You've probably read all about it and formed your opinions by now. In case there is anyone who hasn't, you can read about the first 28 de-registered parties in this report from This Day, and the 3 additional de-registered parties from the Nigerian Guardian.
A lot of these parties were non-functioning. Many, if not most, were "briefcase" parties, to be offered (for a price) to ambitious politicians who had lost in another party's primaries and were looking for a platform-of-convenience from which to run for the office anyway.
Quite a lot of our politicians hop around from party to party, looking to settle in whichever one allows them to run in the immediately approaching election. The way it happens in practice is cynical and immoral, but in theory there is nothing wrong with this in terms of democracy. I don't particularly like politicians (and citizens) who are rigidly wedded to a particular party or ideology, and I am not opposed in theory to politicians and voters moving from one party to another.
Among the de-registered parties, there are one-man parties. These are not so much "parties" as they are the brand name of a particular political individual.
This can be a problematic thing, as when the late Alhaji Olusola Saraki used the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria as a tool in what was essentially an intra-family feud. The late godfather of Kwara politics wanted his daughter, Senator Gbemisola Saraki, to replace his son, Governor Bukola Saraki, as Kwara State Governor. Since Bukola had control of the state's branch of the PDP (seizing said control from his father), the late godfather more or less created or recreated the ACPN as a platform for his daughter to challenge his son's preferred successor (i.e. his son's political godson).
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with this in terms of democracy, and in the context of Nigeria, where mainstream politics is inherently problematic, it can even be a good thing, in an ineffective sort of way. The National Conscience Party was for a long time the personal political vehicle of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi. I agreed with Chief Fawenhimi's stance on many issues, and respected his courage to speak loud where others were silent with fear. I disagreed with his views on certain other issues. But it would have been a travesty to de-register his party based on some arbitrary INEC decision. Since Fawehinmi's death, it appears his son is attempting to keep the party alive. I wish him luck.
Perhaps a better example is the Peoples Redemption Party, which was de-registered, unlike the NCP. The PRP is now a personal political vehicle for Balarabe Musa, the 76-year-old ex-Governor of Kaduna State during the Second Republic. In theory, Balarabe Musa is trying to carry on the political tradition of the late Mallam Aminu Kano, a legendary figure in Kano State, Hausaland, Northern Nigerian and Nigerian politics. I am not sure how effective Balarabe Musa has been at continuing his mentor's politics in practice, but de-registering the PRP is something that is only possible in a country of arbitrariness, constitutional confusion, and a profound lack of appreciation of history. The First Republic's Northern Elements Progressive Union, and it's Second Republic continuation as the Peoples Redemption Party, were both, to a large extent, the personal political vehicles for the late Mallam Aminu Kano, but that did not diminish the importance and the impact of both parties on the Federal Republic. Is it really the business of the Electoral Commission to decide to junk a party with such history?
Seriously, what business is it of INEC?
Unlimited "freedom" doesn't exist anywhere in the world, and never has, contrary to the self-congratulation of certain commentators in certain countries. I am not advocating unlimited freedom to form organizations; I do think registered and recognized political parties should largely be congruent with Nigerian society and culture. To use an absurd example, if someone wanted to start a local branch of a racist European or American political organization in Nigeria, I do not think we are under any obligation to grant it recognition or civic protections. I was going to give an example of one of these racist organizations, but I don't want the internet to direct people searching for things like that to this blog. I have the same view of internal "racism" (if you can call it that), and do not believe a political organization
advocating violent attacks by one Nigerian community against any other Nigerian community should receive civic recognition or protection.
But so long as a political party or organization exists in normal Nigerian political space, it should not be the prerogative of the Electoral Commission to decide which political parties can or cannot be registered. If it is too unwieldy to manage the list at the federal level, then lists of registered entities should be maintained at the Third Tier of governance.
Perhaps there can be a minimum threshold of some kind for a party's candidate to be placed on the ballot, though these sort of rules (in Nigeria and everywhere else in the world) have a tendency of ruling out regular citizens and leaving politics in the hand of ... people who are less than ideal for the task.
Definitely, INEC should discontinue the practice of making payments to the registered parties. The Electoral Commission justified its actions in part by saying that some of the parties were created so the party owners can collect subsidy payments from INEC without actually doing any politicking with the money. But why is INEC giving any of them money in the first place?
If money must be given to support the smaller parties, there should be some kind of qualification, with the amount of money given tied to the degree to which a party meets or exceeds that qualification. For example, funds might be given only to parties that win a certain number of seats, with a higher sum given to those who win more seats. This should be based on the cheapest seats to run for, since it is difficult for a smaller party to win any kind of seat without support funding in the first place. Currently, the cheapest seat to run for is a local government council seat -- winning just one or two of these should earn a party a bigger infusion of support cash than they would get per seat for each subsequent seat. Of course, this won't be a perfect system (I still wonder why INEC is in the business of paying anything to the parties), but it is better than randomly de-registering parties.
A lot of people's instant reaction to the news of INEC de-registering 31 would have been to support it because they think Nigeria has too many political parties. Usually these people trot out foreign-country examples of "two party systems", portray this as being the ideal, and point to the admittedly odd sight of African countries with as many as 15 people running for President.
I am tempted to launch into an explanation of why the much-hyped "two party system" is not as ideal or optimal as the hype portrays it to be. But I think such a thing is best reserved for a volume of books, and not a blog ....
.... and a quicker, more shorthand thing to say would be to remind everyone that we are talking about the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a specific place with specific people, a specific set of cultures and a specific society. Shift away from the notion that there is a single, perfect way that EVERY country must be. Shift away from the obsession some Africans have with creating mimicry and facsimiles of everything they see in other countries, even if those things are specific, organic outgrowths of those other countries' specific histories, and have no relevance to Nigeria or Africa.
Instead of trying to shoehorn Nigerian into the political system of some other country, why don't we allow the political system of Nigeria be expressive of the Nigerian society, which is not a two-party society welded and wedded to something called "the left" and something called "the right".
It didn't make any sense when General Ibrahim Babangida attempted (or pretended to attempt) to shoehorn Nigerian into the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention.
It doesn't make sense today when opposition politicians talk about creating a giant opposition alliance to challenge the Peoples Democratic Party.
And it only added fuel to a dangerous fire when the First Republic parties amassed into the United Progressives Grand Alliance and the Nigerian National Alliance.
Balarabe Musa's PRP might be inconsequential in the grand scheme of the Fourth Republic, but it is a more organic outgrowth of Nigerian society and politics than any of these other schemes.
And a massive part of the problem with Post-Colonial Africa has been the persistence of the Colonial Paradigm -- the existence of "governments" and (more importantly) systems of governance that have no real or virtual connection to the people and lands they purport to govern. Our governments are indifferent to us, and we are indifferent to our governments. Thus the tragedy of the commons, where nobody feels the need to maintain or secure a thing because nobody feels any sense of ownership of or responsibility toward the thing.
We the people can starve to death and the governments don't care because there is no mechanism for transferring or translating our desperation (or our anger) to the governments.
Conversely, one day, everyone could be hailing the supposed economic miracle of Cote d'Ivoire or the allegedly deepened democracy of Mali, and the next day these countries are doing their best impression of a failed or failing state, because, like the emperor without clothes, the political and economic institutions of the countries crumble the moment anyone challenges their claim toward being the legitimate institutions of that particular geographical patch of land. The fall of the government means nothing to us, because the government meant nothing to us.
Let us stop with the experimenting and constitutional gymnastics, and just allow for an organic politics, not a managed politics.
Post-script: By the way, all of those countries known as "two-party" countries actually have more than two parties. Indeed, there are, and have been, at any given time, far more than three parties represented in the British Parliament.
Amalgamation Day in Lagos, 1914
31 December, 2012
03 December, 2012
Nigeria and South Africa - PDP and ANC Cooperation?
Nigerian politics have always been different, and more complex than most other countries in Africa.
Most countries in Africa came to "Independence" with either:
(a) One giant "liberation" movement/party which dominated politics until the first coup or until the 1990s (or beyond the 1990s in a few cases like Tanzania and Botswana); or
(b) One giant "liberation" movement/party and a smaller regional- or ethnic-focused rival movement/party, either centred on a large ethnic group that is not the largest ethnic group (e.g. Kenya, Zimbabwe) or is centred on the largest ethnic group where the largest ethnic group is smaller than the combined number of the other ethnic groups (e.g. Ghana, Uganda).
In Nigeria, this basic post-Independence political pattern was replicated but was multiplied by three, with all three facsimiles compelled to interact politically on a fourth, federal stage. And even that is a simplification, as the internal politics of the Northern Region and of the Western Region were more complicated internally than the usual post-Independence pattern, and the Eastern Region would seem to fit the normal pattern only if you disregard the excision of the Bamenda and Buea provinces, an event (and a preceding political timeline) that was not replicated anywhere else in Africa (the separation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, and the on-going issues in the Comoro Islands, are both different events driven by a different set of political realities).
But even if you considered the separate internal political dynamics of each of the three regions as being straightforward replications of the basic post-Independence political pattern, you would have to acknowledge that the alliances between the "minority" parties in each Region and the "majority" party of one of the other Regions created a political dynamic absent from the rest of Africa.
In their own ways, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and, to a certain extent, General Abacha's United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP), represented efforts to create the one-party-dominant political model that characterized much of the post-Independence political history of the African continent. But the People's Democratic Party (PDP) is the first political party in Nigeria to really approach that status.
I use the word "approach", because even now Nigeria's political system (and especially our federalism) differentiates us from the rest of the continent. Rival parties like the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) control several states. And when I say control several states, I mean those states are effectively one-party states in the classic sense. Almost all of Africa's countries are "unitary", meaning whoever rules at the centre rules all the provinces. Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan are theoretically federal, but in practice the party that controls the centre makes sure it controls the constituent states as well.
South Africa is not federal per se, but their system allows for an opposition party (the Democratic Alliance) to run one of their nine provinces, though the DA's influence over the Western Cape is not even close to the unquestioned (often unconstitutional) control exercised by Nigeria's emperor-like governors. In some cases, notably Kwara State and ACN-controlled States, the "emperor" is a political godfather who pulls the puppet governors' strings from behind a curtain. Similarly the African National Congress is stronger as an opposition party in the Western Cape than the PDP is in, for example, Lagos State.
Anyway, the point of this long introduction to a short video is to point out that Africa's dominant political parties tend to be friendly towards each other, and supportive of each other's continued, permanent and perpetual reign as the unchallenged power in their respective countries. Indeed, ruling parties in Africa tend to be as hostile towards the opposition parties in other African countries as they are to their own opposition parties. These alliances of convenience are cemented by certifying each other's rigged elections as being free-and-fair, as well as signing meaningless treaties banning coups (while simultaneously working very hard to make it impossible for their citizens to change their governments by any means other than coups).
Anyway, having put you through a long set-up to a short video, watch this report from Channels Television on a conference between the Peoples Democratic Party and the African National Congress in Abuja.
You might accuse me of cynicism, but I would counter by suggesting that I am a realist. You and I have both seen hundreds of these types of meetings, producing hundreds of these type of statements afterward. I really doubt anything different will be the outcome this time around. Whatever it is you think of the PDP or ANC, good or bad, both organizations are fairly set in their ways are are unlikely to do things differently going forwards.
The economic and political relationship between Abuja and Pretoria since South Africa's "Independence" in 1994 has been .... odd. There have been signficant investments, and a few South African corporations do make more money from their Nigerian operations than they do from their South African business, but in many respects the two countries have little in the way of real, practical cooperation outside of empty rhetoric.
I have no intention of fully discussing why this is, but a part of it, a petty part of it, probably includes Nigeria's discomfiture with the idea of South Africa being the "leader" of Africa (rather than Nigeria), and South Africa's discomfiture with the idea that Nigeria's economy will surpass theirs in the next two or three years, eroding their claim to be the "leader" of Africa. It is interesting that the people who actually created the term "BRICs" did not include South Africa in it, though South Africa has joined the BRICS group that formed subsequent to the creation of the term, whereas the creators of the BRICs term did include Nigeria in their "Next Eleven", while again explicitly not including South Africa.
If you think I am being petty or nationalistic in pointing this out .... I am not. Take my words exactly as they are: That question of who is and/or will be perceived the "leader" of Africa by the rest of the world has both countries eyeing each other a bit like the stereotype of the British and the French.
African Business News and CNBC-Africa created a pan-African cable/satellite business-focused television/online channel. The two videos below are the first and second parts of a discussion on the complex economic and political relationship between Nigeria and South Africa. At the risk of being politically correct, I am not sure the panel is necessarily representative of what Nigerians and South Africans think about the relationship.
The sad thing is .... there is no leader of Africa. Not in any practical or productive sense, anyway. Our continent is more or less politically adrift, with external global powers treating us as though we were chips on the table of their poker game. Frankly, Nigeria and South Africa both have much less influence over events in West Africa and Southern Africa respectively than their self-promoting propaganda would have you believe.
Most countries in Africa came to "Independence" with either:
(a) One giant "liberation" movement/party which dominated politics until the first coup or until the 1990s (or beyond the 1990s in a few cases like Tanzania and Botswana); or
(b) One giant "liberation" movement/party and a smaller regional- or ethnic-focused rival movement/party, either centred on a large ethnic group that is not the largest ethnic group (e.g. Kenya, Zimbabwe) or is centred on the largest ethnic group where the largest ethnic group is smaller than the combined number of the other ethnic groups (e.g. Ghana, Uganda).
In Nigeria, this basic post-Independence political pattern was replicated but was multiplied by three, with all three facsimiles compelled to interact politically on a fourth, federal stage. And even that is a simplification, as the internal politics of the Northern Region and of the Western Region were more complicated internally than the usual post-Independence pattern, and the Eastern Region would seem to fit the normal pattern only if you disregard the excision of the Bamenda and Buea provinces, an event (and a preceding political timeline) that was not replicated anywhere else in Africa (the separation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, and the on-going issues in the Comoro Islands, are both different events driven by a different set of political realities).
But even if you considered the separate internal political dynamics of each of the three regions as being straightforward replications of the basic post-Independence political pattern, you would have to acknowledge that the alliances between the "minority" parties in each Region and the "majority" party of one of the other Regions created a political dynamic absent from the rest of Africa.
In their own ways, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and, to a certain extent, General Abacha's United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP), represented efforts to create the one-party-dominant political model that characterized much of the post-Independence political history of the African continent. But the People's Democratic Party (PDP) is the first political party in Nigeria to really approach that status.
I use the word "approach", because even now Nigeria's political system (and especially our federalism) differentiates us from the rest of the continent. Rival parties like the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) control several states. And when I say control several states, I mean those states are effectively one-party states in the classic sense. Almost all of Africa's countries are "unitary", meaning whoever rules at the centre rules all the provinces. Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan are theoretically federal, but in practice the party that controls the centre makes sure it controls the constituent states as well.
South Africa is not federal per se, but their system allows for an opposition party (the Democratic Alliance) to run one of their nine provinces, though the DA's influence over the Western Cape is not even close to the unquestioned (often unconstitutional) control exercised by Nigeria's emperor-like governors. In some cases, notably Kwara State and ACN-controlled States, the "emperor" is a political godfather who pulls the puppet governors' strings from behind a curtain. Similarly the African National Congress is stronger as an opposition party in the Western Cape than the PDP is in, for example, Lagos State.
Anyway, the point of this long introduction to a short video is to point out that Africa's dominant political parties tend to be friendly towards each other, and supportive of each other's continued, permanent and perpetual reign as the unchallenged power in their respective countries. Indeed, ruling parties in Africa tend to be as hostile towards the opposition parties in other African countries as they are to their own opposition parties. These alliances of convenience are cemented by certifying each other's rigged elections as being free-and-fair, as well as signing meaningless treaties banning coups (while simultaneously working very hard to make it impossible for their citizens to change their governments by any means other than coups).
Anyway, having put you through a long set-up to a short video, watch this report from Channels Television on a conference between the Peoples Democratic Party and the African National Congress in Abuja.
You might accuse me of cynicism, but I would counter by suggesting that I am a realist. You and I have both seen hundreds of these types of meetings, producing hundreds of these type of statements afterward. I really doubt anything different will be the outcome this time around. Whatever it is you think of the PDP or ANC, good or bad, both organizations are fairly set in their ways are are unlikely to do things differently going forwards.
The economic and political relationship between Abuja and Pretoria since South Africa's "Independence" in 1994 has been .... odd. There have been signficant investments, and a few South African corporations do make more money from their Nigerian operations than they do from their South African business, but in many respects the two countries have little in the way of real, practical cooperation outside of empty rhetoric.
I have no intention of fully discussing why this is, but a part of it, a petty part of it, probably includes Nigeria's discomfiture with the idea of South Africa being the "leader" of Africa (rather than Nigeria), and South Africa's discomfiture with the idea that Nigeria's economy will surpass theirs in the next two or three years, eroding their claim to be the "leader" of Africa. It is interesting that the people who actually created the term "BRICs" did not include South Africa in it, though South Africa has joined the BRICS group that formed subsequent to the creation of the term, whereas the creators of the BRICs term did include Nigeria in their "Next Eleven", while again explicitly not including South Africa.
If you think I am being petty or nationalistic in pointing this out .... I am not. Take my words exactly as they are: That question of who is and/or will be perceived the "leader" of Africa by the rest of the world has both countries eyeing each other a bit like the stereotype of the British and the French.
African Business News and CNBC-Africa created a pan-African cable/satellite business-focused television/online channel. The two videos below are the first and second parts of a discussion on the complex economic and political relationship between Nigeria and South Africa. At the risk of being politically correct, I am not sure the panel is necessarily representative of what Nigerians and South Africans think about the relationship.
Part One
Part Two
01 November, 2012
Debt and the "Maintenance Culture"
I had
a conversation with a citizen from one of our states. Initially, he effusively praised the state's current governor for his "pro-people" policies. He was particularly appreciative because this governor had embarked on an expansive road-building and road-rehabilitating programme.
He hailed from a town that has had exactly zero tarred roads from the beginning of time till now. The governor's roads programme is connecting his home town essentially to the federal republic's network of tarred roads generally, and will specifically cut travel times to the nearest large towns and cities.
He also likes his state governor because of his governor's announced "free" education policy. Per this policy, the governor promised to extend the pre-existing "free" education programme, which covered primary schools and junior secondary schools, to include senior secondary schools and state-owned universities; state indigenes attending universities located in the state but not owned by the state will be included in the free education programme via scholarships in its second phase (non-indigenes would still have to pay to attend the state's-owned universities). As I understand it, university students will be expected to pay back a portion of the "free" tuition/room/board/bursary/etc after they graduate and get jobs.
The governor also announced a commitment to eventually providing "free" healthcare to all indigenes of the state, while simultaneously making the state a "health tourism" destination for Nigerians from other states.
Like other state governors, his state governor has embarked on a massive construction programme, to build hospitals in each local government area, to build new universities, to build .... other things.
These things, he told me, speaking continuously without pause, not letting me get a word in.
When he was finished, I asked him how his state governor intended to pay for these things.
He started ... laughing.
In fact, he laughed for a good long time. As his laughter subsided to a combination of grins and chuckles, he told me he didn't think his state government could afford it, that he had noticed that other states that are much richer than his state were finding it impossible to pay for similar-sized construction binges .... and that he though his state governor was duping the contractors.
Apparently, his state governor has not paid the contractors for their work, and has insisted he will not pay them until the work is complete and he (the governor) inspects their work to make sure it isn't the usual wuru-wuru job contractors do to maximize the amount of profit they make from projects. So the contractors are borrowing to finance their work, on the presumption that once they are finished, they will get paid.
What this friend of mine said is he thinks when the projects are completed, the governor will not be able to pay the contractors, and that he suspects the governor knows this, and that this is the real reason he has a policy of not paying them until the projects are finished.
Let me say I do not think his governor is duping the contractors. Let me go further and say that I do nothing it will be possible for his governor to avoid making payment, even if he wanted to. The contractors borrowed a lot of money and are not just going to go away quietly if they are not paid. His governor has presidential ambitions, and our political system is built on patron-client networks and relationships that must be sustained with fiscal transfers, be they illegal (i.e. "corruption) or legal (e.g. "contracts" awarded to the politically favoured). If he doesn't pay, they will turn on him and he won't return as state governor, much less make any kind of run at the presidency.
Having said that, if the governor decides to run in 2015, he might do what other governors have done which is leave office before the bills come due, sticking his gubernatorial successor with huge bills and an empty treasury. This has been a frequent pattern in the Fourth Republic.
But this conversation highlights a problem I have with supposedly "pro-people" policies. Over the decades, our governments at all three tiers have tended to do a lot of things, even positive-seeming things, in an unsustainable way. We praise them when they do it, as it is usually something we rather desperately need, but it is always done in such a way that the benefits of it don't last. In some cases, over the decades, the benefits didn't last beyond the day the project is commissioned.
It is not just a question of poor construction of infrastructure, which falls apart long before it should, but one of funding the infrastructure construction in such a way as to have nothing left with which to maintain it. To put it in a simplistic sort of way, the Federal and State governments have racked up enormous amounts of debts in the Fourth Republic, a lot of it to do things that the public might actually approve of it the public were given a chance to vote on it. Unfortunately, in the years to come the Federal and State governments are going to be struggling to repay a lot of this debt, probably not all of it, and whatever funds would otherwise have gone to maintenance will go to service the debts that brought the infrastructure into existence.
And so we will watch, as always, as expensively-built infrastructure wither way.
The Surulere National Stadium in Lagos, and for that matter the Abuja National Stadium, are emblematic in this regard. We spent a lot, and I mean a lot of money to build (Abuja) or refurbish (Lagos) these two stadia, but there was subsequently nothing in the way of making the stadia financially self-supporting and nothing in the way of governmental funding to sustain maintenance in the absence of commercial self-support. Those are beautiful, iconic facilities, or at least they used to be. What a waste! We keep having to cough up ever-larger sums of money to do "rescue missions" on the National Stadium in Surulere when the Nigerian government decides to host a major sporting competition, and each time we just let that money flush away once the tournament is over.
A lot of people in my acquaintance's home state love their governor because of his "free" education policies, but you know and I know that it is not sustainable. Even in the short-term, quality will fall as the state struggles to find money from somewhere else to cover whatever has been lost in the way of fees that were not sufficient to begin with. What has happened in the past is teachers and professors invent "fees" of one kind or another outside of the normal school fees, to make up for lost funds, and the government begins to be slower in replacing fixed infrastructure like desks as it struggles to pay for all the different things (education being just one) that are now "free".
Even the part where the university students have to repay the funds. When I first arrived in the USA for university education, one of my nearby neighbours was a Nigerian professor who had been educated abroad at the expense of the Nigerian government decades ago on the understanding that he would come back to Nigeria to work once he graduated. He never went back and he never repaid the money, and that is true of a lot of other people (a minority to be fair) living abroad.
In the case of my friend's home state, what is likely to happen is an appeal (if the governor in the future is amenable) or a protest (if he or she is not) against making the students repay the loans, given the scarcity of jobs and the low level of pay received by students who are lucky to get jobs. Perfectly kind and reasonable arguments will be made (e.g. when they should be thinking about how to support their family or start one of their own on a "small" salary, they are having to repay their loans), and a lot of genuinely nice citizens will feel genuinely sympathetic. Besides, the truth about politics in Nigeria and in the rest of the world is politicians know that giving people things for free brings in votes, even if nothing on Earth is actually "free". For the same reasons that the current governor has made education "free", the future governor will magnanimously forgive the students their debts, after all, it isn't coming out of his pocket and the state can always go into more debt.
Look, you probably think I am a wicked person for opposing "free" social services. It is quite the contrary. The people who are today praising this governor because he is building roads everywhere will be the same people in the future who start complaining about the lack of "maintenance culture" and the "Nigerian Factor" when a future government cannot maintain those roads and potholes start swallowing the coal-tar.
If we want things to be permanent, we have to do things in a sustainably permanent way. This is something we innately understand, which is why any number of community improvement unions and self-help organizations levy funds for projects (as opposed to borrowing) and/or make members pay back what is lent (in the case of micro-credit self-help associations).
And for the record, this is not just a Nigeria-specific problem. Everywhere you go in the world, it seems politics revolves around politicians promising to do things that cost a lot of money, for free (as in not making the people pay for it). Every week it seems, there are massive demonstrations somewhere in the world to demand that the governments give people things without the people having to pay for it. And governments, both from the so-called right-wing and the so-called left-wing, compete to see who can give the most free stuff to the most key constituencies necessary for their particular faction to win an election.
And you know what? Even in those supposedly "richer" places, eventually they come up against the reality that nothing is free ....
He hailed from a town that has had exactly zero tarred roads from the beginning of time till now. The governor's roads programme is connecting his home town essentially to the federal republic's network of tarred roads generally, and will specifically cut travel times to the nearest large towns and cities.
He also likes his state governor because of his governor's announced "free" education policy. Per this policy, the governor promised to extend the pre-existing "free" education programme, which covered primary schools and junior secondary schools, to include senior secondary schools and state-owned universities; state indigenes attending universities located in the state but not owned by the state will be included in the free education programme via scholarships in its second phase (non-indigenes would still have to pay to attend the state's-owned universities). As I understand it, university students will be expected to pay back a portion of the "free" tuition/room/board/bursary/etc after they graduate and get jobs.
The governor also announced a commitment to eventually providing "free" healthcare to all indigenes of the state, while simultaneously making the state a "health tourism" destination for Nigerians from other states.
Like other state governors, his state governor has embarked on a massive construction programme, to build hospitals in each local government area, to build new universities, to build .... other things.
These things, he told me, speaking continuously without pause, not letting me get a word in.
When he was finished, I asked him how his state governor intended to pay for these things.
He started ... laughing.
In fact, he laughed for a good long time. As his laughter subsided to a combination of grins and chuckles, he told me he didn't think his state government could afford it, that he had noticed that other states that are much richer than his state were finding it impossible to pay for similar-sized construction binges .... and that he though his state governor was duping the contractors.
Apparently, his state governor has not paid the contractors for their work, and has insisted he will not pay them until the work is complete and he (the governor) inspects their work to make sure it isn't the usual wuru-wuru job contractors do to maximize the amount of profit they make from projects. So the contractors are borrowing to finance their work, on the presumption that once they are finished, they will get paid.
What this friend of mine said is he thinks when the projects are completed, the governor will not be able to pay the contractors, and that he suspects the governor knows this, and that this is the real reason he has a policy of not paying them until the projects are finished.
Let me say I do not think his governor is duping the contractors. Let me go further and say that I do nothing it will be possible for his governor to avoid making payment, even if he wanted to. The contractors borrowed a lot of money and are not just going to go away quietly if they are not paid. His governor has presidential ambitions, and our political system is built on patron-client networks and relationships that must be sustained with fiscal transfers, be they illegal (i.e. "corruption) or legal (e.g. "contracts" awarded to the politically favoured). If he doesn't pay, they will turn on him and he won't return as state governor, much less make any kind of run at the presidency.
Having said that, if the governor decides to run in 2015, he might do what other governors have done which is leave office before the bills come due, sticking his gubernatorial successor with huge bills and an empty treasury. This has been a frequent pattern in the Fourth Republic.
But this conversation highlights a problem I have with supposedly "pro-people" policies. Over the decades, our governments at all three tiers have tended to do a lot of things, even positive-seeming things, in an unsustainable way. We praise them when they do it, as it is usually something we rather desperately need, but it is always done in such a way that the benefits of it don't last. In some cases, over the decades, the benefits didn't last beyond the day the project is commissioned.
It is not just a question of poor construction of infrastructure, which falls apart long before it should, but one of funding the infrastructure construction in such a way as to have nothing left with which to maintain it. To put it in a simplistic sort of way, the Federal and State governments have racked up enormous amounts of debts in the Fourth Republic, a lot of it to do things that the public might actually approve of it the public were given a chance to vote on it. Unfortunately, in the years to come the Federal and State governments are going to be struggling to repay a lot of this debt, probably not all of it, and whatever funds would otherwise have gone to maintenance will go to service the debts that brought the infrastructure into existence.
And so we will watch, as always, as expensively-built infrastructure wither way.
The Surulere National Stadium in Lagos, and for that matter the Abuja National Stadium, are emblematic in this regard. We spent a lot, and I mean a lot of money to build (Abuja) or refurbish (Lagos) these two stadia, but there was subsequently nothing in the way of making the stadia financially self-supporting and nothing in the way of governmental funding to sustain maintenance in the absence of commercial self-support. Those are beautiful, iconic facilities, or at least they used to be. What a waste! We keep having to cough up ever-larger sums of money to do "rescue missions" on the National Stadium in Surulere when the Nigerian government decides to host a major sporting competition, and each time we just let that money flush away once the tournament is over.
A lot of people in my acquaintance's home state love their governor because of his "free" education policies, but you know and I know that it is not sustainable. Even in the short-term, quality will fall as the state struggles to find money from somewhere else to cover whatever has been lost in the way of fees that were not sufficient to begin with. What has happened in the past is teachers and professors invent "fees" of one kind or another outside of the normal school fees, to make up for lost funds, and the government begins to be slower in replacing fixed infrastructure like desks as it struggles to pay for all the different things (education being just one) that are now "free".
Even the part where the university students have to repay the funds. When I first arrived in the USA for university education, one of my nearby neighbours was a Nigerian professor who had been educated abroad at the expense of the Nigerian government decades ago on the understanding that he would come back to Nigeria to work once he graduated. He never went back and he never repaid the money, and that is true of a lot of other people (a minority to be fair) living abroad.
In the case of my friend's home state, what is likely to happen is an appeal (if the governor in the future is amenable) or a protest (if he or she is not) against making the students repay the loans, given the scarcity of jobs and the low level of pay received by students who are lucky to get jobs. Perfectly kind and reasonable arguments will be made (e.g. when they should be thinking about how to support their family or start one of their own on a "small" salary, they are having to repay their loans), and a lot of genuinely nice citizens will feel genuinely sympathetic. Besides, the truth about politics in Nigeria and in the rest of the world is politicians know that giving people things for free brings in votes, even if nothing on Earth is actually "free". For the same reasons that the current governor has made education "free", the future governor will magnanimously forgive the students their debts, after all, it isn't coming out of his pocket and the state can always go into more debt.
Look, you probably think I am a wicked person for opposing "free" social services. It is quite the contrary. The people who are today praising this governor because he is building roads everywhere will be the same people in the future who start complaining about the lack of "maintenance culture" and the "Nigerian Factor" when a future government cannot maintain those roads and potholes start swallowing the coal-tar.
If we want things to be permanent, we have to do things in a sustainably permanent way. This is something we innately understand, which is why any number of community improvement unions and self-help organizations levy funds for projects (as opposed to borrowing) and/or make members pay back what is lent (in the case of micro-credit self-help associations).
And for the record, this is not just a Nigeria-specific problem. Everywhere you go in the world, it seems politics revolves around politicians promising to do things that cost a lot of money, for free (as in not making the people pay for it). Every week it seems, there are massive demonstrations somewhere in the world to demand that the governments give people things without the people having to pay for it. And governments, both from the so-called right-wing and the so-called left-wing, compete to see who can give the most free stuff to the most key constituencies necessary for their particular faction to win an election.
And you know what? Even in those supposedly "richer" places, eventually they come up against the reality that nothing is free ....
About treaties banning coups
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is apparently working on another of those treaties that ban coups-de-tat.
The standard position of the African Union is to condemn coups as "unconstitutional changes of government".
The half-dozen-to-a-dozen countries that call themselves "the international community" also tend to condemn coups, at least officially anyway. Sometimes, in years past, the "international community" has instigated coups, and other times the new occupant of the office is a ready to work with them as they are with him, so after a while all is forgotten. In recent years, the United States (George W. Bush administration) supported a coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez before withdrawing the support once the coup failed, and took an acquiescent position (Barrack Obama administration) to the successful coup in Honduras against the Chavez-allied Manuel Zelaya.
I don't support coups-de-tat in Africa for the same reason that I don't support opposition political parties. They tend to be led by people who are exactly the same as the people they are overthrowing or opposing.
However I find myself laughing at ECOWAS and the African Union when they condemn coups as "unconstitutional changes of government". The majority of the membership of these bodies are now and have always been leaders who are "unconstitutionally" in power in the first place.
I am not talking about elections. Most countries in Africa hold elections, though in a lot of countries these elections are more or less civilian coups-de-tat. I mean, that is what a rigged election is, isn't it?
Elsewhere the rules are rigged in such a way as to guarantee only one possible victor at the polls. To be fair, almost every "democratic" country in the world has rules that lock power into the hands of particular political parties, even if the parties in question do not hold positions reflective of what the majority of the countries' people want. But whereas there is some leeway for power to switch back and forth between these parties in other countries, the level of distortion in most African countries reaches the level of contradicting the constitution's pretence of guaranteeing democratic governance. In other words, the country is a one-party dictatorship (and in some cases consequently a one-man dictatorship) masquerading as a democracy.
Look, this really isn't a topic that requires lots of rhetoric and grammar.
All things considered, the ECOWAS and AU position on coups is less about safeguarding the rights of we citizens to choose our governments, and more about self-preservation. Our continent is full of presidents who never want to lose power, and in some cases political parties that never want to lose power. Our sub-regional and continental organizations are basically a self-help society of men and political parties keen to help each other stay in office forever, and as such they take a dim view of anyone who would dare remove one of them.
Okay, I will stop being sarcastic and be serious for a moment.
There is a saying (which I will paraphrase) that anyone who makes peaceful change impossible is by definition making violence change unavoidable. Here is my problem. The various governments in Africa make it impossible to democratically remove any of the governments in Africa, so while I do not support coups (for the reasons I stated above), the only alternative our leaders offer us is for them (or their parties) be in office forever, with dire consequences for our countries and our continent.
This is why Nigerians and Africans are apathetic towards coups. As much as commentators might condemn coups, citizens generally shrug their shoulders and carry on, because the government that just fell was irrelevant to them at best, harmful to them at worst. That is not to say that they support the coups, because they expect the new government to be irrelevant to them at best, and harmful to them at worst.
So while the political leaders in ECOWAS and the AU react with outrage to coups, most Africans react with apathy .... and with amusement to the sight of hypocrites accusing other people of thwarting the constitution. Because lets be honest, inasmuch as there hasn't been a coup in Nigeria since 1999, there hasn't been much "constitutionalism" either. And we are actually one of the better cases on the continent.
I believe that the people of Africa would stand up and fight if there was something worth fighting for or defending. I believe the reason our people don't fight is there is no sense in risking their lives or dying on behalf of politicians, political parties and political systems that either frustrate their life hopes or actively harm them on a day-to-day basis.
The only way to ensure a stable political environment in Nigeria or Africa, is to create a political environment worth fighting to preserve. And this is the thing our political leaders do not understand, or do not want to understand.
So they can write as many treaties as they want banning coups, it won't save them from coups, or in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, from a sudden explosion of long-pent-up rage at the political system.
Indeed, one gets the distinct impression that even the army officers and soldiers do not feel these governments and political systems are worth dying for. There is a tendency among them to make peace with the new, rather than defend the old.
The standard position of the African Union is to condemn coups as "unconstitutional changes of government".
The half-dozen-to-a-dozen countries that call themselves "the international community" also tend to condemn coups, at least officially anyway. Sometimes, in years past, the "international community" has instigated coups, and other times the new occupant of the office is a ready to work with them as they are with him, so after a while all is forgotten. In recent years, the United States (George W. Bush administration) supported a coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez before withdrawing the support once the coup failed, and took an acquiescent position (Barrack Obama administration) to the successful coup in Honduras against the Chavez-allied Manuel Zelaya.
I don't support coups-de-tat in Africa for the same reason that I don't support opposition political parties. They tend to be led by people who are exactly the same as the people they are overthrowing or opposing.
However I find myself laughing at ECOWAS and the African Union when they condemn coups as "unconstitutional changes of government". The majority of the membership of these bodies are now and have always been leaders who are "unconstitutionally" in power in the first place.
I am not talking about elections. Most countries in Africa hold elections, though in a lot of countries these elections are more or less civilian coups-de-tat. I mean, that is what a rigged election is, isn't it?
Elsewhere the rules are rigged in such a way as to guarantee only one possible victor at the polls. To be fair, almost every "democratic" country in the world has rules that lock power into the hands of particular political parties, even if the parties in question do not hold positions reflective of what the majority of the countries' people want. But whereas there is some leeway for power to switch back and forth between these parties in other countries, the level of distortion in most African countries reaches the level of contradicting the constitution's pretence of guaranteeing democratic governance. In other words, the country is a one-party dictatorship (and in some cases consequently a one-man dictatorship) masquerading as a democracy.
Look, this really isn't a topic that requires lots of rhetoric and grammar.
All things considered, the ECOWAS and AU position on coups is less about safeguarding the rights of we citizens to choose our governments, and more about self-preservation. Our continent is full of presidents who never want to lose power, and in some cases political parties that never want to lose power. Our sub-regional and continental organizations are basically a self-help society of men and political parties keen to help each other stay in office forever, and as such they take a dim view of anyone who would dare remove one of them.
Okay, I will stop being sarcastic and be serious for a moment.
There is a saying (which I will paraphrase) that anyone who makes peaceful change impossible is by definition making violence change unavoidable. Here is my problem. The various governments in Africa make it impossible to democratically remove any of the governments in Africa, so while I do not support coups (for the reasons I stated above), the only alternative our leaders offer us is for them (or their parties) be in office forever, with dire consequences for our countries and our continent.
This is why Nigerians and Africans are apathetic towards coups. As much as commentators might condemn coups, citizens generally shrug their shoulders and carry on, because the government that just fell was irrelevant to them at best, harmful to them at worst. That is not to say that they support the coups, because they expect the new government to be irrelevant to them at best, and harmful to them at worst.
So while the political leaders in ECOWAS and the AU react with outrage to coups, most Africans react with apathy .... and with amusement to the sight of hypocrites accusing other people of thwarting the constitution. Because lets be honest, inasmuch as there hasn't been a coup in Nigeria since 1999, there hasn't been much "constitutionalism" either. And we are actually one of the better cases on the continent.
I believe that the people of Africa would stand up and fight if there was something worth fighting for or defending. I believe the reason our people don't fight is there is no sense in risking their lives or dying on behalf of politicians, political parties and political systems that either frustrate their life hopes or actively harm them on a day-to-day basis.
The only way to ensure a stable political environment in Nigeria or Africa, is to create a political environment worth fighting to preserve. And this is the thing our political leaders do not understand, or do not want to understand.
So they can write as many treaties as they want banning coups, it won't save them from coups, or in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, from a sudden explosion of long-pent-up rage at the political system.
Indeed, one gets the distinct impression that even the army officers and soldiers do not feel these governments and political systems are worth dying for. There is a tendency among them to make peace with the new, rather than defend the old.
About our politics.
If anyone reads this blog (and I have my doubts), I apologize for not having written anything in over a month.
There is always plenty to talk about in terms of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but it is difficult to do so in a "blog" format.
The thing about Nigeria is very often it isn't just the issue that is a problem, but how we talk about the issue. And it isn't simply an internal problem; much of the discourse about Nigeria/Africa, too much of the discourse about Nigeria/Africa, is driven, powered, peopled and guided from outside Nigeria/Africa, by people who are not Nigerians/Africans, and their "analyses" of our problems are usually ... problematic (and rather self-serving, but that is another argument altogether).
Personally, I am not one for blaming foreigners for our problems. We are the architects of our own direction, and have a responsibility not only to work for our own good but to also work to minimize the effects of whatever it is beyond our borders that would negatively affect us.
So I am not as interested in the problematic analyses from outside our country and am more focused on the our own problematic analyses.
Per this blog, I cannot piggyback off of a consensus position and add a little varnish of my opinion. If I were to fully discuss most issues, I would have to build the argument up from scratch, taking time to argue against each of several competing existing consensus arguments related to that issue.
By way of giving an example, take the 2011 Presidential Election. Three candidates won states. President Goodluck Jonathan won the most states, General Buhari (rtd) finished second, and Nuhu Ribadu won a single state (Osun). You know and I know that there are reasons certain states voted for Buhari. The reasons those states voted for Buhari are also the reasons the rest of the states voted for Jonathan, except in the inverse. As for Osun, the ACN machinery in the state obviously misplaced the directives from the party's godfather-in-chief, Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
The thing is .... none of this had any relevance to the important, strategic, vital issues facing Nigeria. If I wanted to comment on the issues, I wouldn't be able to piggyback off of the candidates' campaign positions and add my own varnish. I would instead have to start from scratch, creating an entirely new "campaign" position of my own.
And while I am on the topic, why are people acting surprised when they see our current President struggle with our problems? Meaning no offence to anyone, the President inclusive, nobody voted for him because they thought he was capable of handling our problems. They voted for him (to the extent that the election was free and fair) because anything and anyone was preferable to them over Buhari, for exactly the reasons that other states (again, to the extent the election was free and fair) thought Buhari was the candidate for them.
And the problem of Presidents and Prime Ministers who are not necessarily able to tackle the problems is an old one.
Understand I am not trying to be insulting. I actually like Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, our first Prime Minister. When he was murdered in 1966, he left behind an estate that was about as large (or in his case, as small) as you would expect from a man who had held the occupations he had held at the times that he held them ... unlike many of our subsequent leaders who left office mysteriously and inexplicably rich, as in multi-million dollar wealthy.
In a sense, Balewa (may he Rest In Peace) was the prototype of the post-1960 Nigerian President or Prime Minister, in that he was a compromise candidate acceptable to the various political cliques and power centres across the country. And one of the things that makes a candidate "acceptable" to these cliques and centres is that he not be the sort of the personal who tries to, or is capable of, exercising real, pseudo-dictatorial power. The preference is for someone politically weak, who cannot cause a decision to be made or enforce a decision without first having to "consult" with the powerbrokers that put him there.
General Ironsi did not make himself president; other people and other events put him there. General Gowon was not the leader or most influential man in the coalition that brought him to power. For all his fearsome reputation, Muritala Mohammed's ascent to power relied on power brokers, some of whom ended up assassinating him. Olusegun Obasanjo, in his first go-round was quite the docile figurehead, so much so that he was entrusted with figurehead duties two decades later in 1999.
Alhaji Shehu Shagari had much in common with Alhaji Tafawa Balewa. The First Republic (contrary to rose-tinted memory) and Second Republic were both known for rampant corruption, but I believe both men (Shagari relatively and Tafawa Balewa absolutely) were honest men sitting atop corrupt systems they neither controlled nor could influence even if they wanted to.
Buhari got overthrown probably for the same reason that Muritala Mohammed was assassinated. A lot of people think Ibrahim Babangida is a political genius, but the real powerbrokers in that regime were .... well, this blog post is starting to run long, so let me just say that when Abacha felt like being president, Babangida was sensible enough to invent a way to step down.
Abacha tried to make himself into Nigeria's first true dictator .... and his subsequent death is still a matter of mystery to the Nigerian public. Then came place-holder Abdulsalami Abubakar, followed by professional figurehead Obasanjo, who tried to give himself and unconstitutional Third Term, only to realize that Nigerian powerbrokers, no matter how much he intimidated or bribed them, were not interested in the kind of 25-year and 40-year presidents the rest of Africa has "enjoyed". The Nigerian Presidency simply is not that powerful of an institution, and Obasanjo, who knew a thing or two about when and why Nigerian governments get overthrown, opted to massively, massively, massively manipulate the 2007 election in favour of the late Umaru Yar'Adua (RIP). Between the normal nature of Nigerian politics and his own ill-health, the Presidency remained what it had always been ....
.... and now we have President Goodluck Jonathan, a man who has risen through a sequence of senior political offices without once, not even once giving anyone a real reason as to why they should want him in those offices in the first place.
My point is .... the men who have occupied the position of Prime Minister or President have never been men who proved, one way or another, to Nigerians that they had some kind of a vision as to what we should do about our problems. Whether by coup or by election, nobody, least of all themselves, had any idea what they were going to do about the issues of the day once they were in office. That they all went on to do a lot of things without actually doing anything is hardly cause for surprise.
Interestingly, we the citizens still manage to get into arguments about which one of them should or should not be our leader. A lot of times when you listen to these arguments, you note that underneath a thin veneer of "issues", a lot of the argument seems to revolve around the same kind of "reasons" that caused some people to support Buhari and others to support Buhari's opponent.
I cannot piggyback off of these sorts of arguments because I want to talk about the issues, and these arguments have nothing to do with the issues.
There is always plenty to talk about in terms of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but it is difficult to do so in a "blog" format.
The thing about Nigeria is very often it isn't just the issue that is a problem, but how we talk about the issue. And it isn't simply an internal problem; much of the discourse about Nigeria/Africa, too much of the discourse about Nigeria/Africa, is driven, powered, peopled and guided from outside Nigeria/Africa, by people who are not Nigerians/Africans, and their "analyses" of our problems are usually ... problematic (and rather self-serving, but that is another argument altogether).
Personally, I am not one for blaming foreigners for our problems. We are the architects of our own direction, and have a responsibility not only to work for our own good but to also work to minimize the effects of whatever it is beyond our borders that would negatively affect us.
So I am not as interested in the problematic analyses from outside our country and am more focused on the our own problematic analyses.
Per this blog, I cannot piggyback off of a consensus position and add a little varnish of my opinion. If I were to fully discuss most issues, I would have to build the argument up from scratch, taking time to argue against each of several competing existing consensus arguments related to that issue.
By way of giving an example, take the 2011 Presidential Election. Three candidates won states. President Goodluck Jonathan won the most states, General Buhari (rtd) finished second, and Nuhu Ribadu won a single state (Osun). You know and I know that there are reasons certain states voted for Buhari. The reasons those states voted for Buhari are also the reasons the rest of the states voted for Jonathan, except in the inverse. As for Osun, the ACN machinery in the state obviously misplaced the directives from the party's godfather-in-chief, Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
The thing is .... none of this had any relevance to the important, strategic, vital issues facing Nigeria. If I wanted to comment on the issues, I wouldn't be able to piggyback off of the candidates' campaign positions and add my own varnish. I would instead have to start from scratch, creating an entirely new "campaign" position of my own.
And while I am on the topic, why are people acting surprised when they see our current President struggle with our problems? Meaning no offence to anyone, the President inclusive, nobody voted for him because they thought he was capable of handling our problems. They voted for him (to the extent that the election was free and fair) because anything and anyone was preferable to them over Buhari, for exactly the reasons that other states (again, to the extent the election was free and fair) thought Buhari was the candidate for them.
And the problem of Presidents and Prime Ministers who are not necessarily able to tackle the problems is an old one.
Understand I am not trying to be insulting. I actually like Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, our first Prime Minister. When he was murdered in 1966, he left behind an estate that was about as large (or in his case, as small) as you would expect from a man who had held the occupations he had held at the times that he held them ... unlike many of our subsequent leaders who left office mysteriously and inexplicably rich, as in multi-million dollar wealthy.
In a sense, Balewa (may he Rest In Peace) was the prototype of the post-1960 Nigerian President or Prime Minister, in that he was a compromise candidate acceptable to the various political cliques and power centres across the country. And one of the things that makes a candidate "acceptable" to these cliques and centres is that he not be the sort of the personal who tries to, or is capable of, exercising real, pseudo-dictatorial power. The preference is for someone politically weak, who cannot cause a decision to be made or enforce a decision without first having to "consult" with the powerbrokers that put him there.
General Ironsi did not make himself president; other people and other events put him there. General Gowon was not the leader or most influential man in the coalition that brought him to power. For all his fearsome reputation, Muritala Mohammed's ascent to power relied on power brokers, some of whom ended up assassinating him. Olusegun Obasanjo, in his first go-round was quite the docile figurehead, so much so that he was entrusted with figurehead duties two decades later in 1999.
Alhaji Shehu Shagari had much in common with Alhaji Tafawa Balewa. The First Republic (contrary to rose-tinted memory) and Second Republic were both known for rampant corruption, but I believe both men (Shagari relatively and Tafawa Balewa absolutely) were honest men sitting atop corrupt systems they neither controlled nor could influence even if they wanted to.
Buhari got overthrown probably for the same reason that Muritala Mohammed was assassinated. A lot of people think Ibrahim Babangida is a political genius, but the real powerbrokers in that regime were .... well, this blog post is starting to run long, so let me just say that when Abacha felt like being president, Babangida was sensible enough to invent a way to step down.
Abacha tried to make himself into Nigeria's first true dictator .... and his subsequent death is still a matter of mystery to the Nigerian public. Then came place-holder Abdulsalami Abubakar, followed by professional figurehead Obasanjo, who tried to give himself and unconstitutional Third Term, only to realize that Nigerian powerbrokers, no matter how much he intimidated or bribed them, were not interested in the kind of 25-year and 40-year presidents the rest of Africa has "enjoyed". The Nigerian Presidency simply is not that powerful of an institution, and Obasanjo, who knew a thing or two about when and why Nigerian governments get overthrown, opted to massively, massively, massively manipulate the 2007 election in favour of the late Umaru Yar'Adua (RIP). Between the normal nature of Nigerian politics and his own ill-health, the Presidency remained what it had always been ....
.... and now we have President Goodluck Jonathan, a man who has risen through a sequence of senior political offices without once, not even once giving anyone a real reason as to why they should want him in those offices in the first place.
My point is .... the men who have occupied the position of Prime Minister or President have never been men who proved, one way or another, to Nigerians that they had some kind of a vision as to what we should do about our problems. Whether by coup or by election, nobody, least of all themselves, had any idea what they were going to do about the issues of the day once they were in office. That they all went on to do a lot of things without actually doing anything is hardly cause for surprise.
Interestingly, we the citizens still manage to get into arguments about which one of them should or should not be our leader. A lot of times when you listen to these arguments, you note that underneath a thin veneer of "issues", a lot of the argument seems to revolve around the same kind of "reasons" that caused some people to support Buhari and others to support Buhari's opponent.
I cannot piggyback off of these sorts of arguments because I want to talk about the issues, and these arguments have nothing to do with the issues.
26 September, 2012
Interviews with Nigerian World War Two veterans
Corporal Sani Akpa (rtd)
The lighting is poor, but the content is clear.
Al Jazeera feature on Isaac Fadoyebo - Burma Campaign Survivor
06 August, 2012
A couple of articles, one old and one new
THE NEW
Dr. Charles Soludo, the immediate prior Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria is engaging in the worldwide practice of ex-officialdom -- calling in "retirement" for things that they had the chance to do when they were in office but chose not to do because doing so would have lost them that office. Some of these ex-officials (e.g. USA's ex-President Clinton) make a lot of money doing this.
Anyway, Soludo (now a columnist for This Day) has written a very interesting critique of the Federal Republic's statistics. As well all know, our data and statistics has not in the past, and does not in the present, engender much confidence. In writing this blog, I have often had to base a statement on some bit of official statistics, while simultaneously admitting that the statistics may or may not be accurate. Soludo, a former boss at the National Bureau of Statistics, as well as being a former CBN boss, is a credible person to confirm that I am appropriating hesitant about relying on official statistics even where they confirm my point of view.
And if you think I was being harsh on Soludo by criticizing his after-the-fact realization that proper statistics are important, understand that he is one of the reasons people like me are forced to be hesitant when trying to analyze what is going on in Nigeria. Even as all evidence point to the fact that the bubble that existed at that time on the Nigeria Stock Market was about to burst, Soludo, then the CBN governor, continued to publicly insist that his data showed him no such thing was happening. Indeed, even before that, as lax regulation from the CBN and SEC allowed the bubble to grow particularly large in the banking sector, while simultaneously allowing banks to criminally or unethically manipulate data and outcomes, and to criminally or unethically use the proceeds from this manipulation, Soludo at the CBN just as strenuously denied any such thing was happening.
You should read the whole article if you haven't already (click the link and give them the traffic), but I will reproduce this quote from the piece: "If the poverty numbers are correct, then the GDP numbers are wrong. If the GDP numbers are correct, then the poverty numbers must be wrong."
THE OLD
If I sometimes come off cynical, it is because experience has taught me to be cynical. Some years ago, Nigeria launched a communications satellite. Or rather, a satellite was launched on our behalf by foreign partners. This satellite was ultimately "lost" rather quickly after launch, and had to be replaced. But that wasn't the real problem. The real problem is even if it had worked exactly the way it was supposed to, it still wouldn't have worked. According to an engineer quoted in this old article:
It isn't just us. There have been scandals in Uganda and Tanzania after what was meant to be brand-new, state-of-the-art imported equipment arrived and turned out to be old-fashioned technology in a state of dysfunction and/or disrepair. Arguably, even rich world governments tend to pay out excessive sums of public money to favoured corporations (and frankly, to NGOs and "civil society" as well) who deliver goods and services not necessarily commensurate to what they were paid.
But this is why I hesitate to shout "Uhuru" when any of our three tiers of governments announces something that in theory sounds like a good plan. Because at the end of the day, there is always someone (within our country and outside of it) making a lot of money off of making sure the plan is executed in a way that does not quite exactly achieve whatever it was that was promised when the plan was announced.
Dr. Charles Soludo, the immediate prior Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria is engaging in the worldwide practice of ex-officialdom -- calling in "retirement" for things that they had the chance to do when they were in office but chose not to do because doing so would have lost them that office. Some of these ex-officials (e.g. USA's ex-President Clinton) make a lot of money doing this.
Anyway, Soludo (now a columnist for This Day) has written a very interesting critique of the Federal Republic's statistics. As well all know, our data and statistics has not in the past, and does not in the present, engender much confidence. In writing this blog, I have often had to base a statement on some bit of official statistics, while simultaneously admitting that the statistics may or may not be accurate. Soludo, a former boss at the National Bureau of Statistics, as well as being a former CBN boss, is a credible person to confirm that I am appropriating hesitant about relying on official statistics even where they confirm my point of view.
And if you think I was being harsh on Soludo by criticizing his after-the-fact realization that proper statistics are important, understand that he is one of the reasons people like me are forced to be hesitant when trying to analyze what is going on in Nigeria. Even as all evidence point to the fact that the bubble that existed at that time on the Nigeria Stock Market was about to burst, Soludo, then the CBN governor, continued to publicly insist that his data showed him no such thing was happening. Indeed, even before that, as lax regulation from the CBN and SEC allowed the bubble to grow particularly large in the banking sector, while simultaneously allowing banks to criminally or unethically manipulate data and outcomes, and to criminally or unethically use the proceeds from this manipulation, Soludo at the CBN just as strenuously denied any such thing was happening.
You should read the whole article if you haven't already (click the link and give them the traffic), but I will reproduce this quote from the piece: "If the poverty numbers are correct, then the GDP numbers are wrong. If the GDP numbers are correct, then the poverty numbers must be wrong."
THE OLD
If I sometimes come off cynical, it is because experience has taught me to be cynical. Some years ago, Nigeria launched a communications satellite. Or rather, a satellite was launched on our behalf by foreign partners. This satellite was ultimately "lost" rather quickly after launch, and had to be replaced. But that wasn't the real problem. The real problem is even if it had worked exactly the way it was supposed to, it still wouldn't have worked. According to an engineer quoted in this old article:
The satellite was limited because the type of frequency it used was disturbed by clouds in the atmosphere, and did not work properly in Nigeria's rainy season or during the Harmattan, when clouds of dust blow down from the Sahara, he said.The satellite also operated on frequencies already allocated to other companies and interfered with other providers' equipment.
It isn't just us. There have been scandals in Uganda and Tanzania after what was meant to be brand-new, state-of-the-art imported equipment arrived and turned out to be old-fashioned technology in a state of dysfunction and/or disrepair. Arguably, even rich world governments tend to pay out excessive sums of public money to favoured corporations (and frankly, to NGOs and "civil society" as well) who deliver goods and services not necessarily commensurate to what they were paid.
But this is why I hesitate to shout "Uhuru" when any of our three tiers of governments announces something that in theory sounds like a good plan. Because at the end of the day, there is always someone (within our country and outside of it) making a lot of money off of making sure the plan is executed in a way that does not quite exactly achieve whatever it was that was promised when the plan was announced.
02 August, 2012
Dr. Reuben Abati and the politics of apathy
President Jonathan has appointed Dr. Doyin Okupe as his Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, leading some to wonder if his actual, practical role won't be to duplicate or replace Dr. Reuben Abati, the President's Special Assistant on Media and Publicity.
Personally, any time I see Dr. Abati's name in the news these days, I am reminded that just a short while ago, as an editor and columnist at the (Nigerian) Guardian, he was a staunch critic of many of the things he now defends as the media front-man for the Jonathan administration.
This is a long-running trend in Nigeria. Actually, the trend is worldwide.
People criticize certain things, then get hired or otherwise co-opted by whatever it was they were criticizing, and then they become staunch proponents of the very thing they rose to fame by criticizing. Actually, most of the time, when an "opposition party" displaces its rival and becomes the "governing party", it promptly does exactly the same things it criticized when it was the opposition.
This doesn't matter so much when it happens in a country that is already wealthy, a country whose citizens' lives will remain comfortable regardless of what their politicians and governments do.
It is problematic in a country that is in need of serious reform, restructuring and transformation.
Most of the things Nigeria needs to do are difficult even in the best of circumstances. Everyone says we need to consolidate the states and local government areas into fewer, more viable units, but getting from here to there will not be easy, and even if we get to the point of actually doing it, the process will not be as simplistic as the commentary suggests.
You need leaders, people of influence willing to stand their ground on points of principle. I did not agree with everything the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (RIP) advocated, but I always respected him for sticking to his principles, even if it meant jail time. I also don't always agree with Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, but I respect the fact that he has the courage (possibly due to his familial connections) to at times be the one contrarian in a room of Big Men spouting the usual things Big Men are supposed to spout.
I am often critical of my fellow citizens (and of myself, I stress) because we seem to be spectators, sidelined from decisions of consequence, just watching things being done that affect us, but taking no action to ensure that the things that are done are the things we want or the things we need. We also seem to acquiesce in a lot of the decisions and actions whose results we ultimately find ourselves complaining about, though those results could have been foreseen from the start.
But we are not really apathetic. Life and lived experience have taught us that any attempt to change the status quo will attract a harsh, crushing response from those, within and without our borders, who benefit most from the status quo. Patrice Lumumba was dead within a year of Congo's Independence; Thomas Sankara made it to four years as president before he was killed. I am not saying either man was "perfect" or that I agree with everything they stood for, but that the mere hint that they were going to do things different was enough to mobilize various forces to abruptly end their lives. The Congo was deemed so important to some people's interests that Lumumba was not even allowed to live long enough for us to discover what he stood for, much less for us to form an opinion on whether we agreed or not. All his enemies knew was that he was not going to be their vassal, and that was all they needed to know.
Mind you, external powers are not necessarily what worries us day-in and day-out. There are plenty of domestic political and economic titans who are quite quick to crush anything that resembles a challenge to their control.
We the citizens do not tend to listen to so-called revolutionaries and reformers who claim to oppose these powerful interests, because we know (again from experience) that if we died in their cause, we would have done so in vain -- if and when these so-called revolutionaries and reformers get power, they are invariably as bad as that which they once professed to criticize. And that is when they don't sell out a-priori, cutting a deal with the powers-that-be for a slice of the political action in exchange for which they call off the people fighting and dying, supposedly on behalf of a cause.
And we know that nice guys like the late Chief Fawehinmi might have the best of intentions, but would likely be overrun by the not-so-nice guys that tend to dominate murky industries like politics.
Some of you are probably thinking that it is "pessimists" like me who discourage people from giving politicians like Chief Fawehinmi their full-fledged support.
But think about it for a second.
Nigeria has frequently been led by nice, good men.
The late Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa was by all accounts a modest, honest, decent, nice man (who did not loot a Kobo from our Treasury). General Johnson T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi was an affable man. General Yakubu Gowon was a nice guy. Alhaji Shehu Shagari was a lot like Tafawa-Balewa, and the recently late Umaru Musa Yar-Adua was also a nice person by all accounts. If you are one of those who include Ernest Shonekan in our list of executive leaders, then he was a mild-mannered man too.
Indeed, the Big Men and sundry Powerbrokers seem to prefer it if the apex job in the country is held by a politically weak person with no disposition towards forcefully imposing himself. I can almost hear you thinking about Goodluck Jonathan.
On the one hand, it is a bad thing, as Nigeria tends to lack direction, as our executive leaders usually lack the standing to give the country direction. And even if that apex leader is not personally corrupt or is only mildly corrupt, they are usually powerless to control the free-for-all feeding frenzy of theft and waste that occurs under their watch.
On the other hand, it is a good thing. Nigeria has never had the life-presidents and iron-handed dictators that have afflicted other parts of Africa. Once any administration gets to the 6-to-9 year mark, the Big Men and Powerbrokers start to get nervous, and before you know it there is a coup or a peacefully defeated Third Term bid. And if any president starts to exercise the kind of unfettered power usually enjoyed by African dictators, there is an abrupt and violent change of government -- Murtala in '76, Buhari in '85, Abacha in '98 (to a certain extent, Ironsi's move to make Nigeria a Unitary state as opposed to a Federation was interpreted by sections of the country as a power-grab, though the abrogation of the Federation was not really the reason for what followed).
But I digress.
In truth, the deepest, truest source for the political apathy of most Nigerians is our realization that most people in the public sphere are like Dr. Reuben Abati. No matter how much they trumpet their support for this and their opposition to that, as soon as someone offers them access to a cushy job, a fat contract, or some other money-making possibility, they change their tune.
There is a semi-acquaintance of mine who fled into exile and was given asylum by the USA because he was a pro-democracy activist and opponent of the Abacha regime and feared for his life (I don't think the Abacha regime knew who he was, much less planned to kill him, but that is another story). Come the Fourth Republic, the man returned to Nigeria to be a sycophant to every governor of Delta State since 1999. He has become quiet rich, and quite fat, and is a staunch defender of every corrupt politician in Delta State.
And mind you, I have said nothing about so-called reformers who profess to want to do what is best for all of Nigeria, but who, when prompted by a crisis, reveal themselves to be tribalists with a seething and previously well-hidden hatred towards swathes of the country.
You see, we the people know this. And unfortunately this has bred a lot of apathy towards politics and politicians.
Personally, any time I see Dr. Abati's name in the news these days, I am reminded that just a short while ago, as an editor and columnist at the (Nigerian) Guardian, he was a staunch critic of many of the things he now defends as the media front-man for the Jonathan administration.
This is a long-running trend in Nigeria. Actually, the trend is worldwide.
People criticize certain things, then get hired or otherwise co-opted by whatever it was they were criticizing, and then they become staunch proponents of the very thing they rose to fame by criticizing. Actually, most of the time, when an "opposition party" displaces its rival and becomes the "governing party", it promptly does exactly the same things it criticized when it was the opposition.
This doesn't matter so much when it happens in a country that is already wealthy, a country whose citizens' lives will remain comfortable regardless of what their politicians and governments do.
It is problematic in a country that is in need of serious reform, restructuring and transformation.
Most of the things Nigeria needs to do are difficult even in the best of circumstances. Everyone says we need to consolidate the states and local government areas into fewer, more viable units, but getting from here to there will not be easy, and even if we get to the point of actually doing it, the process will not be as simplistic as the commentary suggests.
You need leaders, people of influence willing to stand their ground on points of principle. I did not agree with everything the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (RIP) advocated, but I always respected him for sticking to his principles, even if it meant jail time. I also don't always agree with Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, but I respect the fact that he has the courage (possibly due to his familial connections) to at times be the one contrarian in a room of Big Men spouting the usual things Big Men are supposed to spout.
I am often critical of my fellow citizens (and of myself, I stress) because we seem to be spectators, sidelined from decisions of consequence, just watching things being done that affect us, but taking no action to ensure that the things that are done are the things we want or the things we need. We also seem to acquiesce in a lot of the decisions and actions whose results we ultimately find ourselves complaining about, though those results could have been foreseen from the start.
But we are not really apathetic. Life and lived experience have taught us that any attempt to change the status quo will attract a harsh, crushing response from those, within and without our borders, who benefit most from the status quo. Patrice Lumumba was dead within a year of Congo's Independence; Thomas Sankara made it to four years as president before he was killed. I am not saying either man was "perfect" or that I agree with everything they stood for, but that the mere hint that they were going to do things different was enough to mobilize various forces to abruptly end their lives. The Congo was deemed so important to some people's interests that Lumumba was not even allowed to live long enough for us to discover what he stood for, much less for us to form an opinion on whether we agreed or not. All his enemies knew was that he was not going to be their vassal, and that was all they needed to know.
Mind you, external powers are not necessarily what worries us day-in and day-out. There are plenty of domestic political and economic titans who are quite quick to crush anything that resembles a challenge to their control.
We the citizens do not tend to listen to so-called revolutionaries and reformers who claim to oppose these powerful interests, because we know (again from experience) that if we died in their cause, we would have done so in vain -- if and when these so-called revolutionaries and reformers get power, they are invariably as bad as that which they once professed to criticize. And that is when they don't sell out a-priori, cutting a deal with the powers-that-be for a slice of the political action in exchange for which they call off the people fighting and dying, supposedly on behalf of a cause.
And we know that nice guys like the late Chief Fawehinmi might have the best of intentions, but would likely be overrun by the not-so-nice guys that tend to dominate murky industries like politics.
Some of you are probably thinking that it is "pessimists" like me who discourage people from giving politicians like Chief Fawehinmi their full-fledged support.
But think about it for a second.
Nigeria has frequently been led by nice, good men.
The late Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa was by all accounts a modest, honest, decent, nice man (who did not loot a Kobo from our Treasury). General Johnson T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi was an affable man. General Yakubu Gowon was a nice guy. Alhaji Shehu Shagari was a lot like Tafawa-Balewa, and the recently late Umaru Musa Yar-Adua was also a nice person by all accounts. If you are one of those who include Ernest Shonekan in our list of executive leaders, then he was a mild-mannered man too.
Indeed, the Big Men and sundry Powerbrokers seem to prefer it if the apex job in the country is held by a politically weak person with no disposition towards forcefully imposing himself. I can almost hear you thinking about Goodluck Jonathan.
On the one hand, it is a bad thing, as Nigeria tends to lack direction, as our executive leaders usually lack the standing to give the country direction. And even if that apex leader is not personally corrupt or is only mildly corrupt, they are usually powerless to control the free-for-all feeding frenzy of theft and waste that occurs under their watch.
On the other hand, it is a good thing. Nigeria has never had the life-presidents and iron-handed dictators that have afflicted other parts of Africa. Once any administration gets to the 6-to-9 year mark, the Big Men and Powerbrokers start to get nervous, and before you know it there is a coup or a peacefully defeated Third Term bid. And if any president starts to exercise the kind of unfettered power usually enjoyed by African dictators, there is an abrupt and violent change of government -- Murtala in '76, Buhari in '85, Abacha in '98 (to a certain extent, Ironsi's move to make Nigeria a Unitary state as opposed to a Federation was interpreted by sections of the country as a power-grab, though the abrogation of the Federation was not really the reason for what followed).
But I digress.
In truth, the deepest, truest source for the political apathy of most Nigerians is our realization that most people in the public sphere are like Dr. Reuben Abati. No matter how much they trumpet their support for this and their opposition to that, as soon as someone offers them access to a cushy job, a fat contract, or some other money-making possibility, they change their tune.
There is a semi-acquaintance of mine who fled into exile and was given asylum by the USA because he was a pro-democracy activist and opponent of the Abacha regime and feared for his life (I don't think the Abacha regime knew who he was, much less planned to kill him, but that is another story). Come the Fourth Republic, the man returned to Nigeria to be a sycophant to every governor of Delta State since 1999. He has become quiet rich, and quite fat, and is a staunch defender of every corrupt politician in Delta State.
And mind you, I have said nothing about so-called reformers who profess to want to do what is best for all of Nigeria, but who, when prompted by a crisis, reveal themselves to be tribalists with a seething and previously well-hidden hatred towards swathes of the country.
You see, we the people know this. And unfortunately this has bred a lot of apathy towards politics and politicians.
24 July, 2012
2014: The Big Centennial Anniversary
In about 17 months, less than a year-and-half, on the 1st of January 2014, it will have been 100 years since the Amalgamation of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate and the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria (so named because it comprised the Lagos Colony and the Southern Nigeria Protectorate).
I am not one of those revisionists who claim things were better in the colonial days. They were not, but that is not what this post is about ... or why I brought up the fact that I am not an apologist for colonialism. If anything, I want to make a quick response to the people who blame the Amalgamation for every bad thing that ever happened after 1914.
Look. Every country on Earth, every single country you see on the map, exists as it does today, in the borders it occupies today, as a result of many, many wars. Even those countries that appear to be geographically or culturally natural were created by war.
The island of Britain was unified by war. The Japanese isles were unified by war. Those countries neatly packaged between a mountain range and a coastline (e.g. Chile) were created by war.
Those who succeeded in war and violence were generally able to impose their culture and their language on the people they conquered, creating countries that appear to be culturally homogeneous. Indeed, it is war and conquest that led to the present-day fact that all of us Nigerians speak or understand some measure or variation of English.
So, yes, our Federal Republic was created as a consequence of a series of wars that we individually and collectively lost, but that does not make us the lesser or the greater of anyone else on Earth. As of 2012, and as we approach 2014, our Federal Republic is and will be what we the people make of it.
I think the problem with the first century of "Nigeria" is we the people of "Nigeria" took a back seat in terms of the decision-making affecting our shared land. At first, we didn't have a choice; the British had their boots on our necks -- though it must be said those boots were worn by a colonial Army and Police Force made up mostly of "Nigerians" soldiers led by British officers. After the return of self-government in 1960, we have mostly left our fate in the hands of politicians and army generals that we have had (and consequently exerted) little or no influence over.
Nigeria is not perfect. No country is. With that said, there are many wonderful, positive, fantastic, inspirational, love-inducing things about our shared homeland. Deep down in all of our hearts, we love "Nigeria" and love the fact that "Nigeria" exists. If you listen to the politics and the media, you might be forgiven for thinking that we all hate each other for ethnic and religious reasons, but in reality most of us love our diversity and respect each other. The things that make us different are also the things that fascinate us about each other.
But the truth is, the Federal Republic as it exists today is quite different from what it would be if it more closely matched the aspirations of the people.
I have said or implied in several posts about Nigeria and other countries in Africa that the time for substantive reforms, restructuring and transformation is during the good or relatively better times, and not after disaster strikes. Once disaster strikes, there is little in your control and little you can do about anything.
As I have said, there are many good things about Nigeria, and I personally think Nigeria of 2012 is a much better place than colonial Nigeria.But, as we approach the century-mark of our federal-republican union, I hope we give more thought to the transformative reforms that have been necessary to make our union work. Some of these reforms have been vitally necessary since the 1950s, but which are still nowhere in sight. Other reforms are necessary because of the many changes that have occurred in our Federal Republic since the 1950s.
But all things considered, "Nigeria" has weathered many storms. Granted, we are amidst a storm right now (and have been buffeted rather frequently since 1999), but our federal-republican union has survived worse than this.
I believe "Nigeria" will be around to celebrate the 2014 centenary. I hope that I am around to participate in the festivities. God bless Nigeria and the people of Nigeria.
I am not one of those revisionists who claim things were better in the colonial days. They were not, but that is not what this post is about ... or why I brought up the fact that I am not an apologist for colonialism. If anything, I want to make a quick response to the people who blame the Amalgamation for every bad thing that ever happened after 1914.
Look. Every country on Earth, every single country you see on the map, exists as it does today, in the borders it occupies today, as a result of many, many wars. Even those countries that appear to be geographically or culturally natural were created by war.
The island of Britain was unified by war. The Japanese isles were unified by war. Those countries neatly packaged between a mountain range and a coastline (e.g. Chile) were created by war.
Those who succeeded in war and violence were generally able to impose their culture and their language on the people they conquered, creating countries that appear to be culturally homogeneous. Indeed, it is war and conquest that led to the present-day fact that all of us Nigerians speak or understand some measure or variation of English.
So, yes, our Federal Republic was created as a consequence of a series of wars that we individually and collectively lost, but that does not make us the lesser or the greater of anyone else on Earth. As of 2012, and as we approach 2014, our Federal Republic is and will be what we the people make of it.
I think the problem with the first century of "Nigeria" is we the people of "Nigeria" took a back seat in terms of the decision-making affecting our shared land. At first, we didn't have a choice; the British had their boots on our necks -- though it must be said those boots were worn by a colonial Army and Police Force made up mostly of "Nigerians" soldiers led by British officers. After the return of self-government in 1960, we have mostly left our fate in the hands of politicians and army generals that we have had (and consequently exerted) little or no influence over.
Nigeria is not perfect. No country is. With that said, there are many wonderful, positive, fantastic, inspirational, love-inducing things about our shared homeland. Deep down in all of our hearts, we love "Nigeria" and love the fact that "Nigeria" exists. If you listen to the politics and the media, you might be forgiven for thinking that we all hate each other for ethnic and religious reasons, but in reality most of us love our diversity and respect each other. The things that make us different are also the things that fascinate us about each other.
But the truth is, the Federal Republic as it exists today is quite different from what it would be if it more closely matched the aspirations of the people.
I have said or implied in several posts about Nigeria and other countries in Africa that the time for substantive reforms, restructuring and transformation is during the good or relatively better times, and not after disaster strikes. Once disaster strikes, there is little in your control and little you can do about anything.
As I have said, there are many good things about Nigeria, and I personally think Nigeria of 2012 is a much better place than colonial Nigeria.But, as we approach the century-mark of our federal-republican union, I hope we give more thought to the transformative reforms that have been necessary to make our union work. Some of these reforms have been vitally necessary since the 1950s, but which are still nowhere in sight. Other reforms are necessary because of the many changes that have occurred in our Federal Republic since the 1950s.
But all things considered, "Nigeria" has weathered many storms. Granted, we are amidst a storm right now (and have been buffeted rather frequently since 1999), but our federal-republican union has survived worse than this.
I believe "Nigeria" will be around to celebrate the 2014 centenary. I hope that I am around to participate in the festivities. God bless Nigeria and the people of Nigeria.
RIP Atta-Mills
Ghana's President John Atta-Mills died today. He had throat cancer. My condolences to his family and to the people of Ghana. Erstwhile Vice-President John Dramani Mahama has been sworn in.
RIP
RIP
23 July, 2012
Waste in Oyo
In a prior post titled "Development by Doing", I cited the example of federal legislators who flew to London in the early days of the Fourth Republic to spend time at Westminster ostensibly to learn how to be parliamentarians.
In that post, I pointed out that many villages in Nigeria have held perfectly effective "parliamentary" sessions for hundreds if not thousands of years, and that this was not something we had to abroad to learn. Indeed, the National Assembly in the Fourth Republic subsequently turned out to be a corrupt and dysfunctional institution, whose best-known achievements include awarding themselves some of the highest legislative pay packages in the world, awarding themselves the "official accomodations" that were initially meant to be vacated (like Aso Rock) at the end of their terms, and starting so-called investigations that are no more than avenues to extort bribes from the people they are allegedly investigating.
But now comes news of something even ... well, in one sense it is hilarious, but in another sense it is enraging. The (female) Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly has taken all the wives of the Oyo State Assemblymen to London for eight days of "training" in how to properly support their husbands as legislators' wives. This all-expenses paid trip is courtesy of the Oyo State treasury.
No, no, this isn't about feminism or masculinism. All of them, the Speaker, the legislators and the legislators' wives, are well aware that no such "training" in "supporting your husband" is necessary, so don't derail the issue.
What this is, is the most unabashed, bold-faced excuse for "legal" theft. As I keep saying on this blog, for all the complaints about "corruption", Nigeria suffers most from spending decisions that are technically "legal" (as in not necessarily criminal or unconstitutional) but which are nevertheless the equivalent of throwing money into a toilet and flushing it away.
The trip and accommodations are to be paid for by the people of Oyo. The people of Oyo are likely also paying for the luxuries the women will pick up in their time in London. Interestingly, the Speaker is vociferously defending herself and her co-travellers. Like I said, no shame.
A semi-acquaintance on a Nigerian-oriented website asked what I think is a funny, yet important question: "Why couldn't they have flown the trainer(s) to Ibadan and done the training there? It would have been cheaper."
Mind you, people are reacting to this mainly because it is so brazen, but by focusing on this, we are losing the wider picture, not to mention our own complicity as citizens.
The fact is, our elected leaders have a tendency towards using public/treasury funds as though it were their own private money. They are forever announcing "donations" to one thing or another, often spun and packaged as though they were charitably/philanthropically giving away their own money, when it is the state's money they are spending. Sometimes they donate the state's money to things like a former president's Presidential Library. Other times, they just issue executive orders and directives to do this thing or that thing, and money is just allocated to it, regardless of whether it is in the budget or not and without any whisper of Assembly approval being sought.
Not that the State Assemblies provide any check or balance; another thing Governors do with State funds is distribute it as gifts to grateful State Assemblymen. And by the way, this trip by the wives of Oyo State legislators would not be possible without the Oyo State Governor signing off on it (and on the use of state funds to pay for it).
My criticism of us as citizens is we have accepted this as the proper, constitutional way of government, perhaps because this has always been the "proper" way we have been governed. It is difficult sometimes to argue with someone about a Governor making a one-man decision to use state funds on something that is clearly personal and not governmental, because the perception is that he has the right to do so.
The governor of Imo State is building a university in his home village; he is not alone, as President Goodluck Jonathan is doing the same thing. You can find yourself in a protracted argument if you suggest to some fellow citizens that this is wrong.
Let me make myself clearer. It is not that people don't know that it is wrong morally to use state money as though it were your own pocket money, but that people don't think it is unconstitutional that they are doing so. People will laugh when discussing the governor building a university in his village (or a refinery or hotel or hospital in South Africa or Niger Republic), the sort of laughter reserved for wily rogues and charming thieves (i.e. they acknowledge this is thievery), but will then repeat again and again, "He is the governor, if he wants to build a university in his village, that is his prerogative. All we ask is that he build things in our communities as well."
But this is ridiculous. Most governors, even the popular ones like the governors of Lagos and Akwa Ibom, and one of the ex-governors of Cross River State, put their hands into the public till, dig out some money and either distribute it to their political godfathers (where do you think Bola Tinubu and the ACN got the money to take over the Southwest?) or put it in their offshore accounts or in offshore investments. Most of them at least come up with a cover story, usually not as ridiculous as "training in supporting your husband", but a few of them just take the money because nobody, least of all us citizens, is lifting a finger to stop them.
By the way, the most creative cover story was that used by the Lagos State government. A contract for collecting taxes on behalf of the State was awarded to a Bola Tinubu front company; the contract said the company was to be paid by keeping a percentage (a large percentage) of the tax money it collects. Unsurprisingly, this company has been extremely efficient at tax collection, making Lagos State the Federal Republic's leader in Internally Generated Revenue.
Which is a good thing and a bad thing. I love that Lagos State now has an annual budget larger than the national budgets of some of Africa's middle powers, but on the other hand, if you try to criticize what is in effect "legalized" theft of public revenues, you run the risk of being shouted down by people who will say something along the lines of "At least they are doing something positive fiscally while simultaneously stealing".
But if you are going to support that sort of thing, then you can't follow me to complain when the same sort of mentality, from a governor that is a part of Tinubu's party (and probably also sends Tinubu money from the Oyo State treasury under some form of ruse), sends legislative wives and the Speaker to London to "train" in how best to "support their husbands" as legislators.
And bear in mind, as "big" as the Lagos State budget is, it is not big enough for the State's needs. Neither Lagos, nor any other State in Nigeria, can afford the amount of public revenue that is diverted to the personal and political needs of the politicians. Even one Naira of waste is too much, especially when you need so much more than that one Naira just to make fiscal ends meet.
There is a saying that "half bread" is better than none. But I suspect that the Number One reason Nigeria struggles to achieve its potential is the fact that we the people have concluded that we will not do the things that will make our potential achievable, and so have elected to accepted whatever crumbs (not "half bread", but "crumbs") we get and are resolved to be grateful for the crumbs. "At least they are giving us crumbs, when they could have eaten the whole thing."
Do you have any idea how much it would cost to upgrade our Police Force to a standard where we can finally be confident of our public safety and security? And that is if we ever got around to doing anything about it, which we never will because these very same politicians we praise for giving us crumbs have never had any interest in police reform.
We can't afford a kobo of waste.
Not even to train the wives of legislators in how to support their husbands' legislative careers.
In that post, I pointed out that many villages in Nigeria have held perfectly effective "parliamentary" sessions for hundreds if not thousands of years, and that this was not something we had to abroad to learn. Indeed, the National Assembly in the Fourth Republic subsequently turned out to be a corrupt and dysfunctional institution, whose best-known achievements include awarding themselves some of the highest legislative pay packages in the world, awarding themselves the "official accomodations" that were initially meant to be vacated (like Aso Rock) at the end of their terms, and starting so-called investigations that are no more than avenues to extort bribes from the people they are allegedly investigating.
But now comes news of something even ... well, in one sense it is hilarious, but in another sense it is enraging. The (female) Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly has taken all the wives of the Oyo State Assemblymen to London for eight days of "training" in how to properly support their husbands as legislators' wives. This all-expenses paid trip is courtesy of the Oyo State treasury.
No, no, this isn't about feminism or masculinism. All of them, the Speaker, the legislators and the legislators' wives, are well aware that no such "training" in "supporting your husband" is necessary, so don't derail the issue.
What this is, is the most unabashed, bold-faced excuse for "legal" theft. As I keep saying on this blog, for all the complaints about "corruption", Nigeria suffers most from spending decisions that are technically "legal" (as in not necessarily criminal or unconstitutional) but which are nevertheless the equivalent of throwing money into a toilet and flushing it away.
The trip and accommodations are to be paid for by the people of Oyo. The people of Oyo are likely also paying for the luxuries the women will pick up in their time in London. Interestingly, the Speaker is vociferously defending herself and her co-travellers. Like I said, no shame.
A semi-acquaintance on a Nigerian-oriented website asked what I think is a funny, yet important question: "Why couldn't they have flown the trainer(s) to Ibadan and done the training there? It would have been cheaper."
Mind you, people are reacting to this mainly because it is so brazen, but by focusing on this, we are losing the wider picture, not to mention our own complicity as citizens.
The fact is, our elected leaders have a tendency towards using public/treasury funds as though it were their own private money. They are forever announcing "donations" to one thing or another, often spun and packaged as though they were charitably/philanthropically giving away their own money, when it is the state's money they are spending. Sometimes they donate the state's money to things like a former president's Presidential Library. Other times, they just issue executive orders and directives to do this thing or that thing, and money is just allocated to it, regardless of whether it is in the budget or not and without any whisper of Assembly approval being sought.
Not that the State Assemblies provide any check or balance; another thing Governors do with State funds is distribute it as gifts to grateful State Assemblymen. And by the way, this trip by the wives of Oyo State legislators would not be possible without the Oyo State Governor signing off on it (and on the use of state funds to pay for it).
My criticism of us as citizens is we have accepted this as the proper, constitutional way of government, perhaps because this has always been the "proper" way we have been governed. It is difficult sometimes to argue with someone about a Governor making a one-man decision to use state funds on something that is clearly personal and not governmental, because the perception is that he has the right to do so.
The governor of Imo State is building a university in his home village; he is not alone, as President Goodluck Jonathan is doing the same thing. You can find yourself in a protracted argument if you suggest to some fellow citizens that this is wrong.
Let me make myself clearer. It is not that people don't know that it is wrong morally to use state money as though it were your own pocket money, but that people don't think it is unconstitutional that they are doing so. People will laugh when discussing the governor building a university in his village (or a refinery or hotel or hospital in South Africa or Niger Republic), the sort of laughter reserved for wily rogues and charming thieves (i.e. they acknowledge this is thievery), but will then repeat again and again, "He is the governor, if he wants to build a university in his village, that is his prerogative. All we ask is that he build things in our communities as well."
But this is ridiculous. Most governors, even the popular ones like the governors of Lagos and Akwa Ibom, and one of the ex-governors of Cross River State, put their hands into the public till, dig out some money and either distribute it to their political godfathers (where do you think Bola Tinubu and the ACN got the money to take over the Southwest?) or put it in their offshore accounts or in offshore investments. Most of them at least come up with a cover story, usually not as ridiculous as "training in supporting your husband", but a few of them just take the money because nobody, least of all us citizens, is lifting a finger to stop them.
By the way, the most creative cover story was that used by the Lagos State government. A contract for collecting taxes on behalf of the State was awarded to a Bola Tinubu front company; the contract said the company was to be paid by keeping a percentage (a large percentage) of the tax money it collects. Unsurprisingly, this company has been extremely efficient at tax collection, making Lagos State the Federal Republic's leader in Internally Generated Revenue.
Which is a good thing and a bad thing. I love that Lagos State now has an annual budget larger than the national budgets of some of Africa's middle powers, but on the other hand, if you try to criticize what is in effect "legalized" theft of public revenues, you run the risk of being shouted down by people who will say something along the lines of "At least they are doing something positive fiscally while simultaneously stealing".
But if you are going to support that sort of thing, then you can't follow me to complain when the same sort of mentality, from a governor that is a part of Tinubu's party (and probably also sends Tinubu money from the Oyo State treasury under some form of ruse), sends legislative wives and the Speaker to London to "train" in how best to "support their husbands" as legislators.
And bear in mind, as "big" as the Lagos State budget is, it is not big enough for the State's needs. Neither Lagos, nor any other State in Nigeria, can afford the amount of public revenue that is diverted to the personal and political needs of the politicians. Even one Naira of waste is too much, especially when you need so much more than that one Naira just to make fiscal ends meet.
There is a saying that "half bread" is better than none. But I suspect that the Number One reason Nigeria struggles to achieve its potential is the fact that we the people have concluded that we will not do the things that will make our potential achievable, and so have elected to accepted whatever crumbs (not "half bread", but "crumbs") we get and are resolved to be grateful for the crumbs. "At least they are giving us crumbs, when they could have eaten the whole thing."
Do you have any idea how much it would cost to upgrade our Police Force to a standard where we can finally be confident of our public safety and security? And that is if we ever got around to doing anything about it, which we never will because these very same politicians we praise for giving us crumbs have never had any interest in police reform.
We can't afford a kobo of waste.
Not even to train the wives of legislators in how to support their husbands' legislative careers.
17 July, 2012
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala cannot keep dodging fiscal reality
Everywhere else in the world, governments heave a sigh of relief if the majority of their debt is denominated in their own currency and held by their own citizens and corporations. This is usually deemed a safer proposition for the government, for all sorts of reasons.
I guess Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has different ideas. The Minister of Finance, and "Coordinating Minister for the Economy" has announced her intention to use dollar-denominated borrowing from foreign sources to retire a portion of the debts our governments owes to domestic creditors. In other words, we would still owe the same amount of debt, but a higher proportion of said debt will be owed to foreign entities and a lower portion owed to domestic creditors.
In the year 2005, the domestic debt load of the Federal Government of Nigeria was $11.83 billion.
In mid-2012, the domestic debt load of the Federal Government of Nigeria is somewhere around $44 billion.
The federal government has borrowed $32 billion in the last 7 years.
Recall that 7 years ago, we were told to celebrate the "debt cancellation" deal brokered by Dr. Okonjo-Iweala on behalf of the Obasanjo Administration. We had borrowed around $19 billion from foreign creditors, paid them around $42 billion over the years, but still owed them about $30 billion, due to capitalized interest and other penalties. The Obasanjo Administration, under the terms of Dr. Okonjo-Iweala's deal, paid out an additional $12 billion in what was essentially a lump sum drawn from our reserves, and our foreign creditors "wrote off" (if you can call it that) the balance of $18 billion. All in all, we borrowed $19 billion, in exchange for which we paid $54 billion.
This happened 7 years ago.
And in those 7 years, we've borrowed $32 billion.
The solution to our dilemma lies in administrative consolidation.
For what feels like the one millionth time, I will reiterate that the starting point to any substantive process of reform, restructuring and transformation in Nigeria is having:
(a) Between 70 and 84 third-tier administrative units, down from the present-day tally of 774 constitutional LGAs and dozens more unconstitutional LGAs.
(b) Exactly 7 Regions instead of 36 States (with federal territories like Abuja counted among the third-tier units, albeit excluded from any of the 7 Regions).
(c) A Federal Legislative Upper-House that is numerically 70% fewer than what pertains now.
(d) A Federal Legislative Lower-House that is numerically 15% fewer than now.
(e) Hard, constitutional caps on things like the size of the respective cabinets, and on things like assistants, special assistants, senior special assistants, etc.
I won't bore you with the full detail of my calculations, but, believe it or not, we can reduce the size of the political component of our three-tier administration by more than 50%, without overly affecting the Civil Service (a sensitive issue that would otherwise torpedo efforts at reform). It is not just a question of reducing direct budgetary outlays, but also of easing the further spending occasioned by the decisions made by each of these political points in the matrix. Bear in mind direct theft (a.k.a. corruption) is not the greatest fiscal challenge facing Nigeria; our greatest fiscal challenge is legal waste, and from that perspective we are like a bucket that is leaking from far too many holes.
We should start from here. There are other things we need to do to fix our fiscal problems (and ease the private sector's access to finance, as well as easing the pressure on interests rates) .... but this is the point from which we must start.
Seriously.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala had initially moved to cut the federal deficity by removing the fuel price subsidy, but she, President Jonathan and CBN Governor Sanusi were forced to backtrack by public protests. To understand why people reacted that way, you have only to look at the many revelations of corruption spilling (unintentionally, it seems) from the legislative probe into the issue. Among other things, billions of dollars in import-subsidizing payments were being paid to people who never imported a single drop of fuel. If Okonjo-Iweala, Jonathan and Sanusi had first clawed back some of these billions by prosecuting the culprits and seizing their wealth, they might still have failed to gain public support, but there would not have been such scorn for their plan.
Nigerians know the current situation is fiscally problematic. However, citizens believe that any funds saved by cancelling the subsidy will simply be stolen or wasted like the rest of the funds available in the budget. Indeed, people perceived that the government was taking away the subsidy in order to pay for its own fiscal inefficiency, which is a lot easier than taking the decisions that would make our administrative structure more fiscally efficient. If I had a Naira for every time a discussion about how to improve something in Nigeria was brought to an end by a variation of the "They will just steal the money" comment, I would be a rich man.
My take on the issue is the Federal Government has no interest in reducing the number of states and LGAs. And even if some in the government know that administrative consolidation is necessary, the government as a whole is far too cowardly to fight the governors and the broader political class to bring it about. Heck, this current Administration (like all of its predecessors) could only be in office because of all of the aspects of our governance and administration that would be changed if we were serious about reform. As such, the men and women of the government would be consigning themselves to political irrelevance if they pursued reform.
Making more funds available for the government's discretionary spending by eliminating the fuel subsidy would simply make funds available to keep the fiscally inefficient administrative structure going for a few more years. Indeed, with the new money, the administrative structure would likely grow, making it even more difficult to force cuts and consolidation, because a larger number of politicians and political dependents would be affected.
This is why the "Coordinating Minister for the Economy" is doing everything in the world except the most important thing we should have been doing these last 14 years. We are wasting time, wasting money and mortgaging the future.
I guess Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has different ideas. The Minister of Finance, and "Coordinating Minister for the Economy" has announced her intention to use dollar-denominated borrowing from foreign sources to retire a portion of the debts our governments owes to domestic creditors. In other words, we would still owe the same amount of debt, but a higher proportion of said debt will be owed to foreign entities and a lower portion owed to domestic creditors.
In the year 2005, the domestic debt load of the Federal Government of Nigeria was $11.83 billion.
In mid-2012, the domestic debt load of the Federal Government of Nigeria is somewhere around $44 billion.
The federal government has borrowed $32 billion in the last 7 years.
Recall that 7 years ago, we were told to celebrate the "debt cancellation" deal brokered by Dr. Okonjo-Iweala on behalf of the Obasanjo Administration. We had borrowed around $19 billion from foreign creditors, paid them around $42 billion over the years, but still owed them about $30 billion, due to capitalized interest and other penalties. The Obasanjo Administration, under the terms of Dr. Okonjo-Iweala's deal, paid out an additional $12 billion in what was essentially a lump sum drawn from our reserves, and our foreign creditors "wrote off" (if you can call it that) the balance of $18 billion. All in all, we borrowed $19 billion, in exchange for which we paid $54 billion.
This happened 7 years ago.
And in those 7 years, we've borrowed $32 billion.
If you want to know how that is possible, consider the fact that Dr. Okonjo-Iweala's plan for the future includes capping our annual borrowing at ₦500 billion, equivalent (at ₦160.00 per $1.00) to $3.12 billion. If we were borrowing $3.2 billion each year for 7 years, it would add up to $21.84 billion. Now factor in the upward spikes in borrowing in 2007 and 2011; some $6-to-$8 billion in borrowing provided funds to manipulate the outcome of the elections. Add $10 billion in borrowing in 2010 alone, likely to deal with the budgetary effects of the global economic crisis (and the popping of our separate, self-generated stock market bubble) and you can see how we could have replaced $30 billion in supposedly cancelled debt with $32 billion in new debt in just 7 years.
But, why would we want to transfer our debts from domestic creditors to foreign creditors? With all due respect and no offence intended, these are the type of decisions that make conspiracy theorists come up with conspiracy theories about people like Dr. Okonjo-Iweala. She is as much a part of the World Bank, as an entity, as a concept, and as a philosophy, as Nelson Mandela is a part of the ANC. The conspiracy theorists accuse people like her of coming up with policies that weaken countries like Nigeria while strengthening countries whose economic interests are served best by the World Bank.
Seriously, we must be the only country in the world that has a choice, and is using that choice to run away from domestic creditors and towards foreign creditors.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has cited two reasons for her decision:
(a) The Federal Government's Naira-denominated domestic borrowing is crowding out private sector businesses, and driving up the interest rates;
(b) She believes the Federal Government can get foreign loans at concessional interest rates that are much lower than the interest rates being paid for the Naira-denominated domestic debts.
I agree with the honourable "Coordinating Minister for the Economy" that these are issues that must be tackled. But her proposed solutions remind me of the Nigerian Football Federation, who never address the substantive, structural reasons for the problems in our football, but instead try to paper over everything by hiring a European coach who is always more expensive than a Nigerian coach would have been, and who ends up achieving the same footballing results we would have achieved under a Nigerian coach because the underlying structure and strength of Nigerian football has not changed just because you changed the nationality of the coach.
The solution lies, not in trading one nationality of creditor for another nationality of creditor, but in cutting down on the borrowing in the first place.Bear in mind, what I have written about above is the Federal Government debt. Most if not all of our 36 States have also gone on a borrowing spree that is every bit as uncontrolled, unchecked and unmonitored as that of the Federal Government. Collectively, the 37 governments at the Federal and State levels have been borrowing (and are still borrowing) way too much money, and are spending it on things that do not generate returns sufficient to pay off what was borrowed (and in many cases on things that generate no returns at all).
We are talking about transforming the Excess Crude Account into a Sovereign Wealth Fund, when we are no longer generating surpluses to put in such a Fund! Things are so fiscally tight that the Federal Government is signalling there will be no new capital projects announced in the 2013 Budget.
For what feels like the one millionth time, I will reiterate that the starting point to any substantive process of reform, restructuring and transformation in Nigeria is having:
(a) Between 70 and 84 third-tier administrative units, down from the present-day tally of 774 constitutional LGAs and dozens more unconstitutional LGAs.
(b) Exactly 7 Regions instead of 36 States (with federal territories like Abuja counted among the third-tier units, albeit excluded from any of the 7 Regions).
(c) A Federal Legislative Upper-House that is numerically 70% fewer than what pertains now.
(d) A Federal Legislative Lower-House that is numerically 15% fewer than now.
(e) Hard, constitutional caps on things like the size of the respective cabinets, and on things like assistants, special assistants, senior special assistants, etc.
I won't bore you with the full detail of my calculations, but, believe it or not, we can reduce the size of the political component of our three-tier administration by more than 50%, without overly affecting the Civil Service (a sensitive issue that would otherwise torpedo efforts at reform). It is not just a question of reducing direct budgetary outlays, but also of easing the further spending occasioned by the decisions made by each of these political points in the matrix. Bear in mind direct theft (a.k.a. corruption) is not the greatest fiscal challenge facing Nigeria; our greatest fiscal challenge is legal waste, and from that perspective we are like a bucket that is leaking from far too many holes.
We should start from here. There are other things we need to do to fix our fiscal problems (and ease the private sector's access to finance, as well as easing the pressure on interests rates) .... but this is the point from which we must start.
Seriously.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala had initially moved to cut the federal deficity by removing the fuel price subsidy, but she, President Jonathan and CBN Governor Sanusi were forced to backtrack by public protests. To understand why people reacted that way, you have only to look at the many revelations of corruption spilling (unintentionally, it seems) from the legislative probe into the issue. Among other things, billions of dollars in import-subsidizing payments were being paid to people who never imported a single drop of fuel. If Okonjo-Iweala, Jonathan and Sanusi had first clawed back some of these billions by prosecuting the culprits and seizing their wealth, they might still have failed to gain public support, but there would not have been such scorn for their plan.
Nigerians know the current situation is fiscally problematic. However, citizens believe that any funds saved by cancelling the subsidy will simply be stolen or wasted like the rest of the funds available in the budget. Indeed, people perceived that the government was taking away the subsidy in order to pay for its own fiscal inefficiency, which is a lot easier than taking the decisions that would make our administrative structure more fiscally efficient. If I had a Naira for every time a discussion about how to improve something in Nigeria was brought to an end by a variation of the "They will just steal the money" comment, I would be a rich man.
My take on the issue is the Federal Government has no interest in reducing the number of states and LGAs. And even if some in the government know that administrative consolidation is necessary, the government as a whole is far too cowardly to fight the governors and the broader political class to bring it about. Heck, this current Administration (like all of its predecessors) could only be in office because of all of the aspects of our governance and administration that would be changed if we were serious about reform. As such, the men and women of the government would be consigning themselves to political irrelevance if they pursued reform.
Making more funds available for the government's discretionary spending by eliminating the fuel subsidy would simply make funds available to keep the fiscally inefficient administrative structure going for a few more years. Indeed, with the new money, the administrative structure would likely grow, making it even more difficult to force cuts and consolidation, because a larger number of politicians and political dependents would be affected.
This is why the "Coordinating Minister for the Economy" is doing everything in the world except the most important thing we should have been doing these last 14 years. We are wasting time, wasting money and mortgaging the future.
16 July, 2012
Is Ghana starting a trade war?
Have you noticed that in recent years the Ghanaian government seems to be coming up with laws specifically targeted at Nigerians doing business in Ghana? And not in a positive, trade-promoting way. It seems Accra has decided to make life easier for European, American and Chinese businesses to dominate the Ghanaian market by coming up with all sorts of discriminatory (as in applied only to Nigerians) laws designed to force Nigerian businessmen out of their market.
I wonder what would happen if Nigeria retaliated. It has happened before, except back then, decades ago, the tit-for-tat deportations occured in an era when intra-African trade was much less than it is today (and it is quite low today).
By contrast, in recent years, Ghana has been aggressively marketing themselves as a "gateway" to West Africa, and have sought investment to expand and deepen their ports to position themselves a crucial transshipment hub for West Africa. When you strip away the consultant-speak, what they are doing, especially now that Cote d'Ivoire is recovering from a long period of national crisis, is marketing themselves as a gateway to Nigeria, and as a transshipment hub for Nigeria.
Why then would they be so keen on starting a trade war with Nigeria? Does that make any sense?
I suppose they can get away with it. Nigerian governments from 1960 to 2012 (and, alas, beyond) have had no sense whatsoever of what is or isn't in Nigeria's strategic interest, and wouldn't have any sense of what they should or shouldn't do to advance those interests even if you told them what the interests were.
As I must often do on this blog, I will stress again that nationalism has nothing to do with it. There are, and have always been, a huge number of Ghanaians living, working and doing business in Nigeria. I was taught by Ghanaians in primary school and secondary school. Actually, while I am being critical (as usual) of the Nigerian government's inaction, it is likely the Nigerian government does not want to punish Ghanaians in Nigeria as a retaliatory measure for what the Ghanaian government seems keen on doing to Nigerians in Ghana.
I like that Nigeria is fairly open to trade and other exchanges with our neighbours. I like that Ecobank International is a Togolese bank, but is one of the largest players in the Nigerian banking industry; their Nigerian arm is more important to the corporate bottom-line than their business in Togo (same is true, actually, of quite a few South African businesses too). And I like that the flip-side of allowing Togolese banks and South African banks (Standard Chartered) access to the Nigerian market is that Nigerian banks are allowed access to other markets in West Africa and more recently East Africa.
That is the way it is supposed to work.
I wonder what would happen if Nigeria retaliated. It has happened before, except back then, decades ago, the tit-for-tat deportations occured in an era when intra-African trade was much less than it is today (and it is quite low today).
By contrast, in recent years, Ghana has been aggressively marketing themselves as a "gateway" to West Africa, and have sought investment to expand and deepen their ports to position themselves a crucial transshipment hub for West Africa. When you strip away the consultant-speak, what they are doing, especially now that Cote d'Ivoire is recovering from a long period of national crisis, is marketing themselves as a gateway to Nigeria, and as a transshipment hub for Nigeria.
Why then would they be so keen on starting a trade war with Nigeria? Does that make any sense?
I suppose they can get away with it. Nigerian governments from 1960 to 2012 (and, alas, beyond) have had no sense whatsoever of what is or isn't in Nigeria's strategic interest, and wouldn't have any sense of what they should or shouldn't do to advance those interests even if you told them what the interests were.
As I must often do on this blog, I will stress again that nationalism has nothing to do with it. There are, and have always been, a huge number of Ghanaians living, working and doing business in Nigeria. I was taught by Ghanaians in primary school and secondary school. Actually, while I am being critical (as usual) of the Nigerian government's inaction, it is likely the Nigerian government does not want to punish Ghanaians in Nigeria as a retaliatory measure for what the Ghanaian government seems keen on doing to Nigerians in Ghana.
I like that Nigeria is fairly open to trade and other exchanges with our neighbours. I like that Ecobank International is a Togolese bank, but is one of the largest players in the Nigerian banking industry; their Nigerian arm is more important to the corporate bottom-line than their business in Togo (same is true, actually, of quite a few South African businesses too). And I like that the flip-side of allowing Togolese banks and South African banks (Standard Chartered) access to the Nigerian market is that Nigerian banks are allowed access to other markets in West Africa and more recently East Africa.
That is the way it is supposed to work.
African Union Commission Chairperson
A job title and job description copied entirely from the European Union. A position that has been as irrelevant to the continent and its people as the position it was supposed to replace -- Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity. So, you have two mostly irrelevant entities, the OAU and the AU, what is the difference? Well, at least the OAU had an "original" name. Sort of.
Anyway, South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has just been elected Chairperson of the AU Commission.
The headlines focus on the fact that she is the first woman to hold the post. The stories hint at "Francophone" and "Anglophone" differences that stymied the first vote to keep or replace Gabon's Jean Ping in January; a few within those note that nominally "Anglophone" countries like Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia opposed Ms. Dlamini-Zuma. There is mention of the understanding between Africa's more powerful countries that none of their number should hold the seat, an understanding South Africa has just broken; and mention of a retort from South Africa that a Nigerian was Secretary-General of the OAU for two years (more correctly he was interim SG).
And there is a lot of talk of how ineffective her predecessor, Gabon's Jean Ping, was as Commission Chair. Jean Ping is a knight in the service of the Bongo Family monarchy in Gabon. The set of things that are good for the African continent, and the set of things that are good for the Bongo Family, are mutually contradictory. No one could expect Jean Ping to advance any of the things that are good for Africa, and it was no surprise that he didn't.
Having said that, I have no idea why the South Africans were so keen on forcibly imposing Ms. Dlamini-Zuma on the African Union Commission.
Don't get me wrong.
No, it is not about nationalism or the supposed rivalry between my country Nigeria and South Africa. To be blunt about it, having a Nigerian occupy some fancy job at an international or multilateral agency or organization produces little or nothing (usually nothing) of value to Nigeria as a whole or to any particular Nigerian outside of that person's immediate family. In spite of all the public back-slapping and back-patting when it happens, my reaction to it is the same as my reaction to having an ethnic or regional kinsman take a domestic political job -- for all the hype about how it is supposedly a good thing for me, it basically doesn't change anything for me, doesn't improve anything in my life or in my community ... and above all, the issues I have been desperately waiting for someone to address are every bit as ignored as they were when the occupant of the office did not share a language/region/citizenship/etc with me.
And no, it is not that I think she will do a bad job. Nor is it that I think she will do a good job. If anything, the "African Union" will be its usual self, no different than if it was led by a Nigerian, by Jean Ping or by Ms. Dlamini-Zuma. It will not affect the price of matches in Makurdi, nor will it influence the peace (or lack thereof) in Patani.
I am just curious as to what the South Africans, and what SA President Jacob Zuma, think will be accomplished by more or less imposing Ms. Dlamini-Zuma on the job. If they are thinking that they will now have official sanction to govern the continent, they must surely be kidding themselves. If they think that the reason the rest of the continent has been ignoring their attempts to govern is that they were doing it from Pretoria and not from Addis Ababa, they must really, really be kidding themselves.
Most countries in Africa have ignored the Organization of African Unity and the African Union for decades, simply as a matter of standard operating procedure. But with a South African at the head of the Commission, a lot of countries, and especially the more powerful countries, will take to ignoring the African Union as a point of diplomatic and political pride, especially because Ms. Dlamini-Zuma will be seen as no more than an echo of President Zuma's decisions.
It is not just that certain countries in Africa do not want to be governed (even indirectly) by Jacob Zuma or any South African president, but even if Zuma made no attempt to do that, these countries will make it a point of projecting to the world that they are not under Zuma's thumb. In the world of dishonesty that is diplomacy, appearance is sometimes as important as substance, if not moreso.
One way or another, the African Union will continue to be non-functional. And at this point, I am not sure that is a bad thing. I shudder to think what they would do if they had the power to do anything and actually used that power. Indeed, Ms. Dlamini-Zuma is quite like Jean Ping, except where he is a fully integrated part of the Bongo Family political machine, she is just as much a walking, talking embodiment of South Africa's more or less perpetual ruling party the African National Congress.
The ANC is different from the Bongo Family (it is not a monarchy, for one thing), but the ANC is as much a part of the normal politics of Africa as the Bongos. South Africa's liberation may have come three and a half decades after the rest of the continent's, but the ANC are like every other African "liberation movement".
Mind you, we are no longer in the days of the one-party state. We have moved instead to the era of the one-party-dominant state, where a single, massive, all-encompassing, perpetually-ruling, politically unbeatable governing party is surrounded by tiny-by-comparison opposition parties that exist only to allow for nominally/notionally "democratic" elections the ruling party can never lose.
The first step towards understanding South African policy in Africa is to understand that this is the way the ANC prefers all African countries to be governed; Pretoria is almost never neutral in the internal disputes of other African countries, and 100% of the time favours whoever/whatever is the closest in incarnation to the one-party-dominant model.
Again, this isn't nationalistic criticism. If anything, Nigeria has metamorphosed from a First Republic of mutually antagonistic ethnic/regional political blocs, to a Fourth Republic of the one-party-dominant Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Sadly, Abuja and Pretoria, while ostensibly rivalling each other, basically have the same view of what constitutes the "ideal" form of government in any and all African countries. And while you might look at a particular President, and find his or her policies to be against our strategic interests, rest assured that neither Goodluck Jonathan nor Jacob Zuma sees anything wrong with what that Presdient is doing -- if anything, they are doing the same sorts of things in Abuja and Pretoria, albeit with bigger budgets to play with.can never be lost by the governing party. I
Anyway, South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has just been elected Chairperson of the AU Commission.
The headlines focus on the fact that she is the first woman to hold the post. The stories hint at "Francophone" and "Anglophone" differences that stymied the first vote to keep or replace Gabon's Jean Ping in January; a few within those note that nominally "Anglophone" countries like Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia opposed Ms. Dlamini-Zuma. There is mention of the understanding between Africa's more powerful countries that none of their number should hold the seat, an understanding South Africa has just broken; and mention of a retort from South Africa that a Nigerian was Secretary-General of the OAU for two years (more correctly he was interim SG).
And there is a lot of talk of how ineffective her predecessor, Gabon's Jean Ping, was as Commission Chair. Jean Ping is a knight in the service of the Bongo Family monarchy in Gabon. The set of things that are good for the African continent, and the set of things that are good for the Bongo Family, are mutually contradictory. No one could expect Jean Ping to advance any of the things that are good for Africa, and it was no surprise that he didn't.
Having said that, I have no idea why the South Africans were so keen on forcibly imposing Ms. Dlamini-Zuma on the African Union Commission.
Don't get me wrong.
No, it is not about nationalism or the supposed rivalry between my country Nigeria and South Africa. To be blunt about it, having a Nigerian occupy some fancy job at an international or multilateral agency or organization produces little or nothing (usually nothing) of value to Nigeria as a whole or to any particular Nigerian outside of that person's immediate family. In spite of all the public back-slapping and back-patting when it happens, my reaction to it is the same as my reaction to having an ethnic or regional kinsman take a domestic political job -- for all the hype about how it is supposedly a good thing for me, it basically doesn't change anything for me, doesn't improve anything in my life or in my community ... and above all, the issues I have been desperately waiting for someone to address are every bit as ignored as they were when the occupant of the office did not share a language/region/citizenship/etc with me.
And no, it is not that I think she will do a bad job. Nor is it that I think she will do a good job. If anything, the "African Union" will be its usual self, no different than if it was led by a Nigerian, by Jean Ping or by Ms. Dlamini-Zuma. It will not affect the price of matches in Makurdi, nor will it influence the peace (or lack thereof) in Patani.
I am just curious as to what the South Africans, and what SA President Jacob Zuma, think will be accomplished by more or less imposing Ms. Dlamini-Zuma on the job. If they are thinking that they will now have official sanction to govern the continent, they must surely be kidding themselves. If they think that the reason the rest of the continent has been ignoring their attempts to govern is that they were doing it from Pretoria and not from Addis Ababa, they must really, really be kidding themselves.
Most countries in Africa have ignored the Organization of African Unity and the African Union for decades, simply as a matter of standard operating procedure. But with a South African at the head of the Commission, a lot of countries, and especially the more powerful countries, will take to ignoring the African Union as a point of diplomatic and political pride, especially because Ms. Dlamini-Zuma will be seen as no more than an echo of President Zuma's decisions.
It is not just that certain countries in Africa do not want to be governed (even indirectly) by Jacob Zuma or any South African president, but even if Zuma made no attempt to do that, these countries will make it a point of projecting to the world that they are not under Zuma's thumb. In the world of dishonesty that is diplomacy, appearance is sometimes as important as substance, if not moreso.
One way or another, the African Union will continue to be non-functional. And at this point, I am not sure that is a bad thing. I shudder to think what they would do if they had the power to do anything and actually used that power. Indeed, Ms. Dlamini-Zuma is quite like Jean Ping, except where he is a fully integrated part of the Bongo Family political machine, she is just as much a walking, talking embodiment of South Africa's more or less perpetual ruling party the African National Congress.
The ANC is different from the Bongo Family (it is not a monarchy, for one thing), but the ANC is as much a part of the normal politics of Africa as the Bongos. South Africa's liberation may have come three and a half decades after the rest of the continent's, but the ANC are like every other African "liberation movement".
Mind you, we are no longer in the days of the one-party state. We have moved instead to the era of the one-party-dominant state, where a single, massive, all-encompassing, perpetually-ruling, politically unbeatable governing party is surrounded by tiny-by-comparison opposition parties that exist only to allow for nominally/notionally "democratic" elections the ruling party can never lose.
The first step towards understanding South African policy in Africa is to understand that this is the way the ANC prefers all African countries to be governed; Pretoria is almost never neutral in the internal disputes of other African countries, and 100% of the time favours whoever/whatever is the closest in incarnation to the one-party-dominant model.
Again, this isn't nationalistic criticism. If anything, Nigeria has metamorphosed from a First Republic of mutually antagonistic ethnic/regional political blocs, to a Fourth Republic of the one-party-dominant Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Sadly, Abuja and Pretoria, while ostensibly rivalling each other, basically have the same view of what constitutes the "ideal" form of government in any and all African countries. And while you might look at a particular President, and find his or her policies to be against our strategic interests, rest assured that neither Goodluck Jonathan nor Jacob Zuma sees anything wrong with what that Presdient is doing -- if anything, they are doing the same sorts of things in Abuja and Pretoria, albeit with bigger budgets to play with.can never be lost by the governing party. I
09 July, 2012
Development by Doing
I thought about posting this to my football blog, but I decided this wasn't a football issue per se.
In the aftermath of Spain's victory in the 2012 European Championships, an acquaintance of mine suggested we send Nigerian football coaches to be trained in Spain, and send young Nigerian players to be groomed and polished in Spanish club academies. Spain are World Champions, back-to-back European Champions, European Under-21 Champions and European Under-19 Champions.
I respect countries that have strong footballing institutions/industries, and have long believed that the route to Nigeria's emergence as a World (not just African) football power lay in systemic reform and improvement from the bottom of the football pyramid to the very top -- as opposed to randomly hiring and firing an endless steam of national team coaches.
With that said, while dancing is dancing ... is dancy, you wouldn't go to the Russian Bolshoi Theatre to learn how to
teach Atilogwu to others, nor would you go there seeking their instruction on how to perfect your Atilogwu dancing skills, would you?
Let me put is another way.
At the dawn of the Fourth Republic, I saw a news
report about members of the Nigerian National Assembly on an official
visit to the British Parliament. They went on and on to the journalist about how they had come to learn parliamentary practice from the
world's oldest parliament.
I had a question then, and still have the same question now: Do you really need to fly to Europe to learn how to take turns speaking in a group on an issue before voting on the issue you have been discussing?
I had a question then, and still have the same question now: Do you really need to fly to Europe to learn how to take turns speaking in a group on an issue before voting on the issue you have been discussing?
In theory, if not in practice, this blog is read (or could be read) by people from around the world, people whose only impression of "Africa" comes from the "international media". In other words, people who don't know much about Nigeria or Africa. So let me give you a little background on why this bothered me.
I grew up in a
suburb of one of Nigeria's major cities. In Nigeria, a "suburb" is more often than not a place that was historically a self-standing, self-governing (i.e. "independent") village or town in the precolonial times that happened to be geographically situated near a place that experienced rapid modernization and urban growth in the post-colonial period. In one sense, it is a city neighbourhood, but in another sense it retains its own "nationhood" (I don't know how else to put it) complete with all the structures of African traditional government.
Traditional government means different things in different parts of Nigeria. Some parts of Nigeria have been monarchies for thousands of years. Other parts of Nigeria practiced what has come to be known as the "village republic" model of government.
I happened to grow up in a "suburb" that was a village republic.
Every once in a while, the men of the community ("indigenes" only) would gather at the village hall. There would be animated debate of whatever was the issue at stake, after which there would be a decision. The men of this community did not need to go to Britain to learn parliamentary procedure. Quite a large number of Nigerian towns and villages were convening "parliaments" long before the British people created the supposed "Mother of all Parliaments".
Every once in a while, the men of the community ("indigenes" only) would gather at the village hall. There would be animated debate of whatever was the issue at stake, after which there would be a decision. The men of this community did not need to go to Britain to learn parliamentary procedure. Quite a large number of Nigerian towns and villages were convening "parliaments" long before the British people created the supposed "Mother of all Parliaments".
Don't get the wrong idea.This isn't about nationalism, or about trying to prove who did it first.
I am saying there a tendency, in the Nigerian elite, the African elite and the "global" elite, to portray the African continent and the people of Africa as being incapable of doing anything, and more specifically as being incapable of doing anything right. There are a lot of people invested in this idea, a lot of people who derive wealth and exercise power and influence, explained away as being necessary because without them Africans would not be able to tie their shoe laces, much less anything else.
Yes, I know, to those of you who know of Africa only through the "international" media, it might seem like we just let things happen to us and don't proactively advance our wellbeing, but this is a false image.
We are compelled to do things for ourselves that people in the rest of the world get spoonfed. You rely on a utility company for electricity; we have to generate our own electricity. You rely on a utility company to pipe water to your homes; we have to pump and pipe our own water. You rely on your governments to build roads; we pay and contract with workers to carve out roads to our homes, and we pay to cover the roads with gravel or sand. You rely on the police for your security; we have to provide our own security, high walls, vicious dogs ... and the ubiquitous, if unregistered, firearms. And we sure as heck provide our own welfare or dole or health "insurance", not to mention pay from our pockets to take care of our elderly in their retirement.
The secondary school in my ancestral home town was built because the people gathered together in a village parliament and agreed to impose mandatory contributions from everyone in the village to pay to build the school. In effect, it was no different than a "government" imposing "taxes" on the people, monitoring the collection of those taxes, and then efficiently carrying out what it was the "voters" want.
The problem is there is, and has been since the colonial days, a disconnection between the "Africa" represented by the governments and other official institutions, and the "Africa" of entrepreneurial people who have to be very creative and innovation to survive because they don't have the option of marching down the streets demanding the government allow them to retire on full government-paid pensions at the age of 42.
Yes, I know, to those of you who know of Africa only through the "international" media, it might seem like we just let things happen to us and don't proactively advance our wellbeing, but this is a false image.
We are compelled to do things for ourselves that people in the rest of the world get spoonfed. You rely on a utility company for electricity; we have to generate our own electricity. You rely on a utility company to pipe water to your homes; we have to pump and pipe our own water. You rely on your governments to build roads; we pay and contract with workers to carve out roads to our homes, and we pay to cover the roads with gravel or sand. You rely on the police for your security; we have to provide our own security, high walls, vicious dogs ... and the ubiquitous, if unregistered, firearms. And we sure as heck provide our own welfare or dole or health "insurance", not to mention pay from our pockets to take care of our elderly in their retirement.
The secondary school in my ancestral home town was built because the people gathered together in a village parliament and agreed to impose mandatory contributions from everyone in the village to pay to build the school. In effect, it was no different than a "government" imposing "taxes" on the people, monitoring the collection of those taxes, and then efficiently carrying out what it was the "voters" want.
The problem is there is, and has been since the colonial days, a disconnection between the "Africa" represented by the governments and other official institutions, and the "Africa" of entrepreneurial people who have to be very creative and innovation to survive because they don't have the option of marching down the streets demanding the government allow them to retire on full government-paid pensions at the age of 42.
But there is only so much you can do at the subsistence or "micro" level. The problem with Africa is the "macro" level of politics and economics is controlled by Official Africa, and Official Africa has a different set of risks, motivations and interests. It is possible to build an Africa free from endemic starvation, but it doesn't happen because no matter how severe a hunger crisis may be, Official Africa never starves, and as such is not particularly motivated by the fear of starvation. There is more to be said about this (including the fact that a population that can independently feed itself without need to rely on centrally distributed food relief is a population even less under the control of Official Africa than it already is), but I would be digressing into a separate, lengthy discourse.
As Nigerians/Africans, we have come to realize that there are things we are not going to be allowed to do. We have come to realize that force will be used against us if we attempt to do those things. Nigeria has swung like a pendulum between military-led administrations and civilian-led administrations; under the former, the threat of force keeps us quiet, and under the latter ubiquitous violence tends to spread across the country, frightening people into avoiding politics.
But don't ever allow yourself to think that the dysfunction of the people in power means that we the people are incapable of function. It is the weird thing about Nigeria and indeed about Africa. Indeed,
"international" journalists have travelled to "lawless" and "ungoverned"
Somalia and been surprised to find a financial industry that is in some ways
more sophisticated than what you might find in certain "lawful" and
"governed" African countries.
It makes me angry. For example, we Nigerians complain about our maintenance culture. We despair that we build fantastic football stadia, oil refineries, power plants, roads and other infrastructure only to leave them to rot into disrepair and dysfunction. But you know what? We know we are supposed to maintain these things. And we have the expertise necessary to do so. Nothing in the world stops us from doing it. But somehow it doesn't get done.
In every instance we know what to do and we know how to do it. We just don't do it because the system is built around it not being done. For the system to "work" as it does, for example, the police has to be non-functional. The excuse given for the dysfunction is to continue to repeat that there is no "administrative capacity", in other words that we are not able to run a decent police force even if we tried (never mind that they are deliberately not trying). A corollary of this is we are supposed to seek foreign assistance to learn how to tie our shoe laces.
In every instance we know what to do and we know how to do it. We just don't do it because the system is built around it not being done. For the system to "work" as it does, for example, the police has to be non-functional. The excuse given for the dysfunction is to continue to repeat that there is no "administrative capacity", in other words that we are not able to run a decent police force even if we tried (never mind that they are deliberately not trying). A corollary of this is we are supposed to seek foreign assistance to learn how to tie our shoe laces.
It is aggravating. There is a vast society of capable, intelligent, entrepreneurial people that is ruled
(not governed) by people whose first response to any situation is to
act like they don't know anything and can't do anything unless led by
the hand by a foreigner.
They have handed sovereign control of economic policy to multilateral institutions and "development partners", and wring their hands as we continue to operate just below basic survival rather than move towards our maximum production possibilities. They watch on the sidelines while non-governmental organizations provide insufficient health care and education by consuming resources that could otherwise have created functional and sufficient healthcare and education institutions.
They talk to themselves, and leave we the people out of the conversation, on the assumption that we the people are not capable of understanding their high-level discussions ... discussions that produce an endless stream of bad policy.
Those National Assembly members who wasted scarce public funds to fly to Britain to supposedly learn how to be parliamentarians, came back home and delivered to us a National Assembly that was and remains a dysfunctional institution known only for collecting bribes and passing legislation to raise the salaries and benefits of its members. On the other hand, those men of the community where I grew up, men who had never stepped foot outside Nigeria, much less gone to Westminster, but were still able to come to functional decisions about issues affecting the village through "parliamentary" debate followed by a decision binding on everyone -- those men are allowed no input in the political process. Their votes don't count at elections, their voice does not matter between elections.
They have handed sovereign control of economic policy to multilateral institutions and "development partners", and wring their hands as we continue to operate just below basic survival rather than move towards our maximum production possibilities. They watch on the sidelines while non-governmental organizations provide insufficient health care and education by consuming resources that could otherwise have created functional and sufficient healthcare and education institutions.
They talk to themselves, and leave we the people out of the conversation, on the assumption that we the people are not capable of understanding their high-level discussions ... discussions that produce an endless stream of bad policy.
Those National Assembly members who wasted scarce public funds to fly to Britain to supposedly learn how to be parliamentarians, came back home and delivered to us a National Assembly that was and remains a dysfunctional institution known only for collecting bribes and passing legislation to raise the salaries and benefits of its members. On the other hand, those men of the community where I grew up, men who had never stepped foot outside Nigeria, much less gone to Westminster, but were still able to come to functional decisions about issues affecting the village through "parliamentary" debate followed by a decision binding on everyone -- those men are allowed no input in the political process. Their votes don't count at elections, their voice does not matter between elections.
People like to use words like "ignorance" when discussing the sort of person who seeks first to abjure responsibility and transfer decision-making to supposedly expert foreigners who are paid outlandish fees and salaries for their supposed expertize. But it has nothing to do with education, or with a person's educational attainment. It is more an ideology, one shared by a section of the "educated" elite on our continent, and by the elite on two other continents.
From as far back as the colonial days, there was a tendency among certain (but not all) "educated" Africans to assume that they were now less like their fellow Africans and more like the colonials. Without digressing too far into that emotive side-topic, let me just say that this particular sub-fraction of the African population (i.e. those who felt less affinity with their fellow African and more with the colonials) happened to be over-represented in the post-colonial governments. This too is a topic on its own, but these are the sort of people who 50 years later will look you in the face and tell you they have to travel to Britain to learn how to be parliamentarians from the Mother Country, rather than allow the genuine democracy of the village republic and the checked-and-balanced authority of the monarch be the building block of an African-style democracy. Sure, our precolonial governments were not perfect, but neither were (or are) the governments of the countries we are told we must view as the epitome of perfection.
Look, football is not rocket science (though, having said that, Nigeria and Africa do have a good number of people with the education and experience -- often abroad -- to be rocket scientists).
From as far back as the colonial days, there was a tendency among certain (but not all) "educated" Africans to assume that they were now less like their fellow Africans and more like the colonials. Without digressing too far into that emotive side-topic, let me just say that this particular sub-fraction of the African population (i.e. those who felt less affinity with their fellow African and more with the colonials) happened to be over-represented in the post-colonial governments. This too is a topic on its own, but these are the sort of people who 50 years later will look you in the face and tell you they have to travel to Britain to learn how to be parliamentarians from the Mother Country, rather than allow the genuine democracy of the village republic and the checked-and-balanced authority of the monarch be the building block of an African-style democracy. Sure, our precolonial governments were not perfect, but neither were (or are) the governments of the countries we are told we must view as the epitome of perfection.
Look, football is not rocket science (though, having said that, Nigeria and Africa do have a good number of people with the education and experience -- often abroad -- to be rocket scientists).
Do our goalkeepers have to travel to Europe to be put in a training regimen to learn how to deal with crosses? Do you tall players have to fly to Europe to be put through heading drills to learn, through repetitive experience, how to properly head the ball?
Before they invented the various euphemisms of "sports science", the original innovators in the field of bringing athletes to peak performance were people with exactly the same academic qualifications that are quite abundant in Nigeria: biology, anatomy, physiology, smedicine, physical education, nutrition, etc. Heck, the tools and machinery used in "sports science" are jazzed up versions of tools that have been around for decades, albeit fine-tuned for purpose by people who realized that the initial versions were not giving them the data or functionality they needed.
But what drives this innovation is actually very simple. You don't have to be a genius to know that the younger-version Okocha couldn't control his powerful shots, nor do you have to be a genius to start thinking, "well, how can I teach him how to control his shots?" You make him take shots over and over again, watch what he is doing, see what happens when his shots "work" and what happens when they doesn't, and use the lessons to fine-tune his practice sessions and to plan the practice sessions of other players with his exact problem. Somewhere along the way, you will come to the conclusion that you need to fine-tune a piece of technology, and because you know exactly what you want, you are able to tell the technician or engineer or whatever exactly what "tweaks" you need. I was embarrassed when Rabiu Ibrahim arrived in Europe and his first club decided he was far too one-legged and put him on a special training regimen to strengthen his right leg. Seriously, we can't do that in Nigeria?
But we will never get to where we need to go if the people in charge continue their habitual first reaction of a shoulder shrug, followed by handing everything over to the nearest foreigner.
I know some of you are thinking, "you are exaggerating. one can always gain additional knowledge by travelling to countries who have perfected it." But this is a deceptive lie. Nigerians and Africans have been travelling to foreign countries to learn from them for more than a century. If you count the "Nigerians" who travelled on pilgrimages to the Arabian peninsula via Egypt and Iraq, for many centuries.
As of 2012, Nigeria and Africa possess sufficient numbers with sufficient knowledge, but we either don't use them or we give them away to other countries. We give away our football players. But much more self-damagingly, we give away our doctors and nurses. We don't have enough doctors and nurses, and yet we do nothing to hold on to the ones we have. And then we start with the resource-hungry non-governmental organizations that could never properly replace a functional healthcare system.
I am tired of it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)