Tomato Scarcity As Metaphor

By Reuben Abati

One of the major news items in circulation has been the scarcity of tomato. Incidentally, Nigeria is (was) the 14th largest producer of tomato in the world and the second largest producer in Africa, after Egypt, but our country hardly produces enough to meet the local demand of about 2.3 million tonnes, and lacks the capacity to ensure an effective storage or value chain processing of what is produced. Out of the 1.8 million tonnes that the country produces annually, 900, 000 tonnes are left to rot and waste. Meanwhile, tomato-processing companies in the country operate below capacity and many of them have had to shut down.

(pix:wealthresult)

The CEO of Erisco Foods, Lagos, Eric Umeofia laments that tomato processing companies lack access to foreign exchange to enable them buy heat-resistant seedlings and other tools that would help ensure the country’s sufficiency in local production of tomato paste. Similarly, Dangote Tomato Factory recently suspended operations due to the scarcity of tomatoes and the assault on its tomato farms by a tomato leaves destroying moth, known as “tuta absoluta” – a South American native, also known as the Tomato Ebola, because of its Ebola-like characteristics.

Other reasons have been advanced for the scarcity of tomatoes in our markets: the fuel crisis which has driven up costs making it difficult and expensive for Northern tomato farmers to bring tomatoes to the South, insurgency in the North East which has resulted in the closure of many tomato farms in that region, thus cutting off national output, the recent ethnic crisis in Mile 2, during which Hausa-Fulani traders and other marketers engaged in a murderous brawl, climate-change induced drought and heat wave in the Northern-tomato producing states of Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Plateau, Kano and Gombe. In the best of seasons, Nigeria spends $1.5 billion annually on the importation of tomato products. The cost in this regard, seems certain to rise.

Already, the effect of this tomato blight is being felt in households. Whereas a few months ago, a basket of tomato was about N5, 000, it is now about N40, 000 per basket. Housewives are protesting bitterly about how a piece of tomato vegetable has jumped up by about 650%, such that three pieces now go for as much as N500. Tomato in Nigeria today is thus more expensive than a litre of petrol! I have it on good authority, that in those face-me-I-face-you quarters where the poor live, it has in fact become risky to leave a tin of tomato paste carelessly or fresh tomatoes lying around: they would most certainly be stolen, and there have been reports of soup pots suddenly vanishing should the owner take a minute from the communal kitchen to use the loo. Many are resorting to desperate measures to sort out a growing epidemic of empty stomachs and empty pockets. Unless this matter is addressed seriously and urgently, the social crisis may be far too costly in both the short and the long run: hungry people could become sick and angry, hungry citizens could become thieves and a nuisance, they could also become angry voters and a rebellious populace.

Herdsmen Menace: Gov Fayose Confronts The Monster

By Amanze Obi

It is hardly surprising that the rampage of Fulani herdsmen has continued unabated. This is in spite of the outrage that trailed the organised massacre that they unleashed on Enugu State. The itinerant killers are not yet deterred by anything. When they soaked Enu­gu State with blood, what they got was mere condemnation. No deterrence was placed on their way. That is why the story of their kill­ings has remained unending. They have con­tinued to strike elsewhere in the south and the Middle Belt. So far, Nimbo and Agatu communities in Enugu and Benue states re­spectively have borne the worst brunt of their attacks.

Regardless of the wanton destruction of life and property in Agatu and Nimbo, the Federal Government has not acted in a way that suggests that we have a monster in our hands. The governments of the affected states did not also respond as stridently as ex­pected to the emergencies.

But it is gratifying to note that Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State has departed radi­cally from the complacency that we saw in Enugu State. Just a few days ago, we were told told that the herdsmen struck in Ekiti State, leaving two people dead. Fayose could not accept this. He was appalled by it. He did not just condemn the murder in Ekiti, he also talked tough. Then he followed up the tough talk with concrete action. He has banned cattle grazing on Ekiti soil. He has told the herdsmen to take their cattle elsewhere. They are no longer wanted in Ekiti State. That is the order. That is the situation in Ekiti at moment.

In taking that decision, Fayose was only doing his job. As the chief security officer of his state, the governor has a responsibility to take necessary steps to protect life and prop­erty in his domain. He did not have to wait for the authorities in Abuja who, obviously, are not interested in the murderous activities of the herdsmen.

I consider Fayose’s action very appropri­ate. It is the answer to the impunity and impudence that surround the activities of the herdsmen. It is also gratifying that the governor’s action is enjoying the blessing of Afenifere. By so doing, the region, which has come under attack, has stood up to be count­ed. This is unlike what obtained in Enugu State where neither the state government nor any Igbo group responded stridently or appropriately to the ugly development.

In a harassed and cowed region, such as the south of Nigeria, it can only take a man of un­common courage, such as Fayose to confront this monster of oppression and suppression. To demonstrate that somebody somewhere is enjoying the bad situation, Northern states Governors Forum shocked decent minds with their response to the Enugu killings. While blood was still flowing in Nimbo, the governors had the audacity and temerity to defend the Fulani killers. They berated those, who condemned the action of the Fulani herdsmen. The governors said they were unhappy that the Fulani were being vilified. They warned against further demonisation of the Fulani race. That was impudence walking with a swagger.

One Year After: Where Is the Nigerian Economy Heading?

By Uzoma Ngozi

Nigeria’s overdependence on oil is one reality that President Buhari’s government has to grapple with if it will survive the crash in the global oil prices. The good news is that every challenge posed to this administration is a prospect for them to make a change, just as they promised during the presidential campaign.

However, it seems that this government has no clue on how to fix the economy. The incompetence of Buhari’s economic team is instantly apparent as the economic system is on the verge of collapsing; inflation is on the rise, purchasing power is very low, unemployment is high, the country is in gross darkness and it seems like Nigerians have already lost hope in this government.

The best word to depict an economic system led by Buhari and his team without a pattern is to refer to it as “Buharinomy.” To borrow the words of Prof. Utomi, Buhari is indeed operating an “archaic and medieval kind of economic system.”

Despite the pathetic situation of the economy, his economic team has been mum about the present state of affairs. And instead of the president to accept the responsibility of giving direction to the economy, he keeps blaming the immediate past administration for the present economic woes. He forgets the word of the German author Eckhart Tolle that says, “Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you take.”

There is no basis to compare the Buharinomy and the economy of the past administration because the economic policies of the immediate past administration were direct and had a human face to it.

One technocrat that made a difference in the past administration was the former Minister of Finance and coordinating minister of the economy who helped in charting a cause for the economy. Although the administration had its own challenges, she put policies in place that helped cushion the hardship known to the ordinary man in the country.

Nigeria: Sixteen Minus One

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It is not unusual for the fierceness of the support for the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Party (APC) to find expression in the riposte that the citizens must not expect an automatic realisation of the change the party and its helmsman promised. Their expectations have often been scaled down with the reprimand that if it took the last administration 16 years to liquidate all props for corporate probity and sanity, it smacks of sheer perfidy on the part of the citizens to ask the president and his party to rebuild the nation in just one year.

But this position has turned out as a self-fulfilling prophecy since the Buhari administration is pathetically denuded of the hallmarks of stellar performance as it marks one year on Sunday. No doubt, the promise to fight corruption was irresistible. Let’s get all the money stolen from the national treasury and deploy it in the development of electricity, roads and other infrastructure.  No one really opposed fighting corruption.  Indeed, the citizens thought that fighting corruption was a grand idea and that once this was resolved, the nation would sally forth towards its destined path of greatness.

But a year after, the fight against corruption has been reduced to a part of the nation’s cocktail of chimeras. Forget about the arrests and their razzmatazz  of  media trials. The question the citizens are asking now is, how effective has the anti-corruption campaign been in the past one year? This is simply because the Buhari administration’s  prosecution of  the anti-corruption campaign  has been divorced from  the  rigorous  imagination  that would have earned it more credibility. It is convenient for the Buhari administration to engender an environment in which the focus is only on the members of the opposition whom the anti-graft agencies arrest and ask to refund the money they have stolen. But the inconvenient and a much more credible way to prosecute the anti-corruption campaign on the back of audacious imagination would have been to extend it to both foes and friends. Now, it is the people who ought to be among those being tried who are dictating the terms of the anti-corruption regime.  Let’s strip the argument that we should start from somewhere and use some people as scapegoats of all its sophistry. As long as the anti-corruption campaign has not caught up with all former leaders who made their billions simply on account of occupying public offices, and as long as it is only targeted at the members of the opposition and critics of the policies of the Buhari administration, we cannot regard it as one of the achievements of the past year.

And The Truth Shall Make President Buhari Free

By Reno Omokri

Having worked twice at the Nigerian Presidential villa and once at the British Parliament, if there is anything I have learnt, it is that it is impossible to over inform a leader. You can under inform him, but no matter how much information you give a leader, you cannot give him too much information.

*Buhari 

In today’s world, strength and weakness are gauged differently than they were, say in 1984. In the millennial age in which we live in, information is power and lack of information is weakness. My concern is that there are a lot of weaknesses in Nigeria’s seat of power because not enough information is being given to President Muhammadu Buhari. I, like other Nigerians, have heard or read reports of ministers in President Buhari’s cabinet being afraid to challenge him or disagree with him. Perhaps unawares, the minister of state for petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, corroborated these reports in a recorded YouTube video now circulating where he revealed that the President ignores his ministers when they bring up issues that he does not want to discuss.

Having such anodyne personalities around you just means that you are living in a bubble, seeing things as you want them to be and not as they are. On Friday May 20th, 2016, Dr. Yemi Kale, the Statistician General of the Federation and head of the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics revealed that Nigeria’s economy had not grown in the first quarter of the year but had rather shrunk by 0.36%, the worst contraction in 25 years! Since the announcement was made, there has been various reactions with pundits pointing at this or the other as being the cause of this setback. But I am convinced beyond any reasonable doubts that this negative trend owes more to President Muhammadu Buhari’s utterances on our economy and polity than to any other single causative factor.

 The bigger problem is that even though I suspect that his ministers know that what I have just said is true, they would rather pander to the President and like Dr. Chris Ngige, say that Nigerians are lucky to have President Buhari (obvious Ngige does not know the meaning of luck). In the last eleven months, the President had traversed the globe and has spoken about Nigeria’s economy as if he was the chief undertaker of our polity rather than the chief marketer that he is meant to be. Of what benefit is it to the President’s agenda or to Nigeria’s economic well being for him to go to foreign nations and instead of highlighting the positive things that are happening in Nigeria, he begins to regale his hosts with the most unsavory stories about Nigeria.

 And some of the stories the President tells are just that-tales. They are not factual. At best they are arguable. You go to India for a summit where other world leaders are competing with you for the attention of venture capitalists and foreign investors and while your counterparts are talking about how great their countries are, you tell the audience how everybody in your country is corrupt except you and oh, can they come and invest in your country? Only a foolish investor would go and invest in a country whose President thinks his citizens are ‘criminals’ (as the President said to the Telegraph of UK in February) and whose officials are ‘fantastically corrupt’ (as the President said in agreement with British PM David Cameron when questioned by Sky News). The President speaks on the Nigerian economy and polity without any filters and his comments are causing his chickens to roost with devastating consequences for all of us.

The Travails Of Citizen Chidi Duru

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Let me disclose from the outset that Nze Chidi Duru is my friend.

I met him for the first time sometime in 1999 through a mutual friend who is now late, Tony Anyanwu, who represented my Federal Constituency, Ahiazu-Ezinihitte Mbaise, in the House of Representatives between 1999 and 2003.

Both Chidi and Tony, vibrant young lawyers, had won their elections and were waiting to be inaugurated when Tony and I went to see him in his law office in Lagos.

*Nze Chidi Duru (pix: vanguard)

Upon inauguration in early June 1999, Duru became one of the stars of the National Assembly (NASS) of the Fourth Republic, bringing his erudition and huge intellect to bear on lawmaking.

Such was his contribution that he was appointed chairman of the very powerful and strategic House of Representatives Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation between 1999 and 2003.

So exceptional was he that he was nominated by the British government as one of 14 outstanding leaders in Africa and attended the Africa Future Leadership Pilot Programme in Manchester, United Kingdom.

For a man who believes so much in capacity building and that politicians should have a “second address”, when he left the NASS in 2007, he attended several management courses, including the Chief Executive Programme at the Lagos Business School; Competitive Strategy and Value Creation Course at the University of Navarra, Barcelona, Spain; and the Privatisation, Regulatory Reform, Corporate Governance and Management of Political Economic Reforms at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

He also ran his businesses here in Nigeria.

Until last week, I had not spoken with him for about a year. So, I was alarmed when I read a story online on Wednesday with the headline “Pension Scam: Ex-Rep, Hon. Chidi Duru, goes into hiding as EFCC comes after fraudsters.”

I called him immediately and the story he narrated shocked me.

The whole crisis has to do with the First Guarantee Pension Limited (FGPL) which he founded.

Duru said: “The licence of the First Guarantee Pension Limited was given to me in recognition of the work that one did bringing to fruition the Pension Reform Act of 2004.

“Fola Adeola, who was then the chairman of the Steering Committee of the National Pensions Committee, was so excited and so pleased with the hard work that was done in bringing this into fruition that one was encouraged to consider the possibility of also being a player in the industry.

“I applied and was granted a licence as one of the players in the Pension Fund Adminiatration (PFA) industry and the name of my company then was First Guarantee Pension Limited.

“Eventually, I brought together 37 shareholders to be able to promote First Guarantee Pension as a business.”

Unfortunately, that seems to be his mistake.

eLearning Africa: Impatient Africans “Not Going To Wait Until 2063”

Press Release 

There is a mood of impatience among the ministers, businessmen and education experts attending this year’s eLearning Africa conference in Cairo. Aware of the opportunity offered by information and communication technologies to spread education, training and access to information throughout Africa, many are starting to feel that 2063, the date the African Union has set for the realisation of its vision of a ‘transformed continent’, may be too long to wait. They want Africans, and particularly young people, to feel the benefits, which the combination of technology and education can bring, within the next ten years.

“We are not going to wait until 2063,” Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, H.E. Yasser ElKady, told the conference’s opening session yesterday (Tuesday) evening.

And one of Africa’s leading intellectuals, Professor Ismail Serageldin, the founder and Director of the Bioblioteca Alexandrina, said:

“It’s the dawn of a new age! Let’s embrace it. There is so much we can do for a new generation and for the whole world… We cannot let the gap between us and the advanced nations continue to grow. We must translate rhetoric into action. Rhetoric, declarations, plans and targets are not equal to action.”

Experts at the conference agree that failure to accelerate the pace of change could have devastating consequences for Africa.  

“There is a widespread awareness among educators, politicians and businessmen that we really have to move quickly now,” says Charles Senkondo, Executive Director of Tanzania’s Global Learning Agency. “We’re all aware that Africa is a young continent and that soon the majority of our population will be under the age of 24. We can’t afford to leave the future of 200 million young Africans to chance. Unless we invest heavily in education and training, and ensure that our young people are fully equipped to compete in the digital age, we will store up some very serious social problems for ourselves and our neighbours.”  

 The view was echoed by Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji, founder of RISE Networks and a leading social entrepreneur, who addressed the conference this morning (Wednesday)
.
“56 million Africans aged 15 / 24 haven’t completed primary education…,” she said. “The more uneducated children Africa has, the more prisons we’ll have to build.”

Petrol Price Hike: Buhari’s 1st Year Anniversary Gift To Nigerians

By Ayodele Fayose

Despite his electoral promise to reduce petrol pump price from the N87 per litre that he met it, President Muhammadu Buhari increased the price to N145! With this increment, Buhari has further impoverished Nigerians. Buhari Nigerians should be reminded that on April 14, 2015, President Buhari’s ally and former Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Prof. Tam David-West, told Nigerians that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (who was then President-elect), will reduce the fuel pump price from N87 to N40 per litre. Buhari did not debunk this statement made by his friend and major supporter.

*Gov Fayose 

Also, when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government of Dr Goodluck Jonathan reduced the petrol pump price from N97 to N87 per litre in January 2015, former Lagos State Governor who is now Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola said N10 reduction of the petrol pump price was too low and that Nigerians will get a better deal under Buhari. Fashola tweeted on January 18, 2015; “On PMS price reduction by N10. Now they listen. Oil the raw material drop over 50%, N10 is just about 10%. Good try but Nija can get a beta deal.” In rewarding Nigerians for electing him as president, President Buhari opted to increase petrol pump price by N58.50! The first justification of the increment was removal of subsidy. But Nigerians were later stunned when the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo said pump price of petrol was increased because Nigeria was broke!

In other words, President Buhari increased petrol pump price because the country was broke and it needed to shore up its revenue base. The N58.50 added to the previous pump price of N86.50 was an Indirect Tax imposed on each litre of petrol purchased by Nigerians. Simply put, the Federal Government is indirectly collecting N58.50 naira tax from suffering Nigerians on each litre of petrol they buy. Buhari is no doubt acting like the proverbial Agbalowomeri Baale Jontolo (A king that exploit his extremely poor subject to further enrich himself).

It is on record that on May 2 this year, the federal government, in the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) Template released in Abuja, told Nigerians that it was subsidizing petrol at N12.62 per litre. In 2012, when the Dr Jonathan administration removed fuel subsidy and increased petrol price to N141 per litre, crude oil was selling at $111 per barrel. If not wickedness, how can petrol price be increased to N145 per litre when crude oil is now selling at $49 per barrel? Increasing petrol pump price by N58.50 when the federal government claimed it was subsidising the product at N12.62 per litre is clear wickedness on the part of President Buhari.

Amina, Sambisa And The Parable Of A Wobbly Nigeria

By Okey Ndibe

A peculiarly Nigerian type of frenzy happened last week. The event was triggered by a report that a young woman named Amina Ali Nkeki, one of the more than 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted in the night of April 14, 2014, had been rescued. The initial reports disclosed that a vigilante group rescued Amina last Tuesday, as she wandered along the edges of Sambisa Forest in the company of a man, who claimed to be her husband, but was suspected to be a Boko Haram insurgent, and a four-month baby in her arms.

*Amina Ali Nkeki, rescued Chibok girl
meets President Buhari 

From there, it was brouhaha all the way. Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State feted the 19-year-old mother. Then, a day later, President Muhammadu Buhari welcomed Amina and her baby to Aso Rock, his official residence. The misfortunate woman was cast in a dizzying drama that featured photo-ops, speeches and global media coverage. The president cradled Amina’s baby in his arms, as he and others beamed for the cameras. Speaking on behalf of the Nigerian state, the president promised that Amina would receive the best physical, psychological and emotional healthcare Nigeria can provide.

You’d think, watching all the excitement, that all 219 schoolgirls, not just one, had been spirited from their abductors. But that was the one narrative, thumbed with the imprimatur of the Nigerian state. There was an album of counter-narratives, running the gamut from those who insisted that the whole thing was an abject hoax, a stage-managed political theatre, to those who believe that the abduction saga never happened in the first place.

Last Thursday, two days after Amina’s rescue, the Nigerian military announced a second rescue, of a youngster named Serah Luka. It was as if a slow momentum was building up, Nigeria on the cusp of finding and liberating the 200 odd victims, who are not accounted for.

But the second success story turned out a dud. Chibok parents as well as activists, who pressed former President Goodluck Jonathan – and are pressing Mr. Buhari – to bring back the schoolgirls questioned the military’s claim that Serah was one of the schoolgirls. Neither her name nor image was on the roster of the missing schoolgirls.

Whether it was an honest mistake or a calculated fib, the misidentification of Serah, as one of the Chibok schoolgirls further fueled conspiracy theories. The first and second rescues were seen as politically orchestrated maneuvers, a plot by the Buhari administration and its champions to deflect attention from biting economic crises and deepening social misery.

Some doubters wondered why Amina, who was supposed to be sitting certificate exams at the time of her abduction, was incapable of expressing herself in English. Her apparent incapacity fed speculations that she was chosen and cast in a contrived melodrama.

12 Months Of Buhari Regime: X-Raying The Comedy Of Leadership Inertia

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo

“I am sick and tired of the apologists of the Buhari presidency that keep on asking Nigerians for more time to address the mess which they accuse the PDP of creating. I think, honestly, that this is a lazy man’s excuse. Nigeria’s backlog of problems did not start with the PDP. We must locate the putrid nature of the Nigerian state within its proper context. But even at that, history is generous with the fact that bemoaning the past does not solve the present. I sincerely believe that 12 months are enough for any visionary government to change the direction of Nigeria.” 

*Arthur Nwankwo

In the ancient and sleepy town of Izombe lived a man named Echidime.  Then in his late 70s, Echidime’s compound; dotted by three mud houses arranged in a circular pattern and an obi in the center, had become a pilgrimage ground of sort. On daily basis, pilgrims from within and outside the community trooped to his compound for one form of advice or the other. His wisdom and witty anecdotes were legendary such that Echidime could be likened to a modern day Solomon in the Bible.

On a particular chilly harmattan morning, a middle-aged woman was in Echidime’s obi pouring out her sorrows. Erimma, her 28-years old daughter, had abandoned her matrimonial home and moved into another man’s house. Beautiful, tall and elegant, Erimma had been talked out of her matrimonial home by a man who had promised to turn around her life and take her to the moon. In her husband’s house, she could not boast of riches; she couldn’t do her hair regularly, couldn’t change her wardrobe and do things which her peers married to more affluent men would normally do. But despite these challenges Erimma and her husband got by in the hope that one day things will change for the better.

And now somebody was promising to do all these and more for her. She was not going to let this opportunity pass her by. Her mother’s opinion to the contrary would not stop her. Convinced of the several promises made to her, Erimma abandoned her husband and moved in with this strange man. Six months into this relationship, it dawned on Erimma that she had been fooled; that the bitter kola is not as sweet as its crackling sound in the mouth. She was stock. Erimma’s mother was in Echidime’s house to seek for counsel.

Clearing his throat after the woman’s monologue and lamentations, Echidime looked the grieving woman in the face and simply urged her to go home. “When a woman marries two husbands”, said Echidime, “she will be in a position to know which of the two husbands is better”. Unless a person carries a jar of palm wine, that person may never know the difference in weight with a jar of water.

In Nigeria today, Echidime’s wise counsel is as instructive as it is indicative. Like Erimma, we have been seduced by honey-like promises of the APC; we have abandoned our first love only to realize that we have been duped. Painfully, we are gradually realizing the difference in weight between a gallon of palm wine and a gallon of water.

Precisely, twelve months ago, the APC came to power amid pomp, pageantry and great expectations. Nigerians believed that at last, we have gotten a crop of leaders that would take us to the next level. Nigerians were convinced that a man with the Midas has come to town and that their problems would soon be behind them. Nigerians had every cause to dare hope that their teething challenges would be contained with dispatch- after all had not the APC promised a new dawn. Most Nigerians were happy in the belief that the “messiah” who will take them from the woods to the “promised land” had come. Many also jubilated with the firm belief that the “change” which Buhari and his Party, the APC, promised Nigerians was certainly going to transform the Country.

As a matter of fact, Muhammadu Buhari and APC had made, by the last count, a total of 81 electoral promises in the run in to his presidency. These promises include the public declaration of assets and liabilities by Buhari and his team, introduction of state and community policing, ban on all government officials from seeking medical care abroad, implementation of the National Gender Policy, including 35% of appointive positions for women, revival of Ajaokuta steel company, generation, transmission and distribution of at least 20,000 MW of electricity within four years and increasing to 50,000 MW with a view to achieving 24/7 uninterrupted power supply within 10 years, empowerment scheme to employ 740,000 graduates across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, establishment of a free-tuition and scholarship scheme for pupils who have shown exceptional aptitude in science subjects at O/Levels to study ICT-related courses, creation of 720,000 jobs by the 36 states in the federation yearly (20,000 per state) and additional three million jobs per year, embarking on vocational training, entrepreneurial and skills acquisition schemes for graduates along with the creation of a Small Business Loan Guarantee Scheme to create at least 5 million new jobs by 2019 and that Churches and Mosques would not pay taxes under national laws, but if they engage in businesses, the businesses would pay tax.

Implications Of The Enugu Genocide

By Julius Oweh

The recent unprovoked killings of some people in Enugu State by suspected Fulani herdsmen despite the information given to the police and other security operatives by the state governor is another ugly chapter of the sordid saga of some herdsmen operating under  the veneer of terrorism. The implications are grave for the corporate existence and unity of the nation. It is beyond mere transfer of the state police commissioner. All those in position of authority either by their action or inaction that led to the genocide should be sanctioned with the relevant laws of the land. These brutality, lawlessness and terrorism can no longer be tolerated as the occupational hazards of some pastoralists.

*Enugu State Governor, Mr. Ugwuanyi,
 visiting the scene massacre in Nimbo

This is a trying period for the Buhari administration. A lot of noise is currently polluting the media space whether these terrorists are Fulani or not. The issue is whether they are Isoko herdsmen, Yoruba herdsmen or Ijaw herdsmen, the law should be applied and the government should not give us the faintest impressions that some people are above the law.  The Northern Governors Forum recently issued a statement about the menace of herdsmen and argued that it was an insult to state that the herdsmen are Fulani. They also maintained that they were not comfortable with generalisations of the activities of these herdsmen.

The greater insult is that by that statement, the northern governors are putting the unity and corporate existence of this country under great strain. Criminality should be condemned for what it is and should not be given cover because of ethnic affiliations. This is not the first time the Fulani herdsmen are committing havoc in the nation. They did that in the south west, the killings in Benue State and recently in Delta State that spurred Deltans to protest the activities of these herdsmen in the state. Why are the herdsmen carrying dangerous weapons like AK47? The truth of the matter is that the average Fulani herdsman bearing arms is supported by influential businessman and political elite.

And until these people see the implications of what these messengers of death are doing, we shall continue to witness the murderous activities of these herdsmen in bid to protect their cattle. In their twisted philosophical formulation, their cattle are more important than human lives. A civil war is brewing in the cauldron and this is time for the government to act. I do not want to believe that Buhari is not taking tough action because those involved are his kinsmen. I am also not persuaded by the argument that the Fulani herdsmen are trying to complete the expansionist ambition of Uthman Dan Fodio. Nigeria is rather too advanced for such local imperial ambition.

A Stronger Challenge Than Swatting A Fly

By Chuks Iloegbunam

The fight against insur­gency is not as straight­forward as swatting a fly. In the past week, I have snatched every free time that strayed into my schedules to criti­cally look again at two invaluable books on Nigeria. Professor Ben Nwabueze (SAN), one of Africa’s most renowned constitutional lawyers, authored both. The one book is How President Obasanjo Subverted Nigeria’s Federal Sys­tem; the other is How President Obasanjo Subverted the Rule of Law and Democracy. Gold Press Limited, Ibadan, published the books simultaneously in 2007. These seminal works, each of 22 chapters, pack a combined pagi­nation running to nearly a thou­sand pages. They demonstrate incontrovertibly that Nigeria’s primary political problem issues directly from the bastardization of its Federal constitution.

This indictment appears on the blurb of How President Obasanjo subverted the Rule of Law and Democracy: “This is an account of how President Obasanjo turned Nigeria from a law-governed state, a legal order, bequeathed to us by the British colonialists, into a lawless one; from an organization of power and coercive force limited and regulated by, and to be exercised in accordance with, law into a system of personal rule in which law was replaced more or less by arbitrary whims and personal political interests of one indi­vidual, and in which government actions were determined largely by might, by the application of organized coercive force in the exclusive monopoly of the state, altogether careless of legality.”

Anyone who reads these books will find detailed exam­ples, page after page, of how a man elected to promote the development of his country’s nascent democracy behaved, by words and actions, like a bull in a china shop.

Professor Nwabueze detailed how Obasanjo’s government wantonly bastardized the concept of the separation of powers, how, in illegality, it forced Governors DSP Alamieyeseigha (Bayelsa State), and Rashidi Ladoja (Oyo State) from of­fice; how it illegally impeached Governors Joshua Dariye (Plateau State) and Ayo Fayose (Ekiti State); how that government compromised the judiciary; how it turned the De­partment of State Security (DSS) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) into Leviathans for the annihila­tion of perceived opposition; and how Obasanjo routinely violated Governors’ constitutional im­munity. The books detail count­less other anti-Federal acts and actions perpetrated under Oba­sanjo’s watch.

Two questions arise:

(1) How did Obasanjo literally get away with murder?

(2) Is today’s Nige­ria a regression into a nightmar­ish replication of Obasanjo’s to­talitarianism?

There is for every cause, a con­sequence. During Obasanjo’s despotism, Odi was flattened; Zaki Biam was pulverized. These resulted in the massacres of in­nocent thousands. Of course, the military expeditions were not altogether surprising, com­ing as they did from a man who, as military Head of State, had set up the Ita Oko penal island, where Nigerian citizens were banished into oblivion. Is Nigeria banished now to the avoidable and intractable consequences of despotism, at the hands of someone who, as military Head of State, condemned Nigerian citizens to death on the strength of a retroactive decree? These questions are apposite, given the volatile developments unfolding in the Niger Delta. All kinds of militant groups are emerging or re-emerging, destroying pipe­lines and oil installations. In their first incarnation, President Oba­sanjo failed to halt and reverse their threat and potentiality for knocking the country down to its knees. He thought the problem could be combated and defeated by the brutish application of mili­tary force. He failed woefully. 

The Return Of The Bakassi Boys

By Uche Ezechukwu

The late Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, in one of his indelible songs, allud-ed to Ndigbo and their resilience, thus: “they will never tire from running if their enemies do not tire from pursuing them”. This summarises why the Igbo Nation will never stop improvising to survive and stay ahead of those who they feel, do not wish them well. That is basically the story of the Bakassi Boys, the veritable children of circumstances, which the ebullient governor of Abia State, Dr Victor Okezie Ikpeazu, announced last week, was being re-invented in his state to save the day for his state, the way they did between 1999 and 2001.

Most Nigerians only got to hear of the Bakassi Boys as from the late 2000, when it became a most unorthodox and unusual crime fighting outfit in Anambra State, especially when it became an object of great controversy and jousting between the government of Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju and that of President Olusegun Obasanjo, at the centre. Obasanjo had vowed to uproot the outfit by all means – and in fact did so eventually – after it had completely de-railed in its initial objectives, and had become a Frankenstein monster, which started gobbling the people it had set out to protect. It is significant that Dr Ikpeazu, an ‘Aba boy’, has decided to resurrect the Bakassi Boys, in what he must have seen as a last resort, just in the same way that Aba traders had decided to create the original Bakassi Boys in 1998, when they had been confronted with an unusual level of criminality, and when the constituted authority had pretended an unusual incapacity to act. The governor obviously knows how the Bakassi Boys were founded by shoe makers and other dexterous Aba artisans whose thriving businesses were being laid waste by criminal syndicates of robbers, kidnappers and cultist, broadly described as Maffs, just as the herdsmen are today laying waste the means of livelihood of the rural farmers.

 As it happened in the late 1990s, the SAP economic policy of the Ibrahim Babangida had turned out to be a great blessing in disguise for Igbo business-men and artisans, for whom it offered a wonderful opportunity to dip deep into their homebred talents to innovate and produce. Two groups of businesses – the leather workers and tailors – had benefitted most, as they systematically bettered and perfected their trades and targeted the ex-port market.

 Aba tailors and shoe makers had always been good, but they became even better when greater opportunities beckoned with the export market that existed for them all over Africa, the Middle Belt and Asia. The shoe makers would make good shoes and stamp Made in Italy or Made in Spain on them and offloaded them on Lebanese and other middlemen and women that inundated Aba to evacuate the products. Aba became the veritable Taiwan of Africa, as other Nigerian artisans, who were not doing as well elsewhere, relocated to Aba, in order to enjoy the boom that was taking place.

Many people who resided in Aba did not fully appreciate what was happening around them, as they were not enjoying the enhanced products that were being churned out around them. One young man from my village who had graduated in Biochemistry from UNN had become a tailor in Aba, and had once made a suit, gratis for me, but could no longer have the time to make more for my friends or members of my family, as his time was completely taken up with meeting-up with orders from his outlets in UAE and Europe. 

Buhari And Oil Sector Liberalisation: What Kachikwu Has Not Told Us?

By Ifeanyi Izeze

Whether they called it “subsidy removal,” at first and later “price modulation” and now “downstream liberalisation,” one fact stands out that the announcement by the federal government on the fuel issue represented a form of deregulation of the petroleum products procurement and distribution sub-sector of the nation’s downstream. Most Nigerians as it stands today are seriously praying and hoping that President Muhammadu Buhari and his team will arrive and quickly too at a reasonable strategy to take the nation through the next couple of years and position us for the long term as well. This is our hope and according to the Holy Bible (Romans 5:5), “Hope does not make us ashamed”- we cannot be ashamed of having hope on the abilities of our crop of ‘ogas on top.’ And our prayer is that our president fulfils the hope of his calling by being fruitful in every good work.

It is an understatement to say that there is a lot of confusion that need to be cleared and in plain language too by the government in the announced liberalisation of the petroleum products procurement and distribution sub-sector.

Truly Nigeria is “fantastically wonderful,” if not how do you explain the existing foreign exchange (forex) discrepancies between the Central Bank rate and those of the autonomous or rather black markets? As at today black market foreign exchange rates are well over two times the official rate. The first question is: who supplies forex to the black market operators? Is it possible that someone can smuggle huge amount of dollars into Nigeria without beign detected? It is obvious that those in authority- in government, CBN and the NNPC are the ones releasing forex to their cronies/fronts that operate the black markets. Is this in its self not corruption/fraud at its highest order?

This government that has shown a strong political will to fight corruption should address this foreign exchange discrepancy that is at best sabotaging the genuine efforts to re-jig and strengthen our economy. You expect marketers to source forex at the secondary/ black market and at the same time cap the price they are expected to sell their commodity, is that going to work?

Though it is better to believe it was an oversight, remarkably, the president and the petroleum minister have been mute on the fate of one of the worst epicentres of corruption in the fuel subsidy and price modulation fraud in this country. The Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), a conscription that is as fraudulent as the entire subsidy racket is being completely left out of the present argument by both the government and those against the recently announced deregulation of the downstream.

It is “fantastically corrupt” to be mute on the issue of equalisation as enshrined in the Act that established The Petroleum Equalisation Fund. This Fund was supposed to make sure every Nigerian, no matter where you live, pay the same price for at least petrol and kerosene. And money has been channelled through it all these years to majorly offset haulage costs to different parts of the country. Unfortunately, the haulage cartel is as corrupt, mindless, and selfish as the fake fuel importers themselves. But for whatever reasons, their fraud and activities had been deliberately played down by both government and anti-subsidy campaigners.

Has the obnoxious payment of the “Bridging Cost”, also been scrapped by the federal government as part of the recently announced deregulation/subsidy removal and cost saving initiative?

Buhari’s Archaic Approach To Niger Delta Problems

By Ochereome Nnanna

 Two Nigerians from Katsina State have been Presidents of Nigeria in the past ten years. The first was Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who assumed power on May 29th 2007. He was an academic from a Fulani elite family. The core of his government comprised mainly Northerners because unlike his late elder brother, Major General Shehu Yar’Adua, he never really had much opportunity to interact with the wider Nigerian society before he joined politics. He was imposed as President on the nation by – you know who – former President Olusegun Obasanjo, his immediate predecessor in those days when the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) did just as it liked without any challenge from any quarters.

*Buhari 

Having finished his eight years as the Governor of Katsina State, Yar’Adua had wanted to go back to the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, teach Chemistry pro bono and look after his failing health. Next, Obasanjo went to the creeks of the Niger Delta and dragged in another gentleman who had already won the PDP ticket for Governor of Bayelsa State, Dr. Goodluck Ebele “Azikiwe” Jonathan. I remember that day in November 2006 when Obasanjo paraded Yar’Adua and Jonathan on television as the Police usually parade crime suspects. Jonathan in particular looked like a school boy on a forced errand.

The president-to-be never knew his Vice-president-to-be apart from the fact that they sometimes met as governors. When eventually they were elected into office, the militancy in the Niger Delta was at its peak. Many analysts had argued that Obasanjo was forced to bring Jonathan into the presidential pairing as a peace offering to the Ijaw militants and their loud and troublesome “father”, Chief Edwin Clark, in place of the more fancied and popular Dr. Peter Odili, the Rivers State governor. That Obasanjo bowed to the Clark/Ijaw faction of the South-South People’s Assembly (SSPA) rather than the more broad-based pro-Odili faction led by Ambassador Matthew Mbu/Raymond Dokpesi, was seen as an application of common sense. Obasanjo must have realised that ignoring the demands of Clark and his Ijaw militant tribesmen would keep the economic livewire of the nation in the Niger Delta at great risk.

The disruptions would never stop, and the economy would continue to suffer. When Yar’Adua assumed power, he came under pressure by hawks from his native Northern Nigeria to “crush” the Niger Delta militants. He actually mobilised the Nigerian troops towards that effect, but as an intelligent, wise and commonsensical leader he also listened to the argument of Niger Delta campaigners who were very rampant in the media, especially television. These included Dr. Chris Ekiyor; my sister, Ann Kio Briggs, Dr. Oronto Douglas, Comrade Joseph Evah, Dr. Ledum Mitee, Dokubo Asari and a host of others.

Most of them advised that rather than launching a full-scale military campaign to “crush” the militants as the Federal Government had already started doing when it attacked Gbaramatu Kingdom in Delta State in search of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) leader, Government Ekpemupolo (alias Tompolo), an offer of amnesty for voluntary disarmament of the militants should first be tried. Yar’ Adua sent his Vice President, Jonathan, to the creeks to discuss with his kinsmen. Eventually, by August 2009, the militants accepted the offer of amnesty and surrendered their arms. Thus, began the post-amnesty programmes, which saw the “repentant” militants being given education and training on various trades in Nigeria and abroad. The big boys or “ex-generals” got hefty contracts and became visible and loud in Abuja hotels and the Aso Villa, especially during the reign of Jonathan as President. In fact, the biggest ex-militant, Tompolo, was awarded multi-billion naira contracts to safeguard the network of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta and he also became a major player in the maritime industry. There was absolute quiet in the Niger Delta.