Discourse 296
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Jang is Demystified
They saw it coming. They heard about it over twelve months ago. So they were prepared. They have fought many battles before in various parts of the country, winning all and losing only the one with El-Rufa’i. However, this one is against a powerful and arrogant state governor who enjoys unleashing hardship and crisis among the poor particularly among the Hausa and Fulani ethnic groups. His policies of cleansing the Plateau of non-indigenes has cost many lives and caused misery to thousands of families. He has what it takes to unleash terror: the authority to command resources in pursuit of his ethnic ambitions, the money to bribe the police and the judiciary, an ever-ready gang of students and unemployed youths from his ethnic group ready to be recruited for a token to unleash mayhem, and, finally, the support of some powerful traditional rulers.
The strength and ruthlessness of Governor Jang were not underestimated by the commercial motorcyclists, commonly called ‘Yan Achaba, when they decided to resist the recently enacted law banning their activities in the crisis-ridden capital of Plateau State, Jos, and its environs. Because of this, they knew they had to be resolute and ready to sacrifice anything they had, including their lives. And when the battle started few days ago, they proved their mettle. They indeed put their own lives on line and some got killed; some were seriously injured; and many were arrested and imprisoned. Yet, on every occasion they forced the Police to retreat, abandoning all their duty posts in the entire city and going into hiding while the ‘motorcyclists resumed their duty in full gear in broad daylight unfettered. Jang is demystified.
That is the result of crude application of power. The former military governor does not know that the power of a leader in a civilized society, especially in a democracy and very much unlike in the military, lies more in consultation and responsiveness of his administration than in the crude force at his command. Nowhere is this fundamental principle of public administration required than in governing the states whose governors have no authority over the forces of coercion, which can only be mobilized at the approval of the federal government. And Jang, the powerful Berom emperor, is at loggerheads with the Federal government. Now he needs its forces to kill and they are increasingly becoming reluctant to yield to his vagaries, which put their lives at risk and erode the confidence they enjoy among the people. To succeed, the governor should learn some lessons in administration of civilized nations, something the commercial motorcyclists are busy teaching him these days.
However, I do not think the action of the governor regarding the motorcyclists was born out of ignorance of the principles of good governance as it was driven by his ethnic cleansing agenda. Jang would tell security personnel in plain language that unless non-indigenes leave the State he would not introduce any alternative to the ban. In Jang’s philosophy, the cart is placed before the horse. He is not even ready to allow full restoration of peace before implementing the law. Not a single tricycle has yet arrived. He is in a rush to expel the non-indigenes before his tenure ends next May.
Instead of waiting for the conducive atmosphere, Jang thought he can mobilize the same police that he has been castigating since last January to achieve his goals. It was easy to get the House of Assembly to pass the law banning the use of motorcycles for commercial transport. A wide consultation with the stakeholders, including the motorcyclists themselves, would have followed before applying the law. No. He got the police to attempt to enforce the law. On the first day, Monday, 8 June 2010, the police attempted to enforce it but it ended up in the killing of five motorcyclists and the entire capital city took to its heels. People started dashing to their homes for safety. A fragile peace is about to be lost. It was not the issue of motorcycles anymore, but that of peace.
On Tuesday the police were absent from the streets of Jos and the motorcyclists continued with their normal business. Jang summoned the security personnel of the state and arrogantly accused them of complicity. The following day, Wednesday, the police came out early in the morning and fired some canisters of teargas in some neighbourhoods and killed four innocent youths with live ammunitions. The bodies were arraigned at the Central Mosque for prayer. The motorcyclists came out in full force. They barricaded roads in the centre of the city and searched for police in every passing vehicle. The police disappeared again. The government announced that obedient motorcyclists who abandon their job and register their names with the authorities would be the ones entitled to government tricycles when they arrive. The motorcyclists ignored the ruse and resumed their work on Thursday unabated as no policeman, once more, could be seen on the street throughout the city. I think the police by now must be foolish to take on the motorcyclists again. It is clear who won the battle on the streets. Today, Friday, residents of the old city of Jos have staged a sit-at-home protest for most part of the day in solidarity with the motorcyclists. Banks followed suite and closed at 11.00am.
By now Jang must have learnt his limitations. He is likely to leave Rayfield next May without fulfilling his ambitions and the promise he made to his ethnic group. The Hausa and Fulani will still be in Jos then. The motorcyclists will that day celebrate along with the new governor by removing the mufflers of their motorcycles to taunt Jang. Jang will thereafter live forever unhappy. He is likely to see the state governed by a hand that is more competent, more accommodating and more civilized, someone who is ready to live in peace with other Nigerians. The motorcyclists, the good people of Plateau State and the entire Nation cannot wait to see that day. Then, a chapter that attests to the indomitability of human spirit over tyranny will be closed after being written in the ink of the dead victim and the suffering of the surviving.
Kano, Nigeria
11 June 2010
Showing posts with label Governance in Nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Governance in Nigeria. Show all posts
Friday, June 11, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Discourse 233 Ribadu, the Anti-Corruption Prince
Friday Discourse (233)
Ribadu, the New Anti-Corruption Prince
People who are conversant with the intricacies of government, the complexity of politics and the dictates of law in Nigeria will not find it difficult to discern that the task of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is not an easy one. Since the inception of his commission, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, its Chairman, has distinguished himself as an officer who is not afraid to go after any criminal, regardless of his position in the society, no matter the attendant risk to his life or position, and notwithstanding any foreseeable political furore. For one's peace, Machiavelli once advised his prince, he should avoid tampering with the source of people's wealth and with their women. Ribadu's task is to tamper with the first while he has no business with the second. So his task is naturally a difficult one. It could well be considered as the toughest in the Nigerian Police Force. Yet, he pursues his duty with the commitment of a suicidal instinct. I have never met him, but I, together with millions of Nigerians, admire his courage, commitment and sincerity. We support him.
Government and politics are intertwined, so we will treat them together. In fact, some people will argue that in the context of Nigerian political arena, politics overrides government. We will give two examples of how the two impede our progress towards checking corruption. Two weeks ago the Federal Government came up with a list of politicians it believed are corrupt and are not fit to stand for elections if indicted by an administrative panel as provided by the constitution. The government said the list originated from EFCC. The Commission did not deny that. After all, many times Ribadu has sworn that his Commission will prevent such politicians from running in the next elections. So the Commission, aware of its constitutional limitations, ambushed these politicians after their parties have officially submitted their names as nominees to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). EFCC collected the list and started pencilling down names of people whose dossier are dirty enough for disqualification. Then, aware of the fact that it has no constitutional right to prevent anyone from standing for elections directly, the Commission submitted the names to the President, whom they expected – or advised – to finish the job by constituting an administrative panel of inquiry that will offer the accused politicians the chance to defend themselves.
The politicians affected, as expected, cried foul and accused the government of subverting the chances of its opponents. The opposition described the inclusion of ruling party members on the list as a smokescreen. The real intention, they alleged, was to checkmate political heavyweights like the Vice President. More damaging to the credibility of the list, however, is the fact that, to the disappointment of EFCC, the Presidency has tampered with the list by removing the names of PDP members who are in its good books and, possibly, adding some. Even if Ribadu did not leak this fact, we would have arrived at it from the inconsistency of the list with his previous statements. Ribadu had earlier told Nigerians that majority of their governors are corrupt. He has documents to prove corruption charges against at least thirty out of the thirty-six governors, he continues to claim. And we believed Ribadu for he is in a good position to know and he has never prosecuted any innocent person. He even mentioned names which, surprisingly, by the time his list passed through the political filter of Aso Rock, have mysteriously disappeared. Something is amiss.
Ribadu must be in a dilemma. This is just another case in which his boss, the President, has disappointed him. There have been many other occasions before, some involving the President himself. For example, when the President extorted state governments, federal ministries and parastatals, private companies and individuals for his personal library project, Ribadu approached him and the President had no credible alibi but to say that the library will be put to public use. Ribadu left unconvinced. A bigger scandal was underway. The President was caught fabricating a company called Transcorp to which he auctioned the national telephone company – NITEL, Nicon, and so on. Nigerians screamed at this glaring act of corruption. And all that the President's handlers could come up with is a concept called blind trust, something completely alien to our Company Law. These and many other acts of corruption of the President do constitute enough grounds for Ribadu to charge him and for the National Assembly to impeach him.
These are few examples of how incumbency impedes the progress of this country. If it were in countries where corruption is taken seriously, Obasanjo would have been behind bars by now, if not executed, like Saddam, for crimes against humanity in Odi and Zaki Biam. And Ribadu is not the only one in that shoe. Many people who have answered the call to serve in various capacities at various levels of government are faced with the dilemma of how to handle the influence of politics on government. Not only regarding high profile crimes, even on ordinary administrative matters political considerations often compel governments in this country to knowingly take disastrous decisions. Progress thus becomes very difficult.
Ribadu's position is not helped by the law, especially how it operates in Nigeria . A clear example is that of the immunity which it grants to Governors and their Deputies, and to the President and the Vice-President. These officials have exploited the immunity clause to loot public treasury. Ribadu cannot prosecute them, until they vacate their offices. In some cases, like Bayelsa, Plateau, and Adamawa States , he had to resort to their assemblies, but the assemblies were not forthcoming until their members were also shown their dossiers. Then only after being threatened with their prosecution did some of them yielded. Consider that their new governors will also enjoy the immunity accorded to their predecessors. It leaves us with the possibility that looting will continue and the fight between the EFCC and incumbents will assume a cyclic form.
Now, ordinary minds in the position of Ribadu, particularly those with a populist bent, will choose to quit. They will look at their credibility, as it obtains in advanced countries and abandon the office, accusing the President of corruption and not living by the dictates of the law. Nigeria is not Kenya . I consider this as playing to the gallery. The fight against corruption will be a long one especially in a democracy where the law is paramount. We will have occasions to smile though; and once we remain tenacious the future will be bright. Take the case of our present corrupt governors in EFCC books. Though we could not remove them in office to stop corruption immediately and Obasanjo is retaining them to enable him rig the coming elections, they will nevertheless be prosecuted. Their prosecution after office will never be late.
My strong conviction for the prosecution of those criminals who parade themselves today as governors arises from the fact that neither the next President nor EFCC can shy away from that responsibility. On the one hand, only a fool as President will allow such governors who have amassed so much wealth to walk freely on the streets and constitute a clog to his administration. This was the reason why Obasanjo entirely obliterated the groups and individuals that brought him to power. Their political weight became a burden for his administration, a sin, if you like, for which they must be sent to hell. Machiavelli rightly spelt this as the first responsibility of a prince. In the same way, as the present governors make the mistake of attempting to exercise their political muscle in the Senate and retaining their clout back in their states, the new President is left with no option but to give Ribadu a nod to go ahead with his job. That will be the greatest day for Ribadu. That day, we will rejoice as we never did before, possibly holding parties across the nation. The new governors too will join us because the pebbles in their shoes have been done away with.
Ribadu, on the other hand, cannot turndown the benefit of prosecuting them. He is offered the chance to laugh last. Sending them to jail will, apart from being a punishment they never contemplated, send a strong signal to their successors that for whatever wrong they commit, the long arm of the law will ultimately reach them. The new governors would circumspect, or even recapitulate, on behaving like their predecessors. Corruption will thus decline. More spectacular is the case of Obasanjo who, most likely, will be behind bars by the time the next President spends two years in power for the same reason as would the old governors.
So, I will appeal to Ribadu to continue on his noble path. Let him not be worried about the incumbency which breeds the impunity that tampers with his duties, or the immunity that hinders the prosecution of some corrupt officials, or even the distressing public condemnation from agents of such thieves. He is assured that the day they will be within his reach is close. On our part, the majority of the Nigerian public that are behind him, we do appreciate the limitations of his office under the present dispensation. And because we understand the risk involved in his work, we will continue to pray for his divine protection. The fall of Murtala, Buhari and Idiagbon, the pioneers of the fight against corruption in this country, has left us in sadness for decades now. Today, we celebrate the arrival of their offshoot. In my heart, and surely in the hearts of many Nigerians, Ribadu is our new anti-corruption prince. Allah suure!
Tilde,
21 Feb 2007
Ribadu, the New Anti-Corruption Prince
People who are conversant with the intricacies of government, the complexity of politics and the dictates of law in Nigeria will not find it difficult to discern that the task of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is not an easy one. Since the inception of his commission, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, its Chairman, has distinguished himself as an officer who is not afraid to go after any criminal, regardless of his position in the society, no matter the attendant risk to his life or position, and notwithstanding any foreseeable political furore. For one's peace, Machiavelli once advised his prince, he should avoid tampering with the source of people's wealth and with their women. Ribadu's task is to tamper with the first while he has no business with the second. So his task is naturally a difficult one. It could well be considered as the toughest in the Nigerian Police Force. Yet, he pursues his duty with the commitment of a suicidal instinct. I have never met him, but I, together with millions of Nigerians, admire his courage, commitment and sincerity. We support him.
Government and politics are intertwined, so we will treat them together. In fact, some people will argue that in the context of Nigerian political arena, politics overrides government. We will give two examples of how the two impede our progress towards checking corruption. Two weeks ago the Federal Government came up with a list of politicians it believed are corrupt and are not fit to stand for elections if indicted by an administrative panel as provided by the constitution. The government said the list originated from EFCC. The Commission did not deny that. After all, many times Ribadu has sworn that his Commission will prevent such politicians from running in the next elections. So the Commission, aware of its constitutional limitations, ambushed these politicians after their parties have officially submitted their names as nominees to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). EFCC collected the list and started pencilling down names of people whose dossier are dirty enough for disqualification. Then, aware of the fact that it has no constitutional right to prevent anyone from standing for elections directly, the Commission submitted the names to the President, whom they expected – or advised – to finish the job by constituting an administrative panel of inquiry that will offer the accused politicians the chance to defend themselves.
The politicians affected, as expected, cried foul and accused the government of subverting the chances of its opponents. The opposition described the inclusion of ruling party members on the list as a smokescreen. The real intention, they alleged, was to checkmate political heavyweights like the Vice President. More damaging to the credibility of the list, however, is the fact that, to the disappointment of EFCC, the Presidency has tampered with the list by removing the names of PDP members who are in its good books and, possibly, adding some. Even if Ribadu did not leak this fact, we would have arrived at it from the inconsistency of the list with his previous statements. Ribadu had earlier told Nigerians that majority of their governors are corrupt. He has documents to prove corruption charges against at least thirty out of the thirty-six governors, he continues to claim. And we believed Ribadu for he is in a good position to know and he has never prosecuted any innocent person. He even mentioned names which, surprisingly, by the time his list passed through the political filter of Aso Rock, have mysteriously disappeared. Something is amiss.
Ribadu must be in a dilemma. This is just another case in which his boss, the President, has disappointed him. There have been many other occasions before, some involving the President himself. For example, when the President extorted state governments, federal ministries and parastatals, private companies and individuals for his personal library project, Ribadu approached him and the President had no credible alibi but to say that the library will be put to public use. Ribadu left unconvinced. A bigger scandal was underway. The President was caught fabricating a company called Transcorp to which he auctioned the national telephone company – NITEL, Nicon, and so on. Nigerians screamed at this glaring act of corruption. And all that the President's handlers could come up with is a concept called blind trust, something completely alien to our Company Law. These and many other acts of corruption of the President do constitute enough grounds for Ribadu to charge him and for the National Assembly to impeach him.
These are few examples of how incumbency impedes the progress of this country. If it were in countries where corruption is taken seriously, Obasanjo would have been behind bars by now, if not executed, like Saddam, for crimes against humanity in Odi and Zaki Biam. And Ribadu is not the only one in that shoe. Many people who have answered the call to serve in various capacities at various levels of government are faced with the dilemma of how to handle the influence of politics on government. Not only regarding high profile crimes, even on ordinary administrative matters political considerations often compel governments in this country to knowingly take disastrous decisions. Progress thus becomes very difficult.
Ribadu's position is not helped by the law, especially how it operates in Nigeria . A clear example is that of the immunity which it grants to Governors and their Deputies, and to the President and the Vice-President. These officials have exploited the immunity clause to loot public treasury. Ribadu cannot prosecute them, until they vacate their offices. In some cases, like Bayelsa, Plateau, and Adamawa States , he had to resort to their assemblies, but the assemblies were not forthcoming until their members were also shown their dossiers. Then only after being threatened with their prosecution did some of them yielded. Consider that their new governors will also enjoy the immunity accorded to their predecessors. It leaves us with the possibility that looting will continue and the fight between the EFCC and incumbents will assume a cyclic form.
Now, ordinary minds in the position of Ribadu, particularly those with a populist bent, will choose to quit. They will look at their credibility, as it obtains in advanced countries and abandon the office, accusing the President of corruption and not living by the dictates of the law. Nigeria is not Kenya . I consider this as playing to the gallery. The fight against corruption will be a long one especially in a democracy where the law is paramount. We will have occasions to smile though; and once we remain tenacious the future will be bright. Take the case of our present corrupt governors in EFCC books. Though we could not remove them in office to stop corruption immediately and Obasanjo is retaining them to enable him rig the coming elections, they will nevertheless be prosecuted. Their prosecution after office will never be late.
My strong conviction for the prosecution of those criminals who parade themselves today as governors arises from the fact that neither the next President nor EFCC can shy away from that responsibility. On the one hand, only a fool as President will allow such governors who have amassed so much wealth to walk freely on the streets and constitute a clog to his administration. This was the reason why Obasanjo entirely obliterated the groups and individuals that brought him to power. Their political weight became a burden for his administration, a sin, if you like, for which they must be sent to hell. Machiavelli rightly spelt this as the first responsibility of a prince. In the same way, as the present governors make the mistake of attempting to exercise their political muscle in the Senate and retaining their clout back in their states, the new President is left with no option but to give Ribadu a nod to go ahead with his job. That will be the greatest day for Ribadu. That day, we will rejoice as we never did before, possibly holding parties across the nation. The new governors too will join us because the pebbles in their shoes have been done away with.
Ribadu, on the other hand, cannot turndown the benefit of prosecuting them. He is offered the chance to laugh last. Sending them to jail will, apart from being a punishment they never contemplated, send a strong signal to their successors that for whatever wrong they commit, the long arm of the law will ultimately reach them. The new governors would circumspect, or even recapitulate, on behaving like their predecessors. Corruption will thus decline. More spectacular is the case of Obasanjo who, most likely, will be behind bars by the time the next President spends two years in power for the same reason as would the old governors.
So, I will appeal to Ribadu to continue on his noble path. Let him not be worried about the incumbency which breeds the impunity that tampers with his duties, or the immunity that hinders the prosecution of some corrupt officials, or even the distressing public condemnation from agents of such thieves. He is assured that the day they will be within his reach is close. On our part, the majority of the Nigerian public that are behind him, we do appreciate the limitations of his office under the present dispensation. And because we understand the risk involved in his work, we will continue to pray for his divine protection. The fall of Murtala, Buhari and Idiagbon, the pioneers of the fight against corruption in this country, has left us in sadness for decades now. Today, we celebrate the arrival of their offshoot. In my heart, and surely in the hearts of many Nigerians, Ribadu is our new anti-corruption prince. Allah suure!
Tilde,
21 Feb 2007
Discourse 237 The Yuguda Revolution II
Friday Discourse 237
The Yuguda Revolution (2)
In the first part of this article, we discussed the challenges before the governor-elect of Bauchi State, Malam Isa Yuguda, who is often simply referred to in the state as Malam or Yuguda. We mentioned the challenge of containing the menace of irate youths who are hell bent to share the booty of government with him or else they would turn against him as they did to his predecessor. We also mentioned the issue of employment which he, or his handlers during the campaign, promised the hundreds of thousands of idle youths in the State. Succeeding in this will undoubtedly solve a lot of social problems. But achieving it to the extent of getting even 100,000 jobs in a poverty ridden state like Bauchi is one of the most difficult challenges before the former banker. This category of youths, in addition to the irate ones, is also waiting for him to deliver on his promise. Then we mentioned his promise to drop the practice dubbed “Bauchi Formula” by restoring an additional 60% to the salaries of civil servants. We gave the statistics of the State’s income and advised him to be courageous and keep his promise; though doing so will cut deep into the coffers of government to the extent it will reduce the capacity of the administration to execute capital projects.
Today, we will address other challenges, largely concerning him and the people he will work with. First is the delivery on the promise that he will run a transparent government without breaching the trust of the electorate. This, as a goal, is the essence of good governance. He has repeatedly asserted this promise and one can say without any fear of contradiction that it was the main article of his manifesto. Even after the election, Malam continued to assert that he would not be like his predecessor, Mu’azu, whom he casts to the masses and the media as someone who has breached the trust of his people. “Our brotherhood remains, and so does our friendship”, Yuguda told Voice of America Hausa Service last week on his relationship with his old friend and predecessor, Muazu, “but the difference between us is in upholding public trust.” Mu’azu, on his part, listens to such sermons with a lot of reservations. Knowing his former close friend very well, Mu’azu was once reported saying, after learning that Yuguda is now addressed as malam, “In Isa malam ne, to wallahi ni liman ne.” That is, “If Isa claims to be a malam, then I am an Imam.” Literally, Mu’azu was saying that he is personally at a higher moral pedestal than his successor. On who is morally better, we the public must keep our lips sealed. The two know each other better.
Yet, every citizen of Bauchi state, including Mu’azu, must wish and support Malam to succeed. We must not tolerate failure at all. There are many instances in history where leaders shed their past and attain a high moral standing immediately after their ascent to the throne. We pray that Malam will do exactly that. And to do this he must know that he needs two things – one, taming his selfish desire and that of his followers, and, two, the support and understanding of people. A society characterized by poverty and kleptomania is prone to selfish pressures from various segments and institutions.
He must not be, neither must we allow him to be, a lesser “malam” than Mu’azu. Doing so will end him in a disaster. “If Malam will fail to deliver justice to us, we will ensure that he fails the next elections, just as we ensured the failure of Mu’azu through “a kasa a tsare”, a youth leader in Bauchi said on a BBC Hausa Service parley last week.
Isa might make up his mind and render himself a servant to his people. But he carries an excess luggage that will prevent him from running a transparent government unless he rids himself of its weight. It is our duty to point this out to him. This luggage is no other than many of those presently surrounding him. There are many among his followers with the good intention to assist him deliver, but there are also many whom we know very well are just there to deliver public funds into their pockets. They have been dumped by “liman” Mu’azu for the same purpose before; and, now, riding on the ignorance of Malam regarding their character, these wolves are parading themselves as the sheep devoured by Mu’azu. Malam must know how to handle this garbage. As a politician he must not dismiss them for they will constitute an opposition against him, but he must not entrust them with any public responsibility either. If he does so, he will fail woefully, and “a kasa a tsare” will be waiting for him.
I am surprised to find out that even among civil servants there is the insidious perception that Malam will allow people the free hand to use their offices corruptly. Part of our trust before Malam – we the common people at the receiving end – is that he must guard our wealth from these wolves that are now rejoicing in anticipation of the forthcoming feast. If he does not watch them, or block all their pilfering channels, his personal piety will not shield him from the wrath of the electorate.
This leads us to one of the pressures that these groups are exerting on Malam right now. They want to use Malam to avenge their fall out with Mu’azu, while, wallahi, they were the very people who, before, supported Mu’azu’s every wrong, granted his every wish, rationalized every mistake he committed and collaborated with him against any opposing view. They are calling for a probe. Well, if Malam will abide them, please let the probe be thorough and, I am sure, they will find themselves behind bars along with Mu’azu. Malam does not need a list of these people. I assure him that within six months into his tenure, he will discover them and water will, naturally, find its level.
There is another category of people who would like Malam to belittle every achievement of Mu’azu and undo his every legacy, no matter how noble it is, simply because such legacies are not in their interest. I have heard some wide mouths, for example, speaking about the abrogation of the Special Schools project. I know them very well, one of them a unionist, and the other an Emir, both of whom could get their children admitted into the schools through the back door. It is sheer envy and jealousy. They are riding on the wind of change to press for the scrapping of the only viable secondary schools in the state. They want a flat world where both the lazy and the hardworking will be treated equally.
Yuguda is not mad, by all standards. As he will come to learn, the Special Schools were formed by the Mu’azu administration not despite the other secondary schools, but because of them, since their condition was and is still far short of the national standard. No administration, no matter how hardworking, can instantly bring the standard of the now over 180 secondary schools in the state to such a high standard of secondary education is not about classrooms and books alone, which anybody can provide; it is also about nurturing a successful primary education that will provide the competent candidates for secondary education and getting the qualified and dedicated teachers to teach them.
So once Yuguda is able to raise the standard of students and facilities in other secondary schools to those of the Special Schools, he can scrap the latter, for their raison d’être is defeated. But unless he could achieve that, abrogating the Special Schools will only turn him into a laughing stock. On the contrary, I enjoin Yuguda to support the schools and fund them more than Mu’azu was doing recently. More importantly, they need his political backing to continue to treat all children as equal during admission: they must pass the Board’s entrance examination before they are admitted, regardless of whether they are wards of a unionist, an emir or even the governor. Mu’azu did so; Yuguda must not be a lesser Malam.
Regarding the legacies of the past administration, Malam must not rely on hearsay. The usual thing to do is to conduct a ministerial briefing where different organs of government are called to inform the State’s Executive Council of their activities. They state their rationale, list their successes, mention their failures, give reasons behind the failures and advise the Governor on what do, in their view, in order to move forward. Having heard from the horse’s mouth, the Governor can use his independent judgment to make up his mind. He then discards the garbage of his predecessor and upholds his good works. By so doing, Malam will be imitating Moses. When he was summoned to Sinai and was to spend forty nights there, he called his brother, Aaron, appointed him as his deputy and gave him two terms of reference, saying, “Oh Aaron, deputize for me among my people, and reform, and do not follow the path of those who destroy.” Listening to petty minds that only want to destroy is the surest road map to failure.
The last challenge before Yuguda is that which concerns the public and its contribution to the administration. His success or failure will also be determined by the amount of support and understanding he receives from both the elite and the common man. Right now, people are expecting him to do the impossible especially on creating jobs to all our youths overnight, exterminating poverty, and running a corrupt free government. Except in the public service, which is already saturated with staff beyond the carrying capacity of the government, there are no ways anyone can create jobs overnight for hundreds of thousands of youths. Yuguda may do so, ultimately, when allowed the time – between now and eight years, perhaps. Meaningful jobs that will provide employment to thousands need at least two years of establishment, while, I agree, there are some few ideas that could provide jobs to some few.
Likewise, nobody – no matter how rich, and no government – no matter how egalitarian and resourceful, can run on liberal principles and exterminate poverty completely. The expectation of the lazy commoner who refuse to work hard and earn a living is therefore a mere utopia. Even God did not choose to do so. In His wisdom, the economic hierarchy of a free society is inevitable. The Most High said, “And we raised some of them above others in degrees of wealth) such that a portion of them will hire labor from the other.” The communist tried it and failed.
The current pervasive envy, which is characteristic of poverty-ridden societies and which was maximally exploited to canvass for votes during the last elections, is also unfounded. Someone, after witnessing the defeat of the PDP at a polling station in Azare two weeks ago returned home saying, “Ba gara da aka kada su ba. Haka kawai, su na shiga mota da AC suna wa mutane kallon banza.” That is, “It is better that they (the ruling PDP in the State) are defeated. For no sake, they ride air-conditioned cars and look down upon us.” I wish Malam’s commissioners would be humble enough to ride donkeys, as Malam Aminu Kano once promised, or old 404 pick-ups not cars with AC. And when his council will one day visit Azare, they can spend a month enjoying the comfort of their donkeys before they arrive! Envy. Envy. Nothing else.
Finally, public servants in the State who supported Yuguda must be ready to sacrifice their kleptomaniac tendencies for our common good. If, however, they decide to keep them, then, their hero will woefully fail, largely as a result of their undoing.
The elite in Bauchi, therefore, have the responsibility of helping the new governor dispel this mountain of unfounded expectations. This is their civic responsibility. The common man doesn’t know what government is. All that he knows are the promises of manna that he heard, rightly or wrongly, during the campaign. Once he does not see it on his table as early as six months, he will start to grumble, then begin to call Malam names, and, finally, stage an intifada against him. And the revolt will not stop at Malam; it will also claim the lives, property and convenience of any body riding an air-conditioned car.
These two articles were precisely written for this purpose. They are intended to remind both Malam and the public on their mutual responsibility. If he and his followers listen, it will be fine for all of us; if he turns back arrogantly against my piece of advice, oho, “a kasa a tsare” will be waiting for him.
The editor just informed me that there were some rejoinders to my last article. I am yet to read them, if I will ever be opportune to do so. I write not for the world to rejoin, but I will be proud if an hour of my pen occupies the nights of some little minds. They can say what they wish at their level. “I compose a poet,” al- Mutanabbi once said, “and the world is obliged to spend the night disputing over its source and meaning.” However, if there is one person who will be happy with these articles, I am sure he will be Malam Isa Yuguda himself. The throne is there waiting for him. I wish him success.
The Yuguda Revolution (2)
In the first part of this article, we discussed the challenges before the governor-elect of Bauchi State, Malam Isa Yuguda, who is often simply referred to in the state as Malam or Yuguda. We mentioned the challenge of containing the menace of irate youths who are hell bent to share the booty of government with him or else they would turn against him as they did to his predecessor. We also mentioned the issue of employment which he, or his handlers during the campaign, promised the hundreds of thousands of idle youths in the State. Succeeding in this will undoubtedly solve a lot of social problems. But achieving it to the extent of getting even 100,000 jobs in a poverty ridden state like Bauchi is one of the most difficult challenges before the former banker. This category of youths, in addition to the irate ones, is also waiting for him to deliver on his promise. Then we mentioned his promise to drop the practice dubbed “Bauchi Formula” by restoring an additional 60% to the salaries of civil servants. We gave the statistics of the State’s income and advised him to be courageous and keep his promise; though doing so will cut deep into the coffers of government to the extent it will reduce the capacity of the administration to execute capital projects.
Today, we will address other challenges, largely concerning him and the people he will work with. First is the delivery on the promise that he will run a transparent government without breaching the trust of the electorate. This, as a goal, is the essence of good governance. He has repeatedly asserted this promise and one can say without any fear of contradiction that it was the main article of his manifesto. Even after the election, Malam continued to assert that he would not be like his predecessor, Mu’azu, whom he casts to the masses and the media as someone who has breached the trust of his people. “Our brotherhood remains, and so does our friendship”, Yuguda told Voice of America Hausa Service last week on his relationship with his old friend and predecessor, Muazu, “but the difference between us is in upholding public trust.” Mu’azu, on his part, listens to such sermons with a lot of reservations. Knowing his former close friend very well, Mu’azu was once reported saying, after learning that Yuguda is now addressed as malam, “In Isa malam ne, to wallahi ni liman ne.” That is, “If Isa claims to be a malam, then I am an Imam.” Literally, Mu’azu was saying that he is personally at a higher moral pedestal than his successor. On who is morally better, we the public must keep our lips sealed. The two know each other better.
Yet, every citizen of Bauchi state, including Mu’azu, must wish and support Malam to succeed. We must not tolerate failure at all. There are many instances in history where leaders shed their past and attain a high moral standing immediately after their ascent to the throne. We pray that Malam will do exactly that. And to do this he must know that he needs two things – one, taming his selfish desire and that of his followers, and, two, the support and understanding of people. A society characterized by poverty and kleptomania is prone to selfish pressures from various segments and institutions.
He must not be, neither must we allow him to be, a lesser “malam” than Mu’azu. Doing so will end him in a disaster. “If Malam will fail to deliver justice to us, we will ensure that he fails the next elections, just as we ensured the failure of Mu’azu through “a kasa a tsare”, a youth leader in Bauchi said on a BBC Hausa Service parley last week.
Isa might make up his mind and render himself a servant to his people. But he carries an excess luggage that will prevent him from running a transparent government unless he rids himself of its weight. It is our duty to point this out to him. This luggage is no other than many of those presently surrounding him. There are many among his followers with the good intention to assist him deliver, but there are also many whom we know very well are just there to deliver public funds into their pockets. They have been dumped by “liman” Mu’azu for the same purpose before; and, now, riding on the ignorance of Malam regarding their character, these wolves are parading themselves as the sheep devoured by Mu’azu. Malam must know how to handle this garbage. As a politician he must not dismiss them for they will constitute an opposition against him, but he must not entrust them with any public responsibility either. If he does so, he will fail woefully, and “a kasa a tsare” will be waiting for him.
I am surprised to find out that even among civil servants there is the insidious perception that Malam will allow people the free hand to use their offices corruptly. Part of our trust before Malam – we the common people at the receiving end – is that he must guard our wealth from these wolves that are now rejoicing in anticipation of the forthcoming feast. If he does not watch them, or block all their pilfering channels, his personal piety will not shield him from the wrath of the electorate.
This leads us to one of the pressures that these groups are exerting on Malam right now. They want to use Malam to avenge their fall out with Mu’azu, while, wallahi, they were the very people who, before, supported Mu’azu’s every wrong, granted his every wish, rationalized every mistake he committed and collaborated with him against any opposing view. They are calling for a probe. Well, if Malam will abide them, please let the probe be thorough and, I am sure, they will find themselves behind bars along with Mu’azu. Malam does not need a list of these people. I assure him that within six months into his tenure, he will discover them and water will, naturally, find its level.
There is another category of people who would like Malam to belittle every achievement of Mu’azu and undo his every legacy, no matter how noble it is, simply because such legacies are not in their interest. I have heard some wide mouths, for example, speaking about the abrogation of the Special Schools project. I know them very well, one of them a unionist, and the other an Emir, both of whom could get their children admitted into the schools through the back door. It is sheer envy and jealousy. They are riding on the wind of change to press for the scrapping of the only viable secondary schools in the state. They want a flat world where both the lazy and the hardworking will be treated equally.
Yuguda is not mad, by all standards. As he will come to learn, the Special Schools were formed by the Mu’azu administration not despite the other secondary schools, but because of them, since their condition was and is still far short of the national standard. No administration, no matter how hardworking, can instantly bring the standard of the now over 180 secondary schools in the state to such a high standard of secondary education is not about classrooms and books alone, which anybody can provide; it is also about nurturing a successful primary education that will provide the competent candidates for secondary education and getting the qualified and dedicated teachers to teach them.
So once Yuguda is able to raise the standard of students and facilities in other secondary schools to those of the Special Schools, he can scrap the latter, for their raison d’être is defeated. But unless he could achieve that, abrogating the Special Schools will only turn him into a laughing stock. On the contrary, I enjoin Yuguda to support the schools and fund them more than Mu’azu was doing recently. More importantly, they need his political backing to continue to treat all children as equal during admission: they must pass the Board’s entrance examination before they are admitted, regardless of whether they are wards of a unionist, an emir or even the governor. Mu’azu did so; Yuguda must not be a lesser Malam.
Regarding the legacies of the past administration, Malam must not rely on hearsay. The usual thing to do is to conduct a ministerial briefing where different organs of government are called to inform the State’s Executive Council of their activities. They state their rationale, list their successes, mention their failures, give reasons behind the failures and advise the Governor on what do, in their view, in order to move forward. Having heard from the horse’s mouth, the Governor can use his independent judgment to make up his mind. He then discards the garbage of his predecessor and upholds his good works. By so doing, Malam will be imitating Moses. When he was summoned to Sinai and was to spend forty nights there, he called his brother, Aaron, appointed him as his deputy and gave him two terms of reference, saying, “Oh Aaron, deputize for me among my people, and reform, and do not follow the path of those who destroy.” Listening to petty minds that only want to destroy is the surest road map to failure.
The last challenge before Yuguda is that which concerns the public and its contribution to the administration. His success or failure will also be determined by the amount of support and understanding he receives from both the elite and the common man. Right now, people are expecting him to do the impossible especially on creating jobs to all our youths overnight, exterminating poverty, and running a corrupt free government. Except in the public service, which is already saturated with staff beyond the carrying capacity of the government, there are no ways anyone can create jobs overnight for hundreds of thousands of youths. Yuguda may do so, ultimately, when allowed the time – between now and eight years, perhaps. Meaningful jobs that will provide employment to thousands need at least two years of establishment, while, I agree, there are some few ideas that could provide jobs to some few.
Likewise, nobody – no matter how rich, and no government – no matter how egalitarian and resourceful, can run on liberal principles and exterminate poverty completely. The expectation of the lazy commoner who refuse to work hard and earn a living is therefore a mere utopia. Even God did not choose to do so. In His wisdom, the economic hierarchy of a free society is inevitable. The Most High said, “And we raised some of them above others in degrees of wealth) such that a portion of them will hire labor from the other.” The communist tried it and failed.
The current pervasive envy, which is characteristic of poverty-ridden societies and which was maximally exploited to canvass for votes during the last elections, is also unfounded. Someone, after witnessing the defeat of the PDP at a polling station in Azare two weeks ago returned home saying, “Ba gara da aka kada su ba. Haka kawai, su na shiga mota da AC suna wa mutane kallon banza.” That is, “It is better that they (the ruling PDP in the State) are defeated. For no sake, they ride air-conditioned cars and look down upon us.” I wish Malam’s commissioners would be humble enough to ride donkeys, as Malam Aminu Kano once promised, or old 404 pick-ups not cars with AC. And when his council will one day visit Azare, they can spend a month enjoying the comfort of their donkeys before they arrive! Envy. Envy. Nothing else.
Finally, public servants in the State who supported Yuguda must be ready to sacrifice their kleptomaniac tendencies for our common good. If, however, they decide to keep them, then, their hero will woefully fail, largely as a result of their undoing.
The elite in Bauchi, therefore, have the responsibility of helping the new governor dispel this mountain of unfounded expectations. This is their civic responsibility. The common man doesn’t know what government is. All that he knows are the promises of manna that he heard, rightly or wrongly, during the campaign. Once he does not see it on his table as early as six months, he will start to grumble, then begin to call Malam names, and, finally, stage an intifada against him. And the revolt will not stop at Malam; it will also claim the lives, property and convenience of any body riding an air-conditioned car.
These two articles were precisely written for this purpose. They are intended to remind both Malam and the public on their mutual responsibility. If he and his followers listen, it will be fine for all of us; if he turns back arrogantly against my piece of advice, oho, “a kasa a tsare” will be waiting for him.
The editor just informed me that there were some rejoinders to my last article. I am yet to read them, if I will ever be opportune to do so. I write not for the world to rejoin, but I will be proud if an hour of my pen occupies the nights of some little minds. They can say what they wish at their level. “I compose a poet,” al- Mutanabbi once said, “and the world is obliged to spend the night disputing over its source and meaning.” However, if there is one person who will be happy with these articles, I am sure he will be Malam Isa Yuguda himself. The throne is there waiting for him. I wish him success.
Discourse 235 The Yuguda Revolution
Friday Discourse (235)
The Yuguda Revolution (1)
The last elections in Bauchi are described by many as a revolution. In many ways they were. The general belief is that people were determined for change. So they stood up and enforced their constitutional rights. They protected their votes and determined the outcome of the last gubernatorial elections. People with insight into the forces that came into play may not wholly agree with it. I think the truth was that there was a convergence of interests, between the people and the PDP in Abuja to humble the incumbent governor, Mu’azu, who is seen by many as power drunk and who might have stepped on many toes up there. The strategy adopted by the Federal Government to humiliate the incumbent was to include Bauchi among the states that will enjoy free and fair elections. And, behold, the people had their way in a spectacular manner. A kasa a tsare (vote and protect), Buhari’s popular dogma for protecting votes, worked marvelously here. In fact, they added a third article, a raka (and escort), to the dogma.
Immediately the opposition ANPP candidate, Malam Isa Yuguda, was announced the winner of the gubernatorial elections, the whole State went jubilant. In every town and village, youths carried their jubilations to the streets. And in many places, they even crossed the line of sanity. Instead of becoming contented with victory, they went further and attacked, wherever possible, the houses, persons and dignity of anyone who supported Nadada, the PDP contestant in the gubernatorial race. Once you support Nadada, you were automatically judged as azzalumi (tyrant), whether you belong to the PDP or not, and qualified for personal attack and humiliation. On the other hand, once you are a supporter of the triumphant malam (the acronym of Yuguda!), you are instantly considered a saint. It is this unfortunate development, which has its antecedents in the manner in which the ANPP mobilized the masses and carried out its campaign, that made elders greet the Bauchi revolution with deep apprehension. And now that the dust is settling, the state is gripped with the fear that, like its sister state, Gombe, Bauchi will very likely live under the nuisance of these rampaging youths for the next four years at least, unless Malam finds a way to contain them.
I do not see any fault in people yearning for change because it is human. I remember coming across a poem in Ana, the autobiography of Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad. It says, “Man longs for winter during summer, but when the winter comes he detests it. Man is never satisfied with one condition, woe unto man, the ingrate.” And I have been a proponent of free and fair elections that will bring about meaningful development to people, for peace can only be guaranteed when power is accessed by people’s consent, rather than rigging elections which generates nothing but apathy and ill feeling. Perhaps, if the 2003 elections and the last PDP primaries in the state were free and fair, the PDP would not have suffered a humiliating fate during the last elections. People do concede that the incumbent governor, Mu’azu did perform, especially in the area of urban and rural infrastructure, but it was his overbearing influence which they protested against. A “NO” vote for the PDP was, therefore, in their calculation, a vote against Mu’azu, not against Nadada, my candidate, that is considered widely a quiet and amiable person who only happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
The purpose of this writing is not to narrate the past, but to look forward by alerting the governor-elect to the challenges facing him and the consequences of failure. I live in the village; l have heard and seen a lot from the common man since the elections. I’ve come to Bauchi twice and gauged the mindset of the people there. My honest conclusion is that Yuguda must listen; otherwise, he will suffer a fate worse than his predecessor’s. I have written a lot about Bauchi in the past, but it did not find a listening ear. This is the consequence. Yuguda and his supporters must not dismiss this as the rhetoric of someone whose candidate has lost. No. Today, he is faced with challenges and hopes higher than those faced by Mu’azu in 1999; and though deception could be used to gain popular support and to acquire power, only truth can sustain it. Both Yuguda and we, his subjects to be, must face the truth.
First, Yuguda must contain the nuisance of the irate youths he used during his campaigns. They have got accustomed to weapons, blood and uncouth language. No personality is too high for them to demean, and no crime is too great for their commitment. I have extensively dwelt on this last year when I wrote Goje, Yuguda and Mu’azu are Guilty, if my readers will remember. None of the trio listened. The security agents, who contributed to this sad development by turning a blind eye to the growing violence, and, in some cases, even aiding it, stand guilty too. I was shocked when I watched on NTA Bauchi how the Yuguda campaign train entered Sade and Darazo towns. The crowd was 90% made of youths carrying sticks and dangerous knives. One of them, who became a favorite of the camera, was brandishing a gun! On NTA! A civilian, carrying a gun, in public and aired on national television! What else could be more dangerous? In the run up to the elections, residents of the old city of Bauchi have also witnessed the unprecedented escalation of violence to the extent that many fled their homes and sought abode elsewhere. And so on. These are the youths who mobilized others to go about burning houses and molesting people in towns and villages.
Yuguda must find a way of disarming these youths. They will definitely like to determine the course of his government and, if he yields to their whims, he will find part ways with all reasonable people in the society; there will be no peace. And should he try to peg them down to their correct social status, then, they the lion will turn round to prey on its master, as al-Mutanabbi once said. It is a catch 22. That is exactly what happened to Goje in Gombe. He chose to allow them retain their influence. The youth leader is the de facto deputy governor and that state is the most politically violent states in the Northeast. Bauchi may plunge into the same pit, unless Yuguda displays an administrative dexterity more than Goje. Malam and his commissioners will be visited by these youths for extortion; if they do not oblige, there will be a night visit in which they will be robbed of what they withheld during the day.
This leads to the second problem. Finding them jobs would have been the best option. But Bauchi is a poor state with no industries to employ the army of over a million redundant youths. Part of Yuguda’s strategy during the campaign was to promise every youth employment. Or so the youths claim. And they seriously believe that he can do so, from the way they speak. I wonder how any person can think this is possible. The youths are not employable, at all, to begin with, and they don’t want to farm. Then how can they be employed? There is nothing that the Mu’azu administration didn’t try to satiate them in the past eight years. He bought many of them motorcycles for Okada. They sold them and refused to pay back the loans. He established skill acquisition centers, trained thousands of them, and gave them tools to use in the trade they learnt. They sold the tools. He abandoned them, and they decamped to Yuguda. Yuguda said, “Sit here with me. Mu’azu is a tyrant. He denied you employment. I will create jobs for all of you. I will bring industries to Bauchi.” The youths claim that Yuguda is rich and he will establish companies for them. I wonder how this tall ambition would be fulfilled.
The third is the expectation of the ordinary man. One of them in our village was heard saying, “shi ke nan, tun da malam ya ci, da mu da fatara mun raba gari har abada.” That is, “since malam has won, we are done with poverty, forever.” I consider this to be very dangerous. How do they expect Yuguda to do what God in His wisdom refused to do. This, coming from adults, is injustice to Yuguda for it is an expectation nobody can meet. Though the utterances of Yuguda during the campaign might have aided this idea, he must find a way of disparaging it from the minds of the masses. People must know that as an individual, man creates his own wealth, through a sequence of five variables: his skills, ideas, opportunity, hard work and prudence. There is no other way to sustainable wealth. Yuguda can only provide the peaceful environment and, possibly, the limited opportunity, for the wealth creation. Nothing more.
The fourth segment of challenge to Yuguda is the “Bauchi Formula,” the campaign promise to increase salaries of public servants by 60%. He even circulated, before the elections, the salary structure that reflects that increase, effective from June this year. And the strategy paid off very well. The civil servants joined the fray and canvassed votes for malam like never before. Now, they have delivered. It is Yuguda’s turn to deliver. How he will go about it and still match his predecessor in projects remains a myth. On the one hand, there are just no funds to actuate this promise if he intends to match the performance of his predecessor. On the other, the workers, as they did to Mu’azu, will not allow malam to retrench a single staff. By the time he implements the salary structure, 56.5% of the State’s allocation will go to salaries and allowances. I wish my state is as rich as the Niger Delta states, because our workers definitely require a better take home.
Presently, salaries and allowances in Bauchi State gulps N603million out of the average figure of N1.7billion that the state receives as monthly allocation. Adding 60% will raise the figure to N960million. Other recurrent expenditure of the state is up to N300million. If Yuguda will increase the staff roll in his attempt to find more jobs, this total recurrent expenditure will reach N1.5billion. Then what will the remaining N200million do?
Let us not forget that Yuguda is inheriting many capital projects whose beneficiary communities will be eager to see completed. And to be fair to him, he will not be there just to complete Mu’azu’s projects; he must initiate his own, given the debt he owes his party members who have been thoroughly ravaged by the Sahara of opposition politics for the past eight years. Yuguda himself needs to recoup, without profit, since he is a malam, the over N2billion he is said to have invested in his campaign. And do not forget the army of youths and party supporters who will come to demand their share… He has also promised to rehabilitate hospitals and equip them, repair all schools and employ more teachers, build an airport, and so on.
Yuguda should not renege on this promise. He should fulfill it because the workers were the backbone of his support. He can rely on excess crude to execute his capital projects. Spending over 80% on recurrent expenditure will circulate more money in the state, better than paying contractors. That means I will sell more yoghurt. I pray that Malam does not share the fate of Hashidu, who spent resources on rehabilitating people and lost his bid for a second term. Should the masses condemn Yuguda on this account one day, the civil servants and I will then rise to his defense.
There are other challenges to the governor elect which we will discuss next week before we conclude the article, God willing. Meanwhile, let’s join the masses to celebrate in the revolution.
The Yuguda Revolution (1)
The last elections in Bauchi are described by many as a revolution. In many ways they were. The general belief is that people were determined for change. So they stood up and enforced their constitutional rights. They protected their votes and determined the outcome of the last gubernatorial elections. People with insight into the forces that came into play may not wholly agree with it. I think the truth was that there was a convergence of interests, between the people and the PDP in Abuja to humble the incumbent governor, Mu’azu, who is seen by many as power drunk and who might have stepped on many toes up there. The strategy adopted by the Federal Government to humiliate the incumbent was to include Bauchi among the states that will enjoy free and fair elections. And, behold, the people had their way in a spectacular manner. A kasa a tsare (vote and protect), Buhari’s popular dogma for protecting votes, worked marvelously here. In fact, they added a third article, a raka (and escort), to the dogma.
Immediately the opposition ANPP candidate, Malam Isa Yuguda, was announced the winner of the gubernatorial elections, the whole State went jubilant. In every town and village, youths carried their jubilations to the streets. And in many places, they even crossed the line of sanity. Instead of becoming contented with victory, they went further and attacked, wherever possible, the houses, persons and dignity of anyone who supported Nadada, the PDP contestant in the gubernatorial race. Once you support Nadada, you were automatically judged as azzalumi (tyrant), whether you belong to the PDP or not, and qualified for personal attack and humiliation. On the other hand, once you are a supporter of the triumphant malam (the acronym of Yuguda!), you are instantly considered a saint. It is this unfortunate development, which has its antecedents in the manner in which the ANPP mobilized the masses and carried out its campaign, that made elders greet the Bauchi revolution with deep apprehension. And now that the dust is settling, the state is gripped with the fear that, like its sister state, Gombe, Bauchi will very likely live under the nuisance of these rampaging youths for the next four years at least, unless Malam finds a way to contain them.
I do not see any fault in people yearning for change because it is human. I remember coming across a poem in Ana, the autobiography of Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad. It says, “Man longs for winter during summer, but when the winter comes he detests it. Man is never satisfied with one condition, woe unto man, the ingrate.” And I have been a proponent of free and fair elections that will bring about meaningful development to people, for peace can only be guaranteed when power is accessed by people’s consent, rather than rigging elections which generates nothing but apathy and ill feeling. Perhaps, if the 2003 elections and the last PDP primaries in the state were free and fair, the PDP would not have suffered a humiliating fate during the last elections. People do concede that the incumbent governor, Mu’azu did perform, especially in the area of urban and rural infrastructure, but it was his overbearing influence which they protested against. A “NO” vote for the PDP was, therefore, in their calculation, a vote against Mu’azu, not against Nadada, my candidate, that is considered widely a quiet and amiable person who only happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
The purpose of this writing is not to narrate the past, but to look forward by alerting the governor-elect to the challenges facing him and the consequences of failure. I live in the village; l have heard and seen a lot from the common man since the elections. I’ve come to Bauchi twice and gauged the mindset of the people there. My honest conclusion is that Yuguda must listen; otherwise, he will suffer a fate worse than his predecessor’s. I have written a lot about Bauchi in the past, but it did not find a listening ear. This is the consequence. Yuguda and his supporters must not dismiss this as the rhetoric of someone whose candidate has lost. No. Today, he is faced with challenges and hopes higher than those faced by Mu’azu in 1999; and though deception could be used to gain popular support and to acquire power, only truth can sustain it. Both Yuguda and we, his subjects to be, must face the truth.
First, Yuguda must contain the nuisance of the irate youths he used during his campaigns. They have got accustomed to weapons, blood and uncouth language. No personality is too high for them to demean, and no crime is too great for their commitment. I have extensively dwelt on this last year when I wrote Goje, Yuguda and Mu’azu are Guilty, if my readers will remember. None of the trio listened. The security agents, who contributed to this sad development by turning a blind eye to the growing violence, and, in some cases, even aiding it, stand guilty too. I was shocked when I watched on NTA Bauchi how the Yuguda campaign train entered Sade and Darazo towns. The crowd was 90% made of youths carrying sticks and dangerous knives. One of them, who became a favorite of the camera, was brandishing a gun! On NTA! A civilian, carrying a gun, in public and aired on national television! What else could be more dangerous? In the run up to the elections, residents of the old city of Bauchi have also witnessed the unprecedented escalation of violence to the extent that many fled their homes and sought abode elsewhere. And so on. These are the youths who mobilized others to go about burning houses and molesting people in towns and villages.
Yuguda must find a way of disarming these youths. They will definitely like to determine the course of his government and, if he yields to their whims, he will find part ways with all reasonable people in the society; there will be no peace. And should he try to peg them down to their correct social status, then, they the lion will turn round to prey on its master, as al-Mutanabbi once said. It is a catch 22. That is exactly what happened to Goje in Gombe. He chose to allow them retain their influence. The youth leader is the de facto deputy governor and that state is the most politically violent states in the Northeast. Bauchi may plunge into the same pit, unless Yuguda displays an administrative dexterity more than Goje. Malam and his commissioners will be visited by these youths for extortion; if they do not oblige, there will be a night visit in which they will be robbed of what they withheld during the day.
This leads to the second problem. Finding them jobs would have been the best option. But Bauchi is a poor state with no industries to employ the army of over a million redundant youths. Part of Yuguda’s strategy during the campaign was to promise every youth employment. Or so the youths claim. And they seriously believe that he can do so, from the way they speak. I wonder how any person can think this is possible. The youths are not employable, at all, to begin with, and they don’t want to farm. Then how can they be employed? There is nothing that the Mu’azu administration didn’t try to satiate them in the past eight years. He bought many of them motorcycles for Okada. They sold them and refused to pay back the loans. He established skill acquisition centers, trained thousands of them, and gave them tools to use in the trade they learnt. They sold the tools. He abandoned them, and they decamped to Yuguda. Yuguda said, “Sit here with me. Mu’azu is a tyrant. He denied you employment. I will create jobs for all of you. I will bring industries to Bauchi.” The youths claim that Yuguda is rich and he will establish companies for them. I wonder how this tall ambition would be fulfilled.
The third is the expectation of the ordinary man. One of them in our village was heard saying, “shi ke nan, tun da malam ya ci, da mu da fatara mun raba gari har abada.” That is, “since malam has won, we are done with poverty, forever.” I consider this to be very dangerous. How do they expect Yuguda to do what God in His wisdom refused to do. This, coming from adults, is injustice to Yuguda for it is an expectation nobody can meet. Though the utterances of Yuguda during the campaign might have aided this idea, he must find a way of disparaging it from the minds of the masses. People must know that as an individual, man creates his own wealth, through a sequence of five variables: his skills, ideas, opportunity, hard work and prudence. There is no other way to sustainable wealth. Yuguda can only provide the peaceful environment and, possibly, the limited opportunity, for the wealth creation. Nothing more.
The fourth segment of challenge to Yuguda is the “Bauchi Formula,” the campaign promise to increase salaries of public servants by 60%. He even circulated, before the elections, the salary structure that reflects that increase, effective from June this year. And the strategy paid off very well. The civil servants joined the fray and canvassed votes for malam like never before. Now, they have delivered. It is Yuguda’s turn to deliver. How he will go about it and still match his predecessor in projects remains a myth. On the one hand, there are just no funds to actuate this promise if he intends to match the performance of his predecessor. On the other, the workers, as they did to Mu’azu, will not allow malam to retrench a single staff. By the time he implements the salary structure, 56.5% of the State’s allocation will go to salaries and allowances. I wish my state is as rich as the Niger Delta states, because our workers definitely require a better take home.
Presently, salaries and allowances in Bauchi State gulps N603million out of the average figure of N1.7billion that the state receives as monthly allocation. Adding 60% will raise the figure to N960million. Other recurrent expenditure of the state is up to N300million. If Yuguda will increase the staff roll in his attempt to find more jobs, this total recurrent expenditure will reach N1.5billion. Then what will the remaining N200million do?
Let us not forget that Yuguda is inheriting many capital projects whose beneficiary communities will be eager to see completed. And to be fair to him, he will not be there just to complete Mu’azu’s projects; he must initiate his own, given the debt he owes his party members who have been thoroughly ravaged by the Sahara of opposition politics for the past eight years. Yuguda himself needs to recoup, without profit, since he is a malam, the over N2billion he is said to have invested in his campaign. And do not forget the army of youths and party supporters who will come to demand their share… He has also promised to rehabilitate hospitals and equip them, repair all schools and employ more teachers, build an airport, and so on.
Yuguda should not renege on this promise. He should fulfill it because the workers were the backbone of his support. He can rely on excess crude to execute his capital projects. Spending over 80% on recurrent expenditure will circulate more money in the state, better than paying contractors. That means I will sell more yoghurt. I pray that Malam does not share the fate of Hashidu, who spent resources on rehabilitating people and lost his bid for a second term. Should the masses condemn Yuguda on this account one day, the civil servants and I will then rise to his defense.
There are other challenges to the governor elect which we will discuss next week before we conclude the article, God willing. Meanwhile, let’s join the masses to celebrate in the revolution.
Discourse 238 Agenda for Yar'adua
Friday Discourse 238
By
Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Agenda for Yar’adua
My readers will remember that the last article that appeared in this column before the election – 2007, like 2003 – was a reprint of another article that I published just before the 2003 elections. Our fears came to be true. This time everybody, including the President, conceded that there were problems with the elections. His alibi, as usual, was that no elections are perfect. All the same, he must go.
If we were to follow the path of 2003, my reaction would have been to reprint another article, the first after the 2003 elections, titled Aisha, Leave Buhari Alone immediately after I moved to Thisday. But we are not interested in repetitions. Nigeria is a highly predictable country. The consolation here is the decision of the main opposition candidate, Buhari, to put the matter before the court of the people. Let them do whatever they deem fit with the result of the election. It is their votes. They can decide to either forfeit it or reclaim it. The people, speaking generally, as we now understand, have chosen, at least for now, to forfeit it. They voiced conflicting views on mass action; then they stayed put when they were invited to peacefully demonstrate their renunciation on Workers’ Day. Their political psyche, it appears, is so compromised that more needs to be done to get them realize that what they do on election day determines how they will live for eight years. That must be the single agenda for the opposition between now and 2011.
Meanwhile, let us see what we can do with the reality of the moment. The next President, God willing, will be Umaru Musa Yar’adua, come May 29. The mindset of this person will have remarkable influence on our lives. He may choose to betray his antecedents and reward us by making our lives difficult, as Obasanjo assiduously did in the past eight years; or he may decide to abide by them and make this country more secure and comfortable for us. I therefore consider it as part of our duty – we the commoners – to advise him, as we did during the early days of Obasanjo in 1999, on the practical steps that will make him a successful President. As he braces up for the most difficult office in the country, he will be flooded with many advices, especially from the people he interacts with up there. Though we may not have the advantage of proximity, nevertheless, it is our sincere hope that he takes what we down here would say at this moment seriously.
Yar’adua has fundamental decisions to take right now. The first and foremost is an ideological one, and in its line all others would naturally fall. Two roads are before him today: one leading to the happiness of Nigerians at the summit of a mountain that is difficult to climb; the other leading to a concert of local and multinational bourgeoisie who are wining and dining on our sweat and rights, only to end up in shame and regret. He must decide on which of the two paths he will tread for the next four years.
The last people oriented administration, my readers will generally agree, was that of Buhari, the military head of state who took over power when common commodities like detergents, grains and cooking oil were grossly scarce in the market. The economy was in shambles, corruption was grave, and hope was bleak. That was when “Andrew” wanted to check out.
On coming to power in 1984, Buhari decided to be with the people and remained so, despite all pressures, for the twenty months he ruled this country. He arrested as many economic saboteurs as he could, provided essential commodities in abundance, refused to take foreign loans and questioned the validity of many of the ones he inherited. He resisted the pressure from IMF to devalue the naira. And so on. It was not surprising that he was ousted immediately and replaced with an IMF-compliant officer.
Since then, 1985, our suffering became endless. While the purchasing capacity of the ordinary Nigerian continued to dwindle as a result of IMF compliant policies of successive governments, nothing ever came down as relief. Every promise turned out to be a deceit. The country got aligned to the capitalist manifestoes of IMF and World Bank. No need to go on narrating how we suffered between 1985 and 1999. The World Bank has recently conceded that its policies along with those of the IMF have aggravated poverty in developing countries. What other proof do we need?
The arrival of Obasanjo in 1999 brought some hope for political stability and improvement on our livelihood. We voted for him almost unanimously, with the exception of the Southwest, without paying attention to his long time connections with Washington. Unfortunately, he turned against us. Throughout the eight years of his rule, Nigerians are daily greeted with policies that disenfranchise them economically. Life has become unbearable. I believe by now “Andrew” has checked out. The naira is devalued by over 500% or more; ordinary liter of petrol that sold at N11.00 in 1999 now officially sells at N64.00 when available; and there is no end to the corruption in public offices that prevents the common Nigerian from enjoying the little that was intended to trickle down to him.
Throughout the tenure of Obasanjo, electricity supply continued to dwindle, as we are greeted with one deceit after another. Agriculture, which is the source of livelihood of majority of Nigerians, received little attention during his tenure. A 50kg of fertilizer today costs N4,000.00 in the market. No subsidies, nothing. He embarked on the large scale auction of public enterprises that would have served the common man were they managed prudently. And the big shame was the fact that he has a hand, covertly and overtly, behind the acquisition of some. He handed over to his masters overseas whatever he squeezed out of Nigerians in the name of debt settlement. His handlers often point at the debt he settled and GSM as his achievement in office. He was never on the side of the people. Conclusively, he ran the most corrupt and incompetent government in the history of this country.
Yar’adua must therefore decide, now, on which path to take and who to side with. We will not tolerate sitting on the fence for in Africa there is no centre left, centre right, or center whatever. He can either work for the interest of ordinary Nigerians or for that of the corrupt few and their multinational partners.
This ideological divide is sharp and has a lot of impact on the appointments and policies of Yar’adua. If he chooses to be on their side, then all he needs to do is to continue with the oppressive policies and people of Obasanjo. Washington, in addition, is ever ready to provide him with the necessary directives. But shame awaits him in the end.
If, however, he chooses to be with us, the people, then the new president must ultimately dispense with whatever oppressive garbage he inherited from Obasanjo, be it human, material or conceptual. He is not a military President, we understand, so he may not be as straight as Buhari; but we expect him to start taking measures that will truly make his administration people-centered.
Yar’adua cannot be on the side of the people and carry along with the punitive policies of Obasanjo or the people he used to suck our blood. No. Yar’adua must know that the two are incompatible. I consider his recent allusions to that as a short term political step that is, hopefully, part of a greater political game plan to assert his independence ultimately. He does not need to stir the waters now, given that his canoe is itself unstable. But by the time he is fully entrenched in authority, we hope he will do the right thing, phasing out the crooks that have brought so much hardship to us just as we hope he will, of course, retain the few competent ones who share his philosophy and are ready to work for our interest.
I see Yar’adua doing so in three steps. First, he must assert himself against the meddling of Obasanjo, who will be the greatest threat to his authority. In his mind, Obasanjo must have calculated that Yar’adua will do his bidding, or if he fails, it will be a matter of time that he will die and Goodluck will takeover. Obasanjo has done enough to immortalize his privileges. He hopes to control Yar’adua through the staff he will recommend to the new President as well as his position as the position of Chairman, Board of Trustees of the PDP. Through this, he reassures himself that what he invested in looting public treasury will mature to fruition. I have the confidence that Yar’adua will handle him adequately. He has already denied the President his plea to make his daughter the Senate President. The post is now allocated to the Northcentral zone. Up Middle Belt!
The second step is for Yar’adua to do away with names that are notoriously associated with the ills of the past regime, people who shamelessly nurtured and vehemently defended policies antipathetic to people in the name of development. He must not appoint them into any position and we expect him to sack the majority of people appointed by Obasanjo to head parastatals that are central to our living. He does not need to delay or compromise on this. So far, Yar’adua has resisted the persuasion of Obasanjo to approve a list of these people whose exit is imminent. The list included people like Fani-Kayode. Imagine! I will advise Yar’adua get an updated list of Third Term supporters and flush them out of his administration.
In the third step, when he will be one year in office, I expect Yar’adua to complete cutting off the remaining vestiges of Obasanjo in government. By this time also, he must have reversed all the evil policies of his predecessor, which are many, and replaced them with people friendly ones in various sectors. He must, within the shortest possible time, drastically reduce poverty by concentrating on agriculture and the provision of regular electricity and affordable pump price for fuel. All the three will have direct impact on employment as they will revive factories and small scale enterprises, as well as opening the door for mass employment at the agrarian grassroots level. Security, health and education could also be added because poverty alleviation also comes in a form of relief from burdensome social responsibilities.
Before concluding this article I would like to make some remarks, despite the strong case for policy shift which I put forward above. I am not unaware that one of the greatest problems that anyone in the position of Yar’adua will confront is finding the honest, competent and hardworking people to work with. Immediately a Nigerian is announced governor or President elect, he becomes inundated with people seeking favors, especially positions, to corruptly enrich themselves. I know it will be suicidal to send them away, but the appetite of such politicians can be satiated through contracts and many other avenues of favor, to which we will show our understanding. What he must never do is to appoint them into any sensitive public office because in office, unlike in contract, their corruption cannot be tamed. I just wish Yar’adua will silently appoint a team that will comb this country for the right individuals to run sensitive offices for him and who will pursue far-reaching projects vigorously. If he would limit himself to the PDP caucus or to those who hang around him, he is not likely to succeed.
The second point is my respect for his person given his history as someone who was once a member of the socialist left on campus and of the defunct Peoples Redemption Party. In his eight years as governor of Katsina State, he has demonstrated clearly that he still stands on his leftist ground to a good extent, though his opponents from Katsina will be eager to point at some of his shortcomings. This is natural. Ai sai da Ma’aiki a ke Abu Lahabi. I did not hesitate to praise him in 2002 when he almost single handedly assisted Ahmadu Bello University with over a billion naira to establish School of Basic and Remedial Studies, Funtua. Then, some Northern governors could not fulfill their pledge of just N15m each on the project. And when I pointed out in the article that work has stopped on the site for some delay in payment to contractors, he immediately released the funds required to complete the school. That is why I could not hesitate to welcome his candidature in the PDP in addition to that of Buhari in the ANPP, for I consider both to have come from the same political family.
My hopes for Yar’adua are high, being an old student of Malam Aminu Kano and Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman. It is his past association with these people that he must always remember in Aso Rock. I do not even rule out that would he live long, he will allow a free and fair election to take place in 2011. All he needs to do is to start his campaign right now by working hard for us and, combined with a little incumbency, he is assured of winning transparently in 2011. For these reasons, I have decided to encourage him than rebuke him. I hope other pragmatic Nigerians will do so as well.
Bauchi
9 May 2007
By
Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Agenda for Yar’adua
My readers will remember that the last article that appeared in this column before the election – 2007, like 2003 – was a reprint of another article that I published just before the 2003 elections. Our fears came to be true. This time everybody, including the President, conceded that there were problems with the elections. His alibi, as usual, was that no elections are perfect. All the same, he must go.
If we were to follow the path of 2003, my reaction would have been to reprint another article, the first after the 2003 elections, titled Aisha, Leave Buhari Alone immediately after I moved to Thisday. But we are not interested in repetitions. Nigeria is a highly predictable country. The consolation here is the decision of the main opposition candidate, Buhari, to put the matter before the court of the people. Let them do whatever they deem fit with the result of the election. It is their votes. They can decide to either forfeit it or reclaim it. The people, speaking generally, as we now understand, have chosen, at least for now, to forfeit it. They voiced conflicting views on mass action; then they stayed put when they were invited to peacefully demonstrate their renunciation on Workers’ Day. Their political psyche, it appears, is so compromised that more needs to be done to get them realize that what they do on election day determines how they will live for eight years. That must be the single agenda for the opposition between now and 2011.
Meanwhile, let us see what we can do with the reality of the moment. The next President, God willing, will be Umaru Musa Yar’adua, come May 29. The mindset of this person will have remarkable influence on our lives. He may choose to betray his antecedents and reward us by making our lives difficult, as Obasanjo assiduously did in the past eight years; or he may decide to abide by them and make this country more secure and comfortable for us. I therefore consider it as part of our duty – we the commoners – to advise him, as we did during the early days of Obasanjo in 1999, on the practical steps that will make him a successful President. As he braces up for the most difficult office in the country, he will be flooded with many advices, especially from the people he interacts with up there. Though we may not have the advantage of proximity, nevertheless, it is our sincere hope that he takes what we down here would say at this moment seriously.
Yar’adua has fundamental decisions to take right now. The first and foremost is an ideological one, and in its line all others would naturally fall. Two roads are before him today: one leading to the happiness of Nigerians at the summit of a mountain that is difficult to climb; the other leading to a concert of local and multinational bourgeoisie who are wining and dining on our sweat and rights, only to end up in shame and regret. He must decide on which of the two paths he will tread for the next four years.
The last people oriented administration, my readers will generally agree, was that of Buhari, the military head of state who took over power when common commodities like detergents, grains and cooking oil were grossly scarce in the market. The economy was in shambles, corruption was grave, and hope was bleak. That was when “Andrew” wanted to check out.
On coming to power in 1984, Buhari decided to be with the people and remained so, despite all pressures, for the twenty months he ruled this country. He arrested as many economic saboteurs as he could, provided essential commodities in abundance, refused to take foreign loans and questioned the validity of many of the ones he inherited. He resisted the pressure from IMF to devalue the naira. And so on. It was not surprising that he was ousted immediately and replaced with an IMF-compliant officer.
Since then, 1985, our suffering became endless. While the purchasing capacity of the ordinary Nigerian continued to dwindle as a result of IMF compliant policies of successive governments, nothing ever came down as relief. Every promise turned out to be a deceit. The country got aligned to the capitalist manifestoes of IMF and World Bank. No need to go on narrating how we suffered between 1985 and 1999. The World Bank has recently conceded that its policies along with those of the IMF have aggravated poverty in developing countries. What other proof do we need?
The arrival of Obasanjo in 1999 brought some hope for political stability and improvement on our livelihood. We voted for him almost unanimously, with the exception of the Southwest, without paying attention to his long time connections with Washington. Unfortunately, he turned against us. Throughout the eight years of his rule, Nigerians are daily greeted with policies that disenfranchise them economically. Life has become unbearable. I believe by now “Andrew” has checked out. The naira is devalued by over 500% or more; ordinary liter of petrol that sold at N11.00 in 1999 now officially sells at N64.00 when available; and there is no end to the corruption in public offices that prevents the common Nigerian from enjoying the little that was intended to trickle down to him.
Throughout the tenure of Obasanjo, electricity supply continued to dwindle, as we are greeted with one deceit after another. Agriculture, which is the source of livelihood of majority of Nigerians, received little attention during his tenure. A 50kg of fertilizer today costs N4,000.00 in the market. No subsidies, nothing. He embarked on the large scale auction of public enterprises that would have served the common man were they managed prudently. And the big shame was the fact that he has a hand, covertly and overtly, behind the acquisition of some. He handed over to his masters overseas whatever he squeezed out of Nigerians in the name of debt settlement. His handlers often point at the debt he settled and GSM as his achievement in office. He was never on the side of the people. Conclusively, he ran the most corrupt and incompetent government in the history of this country.
Yar’adua must therefore decide, now, on which path to take and who to side with. We will not tolerate sitting on the fence for in Africa there is no centre left, centre right, or center whatever. He can either work for the interest of ordinary Nigerians or for that of the corrupt few and their multinational partners.
This ideological divide is sharp and has a lot of impact on the appointments and policies of Yar’adua. If he chooses to be on their side, then all he needs to do is to continue with the oppressive policies and people of Obasanjo. Washington, in addition, is ever ready to provide him with the necessary directives. But shame awaits him in the end.
If, however, he chooses to be with us, the people, then the new president must ultimately dispense with whatever oppressive garbage he inherited from Obasanjo, be it human, material or conceptual. He is not a military President, we understand, so he may not be as straight as Buhari; but we expect him to start taking measures that will truly make his administration people-centered.
Yar’adua cannot be on the side of the people and carry along with the punitive policies of Obasanjo or the people he used to suck our blood. No. Yar’adua must know that the two are incompatible. I consider his recent allusions to that as a short term political step that is, hopefully, part of a greater political game plan to assert his independence ultimately. He does not need to stir the waters now, given that his canoe is itself unstable. But by the time he is fully entrenched in authority, we hope he will do the right thing, phasing out the crooks that have brought so much hardship to us just as we hope he will, of course, retain the few competent ones who share his philosophy and are ready to work for our interest.
I see Yar’adua doing so in three steps. First, he must assert himself against the meddling of Obasanjo, who will be the greatest threat to his authority. In his mind, Obasanjo must have calculated that Yar’adua will do his bidding, or if he fails, it will be a matter of time that he will die and Goodluck will takeover. Obasanjo has done enough to immortalize his privileges. He hopes to control Yar’adua through the staff he will recommend to the new President as well as his position as the position of Chairman, Board of Trustees of the PDP. Through this, he reassures himself that what he invested in looting public treasury will mature to fruition. I have the confidence that Yar’adua will handle him adequately. He has already denied the President his plea to make his daughter the Senate President. The post is now allocated to the Northcentral zone. Up Middle Belt!
The second step is for Yar’adua to do away with names that are notoriously associated with the ills of the past regime, people who shamelessly nurtured and vehemently defended policies antipathetic to people in the name of development. He must not appoint them into any position and we expect him to sack the majority of people appointed by Obasanjo to head parastatals that are central to our living. He does not need to delay or compromise on this. So far, Yar’adua has resisted the persuasion of Obasanjo to approve a list of these people whose exit is imminent. The list included people like Fani-Kayode. Imagine! I will advise Yar’adua get an updated list of Third Term supporters and flush them out of his administration.
In the third step, when he will be one year in office, I expect Yar’adua to complete cutting off the remaining vestiges of Obasanjo in government. By this time also, he must have reversed all the evil policies of his predecessor, which are many, and replaced them with people friendly ones in various sectors. He must, within the shortest possible time, drastically reduce poverty by concentrating on agriculture and the provision of regular electricity and affordable pump price for fuel. All the three will have direct impact on employment as they will revive factories and small scale enterprises, as well as opening the door for mass employment at the agrarian grassroots level. Security, health and education could also be added because poverty alleviation also comes in a form of relief from burdensome social responsibilities.
Before concluding this article I would like to make some remarks, despite the strong case for policy shift which I put forward above. I am not unaware that one of the greatest problems that anyone in the position of Yar’adua will confront is finding the honest, competent and hardworking people to work with. Immediately a Nigerian is announced governor or President elect, he becomes inundated with people seeking favors, especially positions, to corruptly enrich themselves. I know it will be suicidal to send them away, but the appetite of such politicians can be satiated through contracts and many other avenues of favor, to which we will show our understanding. What he must never do is to appoint them into any sensitive public office because in office, unlike in contract, their corruption cannot be tamed. I just wish Yar’adua will silently appoint a team that will comb this country for the right individuals to run sensitive offices for him and who will pursue far-reaching projects vigorously. If he would limit himself to the PDP caucus or to those who hang around him, he is not likely to succeed.
The second point is my respect for his person given his history as someone who was once a member of the socialist left on campus and of the defunct Peoples Redemption Party. In his eight years as governor of Katsina State, he has demonstrated clearly that he still stands on his leftist ground to a good extent, though his opponents from Katsina will be eager to point at some of his shortcomings. This is natural. Ai sai da Ma’aiki a ke Abu Lahabi. I did not hesitate to praise him in 2002 when he almost single handedly assisted Ahmadu Bello University with over a billion naira to establish School of Basic and Remedial Studies, Funtua. Then, some Northern governors could not fulfill their pledge of just N15m each on the project. And when I pointed out in the article that work has stopped on the site for some delay in payment to contractors, he immediately released the funds required to complete the school. That is why I could not hesitate to welcome his candidature in the PDP in addition to that of Buhari in the ANPP, for I consider both to have come from the same political family.
My hopes for Yar’adua are high, being an old student of Malam Aminu Kano and Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman. It is his past association with these people that he must always remember in Aso Rock. I do not even rule out that would he live long, he will allow a free and fair election to take place in 2011. All he needs to do is to start his campaign right now by working hard for us and, combined with a little incumbency, he is assured of winning transparently in 2011. For these reasons, I have decided to encourage him than rebuke him. I hope other pragmatic Nigerians will do so as well.
Bauchi
9 May 2007
Business More Than Usual
Business More Than Usual
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
I am compelled to write this article by an incident that happened at Rumana, a settlement just 5 km away from my village. The people appealed to government for compensation after flood and rainstorm devastated all their farms last August. Over N8million was approved and released as relief to the villagers but in the end they were given only N139,500.00! Officials have pocketed 82.6% of the allocation. I have personally interviewed the village head and the incident was earlier reported in the media. The village head was immediately suspended by the District Head for revealing government secret. Tabdi. Ga mari ga tsinka jaka. The investigation panel set up by the state government on the matter failed to turn up in the village or interview the villagers.
Things are really getting too bad here and I cannot continue to bear the silence. I know I have promised the Trust not turn this page into a battlefield between Mu’azu and Yuguda but that does not mean I spare Yuguda the wrath of my pen just as I did not spare Mu’azu even when I served under him. The people of Bauchi State need to be saved from this unprecedented level of corruption. The state government needs to be awakened from its slumber while investors in First Inland Bank Plc need to be n their guard. If the government is not checked, the resultant failure will deepen our disillusion with the current political experiment. I know the Trust would not like this either. The paper has gained the reputation of an even-handed egalitarian and any connivance in suppressing the ongoing mess in Bauchi will devastate the northern psyche. I pray that the article is published.
Rumana is not an isolated case in Bauchi State, I am sorry to report. This has to do with the philosophy of the ruling party here. Its chairman was once reported in the media saying that “members of his party have fasted for eight long years. It is now our turn to ‘chop.” This comment, unfortunate as it was, not only explains but also seek to justify the pervasive corruption that is taking place in Bauchi State today, contrary to the promise that the government will be people-oriented and transparent.
The first window was opened was a petition against the government barely two months after it assumed office. The report was officially received on 13/8/2007 as indicated by the EFCC stamp. It called on the Commission to investigate the following: one, the N40 billion asset declaration of the governor; two, the order he gave to the Ministry of Finance to transfer the main account of the state from GTB to First Inland Bank where he was a Managing Director and still a substantial shareholder with the understanding that the account could be overdrawn to the tune of N25billion; three, the circumstances that led to the quick withdrawal of a petition before the EFCC by the new government on the N1.2billion overdraft incurred during the last days of the previous administration; four, the deal for purchasing 50 Nos. Honda CRV jeeps which was negotiated with the then Speaker of the state house of assembly and one Kashim Bukar and financed by First Inland Bank Plc; five, the award of N1.3billion contract to a Chinese firm for drilling boreholes; six, the renovation of Government House, SSG’s house and some guest houses at the cost of N860million without approval of the House of Assembly; seven, the diversion of N110million local governments funds to sponsor pilgrims without prior approval of councils’ chairmen; eight, the use of N14million by the governor to clear his personal goods from Dubai involving one Mukhtari Magas; and nine, the squander of N100million by the inauguration committee. Importantly, all petitions and paid adverts that I know so far are coming from members of the ruling ANPP who have fallen out with the present government.
Most of what the petition said was later to become common knowledge in Bauchi. For example, when the 50 Nos. Honda CRV Jeeps arrived, the news that they were supplied at double their rates quickly spread. Computation quickly showed that the contractor, or whoever, made away with over 250million on that single transaction. Also, the N1.5billion loan collected from GTB was quickly misappropriated. The checks for the severance allowance were instantly blocked by the governor and diverted elsewhere. When I officially protested I was assured that the severance allowance will be paid whenever the government gets surplus funds. Nothing is heard about it to date.
The approval for the boreholes which the EFCC petition mentioned was actually given by the Governor on 18/8/07, the day it was forwarded, at the rate of N1,353,020,704.05. The contractor is a Chinese company, M/S China Zhonghad (Nig.) Ltd. The contract, in which the memo claimed that due process was followed, consists of 47 motorized borehole schemes and 38 hand pumps without any specification but from the one drilled at GSS Toro they did not differ from those of the previous administration. Yet, the governor approved it to the last kobo without any council in place, directing that the “approval to be ratified by the executive council when constituted,” which indicates that no executive council was in place as at that date. Though the unit price was hidden, using simultaneous equation, I calculated that each borehole and hand pump was given at the cost of N24,780,598.97 and N4,956,119.75 respectively, i.e. N15billion and N3.5billion over the cost Mu’azu used to award each. Mu’azu’s administration used to award them at the rate of N10million and N1.5million respectively. Someone under Yuguda has neatly pocketed N825million on this deal over the rates of Mu’azu!
More information was to arrive. Last July, the construction of new Tafawa Balewa General Hospital was single-handedly awarded to a Lebanese company, Eagle Construction, at the asking price of N586,983,262.25(!). The bills did not include roads, water or even any hospital equipment. Two other hospitals at Zaki and Kafin Madaki were later awarded at a more reasonable figure of N170million each. But why the inconsistency, if we may ask? Again, N416million was pocketed here on T/Balewa and N100million on the other two. Mu’azu’s administration used to award such contracts at N120million.
There is also the scandal involving the supply of 2 Nos. 1,500kva generators to Gubi Water Treatment Plant which was awarded to JMG LTD after the Governor’s approval was gained on 2/7/07. The beneficiary was, again, the impeached Speaker of the state House of Assembly. The contractor supplied 1,250kva instead after waiting for three months for the order to arrive. Disturbed by the failure of the generators and the prolonged lack of water in Bauchi town, the governor who visited the site could not hide his disappointment on TV. Viewers saw how the state Commissioner of Water Resources quickly gave an alibi that the 1,250kva generators were temporarily supplied! The real 1,500kva are yet to arrive to date, the contractor is not apprehended, oga Commissioner is sitting tight while the residents of Bauchi are suffering from lack of water.
The claim made at Yuguda’s 100 days in office that all general hospitals in the state have been supplied with “brand new generator sets” which was made by the administration months is also a hoax. A lorry passed through my village just before Christmas carrying four refurbished generators, dropping one at the nearby Toro General Hospital before proceeding to other destinations. The second-hand generators are yet to be installed as at the time I am writing this article. And let us pray that they work.
There are issues of serviceable auctioned vehicles and generators, the present state of bankruptcy of the treasury in spite of receiving over N32billion from the Federation Account in the first six months, the daily reckless receipt of overdrafts from First Inland Bank Plc which is alleged to be in the region of N20billion now, the ongoing negotiation to receive a loan of N40billion from Islamic Development Bank which the government denied but which I have confirmed as true, another EFCC petition involving N500million, the N15million fraud at Shariah Commission over Ramadan meals, the fraud over N250million scholarship allowance that led to the constitution of a new disbursement committee, the unlimited personal expenditure of the governor, and so on. I do not want to waste my precious space narrating what is seemingly endless.
FEDERATION ACCOUNT ALLOCATION TO BAUCHI STATE
FROM MAY T0 NOVEMBER 2007 IN NAIRA
MONTH STATE GOVT LOCAL GOVTS
MAY 2,374,105,559.21 1,812,810,865.00
JUNE 2,421,717,824.47 1,820,826,850.92
JULY 3,066,633,909.94 2,312,515,693.36
AUGUST 2,883,707,976.81 2,246,405,514.36
SEP 2,403,657,198.78 1,894,933,221.70
OCT 2,489,400,146.63 1,976,547,702.44
NOV 2,422,813,403.07 1,931,586,027.89
SUB-TOTAL 18,062,036,018.91 13,995,625,875.67
GRAND TOTAL = 32,057,661,894.58
What I just wanted to prove was that Rumana is not an isolated incidence. The real problem, however, is Yuguda himself. I have a natural affection for this amiable person and I cannot tell why. Yet, I can clearly see that he is too weak to be a governor in contemporary Nigeria. This conclusion is inevitable. He has surrounded himself with chronically corrupt and incompetent people who have dominated the scene to the detriment of many of his aides who I personally know are really good and sincere.
The worst part of it is the elaborate attempt made by the administration to deceive the population and silence his critics. Those who served under the previous administration are daily threatened with one investigation or another. It has finally ended in setting up a judicial commission of inquiry that included names of people who are known for their chronic hate for Mu’azu, who have earlier made written and spoken libels against him, and who headed committees that called for his indictment.
There is also the attempt to conceal the ongoing corrupt practices involving prominent northern and southern dailies and magazines. It is not surprising that such papers carry only praises about the present administration while blocking any news about the ongoing corruption, including paid adverts. According to a memo that was approved by the governor on 28/8/07, the following largesse was prepared for six editors of newspapers: “travel expenses of N90,000.00; provision of accommodation at Protea Hotel; presentation of two sets of kaftans to each editor; a cash hospitality of N250,000.00 to each of the four editors and N500,000.00 each to editors of … and ...; allocation of a vehicle to convey the editors from Abuja to Bauchi vice versa including fuelling.”
Earlier, on 13/7/07, one of the leading northern newspapers submitted a quotation dubbed “Bauchi State Government Special Project.” It was on this that SSA (Media and Publicity) submitted a memo on 5/8/08 requesting the governor to approve the sum of N8m for the newspaper and N2m for another northern newspaper. The governor approved the N8million but declined the second request. A recent development is that arrangements are concluded to put these newspapers and some prominent magazines on “retainership” with the state government. In addition, approval was also given to the office of the SSA (Media) for the monthly allocation of N2million “without prejudice to the Directorate of Press’s Monthly Strategic Media Fund for its day to day publicity activities”, as the memo concluded.
Yuguda’s media team is truly impressive especially with the above level of support. But what the team is missing, if I must advise it, is that blocking people’s access to the media will create more harm than good to His Excellency. They are pushing people to employ subterranean channels in where they are not restrained by law to use decorum and facts. The trend has started already and it is really biting. The administration was driven crazy about a nostalgic song, Tunanin Ahmadu, to the extent that the studio was raided and the composer arrested. The alleged sponsor, Alhaji Kabiru Illela, was arrested six times, his house was raided by police, and an assassination squad was sent after him, missing him by just 15minutes. They have forgotten that libelous songs were among the principal means of Yuguda’s campaign. Kama tadiinu tudaanu.
Terror is another weapon used to silence critics in Bauchi. I remember how I escaped two assassination attempts, alhamdu lillah, in May and June last year. The paper I was then writing for refused to carry the story even after I personally complained to the editor and requested that its reporter visit the scene. I didn’t know that the reporter was working for Yuguda who later appointed him as a Special Assistant (Media). My only crime was writing The Yuguda Revolution in which I advised the governor on the challenges ahead of him after he won the last April election. As I write the present article I can imagine what will follow.
Likewise, Alhaji Kabiru Illelah has suffered several arrests by the Police at the instance of the Chief of Staff, Government House, and the active participation of the State Commissioner of Police. He was once summoned by the Secretary to the State Government who threatened that if he doesn’t play ball, “he should know that government can destroy him in ten minutes.” But he would tell his own story better one day.
Finally, there is now a very tight control over government documents to prevent them from leaking. Personnel are shuffled from one office to another. Memos to the Governor from ministries are conveyed in boxes with padlocks. What is there to hide? Leakage happens even in the White House. The government should know that people do not need documents to know what is happening. Other things tell the story of the ongoing corruption: the return of refuse dump pyramids, the numerous multimillion naira houses that are sprouted in the GRA in the past two months, the acute shortage of water in Bauchi, the conversion of First Inland Bank into a government department that supplies vehicles which are parked at the Bank’s headquarters before distribution, the brand new “discussion continuous” Honda Accords for every state member of the National Assembly, the 620si Rovers for party thugs and every local government party chairman, the diversion of a new generator set to a private factory in Kano, the lavish style of the Governor’s family, the lack of ongoing projects, the delays in salaries, hard experiences like Rumana, the continuous absence of the governor from the state, the starving of local governments with funds, etc.
As I edit this article, I received a report that the government is awarding a contract for another set of boreholes at the same criminal rates that we mentioned above. This is business more than usual. Well, I have fulfilled my religious obligation to His Excellency by writing this article as I did over eleven times to his predecessor. Expectedly, the media team of Yuguda is likely to downplay the importance of my call, promising him that they and his undertakers will deal with me. But as al-Mutanabbi once advised Saif al-Daulah, I advise His Excellency to ignore their call and listen to mine because “mine is the original voice; theirs is echo.”
However, should Yuguda ignore mine, as his predecessor did, I am afraid to warn him that, one day, democracy will present him a bill which he will not be able to pay. That day, he will know that the people of Bauchi who adopted him but whom he took for granted were not as gullible as he thought.
Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
2 January 2008
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
I am compelled to write this article by an incident that happened at Rumana, a settlement just 5 km away from my village. The people appealed to government for compensation after flood and rainstorm devastated all their farms last August. Over N8million was approved and released as relief to the villagers but in the end they were given only N139,500.00! Officials have pocketed 82.6% of the allocation. I have personally interviewed the village head and the incident was earlier reported in the media. The village head was immediately suspended by the District Head for revealing government secret. Tabdi. Ga mari ga tsinka jaka. The investigation panel set up by the state government on the matter failed to turn up in the village or interview the villagers.
Things are really getting too bad here and I cannot continue to bear the silence. I know I have promised the Trust not turn this page into a battlefield between Mu’azu and Yuguda but that does not mean I spare Yuguda the wrath of my pen just as I did not spare Mu’azu even when I served under him. The people of Bauchi State need to be saved from this unprecedented level of corruption. The state government needs to be awakened from its slumber while investors in First Inland Bank Plc need to be n their guard. If the government is not checked, the resultant failure will deepen our disillusion with the current political experiment. I know the Trust would not like this either. The paper has gained the reputation of an even-handed egalitarian and any connivance in suppressing the ongoing mess in Bauchi will devastate the northern psyche. I pray that the article is published.
Rumana is not an isolated case in Bauchi State, I am sorry to report. This has to do with the philosophy of the ruling party here. Its chairman was once reported in the media saying that “members of his party have fasted for eight long years. It is now our turn to ‘chop.” This comment, unfortunate as it was, not only explains but also seek to justify the pervasive corruption that is taking place in Bauchi State today, contrary to the promise that the government will be people-oriented and transparent.
The first window was opened was a petition against the government barely two months after it assumed office. The report was officially received on 13/8/2007 as indicated by the EFCC stamp. It called on the Commission to investigate the following: one, the N40 billion asset declaration of the governor; two, the order he gave to the Ministry of Finance to transfer the main account of the state from GTB to First Inland Bank where he was a Managing Director and still a substantial shareholder with the understanding that the account could be overdrawn to the tune of N25billion; three, the circumstances that led to the quick withdrawal of a petition before the EFCC by the new government on the N1.2billion overdraft incurred during the last days of the previous administration; four, the deal for purchasing 50 Nos. Honda CRV jeeps which was negotiated with the then Speaker of the state house of assembly and one Kashim Bukar and financed by First Inland Bank Plc; five, the award of N1.3billion contract to a Chinese firm for drilling boreholes; six, the renovation of Government House, SSG’s house and some guest houses at the cost of N860million without approval of the House of Assembly; seven, the diversion of N110million local governments funds to sponsor pilgrims without prior approval of councils’ chairmen; eight, the use of N14million by the governor to clear his personal goods from Dubai involving one Mukhtari Magas; and nine, the squander of N100million by the inauguration committee. Importantly, all petitions and paid adverts that I know so far are coming from members of the ruling ANPP who have fallen out with the present government.
Most of what the petition said was later to become common knowledge in Bauchi. For example, when the 50 Nos. Honda CRV Jeeps arrived, the news that they were supplied at double their rates quickly spread. Computation quickly showed that the contractor, or whoever, made away with over 250million on that single transaction. Also, the N1.5billion loan collected from GTB was quickly misappropriated. The checks for the severance allowance were instantly blocked by the governor and diverted elsewhere. When I officially protested I was assured that the severance allowance will be paid whenever the government gets surplus funds. Nothing is heard about it to date.
The approval for the boreholes which the EFCC petition mentioned was actually given by the Governor on 18/8/07, the day it was forwarded, at the rate of N1,353,020,704.05. The contractor is a Chinese company, M/S China Zhonghad (Nig.) Ltd. The contract, in which the memo claimed that due process was followed, consists of 47 motorized borehole schemes and 38 hand pumps without any specification but from the one drilled at GSS Toro they did not differ from those of the previous administration. Yet, the governor approved it to the last kobo without any council in place, directing that the “approval to be ratified by the executive council when constituted,” which indicates that no executive council was in place as at that date. Though the unit price was hidden, using simultaneous equation, I calculated that each borehole and hand pump was given at the cost of N24,780,598.97 and N4,956,119.75 respectively, i.e. N15billion and N3.5billion over the cost Mu’azu used to award each. Mu’azu’s administration used to award them at the rate of N10million and N1.5million respectively. Someone under Yuguda has neatly pocketed N825million on this deal over the rates of Mu’azu!
More information was to arrive. Last July, the construction of new Tafawa Balewa General Hospital was single-handedly awarded to a Lebanese company, Eagle Construction, at the asking price of N586,983,262.25(!). The bills did not include roads, water or even any hospital equipment. Two other hospitals at Zaki and Kafin Madaki were later awarded at a more reasonable figure of N170million each. But why the inconsistency, if we may ask? Again, N416million was pocketed here on T/Balewa and N100million on the other two. Mu’azu’s administration used to award such contracts at N120million.
There is also the scandal involving the supply of 2 Nos. 1,500kva generators to Gubi Water Treatment Plant which was awarded to JMG LTD after the Governor’s approval was gained on 2/7/07. The beneficiary was, again, the impeached Speaker of the state House of Assembly. The contractor supplied 1,250kva instead after waiting for three months for the order to arrive. Disturbed by the failure of the generators and the prolonged lack of water in Bauchi town, the governor who visited the site could not hide his disappointment on TV. Viewers saw how the state Commissioner of Water Resources quickly gave an alibi that the 1,250kva generators were temporarily supplied! The real 1,500kva are yet to arrive to date, the contractor is not apprehended, oga Commissioner is sitting tight while the residents of Bauchi are suffering from lack of water.
The claim made at Yuguda’s 100 days in office that all general hospitals in the state have been supplied with “brand new generator sets” which was made by the administration months is also a hoax. A lorry passed through my village just before Christmas carrying four refurbished generators, dropping one at the nearby Toro General Hospital before proceeding to other destinations. The second-hand generators are yet to be installed as at the time I am writing this article. And let us pray that they work.
There are issues of serviceable auctioned vehicles and generators, the present state of bankruptcy of the treasury in spite of receiving over N32billion from the Federation Account in the first six months, the daily reckless receipt of overdrafts from First Inland Bank Plc which is alleged to be in the region of N20billion now, the ongoing negotiation to receive a loan of N40billion from Islamic Development Bank which the government denied but which I have confirmed as true, another EFCC petition involving N500million, the N15million fraud at Shariah Commission over Ramadan meals, the fraud over N250million scholarship allowance that led to the constitution of a new disbursement committee, the unlimited personal expenditure of the governor, and so on. I do not want to waste my precious space narrating what is seemingly endless.
FEDERATION ACCOUNT ALLOCATION TO BAUCHI STATE
FROM MAY T0 NOVEMBER 2007 IN NAIRA
MONTH STATE GOVT LOCAL GOVTS
MAY 2,374,105,559.21 1,812,810,865.00
JUNE 2,421,717,824.47 1,820,826,850.92
JULY 3,066,633,909.94 2,312,515,693.36
AUGUST 2,883,707,976.81 2,246,405,514.36
SEP 2,403,657,198.78 1,894,933,221.70
OCT 2,489,400,146.63 1,976,547,702.44
NOV 2,422,813,403.07 1,931,586,027.89
SUB-TOTAL 18,062,036,018.91 13,995,625,875.67
GRAND TOTAL = 32,057,661,894.58
What I just wanted to prove was that Rumana is not an isolated incidence. The real problem, however, is Yuguda himself. I have a natural affection for this amiable person and I cannot tell why. Yet, I can clearly see that he is too weak to be a governor in contemporary Nigeria. This conclusion is inevitable. He has surrounded himself with chronically corrupt and incompetent people who have dominated the scene to the detriment of many of his aides who I personally know are really good and sincere.
The worst part of it is the elaborate attempt made by the administration to deceive the population and silence his critics. Those who served under the previous administration are daily threatened with one investigation or another. It has finally ended in setting up a judicial commission of inquiry that included names of people who are known for their chronic hate for Mu’azu, who have earlier made written and spoken libels against him, and who headed committees that called for his indictment.
There is also the attempt to conceal the ongoing corrupt practices involving prominent northern and southern dailies and magazines. It is not surprising that such papers carry only praises about the present administration while blocking any news about the ongoing corruption, including paid adverts. According to a memo that was approved by the governor on 28/8/07, the following largesse was prepared for six editors of newspapers: “travel expenses of N90,000.00; provision of accommodation at Protea Hotel; presentation of two sets of kaftans to each editor; a cash hospitality of N250,000.00 to each of the four editors and N500,000.00 each to editors of … and ...; allocation of a vehicle to convey the editors from Abuja to Bauchi vice versa including fuelling.”
Earlier, on 13/7/07, one of the leading northern newspapers submitted a quotation dubbed “Bauchi State Government Special Project.” It was on this that SSA (Media and Publicity) submitted a memo on 5/8/08 requesting the governor to approve the sum of N8m for the newspaper and N2m for another northern newspaper. The governor approved the N8million but declined the second request. A recent development is that arrangements are concluded to put these newspapers and some prominent magazines on “retainership” with the state government. In addition, approval was also given to the office of the SSA (Media) for the monthly allocation of N2million “without prejudice to the Directorate of Press’s Monthly Strategic Media Fund for its day to day publicity activities”, as the memo concluded.
Yuguda’s media team is truly impressive especially with the above level of support. But what the team is missing, if I must advise it, is that blocking people’s access to the media will create more harm than good to His Excellency. They are pushing people to employ subterranean channels in where they are not restrained by law to use decorum and facts. The trend has started already and it is really biting. The administration was driven crazy about a nostalgic song, Tunanin Ahmadu, to the extent that the studio was raided and the composer arrested. The alleged sponsor, Alhaji Kabiru Illela, was arrested six times, his house was raided by police, and an assassination squad was sent after him, missing him by just 15minutes. They have forgotten that libelous songs were among the principal means of Yuguda’s campaign. Kama tadiinu tudaanu.
Terror is another weapon used to silence critics in Bauchi. I remember how I escaped two assassination attempts, alhamdu lillah, in May and June last year. The paper I was then writing for refused to carry the story even after I personally complained to the editor and requested that its reporter visit the scene. I didn’t know that the reporter was working for Yuguda who later appointed him as a Special Assistant (Media). My only crime was writing The Yuguda Revolution in which I advised the governor on the challenges ahead of him after he won the last April election. As I write the present article I can imagine what will follow.
Likewise, Alhaji Kabiru Illelah has suffered several arrests by the Police at the instance of the Chief of Staff, Government House, and the active participation of the State Commissioner of Police. He was once summoned by the Secretary to the State Government who threatened that if he doesn’t play ball, “he should know that government can destroy him in ten minutes.” But he would tell his own story better one day.
Finally, there is now a very tight control over government documents to prevent them from leaking. Personnel are shuffled from one office to another. Memos to the Governor from ministries are conveyed in boxes with padlocks. What is there to hide? Leakage happens even in the White House. The government should know that people do not need documents to know what is happening. Other things tell the story of the ongoing corruption: the return of refuse dump pyramids, the numerous multimillion naira houses that are sprouted in the GRA in the past two months, the acute shortage of water in Bauchi, the conversion of First Inland Bank into a government department that supplies vehicles which are parked at the Bank’s headquarters before distribution, the brand new “discussion continuous” Honda Accords for every state member of the National Assembly, the 620si Rovers for party thugs and every local government party chairman, the diversion of a new generator set to a private factory in Kano, the lavish style of the Governor’s family, the lack of ongoing projects, the delays in salaries, hard experiences like Rumana, the continuous absence of the governor from the state, the starving of local governments with funds, etc.
As I edit this article, I received a report that the government is awarding a contract for another set of boreholes at the same criminal rates that we mentioned above. This is business more than usual. Well, I have fulfilled my religious obligation to His Excellency by writing this article as I did over eleven times to his predecessor. Expectedly, the media team of Yuguda is likely to downplay the importance of my call, promising him that they and his undertakers will deal with me. But as al-Mutanabbi once advised Saif al-Daulah, I advise His Excellency to ignore their call and listen to mine because “mine is the original voice; theirs is echo.”
However, should Yuguda ignore mine, as his predecessor did, I am afraid to warn him that, one day, democracy will present him a bill which he will not be able to pay. That day, he will know that the people of Bauchi who adopted him but whom he took for granted were not as gullible as he thought.
Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
2 January 2008
Sule Lamido, My Governor of the Year
Lamido, My Governor of the Year
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
There is this modern Hausa adage that spells the difficulty, hopelessness and ingratitude of public service in Nigeria. It says ba ka iyawa, ba ka gamawa, ba a yaba ma: You cannot do it right as a public officer; you cannot finish the job, and you will not be praised. The examples are too numerous to mention, from independence to date. However, I will not hesitate to make a confession. We writers – journalists and non-journalists alike, and Dr. Tilde inclusive, possibly – have tremendously contributed to this syndrome. We hardly see any good in a public servant. Even when we see it we keep silent because we are afraid of being branded as sycophants. Then after the servant has left office, we are quick to demonize him for the brown envelopes we will receive from his successor. I am afraid to say that this attitude is discouraging to public service to the extent that many officials in this country hardly read newspapers, as some heads of states and governors disclosed before.
While criticism may discourage some excesses of the ruler, acknowledging his right actions in a developing society like ours could equally encourage his stay on the narrow path of prudence. Also, extolling exemplary behavior courts its repetition by others. Keeping quiet on the good actions of leaders, on the other hand, creates the cynical atmosphere that all leaders are evil, something which erodes the hope for a better future. For this reason, I have decided to come up with my governor of the year, someone who, in my judgment, has through his policies and actions tried to tread the path of rectitude, who has done things similar to what we advised, who has chosen to differ from the cheap trade of squander, corruption, laziness and incompetence, and who has embraced his people.
This year, among many governors, I have found the present governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, to be most suitable for the title. The policies of this unassuming and down-to-earth personality have many times filled my heart with delight in the past six months. There are at least six policies which correspond to the position I have been taking on this page. This is what I intend to discuss them in the following paragraphs.
First, I was delighted with the idea of creating an allowance for the physically challenged in our society. Such people receive a monthly allowance of N7,000.00 monthly in Jigawa State now. The policy which the governor announced at the debut of his administration is an innovation. Life has become so difficult even for the able-bodied individuals in this country. What it has become for the physically challenged can, therefore, only be imagined. Having a government which identified with these people and accords them special attention – not only of empowerment but also of income – deserves our special mention. This is an era in which government rules are aligned with the capitalist policies of IMF and World Bank which are preaching cutting the cost of governance by trimming the work force, removing subsidies and charging citizens for social services. Doing so has aggravated poverty in the developing world and restricted the circulation of wealth to the upper class, as the World Bank has recently admitted.
The second policy was that of increasing agricultural subsidy by selling fertilizer at the rate of N900.00 per 50-kg bag against the market price of N3,200.00, a record subsidy of seventy percent. This is criminal, according to the World Bank, superb according to the farmers. When I heard about this last July, I called Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and asked why they brought the price of the commodity so low. He defended the policy by saying that their people are poor and overwhelmingly farmers; so subsidies are one of the best means of boosting productivity in the state. Besides, he added, America spends over a billion dollars daily as subsidy to its farmers. I was elated to discover such bold individuals in government. And, honestly, I think he had a point here. The only state that came close to Jigawa was its sister, Kano, which sold its fertilizer at N1,000.00. The highest subsidy accorded by most state governments so far is fifty percent.
Another interesting thing is the egalitarian manner in which the fertilizer was distributed. Priority was given to farmers and even the highest government officials were asked to return to their villages to get their shares. The fertilizer was not enough because it was a transition year but I appreciate the principles used in its pricing and distribution. It is my hope that enough of the commodity will be purchased in 2008 and distributed early enough. I would not also mind if the government subsidizes it further while maintaining prudence in the distribution.
I have to commend Jigawa over this because in many other states fertilizer is distributed in a terribly saddening way. Trailer-loads are allocated to elders across the country; many are diverted to traders; many simply disappear, etc. In fact, in a state neighboring Jigawa which claims transparency, thirty truck-loads of fertilizer disappeared in fraud.
The third is that Lamido has correctly captured the essence of governance, which is attending to the needs of his people. Modern jargon aside, in simple terms, a leader is required to carry out only two functions: attending to the problems of his people and bringing whatever good that will improve on their condition. The essence of government is not economic growth that puts the largest number of citizens at disadvantage and concentrating wealth in the hands of a few. The governor holds that a government loses its raison d’etre if it fails to provide basic amenities to its people. Standing in an estate of over 700 houses that is not provided with even a drop of potable water in Dutse, I heard him lamenting, “haba jama’a, ruwa fa, ruwa kawai… (Oh people, we cannot even provide something as basic as water, just water?)!”
The state capital, Dutse, has not witnessed much development since it was created about two decades ago. That is not to say Saminu or other governors did not do anything; despite their effort, however, development is still at its infant stage. Lamido now has embarked on policies that will retain civil servants in the capital. One of them is the adequate provision of enough housing. He is completing houses started by previous administrations and embarking on the construction of new estates. Education is receiving a boost with the intention that no class will be left dilapidated or without furniture by the end of his tenure. Likewise, an inspectorate on education is created under the Governor’s Office – as it was during Sardauna – such that he can receive reports directly on education delivery in the state. For this he is secretly nicknamed “chief inspector of education”. Arrangements are also made to promote intensive fadama development (dry season farming) as a backbone to poverty alleviation. Nothing is more practical than this in a state that has the largest fadama acreage in the country.
The fourth reason is the ability of the Governor to take tough decisions. Two decisions here stand out remarkably. He decided to return government ministries and parastatals to Dutse, from where the previous governor dispersed them to various towns across the state. The decision was right but it would certainly make many unhappy especially those who were not interested in the development of the state capital for political reasons.
The second bold decision is his refusal to use public funds to finance annual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia as is done by all governments in northern Nigeria. This must have raised many eyebrows especially among religious leaders, elders and politicians who are the major beneficiaries of such expenditure. The state was spending close to a billion naira annually when there were many pressing needs in the social sector. We have pleaded with our governors to stop this practice because it contravenes the principle of priority in Islam, and it just does not make sense. They have always paid a deaf ear to our plea, using it to buy the ulama especially, until now when one of them at least has mustered the courage to say enough to the squander. I was exhilarated when the news broke out in the BBC. I thought this man must qualify as my man of the year if he is not discounted on other points. I immediately started investigating on whether he is consistent in protecting public funds. And the result was positive.
This brings us to the discovery of the fifth reason – prudence. If his prudence was applied only to pilgrimage and squander had continued in other fronts, Lamido would not have qualified as my governor of the year. Since, as al-mutanabbi said, clarity is achieved by constrast, I compared Jigawa with a neighboring state government. In the neighboring state, for example, there are substantial allegations that the governor spends N750,000.00 as his chefane (domestic feeding expenditure) daily, dolling N250,000.00 to each wife. Yes, daily! His chief of staff and SSG both receive N800,000.00 monthly for the domestic expenditure in addition to their salaries. That state has already incurred overdraft of several billions within six months of its tenure and it is negotiating an international loan of several other billions. From a single bank, it has an overdraft of N1.5billion on purchase of cars alone in the past six months in addition to those it buys directly from its treasury. The office of the SSG, like in the previous administration, still spends millions daily as security vote, etc.
I found out that Jigawa State has saved over N8billion in the last six months. I had a dinner with the SSG and asked him how much chefane is he paid daily. He said none. But he turned to the steward of the guest house where he lives and asked him. The guy said he receives N20,000.00 for ten days, that is N60,000.00. The SSG protested that the figure is high. “No. You have guests”, I explained, “and the steward too, you know, needs a margin of comfort to operate. N2,000.00 daily is reasonable.” And that is how it is in other areas.
The sixth and last reason is the matured stand of not probing his immediate predecessor despite immense pressure from many people in the state. I called on our governors to take this stand last June and I am happy to find one of them at least shares my opinion. Jigawa State is widely considered as badly administered during the past eight years and Lamido would have made sensational headlines if he had decided to probe Saminu, but he refused. He said it is a waste of precious time and will breed a lot of acrimony and unnecessary enemies for the administration.
So he upheld all decisions taken by his predecessor except those that are criminal like the issue of N30billion loan that was inappropriately acquired from some two local banks. According to his transition committee report, the previous government left a liability – the committee even refused to use the word “debt” – of N130billion. Yet, the governor is not tempted to make the headlines. Compare this to what is happening in a state neighboring Jigawa. Its past administration left a liability – eagerly called “debt” in this case – of only N22billion (one-fifth of its 2008 budget) which was accumulated over the past twenty years. The new governor, to cover his own ineptitude, is always in the media lamenting that he is left with an empty treasury. He contracted professional accountants to investigate every contract that was awarded from 1999 to 2007 with the promise that whoever is found guilty “will face the music.” To motivate the investigators, they were promised a good percentage of whatever is recovered.
Then he presented the report to the President, EFCC and ICPC, hoping to use them as his hunting dogs. But except for the theft of N8billion in the Department for Local Government which is quoted many times by the government, the two anti-corruption organizations showed little enthusiasm. Their reason is that the improprieties are petty and, more importantly, the level of corruption in the present administration is higher than in the previous one. The governor, clearly out of frustration, has now instituted a judicial commission of inquiry whose composition, apart from a high court judge who serves as its chairman, is composed of his party members who did the initial investigations and pointed accusing fingers to those they will preside over their cases, thus being judges in their own case. I am ashamed. Thanks to Lamido, Jigawa State is saved from this trouble for the better.
In line with this, the new governor of Jigawa state has decided to continue from where the previous government left and build on it, something I have canvassed for many times. I am an advocate of modernity and do appreciate many things that the former governor did. So when I heard that things like his IT project will not be abandoned, I felt happy. In some states, a lot of energy went into belittling whatever good the previous administration has done, without any sign that the present one has the capacity or even intention to do better in spite of the superior resources at its disposal. We have a case where a governor single handedly closed down a university. This is cheap and not healthy for our development.
I inquired from where Lamido acquired the above qualities. The answer was not far-fetched at all. He followed the rule of antecedent or what the Arabs will call, man shabba ‘ala shay’in shaaba alaih. Jigawa was part of Kano State and its people have been disciples of late Malam Aminu Kano, the leader of the Northern Elements Peoples Union (NEPU), a leftist party in the 1950s and 60s. It was also under the rule of the leftist People’s Redemption Party, a reincarnation of NEPU during the Second Republic. Lamido was very close to Kano State governor, Abubakar Rimi, whom I consider the best governor in modern Nigeria. I heard the governor saying, “Kai, mu nan NEPU ce har yanzu,” meaning we are still NEPU-oriented.
I salute Lamido. It is my sincere hope that Jigawa State will develop fast under his leadership. I hope also that the governor will remain focused on putting his people first in every consideration he makes, just as I hope he will continue to take the right decisions no matter how tough they may be and run his government in peace without the waste that we still witness in some states. He should not be daunted by our cynical perception of ba ka iyawa, ba ka gamawa, ba a yabawa. The essence of this article is to send the message to him and other similar leaders as well that there are people who have never met them; yet, they are ever ready to appreciate whatever good they do in office. As God says, “And whatever good you do, they do not belittle it. And God is aware of those who fear Him.”
I wish him good luck.
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
There is this modern Hausa adage that spells the difficulty, hopelessness and ingratitude of public service in Nigeria. It says ba ka iyawa, ba ka gamawa, ba a yaba ma: You cannot do it right as a public officer; you cannot finish the job, and you will not be praised. The examples are too numerous to mention, from independence to date. However, I will not hesitate to make a confession. We writers – journalists and non-journalists alike, and Dr. Tilde inclusive, possibly – have tremendously contributed to this syndrome. We hardly see any good in a public servant. Even when we see it we keep silent because we are afraid of being branded as sycophants. Then after the servant has left office, we are quick to demonize him for the brown envelopes we will receive from his successor. I am afraid to say that this attitude is discouraging to public service to the extent that many officials in this country hardly read newspapers, as some heads of states and governors disclosed before.
While criticism may discourage some excesses of the ruler, acknowledging his right actions in a developing society like ours could equally encourage his stay on the narrow path of prudence. Also, extolling exemplary behavior courts its repetition by others. Keeping quiet on the good actions of leaders, on the other hand, creates the cynical atmosphere that all leaders are evil, something which erodes the hope for a better future. For this reason, I have decided to come up with my governor of the year, someone who, in my judgment, has through his policies and actions tried to tread the path of rectitude, who has done things similar to what we advised, who has chosen to differ from the cheap trade of squander, corruption, laziness and incompetence, and who has embraced his people.
This year, among many governors, I have found the present governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, to be most suitable for the title. The policies of this unassuming and down-to-earth personality have many times filled my heart with delight in the past six months. There are at least six policies which correspond to the position I have been taking on this page. This is what I intend to discuss them in the following paragraphs.
First, I was delighted with the idea of creating an allowance for the physically challenged in our society. Such people receive a monthly allowance of N7,000.00 monthly in Jigawa State now. The policy which the governor announced at the debut of his administration is an innovation. Life has become so difficult even for the able-bodied individuals in this country. What it has become for the physically challenged can, therefore, only be imagined. Having a government which identified with these people and accords them special attention – not only of empowerment but also of income – deserves our special mention. This is an era in which government rules are aligned with the capitalist policies of IMF and World Bank which are preaching cutting the cost of governance by trimming the work force, removing subsidies and charging citizens for social services. Doing so has aggravated poverty in the developing world and restricted the circulation of wealth to the upper class, as the World Bank has recently admitted.
The second policy was that of increasing agricultural subsidy by selling fertilizer at the rate of N900.00 per 50-kg bag against the market price of N3,200.00, a record subsidy of seventy percent. This is criminal, according to the World Bank, superb according to the farmers. When I heard about this last July, I called Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and asked why they brought the price of the commodity so low. He defended the policy by saying that their people are poor and overwhelmingly farmers; so subsidies are one of the best means of boosting productivity in the state. Besides, he added, America spends over a billion dollars daily as subsidy to its farmers. I was elated to discover such bold individuals in government. And, honestly, I think he had a point here. The only state that came close to Jigawa was its sister, Kano, which sold its fertilizer at N1,000.00. The highest subsidy accorded by most state governments so far is fifty percent.
Another interesting thing is the egalitarian manner in which the fertilizer was distributed. Priority was given to farmers and even the highest government officials were asked to return to their villages to get their shares. The fertilizer was not enough because it was a transition year but I appreciate the principles used in its pricing and distribution. It is my hope that enough of the commodity will be purchased in 2008 and distributed early enough. I would not also mind if the government subsidizes it further while maintaining prudence in the distribution.
I have to commend Jigawa over this because in many other states fertilizer is distributed in a terribly saddening way. Trailer-loads are allocated to elders across the country; many are diverted to traders; many simply disappear, etc. In fact, in a state neighboring Jigawa which claims transparency, thirty truck-loads of fertilizer disappeared in fraud.
The third is that Lamido has correctly captured the essence of governance, which is attending to the needs of his people. Modern jargon aside, in simple terms, a leader is required to carry out only two functions: attending to the problems of his people and bringing whatever good that will improve on their condition. The essence of government is not economic growth that puts the largest number of citizens at disadvantage and concentrating wealth in the hands of a few. The governor holds that a government loses its raison d’etre if it fails to provide basic amenities to its people. Standing in an estate of over 700 houses that is not provided with even a drop of potable water in Dutse, I heard him lamenting, “haba jama’a, ruwa fa, ruwa kawai… (Oh people, we cannot even provide something as basic as water, just water?)!”
The state capital, Dutse, has not witnessed much development since it was created about two decades ago. That is not to say Saminu or other governors did not do anything; despite their effort, however, development is still at its infant stage. Lamido now has embarked on policies that will retain civil servants in the capital. One of them is the adequate provision of enough housing. He is completing houses started by previous administrations and embarking on the construction of new estates. Education is receiving a boost with the intention that no class will be left dilapidated or without furniture by the end of his tenure. Likewise, an inspectorate on education is created under the Governor’s Office – as it was during Sardauna – such that he can receive reports directly on education delivery in the state. For this he is secretly nicknamed “chief inspector of education”. Arrangements are also made to promote intensive fadama development (dry season farming) as a backbone to poverty alleviation. Nothing is more practical than this in a state that has the largest fadama acreage in the country.
The fourth reason is the ability of the Governor to take tough decisions. Two decisions here stand out remarkably. He decided to return government ministries and parastatals to Dutse, from where the previous governor dispersed them to various towns across the state. The decision was right but it would certainly make many unhappy especially those who were not interested in the development of the state capital for political reasons.
The second bold decision is his refusal to use public funds to finance annual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia as is done by all governments in northern Nigeria. This must have raised many eyebrows especially among religious leaders, elders and politicians who are the major beneficiaries of such expenditure. The state was spending close to a billion naira annually when there were many pressing needs in the social sector. We have pleaded with our governors to stop this practice because it contravenes the principle of priority in Islam, and it just does not make sense. They have always paid a deaf ear to our plea, using it to buy the ulama especially, until now when one of them at least has mustered the courage to say enough to the squander. I was exhilarated when the news broke out in the BBC. I thought this man must qualify as my man of the year if he is not discounted on other points. I immediately started investigating on whether he is consistent in protecting public funds. And the result was positive.
This brings us to the discovery of the fifth reason – prudence. If his prudence was applied only to pilgrimage and squander had continued in other fronts, Lamido would not have qualified as my governor of the year. Since, as al-mutanabbi said, clarity is achieved by constrast, I compared Jigawa with a neighboring state government. In the neighboring state, for example, there are substantial allegations that the governor spends N750,000.00 as his chefane (domestic feeding expenditure) daily, dolling N250,000.00 to each wife. Yes, daily! His chief of staff and SSG both receive N800,000.00 monthly for the domestic expenditure in addition to their salaries. That state has already incurred overdraft of several billions within six months of its tenure and it is negotiating an international loan of several other billions. From a single bank, it has an overdraft of N1.5billion on purchase of cars alone in the past six months in addition to those it buys directly from its treasury. The office of the SSG, like in the previous administration, still spends millions daily as security vote, etc.
I found out that Jigawa State has saved over N8billion in the last six months. I had a dinner with the SSG and asked him how much chefane is he paid daily. He said none. But he turned to the steward of the guest house where he lives and asked him. The guy said he receives N20,000.00 for ten days, that is N60,000.00. The SSG protested that the figure is high. “No. You have guests”, I explained, “and the steward too, you know, needs a margin of comfort to operate. N2,000.00 daily is reasonable.” And that is how it is in other areas.
The sixth and last reason is the matured stand of not probing his immediate predecessor despite immense pressure from many people in the state. I called on our governors to take this stand last June and I am happy to find one of them at least shares my opinion. Jigawa State is widely considered as badly administered during the past eight years and Lamido would have made sensational headlines if he had decided to probe Saminu, but he refused. He said it is a waste of precious time and will breed a lot of acrimony and unnecessary enemies for the administration.
So he upheld all decisions taken by his predecessor except those that are criminal like the issue of N30billion loan that was inappropriately acquired from some two local banks. According to his transition committee report, the previous government left a liability – the committee even refused to use the word “debt” – of N130billion. Yet, the governor is not tempted to make the headlines. Compare this to what is happening in a state neighboring Jigawa. Its past administration left a liability – eagerly called “debt” in this case – of only N22billion (one-fifth of its 2008 budget) which was accumulated over the past twenty years. The new governor, to cover his own ineptitude, is always in the media lamenting that he is left with an empty treasury. He contracted professional accountants to investigate every contract that was awarded from 1999 to 2007 with the promise that whoever is found guilty “will face the music.” To motivate the investigators, they were promised a good percentage of whatever is recovered.
Then he presented the report to the President, EFCC and ICPC, hoping to use them as his hunting dogs. But except for the theft of N8billion in the Department for Local Government which is quoted many times by the government, the two anti-corruption organizations showed little enthusiasm. Their reason is that the improprieties are petty and, more importantly, the level of corruption in the present administration is higher than in the previous one. The governor, clearly out of frustration, has now instituted a judicial commission of inquiry whose composition, apart from a high court judge who serves as its chairman, is composed of his party members who did the initial investigations and pointed accusing fingers to those they will preside over their cases, thus being judges in their own case. I am ashamed. Thanks to Lamido, Jigawa State is saved from this trouble for the better.
In line with this, the new governor of Jigawa state has decided to continue from where the previous government left and build on it, something I have canvassed for many times. I am an advocate of modernity and do appreciate many things that the former governor did. So when I heard that things like his IT project will not be abandoned, I felt happy. In some states, a lot of energy went into belittling whatever good the previous administration has done, without any sign that the present one has the capacity or even intention to do better in spite of the superior resources at its disposal. We have a case where a governor single handedly closed down a university. This is cheap and not healthy for our development.
I inquired from where Lamido acquired the above qualities. The answer was not far-fetched at all. He followed the rule of antecedent or what the Arabs will call, man shabba ‘ala shay’in shaaba alaih. Jigawa was part of Kano State and its people have been disciples of late Malam Aminu Kano, the leader of the Northern Elements Peoples Union (NEPU), a leftist party in the 1950s and 60s. It was also under the rule of the leftist People’s Redemption Party, a reincarnation of NEPU during the Second Republic. Lamido was very close to Kano State governor, Abubakar Rimi, whom I consider the best governor in modern Nigeria. I heard the governor saying, “Kai, mu nan NEPU ce har yanzu,” meaning we are still NEPU-oriented.
I salute Lamido. It is my sincere hope that Jigawa State will develop fast under his leadership. I hope also that the governor will remain focused on putting his people first in every consideration he makes, just as I hope he will continue to take the right decisions no matter how tough they may be and run his government in peace without the waste that we still witness in some states. He should not be daunted by our cynical perception of ba ka iyawa, ba ka gamawa, ba a yabawa. The essence of this article is to send the message to him and other similar leaders as well that there are people who have never met them; yet, they are ever ready to appreciate whatever good they do in office. As God says, “And whatever good you do, they do not belittle it. And God is aware of those who fear Him.”
I wish him good luck.
Immunity Must Go
Immunity Must Go
By
Dr. Aliyu Tilde
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
I did not know that Governors also cry until last week when they met the President and bitterly complained of their exclusion from the benefits of third term, immunity and other matters that border on their selfish interests in the constitutional amendment report presented to the Senate. The President assured them that something will be done. Shamelessly, his agents smuggled a revised copy of the document that takes care of the governors’ grudges, but thanks to the patriotism of majority of senators, it was thrown out. What a pity!
In our support to those senators, we are today reprinting our 185th discourse which was published last year. In it we reviewed the origin of the doctrine and how illogical it will be to retain it in 21st Century Nigeria when even Britain, its source, has stripped the Queen of its benefits long ago.
Immunity is an old common law doctrine that is rooted in the dictum ‘the King can do no wrong’. In a book widely read by students of administrative law, Nigerian Administrative Law, P. A. Oluyede located the relevance of the dictum in the feudal structure of old England, saying:
“Under feudal system no lord could be sued in the court which he held to try the cases of his tenants. Similarly, the King of England as the apex of the feudal pyramid was not subject to the jurisdiction of any Court in the realm. The basis of the concept is clear. It is simply not that the King could do no wrong, but that no action could be brought against him in his Court without his consent. Ironically however, the oft cited expression that ‘the King can do no wrong’ has been completely misunderstood…
“Another reason for the development is that the true meaning of ‘the King can do no wrong’ is that the King has no legal power to do wrong. The King’s legal position, the powers and prerogatives which distinguish him from an ordinary citizen, is given to him by law, and the law gives him no authority to commit wrong. Much too often it was not appreciated that the King as a human being had a personal as well as a political capacity. In his personal capacity he was just as capable of acting illegally as was any one else.”
In other words, the immunity of the King arose from two reasons: one, the fact that the Court was his and so he cannot issue a writ against himself without him permitting the Court to do so through his endorsement of petitions; two, the society does not expect him to do a wrong, so he did not have the legal capacity to commit it. Following this, a civil servant in those days could only nominally be a defendant in an action brought against him; the government was responsible for fulfilling any obligation arising from his actions.
Things changed in 1947 when the Crown Proceedings Act was promulgated. Under this law, the King became a subject of private law, though not in his personal capacity, and a citizen can seek redress against the injustices committed against a state or its official by ordinary court procedure.
“It is noteworthy at this juncture,” Oluyede wrote, “to point out that the practice which had been in operation in England up to January 1948 was imported to Nigeria and the practice is still in existence in this country even after it attained republican status. It is on record that Britain has, since the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947, came into operation, made it possible to sue the Crown in the Courts by the ordinary process of law in all cases where a Petition of Right or a special statutory procedure had hitherto been the practice. In sum, civil actions by and against public authorities and officials in connection with acts or omissions which normally give rise to cause of action between two citizens are now on the same footing. There is no difference in procedure adopted.”
From the immunity of the Crown, let us move to the immunity of its inheritors. In Nigeria the rights of the crown are vested in our Heads of Governments by provisions of the Republican constitution in 1963. In 1979, following the adoption of a presidential system of government, section 276 of the constitution stated that
“without prejudice to the generality of section 274 of this constitution, any property, right, privilege, liability and obligation which immediately before the date when the section comes into force was vested in, exercisable or enforceable by or against (a) the former authority of the Federation representative or trustee for the benefit of the Federation; or (b) any former authority of a state as representative or trustee for the benefit of the state, shall on the date when this section comes into force and without further assurance than the provisions hereof vest in or become exercisable or enforceable by or against the President and Government of the Federation, and the Governor and Government of the State, as the case may be.”
It must be noted here that the Crown Proceedings Act did not strip the Crown of his immunity in private and personal capacity. The immunity provision of section 267 of the 1979 constitution was a logical flow of the above quoted provision of section 276. “The section (267),” wrote Oluyede,
“provides that no civil or criminal proceedings shall be instituted or continued against the president, Vice-President, Governor or Deputy-Governor during their period of office. They can neither be arrested nor imprisoned during that period in pursuance of the process of any Court or otherwise. While they hold office no process of any Court requiring or compelling their appearance shall be applied for or issued. This is not to say that they are not liable for any civil or criminal act or omission done in their personal capacity while in office. It only means that action cannot be taken against them at that material time.” This provision is replicated in our 1999 constitution.
That is law. It did not envisage that a King can do wrong. It never foresaw a situation where criminals will become kings or kings becoming criminals. The old philosophy is that a king lives well above his servants in his display of majesty and pride; hence, he will not condescend to the level of criminality. Thus we have never heard, until recently in Nigeria and other developing countries, that a President of a nation or a governor of a state can reduce himself to the level of a thief. What a terrible person would he then be in the contemplation of our grandparents?
In the relationship between a king and wrongdoing, three situations can be discerned. The first is that he lives above the level of wrong, and remains free of the consequences of wrongdoing. In this dimension, the provision of immunity makes a lot of sense. But what happens if the king does wrong? That is where the remaining two options come into operation.
When he does wrong, it means the immunity granted him has failed. Under the presidential system of government, the constitution provides for an impeachment clause which could be invoked by the legislature after a procedure that ascertains his guilt is duly followed. Remembering Clinton, that is when the king becomes demystified; he loses his majesty and looks like a cock beaten by rain, as the Hausa will put it.
In Nigeria too the constitution relies on the impeachment clause to guard the executive against doing wrong or in removing him from office when he commits one. Unfortunately in practice, it is used to settle scores between the executive and the legislature or in the attempt of the latter to extort money from the former. A case to recall here is that of former Governor of Kaduna State during the Second Republic, Alhaji Balarabe Musa who was impeached not for reasons related to theft or any misdemeanour but ideological difference between him and the legislature. The impeachment clause here has been used negatively. The impeachment clause was also used to remove many deputy governors thereafter who could not dance to the tune of their governors.
Today, the impeachment clause is used by the legislature to extort money from a wrong doing king, and almost all the kings in Nigeria are wrongdoers. Whenever they learn about a wrong committed by the governor or the President, they raise the card against him and, behold, Ghana must go begin to roll out. Then they drop it. I wish Balarabe Musa were so wise. That is how Baba Iyabo has been able to navigate on the turbulent water of the politics of the second, sorry third, most corrupt nation on earth. During the first term of this administration, the House of Representatives listed over thirty offences committed by President Obasanjo, including forgery. They would have impeached him, if it were not for the power of Ghana must go. Here, impeachment has failed to secure justice for Nigerians due to the susceptibility of the legislature to corruption.
It is the case of Dariye that brought the immobilizing effect of the immunity clause to public glare. He and other governors are good specimens of wrongdoing kings. He is allegedly guilty of negligence of duty that has caused the lives of thousands of people in the ‘home of peace and tourism.’ In addition, records have shown that he has stolen billions from the public treasury. The President, we learnt, tried to persuade the Plateau State legislature to impeach Dariye or else face the imposition of State of Emergency as a consequence. They chose the latter over the removal of their benefactor.
While away during the state of emergency, the presidency and M15 exposed the corrupt practices of Dariye. He was arrested in Britain and granted bail on charges of money laundering. A case was brought before the Court and his immunity right as a governor was upheld. While the law allows him to go free, for now, his collaborators in the same crime are standing trial. Meanwhile, no one can assure us that Dariye has not resumed the perpetration of his corrupt practices which will go on, unfortunately, until 2007. Other corrupt governors are also temporarily relieved by that verdict of the fear of prosecution; they can continue filling their Ghana must go jus qua 2007. We can only wait for the end of their tenure and think of how to drag them to court thereafter for the offences they committed with impunity before our eyes. It is clear, therefore, that we cannot rely on the impeachment clause, just as we feel the immunity clause is archaic and unjust ab initio. Here, again, the law has failed to secure justice.
It is when a judicial system fails to check the excesses of the king that citizens resort to solutions outside the law. Where the law ends, anarchy takes over. In the realm of anarchy, people have found various ways of dealing with the problem. Civil war is one, often ending with the king as the loser, as it happened to Charles I in 17th Century England. Revolution is another, as it happened in France in 1789 against feudalism and Charles XVI to usher in Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen which guaranteed “liberty, equality, the inviolability of property and the right to resist oppression.” The same thing happened to the Russian Tsar in March 1917 leading the takeover by Bolsheviks in November. Recently, the revolution of 1978 in Iran saw the final exit of the Pehlavi Monarchy and substituted it with a questionable marriage between democracy and theocracy. On the African continent we have seen the fall of Haile Selassie in 1974. I wonder if the ruling houses in the Middle Eastern kingdoms will survive the end of this century.
Military coups have been popular means of getting rid of corrupt governments in Africa. The Second Republic in Nigeria was brought to an end because the legislature could not simply recognize that the country was collapsing, hence the need to impeach the President. Some say that the era of coup is over. I will prefer to advise the king that he should not take chances; he should do no wrong…
Finally, in the debate over the immunity of the executive, supporters of the provision have dubiously avoided mentioning its actual (historical) reasons; rather, they simply tell us that the executive need to be protected against the flood of litigations that will distract them from performing their duties. However, given the risk of corruption and the consequent overthrow of the government that the immunity provision engenders, I will rather prefer that we remove the immunity and, in its place, strengthen the law of defamation with special provisions that will raise the stake of unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing against the President, Vice President, Governors and their Deputies.
While deterring people with evil intention, the law will thus make it possible for citizens with evidence of wrongdoing against and the President or any governor to come forward and present them before the court of law. Once found guilty, the executive can be removed, imprisoned or executed as the law would require. The impeachment clause will then be redundant and removed. The ultimate power of removing the President, Governor or their Deputies will thus lie with the judiciary. Let us try it. Other than this, retaining immunity and impeachment clauses in a corrupt environment like ours is the surest invitation to coups and other non-constitutional means of changing the situation.
As for those who misused the immunity clause in the past seven years thinking that the day of reckoning will never come, their cry has come earlier than expected. The President too cannot hold back his tears. They will start flowing immediately Nigerians get shocked by the staggering statistics of corruption that took place in his office. The vulture is a patient bird. We are not in a hurry.
By
Dr. Aliyu Tilde
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
I did not know that Governors also cry until last week when they met the President and bitterly complained of their exclusion from the benefits of third term, immunity and other matters that border on their selfish interests in the constitutional amendment report presented to the Senate. The President assured them that something will be done. Shamelessly, his agents smuggled a revised copy of the document that takes care of the governors’ grudges, but thanks to the patriotism of majority of senators, it was thrown out. What a pity!
In our support to those senators, we are today reprinting our 185th discourse which was published last year. In it we reviewed the origin of the doctrine and how illogical it will be to retain it in 21st Century Nigeria when even Britain, its source, has stripped the Queen of its benefits long ago.
Immunity is an old common law doctrine that is rooted in the dictum ‘the King can do no wrong’. In a book widely read by students of administrative law, Nigerian Administrative Law, P. A. Oluyede located the relevance of the dictum in the feudal structure of old England, saying:
“Under feudal system no lord could be sued in the court which he held to try the cases of his tenants. Similarly, the King of England as the apex of the feudal pyramid was not subject to the jurisdiction of any Court in the realm. The basis of the concept is clear. It is simply not that the King could do no wrong, but that no action could be brought against him in his Court without his consent. Ironically however, the oft cited expression that ‘the King can do no wrong’ has been completely misunderstood…
“Another reason for the development is that the true meaning of ‘the King can do no wrong’ is that the King has no legal power to do wrong. The King’s legal position, the powers and prerogatives which distinguish him from an ordinary citizen, is given to him by law, and the law gives him no authority to commit wrong. Much too often it was not appreciated that the King as a human being had a personal as well as a political capacity. In his personal capacity he was just as capable of acting illegally as was any one else.”
In other words, the immunity of the King arose from two reasons: one, the fact that the Court was his and so he cannot issue a writ against himself without him permitting the Court to do so through his endorsement of petitions; two, the society does not expect him to do a wrong, so he did not have the legal capacity to commit it. Following this, a civil servant in those days could only nominally be a defendant in an action brought against him; the government was responsible for fulfilling any obligation arising from his actions.
Things changed in 1947 when the Crown Proceedings Act was promulgated. Under this law, the King became a subject of private law, though not in his personal capacity, and a citizen can seek redress against the injustices committed against a state or its official by ordinary court procedure.
“It is noteworthy at this juncture,” Oluyede wrote, “to point out that the practice which had been in operation in England up to January 1948 was imported to Nigeria and the practice is still in existence in this country even after it attained republican status. It is on record that Britain has, since the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947, came into operation, made it possible to sue the Crown in the Courts by the ordinary process of law in all cases where a Petition of Right or a special statutory procedure had hitherto been the practice. In sum, civil actions by and against public authorities and officials in connection with acts or omissions which normally give rise to cause of action between two citizens are now on the same footing. There is no difference in procedure adopted.”
From the immunity of the Crown, let us move to the immunity of its inheritors. In Nigeria the rights of the crown are vested in our Heads of Governments by provisions of the Republican constitution in 1963. In 1979, following the adoption of a presidential system of government, section 276 of the constitution stated that
“without prejudice to the generality of section 274 of this constitution, any property, right, privilege, liability and obligation which immediately before the date when the section comes into force was vested in, exercisable or enforceable by or against (a) the former authority of the Federation representative or trustee for the benefit of the Federation; or (b) any former authority of a state as representative or trustee for the benefit of the state, shall on the date when this section comes into force and without further assurance than the provisions hereof vest in or become exercisable or enforceable by or against the President and Government of the Federation, and the Governor and Government of the State, as the case may be.”
It must be noted here that the Crown Proceedings Act did not strip the Crown of his immunity in private and personal capacity. The immunity provision of section 267 of the 1979 constitution was a logical flow of the above quoted provision of section 276. “The section (267),” wrote Oluyede,
“provides that no civil or criminal proceedings shall be instituted or continued against the president, Vice-President, Governor or Deputy-Governor during their period of office. They can neither be arrested nor imprisoned during that period in pursuance of the process of any Court or otherwise. While they hold office no process of any Court requiring or compelling their appearance shall be applied for or issued. This is not to say that they are not liable for any civil or criminal act or omission done in their personal capacity while in office. It only means that action cannot be taken against them at that material time.” This provision is replicated in our 1999 constitution.
That is law. It did not envisage that a King can do wrong. It never foresaw a situation where criminals will become kings or kings becoming criminals. The old philosophy is that a king lives well above his servants in his display of majesty and pride; hence, he will not condescend to the level of criminality. Thus we have never heard, until recently in Nigeria and other developing countries, that a President of a nation or a governor of a state can reduce himself to the level of a thief. What a terrible person would he then be in the contemplation of our grandparents?
In the relationship between a king and wrongdoing, three situations can be discerned. The first is that he lives above the level of wrong, and remains free of the consequences of wrongdoing. In this dimension, the provision of immunity makes a lot of sense. But what happens if the king does wrong? That is where the remaining two options come into operation.
When he does wrong, it means the immunity granted him has failed. Under the presidential system of government, the constitution provides for an impeachment clause which could be invoked by the legislature after a procedure that ascertains his guilt is duly followed. Remembering Clinton, that is when the king becomes demystified; he loses his majesty and looks like a cock beaten by rain, as the Hausa will put it.
In Nigeria too the constitution relies on the impeachment clause to guard the executive against doing wrong or in removing him from office when he commits one. Unfortunately in practice, it is used to settle scores between the executive and the legislature or in the attempt of the latter to extort money from the former. A case to recall here is that of former Governor of Kaduna State during the Second Republic, Alhaji Balarabe Musa who was impeached not for reasons related to theft or any misdemeanour but ideological difference between him and the legislature. The impeachment clause here has been used negatively. The impeachment clause was also used to remove many deputy governors thereafter who could not dance to the tune of their governors.
Today, the impeachment clause is used by the legislature to extort money from a wrong doing king, and almost all the kings in Nigeria are wrongdoers. Whenever they learn about a wrong committed by the governor or the President, they raise the card against him and, behold, Ghana must go begin to roll out. Then they drop it. I wish Balarabe Musa were so wise. That is how Baba Iyabo has been able to navigate on the turbulent water of the politics of the second, sorry third, most corrupt nation on earth. During the first term of this administration, the House of Representatives listed over thirty offences committed by President Obasanjo, including forgery. They would have impeached him, if it were not for the power of Ghana must go. Here, impeachment has failed to secure justice for Nigerians due to the susceptibility of the legislature to corruption.
It is the case of Dariye that brought the immobilizing effect of the immunity clause to public glare. He and other governors are good specimens of wrongdoing kings. He is allegedly guilty of negligence of duty that has caused the lives of thousands of people in the ‘home of peace and tourism.’ In addition, records have shown that he has stolen billions from the public treasury. The President, we learnt, tried to persuade the Plateau State legislature to impeach Dariye or else face the imposition of State of Emergency as a consequence. They chose the latter over the removal of their benefactor.
While away during the state of emergency, the presidency and M15 exposed the corrupt practices of Dariye. He was arrested in Britain and granted bail on charges of money laundering. A case was brought before the Court and his immunity right as a governor was upheld. While the law allows him to go free, for now, his collaborators in the same crime are standing trial. Meanwhile, no one can assure us that Dariye has not resumed the perpetration of his corrupt practices which will go on, unfortunately, until 2007. Other corrupt governors are also temporarily relieved by that verdict of the fear of prosecution; they can continue filling their Ghana must go jus qua 2007. We can only wait for the end of their tenure and think of how to drag them to court thereafter for the offences they committed with impunity before our eyes. It is clear, therefore, that we cannot rely on the impeachment clause, just as we feel the immunity clause is archaic and unjust ab initio. Here, again, the law has failed to secure justice.
It is when a judicial system fails to check the excesses of the king that citizens resort to solutions outside the law. Where the law ends, anarchy takes over. In the realm of anarchy, people have found various ways of dealing with the problem. Civil war is one, often ending with the king as the loser, as it happened to Charles I in 17th Century England. Revolution is another, as it happened in France in 1789 against feudalism and Charles XVI to usher in Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen which guaranteed “liberty, equality, the inviolability of property and the right to resist oppression.” The same thing happened to the Russian Tsar in March 1917 leading the takeover by Bolsheviks in November. Recently, the revolution of 1978 in Iran saw the final exit of the Pehlavi Monarchy and substituted it with a questionable marriage between democracy and theocracy. On the African continent we have seen the fall of Haile Selassie in 1974. I wonder if the ruling houses in the Middle Eastern kingdoms will survive the end of this century.
Military coups have been popular means of getting rid of corrupt governments in Africa. The Second Republic in Nigeria was brought to an end because the legislature could not simply recognize that the country was collapsing, hence the need to impeach the President. Some say that the era of coup is over. I will prefer to advise the king that he should not take chances; he should do no wrong…
Finally, in the debate over the immunity of the executive, supporters of the provision have dubiously avoided mentioning its actual (historical) reasons; rather, they simply tell us that the executive need to be protected against the flood of litigations that will distract them from performing their duties. However, given the risk of corruption and the consequent overthrow of the government that the immunity provision engenders, I will rather prefer that we remove the immunity and, in its place, strengthen the law of defamation with special provisions that will raise the stake of unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing against the President, Vice President, Governors and their Deputies.
While deterring people with evil intention, the law will thus make it possible for citizens with evidence of wrongdoing against and the President or any governor to come forward and present them before the court of law. Once found guilty, the executive can be removed, imprisoned or executed as the law would require. The impeachment clause will then be redundant and removed. The ultimate power of removing the President, Governor or their Deputies will thus lie with the judiciary. Let us try it. Other than this, retaining immunity and impeachment clauses in a corrupt environment like ours is the surest invitation to coups and other non-constitutional means of changing the situation.
As for those who misused the immunity clause in the past seven years thinking that the day of reckoning will never come, their cry has come earlier than expected. The President too cannot hold back his tears. They will start flowing immediately Nigerians get shocked by the staggering statistics of corruption that took place in his office. The vulture is a patient bird. We are not in a hurry.
System Failure in Nigeria
System Failure in Nigeria
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
President Obasanjo was stunned by the failure of the aviation industry. Two local airlines crashed within the space of two months. His apprehension was aggravated by the fact more accidents are about to happen given that Hajj airlift was about to start. He called a stakeholders meeting in the aftermath of the accident. But before the meeting could hold, the President sent the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Transport and his Director of Planning, Research and Statistics on indefinite leave. Few months earlier, he fired the Minister of Aviation, Isa Yuguda, because, as some reports had it, cows were found trespassing into the Port Harcourt Airport runway. There have been calls on the President to fire the present Minister of Aviation after the recent crash. But, expectedly, the President restricted his anger to the two victims of the Ministry of Transport. Fate wanted to test his temper again when another Bellview plane narrowly escaped another accident in Accra.
Facts
The recent crashes were not the only symptoms of system failure in the aviation industry. Thirty-eight crashes have happened in the past twenty years, an awful statistic for low traffic airspace like ours. So appalling is the failure that the country whose civilian transport aircrafts were over forty around 1980 saw the gradual dwindling of their figure to only one!(if grammarians will permit me that tautology for the sake of emphasis). And since the system is completely rotten, incapable of regenerating itself, the national carrier was privatized, like other failed parastatals of government, dispensing with the burden of keeping a skeleton alive.
But even within the transport industry, aviation does not stand alone. The Nigerian Railway Authority offices all over the country have functionally become pension collection centres only. Structurally, their buildings and coaches have become museum articles for the amusement of our school children, not for the safe travels the common man once enjoyed when he left Port Harcourt for Gusau or Maiduguri for Lagos. Today, he is forced to consign his life to the custody of reckless drunkards on wheels of our so called luxurious buses who on many occasions have caused mass deaths and suffering to their passengers.
On shorter distances, the common man is packed like sardine into a station wagon that is over twenty years old, driven by an ignorant villager. The law of accidents in Nigeria is to each according to his capacity. The numbers are different but the percentage mortality is the same. An aircraft carrying 110 people kills 103, a luxurious bus carrying 70 kills 64, while a station wagon carrying 10 kills 9. This is what we see daily on our roads.
The few lucky Nigerians who have personal vehicles are not safe either. They have to contend with terrible roads, with pot holes that can swallow the entire car especially in the eastern part of the country, and with the terrible state of other vehicles and with grossly incompetent drivers. Your prudence is not enough, for you must watch the approaching vehicle and always pray that it comes to pass safely.
If he is going within town, the common man is likely to ride a commercial motorcycle called Okada, (or Achaba as it is popularly known in the North) and run the risk of losing his life entirely, a limb, or, if he is lucky, return home with few bruises on his face and ankles. If you don’t hit the Okadaman, the Okadaman will hit you. Either way, you will undergo your worst nightmares because his colleagues, who will encircle you within seconds, will insist that it is you who was at fault. Do not argue, just agree; otherwise you will get lynched, for reasoning is not the trade of an Okadaman. So high is the frequency of their accidents that in most Nigerian towns, whole wards are dedicated to them in our hospitals.
Undoubtedly, the picture of our transport system that we have painted is a horrific one by every definition. No body is safe, neither on air, nor on road. So far, in the past thirty years, statistics of accidents have shown that over 150,000 Nigerians have died in accidents. And, mind you, these are the officially reported cases only. The number of unreported cases could be more, given that Nigerians generally believe that police worsen cases; they hardly solve them.
I doubt if the effort of the President will yield much, not even in the short run. Some signs of commitment and improvement may be shown initially, as does a patient after taking Paracetamol. But as the President returns to the political boardroom where he will once again be preoccupied with his third term agenda and the aviation officials responsible for the lapses return to their corrupt habits, we will also return to the same position of danger.
The Minister of Aviation, granted that he is serious about improving the safety of our air travels, is heading a corrupt system that is rotten from top to bottom. Airlines will always seek to cut corners as officials remain ever willing to accept bribes from them. Without belittling the efforts of the President whom we expect to fold his arms, the problem, we must emphasise, goes beyond changing a minister, a permsec or a director. It is a system that has failed, I am afraid to say, that can be resuscitated only with a combination of competence, ingenuity and great determination.
Reason
Governance in Nigeria is at its ebb. This is the position I have maintained for several years. What we said about the transport sector is true of every organ of government, if you exempt few places like EFCC and NAFDAC that are lucky to have leaders of unquestionable commitment and competence. How good is our education, security services, law enforcement, health care delivery, and so on? They are in structure, content and performance as terrible as our domestic aircrafts.
Successive governments have institutionalised mediocrity and penalized merit. As a result, the whole system is ravaged by incompetence and corruption. Nobody, except few, is ready to do his job the right way. Every procedure is flouted by the active connivance of the official overseeing it.
Let us take the transport sector once more. Very few drivers, if any, got their driving licences by passing a driving test. What then will stop a driver from causing an accident if he is not properly trained to drive? And what is the fate of passengers if majority of our drivers have got their driving licence by the back door?
Again, no vehicle is properly inspected by the vehicle inspection officer (VIO) before it is licensed; all the government officials are interested in is the revenue that will accrue from the issuance of the licence. Majority of VIOs, Police Highway Patrol and Road Safety Commission personnel stop vehicles on highways only to extort money, not to check the condition of the vehicles or their passengers. In spite of these personnel, thousands of Nigerians have lost their lives to trucks plying at night without any rear light, overloading, worn out tyres, driving shaft and rods, etc.
How can a country that chooses to so blatantly flout operation procedures that are religiously followed by all civilized nations fail to record the highest per capita accident rate in the world? It is clear that there is a direct correlation between our position as one of the most corrupt countries in the world and our high accident rates, just as it is in Bangladesh, Egypt and many Latin American countries.
I have noticed, and said it many times, that once something goes wrong, hardly could it be corrected in this country. Once a bad culture is introduced into an organ and some people start making millions out of it, never will the problem to be rectified. Take the railway for example. The luxurious buses and trucks owners will do anything possible to undermine government’s effort to resuscitate the railways for the fear that their businesses will be in jeopardy. It is a matter of survival, they will argue.
Fertilizer is another. As late as 1986 any farmer could just work into the nearest fertilizer depot and purchase any quantity he needs at the price of N7.00 maximum. But soon corruption became the ruling philosophy of the then government and the Presidency developed the penchant to control every bit of our resources. This led it to institutionalise the policy of allocation. Fertilizer started to become scarce, then hoarding started, then smuggling and finally, fertilizer became a hot cake, a means to earn millions. The Presidency was using it as a weapon of political settlement. All efforts to sanitize its procurement and distribution failed. The subsidy had to go, and National Fertilizer Company, NAFCON, was privatized.
Then the refineries. Ordinarily, a refinery is just a factory where a product is produced using crude oil, which we have in abundance. Everything was working until the bug of allocation hit the downstream sector of the petroleum industry in the late 1980s. There were struggles for allocation involving prostitutes – both political and biological, many politicians, some traditional rulers and businessmen. These allocations were usually diverted to the so called independent market. Out of the principle of allocation, the government scores political goals, the beneficiary earns millions, the official releasing it gets whopping thousands, and the purchaser earns still more by selling the product at a price he determines.
To compound the problem, after the refineries broke down, importers came in, and billions are turned over every quarter. Never will these businessmen sit idle and see the refineries repaired. Through this syndicate, the problem that started in the late early 1990s has remained with us to date. In a nutshell, the nation has failed to sustain what individuals have easily sustained all over the world.
Solution
What we said of our railways, fertilizer manufacturing and distribution, refineries and fuel scarcity could also validly hold for every organ of government as we said earlier, including the aviation industry that is now in focus. Thus, we have enough evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that governance in Nigeria is suffering from a system failure.
Since the mid-1980s, successive Nigerian governments have accepted the idea of privatisation. Government has no business in business, they say. This idea, which is sponsored by the IMF and World Bank, is based on the philosophy that, universally, the public sector is a bad manager of business. So if there is any avenue for investment, its rightful occupant is the private entrepreneur. This neo-capitalist construction provides an escape route to governments, who do not have to bother with fighting corruption in its midst or with providing services to their people. It also provides those in government with the opportunity to buy these companies at give away prices. The fate of citizens is thus consigned to the ruthless machinations of the businessman, whose only objective is profit. Details of my analysis on privatization can be found in my earlier article, Dear Nasiru El-Rufai.
Without renouncing its merits, privatization may not be the only answer to our predicament, though Obasanjo seems too fixated on it. In the aftermath of the recent air crash, he threatened to bring foreigners to manage the aviation industry if Nigerians fail to manage it well. Some scholars have long been professing the doctrine of re-colonisation. I disagree because I believe we have still not exhausted other avenues.
Our primary problem is management, as Margaret Thatcher once said. We have terribly bad managers who have reached the peak of mediocrity. If Obasanjo is to appoint ministers, for example, he requests the governors, or his party, to send a list of candidates from their state. The list is never a merit list, but one roll of sycophants and party stalwarts. This is a call to ‘chop’, not a call to service. How can the President expect such people to serve when they are busy ‘chopping’? That is why he failed in his effort to revive NEPA, despite the promises of the late Bola Ige.
And the civil service operates in such a way that people lower than the position of the minister – the permsec and directors – are not appointed on merit, but on their duration of service. Everything is bastardized. Here too, only sycophants will rise easily. The person at the bottom who ascends faster is that who forfeits part of his salary to his superior, or brings ‘returns’ regularly, not the one who sticks to ethics or civil service regulations. In the end, the minister, even when willing, finds himself dealing with subordinates brought up in the culture of crass materialism. The same thing happens in the appointments of managing directors and other board members of government parastatals.
The only option is to rationalize appointments, basing them purely on merit such that only the honest and competent could reach the top. Anything less will not work. Once this is done, material progress will be recorded. I will not hesitate to cite the examples of NAFDAC and EFCC. The lady at NAFDAC, Dora, has proved that a competent and determined leadership is all we need to achieve good results. Ribadu on the other hand, would have tamed corruption. Once such a leadership is allowed the free hand to operate – and I wish Ribadu too will be given that – great strides will be made. This country is not bereft of honest people; the elite are only scared of them. The memories of Murtala and Buhari are still fresh in our minds. That is why whenever we make the mistake of bringing their likes into the system they become our nightmare.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I will appeal to all those in position of authority to understand that our problem lies in whose hands they repose our trust. On the one hand, if they rest it in the wicked, nothing good will result, for he will not pursue the right or force his subordinates to choose the common good. If, on the other hand, they are competent and determined, so much will be achieved in a short while without resorting to the defeatist option of re-colonisation.
As this appeal is not likely to be heard by those who matter, we have to contend with the impossibility of a competent leader that will resuscitate our railways and sanitize our government. Since God has commanded us to travel and seek for his bounties, we must appeal to Him for our safety as we travel on air for pilgrimage or business, when we are at the mercy of ‘night flight’ bus drivers and also when we sit behind the Okada motorcyclist. May He grant our appeal. Amen
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
President Obasanjo was stunned by the failure of the aviation industry. Two local airlines crashed within the space of two months. His apprehension was aggravated by the fact more accidents are about to happen given that Hajj airlift was about to start. He called a stakeholders meeting in the aftermath of the accident. But before the meeting could hold, the President sent the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Transport and his Director of Planning, Research and Statistics on indefinite leave. Few months earlier, he fired the Minister of Aviation, Isa Yuguda, because, as some reports had it, cows were found trespassing into the Port Harcourt Airport runway. There have been calls on the President to fire the present Minister of Aviation after the recent crash. But, expectedly, the President restricted his anger to the two victims of the Ministry of Transport. Fate wanted to test his temper again when another Bellview plane narrowly escaped another accident in Accra.
Facts
The recent crashes were not the only symptoms of system failure in the aviation industry. Thirty-eight crashes have happened in the past twenty years, an awful statistic for low traffic airspace like ours. So appalling is the failure that the country whose civilian transport aircrafts were over forty around 1980 saw the gradual dwindling of their figure to only one!(if grammarians will permit me that tautology for the sake of emphasis). And since the system is completely rotten, incapable of regenerating itself, the national carrier was privatized, like other failed parastatals of government, dispensing with the burden of keeping a skeleton alive.
But even within the transport industry, aviation does not stand alone. The Nigerian Railway Authority offices all over the country have functionally become pension collection centres only. Structurally, their buildings and coaches have become museum articles for the amusement of our school children, not for the safe travels the common man once enjoyed when he left Port Harcourt for Gusau or Maiduguri for Lagos. Today, he is forced to consign his life to the custody of reckless drunkards on wheels of our so called luxurious buses who on many occasions have caused mass deaths and suffering to their passengers.
On shorter distances, the common man is packed like sardine into a station wagon that is over twenty years old, driven by an ignorant villager. The law of accidents in Nigeria is to each according to his capacity. The numbers are different but the percentage mortality is the same. An aircraft carrying 110 people kills 103, a luxurious bus carrying 70 kills 64, while a station wagon carrying 10 kills 9. This is what we see daily on our roads.
The few lucky Nigerians who have personal vehicles are not safe either. They have to contend with terrible roads, with pot holes that can swallow the entire car especially in the eastern part of the country, and with the terrible state of other vehicles and with grossly incompetent drivers. Your prudence is not enough, for you must watch the approaching vehicle and always pray that it comes to pass safely.
If he is going within town, the common man is likely to ride a commercial motorcycle called Okada, (or Achaba as it is popularly known in the North) and run the risk of losing his life entirely, a limb, or, if he is lucky, return home with few bruises on his face and ankles. If you don’t hit the Okadaman, the Okadaman will hit you. Either way, you will undergo your worst nightmares because his colleagues, who will encircle you within seconds, will insist that it is you who was at fault. Do not argue, just agree; otherwise you will get lynched, for reasoning is not the trade of an Okadaman. So high is the frequency of their accidents that in most Nigerian towns, whole wards are dedicated to them in our hospitals.
Undoubtedly, the picture of our transport system that we have painted is a horrific one by every definition. No body is safe, neither on air, nor on road. So far, in the past thirty years, statistics of accidents have shown that over 150,000 Nigerians have died in accidents. And, mind you, these are the officially reported cases only. The number of unreported cases could be more, given that Nigerians generally believe that police worsen cases; they hardly solve them.
I doubt if the effort of the President will yield much, not even in the short run. Some signs of commitment and improvement may be shown initially, as does a patient after taking Paracetamol. But as the President returns to the political boardroom where he will once again be preoccupied with his third term agenda and the aviation officials responsible for the lapses return to their corrupt habits, we will also return to the same position of danger.
The Minister of Aviation, granted that he is serious about improving the safety of our air travels, is heading a corrupt system that is rotten from top to bottom. Airlines will always seek to cut corners as officials remain ever willing to accept bribes from them. Without belittling the efforts of the President whom we expect to fold his arms, the problem, we must emphasise, goes beyond changing a minister, a permsec or a director. It is a system that has failed, I am afraid to say, that can be resuscitated only with a combination of competence, ingenuity and great determination.
Reason
Governance in Nigeria is at its ebb. This is the position I have maintained for several years. What we said about the transport sector is true of every organ of government, if you exempt few places like EFCC and NAFDAC that are lucky to have leaders of unquestionable commitment and competence. How good is our education, security services, law enforcement, health care delivery, and so on? They are in structure, content and performance as terrible as our domestic aircrafts.
Successive governments have institutionalised mediocrity and penalized merit. As a result, the whole system is ravaged by incompetence and corruption. Nobody, except few, is ready to do his job the right way. Every procedure is flouted by the active connivance of the official overseeing it.
Let us take the transport sector once more. Very few drivers, if any, got their driving licences by passing a driving test. What then will stop a driver from causing an accident if he is not properly trained to drive? And what is the fate of passengers if majority of our drivers have got their driving licence by the back door?
Again, no vehicle is properly inspected by the vehicle inspection officer (VIO) before it is licensed; all the government officials are interested in is the revenue that will accrue from the issuance of the licence. Majority of VIOs, Police Highway Patrol and Road Safety Commission personnel stop vehicles on highways only to extort money, not to check the condition of the vehicles or their passengers. In spite of these personnel, thousands of Nigerians have lost their lives to trucks plying at night without any rear light, overloading, worn out tyres, driving shaft and rods, etc.
How can a country that chooses to so blatantly flout operation procedures that are religiously followed by all civilized nations fail to record the highest per capita accident rate in the world? It is clear that there is a direct correlation between our position as one of the most corrupt countries in the world and our high accident rates, just as it is in Bangladesh, Egypt and many Latin American countries.
I have noticed, and said it many times, that once something goes wrong, hardly could it be corrected in this country. Once a bad culture is introduced into an organ and some people start making millions out of it, never will the problem to be rectified. Take the railway for example. The luxurious buses and trucks owners will do anything possible to undermine government’s effort to resuscitate the railways for the fear that their businesses will be in jeopardy. It is a matter of survival, they will argue.
Fertilizer is another. As late as 1986 any farmer could just work into the nearest fertilizer depot and purchase any quantity he needs at the price of N7.00 maximum. But soon corruption became the ruling philosophy of the then government and the Presidency developed the penchant to control every bit of our resources. This led it to institutionalise the policy of allocation. Fertilizer started to become scarce, then hoarding started, then smuggling and finally, fertilizer became a hot cake, a means to earn millions. The Presidency was using it as a weapon of political settlement. All efforts to sanitize its procurement and distribution failed. The subsidy had to go, and National Fertilizer Company, NAFCON, was privatized.
Then the refineries. Ordinarily, a refinery is just a factory where a product is produced using crude oil, which we have in abundance. Everything was working until the bug of allocation hit the downstream sector of the petroleum industry in the late 1980s. There were struggles for allocation involving prostitutes – both political and biological, many politicians, some traditional rulers and businessmen. These allocations were usually diverted to the so called independent market. Out of the principle of allocation, the government scores political goals, the beneficiary earns millions, the official releasing it gets whopping thousands, and the purchaser earns still more by selling the product at a price he determines.
To compound the problem, after the refineries broke down, importers came in, and billions are turned over every quarter. Never will these businessmen sit idle and see the refineries repaired. Through this syndicate, the problem that started in the late early 1990s has remained with us to date. In a nutshell, the nation has failed to sustain what individuals have easily sustained all over the world.
Solution
What we said of our railways, fertilizer manufacturing and distribution, refineries and fuel scarcity could also validly hold for every organ of government as we said earlier, including the aviation industry that is now in focus. Thus, we have enough evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that governance in Nigeria is suffering from a system failure.
Since the mid-1980s, successive Nigerian governments have accepted the idea of privatisation. Government has no business in business, they say. This idea, which is sponsored by the IMF and World Bank, is based on the philosophy that, universally, the public sector is a bad manager of business. So if there is any avenue for investment, its rightful occupant is the private entrepreneur. This neo-capitalist construction provides an escape route to governments, who do not have to bother with fighting corruption in its midst or with providing services to their people. It also provides those in government with the opportunity to buy these companies at give away prices. The fate of citizens is thus consigned to the ruthless machinations of the businessman, whose only objective is profit. Details of my analysis on privatization can be found in my earlier article, Dear Nasiru El-Rufai.
Without renouncing its merits, privatization may not be the only answer to our predicament, though Obasanjo seems too fixated on it. In the aftermath of the recent air crash, he threatened to bring foreigners to manage the aviation industry if Nigerians fail to manage it well. Some scholars have long been professing the doctrine of re-colonisation. I disagree because I believe we have still not exhausted other avenues.
Our primary problem is management, as Margaret Thatcher once said. We have terribly bad managers who have reached the peak of mediocrity. If Obasanjo is to appoint ministers, for example, he requests the governors, or his party, to send a list of candidates from their state. The list is never a merit list, but one roll of sycophants and party stalwarts. This is a call to ‘chop’, not a call to service. How can the President expect such people to serve when they are busy ‘chopping’? That is why he failed in his effort to revive NEPA, despite the promises of the late Bola Ige.
And the civil service operates in such a way that people lower than the position of the minister – the permsec and directors – are not appointed on merit, but on their duration of service. Everything is bastardized. Here too, only sycophants will rise easily. The person at the bottom who ascends faster is that who forfeits part of his salary to his superior, or brings ‘returns’ regularly, not the one who sticks to ethics or civil service regulations. In the end, the minister, even when willing, finds himself dealing with subordinates brought up in the culture of crass materialism. The same thing happens in the appointments of managing directors and other board members of government parastatals.
The only option is to rationalize appointments, basing them purely on merit such that only the honest and competent could reach the top. Anything less will not work. Once this is done, material progress will be recorded. I will not hesitate to cite the examples of NAFDAC and EFCC. The lady at NAFDAC, Dora, has proved that a competent and determined leadership is all we need to achieve good results. Ribadu on the other hand, would have tamed corruption. Once such a leadership is allowed the free hand to operate – and I wish Ribadu too will be given that – great strides will be made. This country is not bereft of honest people; the elite are only scared of them. The memories of Murtala and Buhari are still fresh in our minds. That is why whenever we make the mistake of bringing their likes into the system they become our nightmare.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I will appeal to all those in position of authority to understand that our problem lies in whose hands they repose our trust. On the one hand, if they rest it in the wicked, nothing good will result, for he will not pursue the right or force his subordinates to choose the common good. If, on the other hand, they are competent and determined, so much will be achieved in a short while without resorting to the defeatist option of re-colonisation.
As this appeal is not likely to be heard by those who matter, we have to contend with the impossibility of a competent leader that will resuscitate our railways and sanitize our government. Since God has commanded us to travel and seek for his bounties, we must appeal to Him for our safety as we travel on air for pilgrimage or business, when we are at the mercy of ‘night flight’ bus drivers and also when we sit behind the Okada motorcyclist. May He grant our appeal. Amen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)