the report, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, was quick to announce that the current government had developed a roadmap for the education sector entitled: ‘Education for Change: A Ministerial Strategic Plan.’ He also noted that the government had launched a number of programmes such as the N-Power programme and the home-grown School Feeding Programme to reduce the number of out-of-school children and to bring them into the classroom. The point he did not state is that these programmes are still at the pilot stage. They are not massive programmes that can lead to a significant change in the current situation.
Furthermore, the issue of capacity gaps, not just in the management of public schools by teachers and school administrators, but also among officials of the Ministry of Education who are expected to oversee and supervise the work of those in the schools, is not given adequate attention. Also important is the fact that many of those who are high up in the educational sector do not send their children to public schools. Thus, the interest in addressing the problems in the public schools is not strong. Yet, public schools with their relatively poor performance in service delivery hold a significantly higher number of school children in the country. Thus, if the crisis in the educational sector is to be addressed, the focus must be on basic education as it is related to public schools.
Government officials and other stakeholders, including private sector operatives, must know that even the underprivileged deserve effective and meaningful education. These underprivileged citizens constitute the majority of citizens and their interests can only be neglected to the detriment of development, peace and stability of the entire country.
Tribune
Professor Stephen Hawking, physicist and leading intellectual dies, aged 76
Arguably one of the greatest scientists of the last century, the death on Wednesdayin the United Kingdom of Professor Stephen Hawking is not only a loss to his country but indeed to all humanity. He was recognised as a genius in the field of theoretical physics, first by the British community of scientists following his early challenges of existing theories in cosmology and then by other peers across the globe. His contributions to theoretical physics are concentrated in the fields of quantum gravity, general relativity and cosmology, especially his research on the concept of the Black Hole. But his life was also a unique story.
At 17, Hawking was admitted on scholarship to study at Oxford after which he proceeded to Cambridge to begin his doctoral studies in gravity and cosmology. At 32, he became a member of the Royal Society and Cambridge’s Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at age 37, a Chair once held by Sir Isaac Newton. It is also instructive that Hawking was born exactly 300 years after the death of Galileo, regarded as “the father of modern physics”, a development he dismissed as no more than a mere coincidence.
Meanwhile, for much of his adult life until he died, Hawking was restricted to the wheelchair and could only communicate electronically through a sensor attached to his cheeks which activated his thoughts into the recognisable characters that automatically materialised on a keyboard attached to his device.
Indeed, despite his several accomplishments in the field of science and the numerous books he wrote either alone or jointly with others, Hawking commanded global attention more because of his stubborn refusal to allow his disability define him as he became what the Times of London described as “a moving demonstration of the transcendent power of the mind”. And in a moment of introspection, Hawking once admitted that his fame might have been as a result of the fact that “no one can resist the idea of a crippled genius”.
In many ways Hawking symbolised the incredible will to rise above physical disability to actually use genius to the glory of humanity. But we hasten to add that this was only possible because he was born in a society that recognised his genius above his physical limitations. The system also accorded him his due. He had a net worth in excess of $20 million by the time he passed on, derived from royalties, endorsements, film credits and patents.
At the end, it was Hawking’s cultural outings that helped him make the great crossing from the narrow esoteric precincts of pure science into the canvass of the popular imagination. His book, ‘A Brief History of Time’, which became an instant bestseller, thrust him further into popular limelight. He gradually became a brand, a development cemented by his appearances on the American sitcom, ‘Big Bang Theory’.
As the world therefore mourns the passing of Professor Hawking, his eternal legacy is not only in his scientific breakthroughs but much more in his personification of the power of the human will to soar above physical incapacity to reach its fullest potential for our common humanity. It is also a lasting tribute to the society that enabled this to happen.
Thisday
In Metaphysics and Epistemology, solipsism is an interesting theory and position which views ‘self’ as all that exists. An adherent of solipsism is a self-absorbed, self-obsessed narcissist whose fixation is all about ‘me-myself-and-I’. A solipsist lives in the stratosphere and troposphere of egocentricity. From this worldview, they view themselves. Nobody else matters or is considered important to the solipsist but self.
A solipsist in political power strips others naked to cover his own nakedness. He is prone to killing and silencing others for fame to cover his shame. He pillages a commonwealth and pilfers the people’s money to provide himself the honey. He is a border-line cruel and mean maniac whose métier is pulverizing the people’s means of livelihood to prosper his egotistic self. Aggressive aggrandisement is his game. Greed is his name. Calories of corruption are his requisite nutrients. In Nigeria, there are too many solipsists in centres of power. They are as countless as the stars of the skies.
In his ruggedness and doggedness, the average Nigerian fights through torture and hurt unleashed by mean men who rule over them. Nigeria’s GDP today is $404bn; the biggest in Africa. By year 2030, the consumer arm of Nigeria is projected to grow to be about 273 million in population, more than the population of France and Germany put together.
The GDP will spike by an additional $500bn in 22 years. Amidst plenty, the future of our children has been shortchanged plenty. I will narrow this discourse down to Nigerian legislators who stand out like sore thumbs and curses to democracy.
Over many years and through this medium, I have bird-dogged the lawmaking chamber and its elite members.
My opinions about the institution are in the public domain. I once asked a frustrated anonymous voice in Nigeria’s Presidency about our legislators’ remuneration structure who said: “The salaries and emoluments are shrouded in so much secrecy. I am not able to confirm”. I dwell on this today because of the “bombshell” from none else than Senator Shehu Sani representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District, a man I have always wondered why he is not running for Nigeria’s Presidency.
Senator Sani recently revealed that each Nigerian senator receives N13.5 million monthly for unspecified expenses tagged “running cost” in addition to the N750,000 official consolidated salaries and allowances of the lawmakers as approved by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Allocations Commission. Some 109 senators coast home this whopping sum monthly for doing not much, or nothing at all other than dancing and revelling. They slumber off and fool around in the chamber, they pass no legislation that brings succour to the suffering masses, and many times don’t show up at work as often as you and I do because of the rules of the house written by all and abused by not a few.
Their preoccupation is nothing but the next election and obsession on flagitious remunerations.
Behold below the bogus and bruising “running costs” allowances Nigerian senators take home every month. There are 109 senators who stay in office, for example, for a four-year term. 13.5 million x 48=648million (1 senator only) x 109=N70.632bn every four years. Nigerian senators’ stay in office cost the Nigerian taxpayers over N70bn in monthly “running costs” alone. And that was all Sani told us.
There are other hidden costs that have not been revealed. We do not have an insight into what goes on in the House of Representatives with 360 members and a horde of aides.
Nigeria’s adopted democratic system, by default, has groomed and nurtured Chairmen of cumshaw; commanders-in-chief of Nigeria’s gravy-train; and cockeyed capo dei capi of corruption. Peruse the following breakdown of what I believe qualifies our National Assembly as a den of robbers: Hardship Allowance is 50 per cent of basic salary. Constituency Allowance is 200 per cent of basic salary. Newspapers Allowance is 50 per cent of basic salary. Wardrobe Allowance 25 per cent of basic salary. Recess Allowance 10 per cent of basic salary. Accommodation 200 per cent of basic salary. Utilities 30 per cent of basic salary. Domestic staff 70 per cent of basic salary. Entertainment 30 per cent of basic salary. Personal Assistants 25 per cent of basic salary. Vehicle Maintenance Allowance 75 per cent of basic salary. Leave Allowance 10 per cent of basic salary. Severance gratuity 300 per cent of basic salary. Car Allowance 400 per cent of basic salary.
I will not compare this charade to what obtains in other nations; I will compare Nigeria to Nigeria. In a Cimmerian economy such as Nigeria’s, this is flat-out insensitive!
Nigeria remains one of the five extremely poor nations of the world. Its poverty rate is pegged at 33.1 per cent. Almost 100 million people live on less than $1 a day, and 92 per cent on less than two dollars a day. Almost 62 per cent of households in Nigeria consider themselves to be poor. Life remains stagnant for the majority. The minority elite class who claim to be serving the people are starving the helpless.
While many nations of the world are planning for a greater future, Nigerian lawmakers are plotting to exploit. Hearty leaders are about the people; heartless ones are about self. When will this hoity-toity from Nigerian politicians change for Pete’s sake? Do you know it may be never?
Readers, if our National Assembly in Abuja has become a fiefdom and a den of robbers, the people helped to build, sustain and maintain it. Until my people wake up, the looting and unjust outrageous allowances and remuneration will continue.
No one can help the Nigerian people but the people themselves. But, are they ready? Painfully and sadly, I do not see signs they are.
There is little that is news worthy that does not trigger reflection about the state of Nigeria or some aspects of Nigeria. Today, it is the unnatural silence that should be filled with the voices of young Nigerians dissatisfied with the way things are.
A few days ago, students all over the United States and some parts of the world staged #NationalWalkOutDay in support of stricter gun control policy in the country. Many joined the protests despite threats of suspension and other forms of punishment — taking the knee (something President Donald Trump has railed against), lying in and marching to Capitol Hill and leaving 7,000 shoes on the ground in honour of those who have died from school shootings since December 2012.
Young people are typically the conscience of their societies — they are more idealistic, less accepting of structural injustice and thus, driven to influence and improve the space they inhabit. As I listen to people, the same age as my children, take on the US gun lobby and campaign financing, I cannot help wondering — where are Nigeria’s young people? Is there nothing they care about enough? Is there nothing that inspires them or ignites their indignation?
The military happened.
Nigerian universities used to be vibrant spaces for lofty ideals, alternative thinking and challenging the status quo but the military knew (and its civilian successors know too), that education is a dangerous shield against oppression and group think and systematically weakened not just education, but student activism.
The opening assault was in 1978 when students, under the National Union of Nigerian Students decided to boycott lectures until a decision to increase fees was reversed and the military government met other demands including ‘democratization, genuine independence and enhancement of the quality of life of the masses. At least six students, one in Lagos and five in Zaria lost their lives.
In those days, there was an ideological chemistry between students and lecturers where radical, leftist academics particularly those in the humanities and social sciences provided inspiration to students and were in turn inspired to support students when they took a stand on social issues. Parties such as the Movement for Progressive Nigeria formed around issues and while far from perfect, the spirit of fighting for a better society was strong.
But as Nigeria passed between military men, the relationship between students amongst themselves and students and lecturers became systematically weakened.
No one is credited with doing more to silence the conscience of students than military dictator Ibrahim Babangida. A favourite weapon was to keep schools closed and when schools were open, to infiltrate the student unions with security agents who acted as agent provocateurs. Soon, the students and schools were infected with cults and money was introduced into student union politics. Students who could not be bribed or intimidated found themselves arrested and/or expelled. Students’ activism has still not recovered.
Over the last 19 years since the military officially returned to the barracks, too many unconscionable things have happened. Thousands of innocent lives have been lost not only to terrorists and bandits but to state security agents paid to protect us while inhumane government policies keep the majority in penury. If nothing else hurts, rising public debt and the pain that climate change and environmental degradation are bringing our way should worry the youths more because they will bear the brunt of these years of neglect.
The fact that there are many young people leading big and small reforms in various aspects of daily life could make it seem like protest activism is a thing of the past. After all, young people are driving legal reform on gender and youth inclusion in politics with the Gender and Equal Opportunity and Not Too Young to Run bills or promoting entrepreneurs and leading technological advancements in business and governance like BudgIT — organising around sexual violence and mass evictions and ensuring issues stay in the media. For these and other reasons, it might seem unfair to ask the youths to do more but there are a few reasons why their voices should be loudest about what needs to improve.
The first is that they are naturals — or should be. They are insulated by their innocence of the things their eyes have not yet seen. This should make them more fearless than the rest of us. The second is that the their voices might guilt more of us into recognising our complicity in what Nigeria currently is and into making the right, but difficult decisions that need to be made.
And finally, it is precisely youth activism and organising to influence policy and societal norms that will help young people prepare for leadership and gain the confidence they need to push for the reforms that are needed to move Nigeria forward.
More...
Dejected but slow to anger, Nigerians, as usual, are exhibiting apathy where there should be widespread indignation. They are struggling hard to assimilate the latest explosive revelations about the stupendous salaries and allowances of federal lawmakers. According to Shehu Sani, each senator receives N13.5 million monthly as running cost, apart from the N750,000 consolidated monthly salary.
Although it had been an open secret that the lawmakers were among the highest paid in the world, nobody knew the exact size of their hefty emoluments, until the All Progressives Congress senator lifted the lid on the obscene pay last weekend. The exposé is a confirmation of the avarice and selfishness of Nigeria’s political elite, particularly the lawmakers.
In a country where most states cannot pay the monthly minimum wage of N18,000, federal pensioners are owed 14 months arrears and social services have collapsed, it is disturbing that senators are so remunerated. “It was a moral issue,” Sani said. “The National Assembly is one of the most non-transparent organs of government. It pricked my conscience and I decided to burst the bubble and open the National Assembly to scrutiny.”
While the minimum wage stands at N216,000 per annum, the federal treasury loses N162 million per annum on each legislator. At the official exchange rate of N305.75 to $1, each senator’s allowance on just one item is $529,897 per annum. In addition, Sani stated that each senator grosses N200 million per annum via the controversial constituency projects. In any other clime where the people are not docile, the revelations would have triggered mass action against the degenerate and selfish parliamentarians.
Sani said, “But I can tell you that I would love a situation where we do away with running costs, constituency projects and leave senators and members of the House of Representatives with salaries.” He should follow through on this and expose the other hidden allowances being earned.
Ironically, this is a parliament that has been anything but productive. The lawmakers keep boasting that they are the representatives of the people, but what have the people benefited from them? From 1999 to date, the country has lived with a National Assembly that has abysmally failed in its responsibilities. Quite often, it thumbs its chest on bills passed. But many of them are self-serving, such as the National Peace Corps Bill. The corps is a private organisation that the parliamentarians want the government to inherit without thinking of the source of its funding, especially when existing security agencies are under-funded.
Its oversight functions are perfunctorily done. On its watch, the public treasury is haemorrhaged by public office holders, civil servants and lawmakers. Its involvement in this national bazaar is evident in the billions of naira it approves for its members annually and serial distortion of the budget for their members’ selfish interests. A member of the House of Representatives, Abdulmumin Jibrin, was suspended for 180 legislative days for exposing how the budget was allegedly padded with N40 billion.
Apparently, only an inept, irresponsive and corrupt parliament would overlook the reports of the Auditor-General of the Federation detailing how public funds were managed and abused for 14 years as revealed by the then AGF, Samuel Nkura. He stressed, “…none of the said audit reports has been discussed at the plenary sessions…” Between 2004 and 2014, a total of N2.6 trillion in Service Wide Vote (fund) was spent by the Executive arm of government without appropriation, as a legislative inquest revealed after the damage had been done. Corruption drips in the MDAs as the $2.9 billion the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission recovered in two years shows.
The slashing of the N31 billion in the 2017 budget, provided by the Executive for the ongoing reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to just N10 billion has led to the stoppage of work by the contractors. The money, with other cuts from the Second Niger Bridge and Mambilla hydro-power projects, was channelled into projects serving their selfish interests. During recession, the lawmakers nevertheless increased their own budgetary allocation from N115 billion to N125 billion in 2017.
Indeed, “there is a limit to appropriation,” as Jibrin railed at his colleagues’ recklessness. In the implementation of their fraud-driven constituency projects, N900 billion was injected into the budget between 2004 and 2014, Mohammed Ndume revealed in 2014, as the chairman, Senate Committee on Millennium Development Goals.
The underbelly of the scheme was exposed by BudgIT last year, which tracked the implementation of the 2016 projects in 20 states. It revealed that 343 projects were not executed. The locations of 4.8 per cent of the projects were not specified. “These projects were signed off and contractors got paid most of the fees…,” its report affirmed.
But while the lawmakers appropriate so much for themselves for minimal productivity, the average United States federal lawmaker, apart from the mean salary of $174,000, calculated in 2016 by the Congressional Research Services, allowances paid for three components for senators – administrative and clerical assistance, legislative assistance, and office assistance – are paid only for staff, and average staff, official and part time, for each in 2017 was 29 personnel.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority that sets and administers the United Kingdom parliamentarians’ pay says, apart from the £76,011 annual salary of an MP, each lawmaker also receives expenses to cover the costs of running an office, employing staff, accommodation in London and in their constituency, and travelling between the capital and their constituency. However, IPSA ensures that the money is spent strictly on what it was approved for. These are countries with Gross Domestic Product and per capita income of $18.57 trillion and $58.030; and $2.61 trillion and $39,899 respectively.
But our senators, and their equally avaricious counterparts in the House of Representatives, are not swayed by Nigeria’s 80 per cent poverty level estimated by the African Development Bank last month, and our GDP and per capita income of $405.1 billion and $2,177.99 respectively, nor by the recent alarm raised by the International Monetary Fund that poverty was rising faster in the country.
A survey by the Inter Parliamentary Union in 2012 found that only 14 per cent of parliamentarians worldwide earned over $100,000 per annum and Nigerian lawmakers, with average basic pay of $154,000, were a part. Still, the country was a dismal 152nd out of 168 countries on the United Nations Development Programme of Human Development Index 2017.
Nigerians should reject the continued rape of their resources by an avaricious, unprincipled and uncaring coterie of lawmakers who operate like the inept Electricity Distribution Companies that collect humongous amounts from consumers monthly for services they do not render. This country can never make meaningful progress with this quality of representation. With poverty, insecurity and joblessness ravaging the land, a weak Executive and political parties that are undistinguished in their disdain for the people and poor service delivery, only sustained action by the people can shake off this parliamentary stranglehold.
All legal means should be adopted to stop the daylight robbery by lawmakers. Complacency has allowed this nonsense to thrive these past 18 years. In June 2009, public pressure forced the UK MPs to publish the full details of their expenses for public scrutiny and this has become a standard practice there. Workers and the labour unions, students and civil society groups, need to make their voices heard within the law as their pre-independence and military era predecessors who stoutly resisted dictatorship.
The clamour for fiscal federalism, transparent elections and good governance should be stepped up at all levels, joined by progressives at the bar and the mass media. This travesty should be stopped. In the face of the failure of other social institutions, the people must take their destiny in their own hands and demand accountability from these cavalier politicians.
Punch
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Thursday criticised President Muhammadu Buhari’s handling of killings by herdsmen in the country, as well as his response to the abduction of over 73 schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe State, last month.
The renowned writer also flayed the President for attending a wedding (Governor Abdullahi Ganduje daughter’s marriage to Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s son) in the North few days after the abduction of the schoolgirls, describing the President’s action as blasphemous.
According to Soyinka, Buhari, who did not deem it necessary to visit Dapchi after the abduction of the schoolgirls or the victims of herdsmen attacks in various parts of the country until he was criticised, was not different from Obasanjo, who promptly visited the scene of the bomb blasts in Ikeja in 2002, but told the “bedraggled survivors (that) surrounded him, pleading for help, protesting, “What do you want me to do? I’m not obliged to be here!”
He described as insensitive how Buhari and other politicians thronged Kano State for the wedding between the daughter of Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, and son of Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, when the entire country was grieving over the abduction of schoolgirls in Yobe State.
Soyinka spoke in Lagos on Thursday at the maiden edition of Ripples Nigeria Dialogue, organised by Ripples Centre for Data and Investigative Journalism.
The dialogue was titled, ‘Rebuilding Trust in a Divided Nigeria,’ but Soyinka titled his keynote address, ‘From Myetti to Haiti, Notes from a Solidarity Visit.’
On the panel of discussants were a former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi; Prof. Pat Utomi, who was represented by Mr. Rasheed Adegbenro; and Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi of the Transition Monitoring Group.
Soyinka said Buhari’s reaction was typical of the “presidential response” to crisis in Nigeria, from Obasanjo to former President Goodluck Jonathan, who waited for “nearly three weeks to accept that nearly 270 plus of our children had been abducted from Chibok village,” and “insisted that it was all a ploy by the opposition to discredit his government.”
He said he recalled that following the statement credited to Obasanjo on the scene of the Ikeja bomb blasts, he (Soyinka) called then President to protest and “chided him severely” but the response he got from Obasanjo was “Kampala tie niyen – that is your own Kampala,” which he said remained a riddle to him till date.
“… They said, ‘Oh yes, that wedding was a needed therapy for the trauma undergone so recently by the abduction of those girls.’ Now, that’s what I call blasphemy. I’m not a religious person, but that is blasphemy.
“…I talk of the Cana wedding. There are so many formulas that could have been adopted to ensure that the couple still had their wedding without the accompanied exhibitionist lavishness so soon after a national calamity.”
The playwright recalled that after Jonathan finally accepted the reality of the Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction in 2014, his wife, Patience “proceeded to stage one of the most nauseating acts of incoherent, tuneless, meaningless and purposeless investigative” session.
Soyinka also flayed the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, for his “unacceptable” comments on the killings by herdsmen.
Soyinka, who recalled how during his visit sometime ago to Trinidad and Tobago, the country had witnessed a coup, during which its then Minister of Defence, “in that so-called coup” in Trinidad, was shot in the leg, said, “I consider that shot, however painful, a far more honourable wound than the wound sustained by our Minister of Defence, who shot himself in the mouth with some unacceptable commentary concerning the rampages of the Fulani herdsmen.
“What did you expect them to do?’ – This is after people had been killed in figures of hundreds – ‘What do you expect them to do if you block their route?’ This is addressing victims of Fulani herdsmen; this is addressing issues of rape, of massacre of the takeover of farmlands, the takeover of villages, all over Benue, Taraba, etcetera, etcetera.
“Land grabbers are trying to build on a piece of land that is not theirs ‘and you obstruct them, what do you want them to do?’ Farmers are squatting on land on which they derive their food and complaining, daring to complain, that cows were trampling on their farms and eating their crops. ‘So, what do you expect the cow owners to do?’’
The don said he was surprised that Buhari had not sacked the Minister of Defence.
He added, “And of course, let’s not forget the abduction of the girls, the latest, Dapchi. It’s their fault; didn’t they know that Boko Haram doesn’t like girls going to school? Stupid girls, stupid teachers, stupid parents; serves them right. It’s very strange to be able to say outside the world that the Minister of Defence is still in Buhari’s cabinet.”
Soyinka said he usually got impatient whenever “I hear complaints such as Buhari has failed to go and sympathise with the people of Benue, with the people of Nasarawa, with the people of Plateau of whatever.”
According to him, what was needed was not sympathy but justice.
He said, “We are speaking here of one eternal commodity that is a fundamental human deserving – justice. That’s what we are speaking about. Sympathy with or without the ostentatious laying of wreaths at the mass graves of victims by the new messiahs; sympathy is an ordinary commodity accessible to all of us. We are speaking, however, of a people’s need for security and where the structure for that fails, bring the perpetrators to book, even while emplacing deterrence measures against repeat.
“We are speaking of governance will and responsibility; the readiness to respond with massive punitive action when the fundamental security of a people is violated. We are speaking here of a President showing up at the arena of human desecration, not to shed any unjust tears but to read the riot act and give orders right on the scene of violation; order his forces into action against the arrogant blood-thirsty renegades of society who wallow in the blood of others, having been assured, some way or the other, of a cloak of impunity. We are speaking of the courage to declare such monsters terrorists, enemies of humanity with the same dispatch as the declaration of far less violent, far less distabilising movement or the disruptive and supranaturalist, and sometimes nasty, in their attestation and activities. We are speaking, in fact, for a culture of even-handedness.”
On the recent description of Nigeria as a shithole by President Donald Trump of the United States of America, Soyinka said Nigerians who flood the Internet with negative comments were to blame.
He said, “There is confusion between the right not to be insulted and the right to feel insulted…What does Donald Trump read? Does he read? I have no idea, but I know he does not miss reading Twitter. Now, who are the champions Twitters of the world? Nigerians. Nigerians Twitters, they violate all written and unwritten laws of human decency, they concur, they degrade, they contaminate everything they touch… So, when Donald Trump, who doesn’t miss his morning Tweets encounters their toxic outpouring, what other conclusion does he obtain?…any alien visiting this planet and logging onto the Internet will come to the same conclusion as Donald Trump, who lives right on this planet and breakfasts on Tweets.”
In his own contribution, Obi narrowed the problem of distrust to misrule and wastage of public resources.
According to him, there could not be trust in a society where nepotism is placed above merit, saying ‘nepotism is the biggest form of corruption.”
Speaking on Utomi’s behalf, Adegbenro stressed that knowledge should be a major yardstick in electing leaders, rather than electing people based on the mere promise that they would perform.
Punch
The sharp of exchange of words in Abuja between Gov. Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna state and Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) made the news last week.
The Governor reportedly lashed out at the organised labour claiming unions “destroyed the nation more than they have contributed to it”.
Hear him: “Trade Unions have never served the country well. They have been selfish and everything is about their narrow interests. In general, in Nigeria, trade unions have been a danger to our progress and I think they should be curtailed”.
At 40th anniversary when all Nigerians, including President Buhari openly celebrate the role of labour in the struggle for independence, against colonialism, for democracy against military dictatorship, brother el-Rufai’s was exceptionally uncharitable to the nation’s workforce!
But true to Labour’s tradition of resistance against abuse, (verbal or policy wise) in a quick reaction, organized labour, pointedly described the governor “as an embarrassment” to public office, an “anti-people and a chameleon”.
Witness the General Secretary of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson: “The country has a better moral standing than the likes of el-Rufai who has demonstrated that he is not fit to hold public office or political position. He is an embarrassment to public office in Nigeria. He speaks out of both sides of the mouth.. This is the same el-Rufai who once gate-crashed into one of NLC’s protests and pleaded to have NLC apron to be part of the protest.”
My take here is to further point out that crisis of governance is deepening in Nigeria. With “friendly fires” between him and numerous real and imagined enemies is my brother Governor really governing Kaduna state or governing serial (often self- inflicted!) crises of attritions?
Undoubtedly the relationship between NLC and Kaduna state government had degenerated since his controversial mass sack of about 22,000 teachers who allegedly scored below pass mark in a controversial competency test.
NLC and its affiliate unions in January marched in Kaduna in solidarity with the members of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) amidst unprecedented military/police presence. That is expected, the world of work is all about cooperation and contestation.
Even at that it beats my imagination that a governor in 21st century, (not 19th century colonial King Kong!) would up scale his ideological opposition to Labour almost to a full blown hate speech. It is “dangerous” (governor’s word) and certainly unhelpful to his government, his ruling party, APC (some of us voted for!) to make hostility against Labour a virtual policy. There is a bagful of El-Rufai’s Volte Face on a number of critical national issues including “Restructuring”.
He hitherto decried it only to emerge as a new restructuring enthusiast without an apology for his previous dismissal of the recommendations of 2014 National Conference which favored far reaching reform measures based on national consensus compared to the current partisan dictatorship.
It might be fashionable for the governor to relish in Labour bashing. But I recall that the governor had had mutually rewarding robust engagements with the labour movement with quotable quotes credited to both celebrating partnerships in governance.
As NLC General Secretary pointed out I was at the barricade in Abuja during the 2010 NLC strike and mass protests against fuel price hike during which then dissident citizen El-Rufai applauded Labour for providing platform for Nigerians to oppose unpopular policy of fuel price hike under Jonathan.
I recall the on-going partnership between him, Buhari administration and Labour to revive the closed textile mills. Indeed Governor El-Rufai in 2015 in Kaduna hosted the national conference of Textile, Garment and Tailoring workers’ union (together with Comrade Adams Oshihomole, then Edo governor), with adorned face cap singing workers’ solidarity song!
Indeed there was once “a Comrade El Rufai” who rightly saw unions as allies not “dangerous” bodies. Was it all about opportunism on his part or enduring principle to make positive impact in nation-building? This then raises the issue of capacity for governance.
Its time Nigerians demanded for competence test for all governors. Many governors of course parade multiple degrees, local and abroad. But most of them lack the “real degree”; leadership and strategic training to make a democracy work for the people.
Most governors even lack the knowledge of 1999 Constitution which informed their oath of office. Constitution defines us as citizens to be dignified, not slaves to be verbally abused. Indeed the constitution envisages dignity of labour. No private manager of a private company, no matter the provocation would ever describe his customers “irresponsible” if he wants to sell in the market!
I was scandalized that governor Rufai without measured temperament of an elected governor, tagged Nigerian doctors “irresponsible” for going on strike! Nigerian constitution and Labour laws recognize the right of any working man and woman to withdraw his or her service, including doctors in the face of violation of rights to decent work.
In May 2016, in England 37,000 junior doctors went on three strike actions and 3 years of contract negotiations with the National Health Service (NHS) on improved working conditions. Governor El rufai must be from another “ planet” (his word!) not to know that doctors’ strikes are globally acceptable practices.
Samuel Gompers puts it better; “Show me the country that has no strikes and I will show you the country in which there is no liberty.” Governor El rufai is certainly not Adolf Hitler! What should worry governor El rufai is the mass exodus ( sorry, “mass strike”) of thousands of doctors and nurses abroad due to abysmal working conditions and indignities at home. APC’s restructuring exercise is dead if the likes of ElRufai lack basic appreciation of the importance of labour as a factor of development and nation building.
He betrays gross ignorance of simple labour market issues (and indeed national development) by calling for the removal of labour from the Exclusive Legislative List. He even called for “Very Low” Minimum Wage (a grammatical overkill because “minimum” means “very low!). All 36 governors receive same minimum/maximum pay in spite of their miserable internally generated revenues.
No governor earns “very low minimum” pay! What is good for governors is good for a messenger and a cleaner. Nigeria cannot be part of the 20 leading developed economies without a development agenda that mainstreams labour motivation and productivity.
World-wide the laws which govern labour, capital and land as factors of production have significant impact on growth and development. Even predatory colonial Lord Lugard and military dictators or recent past eventually were compelled to recognize the importance of labour as a factor of production and development. The first Federal (note; not regional!) Ministry to be established was Federal Ministry of Labour in 1914. Colonial authority as well as post-independent Nigerian governments recognized that labour was a critical success factor for transformation.
Behind the celebrated miracle of Nigeria’s double digit growth plus development in the 60s and 80s were progressive labour laws regulating minimum wages and pensions as well as collective bargaining and industrial conflicts.
Given the current high level of youth unemployment, worsening poverty, unregulated immigration, foreign investment of dubious value and underdevelopment, rampant strikes and industrial conflicts, more than ever before Nigeria needs a Federally managed (not deregulated) labour process.
Since humanity rightly banished slave trade (with prescribed punishment for slave traders!), Labour is no more a commodity to be verbally hired and fired as El Rufai gleefully threatened to summarily sack lecturers of Kaduna state University if they dare go on “ASUU strike”.
Labour markets “are socially embedded” for those that care. Labour markets harness human energies. They rely on human motivations, care, understanding, dignity and above all fairness failing which you get no production. Labour creates wealth. I enjoin governor el-Rufai to consciously cultivate Labour as partner in development process through social dialogue not endless “fire” with attendant “fury” .
• Comrade Aremu, mni, is a member of the National Executive Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)
Corruption and the fight against it are as old as man. Over the years, what might have changed are the methods of acquiring the ill-gotten wealth as well as our approach to the fight. With our burgeoning population and the explosion in the number of those who have been exposed to Western education, things could not remain the same. We have seen it all – the good, the bad and the ugly.
We started hearing of real massive acquisition of wealth in the First Republic – after our nominal Independence. Authorities were disturbed and they set up Commissions of Inquiry, which came up with sordid revelations of how crude the original methods were. Funds were siphoned from the public till with the award of contracts to cronies, under fictitious names. Agreements for such fictitious contracts were signed, in some cases, with tow-prints instead of finger-prints to avoid detection.
As the population grew in size, it also grew in crime and criminality. The sordid affair was wide-spread. For example, at a very junior level in the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, a staff who narrowly missed out in the year’s promotion exercise expressed his annoyance this way: “Promotion or no promotion, I know I am richer than the CBN Governor”. Why not?
The young lad was attached to the section of the CBN charged with the destruction of old currency notes. They burnt all the old exercise books and newspapers they could collect; and hauled home the currency notes that were intended for destruction.
In the military, people paid millions to influence their posting to the Pay and Records Corps, which in local parlance, was better known as “Pay and Roll” because they paid a few living soldiers and rolled the balance into their personal pockets. Here, the more of our soldiers that died in the war, the higher their profits. It was understandable, therefore, that deliberate efforts were made to push more and more of the inexperienced soldiers to the war front to perish. And we still wondered why the war was increasingly difficult!
It is not unusual to find some single individuals in such Blue Chips like the Customs, NNPC, Pension Boards, etc., who became virtually richer than their Organizations.
No section of our government has been spared in all this. From the First Republic to the present, our immediate reaction has been to seize the assets of those accused of corruption and that is where the zero-sum game begins.
There was this Uncle of ours who was a top Military brass. We once accosted him of why he was selling off the assets he acquired during his service years. He explained that he was tired of having the property OFF and ON – one day, an administration would come and seize the assets; and another day, a friendly regime would come and hand the same assets back to him. The assets kept travelling back and forth.
When the assets got back to him again, he decided to sell them so that any subsequent administration that might want to seize them would find that they were only confiscating assets that belonged entirely to a different person.
The war against corruption is such that if not carefully handled, it could trigger off worse corruption on the part of those fighting it! Undoubtedly, Nigeria today has a man, President Muhammadu Buhari, who is totally allergic to corruption, at the helm of affairs. The fight against corruption has been vigorous. We hear that various assets have been seized from numerous offenders.
A few days ago, in a meeting with Elders in Daura, Katsina State, President Buhari averred that the confiscated assets will soon be sold off and the proceeds paid into the Treasury Single Account, TSA, if only as a way of averting the assets finding their ways back to their original owners after he leaves office.
We have consistently maintained that the only panacea for the success of the anti-graft war is full disclosure. For now, the success or otherwise of that noble fight is simply a matter for conjecture – nobody outside the Presidency and the EFCC knows exactly what is happening. From a distance, it may be impossible to know the fine details about why certain steps are shrouded in secrecy.
All the same, fair is fair. Nigerians cannot escape the crucial moments when they must demand that full disclosure and transparency are the panacea for the success of the anti-graft war. We have insisted consistently that the people must be regularly informed of what have been recovered along with the names of the people from whom the recoveries were made. How else do we know where the recoveries belong? For example, any asset recovered from the Governor or any functionary of a State belongs to the State. It would be inappropriate to plough such recoveries into the TSA for redistribution to all.
Full disclosure also presupposes that there is a proper inventory of all the assets that are being confiscated. The inventory must be regularly up-dated and made open to the citizenry. This full disclosure and accountability is in the interest of the government and the governed.
It is not enough to reel out the amounts – N78.325 billion; $185 million; £ 3.508 million; and €11,250 as the recoveries between May 2015 and May 2016. This account is deficient in many ways: The recoveries lack details; and they are out-dated. What has been collected in the more than 20 months since June 2016? In fact, the account should be up-dated at the end of every month.
More than ever before, the plan to sell the assets is a call for full disclosure and transparency. The assets must be properly evaluated by renowned Estate and Quantity Surveyors. The sale and purchase of the property cannot be another job for the boys.
And if there are cases where disposals should be delayed because of some legal encumbrances, we also deserve to know. The end of anything is more important than the beginning. It is more so in the anti-graft war!