Lagos, the April polls and the imperative of big ideas

There are many things wrong with Nigeria as structured today, we have repeatedly held. But one of the most jarring is that the constituent units are not pulling their weight. If and when they do, Nigeria will rise up again.


One state that has a good chance of pushing further in this regard is Lagos. It is clearly the smallest in geographical terms but arguably the richest in terms of financial and commercial capabilities. And for it to even build stronger on this base, we need then to look at the vector factors that made the present degree of success possible.


History has a place in this. The colony of Lagos was set up as a separate British jurisdiction over a half century before my co-pen pusher, Flora Shaw, gave the overall entity her name.


With the amalgamation in 1914, it was the first, formal coordinate seat of governance. At Independence in 1960, this status was reconfirmed and remained so until about the end of the century.


But then the strength of Lagos is not just in its being a former capital city of Nigeria. There are indeed several other variables.


One critical element of the Lagos story is its commercialism. From the ports to the banks, Lagos sits atop a lot of the business and traffic in this yet import-dependent nation.


The development of this strong commercialism has also encouraged a greater ethnic accommodation. Though this suffers from time to time, it remains a major component element in its continuing success story. And it is one that several other states and territories who are looking to grow should not obscure: migrants build cities, states and nations, effortlessly.
Indeed, stretched further, there is a sense in which the coastal city was prepared to be a rainbow enclave. Lagos is beneficiary of a host of migrations from Edo to Brazil, Ile-Ife to Ijebu-Ode, Portugal to England and Sagamu to Niger; Lagos has taken many in and continues to take even more.


With this mass of people have come urban engineering pressures that successive administrations have tried to respond to. During the colonial era for example, ‘new towns’ like Surulere were encouraged to come into being. And they did. Post-independence, the struggle has continued. From the ‘tenure’ of Mobolaji Johnson through Raji Rasaki and on to Lateef Jakande, Bola Tinubu and the incumbent, Raji Fashola, the race has been two-fold: responding to the dynamics of the ever-burgeoning population and advancing the infrastructure to cater for even more migrants that would inevitably come.


In all of this, one critical concern has been the issue of getting resources that government can use to work on and expand the state’s infrastructure. For Mobolaji Johnson, his tenure coincided with the execution of city-redefining infrastructure projects like the Carter bridge and Ikorodu road. Lateef Jakande on his part expanded schools and hospitals infrastructure massively and during the Fashola administration, a lot of critical road infrastructure have been revamped and/or introduced.


Two factors that helped Johnson, resource-wise, were the outpouring of oil wealth, nationally, and the fact of Lagos being the extant federal capital during that era. For Jakande, it was the drive to be faithful to the manifesto of the Unity Party of Nigeria. And for the Fashola administration, it has been built on the current tax-and-spend paradigm that reigns in the state.
On account of many strides that it has taken, Lagos has over time then come to be established as Nigeria’s pacesetter state. And one challenge before it in the forthcoming electoral and post-electoral season is about its living up to this billing.
The next administration would have to do more than has been done this far. As things stand now, the tax-and-spend regime looks like it is here to stay but there must be a lot done to plug loopholes, including issues of probity, transparency and popular buy-in. But no matter what is done, it is most critical that for the Lagos of the future to emerge, bigger and more elaborate ideas need to come in stronger onto the governance template. And when they do, the taxed would have had greater value for their ‘sacrifices.’


For example, virtual ‘brand new cities’ have to be built to decongest the very many presently clogged parts of the state. Lekki for example has no doubt been helped by the expansion in road infrastructure there, but the continually expanding traffic situation on that artery comes with a very clear foreboding that that ‘city’ could soon begin to experience even more troubling incidents of epileptic but sustained shut-ins. God forbid. While the average feeling is that Lagos has no land left upon which to build, the truth is that with creative engineering, the stretches between Ajah and Epe and Ajah and Ikorodu can receive new and better planned cities. Equally capable of taking new developments is the stretch between Ojo and Seme. And should more space be needed, the state can negotiate with neighbouring Ogun for example, to ‘take over’ swathes of the Lagos-Shagamu expressway and expand the remit of its present ‘limited acquisition’ of farmlands on the Ikorodu-Ijebu-Ode axial. And if outright take over fails, an alternative ‘Greater Towns’ framework can be contemplated and worked on. The truth of the Lagos situation clearly is that since more and more people are surely going to continue migrating into this ‘fairly solvent Nigerian oasis of economic opportunity,’ forward looking administrators must continually engage and re-engage in scenario planning with a view to ensuring that the city does not someday crash on account of this deluge. Now is the time to act.


A second core decision that the next administration should bring to bear is greater creativity in the arena of fiscal management. For one, the State has in the Fashola years being borrowing massively for projects execution even as it has also built stronger savings buffers. As at September 2014 for example, the state’s debt portfolio was a princely N160bn. Even with this, there is still an assurance that the state can really do without spending any bit of its income allocation from the federation account today. This is particularly so when it is observed that the state currently runs annual budgets in the half a trillion naira mark! And that is why it should go ahead now to build on its present strengths through the House of Assembly passing a law to compel that at least 50 percent of the current ‘paltry’ revenue from the Federation account should be automatically saved and invested and not spent. Like Norway does with 85 percent of its oil receipts, this would be a further endowment for future generations.


We also need a greater practical synergy with the people. To whom much is given, much indeed is expected. While the rest of Nigeria whines over the curse of government, Lagos should be basking in its positives. The state must take very strong and assuring steps to improve its education and healthcare facilities to world-grade and residents should benefit maximally in this. Public schools and health institutions remain largely unattractive and this must not be allowed to continue. It is not enough to give people free education or free healthcare. If there is no quality integral in the offering, the people have really only been shortchanged. In this wise, it is quite timely that one of the candidate’s asking to be elected governor is already talking of a statewide Health Insurance scheme. While some may balk at a project of this magnitude, given its anticipated costs, the other side of the equation is that a well-executed health insurance scheme would translate into greater prosperity for Lagos and Lagosians. So let us not give up so readily.


Still talking of big ideas, another candidate is proposing a N25billion Employment Fund. This also is a winning proposition if it is properly executed. And the logic here is simple. With thousands of Nigerians pouring into the state daily in search of jobs and economic opportunities, a fund of this nature would avail employers with the necessary financial resources with which to create the jobs and opportunities that government does not have. The barber with two apprentices can move on to four. The bakery down the road can acquire a delivery van and thereby be in position to expand its market reach. Lagos must embrace its destiny. It simply cannot say no now to committing to continuing growth. And progress. E ko o ni baje o!

Cry, the beloved country

You may already know Alan Paton’s epic, anti-apartheid novel from which this caption has been taken. But we are not talking of South Africa today. No, we are talking today about Nigeria, which to paraphrase our own Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has continued to be enthralled in an ‘embarrassment of bad choices.’


Yes, bad choices. And we know what happens with bad choices. They invariably lead to bad outcomes. Some eternally optimistic Nigerian would say ‘God forbid!’ But that is why the creator Himself carefully outlined in the Book of Deuteronomy: ‘This day I place before you life and death. Choose life that you may live!’


Indeed, before the current dilemma of having to choose between Buhari and Jonathan, Nigeria and Nigerians have long been enthralled in choice-making.


The British first set up four separate ‘protectorates.’ They were the northern, southern, oil rivers and the colony of Lagos. Then for greater administrative ease, they began to blend them into one entity and finally ended with the unified territory of Nigeria in 1914.


The January 1966 coup brought in some dilemma when it did not succeed in all of its objectives. It left the rump of the administration with two options: work around it some more until a civilian government could be put in place or turn over power to the armed forces. The lot fell on the then Senate President, Nwafor Orizu to read ‘the instrument of surrender.’ In a classic case of déjà vu, the military’s withdrawal of protection for the electoral process last weekend follows most whimsically in that same tradition.


In July 1966 also, the hamstrung North wanted out of the unified federation. Araba, they insisted. Again the British intervened and the mantra changed: ‘To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done!’


With the crisis in the North and the pogroms, a traumatised Eastern region had to make a choice. The crowd wanted out. Some other voices counselled continuing on with ‘difficult dialogue.’ The military administrator of the region, Lt Col Odumegwu Ojukwu cast the deciding vote. ‘On Biafra we stand.’


Were there alternatives to postponing last weekend’s polls? Plenty. But two would suffice here. And they reach to the heart of the issues.


A country is about its plans. Nigeria planned the botched electoral event four years ago. Three years after, the substantive agency in charge of the project declared specific dates for the contest. And then with literal days to the event, the agency is forced to abort the process.


Two principal challenges have been largely adduced for this. First is the issue of security. Nigeria has been fighting insurgents for years. And if we recall our historical details correctly, the escalation in the violent disposition of Boko Haram coincides with the extra-judicial killing by the security forces of Boko Haram’s first leader. When the same forces say they are requesting six weeks to finish off or substantially contain the insurgents (as the text is now being watered to), the question to ask is that given public knowledge that the theatre of conflict largely involves 14 local governments spread across three of our 36 states, could Nigeria not have requested strategic military support six months ago from the United Nations to beef up security in the affected areas and thereby ensure peaceful polling as has been the case in Iraq, Afghanistan and several other conflicted nations where the Nigerian military has participated and shone?


The second issue is that of the organisational inadequacies of INEC. Now, there is really no breaking news in saying that INEC, like the average national institution, is performing below the mark. And this writer is a personal victim giving that on account of this tardiness, he would not be voting in the elections. It is sad, but that is our cross today. But to insist that the elections must not hold on account of this is most mischievous. The other day for example, I watched INEC spokesman, Kayode Idowu, reel out figures on the level of PVCs collection as at Feb 10, 4 days to the initial polling date. Contrary to the widespread view that the PVCs had only been given out to ‘northern voters,’ the records show that in Akwa Ibom INEC had scaled the 80 per cent mark, while in Rivers and Abia States, PVC collection was in the range of 75 – 78 per cent.


Let us describe the spade after its shape. This postponement is indeed a sore blight and my prayer and hope is that this is all that it is. May God help Nigeria.


This piece was initially published on www.hallmarknews.com

Goodbye, Mr. Omar

NLC elections and the legacy conundrum


A democracy is many things. It is about citizens that vote. It is about institutions that are constitutionally enabled to drive the processes of statecraft. While some function directly, others exert indirect influences. One such indirect buoy is organised labour. As the aggregator of the views of the bulk of the working class in a country, organised labour is an important player in the overall democracy project.


During the Olusegun Obasanjo era when Adams Oshiomhole held sway as captain of the labour movement, and in the absence of a strong, formal political opposition in the land; the lot fell on the labour movement to ensure that there was some degree of accountability in the land.


While some commentators take exception to this liberal reading of the mandate of Labour in a democratic society, the deeper truth is that such a reading did not begin with Oshiomhole. In the 1940s for example, it was organised labour, then led by the venerable Micheal Imoudu, aka Number One, that rose to the challenge of insisting on the right of Nigerian workers and people to be treated with dignity and decorum in the land of their birth despite that Nigeria was then a British-occupied territory.
Imoudu it was who led the workers and other Nigerian nationalists in what is perhaps, the first minimum wage protests in our history, the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) struggle. When the colonial security forces brutalized and killed workers at the Iva Valley Mines in the eastern heartland of Enugu, it was again the mercurial pan-Nigerian fighter that rose to the fray and led organised labour and the nationalists in demanding justice for victims and more hospitable mining conditions in the land.
Imoudu’s interventions were not only for the masses. When for example, he heard that the Nigerian elite were being denied access to ‘Whites Only’ clubs, the lion in him arose and he led yet another series of marches to de-segregate the clubs. Indeed, when the full and correct story of Nigeria’s independence movement is eventually told, it would be most apparent that it is heroic statesmen like Imoudu that should occupy the top ranks.


Beyond Imoudu and Oshiomhole, other notable labour leaders like Hassan Summonu have also read the mandate of labour to include advocacy for the rights and interests of the Nigerian people. And such advocacy has helped in ensuring a balance in the political make-up of the nation and ensuring that the issues of the mass are not casually dismissed by elite power jugglers.
It is one such moment that arose on January 1, 2012 when the Jonathan administration gave Nigerians the very ill-timed new year’s gift of a hike in the prices of petroleum products! Incensed, organised labour joined other civil society advocates in resisting the increase.


However, unlike in the Imoudu and Oshiomhole eras, it soon became clear that the Abdulwaheed Omar-leadership of the NLC, in consort with the Peter Esele-led Trade Union Congress were only observing the motions. To paraphrase a Bible text, they were only ‘having a form of militancy but denying the power thereof.’ And so the protests petered off.


Many commentators believe that the now-ending Omar era, like that of Paschal Bafyau also, clearly does not fit in with the highpoints of the labour movement in Nigeria. And even as Congress is engaged this week in picking a new leadership, they also do not see much to recommend the trio of Ayuba Wabba, Igwe Achese and Joe Ajaero who are currently angling to succeed Omar as NLC President.


Interestingly, the NLC polls are coming in the middle of one of the most embarrassing mis-steps associated with organised labour in recent times. It has to do with the ill-advised mass housing scheme being undertaken by Congress in conjunction with the developer, Kriston Lally Nigeria Limited which till date has failed to deliver one house!
While Congress is accusing the company of making illegal withdrawals from the project account, the company is accusing Congress of not having met a pre-condition of the project, namely the provision of land upon which the said houses would be built!
Meanwhile the embattled workers remain caught in the throes with no houses, their monies trapped and no solid assurance that the saga would be resolved in their favour soon. This is what happens when leaders leave the core demands of their calling in preference for chasing shadows.


The next President of the NLC must then not be only one who stares down government. He must also be one who would like Caeser’s wife is seen to be clearly above board in all respects. Goodbye, Mr Omar.

Militant Islam and the rest of us

Last week’s attack by Islamic fundamentalists on media workers at the offices of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo in Paris, was clearly a wake-up call for all of the peoples of the world. And quite aptly, the incident has since attracted global umbrage with leaders, commentators and activists united in their disgust over the fiendish and atrocious acts of the murderers.


In Nigeria, which has for five years running being at the sustained end of the Boko Haram insurgency, it was yet a grim reminder that the darts of fundamentalism have truly eaten deep. The local angle was to be further exarcebated at the weekend when yet another bloody strike was carried out by the insurgents on the much-besieged town of Baga almost at the same time that a strappling 10-year old girl blew herself and no less than ten others up, at a market in Maiduguri.


For a world that has been at the receiving end of the insurgents’ onslaught, the easy thing to do in response to this continuing tale of ‘sorrow, tears and blood’ is to ask what the insurgents want and to hang their troubles on that. But it is not that simple. This is because the fundamentalists who are canvassing a new ‘world order’ in which the Islamic religion, ideology and worldview is the only accepted norm, are in a generic sense aligned to the global Islamic idea of how humans should live, worship and revere their creator. And to put the icing on the cake, there reside in the earth today, an estimated 1.8 billion muslims, accounting for about 25 per cent of all of humanity.


While it is clear that not every muslim in the earth today is a sword-wielding or bomb-strapped terrorist going out on the streets looking for targets to die with, there are very many non-muslims who think that not enough has been done to separate the wheat from the chaff. What has been done this far is to rhetorically ostracise the fundamentalists from mainstream muslims and to therefore view them as an extreme bunch who do not represent the worldview and aspirations of mainstream Islam. But is that all that can and must be done at a time when the evidence on ground is that the extremists have presently gone gaga and the sceptre of Islamic fundamentalism is assuming clearly very worrying dimensions the world over?


This writer understands the burden that the fundamentalists are heaping on Islam as a religion but then the next question has to be asked. Per chance the fundamentalists do succeed; what would be the outcome? Clearly, an-all Islamic world! Hence moderate muslims need to do more to reassure non-muslims that, at heart, they really do not mind living in a world where Islam contends with other faiths as alternative options and where individuals retain the ‘right to freedom of (spiritual) expression. Indeed there is a feeling amongst several troubled non-muslims that many ‘moderate muslims’ are only ‘sleeper-fundamentalists’ that time and circumstance would fully reveal. This conclusion may very well be wrong but that is what they can see.


Put in clearer perspective, there is also a sense in which Nigeria’s present confrontation with militant Islam must be better situated. In doing this, it is most appropriate to note that Islam had made its entry into the Nigerian landmass since the 9th Century as part of the trans-Sahara trade route. So there is indeed a sense in which Islam has come to stake a claim to at least part of the territory of Nigeria today.


And when we talk particularly of Islamic fundamentalism, it is also to be remembered that the jihad of Uthman dan Fodio was not a tea-drinking session. It was undergirded by a sturdy and militant act of Islamic propagation that could in many respects be described as fundamentalist. Of course since then, there have been latter-day fundamentalist activities including those of Mohammed Marwa, aka Maitatsine, and now Boko Haram.



So what is to be done now? Again we return to history. For the average fundamentalist crusader, the inspiration dates back to the medieval era of the Ottoman empire when parts of Western Europe, the Middle East and North Africa were ensconsced within that empire. It is that empire which Al-Gaeda, ISIS, Al-Shabab, Boko Haram and the rest of the fundamentalist crew are feverishly trying to re-enact. And it is in an appreciation of this reality that we can then begin to chart the way forward.

I am the trouble with Nigeria, yes I am!

I have come today to make a confession. I am the trouble with Nigeria. I see things around me going wrong and say nothing. Is it fear? Cowardice? Lack of concern? Ignorance? Whatever it is, I am the trouble with Nigeria. I am past 18 years in age and I do not bother to find out when and where voter registration and the updating of the electoral roll is being done. I have long concluded that my vote will never count, yet I now and again murmur over poor governance. And when I am finally ‘persuaded’ to register to vote, I join the queues for the wrong reasons; forgetting that it is as I make my bed that I would lay on it. I vote on sentiments and inducements, yet expect performance. I am the quintessential ostrich that would, on sighting the approaching storm, bury my head in the ground even when my body remains exposed over-ground for all to see. I am the trouble with Nigeria. I pay no taxes, drive on the wrong side of the road, honk needlessly and expect to live in a great society where all systems work seamlessly. I accept bribes. And give some also. I cut corners, wait for hand-outs, fail to attend Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meetings for my children and wards; despise street and neighbourhood association convocations and yet wonder why the entire nation is not working; why great leaders are not being elected into office; and why the average politician is not any better than the motor park urchin that, back in the day, could not put his sums together properly. I am the trouble with Nigeria. I received bad education and I’m doing nothing about it going forward. I do not host a blog or write letters to the editor. I carry out my tasks and assignments perfunctorily. I impact nobody, encourage nobody, protect nobody, defend nobody, inspire nobody; yet expect to be in high spirits myself; I am the trouble with Nigeria. I see my neighbour’s children taking wrong turns, and I say thank God mine are doing better; I see ebola ravage the country next door and I heave a sigh of relief that it is not my problem at all. I get a contract to fix the road where I live; ‘it is my share of the national cake,’ I exhale; my Jeep will get me through the potholes even when they expand! I am indeed the trouble with Nigeria. I am the son-of-the-soil (really, totally fouled up) who sells the same plot of land to six different sets of land seekers. I hawk and dispense fake drugs. I write examinations for willing-to-pay candidates. I rape defenseless children. I cheat on my wife without blinking. I violate the laws of the land without flinching. I set the wrong example for succeeding generations. I am surely the trouble with Nigeria I will not do ‘menial’ jobs in Nigeria, but can ‘hustle’ them when I get to ‘Yankee.’ I throw empty cans, fruit peels and food wrappings out of moving vehicles and wonder why the country is so dirty. I am the trouble with Nigeria. I follow after God and obey His word but only in the parts that are convenient for me. I have ready excuses for all of my failings and live in denial over my own contribution to ‘the package.’ I wear a mask going through my day; here a smile, there a grin, but none of them ankle-deep. I take living as a winner-grab-all game: ‘you are not smart when you lose!’ I am the trouble with Nigeria. I have relatives and kinsmen who I know and have ample evidence of the fact that they are currently looting and despoiling our national patrimony. And rather than reprimand or distance myself from them, I ogle up to them, fawn over them and encourage them to ‘go on soun’ in the hope that as they grab more, some of the spoils would ‘drop for me.’ ‘Is it not our turn?’ ‘Fada!’ I am the trouble with Nigeria. I can recite the litany of problems with the country even without being prompted. They are right here on my palm! I know when they started and how to end them. Trouble is, I am not ready, and will do nothing to begin to practically reverse them; one step at a time. I am truly the trouble with Nigeria but could also be the solution if I want to. It has been my choice this far, and it still is even as I pen this confessional. (Boy, am I already feeling better with this load off my chest!) *Initially published on: http://www.hallmarknews.com/i-am-the-trouble-with-nigeria-yes-i-am/

What manner of man is GEJ ?

In our weekly editorial conferences, I find myself once in a while having to make very strong statements on the non-performance of President Goodluck Jonathan and with my CV on the desk some are puzzled as to why such critique should be coming from a fellow South southerner. Well, the fact of the matter is that yours truly is at heart one colour-blind Nigerian who wants the best for all of the citizens of the country no matter whose ox is gored and who, to paraphrase the world-famous Rivonia declaration, believes that Nigeria ‘belongs to and should serve the best interests of all of her peoples who dwell in it.’ For him therefore, the issues are quite clear. It is about whether the incumbent administration understands the meaning of Nigeria, the nation’s historical purpose and its consequential role in it. It is okay for a government to repair roads and pay salaries of its staffers. But in all honesty, every reasonable administration must do those. Dangote Cement does not claim to have grown because it sells a few bags of cement. The managers of Diamond bank do not claim success because they have paid their staff salaries. These are to be expected and there are no plaudits for the normal. What counts for success then would be whether the organisation has formulated and understood its vision and mission and established firm timelines for the achievement of identified and spelt out goals and objectives. And returning to Nigeria, the issue is critically about leadership understanding and actualizing the vision and mission of the nation. For the tribe of micro-politicians straddling our space today, Nigeria is largely a honeypot to be drooled over. That is tragic but it is the crux of the matter. This is because; this is a country that installed modern television before the Western European nations of Spain and Portugal. It is a country that Time magazine had - on account of the achievement of its ‘limited self-government indigenous leaders’ in the years immediately preceding independence in 1960 – confidently affirmed was going to be a world-beater. Alas. It is indeed very painful then that five clear decades after that forecast, we have missed it in every area where it matters even as liliputians today run our lives. Condolences, Okigbo would have written. For a country that called the bluff of the British, Americans, French, Portuguese and Spaniards when they were aiding and abetting the continuing perpetration of colonialism and racial discrimination in parts of Africa in the 1970s, nationalizing their assets and compelling them to draw up expedited timetables for the total decolonization of the continent, it is really very sad that we are today so blest (apologies to Ayi Kwei Armah). To be sure, our current state of visionary statis manifests in different forms. Over 200 Nigerian citizens are abducted and rather than promptly order their rescue, for weeks, taxpayer-funded state institutions and officials fall over themselves to hush up the evidence! Almost a half year after, the girls, parents, community, nation and world lament the saga of the #Chibok girls. The Chinese and Gabonese turn back our players from participating in competitions to which they had been duly invited on grounds of their having been contaminated by a ‘chicken virus’ that the likes of Professor Eni-Njoku of blessed memory would have quickly brought under wraps. To add insult to injury, there is indeed no evidence in the public domain that the ambassadors of the offending nations have been summoned to take protest letters to their home governments or that they have been surcharged for visible and invisible costs incurred in those unfortunate diplomatic spats. And we have leaders! In this season of untoward parodies, can someone please #BringBackMurtalaMuhammed of the ‘Africa has come of age’ fame? We must indeed be so sorely blessed in the leadership arena when high- risk alleged felons find themselves comfortably ensconced in bilateral delegations convened to discuss how to avert even more felonies in the land. It is indeed a sad day for Nigeria in the leadership circuit. Meanwhile there are critical issues begging to be addressed. In 21st century Nigeria, cattle herders and crop farmers clash by the week because no one has the good sense to inaugurate a regime of ranching. Tankers and trucks daily wear out what is left of our roads in addition to engendering more than their fair share of road accidents because the alternative – proper, high speed, standard gauge rail development - is only campaign rhetoric. Citizens without prepaid meters are whimsically and cavalierly (over-) invoiced even by the private buccaneers that have been handed over the power distribution infrastructure. For example, for his private residence (not factory) in rural and sub-urban Ogun State, yours truly got a bill of 16, 000.00 for May, 6, 335.70 for July and N30, 747. 38 for August! With dwindling electricity supply, no prepaid meter supplied - even after he had paid for one four years ago - and no meter reading carried out, the superintending Ikeja DISCO simply assigned him any figures that caught their fancy! Condolences. Leaving aside even issues of grand vision, national purpose and all that, if the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is right in its claim that the security and well-being of the citizenry is the first business of governance then the question has to be asked if the current administration has succeeded in its set goal? That, and not geographical locus, for this writer, is the first basis for scoring a government as having succeeded or not. ii Before the ink dried on the first part of this piece, the big-wigs of the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party, almost to a man, took our discourse a little further. As widely expected, they endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan as their preferred choice to fly the party’s flag in the 2015 polls. Now he has accepted. In the process also, they made this columnist’s task easier. As it is now apparent to all, the current leadership crisis in the land is in a sense therefore bigger than Jonathan. It is the point we tried to make a few weeks ago that it is indeed a bigger PDP crisis. That in the midst of such prevailing social statis and system-wide dislocation, the ruling party is rubberstamping its incumbent points to the fact that 16 years into its holding the baton, the party does not have the answers that, we the people, demand of our leaders at this time in our national life. But does this exculpate the President from personal responsibility in this disappointing saga? Should we just say it is system failure and let him be? Where is the place for individual action, initiative, vision and leadership? Was it not the same Nigerian system that Murtala Muhammed turned around to score very profound goals in the course of his short-lived administration? Was it not the same system that the Buhari-Idiagbon team worked to get some of the results that they secured? Was it also not a system that Gorbachev worked to reform the decadent Soviet system? No sirs, there is a role for President Jonathan to go beyond the ‘chop-make-i-chop’ construct that at the foundation is the soul of the PDP. That he has failed to do so this far makes it even tougher for him even as his party is presently setting him up, as others before him, for the verdict of history. Again, it is fully within the President’s remit to run for a second term as he wishes. But it is also fits within his present job description to patriotically confront the Boko Haram threat without providing any soft landing for some alleged backers of the sect that are his friends. It is equally his brief to run an administration that would not ‘wobble and fumble’ over a simple issue as schools’ resumption dates! It is his remit to not tie the hands of investigators by going to publicly identify with alleged violators of building codes that have resulted in the deaths of scores of innocent people. It is his task to fight corruption, cronyism, and several other challenges in the land that are simply begging for a touch of leadership, real leadership. I take the position I take because the President’s performance on the job has very direct implications on my person and my generations going forward. I am worried for my living, my children and my country. Yes, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has the presidential seat, but to paraphrase the accomplished African American poet-raconteur, Langston Hughes, ‘I too am Nigerian!’ And so, his carrying on with the job and his aspiration for a second term has to take into consideration my own security and right to aspire for a decent living in the land of my birth. This is in addition to the well-being of my children and fellow countrymen. And if we are to take a lesson in politics 101, this precisely is why the Office of President exists! Sadly, the current holder of the office signposted from the beginning that he really did not have a handle on things. But we hoped he would learn and grow up. Properly speaking, he has not. His immediate post-election cabinet composition was not only most awful, but even when vacancies periodically showed up, there was so much dithering over finding and naming replacements and even when they were finally named, it was largely to use a Nigerianspeak,‘the same of the same!’ Requested to publicly declare his assets as a symbolic move that would help ginger the anti-corruption war and stave the very high rate of anticipatory assets declaration by political players who file reports of assets that they intend to acquire while in office as assets they already have at the time of entering office, he dismissed it with a wave of the hand, mumbling obtuse excuses like ‘personal privacy’ and ‘our culture.’ Your Excellency sir, goldfish have no hiding place! And there is more. At the peak of a ravaging Ebola crisis, Mr President approves the summary dismissal of 16, 000 resident doctors! And their crime? They had dared to take part in a strike calling attention to the poor state of the medical system; a system that days ago could not provide succour for my egbon, Dimgba Igwe as good Samaritans battled for four hours to find an ambulance, oxygen mask, a surgeon and a hospital to attend to him. The man died and of course the Presidency has dutifully commiserated with his family! In the midst of a national search for the sponsors of the rampaging Boko Haram sect, former Governor Modu Sherriff Ali, an alleged patron, and one whom the Department of State Security recently affirmed was being investigated, is ensconced cosily in a ‘chance’ diplomatic soiree with the Commander-in-Chief! And more specifically for those of us who hail from the Niger Delta, we have remained baffled by, what the Ijaw Youth Council spokesman, Eric Omare, a few days described as the stark reality that ‘the government and security agencies have not been able to summon the courage and political will to bring oil theft to a stop…The resultant effect of this government’s dereliction of duty and security agencies complicity in oil theft is massive despoliation of the Niger Delta environment. Today the flora and fauna of the Niger-Delta and the people’s source of living are gone.’ It is to this environment that Mr President would ultimately retire. Pity the nation, pity my people. But then I am pragmatic enough to admit that no matter his very glaring inadequacies, this President is very likely to be returned elected in 2015. At that time, we would then have no other option but to live with him in the saddle for another four years and continue to ‘look up to the hills from where our help comes.’ Good morning Nigeria.

What manner of man is GEJ ?

In our weekly editorial conferences, I find myself once in a while having to make very strong statements on the non-performance of President Goodluck Jonathan and with my CV on the desk some are puzzled as to why such critique should be coming from a fellow South southerner. Well, the fact of the matter is that yours truly is at heart one colour-blind Nigerian who wants the best for all of the citizens of the country no matter whose ox is gored and who, to paraphrase the world-famous Rivonia declaration, believes that Nigeria ‘belongs to and should serve the best interests of all of her peoples who dwell in it.’ For him therefore, the issues are quite clear. It is about whether the incumbent administration understands the meaning of Nigeria, the nation’s historical purpose and its consequential role in it. It is okay for a government to repair roads and pay salaries of its staffers. But in all honesty, every reasonable administration must do those. Dangote Cement does not claim to have grown because it sells a few bags of cement. The managers of Diamond bank do not claim success because they have paid their staff salaries. These are to be expected and there are no plaudits for the normal. What counts for success then would be whether the organisation has formulated and understood its vision and mission and established firm timelines for the achievement of identified and spelt out goals and objectives. And returning to Nigeria, the issue is critically about leadership understanding and actualizing the vision and mission of the nation. For the tribe of micro-politicians straddling our space today, Nigeria is largely a honeypot to be drooled over. That is tragic but it is the crux of the matter. This is because; this is a country that installed modern television before the Western European nations of Spain and Portugal. It is a country that Time magazine had - on account of the achievement of its ‘limited self-government indigenous leaders’ in the years immediately preceding independence in 1960 – confidently affirmed was going to be a world-beater. Alas. It is indeed very painful then that five clear decades after that forecast, we have missed it in every area where it matters even as liliputians today run our lives. Condolences, Okigbo would have written. For a country that called the bluff of the British, Americans, French, Portuguese and Spaniards when they were aiding and abetting the continuing perpetration of colonialism and racial discrimination in parts of Africa in the 1970s, nationalizing their assets and compelling them to draw up expedited timetables for the total decolonization of the continent, it is really very sad that we are today so blest (apologies to Ayi Kwei Armah). To be sure, our current state of visionary statis manifests in different forms. Over 200 Nigerian citizens are abducted and rather than promptly order their rescue, for weeks, taxpayer-funded state institutions and officials fall over themselves to hush up the evidence! Almost a half year after, the girls, parents, community, nation and world lament the saga of the #Chibok girls. The Chinese and Gabonese turn back our players from participating in competitions to which they had been duly invited on grounds of their having been contaminated by a ‘chicken virus’ that the likes of Professor Eni-Njoku of blessed memory would have quickly brought under wraps. To add insult to injury, there is indeed no evidence in the public domain that the ambassadors of the offending nations have been summoned to take protest letters to their home governments or that they have been surcharged for visible and invisible costs incurred in those unfortunate diplomatic spats. And we have leaders! In this season of untoward parodies, can someone please #BringBackMurtalaMuhammed of the ‘Africa has come of age’ fame? We must indeed be so sorely blessed in the leadership arena when high- risk alleged felons find themselves comfortably ensconced in bilateral delegations convened to discuss how to avert even more felonies in the land. It is indeed a sad day for Nigeria in the leadership circuit. Meanwhile there are critical issues begging to be addressed. In 21st century Nigeria, cattle herders and crop farmers clash by the week because no one has the good sense to inaugurate a regime of ranching. Tankers and trucks daily wear out what is left of our roads in addition to engendering more than their fair share of road accidents because the alternative – proper, high speed, standard gauge rail development - is only campaign rhetoric. Citizens without prepaid meters are whimsically and cavalierly (over-) invoiced even by the private buccaneers that have been handed over the power distribution infrastructure. For example, for his private residence (not factory) in rural and sub-urban Ogun State, yours truly got a bill of 16, 000.00 for May, 6, 335.70 for July and N30, 747. 38 for August! With dwindling electricity supply, no prepaid meter supplied - even after he had paid for one four years ago - and no meter reading carried out, the superintending Ikeja DISCO simply assigned him any figures that caught their fancy! Condolences. Leaving aside even issues of grand vision, national purpose and all that, if the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is right in its claim that the security and well-being of the citizenry is the first business of governance then the question has to be asked if the current administration has succeeded in its set goal? That, and not geographical locus, for this writer, is the first basis for scoring a government as having succeeded or not. ii Before the ink dried on the first part of this piece, the big-wigs of the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party, almost to a man, took our discourse a little further. As widely expected, they endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan as their preferred choice to fly the party’s flag in the 2015 polls. Now he has accepted. In the process also, they made this columnist’s task easier. As it is now apparent to all, the current leadership crisis in the land is in a sense therefore bigger than Jonathan. It is the point we tried to make a few weeks ago that it is indeed a bigger PDP crisis. That in the midst of such prevailing social statis and system-wide dislocation, the ruling party is rubberstamping its incumbent points to the fact that 16 years into its holding the baton, the party does not have the answers that, we the people, demand of our leaders at this time in our national life. But does this exculpate the President from personal responsibility in this disappointing saga? Should we just say it is system failure and let him be? Where is the place for individual action, initiative, vision and leadership? Was it not the same Nigerian system that Murtala Muhammed turned around to score very profound goals in the course of his short-lived administration? Was it not the same system that the Buhari-Idiagbon team worked to get some of the results that they secured? Was it also not a system that Gorbachev worked to reform the decadent Soviet system? No sirs, there is a role for President Jonathan to go beyond the ‘chop-make-i-chop’ construct that at the foundation is the soul of the PDP. That he has failed to do so this far makes it even tougher for him even as his party is presently setting him up, as others before him, for the verdict of history. Again, it is fully within the President’s remit to run for a second term as he wishes. But it is also fits within his present job description to patriotically confront the Boko Haram threat without providing any soft landing for some alleged backers of the sect that are his friends. It is equally his brief to run an administration that would not ‘wobble and fumble’ over a simple issue as schools’ resumption dates! It is his remit to not tie the hands of investigators by going to publicly identify with alleged violators of building codes that have resulted in the deaths of scores of innocent people. It is his task to fight corruption, cronyism, and several other challenges in the land that are simply begging for a touch of leadership, real leadership. I take the position I take because the President’s performance on the job has very direct implications on my person and my generations going forward. I am worried for my living, my children and my country. Yes, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has the presidential seat, but to paraphrase the accomplished African American poet-raconteur, Langston Hughes, ‘I too am Nigerian!’ And so, his carrying on with the job and his aspiration for a second term has to take into consideration my own security and right to aspire for a decent living in the land of my birth. This is in addition to the well-being of my children and fellow countrymen. And if we are to take a lesson in politics 101, this precisely is why the Office of President exists! Sadly, the current holder of the office signposted from the beginning that he really did not have a handle on things. But we hoped he would learn and grow up. Properly speaking, he has not. His immediate post-election cabinet composition was not only most awful, but even when vacancies periodically showed up, there was so much dithering over finding and naming replacements and even when they were finally named, it was largely to use a Nigerianspeak,‘the same of the same!’ Requested to publicly declare his assets as a symbolic move that would help ginger the anti-corruption war and stave the very high rate of anticipatory assets declaration by political players who file reports of assets that they intend to acquire while in office as assets they already have at the time of entering office, he dismissed it with a wave of the hand, mumbling obtuse excuses like ‘personal privacy’ and ‘our culture.’ Your Excellency sir, goldfish have no hiding place! And there is more. At the peak of a ravaging Ebola crisis, Mr President approves the summary dismissal of 16, 000 resident doctors! And their crime? They had dared to take part in a strike calling attention to the poor state of the medical system; a system that days ago could not provide succour for my egbon, Dimgba Igwe as good Samaritans battled for four hours to find an ambulance, oxygen mask, a surgeon and a hospital to attend to him. The man died and of course the Presidency has dutifully commiserated with his family! In the midst of a national search for the sponsors of the rampaging Boko Haram sect, former Governor Modu Sherriff Ali, an alleged patron, and one whom the Department of State Security recently affirmed was being investigated, is ensconced cosily in a ‘chance’ diplomatic soiree with the Commander-in-Chief! And more specifically for those of us who hail from the Niger Delta, we have remained baffled by, what the Ijaw Youth Council spokesman, Eric Omare, a few days described as the stark reality that ‘the government and security agencies have not been able to summon the courage and political will to bring oil theft to a stop…The resultant effect of this government’s dereliction of duty and security agencies complicity in oil theft is massive despoliation of the Niger Delta environment. Today the flora and fauna of the Niger-Delta and the people’s source of living are gone.’ It is to this environment that Mr President would ultimately retire. Pity the nation, pity my people. But then I am pragmatic enough to admit that no matter his very glaring inadequacies, this President is very likely to be returned elected in 2015. At that time, we would then have no other option but to live with him in the saddle for another four years and continue to ‘look up to the hills from where our help comes.’ Good morning Nigeria.