Showing posts with label Chad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chad. Show all posts

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Nigeria: At Once Poor, Proud And Profligate

By Bayo Sodade  
Nigeria parades a plethora of unflattering socioeconomic indices. With a poverty head count of 53.9%, the population of the poor in Nigeria of about 100 million is more than the whole population of Egypt(93m), United Kingdom (65m), France (64m) , Turkey (79m), Democratic Republic of Congo(79m) among others. Nigeria’s Human Development Index value for 2015 of 0.514 is below the average for sub-Saharan Africa, putting the country in the low human development category, positioning it at 152 out of 188 countries and territories under the UNDP ranking.

Nigeria’s life expectancy at birth of 52.8 years is among the worst in the world compared to 60.6 years average for other low HDI countries and 64.1 years for Ethiopia and 58.7 years for Democratic Republic of Congo. The World Economic Forum uses Human Capital Report to rank countries on how well they are deploying their peoples’ talents. The index takes a life-course approach to human capital, evaluating the levels of education, skills and employment. The 2016 Human Capital Report ranked Nigeria 127 out of 130 countries, the worst country in Africa except for Chad and Mauritania.
Juxtaposed with these bleak statistics is monumental profligacy enshrined in our ethos and manifesting in the debasement and perversion of our cultural values. We habitually squander scarce resources on our routine household and business tasks, on parties and celebrations.
According to experts, for every one million population 1000 megawatts of electricity is required to satisfy every need. With a population of about 180 million, Nigeria’s optimum power requirement is about 180,000MW compared to more than 50,000MW that South Africa, with a population of 53 million, generates and distributes. Ironically, enormous amount of the grossly inadequate energy is being wasted. A study carried out by Lagos State revealed that 4,358Kwh of electricity is wasted annually. By switching to energy saving bulbs only, N12.7 billion could be saved in Lagos State alone. Only 1% of Lagosians practise energy conservation leaving the planet groaning with 9.5 billion pounds of carbon footprints per annum.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Buhari, El-Rufai: From Democracy To Guncracy?

By Paul Onomuakpokpo
No one can easily impugn the sense in making democracy to be responsive to the special needs of the milieu in which it is practised. But such domestication retains its validity to the extent that the objective is to serve the people. We need not split hairs in so far as the reformulation of the concept of democracy is not a precursor to an accommodation of the crude cravings of some benighted leaders. What must, however, trigger vigilance is an attempt to tinker with an essential principle of the democracy – periodic elections.

*Pres Buhari and Nasir el-Rufai
For here in Africa, we are not unfamiliar with the truncation of democracy through such tinkering. From ZimbabweEquatorial GuineaAngolaAlgeriaChadCongoSudan, to Burundi, there are relics of democracies that held so much promise when they began but were later truncated through the greed of their leaders that made them to choose to perpetuate themselves.

Back home in Nigeria, democracy has been subjected to serial betrayals by the nation’s leaders. Either they are failing to make the people choose those they want to serve them or they are reworking democracy to be amenable to their quest for self-perpetuation through a third term. It is in this regard that we must take note of the contemporary reformulation of democracy by President Muhammadu Buhari and Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State

Yes, they are not yet afflicted with the incubus of self-perpetuation like the Robert Mugabes of Africa. Yet, they have demonstrated a tragic propensity to rework democracy to serve not the people’s interest but their own. What the duo have brought to the table of democracy is neither a celebration of the rule of the majority nor a clarion call for adherence to the rule of law and equality of all. It is rather the reformulation of democracy in such a way that it derives its legitimacy from the barrel of the gun.
Clearly, Buhari and El-Rufai got to their offices on the back of elections that they won. But if they got to offices through elections by the majority, they are not now being sustained in those offices by amenability to the wishes of the majority. What is obvious now is that Buhari and El-Rufai are now beholden to a travestied version of democracy that could be identified as guncracy – a process of legitimising democracy through guns. In no way are guns metaphorical here. For even in unlawful incarceration as in the cases of a former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, whom courts have asked for his freedom many times and the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu, the guns of the state security operatives were used to shove them into prison having been branded as implacable threats to the state.
Buhari has long embraced guncracy. He has demonstrated this in the South South and South East. In the South South, Buhari has deployed soldiers. They are on the prowl and under the guise of searching for militants and safeguarding oil facilities, they are destroying property and killing innocent people. And in the South East, Buhari has deployed soldiers under the portentous rubric of Operation Python Dance. This was shortly after the Amnesty International indicted the military for killing and maiming innocent citizens in that part of the country.

Monday, May 30, 2016

How To Defeat Boko Haram

By Philip Hammond
I was delighted to visit Nigeria again, the second time in under a year, to meet with President Buhari and attend the second Regional Security Summit. Combating violent extremism is a global chal­lenge, which has affected many of our countries in Europe, just as you are tackling it here in Nigeria. That is why I welcomed President Buhari’s call to hold this important summit.
The UK and Nigeria have a strong and long-standing relationship. President Buhari’s recent visit to the UK for London’s Anti-Corruption Summit underlines the importance of our partner­ship. The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with Ni­geria as it tackles corruption, something President Buhari himself has said has become a ‘way of life’.
During my visit, I was struck by how much progress had been made on President Buhari’s manifesto since I was last here for the President’s inauguration. In particular, significant improve­ments in security stood out.
Over the last 12 months, action by Nigeria and its neighbours, with the support of friends in the international community, has greatly diminished Boko Haram. We have reduced their strength and the territory they control. I congratulate President Buhari and other leaders in the region on this prog­ress.