Monday 31 August 2015

Buhari, a Washington trip and the rest of us




At this time of writing, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari is in Washington DC on what some would call a seeming breakthrough visit by a Nigerian leader to the American peak of governance, the White House, in a relatively long while. Given the apparent cold shoulder that the U.S administration had extended to the Nigerian government in the past few years and the fact that the visit is coming only days into the inauguration of Buhari as President, and even when he is yet to assemble a full complement of governing personal, let alone articulate sure-footed policies that would form the thrust of his term in office, it is clear that this ‘shift’ is essentially symbolic.


But even that has to be put in context. With some 60 percent of the total population of West Africa and about 15 percent of the total population of the 54-nation continent (which in turn make up over a quarter of the total haul of 192 states that comprise the United Nations), Nigeria is arguably no pushover in the comity of nations. It is therefore not the mere ‘good luck’ of the ruling APC at this point in our history (pun and all!), but rather the very non-strategic mismanagement of our natural weight that had led to our past marginalization in global affairs.


And it should never have been so. At Independence on October 1, 1960, the influential American weekly, Time magazine, looked into its crystal ball and all it could see was a veritable world-beater that needed only a few years to prove its worth. The spectacular successes that had been demonstrated in the immediate past seven years - when the three regional premiers who had been given limited self-governance powers had chalked giant strides in education, infrastructure, industrialization and political organization - was for them a veritable foretaste of the glory that lay ahead.


Again, when the leaders of the newly independent African states began to hold talks within the ‘Monrovia’ and ‘Casablanca’ blocs to forge the initial outlines of the continent’s first multi-state supra-national gathering, the Organization of African Unity, Nigeria’s voice and vote was a strong factor in ensuring the successful harmonization of the contending ideological aspirations and the result was the July 25, 1963 summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.


At about the same time, the Congo crisis became even more intractable and Nigeria was one of the first nations to be requested to come and help put out the fires. We went there and did our bit.


Indeed, so decisive was Nigeria’s voice back then that when General Murtala Mohammed who served as Nigeria’s Head of State for just 200 days spoke out in favour of an end to apartheid and colonial rule in Africa at the July 11, 1975 OAU summit, it was in the self-assured strength of a leader and people, who, to paraphrase the gospel artist, Sinach; know who they are! ‘Africa had indeed come of age.’ And the whole world was listening:


“Mr. Chairman, when I contemplate the evils of apartheid, my heart bleeds and I am sure the heart of every true blooded African bleeds. Africa has come of age. It is no longer under the order of any extra continental power. It should no longer take orders from any country, however powerful. The fortunes of Africa are in our hands to make or to mar. For too long have we been kicked around; for too long have we been treated like adolescents who cannot discern their interests and act accordingly…The time has come when we should make it clear that we can decide for ourselves…”


We can continue to list other strong stuff from our past but space constrains us. However this would include the first time outing of Muhammadu Buhari as Head of State when he and his colleagues attempted to use the institution of the military to correct the national shame that the Shagari administration had become and which in the face of its very grave leadership failings at the time had yet gone ahead to award itself a very vexatious second term in office. A coup is a coup is a coup but this writer knows more than a few Nigerians who were sincerely not amused by the scepter of Shagari continuing in office back then!


It is however also on record that during that first time out, Buhari very well knew the colour of national pride, honour and self-reliance that he insisted on exploring alternative, though controversial, approaches to resolving Nigeria’s economic crisis rather than acquiesce to adopting pro-imperialist solutions that have almost never worked in favour of beneficiary states anywhere. Hobbled as we are even today, it is that Buhari whom we expect to see in Washington. May God help Nigeria.




Note: This piece was penned on July 13, 2015


Wednesday 26 August 2015

Is Buhari that politically naive?


The nomination last week of Mr. William Babatunde Fowler as Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS has indeed taken the political barometer of the nation one notch higher.


Coming days before the long-expected September date for the unveiling of President Muhammadu Buhari’s list of ministers, the commentary waves are agog as to both the significance of this nomination, and going forward, its contribution to the entire ‘sub-industry of appointments-guessing’ that has since arisen on account of the President’s holding the ball so close to his chest.
Of course, as the nominal captain of the Lagos Internal Revenue Service, LIRS team that grew the average monthly internally generated revenue profile of Lagos State from N3billion to N20.6 billion there is a sense in which Fowler could ordinarily be considered for the position. But there could indeed be more than meets the eye, as we say in these parts.


So why was Fowler nominated? Of course as with all other matters in the current Buhari dispensation, only the President knows. But given the nominees closeness to APC leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with whom the President has had a frosty relationship on account of the failure of critical earlier nominees which both Tinubu and the nominal APC high command had so authoritatively endorsed, there has necessarily come a reading of the Fowler nomination as a kind of rapprochement; a reaching out by Buhari himself to smoothen rough edges in his relationship with Tinubu.


But then there is another reading. And this is; that in nominating Fowler, Buhari may very well be throwing his cards on the table and like an accomplished Chess master, be goading the other levers of power in the APC and the nation to throw theirs in also ahead of the bigger fights that are ahead. These would include; the screening and clearing of ministers, nominations into boards, ambassadors-designate, as well as critical agencies like the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. And then there is the 2016 budget.


If this is so, and we can indeed demonstrate that there is indeed more method than randomness to the political moves of the President since his emergence on the scene, then it will suggest that so many of us been so glibly mis-reading Mr. Buhari and in the process giving him less credit than he actually deserves in the complex world of political brinksmanship.


Again if this is so, we should equally then be looking at a rather more determinate set of variables going forward even as we undertake a holistic review of every step he has taken so far since his return to the nation’s political frontlines.


Was Mr. Buhari’s decision to run in the 2015 presidential polls - after having earlier suggested he would not - be just a casual or indeed a programmed shift? Was his assiduously working with Tinubu and other opposition leaders to ensure the emergence and rise to prominence of the APC in those heady days of the party’s emergence not indicative of the fact that, he was, even at that time, already embarked on the path of an ambition that is definitely ‘made of sterner stuff,’ a la William Shakespeare.


There is even more. Was his carefully choreographed insistence on a 3-point agenda of ‘reversing insecurity, fighting corruption and curbing unemployment’ even when the APC manifesto and the mood of the nation indicating a much broader package not a deliberate act of only putting on the table what he was personally interested in? Was his relative ‘aloofness’ in the battle for the leadership of the National Assembly only coincidental? Is the delay in naming ministers merely attributable to what Femi Adesina has expressed as ‘slow and steady wins the race?’


The sum of all of this is that we may need to be more thoughtful than we are presently. It would appear that some persons may not have been reading Mr. Buhari correctly. It would appear that the man may be packing far-more political muscle than we have currently bothered to ascribe to him? And the implications would indeed be most interesting in the days ahead.


Which would then leave us with one final point; and this has to do with the ends to which this presently unraveling sense of political astuteness of Mr. President would be deployed to serve? Is it going to be in the larger interests of Nigeria, patriotically defined, or would it be to some self-serving or parochial ends?


Whichever way it would go however, this writer is comforted by the infallible verdict of history which ultimately yet brings every hidden matter to light. Dribble as brilliantly as you can, every mystery on earth eventually comes into the light. And then there is a second truth: propositions, no matter how lofty, do not really stand except they accord with the will of God.
So there is no fretting over our new-found discovery that Mr. Buhari is indeed packing more than what some had thought he had. Indeed, there is even a reassuring ring to the fact that he is this much endowed given the fact that many of our pundits have actually not based their earlier profiling of him on hard and immutable evidence that can stand the test of logical and exegetical inquiry. So let the real Mr. Buhari stand up to be counted and this nation will back him only to the extent that his agenda does indeed correlate with the greater interests of our people. God bless Nigeria!


Wednesday 19 August 2015

NNPC: Agenda for Ibe Kachikwu



As was widely expected, President Muhammadu Buhari has continued on his already promised decision to restructure the nation’s long-ailing oil sector by effecting critical personnel changes in the system.


After dissolving the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, he next moved on to relieve the erstwhile Group Managing Director of the corporation, Dr. Joseph Thlama Dahwa of his position, replacing him with the former Executive Vice Chairman and general Counsel of Exxon-Mobil Africa, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu. Equally fired and replaced are several top management staff of the corporation as well as heads of its component subsidiaries.


On assumption of office, Kachikwu has also moved very swiftly to carry out further personnel changes that have seen even more members of the old guard at different levels equally relieved of their duties. He is also literally swearing that he has the mandate of Mr. President to turn things around at the heavily mis-governed corporation. We want to believe him.


Indeed, evidence of the fact that a new order may certainly be brewing at the corporation can be seen firstly, in the fact that not only is a wholesale sweep is presently being undertaken within the cognate leadership cadre of the corporation, a sizeable number of their replacements are being brought from outside the system, thus signaling a resolve at the moment towards ensuring that new broom does indeed take charge of the reform agenda that is expected to be executed.


But that exactly is the point: the full details of the agenda need to be put on the table so we can comprehensively critique it. This is because though carrying out wholesale personnel reform to bring new and fresh good men on board is a good idea, it is even much better when the governing mechanisms around which the organization is run, are built around enduring institutional formats that have even greater overall impact and more assured sustainability on the job being done.


Even as the agenda is being worked out, it is important that we go beyond a lot of the limitations of the Nigerian environment that continue to hobble the NNPC and by extension our overall national petrochemical complex. In this wise, we make the case for the adoption of global best practices in the running of the corporation going forward. We also counsel on the need for very robust and meticulous exegetical studies on the global petroleum industry today with a view to ensuring that we are working and build with a wholesale appreciation of where the industry is today, as well as where it is definitively headed in the years ahead. For example, with green being the vogue now, this is not a time to undertake ecologically-insensitive carbon-heavy projects.


One other area of concern is over how much operational space the new GMD would be granted to carry out his set duties. This is because while we commend President Muhammadu Buhari for the appointment of this well-heeled and diversely experienced technocrat to preside over the affairs of the NNPC, there is also the need to take into consideration the fact that political actors through the years have seen the NNPC as the most handy, if not omnibus piggy-bank of government and as such constantly taken steps and measures to compromise its integrity, governance bearings and accounting structures. And with an increasingly assertive citizenry insisting at every twist and turn for even more and more transparency in the operations of the corporation, the easy way out for many a political actor has been to lay all of the blame for the failings of the corporation at the doorsteps of successive GMDs and go ahead to relieve them of their duties each time the temperature of public disdain rises. Little wonder then that the NNPC penthouse has been graced by as much as six GMDs in the past five years!


On his own part, we want to call Mr. Kachikwu’s attention to the fact that there is a sense in which by his appointment, he is indeed a poster-boy of the long-awaited new Nigeria that is run by men and women of professional candour, integrity and good conscience. As he tackles the day-to-day challenge of running and administering the corporation, he should be conscious of the fact that there are indeed a ‘cloud of witnesses,’ this writer included, that are cheering him on; hoping and praying that he succeeds. This definitely then is not a time to start weaving, or kowtowing to, silly self-enrichment schemes at the expense of the corporation and the Nigerian people who indeed are his ultimate employers. The nation is depending on him at this critical moment in time to run a changed and reformed NNPC that would demonstrate to all and sundry that indeed that new Nigeria that we have long yearned for is indeed possible and here. Mr. Kachikwu must therefore not fail.


Friday 14 August 2015

Engaging Boko Haram correctly


When the immediate past Goodluck Jonathan administration, after a long season of pussy-footing, gerrymandering and buck-passing finally embarked on a large-scale aerial assault on positions then being held by the Boko Haram insurgents in North Eastern Nigeria, many applauded the move seeing it as the beginning of the end of the sect. However, some of us who wanted the sect gone forever but also knew that everything that was needed to achieve that outcome had not been put in place were nonetheless circumspect: guerilla wars are not exactly won from the air. We have been proved right sadly.


Indeed, though the Boko Haram insurgency has gone on for about a six years now, one notable failing in the entire saga is that as a nation, we are yet to come to grips with what exactly it is. And the sect continues to feast on our somewhat deliberate insistence on not correctly perceiving it for what it is. ‘My people perish because they have rejected knowledge.’ This surely has to change.


When the sect first emerged in Kano, the reaction of the local community was to see it as one other proselytizing movement that was seeking converts for its variant of Islam. The history of the religion was such that time after time, sects and tendencies have continued to show up introducing one dialectic or emphasizing one point. This was one more like the others and in their view, the canvas was big enough to accommodate it.


But they should have looked deeper. This is because, though the sect was doing everything it could to expouse its own variant of the religion, there was also something else that it was also promoting. In declaring all the heritage of western education as a taboo to be discarded, the sect was in a very troubling way demonstrating a certain fanaticism that resonated with the extremist
Shiite attitude that had seen its highpoint in the Iranian revolution of 1979.


The last straw for Boko Haram was its alleged murder of a rival imam and the sacking of his mosque over theological differences. This was the time that the muslim ummah and indeed the Nigerian state should have instituted a very comprehensive enquiry into the teachings, reach and dangers of the sect, but they failed. It was also the best time to scorch the hydra. In this also, they failed.


Rather than embark on this most logical course of action, the sect was literally permitted to flee to the north eastern fringes of Borno and Yobe.


Tragically also, local political juggernauts were soon to do a deal with the sect to help them clinch power at the state level, a move that after its success, came to confer quasi-official legitimacy on the outlaws. This was accentuated by the fact that the resultant administration incorporated one of its leaders as a commissioner for religious affairs and ethical orientation.
Almost inevitable differences soon crept in however, resulting in a strained parting of ways. But this was not after the sect had grown astronomically in personnel, influence and resources. A state of mutual animosity was therefore the norm between both old-time associates and this was to continue until the Yar ‘Adua-led Federal Government was encouraged to unleash the military upon them, a move that led to the killing of the sect’s founding leader, Mohammed Yusuf.


To be sure, there is a sense in which the critical error of terminating Yusuf’s life without proper trial and investigation of the origins, motivations, nuances and depth or otherwise of the group resonates with the latter-day error of authorizing aerial bombardments of the group’s locations without a corollary plan on how to equally contain the inevitable outcome that the sect would in this situation very likely vote to slip back into regular society to save itself and plot fresh ways of continuing to advance its insurgent activities. Now the chickens have come home to roost.


With the benefit of hindsight, the road that should have been taken then may have been to have left the insurgents corralled in the towns and villages that they had already taken and then plotted a comprehensive plan to remove every trace of them. Speed is of essence in matters like this and we recall Chadian President, Idris Deby, asking then for permission to fully pursue after the insurgents and bring home their leadership. Foolish pride; we shut him down. When the blind lead the blind, the Bible surmises, both are guaranteed to fall into the ditch.


From our ditch position today, the options before us would clearly be more gradualist. We need to grow our intelligence infrastructure so it can fully infiltrate the group and bring us much needed information from within. We need to train and retrain our troops to realize that carrying the civil population along, no matter the risks involved, is non-negotiable. And then we need to get mosques across Nigeria and the other affected nations to vote decisively against the insurgents and to play their own part in ensuring that their adherents do not fall prey to the deceitful and beguiling rhetoric from the sects recruiters. We shall overcome, some day.


http://hallmarknews.com/boko-haram-getting-the-terms-of-engagement-right/

Thursday 13 August 2015

Comrade, you’ve taken the wrong path


I like explaining my titles, particularly when they are borrowed. And this one is not any different. It is the title of one of a set of four act plays in Chinese literature. And it deals with issues relating to revolution, change and ‘errors in rendering.’ In Osun State, Nigeria today, we may very well be on such a page.


The coming into office of the incumbent Governor of Osun State was truly the stuff of which heroic revolutionary epics are made. Doggedly, he took on foes that at a first glance, could be said to be immovable. Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the man he ousted was not just a retired army General, he was also a fiery no-nonsense one to boot. And then he was equally an incumbent, in addition to the fact that he also had the then most awesome PDP machine at his behest.


But he was worsted by the dogged Comrade in a battle that had all the trappings of the classic ‘David and Goliath’ saga. Indeed, so humbling was the eventual outcome that the supreme lesson of Oyinlola’s defeat even then was a repeat of that oft stated truism: gods do have clay feet. You only need to take the right aim and they will tumble down.


Today however, a lot has changed. Unlike the situation when he came into power, a slew of economic reversals have since come to expose the shallowness of many a state economy. And Osun is high up on the ladder. With very little to contribute in the arena of Internally Generated Revenue, the state is then regularly constrained to wait on the federation account for whatever it will disburse. And with that ‘ATM’ being presently stymied, Osun bleeds.


To be sure, when the going was good, Aregbesola rode on a dizzyingly populist wave of welfarism. Free meals and uniforms for students, creation of public sector jobs in the thousands, free train rides for Osun indigenes resident in Lagos…the cash was rolling, the man was spending.


Now the bubble has burst and salaries are no longer coming. Pensions are not being paid. Workers are on strike. And Comrade continues to wait for bailouts from the centre to get his groove going on once again. And this indeed is the bigger challenge: that in waiting to simply return to grooving mode, Comrade may not have learnt the first lesson of the Osun challenge that he is enmeshed in today.


Evidence of this can be seen in his own rhetoric on the crisis, the unhelpful comments of his aides, and associated diatribes from the state chapter of the ruling All Progressives Congress. And there is no better evidence of this than in the instance of how the entire machinery has presently being laid out against the hapless judge of the Osun High Court who dared to look the king squarely in the face and proclaim that indeed, His Excellency was no longer wearing any clothes!


Now this is not to say that the learned justice may have indeed got all of her facts right. But hunger really excites anger. And non-payment of public service wages in a nominal civil service state is indeed an invitation to anger. And by the way, as chief executive of the on-going concern that is ‘the state of Osun,’ Comrade’s primary order of business is to manage its resources and affairs in such a way that it meets its existing contractual obligations in a timely manner (wages and pensions included) and provide the greater good for the greatest number of the citizenry.


And we do not think that it is mature and responsible when the governor continues to shift the blame for the current state of affairs to dwindled receipts from the federation account. Yes, there have been dwindled receipts; and so what? Did we all not see it coming? When every other nation in our backyard and beyond began to strike oil, did we not know that there were going to be fewer buyers of the crude which provides the bulk of the federation account receipts that we are bewailing now? The truth of the matter, dear comrade is that, by omission and commission, the administration which you lead has brought in the proverbial ant-infested faggots; you cannot therefore be so hypocritically self-righteous in responding to the consequent arrival of the delegation of lizards! Were you not expecting them? It will indeed be a greater pity if you were not.


So my dear Comrade, the learned justice is not the issue; you dug yourself into this ditch, you will do well to get yourself out. And please do everything to be humble and contrite while doing so.