Fuel Price Hike: Few Preliminary Thoughts

By Moses Ochonu

The astronomical hike in the price of petrol announced in Nigeria yesterday has nothing to do with the "cost of production" argument we have become accustomed to hearing. Yes, there is some cost involved in refining the crude abroad and transporting it to Nigeria, but with crude being so cheap, the previous price of 86 Naira a liter had already accounted for all the cost, give and take a few naira.

With the price of crude inching up slightly in the last few weeks, it should add no more than a few naira to the price if indeed we want to let market fluctuations modulate the pump price. This increase has everything to do with government's last ditch effort to end the scarcity, which is caused by the inability of fuel importers to secure foreign exchange, a problem which was in turn caused by the government's rigid restrictions on access to forex.

It was unrealistic to expect fuel importers without access to forex at the official rate to continue to import fuel with forex sourced from the parallel market ($1=N320) and then sell the same fuel at N86. They would have lost money. It was a disincentive to fuel importation business and many importers simply stopped importing, especially since the government announced sometime in February or March that it would no longer pay subsidy, i.e the difference between the total cost of importing fuel plus a small profit margin and the pump price. Now, with the deregulated regime, fuel importers can source forex from the parallel market, import fuel, and sell at a price that would allow them to recoup their cost and make a small margin.

In other words, the government created a problem of restricting forex, which caused many fuel importers to quit the business, and the same government is now deregulating the sector fully so that it does not have to

(1)           pay subsidy, and

(2)         subsidize forex for fuel importers.

Buhari: Who Is Sabotaging The Sheriff?

By Abiodun Komolafe

Bonnie Honig, political theorist and author of 'Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy' wrote: "Democracies must resist emergency's pull to focus on life's necessities (food, security, and bare essentials)" as they "tend to privatize and isolate citizens rather than bring us together on behalf of hopeful futures."  Emphasizing the connections between contemporary food politics and the infrastructure of consumption, among others, Honig argued that though  "good citizens with aspirational ideals"   are needed to make good politics, infusion of citizens with idealism is also a product of good politics.

*Buhari 

Nigeria's 2016 budget impasse, which has not only left the political actors in mirthful mistrust of one another but has also reduced the electorate to mere spectators, watching in utter bewilderment, refers!

All things considered, our major priority beyond the billions of naira  approved for various portions of the budget is how the contents of this working document will in the end be utilized in a way as to  mitigate the sufferings of a vast majority of Nigerians who had, with the commencement  of this administration, expected programme redirection and policy implementation that would vigorously improve  their  standard of living.  As things stand, Nigerians are no longer interested in moonlight  tales on the  impunity that took the better part of our immediate past or the flourish of trumpets that heralded Muhammadu Buhari into office as president. After all, Nigerians were not unconscious  of what the future under the now-expired Goodluck Jonathan administration possibly portended before they decided to speak with their thumbs a year ago.

Archbishop Adewale Martins beautifully summed up the mood of the moment when he noted: “There is too much despondency, poverty and suffering in the land, and if care is not taken to remedy the situation, the people will one day stand up and revolt because their expectations from the government have  not been met."  Needless to repeat that Nigeria currently suffers from dwindling resources in the face of unshrinking responsibilities,   a huge corruption scandal and  an opportunistically overstretched  texture of Nigeria's politics. Gold diggers  and fortune seekers are at work and a resource-rich nation like Nigeria is  now an island of violence in a sea of poverty and squalor.  Civil servants are frustratingly panting  under the pangs of unpaid salaries and power  has become so epileptic that, at  a point in our recent history, generation  reportedly accessed Ground Zero. No thanks to a national crisis orchestrated by Jonathan's  inability to picture into the future!

Nigerians:Docile Or Resilient?

By Emma Jimo

Nigeria is possibly the country with the greatest appellations and accolades in the world. Nigeria is called the giant of Africa, the world’s most populous Black nation, the nation with the highest number of malaria victims , etc. What about Nigerians? Some people have their own way of describing certain other persons. One of the most recent ones I have heard is the expression that ‘Nigerians are docile’!

(pix: abusidiqu)

 I think this is highly debatable, not to say annoyingly nauseating. An expression of this magnitude of indictment has its root in the perception that Nigerians remain calm often in the face of clear case of misrule  or uncomfortable policy or some other unprintable happenings. Against this backdrop, it pays to peep into semantics and epistemology. Semantically, to be docile is to be ‘quiet, not aggressive and easily controlled’. This is certainly helpful to arrive at my own viewpoint that Nigerians are resilient father than docile.

A writer Thomas Carlyle defines  genius as the infinite capacity for taking pains; that is, limitless ability for perseverance and capacity for endurance. I think seriously that tolerance, seemingly limitless capacity of Nigerians to endure pains and yet remaining hopeful against all clear signs of lack of hope in sight, all things being (un)equal are marks of ingenuity rather than docility. Since it is the relationship between the governed and the government that generated the assertion about docility, a politics – based example should not be out of place or off-tune here.

Since Nigerian political independence in 1960, governance or rulership has oscillated between military and civil rules sharing almost equal number of years until 1999 when a 16–year-at-a-stretch civil rule began. In Nigeria’s political history, no government, whether loved or hated, military or civil, imposed or voted legitimately has spent more than nine  years,  being also the maximum spent by the General Yakubu Gowon-led administration, by far the most economically comfortable, though arguably.

At least, the civil servants who got Udoji award would think about economic buoyancy even if academics would consider the same event as an (un)economically misdirected prodigality. Anyone who has got his ears close to the political realm should have heard, seen or read how in spite of nationally-acclaimed dribbling skills of a military ruler was fought to a stands till by a combined civil forces ofthe then very virile Nigerian Labour Congress and the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) with patriotic collaboration of the press, including the defunct clandestine and nocturnal Kudirat Radio, among others.

Corruption In Nigeria: Transparency International Replies British PM

Transparency International responds to Cameron comments regarding Nigeria, Afghanistan and UK Summit 

British PM Cameron and President Buhari 

Responding to the recent comments by David Cameron [in which he described Nigeria as a "fantastically corrupt" country], Cobus de Swardt, Managing Director of Transparency International said:

“There is no doubt that historically, Nigeria and Afghanistan have had very high levels of corruption, and that continues to this day.  But the leaders of those countries have sent strong signals that they want things to change, and the London Anti-Corruption Summit creates an opportunity for all the countries present to sign up to a new era.  This affects the UK as much as other countries: we should not forget that by providing a safe haven for corrupt assets, the UK and its Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies are a big part of the world’s corruption problem.”

Press contact(s):

Chris Sanders 
T: +49 30 34 38 20 666 
E: press@transparency.org

Watch the British PM make his remarks about Nigeria 

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari, has said that he was "deeply shocked and embarrassed" by Mr. Cameron's remarks. In Statement issued in Abuja and signed by presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, Buhari said Cameron's statement “is certainly not reflective of the good work that the president is doing. The eyes of the world are on what is happening here.

“The Prime Minister must be looking at an old snapshot of Nigeria. Things are changing with corruption and everything else.
“That, we believe is the reason they chose him as a keynote speaker at the pre-summit conference.”

Since coming into office, the Buhari regime has arrested and arraigned several high-ranking members of the opposition party, the PDP, in a high-profile anti-corruption campaign that has been widely applauded. 

Some observers, however, think the anti-graft effort has been more successful in the media than in courtrooms. Although, virtually all the accused persons have been tried and sentenced on the pages of the newspapers, not a single one has been subjected to a successful trial in an open court.  

Fingers have also been pointed at several top members of the ruling party who have been accused of large-scale corruption, some of which are serving in Buhari's government. None of the has been invited by the relevant agencies or arraigned in court to establish their innocence. This had led many critics to conclude that the anti-corruption war may just be another political strategy for demarketing the opposition to the the advantage of the ruling APC in future elections.  

Too Much Tolerance For Child Rapists

By Olubusola Ajibola

The other day, I watched an interview granted a four-year-old rape survivor. Narrating how ‘Uncle Elias’, her school proprietor continuously defiled her, the girl said: “He wide (sic) my leg, cover my mouth, tell me to shut up….he will lap me, sit down on the chair and be doing me.” As a result, her mother confirms she suffers grave injuries around her private part. These past few years, I have experienced serious disturbance over alarming reports of cases of rape and child defilements. But our laid-back approach in handling the cases dazes me more. I don’t regard cases of child defilement as rape. I believe it is worse. An adult can expressly deny consent. An adult can put up a fight, and might succeed in escaping. But a child is helpless. A child does not understand consent, cannot give, or deny it.

As a people, how have we been able to condone this evildoing? Could it be that we are more tolerant of child-rapists? We adopt religion and culture as modes of validating the defilement of the girl-child. We ignore their silent screams. Why do we protect these monsters in our space? Why is it impossible to end such occurrence? Why can we not make those guilty of these crimes ‘pay severely’?

Marta Pais, a United Nations envoy in an interview granted in The Guardian on March 20, 2016, puts the statistics of Nigerian children who experience different forms of sexual abuse at 25%. That figure should be higher, given the numbers of cases that go unreported. In 2015, the Executive Director of Project Alert, a Non-Governmental Organisation based in Lagos insisted that 70% of cases of rape reported have children between the ages of 0-months to 17 years as victims. A glimpse at few news headlines between last December and now corroborates these statistics.

Late December 2015, the internet awash with a video posted by the Dorothy Njemarze Foundation of a three-year-old recounting how her 30-year old uncle defiled her.  In 2015, a UNICEF report states that the number of Child Brides in Africa will rise to 310 million in the next 35 years. Many of those girls, the report concludes, are in Nigeria.

Under Section 2-4 of the Sexual Offence Bill, the penalty for defiling a child between the ages of 0-month and 18 years is life imprisonment.  Under section 31(1) and (2) of the Child’s Right Act, the punishment for defiling and raping a child is life imprisonment. These laws are even yet to be fully domesticated in all the 36 states of the country. There are several other international treaties to which Nigeria is a signatory, yet at the point of implementation, the laws are reduced to fantasies. Why?

Is South East Still In PDP?

Oguwike Nwachuku

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), once a political behemoth that loomed large in Nigeria which boasted as the largest party in Africa – but now in the opposition – is at it again.
It is working to recover from what hit it in last year’s presidential election when, surprisingly, it succumbed to the All Progressives Congress (APC), which is now in the national leadership saddle, basking in the euphoria of change.
Last week, it released its new zoning arrangement ahead of the 2019 presidential election which its leaders have bragged they will win with ease.

It appears the PDP is yet to learn from its mistakes and from its new zoning formula, another fresh seed of crisis has been deliberately sowed or about to be sowed. And that is the thrust of my argument today.

Those who analysed the exchanges between Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and a chieftain of the PDP, Olabode George, on Politics Today on Channels Television last week will easily conclude that the PDP is still far from being cured of the disease that befell it in the build up to the 2015 general election.
The disease that afflicted the PDP in the past? Selfishness. Greed (Avarice). Inordinate ambition. Hatred. Ethnic and tribal bigotry. Godfatherism. Politics of imposition.
These and others were the problems the APC saw as a window of opportunity and leveraged on to sell the dummy of change to Nigerians.

It is said that a man who does not know when rain started to drench him may not know when it will stop.
Most PDP watchers are looking forward to the so-called zoning arrangement and by extension, the party’s ward, council and state congresses to see if what the leaders are saying about their preparedness to return to power is real or a fluke.
Feelers from across the nation on its recent congresses are hardly encouraging. The stories we hear are not different from the ones we used to hear before which are reminiscent of the characters that most PDP leaders exhibit during election.

Enugu Killings: Matters Arising

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

There seems to be some quiet in the South East after the national uproar that greeted the massacring of over 50 indigenes of Ukpabi Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State by Fulani herdsmen.
A lot of steps in the right direction also seem to have been taken since then.

*President Buhari and Gov Ugwuanyi

Enugu State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, who was summoned to Abuja by President Muhammadu Buhari, has since returned to address the highly traumatised people, indicting the security agencies for ignoring security report that an attack on the community was imminent.

He has constituted a judicial commission of inquiry “to investigate the immediate and remote causes of all the violent occurrences in the state associated with Fulani herdsmen and recommend appropriate measures that will be put in place to prevent future occurrence.”
Traditional rulers and town union leaders from over 400 communities also met with Ugwuanyi and resolved to reactivate vigilante groups in all communities.

To underscore the importance of this initiative, Ugwuanyi pledged to provide an initial seed money of N100 million to support the security efforts.

The meeting urged him to prevail on the state House of Assembly to amend the law establishing vigilante groups to strengthen them and possibly enable them bear arms, while the communities were mandated to pay security levies as counterpart funding.

But there are also some missteps.

Matters Arising From Herdsmen’s Attack In Enugu

By Samson Ezea  

The recent fatal herdsmen’s attacks on the Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Council Area of Enugu State has once more brought to the fore the urgent need for a permanent solution to the recurring menace of herdsmen/host communities clashes across the country. Obviously, the clashes have assumed a more sinister dimension in recent times. Not helping matters in forestalling, precluding or quelling these clashes are the various security agencies that have always appeared unprepared, incapacitated or compromised in dealing with the situation as appropriate.

Unlike some attacks across the country where security agencies were taken unawares, that of Nimbo calls for introspection, investigation, punitive measures, and outright overhauling of the security agencies in the State for better performance. There is no doubt that the attack has raised more questions than answers, following the events that preceded the attack, explanations of the Enugu State governor, Chief Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and the roles of the security chiefs in the saga.

While governor Ugwuanyi’s efforts and quick intervention as the Chief Security Officer of the State to prevent the attack is quite commendable, the role of the security chiefs in the saga is questionable, conspiratorial, shocking, and disturbing. Is it not obvious that if governor Ugwuanyi had not summoned the emergency security meeting and indigenes of Nimbo got hint of the impending attack and moved out, the killings would have been more disastrous? Quite surprising is the fact that none of the state security chiefs has refuted or countered governor Ugwuanyi’s explanations since then. There is every need for them to quickly explain to Nigerians why they decided to act otherwise after the meeting with the governor prior to the attack. This is despite the fact that the governor provided them with the intelligence report and other logistics required of them to carry out their duties. The State security chiefs’ studied silence signifies their admittance of failure to carry out their constitutional responsibilities of securing lives and property.

Fulani Herdsmen: Our Partners Our Enemies?

By Mike O. Akpati
The loud silence over the activities of the Fulani herdsmen has reached high heavens now. Tears are flowing from all ends and the heartless herdsmen I heard were boasting the other day that nobody can dare them as they have absolute right to tread and trample on our soil, destroy our crops planted with hard earned loans or direct labour and we can do nothing.

Today, the only unifying theme from all corners of the country is the needless cry for the loss of a father, mother, brother, sister, nice, nephew friends’ well-wishers. In some cases children have been rendered orphans and homeless in a twinkle of an eye.

The other day, I thought aloud about the whole menace and was prompted to ask one question. Who is that successful business man who in his quest to increase his profit goes ahead to rob his customer of his wealth then kill him, yet expects that the victim’s relations would patronize him?

Ohaneze Ndigbo captured it vividly when they said:

“… Our people were killed for cows;
…We are not at war yet they treat us like this in our own country, and our own land!

“… It also baffles us that the herdsmen are allowed to bear prohibited sophisticated firearms, and are NEVER arrested, while for other Nigerians it is against the law….

‘‘…It is high time people are encouraged to defend themselves, ‘first’ before placing reliance on any other person; and should articulate themselves to wade –off any invader in future;

“… That we cannot morn our kits and kin, and the hostility against us in our land by the continuous patronage of our assailants; hence ALL FAMILIES IN IGBO LAND SHOULD DE-LIST BEAF FROM THEIR MENU

“… There shall be no more use of Fulani Cows for any ceremony like Burials, Funerals, Weddings, Marriages, and Thanksgiving Celebrations etc…

“… He who kills his customers, will no longer expect patronage, as he has killed his market...”

Come to think of it how come we buy their Onion, Potatoes, yam, Tomatoes, and many more from their unharrassed land in the north as their farm yield, then they come with their cattle to our land destroy our crops, put us in debt, kill our kits and kin and finally sell their same cows to us for slaughter at the burial of their victims? It does not make any sense! The madness must stop.

Again I hear that the president has given matching order to the security operatives in the country to fish out any or every of the culprits involved the Enugu, Agatu and other similar killings. I am certain that this is even a tall order because evidence abound that no record of arrests and proper prosecution exists to date hence the impunity.

It is simply an insult to my sense of being that I continue to patronize my enemy. It does not make any common sense that in consideration of the comparative advantage in business, we buy their produce and finally cow meat from our northern trade partner. They transport these products to all the markets in the South and rear their cows uninhibited, and never molested and then they take their profit home.

We grow our Cassava, Yam, Okra, Melon, Vegetables and fruits etc which we ought to earn our profit from. But our supposed partners in trade send their cows to ravage our crops, impoverish us and reduce us to debtors, and when we ask why we are raided and killed at night while in our sleep! We are then expected to buy their cows from the killer for the burial ceremony of his victim! It does not add up. I will not do that.

Personally, like the Ohaneze Ndigbo, I have taken my stand, I do not know about you. Cow Beef will exit my meat effective immediately to avenge the death of my cousin a permanent secretary in Delta state who was needlessly killed by Herdsmen at Ogume in 2012. You may not join me in this. But there is penalty for both of us. If you do not join me now, I will not be at the burial to mourn with you because you are an associate killer of your friends and relations by encouraging the sales and rearing of cows in Delta State.

It is high time government takes the citizenry seriously in matters of great concern. If the cattle herdsmen are free to not only carry and shoot indiscriminately without sanction, I have every right to defend my territory by any means possible.

Today’s VANGUARD May 5, 2016, states in its front page that: “Spurred by the divergent comments trailing the Fulani herdsmen attacks in communities across Nigeria, senators from the North, under the aegis of Northern Sentor’s yesterday warned governors, leaders and community heads in the country to desist from making inflammatory statements that could further overheat the polity… they also warned that there would be no Nigeria, if other parts of the country asked Fulani herdsmen to leave their communities and states…”

It is absurd that at this point in time, rather than thinker what mode of appeasement would be appropriate for the affected states and communities, these thoughtless senator are deploying threats! It is a shame!

*Mike O. Akpati is a commentator on public issues 

Herdsmen Killings as Anti-Buhari

By Ikeogu Oke

There is a sense in which the murderous rampage of the so-called Fulani herdsmen and the other recent killings in our country – particularly of the members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement and the Shiite Muslims – can be said to be anti-Buhari.

*Buhari 

I have to point this out because in a country where self-interest seems to trump everything else, especially in leadership, it may be an effective way to get President Muhammadu Buhari to use every means available to him to arrest this murderous march of anarchy being viewed by some as a devious manifestation of the 2015 post-election triumphalism of his Fulani people, and its nationwide and decidedly southward spread that threatens our very existence as a nation. For we are witnessing a pattern of seemingly well-orchestrated violence whose legacy of death and hate may likely pit the South of the country against the North, with predictable consequences for our nation’s peace, unity and stability should it be allowed to fester any longer.

In the unlikely case that President Buhari’s initial reticence about the carnage is the result of his having asked himself, “What’s in stopping it for me?” and having not seen what, drawing his attention to how stopping it might benefit him personally may prove advantageous to the effort to end the menace, with he leading the charge as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces and the person ultimately responsible for securing our country and the lives and property of its citizens from being destroyed by the herdsmen.

Now, as an agent of change, Buhari promised to put a stop to the reign of impunity in the land, with emphasis, it would seem, on the way some of our public office holders allegedly helped themselves to the contents of the public till, looting it without facing sanction and without consideration for our country’s future.

Enugu Killings 4th Dimension

By Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba

The killings in Enugu is a done deal but should be made to be the turning point of Boko Haram’s southward incursions. Let history understand that the point where the dead martyrs of Enugu were buried was the furthest and the last stop of the terrorists. That here was where we stood and declared that we will not take any more nonsense.

Here’s how:

1.      Burials of the dead: Let’s bury the dead one at a time and make each burial as gruesome and emotional as possible. The dead should be carried around the entire LGA with processions led by bishops, Catholic and Protestants and MASSOB and Kanu’s IPOD providing security. Let’s ask the police and security men who could not protect the dead when they were alive to stop protecting them when they are about to be buried. During the services let the bishops call for Holy Ghost fire to be returned to sender. Give MASSOB leaders a chance to make incendiary speeches if the collar on the bishop’s necks stop them from telling the truth as it is.

2.    Show of anger: Invite all the governors of all Southern States and NC State who have suffered from the terrorist’s actions and give them a chance to represent the feelings and anger of their people. This would show the leaders of Boko Haram that there is a united front before them and that the front means business. It will also awaken the sleeping president from his slumber.

3.    Talk back to the Northern Governor’s Council: Governor Ugwuanyi should summon his colleagues to a SE Governor’s council. They should repudiate the statement from the Northern Governor’s Council suggesting that the use of the word CRIMINAL in association with the killings south of Jos be banned. The events were criminal for if the killers are ever caught they would be charged with criminal offenses. What the Northern Governors said was an insult on the victims and extremely insensitive.

4.    Make Laws Controlling the movement of herds: Governor Ugwuanyi should summon his legislature and send them a bill outlawing the movement of herds by any means other than trucks and trains in the state. Each southern governor would send such a bill to their own legislators. This cooperative agenda would send signals that leaderships of the south are poised to lead and would make the sleeping Abuja leaders wake up of be woken up.

Our Northern ‘Naughty’ Governors

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Since independence on October 1st 1960, one question that has continued to be asked without appropriate response is: why is Nigeria so cursed with poor leadership? Another corollary to this interrogatory is: What is the leadership recruitment process in Nigeria? These key questions are germane and hold the magic wand to the bigger question of why Nigeria is in rapid decline from all indexes of human development.

(pix: thesheet)

To go straight to providing answers to the above interrogatories, the beginning point is to take a cursory look at the work of the renowned writer Professor Chinua Achebe of blessed memory which he titled- “The Trouble with Nigeria”: Professor Achebe summed up the trouble with Nigeria as that of poor leadership. Professor Achebe quickly added that poor followership is also a major issue. I agree.

Nigeria indeed has a warped leadership recruitment process which emphasizes the role of political godfathers and the role of illicit money which are the combined factors that have consistently determined much of the political leadership of Nigeria since the last half a century.
The consequence of this distorted and crime infested leadership recruitment process is the near- state of collapse that Nigeria faces.

Corruption, ineptitude, indiscipline and above all impunity are some of the cocktails of this poor leadership system that Nigeria is contending with.

Because of the urgent need to salvage Nigeria from impending implosion and collapse, a number of patriotic but scholarly minds have often intervened intellectually by proffering pragmatic panaceas to this debilitating virus of poor and naughty political leadership in Nigeria.

Govt, Labour And Minimum Wage

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

If workers under the aegis of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) insist on their demand that they be paid a N56,000 minimum wage, they would set our political leaders on the path of thinking creatively about how to govern effectively. For what exists now is a situation where our leaders shield themselves against excoriation for their failure by directing the citizens to excuses that trigger their poor performance despite their genuine efforts to engender good governance.

Their major excuse now is that the nation is reeling under an economic crisis that defies an easy solution in so far as the price of crude oil has hit hard times globally.

Bent on shirking their responsibilities, our government whether at the federal or state levels apparently expects the citizens to banish the thought of their welfare being improved. Now, government officials inundate the citizens with requests to make sacrifices. They remind the citizens that they themselves are making sacrifices as they have reduced their legitimate pecuniary entitlements.

But like other citizens, the Nigerian workers are by no means deceived. For the political leaders cannot effectively persuade the citizens that they are making sacrifices on their behalf and at the same time not feeling the pains of the economic crisis like the citizens. Beneath the leaders’ claim of making sacrifices, what the citizens can see is insincerity . For the leaders cannot claim they are suffering like the citizens if their children attend schools that are different from the public schools that the children of the workers have been doomed by their economic condition to attend. Even if past leaders successfully deceived the citizens, the latter are wiser now. Those who must serve them must experience what has been their lot. The public officials cannot feel the pain of the citizens when they are still enjoying privileges that cushion them against the economic crisis.

Thankfully, the NLC sees beyond the façade of the much-touted sacrifices government officials are making and that is why it is now asking that workers’ economic plight be alleviated by their wages being upwardly reviewed. Clearly, the NLC before now had been agitating for pay rise. But the workers’ day on Monday only served as an opportunity to publicly make their demand. Even without labour making the demand, it should have been clear to government that the so-called N18,000 minimum wage being paid workers does not even have a palliative value. The high cost of living in the country now has risen with the prices of goods more than tripling.

Enugu Massacre: The Branding Of Buhari As Comedian-In-Chief

By Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu

What does President Barack Obama do when a hate-drunk man enters a school building and shoots American kids dead?

The busiest and most burdened leader in the world suspends his routine and moves quickly to own the carnage as the ultimate guardian of the United States. He goes on air soon after the news breaks. He comforts the bereaved families and calms a shaken nation. He swears that America would visit the runaway killer with a condign punishment. He changes his itinerary and visits the devastated neighborhood as soon as possible.

*Buhari 

What did our own Obama do after Fulani herdsmen destroyed farmlands, butchered forty eight human beings, and burnt down a church in Nimbo, Uzo-Uwani, in a three-in-one violation of the people’s livelihoods, lives and religion?

President Muhammadu Buhari, the sentinel of our homeland, did something that illustrates the age-old inhumanity and irresponsibility of Nigerian rulership: He observed the umpteenth terrorist attack on a peaceable Nigerian community and did nothing!

He waited for the governor of the depopulated state of Enugu to contact Aso Rock and request for an audience.

When Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi reported for the appointment, the Nigerian media styled his visit as an occasion for the governor to "brief" the president.

The spin emanated from reflex factory of the Nigerian press. It was their salute to tradition.

A tradition in which order works in reverse. A setting where, in the aftermath of a humanitarian disaster, a healthy commander-in-chief rests easy in his office and waits for the governor to fly to Abuja to confirm the fairy tale.

The ‘briefing’ is a reverse condolence visit; the quest of a traumatized citizenry for the sympathy of the aloof leadership of their own country. It is an aberration. But it had to happen because Nigerian rulers are strangers to empathy. They are incapable of breaking out of the bubble they live in to acquaint themselves with the distress of the street.

Buhari received Ugwanyi with imperial condescension. The President hoped to earn praise for deigning to see the governor. Of course, a photo-op with his lowly caller would telegraph that he was magnanimous enough to pay precious presidential attention to the incident.

But Buhari failed to exude passable seriousness.  The honesty inherent in his constitution foiled the attempt of his politician persona to enact a convincing make-believe reality. The pictures of his encounter with Ugwuanyi showed Buhari jesting with his awkward-smiling visitor. They looked as jubilant as if they had met... to celebrate the success of the massacre!

The pictures of an exultant Buhari and Ugwuanyi, people who were supposedly meeting for a ‘briefing’ on the bloody mayhem, were most incongruous. The pictures strongly suggest that State House photographers did not find Buhari possessed of the sobriety appropriate for the situation. So the media team was constrained to select from all the shots taken the ones in which the two men appeared to be least euphoric!

Time To Rethink Nigeria

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

No matter how hard one tries, it is difficult, almost impossible, for any Nigerian to pretend not to be angry with the way things are going right now. Even those who want to be seen as being politically correct in this season of anomie are struggling to keep their balance because, let’s face it, there are limits to political correctness.

Something has gone fundamentally wrong with the Muhammadu Buhari presidency. He has failed to be the transcendental, pan-Nigeria leader we all craved for after the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. I don’t know how the illusion came about that such an insular, provincial leader like Buhari can step up to the plate at such a critical time in Nigeria’s history. But here we are, once again, at the crossroads.

For me, the massacre last week of innocent citizens by Fulani herdsmen at Nimbo in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State was the last straw. Over 50 people were killed in cold blood, scores displaced, and about seven villages and property worth millions of naira, including the Christ Holy Church International, destroyed. The victims were killed in the most gruesome manner – some had their throats slit, others were simply butchered with machetes and at least one was burnt alive on a commuter bus. Nobody deserves this fate.

Yet, security men got wind of this attack at least 24 hours before the hoodlums struck. Uzo-Uwani Council Chairman, Cornell Onwubuya, reportedly alerted Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and the Commissioner of Police, Ekechukwu Nwodibo, that armed Fulani herdsmen had invaded their community to wreak havoc. No action was taken. The Department of State Securities (DSS) that claimed it discovered mass graves of “Hausa-Fulani” residents allegedly abducted and murdered by suspected members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) in Abia State, without any evidence, did nothing to stop the carnage. The military that arrested 76 youths from Ugwuneshi community in Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State for protesting against the abduction and gang raping of their mothers and sisters did nothing to forestall the mayhem.

After the carnage, Ugwuanyi wept and declared two days of fasting and prayers. It took Buhari – who had threatened to deal with Niger Delta militants like terrorists and vowed to deal decisively with IPOB and MASSOB for daring to challenge the status quo in Nigeria – three whole days to break his silence on the carnage.

I have wondered since last Monday what would have happened if the people of Nimbo had organised to brutally murder 50 Fulani herdsmen. By now, the security forces would have sacked the entire local government. They would have done to them what soldiers did to Shiites in Kaduna. Imagine what would have happened if some Igbo hoodlums were to go to any community in Katsina, Bauchi, Kaduna, et cetera, to kill, maim, rape and plunder. The perpetrators would have been summarily dealt with and the whole of Ala-Igbo would have become desolate by now.

Why Africa’s Industrialization Is Still A Mirage

By James Shikwati

It is time Africans identified the difference between market seeking industries and intrinsic industrialization. When international food, beverage, motor vehicle and information technology companies set foot on African soil, they do so to access domestic markets. Such initiatives do not necessarily lead to industrialization.
To industrialize, Africa must invest in growing its own productivity character, a form of “African capitalism.” Productivity character requires that Africans patiently study what drives Western and Asiatic industrial powerhouses such as Japan and China. What type of individual and societal habits do these industrial centers exhibit? The Japanese are nurtured to focus on personal reflection and how one connects to the entire society. Amongst the Chinese, man is at the center of all things as long as he is balanced with the universe. The West is driven by the notion of the “original sin” that prompts man to seek to redeem oneself.

Sub-Saharan Africa exhibits a strong sense of extractive entitlement to ethnic and extended family networks. The safety or security provided in ethnicity blunts the thirst of individuals to surface innovation and industry. Safety in extractive entitlement is analogous celebrating the ownership of a big piece of family land but waiting for someone else to develop it. Progress is slow for those who merely celebrate ownership of physical, human and intellectual resources and stop at that.

Can the attitude of the continents’ urbanized folks who are always quick to transform challenges to opportunities evolve “African capitalism?” It is easier to blame thriving industrial centers that thwart the ability of others to surface in order to protect their domestic producers.

Africa has no excuse but learn from China, Japan and other Asian Tigers that have successfully navigated Western roadblocks to industrialize. The continent should adopt the urbanized mindset and forge carefully calculated steps that will lead to rapid modernization by studying the systems of successful economies. This quest should urgently replace the political electoral cycle that is driven by short term focus. Long term strategies should exploit the current dominance by Anglo-American industrial initiatives and the USD $ 10 billion China-Africa Industrial Capacity Cooperation Fund. The West and Asiatic characteristics will not by themselves set Africans on the path of industrialization.

Africa’s industrialization dream is held back internally by the lack of a competitive “African character.” Imagine if the continent’s 1.2 billion people reversed their sense of extractive entitlement to the over 2,000 ethnic groups and encouraged individual productive obligation to the numerous challenges facing thousands of ethnic groups! The continent would become a bubble chamber of innovations that address ethnic and by extension global challenges.

Appraising Buhari's One Year In Office

By Lucky Ofodu 

One word can be aptly used to appraise President Mu­hammadu Buhari’s one year in office: discontent. Nigeri­ans are thoroughly disappointed by the turn of events. The President and his party the APC had prom­ised so much, but so far fulfilled so little. The economy is in bad shape. Power is in bad shape; the naira in bad shape; inflation is on a steady rise. The Chibok girls are still in cap­tivity. Let’s not mention the unprec­edented fuel scarcity because doing so leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It has been a litany of woes. There is a feeling of general discontent across the land.

 

*Buhari

I do not expect the president to mark his one year in office with the same grandeur and panache that ushered him into office because the truth be told, he has not lived up to expectation. The President knows that Nigerians were better off be­fore he came to the scene. They have been inflicted with a lot of pains this past twelve months. What is hap­pening now seems a repeat of what was, when Mr. President ruled as a military head of state in the early 80s when Nigerians were made to queue in the rain and sun to buy bever­ages like milk, sugar, oats and the like, which they hitherto could buy from the shop next door. If nothing is done, sooner we will queue for food and possibly air.

Part of the problem is the fact that the president has surrounded himself mostly with yes-men and propagandists. The latter are those misinforming and making him see nothing, absolutely nothing good about the Jonathan administration. As a result, the president is in a hur­ry to change a lot of things, and in the process making mistakes. He forgets that while everything may be possible, everything is not expe­dient. For example, the sack of Vice chancellors and the dissolution of governing councils of federal uni­versities which he apologized for. There are some others. These mis­takes tend to have deeply divided Nigerians along ethnic, religious and political lines.

These propagandists in the last one year diverted the attention of the president from the core issue of governance which is to better the lives of the citizenry. They pushed him to go after political opponents in the name of fighting corruption. This is all Nigerians have heard in the last one year without any tangi­ble result. No one is saying that those who looted the country’s treasury should not face the consequenc­es. No. what is being said is that it ought not to have become the only focus amidst so many other chal­lenges. Besides, it ought not to have been targeted at political opponents only. After all, many of those shout­ing ‘change’ and ‘corruption’ today, were in the opposition party hold­ing very exalted offices for years be­fore decamping only recently to the ruling party. How come these per­sons are not investigated and pros­ecuted. Or does cross-carpeting to the ruling party make one corrup­tion- free?