tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49730565130819551012024-03-02T09:28:23.102-08:00Joachim Ibeziako EzejiJoachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.comBlogger205125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-26105029028144413812013-04-19T07:27:00.000-07:002013-04-19T07:30:54.071-07:00rawdp.orgThe management of Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP) regrets to announce the shut down of its home page: www.rawdp.org
On-going redesign of the template is currently on. Please ignore con sites already in circulation. For the interim we shall be using a facebook link.
Cheers,
CY Ajuruchi
IT
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-10935669563934939742013-04-19T07:20:00.001-07:002013-04-19T07:20:33.021-07:00 Blair: Nigeria Not Achieving Full Potential Due to Corruption, Lax Corporate Governance
17 Apr 2013
* Survey shows insecurity as greater risk to business than corruption House advocates bill on private equity
By James Emejo and Muhammad Bello
The Chairman and Founder of Omnia Strategy LLP, Mrs. Cherie Blair, Tuesday said the menace of corruption and lax corporate governance were currently hurting Nigerian companies and limiting the country's ability to achieve its full economic potential. She said a lot still needed to be done in terms of contract enforcement and strict adherence to the rules of business.
Speaking in Abuja at the 10th Henshaw Private Equity Seminar on Private Equity and Policy tagged: 'Enabling Policies and Corporate Governance: Twin Levers for International Investment', Blair said the present culture of impunity even where rules are applied, was not only unacceptable but a disincentive for global private-equity investors hoping to explore emerging opportunities in the country.
She said the best way to go was for government and companies to enact enabling policies to sincerely implement good corporate governance and punish infringements.
Blair said it was not enough to merely investigate a wrongdoing without meting out appropriate sanctions to those who broke the rules regardless of who they are.
She said although every country including the United Kingdom had had to fight corruption at various point in time, the approach in handling the menace was more critical.
Omnia Strategy boss said the UK had to severally apply the full wrath of the law including outright confiscation of properties and imprisonment whenever there were infractions.
While describing corruption as insidious, she said Nigeria had a
commendable template for fighting the menace but implementation had often been a major concern.
She said although widely regarded as Africa's powerhouse, where investors are looking forward to invest, the complication of cross-border business had necessitated the need for strict adherence to contracts with significant level of transparency.
Blair also highlighted the imperativeness of creating incentives and reward system for good behaviour as well as transparency in handling issues.
Her comments came on a day it was revealed that business executives now see the present insecurity as greatest challenge to doing business in the country more than the issue of corruption which had been in the front burner for decades.
The survey, which was conducted by the NOI Polls also indicated that almost all business executives had affirmed that they had paid bribes at one time or the other to public officials in the course of business transactions.
Chief Executive Officer of NOI Polls, Oge Modie, said during an Enabling Policies Panel session which was chaired by THISDAY Newspapers’ Editor, Ijeoma Nwogwugwu, that apart from insecurity, businesses were more concerned about smuggling, power, finance, corruption - situations which tend to suggest that Nigerians might have become accustomed to corruption.
Modie said a comprehensive report on the study was expected to be made public soon.
Also speaking at the occasion Tuesday, Minister of State for Power, Mrs. Zainab Kuchi, said the federal government had done all that needed to be done to encourage local and foreign investment in the power sector, particularly the renewal energy which she said would offer much cheaper electricity to Nigerians.
She added that government had put in place good corporate governance structure as well as the political will required to boost investor-confidence in the sector.
She described 2013 as the year of renewable energy and improve power supply in the country.
Meanwhile, the Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Mr. Abdulmumini Jibril, has called for a bill to guide and regulate private equity practice in the country.
According to him, when passed into law, the bill should make private equity investors to compete alongside conventional banks in providing funds to businesses.
"We need to bring together existing laws and aggregate them to guide private equity and guide a private equity bill. We need to repackage these laws," he said, adding that “such laws should have its own regulator."
He said currently, the banks' lending to government represented about 60 per cent of their loan portfolio - a situation which often resulted into higher lending rates to customers.
He said though not presently a viable source of financing in the country, "We need to match words with actions. It's necessary to start promoting private equity."
Managing Director of FSDH Merchant Bank Limited, Mr. Rilwan Belo-Osagie said organisation must have to believe in the ideals of corporate governance, align it with company strategy to be able to implement it.
He said corporate governance had become extremely important for long-term survival of banks and to attract funds to an organisation.
Also, the First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan, has commended Blair for her commitment to improving the lots of women, by strengthening the capacity of women entrepreneurs through her NGO, “Cherie Blair Foundation for Women.”
Mrs Jonathan noted with satisfaction Mrs. Blair’s pursuit of a level playing ground for women to establish and grow successful businesses.
The First Lady, according to statement by her spokesperson, Ayo Osinlu, hosted Mrs. Blair to a luncheon at the State House in Abuja.
She encouraged her guest not to relent in her personal goal to extend her impact to 3,500 women entrepreneurs over the next three years.
The first lady informed Mrs. Blair of a similar vision of her own NGO, “A. Aruera Reachout Foundation,” which has trained about 4,000 men and women in various skills and vocations to make them self-reliant and help contribute to national development.
She also explained that the A. Aruera Reachout Foundation is a twin organisation to the “Women for Change and Development Initiative”, her other NGO, which seeks to empower women economically, socially and politically.
She noted that through the advocacy of the NGO, Nigeria for the first time has more women in elective and appointive positions, emphasising her conviction that when women and youths are educated, economically empowered and their voices are heard, they can contribute much more to the development of their societies.
The wife of former British Prime Minister, Mrs. Blair thanked Mrs Jonathan for her king gesture, restating her determination to facilitate a world where women have equal access to the tools and the support needed to grow their businesses.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-67778484605301825432013-04-19T07:18:00.000-07:002013-04-19T07:18:02.677-07:00PAVE and RAWDP - two leading Nigerian NGOs working on sustainable water supplies
by
Anthony Akpan
Rural Africa Water Development Project (also known as Rural Africa Water Development Initiative) is a Non- Governmental Organization working to promote sustainable environmental development in dispersed and dense communities in Nigeria. First organized in year 2000 RAWDP is today a legally incorporated body (registered trustee) with a 5 member trustee board. Its headquarters is located in Owerri, Imo State in Southern-eastern Nigeria. The organization currently retains a special consultative status in the United Nations (UN); see page 59 of the web page:
http://esa.un.org/coordination/ngo/new/documents/INF2008.pdf
Some of our sustainable development activities include the development and improvement of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene programs for poor and marginalized groups especially women and children; RAWDP is committed to the global challenge of fighting climate change particularly the challenges of watershed management to mitigate hazard risks of floods, pollution and land erosion etc. Its well-tailored actions at tackling these hazard risks consist of the design of erosion and flood control measures.
Other measures are those relating to clean water supplies, energy generation from wastes (biogas) and food security. Adaptation measures for food security includes the ecologically sound way of growing food using conservation agriculture, agro-ecology, eco-sanitation and the capacity building of small-holder farmers on dry land farming and zero-tillage. Other on-going project includes those on sanitation and consists of toilets shortlisting, design, construction and delivery; the production of organic fertilizer using human waste; and the generation of electricity using urine and other green energy sources. RAWDP also has developed an eco-friendly bio-insecticide suitable for the preservation of rice grains.
The Pan African Vision for the Environment (PAVE) is a non-profit, non-political, non-governmental organization established in 1998 with the aim of promoting sustainable development through research, documentation, policy dialogues, workshops, advocacy and consultancy services. PAVE deals with development issues in their environmental and socio-economic aspects with emphasis on the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets regarding water and sanitation and other related human settlement issues including Climate change and Clean Energy promotion. PAVE is registered (RC 26029) with the Corporate Affairs Commission in Nigeria.
The chosen mission of PAVE is to act as a catalyst, mobilize, mediate and act directly in several of society’s processes dealing with the improvement of quality of life and respect for cultural and biological diversity. As its basis, PAVE believes in promoting good governance at all level, across all sectors, be it public or private. PAVE also believes in a democratic system for managing human interests. The fundamental objective of PAVE is to act, support and collaborate in the elaboration and dissemination of new approaches, policies and activities related to human development questions. We have over 10 years’ experience in the development sector and work at the local, national, regional and international level. We have presented papers conducted researches and organized capacity building workshops on various sustainable development thematic areas in Africa, Asia , Europe and North America .
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-88700594759591810292013-04-19T07:15:00.000-07:002013-04-19T07:15:04.696-07:00Adokiye wants NFF impeached
On April 19, 2013 · In Sports
1:33 am
Sports buff, ex-international and a 1980 Nations Cup winner, Chief Adokiye Amiesimaka, who once held the position of the Attorney-General of Rivers State, granted Sports Vanguard an interview. JOHN EGBOKHAN presents his view in this two-part conversation, revolving round Nigerian sports.
Is it proper to sack an assistant coach of the Super Eagles in the middle of an important World Cup qualification campaign?
Ordinarily, the NFF can hire and fire. It’s normal, if you have the authority to appoint, you ordinarily will have the authority to dismiss. But it’s the circumstances here that make the situation rather unfortunate.
How do you sack an assistant coach without reference to the chief coach, especially in a situation where he was recommended by the chief coach. The chief coach must have seen something in him that he considered to be very useful. So it bothers me that Keshi was reportedly not consulted.
Adokiye
Adokiye
It is true that when you are running an organisation and you fall short of funds, you may take steps to be able to continue to run such organisation.
One of such steps could be to prune down your staff but the critical question here as I said earlier on is why was Keshi not consulted? That is very suspicious, that is very unfortunate. But I cam not surprised I have said it before that the problem with us in this part of the world is that we do not confront challenges head on, we rather pretend that they don’t exist.
I have said it before and I am saying it again that this so-called NFF are not happy that Keshi won the Nations Cup. They are not happy. And they want him out so that they will go ahead and appoint their foreign coach, no matter his calibre.
And I wished Keshi had struck to his guns and resigned after the Nations Cup victory. How come the minister of sports came into the scene, even the President came into the scene to persuade Keshi not to resign? Did they find out why he tendered the resignation letter in the first place?
They said there was no letter from Keshi, it was only a radio station in South Africa he told of his resignation…
So if that is the case, why did the sports minister come into the picture to find out why he said he was going to resign. I said it then that they should address the problem, instead of saying there were no problems. This so-called NFF want to see Keshi’s back. They don’t want him to even be there, since the Nations Cup was done and all the worries that came with it.
Are you saying that the reformation process is an attempt to get Keshi out?
Of course. You have a chief coach who you say its a work in progress and you are pruning down the staff, its a ruse, its a ruse. I am not surprised too that they have sacked some backroom staff. These backroom staff got millions too from state governors. They were given money and other gifts and do you think the guys in NFF are happy? They are not happy.
These people are now millionaires. Don’t you know that, you don’t understand the people you are dealing with? When we won the Nations Cup in 1980, the first thing that those people in the NFA did was to say that we were too rich, that we didn’t want to play football again, that we were millionaires, and that they wanted new blood. I was only 23.
You can see how envious they were of us then even with the little money that we got then, there was envy. I am telling you that they are envious. They are not just jealous, they are envious. They are not happy that Keshi has made so much money, that his backroom staff have made so much money, that is why they are doing all these things. Read between the lines.
These are people who had gone to the NFF to make money, don’t you know? They are there to make money for themselves, they are not there to run football in the first place. When they are there and Keshi’s backroom staff are making millions, do you think they are happy? They are not.
That is why they are doing all this. They want Keshi to fail. I said it before and I told Keshi, and appealed to the sports minister, because for now, he is the one running football, courtesy of the NFA Act, 2004.
I said, make sure that Keshi’s terms of contract are such that NFA, these so-called NFF, who just changed the name, cannot tamper with it. That is what is playing out now. They want to discourage Keshi. They want him to fail.
How can you sack someone like Sylvanus Okpalla, that we know is a very competent technician, without reference to his boss. They don’t want Keshi to be happy.
Give us your observations on the Kenya match and the way forward when we play them in June…
In the circumstances, well that’s the thing. They set stage for the Super Eagles to fall. Can’t you see it? Immediately after the Nations Cup triumph, I said look, going through the record; usually when teams who win championships, it takes them sometime to pick up.
I called it post-championship Dip in Performance Phenomenon. Usually, immediately after winning a championship, because of all the tensions and all the hypes and all that, and you suddenly exhale, it takes time to build up mentally and physically to that level of competition to win again,.
So I was not surprised that we did not do so well when we played Kenya in Calabar. I expected that but the point is with what is happening now, that is going to be very difficult for the Super Eagles to do well in the next games.
That notwithstanding, we will still find our way through. But the unfortunate thing is that this NFF, these co-called NFF, are not helping the Eagles and that’s why Nigerians should come and say we cannot accept this from you. Nigerians should come up and tell these people that we cannot accept this from them. They are too docile.
Do we require the Presidency to intervene?
The sports minister, under section 19 of the NFA Act, it is the sports minister that runs the NFA. The sports minister is in charge of the board of the NFA. So he is the one who is actually running football.
But you are aware that FIFA frowns at government interference. If the minister attempts to exercise these rights, NFF will cry interference and FIFA will wade in…
Don’t you know how things work? Was it not the sport minister that ousted Lulu’s board? They know how to do these things. They don’t have to show it in the open.
The question of interference will not come up at all. FIFA won’t even know what is happening at all. Is it not the sports minister that gives them money to run the federation. All the sports minister needs to do is to call the board and tell them what he wants. It’s a political thing.
They can get the congress of the NFA to oust the board. You can get the congress to oust the current NFF board quietly. It will be just like the way they did with Lulu board. After all, they used Maigairi and co to remove Lulu.
They can in the same way remove this board. So if the sports minister wants he knows what do do. It’s unfortunate they are doing this. They are just toying with our football.
They don’t know their left from right and how they got there is the problem of this country. You have round pegs in square holes. Ordinarily, Nigerians should stand up and say they are not going to take this anymore. It has got to a point where Nigerians should say no to these people.
How big a threat is this to our national football?
The threat is real. How can you be sacking backroom staff, pruning down allowances, have they pruned down their own allowances? They are so many of them there, who are doing nothing.
What are they doing? You have a board of so many people, what are their roles? You say some are members of the Technical Committee. Who are the members of the Technical Committee? Who is the chairman of the Technical Committee? They have all sorts of characters with no real functions.
You have people in the technical committee who don’t know about the game. They say they don’t have money and are appointing a Technical Director with two assistants. What we need now is a Director for Football Development, not a technical director. We need a Director of Football Development, who will oversee the age-grade category, that is what we need.
Technical Director is going to clash with the chief coach of the Super Eagles. Let them look at the antecedents of other countries and learn from them but they are not ready to learn. In other countries where they have technical directors, the people know their limits. But you can be sure that these people are not going to spell out their limits and this will lead to confusion.
Away from football, sir, you were the chairman of a panel, that looked at the modalities of setting up a Court of Arbitration for sports in Nigeria by the NOC. We’ve not heard anything on the CAS.
Well, you should ask the NOC. I was the chairman of the panel set up to put together the framework for the actualisation of that body and we’ve done our job and submitted our report, as you are aware, during the AGM of the NOC at Uyo last year March.
It was well received. They praised it to high heavens. Why not call amiable Alhaji Sani Ndanusa and ask him on what is happening. My committee has done its job, at very little expense, little or nothing. We’ve played our part and it is now left for the NOC to actualise it.
I have had personal discussions with some key persons in the ministry on how to go about it. We’ve done our bit and even more. It is now left for the NOC to actualise it.
Are you worried with the delay and the way we run sports?
Worry is not really the appropriate word for it. I am disappointed. There is so much that we can do for ourselves in this part of the world but we just cannot do them.
I don’t know what our problem is. It was the NOC on it own that came up with this brilliant idea of setting up the Court of Arbitration for Sports, CAS. So why are they not seeing it through. It is the dilemma of Nigeria. I wonder what is wrong with us.
The NOC came up with this brilliant idea, which everybody commended, so why are they not seeing it through? We should stand up and say no to these people. We should ask what are you doing gentlemen? Why are they not actualising it? Why are they not seeing it through. We’ve done everything. We even went to Lausanne, Switzerland. We went to the IOC President, met with members and staff of their CAS there, we went to that extent, so why are they not seeing it through.Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-6327338808890446802013-04-13T16:57:00.001-07:002013-04-19T06:40:28.368-07:00Nigeria to delay GDP rebasing till 2013 – NBSOn April 9, 2013 • In News
12:30 am
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/04/nigeria-to-delay-gdp-rebasing-till-2013-nbs/
The rebasing of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, which is expected to increase the estimated size of Africa’s second largest economy by around 40 per cent, is likely to be delayed until next year, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
The recalculation will enable Nigeria to join the ranks of middle-income countries and put it much closer in size to South Africa, the continent’s most developed economy. It will also make it an even bigger attraction for foreign investors seeking a slice of Africa’s fast growth rates.
But several deadlines to implement the changes have been missed, with the latest being the fourth quarter of this year. “It is unlikely that even the target of the last quarter (this year) we will make it. I underestimated how much work needs to be done. I think everyone understands that this is very crucial and has to be done properly,” Director General of the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, Yemi Kale said. Most governments overhaul gross domestic product calculations about every five years to reflect changes in output and consumption, such as mobile phones and the Internet. Nigeria has not done so since 1990.
The rebasing is expected to add about 40 per cent to Nigeria’s GDP, which would boost the economy of Africa’s top oil producer from roughly $250 billion to around $350 billion. That brings it very close to South Africa’s currently $385 billion economy. And, with a growth rate of over six per cent a year, compared with three per cent in South Africa, Nigeria may eventually overtake its rival to seize the top spot. Some economists warned that a sharp increase in the size of Nigeria’s economy will mean slower growth. “You’d expect that the bigger the economy, the slower the growth but I don’t think it is as easy as that,” Kale said. “Regardless of what our GDP is, we are still going to be small enough to produce even sharper growth rates.” Sectors like telecommunications, construction, hotels and entertainment should get a greater weighting after rebasing but agriculture, which currently makes up around 40 per cent of GDP and 60 per cent of jobs, is likely to decrease in influence.
“Growth in agriculture is largely subsistence, largely labour intensive, so there is a limit to how much you can grow. We know that capital intensive technology probably generates more output than labour intensive technology,” Kale said. He said the oil and gas sector, which contributes around 80 per cent of government revenues, is expected to maintain a similar weighting of around 15 per cent. A larger estimated economy would most likely boost interest in Nigerian stocks, especially goods companies looking to unlock the consumer potential of Africa’s most populous country. It will also improve Nigeria’s debt to GDP ratio, currently around 16 per cent. But Nigeria’s tax revenues, seen as woeful for a country of this size, will look even smaller.
Foreign aid donors may also find it harder to justify giving support to Nigeria if it becomes a middle-income state. Despite roaring growth rates, 61 per cent of Nigerians – or 100 million people – still live in absolute poverty. “It is very clear that middle-income is growing, it is very clear that consumption is improving. The major problem to ensure that this is broad based,” Kale said.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-18182132998883865242013-04-13T16:53:00.001-07:002013-04-19T06:41:22.871-07:0054 per cent Nigerian households have pit latrines By Everest Amaefule
Sunday, 24 Jul 2011
http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art2011072416282942
Pit latrines account for 54 per cent of the toilets deployed by Nigerian households in 2008, the National Bureau of Statistics http://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/ has said.
The agency in its Annual Abstract of Statistics, 2009, which has just been released also disclosed that 66.3 per cent of Nigerian households lived in a single room as at 2008. According to the agency, while 38.3 per cent of the households have covered pit latrines, 15.7 per cent households have pit latrines that are not covered. To show that the culture of pail toilet is dying in the country, only 0.1 per cent of households used the facility in 2008, down from the 0.2 per cent that deployed the toilet facility in 2007.
Households that pass their wastes in the water accounted for 3.7 per cent; down from the four per cent recorded in 2007. A total of 8.8 per cent households did not have any toilet facility as against 8.6 per cent recorded in 2007. The number of households that have VIP latrine accounted for 0.6 per cent while unidentified facilities accounted for 17.6 per cent. On state basis, Imo State accounted for the highest number of households with covered pit latrines at 78.5 per cent. A total of 8.7 per cent households in the state have toilets that flush to the septic tanks and 3.9 per cent have households that flush to sewage.
Bayelsa State, on the other hand, accounted for the highest percentage of households that have toilet facilities in the water. This is followed by Rivers State with 30 per cent of households. Delta State has 20 per cent of households that use toilet facilities in the waters. Lagos State at 45 per cent has the highest percentage of households with toilets that flush to the septic tanks. This is followed by Enugu State at 29 per cent, Rivers at 28.3 per cent, Abia 23.1 per cent and Anambra 18.6 per cent. The percentage of households without any toilet facility was higher in Oyo State. A total of 53.3 per cent of households in the state do not have any toilet facility. Benue with 38.8 per cent ranks second in terms of households without any toilet facility.
Plateau, Ekiti, Kwara and Niger follow simultaneously with 31.7 per cent, 31.3 per cent, 34.8 per cent and 14.7 per cent respectively. Classifying the housing units lived by Nigerians within the year, NBS disclosed that 66.3 per cent of households lived in single rooms. A total of 27.2 per cent of the households lived in whole buildings. While 5.8 per cent of the households lived in flats, 0.3 per cent lived in duplexes. A total of 0.4 per cent lived in unclassified accommodation. Categorising the housing units by states, Bauchi topped the list of states with 98.6 per cent of its households living in single room. Kebbi, Katsina, Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Ogun and Adamawa followed with 97.5 per cent, 94.7 per cent, 92.8 per cent, 92.2 per cent, 91.7 per cent, 86.8 per cent and 83.3 per cent respectively.
For households living in flats, Lagos State topped the list with 26.4 per cent. The Federal Capital Territory, Bayelsa Sate, Jigawa, Oyo and Delta followed simultaneously with 17.8 per cent, 14.5 per cent, 9.3 per cent, 8.9 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively. Imo State topped the list of households living in whole buildings with 81.8 per cent. The state was followed by Ebonyi, 73.5 per cent; Zamfara, 72.9 per cent; Anambra, 64.5 per cent, Jigawa, 59 per cent and Abia, 57 per cent. Kaduna, Lagos and Kebbi States occupy the bottom rung of the ladder for states whose households live in whole buildings with 1.3 per cent, 1.4 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-50401085006102301382013-04-13T16:49:00.003-07:002013-04-19T06:42:02.119-07:00Society canvasses indigenous waste management strategyhttp://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=116438:society-canvasses-indigenous-waste-management-strategy&catid=25:property&Itemid=655
Monday, 18 March 2013 00:00 By Tosin Fodeke Property - Property
AS Nigeria grapples with its myriads of environmental challenges, professionals under the aegis of Waste Management Society of Nigeria (WAMASON) have called for the formulation of an indigenous strategy for the collection, treatment, recycling and disposal of all streams of wastes. The society members while speaking at the swearing-in of new executives in the Lagos Council, stressed that Africans need to adopt a locally formulated technique for managing waste, which would be more effective in dealing with the many pollution challenges, brought upon it by the crude oil boom.
Managing Director, Lagos State Waste Management Agency (LAWMA), Mr. Ola Oresanya, while speaking at the event, stated that Nigeria needs to develop an internally generated policy for managing waste, as this would help tackle its numerous sanitation challenges. Oresanya an ex -official of WAMASON welcomed constructive criticism and support from the society and tasked the executive council to come up with more programmes that would develop the individual capacity of members. He said: “We need a strategy that is modified or adapted from what has been passed down from the western world.
What we have come to know is that they do not usually give us all their technology secrets however we have been managing” “LAWMA over the years has been developing a database of solution to problem encountered in waste management and this is why we have been able to expand our operational space to other countries.” The LAWMA boss stated. Earlier, Chairman Lagos State House Committee on Environment, Abiodun Tobun urged LAWMA and WAMASO not to relent in their efforts at ridding the state of waste. He implored them to work together with legislatures but making their requests known in written proposals. “What we do is make laws for the smooth operation of business and services in the state. And if you don’t make your case known to us how can we help?” Stated Tobun.
Guest Speaker at the event, Professor Tunde Ogunsanwo called on waste manager to seize the opportunities inherent in automobile waste recycling. He said: “WAMASON and LAWMA need to look into the endless set of opportunities in managing automobile waste. However this area has been left for the Chinese and Indians” Second National Vice president of the Society, Alhaji Rabiu Suleiman, who performed the swearing-in called on the legislative member to use his influence to assist the Society in acquiring the status of a chartered body governed by law. Members of the new executive committee include, Councillor- Alhaji Jeleel Olubori, Vice Councillor- Success Ikpe, Secretary -Babawale Aduroshakin, Assistant Secretary- Ernest Abu, Technical Secretary-Mrs. Iniobong Abiola Awe, Assistant Technical Secretary-Dr. Gbolabo Ogunwande, and Public Affairs Officer- Mrs. Margret Dara Oshodi, among others.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-90760041278275006382013-04-13T16:49:00.001-07:002013-04-19T06:43:32.023-07:00The mistakes Rotimi Williams and I made about Nigeria’s constitution – NwabuezeOn March 21, 2013 • In Politics
BY GBENGA OKE
…North is in the middle of a civil war…
PROFESSOR Ben Nwabueze (SAN), the chairman of The Patriots, a group of eminent Nigerian citizens is disturbed that the transformation agenda is on the wrong step and might not yield the desired result. In this interview with VANGUARD, he proffers suggestions on how to re-track the agenda. He opposes calls for amnesty for Boko Haram sect and doubts the ability of the congregating opposition parties to dislodge the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, in 2015. Excerpts:
His assessment of President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda
The transformation agenda of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration is inadequate because of its limited objectives. To begin with, it focuses only on the economy. Even as limited to the economy, it does not aim at a radical change in the nature or character of the economy. Its aim as stated in its enabling document is to engender economic growth and development in a way to achieve improvement in the welfare of the citizens. The word ‘transformation’ according to the dictionary definition of it, is “change in condition, nature of character of a thing”, ‘a change into another substance.’ A new approach in the management of the economy may well bring about a great improvement in the economy in the form of enhanced growth and development and welfare services, but such improvement cannot in any meaningful sense be described as changing the Nigerian economy into something radically different in nature or character or changing it into another substance. The Transformation Agenda is inadequate for another more fundamental reason. It has absolutely nothing to do with, not a word to say about, the transformation of our society from moral decadence into which it has sunk. No agenda, in the context of Nigeria, is worth being called a transformation agenda, which does not aim at the moral and ethical transformation of our society. Its focus must enhance the entire society or nation not the economy alone.
On how to improve the transformation agenda
What this country needs is national or social transformation not just economic transformation. I can think of nothing more disastrous for this country than an enhanced growth and development built or superimposed upon a morally and ethically decadent society, a society bereft of a sense of justice, probity, integrity, accountability, civic virtues and noble values. The vice-President in a speech at the Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership Award Ceremony on March 6, 2013 said that government planned as part of the transformation agenda programme to establish mega universities, each of which can take up to 200,000 students. The establishment of such universities will be a disaster, a disastrous misplacement of priorities when it is taken in the context of the incredible decline in educational standards in the country as attested by the phenomenon of near-illiterate university graduates, the existence of magic schools all over the country whose students are guaranteed automatic success in the school certificate examination, not of course by merit, certificate racketeering; examination malpractices etc.
His take on perceived looming revolution
For the present, unless the situation deteriorates to a point where the mood and reaction of the people can no longer be controlled, what I advocate for Nigeria is a peaceful, non violent social and ethical revolution led by a person imbued with a revolutionary ardour for national transformation. And I implore Mr. President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan to lead it.
On calls by major northern stakeholders for amnesty to the Boko Haram sect
I think the call for amnesty for the Boko Haram people is misplaced and it is based on mis-guided comparison between the amnesty granted to the militants in the Niger Delta. These are two different things, completely different. The Niger Delta militants were fighting for justice, it is not an insurgency. Boko Haram is an insurgency, revolt against constituted authorities. Carrying arms against the state, that is what insurgency means. Militants in the Niger Delta never revolted against the state when they were protesting and that is the difference between militancy and insurgency. These Boko Haram people are insurgents therefore there should be no question of amnesty. However, I sympathise with them because they are revolting against the absence of social justice. Now, forget the hardship and suffering, these are not the only cause for their insurgency, it also has political and religious undertones. The origin of the group Boko Haram is political, it was what happened after the death of (former President Umaru Musa) Yar’Adua, the North said the South has ruled for eight years under President Obasanjo and therefore it is their turn justifiably or unjustifiably, that was their argument. They also said after the acting tenure of President Jonathan, that power should return to the North and that the price of that is what Nigeria is experiencing now. That is the political angle to it. I have mentioned the economic side of the revolt, which include hardship, suffering and poverty as well. They have now added a position which is untenable by adding religion to it. They say they want to convert Nigeria into a Muslim state; that is incredible.
On The Patriots recurring call for a National Conference, resistance from the National Assembly and next line of action
We are still going ahead with the National Conference. The arguments from the National Assembly are again misplaced. They are representatives of the people who are elected members, elected by the people, but what is their mandate? There is a clear difference and distinction between the National Assembly and the Constituent Assembly or National Conference. The National Assembly are elected and given a mandate to govern according to the Constitution. The Constituent Assembly, the National Conference is an assembly for just one specific purpose, the purpose of making a constitution. Their mandate is not to govern, the mandate is a special one and that is making a constitution. The people are the constituent power; the constituent power in any country is in the people as a sovereign people. The National Assembly is not sovereign, the people are sovereign. In exercise of their constituent power of their sovereignty to deliberate on their constitution and how they are to be governed, that is the whole purpose of the demand for a National Conference.
On areas that need amendment in the 1999 Constitution
Quite frankly, there are many flaws and many errors in the content of the constitution. So many errors and I as a person was partly responsible because I was a member of the constitution drafting committee set up by the military government in 1978. I was not only a member but chairman of one of the sub-committees that produced Chapter 2, the fundamental objectives and one of the cardinal flaws in the constitution is the concentration of powers in the centre. That is why I accept that I am partly responsible for that because at the time, late Chief Rotimi Williams, a close friend of mine and nearly everybody in the Constitution Drafting Committee were so overwhelmed with this feeling, this patriotic feeling that we needed unity and the most effective way to achieve unity of the country is by having a very strong central government. Most of us in the committee shared that idea at the time. Chief Williams shared it because of the patriotism in us and we wanted a united Nigeria, we feel we can achieve unity by having a strong central government. Then, what did we do to achieve our mis-guided objective? We took away 50 per cent of the items on the concurrent list and gave it to the centre. We feel by doing this, we are establishing unity. We did not stop at that.
We looked at the residual matters, these are matters exclusive to the states, we took a large part of it, more than 30 percent and close to 50 percent; we took it away from states and gave to the centre. And the result is the almighty Federal Government, but what we discover was that instead of producing unity, we produced disunity because of the intensity of the struggle to control the centre. The intensity is so much and it is not just in the political power that was concentrated at the centre, much of the money also went to the centre and so by action, we destroyed what is called fiscal federalism. Too much money at the centre increased the struggle for the control of the centre and the control of the money itself and that has remained the feature of the Constitution up till today. So when people struggle and agitate for true federalism, for fiscal federalism, they know what they are talking about and they are right, that must be changed and until it is changed, we might not achieve true federalism because the basis of which we did it has proved to be misguided, the unity we thought we will achieve was not achieved and what we achieved was more disunity than unity because of the struggle.
So I am not sure the rectification of that error is what the National Assembly can do because so much is involved. We have to restructure the territorial basis of the federation. Even if we have to take power away from the centre, whom are you going to give it to? The 36 states, many of them carry even the power they have now not to talk of bringing back what has been taken away. Many of them are so small to carry those powers. So not only restructuring in political power, not only restructuring in financial power, you have to restructure territorial basis of zones. Six zones as suggested already but there is nothing sacrosanct by number of zones, it can be six, seven or eight but realistically six zones. So that has to be done. Can the National Assembly do it? That is why again the entire people, all the 300 or more of the ethnic groups in the country need to come together and discuss and there are also many other things in the Constitution which experience has proved cannot work and it is not a matter for National Assembly alone and that is why I said let us have a National Conference to look at the whole thing both the more fundamental issues, the source of authority and the content of the Constitution.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-29186841010315457072013-04-13T16:47:00.001-07:002013-04-19T06:44:03.166-07:00Nigerian RIVER BASINS: How unending policy reversals abet inefficiencyOn April 3, 2013 • In Features
IN the face of the current failure of food security, water supply and power generation, not a few are in haste to ask if the 12 River Basin Development Authorities RBDAs across the country have lived up to their mandate. CHARLES KUMOLU reports…
FOLLOWING the 1972-74 drought in Nigeria which many described as the worst ever experienced in West Africa, it was not a surprise that the Supreme Military Council promulgated decree 25 of 1976, as a swift move towards the development of Nigeria’s water resources. Accordingly, that gave birth to 11 River Basin Development Authorities, RBDAs, to harness the nation’s water resources and optimise its agricultural resources for food sufficiency.
The RBDAs include Upper Benue Basin, the Lake Chad Basin, Benin-Owena Basin, Sokoto-Rima Basin, Sokoto; Hadejia-Jema’are Basin, Kano; the Lower Benue Basin, Makurdi and the Cross River Basin, Calabar. Others are: Oshun-Ogun Basin, Abeokuta; Anambra-Imo Basin, Owerri; the Niger Basin, Ilorin and the Niger Delta Basin, Port Harcourt. This development, reportedly raised hope among the populace because it was assumed that the RBDs would, apart from agricultural needs, satisfy other basic needs associated with water resources. Instructively, the RBDAs were primarily established to provide water for irrigation and domestic water supply, improvement of navigation, hydro-electric power generation, recreation facilities and fisheries projects.
The basins were also expected to engender big plantation farming and encourage the establishment of industrial complexes that could bring the private and public sectors in joint business partnership. Additionally, RBDAs were expected to bridge the gap between the rural and urban centres by taking development to the grass roots and discourage migration from the rural areas to the urban centres.
These objectives were to be achieved through surface impoundment of water by constructing small, medium and large dams which would enable all-year round farming activities in the country. But nearly four decades after its establishment many are in doubt if the RBDAs have really lived up to its mandate. The performance of the RBDAs have increasingly been questioned because of the failure in power generation, water and food supplies.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-7671208281867744542013-04-13T16:46:00.005-07:002013-04-19T06:45:01.589-07:00Richards: There Will Be a Big Boom in the Economy with More Electricity Supply25 Feb 2013
Promasidor Nigeria Limited is in the business of manufacturing food, essentially, dairy and beverages. Its managing director, Chief Keith Richards, lamented the deplorable situation of electricity supply in the country and its attendant cost to the 20-year-old company as he spoke with Kunle Aderinokunon prospects and challenges for the manufacturing concern, amongst others. Excerpts:
Though 2012 has come and gone, but how will you describe its impact on the dairy business and what is the business outlook for 2013?
Last year was difficult because of the crisis that attended the fuel subsidy removal and the attendant increase in pump price of fuel. When that was laid to rest, we had the issues of insecurity in the north and the flooding that swept through the southeast. All that affected our market last year. We hope this year would be more peaceful, though there are still nagging issues in some sections of the country. One good thing is that Nigerians are very resilient people. I think the market has settled down and this year should be more positive. The early signs are good for us. All our range of products performed very well in January and I'm told that the packaging company has seen a little more over-booking which suggests that there is a general boom across consumer products. There is a little more optimism in the air, the demographics are right, the population is there, demand is there, the question is around micro-economies. If Nigeria's economy is growing around 6 to7 per cent, how much of that trickles down to the ordinary Nigerians? If some of the money that the country is earning from oil, or investment starts getting down, it will be a boom market for the milk and other consumer goods. But the big question is how effective is this government in ensuring that this revenue trickles down to ordinary Nigerians on the streets. A high percentage of our sales are in the North. All our brands especially those in the N10 and N20 range are very popular there. Also very popular in the north are our Top Tea brand and our seasoning. It goes beyond what is happening directly, you know, the north is a big trading out-post for export to Cameroun, Chad, Niger even up to Mali and what happened is that for lots of months, the borders were closed and even when they were re-opened, there were scepticism about all exports outside the country. The Boko Haram threat and what is happening in Mali makes the security forces nervous leading to serious restrictions of movement at the borders. The other issue is that the North which heavily relies on agriculture have had their lives disrupted by this sectarian violence. A lot of transporters do not want to go to the North anymore. Some want to charge a 25 per cent risk premium and that’s costing us more and costing other FMCG money and making it more difficult for farmers and anybody producing in the north to get their goods to the urban market like Lagos and the south. So there is a direct impact that trickles down and affects the economy as a whole. In the north in particular, it’s difficult to measure but it’s definitely there.
How strong is Promasidor on export?
Well we do export to Benin and neighbouring countries, but you know Promasidor is a group so we have our own business in Ghana and we have other business around that export to some of these other countries. We definitely export to our neighbours.
How healthy would you rate the demand and supply curve of your products?
I think in demand there is no doubt about it that consumers want our products. Where we are having issues is the ripple effect of insecurity on the economy. For example, even in the east, less people went back home for Christmas this time around because of the concern that rising cases of kidnapping is generating. That reduced consumer demands in the east for the period. Very interestingly, the seasoning market did very well; like Onga seasoning out-performed other brands which are not hard to see. If you have a security concern and you are not going out after dark, there would be more demand for food, after all if you are not going out to have beer with your friends and you are not going out to Mai shai to drink tea what would you do? The average man would stay at home and ask his wife to cook a pot of soup and he will eat at home with his family. That’s good for the seasoning market but difficult for other brands. I mean it’s difficult for the beer market, the soft drinks for those kinds of things that are consumed in places where people are reducing their visit. Lagos is ok but you know if you go to Owerri, Enugu, Aba, the security issue definitely means less traffic at night and less socialising.
Are you satisfied with your share of the market?
No, because I am never satisfied. I learnt from Chief Ralph Alabi that the reward for hard work is more hard work. Late Chief Alabi, who then was the chairman of Guinness, told me that and I have passed it down to my team. I am always looking for more. I am looking for more from our existing brands and am looking for how to develop more products, and more brands. I can never rest; the day a company decides to rest is the day it begins to slide, so I am never satisfied.
Do you think the Federal Government is doing enough to improve the macro-economic environment?
Well, I think I will spilt it into two, I think they have the right intent and they have some very good policies, but, they are not doing well on implementation. Take power for instance, that Mr President understands that it is the backbone for industrial growth is very glaring, but look at the way the privatisation is being implemented. The whole thing is just going anyhow, it’s been delayed and I am sure that must be frustrating the President and other members of the cabinet. I have no doubt that he has the right intent and I really believe that they have the right policies but the implementation is not happening fast enough. The implementation is not meeting the need of ordinary Nigerians. All these infrastructure, power, roads, particularly education, health, this government has been earning more money from oil revenue, but I think the money is not been utilised as effectively as it should be.
What is your take on electricity generation?
Lack of constant electricity is affecting us considerably. The cost of producing an alternative is huge. We spend up to N100, 000 per hour on diesel. Because gas is now available we have just installed a gas generator that has cost us $1.2 million and the payback time is less than one year to show you how damaging the cost of power is. It is not the direct cost, if we switch on to PHCN, besides being epileptic; the voltage is unstable, so bad that it does enormous damage to the machines. Machines stop and start that means you get less machine efficiency, you are less effective. For a company like ours, at least we have the employment muscle and the ability to plan around these shortcomings and do the best we can but what of those other companies that lacked the capacity. There are small businesses that want to produce goods so that we stop importing from china or India, instead they first have to invest in a generator and get bogged down by the diesel headaches, these are the drawbacks that cause the death of SMEs. This is sadly not affecting only big companies like ours, the ordinary people on the street with small businesses are also affected, there is no doubt that there will be a big boom in the economy if there is more electricity supply.
What other challenges are you encountering in your operation?
You know I have referred to transport and that the government understands and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has been to the port to make sure that they are run efficiently and we have seen some improvement. But even if you clear your goods quickly, you have just come out of a queue at Oshodi-Apapa expressway which has gone bad over time due to non-maintenance. Rather than maintain the road through which 90 per cent of the raw materials come into the country, what you see is the tension between the federal and the state government over the management of the road. They are too busy playing politics while all manufacturers are suffering because of the very bad state of that road and poor management of that road and the fact that trailers particularly fuel tankers have blocked the road. They are trying, there is no doubt you know the Benin-Ore road has improved that’s a very important road structurally built in the country but look at the Lagos- Sagamu express for how long will that contract last given how much we have spent? And now it’s been given to other people. So things are happening and that’s why I said the government has the intent but it is the implementation that is holding everything up.
Promasidor Nigeria will be 20 years this year, what has kept the company so far?
Well, it has been a fantastic journey for Promasidor. We have so much opportunity in Nigeria and they far outweigh the difficulties we have had in those 20 years. This company has gone through a lot, the company came in 1993 and has gone through all the problems with democracy in 1995, everything and yet this company has grown astronomically. That is very positive, it shows the possibility and the potential in this country despite the problems that we have been talking about and it shows that if we fix this thing, this is a great place for investment. So we are very positive about Nigeria particularly in relation to the long term and that is why we are constantly re-investing. We are investing money in a plant for new product that will be launched before year end, we are investing in research and development, and we are bringing technology which will enable us to work with local raw material we have signed a memorandum of understanding with University of Ibadan where we will take some of their students to France on some sponsored programmes and when they return, they will help us to work on those products developed with local raw materials. Things have been very exciting here and the great thing is that we do have shareholders in Promasidor that take the long-term seriously. They are making investment that will enable us to continue to grow in the long term. So I think the outlook is very positive and exciting. Later this year we will celebrate our 20 years and we will do a lot of things; for example, 460 workers who are celebrating their 10 year anniversary this year would be celebrated. In effect, we will be having a great celebration of long service award and we will be celebrating our 20th anniversary for Promasidor and particular the Cowbell brand in Nigeria.
Are you thinking of getting your raw materials locally?
Well, first of all let me talk about agriculture; I think the ministry of agriculture is bringing new energy, new insight and a new focus on agriculture which is great for Nigeria. Again some of the policies, some of the implementation are proving tougher than the minister had imagined. There is a lot of focus on local raw materials development which is excellent but backward integration is not something you can do over night. So the research and development we are doing in the use of local raw materials some of the technology cannot be used in sub- Saharan Africa, so adapting it for you will take time. We are started doing these things, for example seasoning; we used to import, but now, we just import certain aspect of it and we source most of it locally and we blend and manufacture them. We have just started doing that in the last few months. That is an example of how we are improving made in Nigeria goods. Of course the big question is dairy. We have seen that there are a few dairy farms in Zimbabwe, Ilorin in Kwara State, Jos, Obudu but we are talking of a few hundred heads of cattle. To produce the amount of milk needed in Nigeria as researched by all of the dairy industries through the manufacturing industry in Nigeria, you need about 600,000 cows to produce this amount of milk and an investment of about US2 billion, because for example to produce a litre of milk you require two hundred litres of water because you have to irrigate, the cows have to drink, then clean and all the processing. Really what Nigeria has to focus on are those crops that are indigenous to us here. There is a reason why God put palm oil, cocoa, cashew, soya, cassava in Nigeria because they are suitable to the Nigeria climate and what we have to do in Nigeria is to resurrect those crops instead of bringing in foreign cows and cattle, and invest in something that is not naturally produced. We should be developing rubber, palm oil, we should be processing these here. Rather than exporting cocoa we should be processing it here. One of the success stories is cement and now Nigeria is producing and exporting cement that is what we should be doing with our indigenous agricultural products we have available. We should be processing cocoa, processing palm oil, cashew and developing agriculture that way. Promasidor will continue to do her own, we will substitute import with local raw materials wherever we can. We are already working with local businesses, we buy a lot of our nutrients from bio organics, a Nigeria company producing vitamins and nutrients locally rather than importing them. So we are doing what we can and I think it is a major structure issue and the government needs to focus on those crops that we can easily develop.
What is your take on the proliferation of imported goods?
There is no doubt that there are different standards by and large, companies in Nigeria are much regulated. NAFDAC do a very good job, SON do a very good job. In fact we just had our ISO certification and I am very positive and optimistic that we will get our accreditation. Now a lot of products that come in from overseas particularly those from China and India are not properly accredited. You know, they just bring in a container and one wonders how they get through the ports and how they get distributed when we local producers go through so much inspection. If you take seasoning for example, there are so many powders that come from china that are available in the market. They claimed to be allowed but have they been inspected, they do not have NAFDAC registration, and somehow they are allowed to come into the market and then they sell at a very cheap price. That has a cost not just to , but some of our competitors who are world class international companies, who make sure they produce here meeting all the high standards and then somehow they are made to compete with cheap imported products. One has to say that some of the businesses that is coming into the market, one wonders if they are subject to the same type of regulation and inspection or whether there is some short cut that they take. These things are bad for the consumers because Nigerians deserve to have good quality and safe products.
What is your view on multiple taxes?
I am always complaining about multiple taxes and I think the government does not understand. Multiple taxation is very difficult to explain, you have the federal, state and local government eyeing the same revenue. Everybody is looking for revenue, you know if I want to put a plant here I need environment impact assessment certificate at the state, at the local level, I have to pay this or that levy to pay. If I want to do a promotion, I have to pay some fees and inspection are also randomly done, I have to bring both the national and state lottery commission, SON, Consumer Protection Commission (CPC) and all of these people are charging you fees that must be paid or you face sanctions all of these give rise to duplication. We pay company tax, we pay expatriates tax which are paid to Lagos state government in fact for three out of the last four years, we have won awards from Lagos state presented by Governor Fashola, for other state integrity when it comes to paying taxes, so if I pay my taxes why should I pay another N100,000 to an agency for inspection? Why do I have to pay something like N10 million every year on different local government levies, if one of my vehicles with Cowbell on the side drives from here to the east, every local government would stop them and make them pay levies and if they are missing one sticker they will arrest the driver and arrest my salesman then I have to go and pay money to get them out and these all constitute multiple taxation. Now I have to say MAN is making a very big effort. The great thing about Chief Kola Jamodu as the president of MAN is that he has been a minister. He was a very good minister, you know the cement that we are talking about comes from his days as minister of industry, he understands the industry and I understand that the economic management team chaired by the President has announced the complete review of taxes to address the monster called multiple taxation.
Do have any advice for prospective entrepreneurs?
Well the first thing I say to young entrepreneurs is remember the adage if you want to eat an elephant eat it one mouthful at a time. If you are a young entrepreneur, make sure you have achievable targets and goals, understand the customers and consumers make sure that your business plans are filled with the right kind of data and information. You know people are too busy to produce something and not realising that they can’t sell it at that price. Do your research, talk to your consumers, talk to your costumers and then take a step at a time and progress. That way, if you get something wrong, you can address it and as you achieve a step or a goal you can celebrate it. I think the entrepreneurial spirit in Nigeria is strong and it’s still very much part of Nigeria. I hope that this government provides power I hope that they can persuade the bank to lend to small businesses and entrepreneurs to enable them to grow because that is a big issue for SMEs at the moment. It’s difficult but there are definitely opportunities for young entrepreneurs in Nigeria.
Last year, Promasidor launched the Promasidor Quill Awards to reward excellence in the media, what is the situation now?
This is our first full year, the panel is been appointed and they will start reviewing. I think we have extended the date for submission, to make sure we have enough application that are of interest and articles, columns, photographs, so we are very excited about it and we take that it will stimulate excitement in our sector, it will stimulate understanding and a higher quality of reportage of our sector and it will show Promasidor as a partner to the media and enable us to get our views across.
After two decades as a private business, are you thinking of going public?
Yes, for sure, the company’s intention is to move towards an IPO and we are definitely planning on moving towards that goal. We have appointed financial advisors and we are looking at making sure that the company moves from a private company to the kind of structured governance that will enable us to have a very open and clear IPO. The stock exchange now is a lot more rigorous in the management of the exchange and that is fantastic and has earned a lot more confidence for the Nigerian stock exchange. Even though there are signs that the stock exchange is growing and there is more confidence, I think there is still some way to go and I think we in Promasidor have a few things to do to complete our preparation. But I am hoping that in a year or two, we will be ready to take Promasidor Nigeria to the Nigeria stock exchange and to enable our consumers, costumers and stakeholders own the business.`
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-46965581337835977672013-04-13T16:44:00.001-07:002013-04-19T06:52:51.074-07:00Prof. Dora Nkem Akunyili, OFR: The war Obasanjo fought to make me NAFDAC bossOur Reporter March 24, 2013 10 Comments »
By Shola Oshunkeye/Niamey
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/specials/icon/prof-dora-nkem-akunyili-ofr-the-war-obasanjo-fought-to-make-me-nafdac-boss/
Some loathe her because she is audacious. She has guts and God. Some detest her because she pursues whatever she sets her mind to accomplish with every fibre of her being. Some disdain her because she is confident and bold. And there are those who can’t stand her and who, indeed, avoid her like a plague because failure does not exit in her lexicon. They are often sad and mad that she succeeds where others fail and falter.But what the traducers of Professor Dora Nkem Akunyili, the no nonsense former Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, do not know is the fact that all these virtues, plus a razor sharp intellect, are ingrained in her DNA. Which is why when life’s journey becomes rough and tough, when the wind of life blows like a monsoon or a ferocious tornado, threatening to crush everything on its path, this virtuous woman stands solid like a rock, firmly anchored on those lofty ideals of humanity. The ideals normally recommend her for favours with supernatural flavours. They have won for her positions that many fight tooth and nail to secure but never get.
It was these same ideals that made former President Olusegun Obasanjo to appoint her as Director General of NAFDAC on April 11, 2001. This was at a time the life of the organization was ebbing, having been rendered comatose by the suffocating rot it was en-meshed. Prior to her appointment, Akunyili never met the then president nor had any contact whatsoever with him. But Obasanjo had learnt about her uncommon act of honesty at the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, where she was serving as zonal secretary, and sent for her. It was at a period the PTF was being wound down. And Akunyili, a native of Nanka, Anambra State, had developed a health condition that her Nigerian doctor thought needed surgery. And PTF, her employers at the time, had approved 17, 000 pounds to travel to London to have the life-saving surgery. But when she got to the London Hospital, her British doctors carried out a series of tests that revealed that her condition did not require surgery. Meaning, it was a wrong diagnosis. Contrary to what many people in her shoes would have done, she, upon her return to Nigeria, refunded the 12, 000 pounds earmarked for the operation to her employers, and set a precedent in the organization.
Impressed by Akunyili’s unparalleled honesty, General Buhari, himself a straight and shrewd manager of men, materials and money, wrote her a letter of commendation. Obasanjo heard the story and personally phoned her, inviting her for a meeting at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, the next Tuesday. It was a Sunday afternoon. Akunyili and her family had just returned from church when their phone, a NITEL landline, rang. She almost banged the phone on the president when his baritone voice boomed from the other end: “Hello, Obasanjo is my name.” “I thought it was a con man talking,” recalls Prof. Akunyili, a recipient of the 2003 Integrity Award of Transparency International, and holder of the national award of the Order of the Federal Republic, OFR. “I was confused.”
But when that cloud of confusion cleared, and she regained her breath, the president asked her over. On the D-Day, Obasanjo didn’t need a long interview to decide that Akunyili was the woman for the job. But the political class didn’t think so. They had a separate agenda. They rose against the president’s choice, and attempted to shred her impeccable C.V. But the president saw through their shenanigans and stuck to his choice. Since then, there has been no stopping Akunyili, who clocks 59 come July 14, this year. She was, later, appointed Minister of Information by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. For President Obasanjo to have reposed such confidence in her at a time she never met him, and to ensure that Nigerians no longer suffer needlessly in the hands of the merchants of death who manufacture and peddle fake medicines, Akunyili worked herself to the bones at NAFDAC.
In the process, the woman, whose diabetic sister died as direct result of fake medicines, suffered nervous breakdown and almost took a bullet in her skull. Many, indeed, are the afflictions of Dora, but the Lord saw her through them all. In this encounter, the former minister, a staunch Catholic who has won about 700 awards, both at home and abroad, for her service to humanity, opens a window into her action-packed life. Welcome on board this ‘flight’ with Professor Dora Nkem Akunyili, CFR.
Excerpts:
I think the best point to start this interview is this award that you are taking today (March 8, 2013) in Niamey. What is the significance of this award to you?
This award is special to me in that it is coming over four years after I left NAFDAC. What it tells me is that the struggles of those seven and a half years are still in the minds of people not just in Nigeria but also across the globe. This (Niger Republic) is a country I really least expected to honour me because it is a French-speaking country, a country where we think would not have too much information on activities in Anglophone countries like Nigeria. And I don’t have any friends here. Not even one. I also feel happy about it because it is coming from women. Remember, people used to say that women are their own enemies. That may be true to some extent. Therefore, when women appreciate one another, it is something for us to be happy for. By the way, the wife of the president originated the award, and the Nigerien Ministry of Women Affairs took it up. They actually invited me last year (2012) but I was in America. When I told the ambassador who was asked to call me that I was in America, he said there must be a way. He said I should try to make it and that they would arrange my passage from America because the wife of the president had already put her mind to the fact that I was coming. At that point, I had to tell him the real reason I was in America.
And that was…?
I was in the hospital, preparing to have fibroid surgery, and it was a major surgery. He said okay. And I forgot about it. You can then imagine my surprise when they wrote to inform me about my nomination for this one. Generally, awards are good if they are not the cash-and-carry type. But they do no longer excite me.
Why shouldn’t they excite you?
Because I have had so many. They are almost 700. You can check www.doraakunyilionline.org to see what I mean. And we are not listing the awards from church organizations. Those are the ones we selected and they are almost 700, and many of them are international. So, I forgot about it. I didn’t even ask if it’s an annual, or what. I didn’t ask. You can then imagine how I felt when I got the message again, this year. I said, ‘so, this people still remember me, over four years after I left NAFDAC, and one year after the first nomination?’ I decided to go. But the devil is wicked. The day of the award (March 8, 2013) again coincided with the burial of somebody I regard as my father and my mentor; somebody, who, together with his wife, actually took me as their own child right from my university days. His name is Professor J.O.C. Ezeilo, a former Vice Chancellor. He was being buried that day. So, I had another valid point not to be at the awards. But my husband said ‘no, even if daddy had been alive, if dead could talk, I know that daddy would tell you to go’. So, my husband said I should go, while he would attend the burial, from the wake-keep till the outing service on Sunday. So, I’m happy to be here (in Niamey). I am happy because no matter how many awards you have, each of them has its own significance. This particular award, the International Active African Woman Trophy (TIFAA NIGER), I believe, must have been triggered by what I did for the West African sub-region because when the drug traffickers started having it rough in Nigeria, they began to migrate to other West African countries, and the problem became worse for them. In fact, our success in Nigeria started casting dark shadows on our neighbours and I thought of what to do. I felt strongly that we needed to do something because if we continued fighting in Nigeria without giving a thought to what was happening in the West African sub-region, these criminals will find safe havens in other places. I, therefore, on my own, got in contact with all the regulators in West Africa and invited them for a meeting in Abuja, and we instituted the West African Drug Regulatory Authority Network, WADRAN. We created WADRAN as a platform for interacting with one another, sharing ideas, teaching them what to do, and doing peer review. That way, we would be able to form a critical mass in the region to tackle the criminals that deal in fake and adulterated drugs frontally. That way, we would make the region so hot for them that there would be no hiding place for them. And in that way, our success will be more sustained. Understandably, I was made their chairperson, and President Olusegun Obasanjo understood what I did and had to receive them personally at the villa. The regulators were all happy. We took it up from there and started having meetings in other West African countries. Instructively, we never came to Niger Republic till I left NAFDAC. For whatever reason, our Nigerien counterparts did not invite us. But I remember vividly, (and I think it’s in my book), that when we instituted WADRAN, and had meetings in Abuja, the head of Food and Drug Administration in Niger Republic said that his problem was that whenever he intercepted fake drugs, the politicians would ask him to release. For me, that was a rude shock.
You mean you never experienced such things when you were in charge in NAFDAC?
Never!
Nobody ever gave you a phone call to say release those medicines?
I said never! Nobody ever tried it with me.
Not even the president, President Obasanjo, who hired you and could fire you without qualms?
That means you don’t know President Obasanjo. He is not one president who would give you an assignment and meddle in the way you do it. Never. He never did.
Okay, if nobody called you directly, didn’t people try to reach you indirectly? Didn’t people go through people who can reach you?
Yes, there were instances when people would call me to ask what happened. That was happening. And when I explained what happened, they would say ‘Madam, I’m sorry. My hands are not in it.’ But to call me and say ‘Madam, release…’ Nobody ever tried that with me. Nobody ever tried any monkey business with me. You know the way we went about that struggle, it would be extremely difficult for anybody to mess with me. Nobody. For me, I had a job on my palm-to save my fellow countrymen and women, our children, our senior citizens, the aged, and the vulnerable, from dying needlessly. I did my best to ensure I didn’t betray that sacred trust. Above all, I had, still have, a pact with my God not to disappoint him. You also must remember that I am a pharmacist. So, I knew what I was doing. In one minute, because of my training, I will reel out everything that happened, down to the specifications of the drugs and where they failed. When I do that, the person will just quickly say ‘Madam, I am sorry.’
There is this impression that women do better as managers because they don’t easily fall into the kind of temptations that easily beset men. When you were in NAFDAC, did you take bribe?
God forbid.
Never?
Never.
Were you offered bribe?
Of course yes. When I started, people offered, but after about…
(I cut in…) They were bringing money?
When somebody comes in with a briefcase and even says ‘we want to discuss’, there is a reaction you’ll give and the person will not send the message. Remember, people are also very clever. Nobody wants to be disgraced or disappointed. They find ways of introducing these things. I remember an instance, but I can’t remember the exact amount. But it is in my book. I think it’s US$10, 000. The person came and said ‘somebody wants to give you this money, I think you should take it.’ I gave him the bitterest part of my tongue. I tongue-lashed him. He was sweating under my office’s air-conditioner. On another occasion, another one came and said, ‘Madam, somebody has 10 containers, you release nine, you can keep one. You can indicate the one you will seize; seize it and make all the noise in the media. I’ll advise you to take it, madam. This is Nigeria. There is a way to work in this country. Don’t kill yourself because of one job.’ I got that kind of advice. I documented everything in the book. There was also somebody that used me to make money, by dropping my name. He told somebody that I said he should give him money for me. He took the money. That was in 2001. Luckily for me, I did not do what they wanted and they went to my husband to say, ‘we gave N2 million to this person and your wife still did not allow our product to go. And my husband said, “Go and take your money from whoever you gave it to. My wife does not solicit bribe and will never receive any. It is not possible. Even with two million pounds, it is not possible.” When my husband told me, I was mad. I was livid. I said I would invite the police. But he said ‘no’. He said, ‘If you invite the police, it will be your word against their (the criminals’) word. And criminals can do anything. They can say ‘Yes o, Paul was with me when I gave the money. The guy can be in a tight corner and say my P.A., Paul and Peter were with me when I gave the money’. So, it’s going to be your word against their word. What you do is tell this guy that since what you wanted was not done, that should be enough evidence for you to go and take your money.’ The good thing was that about six months after I started (as DG), I never got any satanic offers again because the message was clear. I had made myself clear that it was not going to be business as usual. The lesson in that is that once you do not compromise your principles and ideals, people have a way of conforming to whatever is the laid down standard. They have a way of knowing that there is no need to even try to make any offer.
Many people are still astounded by your success in NAFDAC. Could it be a factor of putting a square peg in a square hole?
It’s part of it. When people understand the job, when people have a passion for the job, when people have a drive, when people have an inner motivation, the job becomes easy even with the difficulties around it.
So, what was your drive? What was your motivation?
The motivation, first of all, is that as a pharmacist, I understand the job. I also understand the problems of counterfeit medicines because so many people have died, including my own sister who died of fake insulin in Nigeria. My sister’s death brought the message back home to us vividly.
What year was this?
1988.
How old was she then?
She was just 22.
What happened that she had to be taking insulin?
She had diabetes.
Juvenile diabetes?
She developed juvenile diabetes at about 19. She was taking insulin. It was a typical case of counterfeit drug but we never knew until it was too late. We would buy from some shops, she would respond very well and be normal. You know that if you are diabetic, and you are taking your insulin, you can live for many years because you are substituting what is not there. But when we bought from shops, she would go down. It never occurred to us that what we were buying was fake because there was no public enlightenment that this insulin could be fake. What was more, when her blood sugar became uncontrollable, which did not make any sense because proper insulin must control it, she started developing some types of infections. Again, it didn’t occur to us the kind of thing that was bustling out. These infections were caused by the type of insulin we bought. I eventually found in my first two months in NAFDAC. You know, some of the insulin we destroyed. Millions of vials of insulin were just unsterilized water. But if somebody injects water that is not sterilized, is it not potential infection? So, she died. We knew there was something wrong, but it didn’t really clicked. Honestly, it did not click too much. We could not say ‘yes, it is fake’, but we were suspecting that there was something wrong. But we didn’t know what was wrong. And we didn’t know there was a body like NAFDAC to complain to. When she died, her death brought the issue of the havoc that counterfeit medicine can cause to us as a family. Another motivating factor was the fight that President Obasanjo had with the political class to appoint. When he wanted to make me DG of NAFDAC, he had heard about what I did at PTF (Petroleum Trust Fund). His close friend and brother, Dr. Onaolapo Soleye, who was Minister of Finance under General Buhari, had told him a story about a woman in PTF that returned about 12, 000 pounds. When he heard the story, he said he wanted to see me.
What year was this?
It was in 1999. I was in PTF as zonal secretary, coordinating all PTF projects in the south east. In 1999, I had problem with my tummy and I went to UNTH (University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu) to see the late Professor Echi who said he suspected, from the diagnosis, that I had pancreatic problem. And I needed to go for surgery in London.
The diagnosis was correct?
No, it was wrong. So, I wrote a letter for sponsorship and I was given 12, 000 pounds or the surgery and another 5000 pounds for incidental expenses. In all, PTF paid me 17,000 pounds, and I went to London. But after undergoing several tests, the doctors said the initial diagnosis was wrong. They said what I had was irritable bowel syndrome and I would not need surgery. So, I was given drugs to normalize it. At the end of my stay, I had to tell the doctor that I needed to be paid back for the money meant for the surgery-12, 000 pounds, so I could return it to my employers, PTF. I told them the money, whether cash or cheque, should be paid to PTF. They said they had never returned money to anybody, but they could give me cash. They were shocked that I said I was going to return it to my employers since I didn’t have the surgery. When I returned to work and returned the money to General Muhammadu Buhari, our Executive Chairman, he too couldn’t believe me. He was pleasantly surprised. He wrote me a letter of commendation. I still have the letter. I protect it like a certificate. General Buhari said, and he wrote behind the letter: “I did not know that there are still some Nigerians with integrity.” He said I should give the money to director of finance. I returned the money. I also submitted the result of all my tests and all the drugs that I bought.
How did people at PTF generally react to that act of honesty?
My brother, I saw hell. I experienced unprecedented persecutions and attacks because it had never happened and I had made a precedent. Even auditors came to check my account to see whether they could find something because it was like I stopped a process that people used in making money. They couldn’t find anything to roast me. But I’m happy to say that despite the persecution, my action caused a quiet revolution at PTF such that when people now travel for official assignments, they would bring their tellers.
So, what happened next?
One day, I went to see my friend, Engineer Joko Senumi, in his office. He is now in CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria). I came from Enugu. As soon as I came in, he turned to a man sitting beside him and said: “Daddy, this is the woman that returned the 12, 000 pounds.” The man, who turned out to be Dr. Onaolapo Soleye, General Buhari’s Minister’s of Finance, said: “You! What happened? Tell me.” I was flabbergasted. He said he was just from Gen. Buhari’s office and everybody was talking about me. And he asked: “What happened? Why did you return it?” I said ‘Well, it’s not my money and my Catholic upbringing would not allow me to take what is not my own.” He said what I did meant a lot in Nigeria of the time, that Gen. Buhari said he didn’t know that there were still some Nigerians with integrity. Then, he said, “My friend (President Obasanjo) has been looking for somebody to clean up NAFDAC. Give me your CV.” I said ‘I don’t move around with CV.’ He said “go and do me a CV.” So, I went and typed what I could remember, and gave him. Exactly two weeks after, on a Sunday afternoon, I got call. Then, landlines (NITEL lines) were still working. The voice said: “Hello, my name is Obasanjo.” I almost dropped the phone. I thought it was a con man talking. Then, he talked a little more, and suddenly, it became clear to me that ‘this is the voice we normally hear on radio and TV.’ I was confused. I was shaking. I can’t even remember what I said to him in reply because I was totally confused. I guess he too must have sensed my apprehension because he allowed some seconds to pass before he spoke again, and said: “Can you come and see me on Tuesday?” I said ‘yes sir’. So, on Tuesday, I went to Abuja. My name was at the gate. I had lunch with the president. Then, he took me to the small office and started asking me about the issue of the money that I returned in PTF. I told him the story. He said: “You are a pharmacists; my friend gave me your CV.” Then, he asked me a few questions about what was happening in NAFDAC, and I told him what I saw. And he made up his mind to give me the job.
Just like that?
Just like that. But trust Nigerians, that triggered a war of some sort because even the then senate president had a candidate.
Dr. Chuba Okadigbo?
Yes, God bless and rest his soul. Our beloved brother, the late Okadigbo also had his eyes on NAFDAC. He had a candidate. The political class, they all had candidate. They all had their eyes on NAFDAC.
Maybe they had seen that it was juicy portfolio?
I don’t know about that. But everybody at the top level, especially the political class, had their candidates. So, the fireworks began. Everybody was against President Obasanjo; and when people are against an appointment, they can always make up credible reasons. They could argue: one, she is Igbo, the minister is Igbo, and who are the drug counterfeiters? So, it sounds logical. How can she do it? Besides, gender issue is there but nobody would actually bring it up. The fight was intense and fierce but Obasanjo stood his ground. He said “I have made up my mind to give the job to this woman, let her go there. If she doesn’t do it well, then, I will remove her. I have made up my mind and nothing can change it.” Eventually, they cooked up another story. They went and told him that I was not a pharmacist. Simultaneously, they mounted serious pressure on him to quickly sign and approve their candidate. You know once the announcement is made, he cannot reverse it. That was the game. Luckily for me, President Obasanjo called Dr. Soleye and that people said the woman he recommended for the cleaning of NAFDAC was not even a pharmacist! He said they have come to give me another news that she is not a pharmacist. Dr. Soleye told me all these one morning. But Dr. Soleye said he begged the president to let him call me and revert to him as soon as he finished speaking with me. He called me. I said ‘I am pharmacist. I started Pharmacy from first degree to post doctoral level.’ He said ‘do you have your certificates? Bring them.’ The next day, I took all my certificates to Abuja, and Dr. Soleye collected them and went and showed them to the president. The president approved my appointment immediately. Dr. Soleye told me all these. Why am I saying all these? I said all these in response to your question about what motivated me to put my life on the line in NAFDAC. The death of my sister from fake medicine motivated me. I could not afford to allow Nigerians to suffer needlessly from the evil deeds of counterfeiters. The second was the huge trust I had from a president who never knew me from Adam, and who I never knew nor met one-on-one. Can, and should anybody in his or her senses betray that kind of trust? President Obasanjo’s trust in me was a motivating force for me. Again, when people say you can’t do a job, it’s also a motivating factor because you want to prove that you can do it.
(To be continued next week)
They put juju tortoise in my office at NAFDAC
Our Reporter April 1, 2013 8 Comments »
By Shola Oshunkeye/Niamey
(Continued from last week)
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/specials/icon/they-put-juju-tortoise-in-my-office-at-nafdac/
As she enthuses in her book, The War Against Counterfeit Medicine, My Story, a book that chronicles her childhood and the titanic battle she fought against merchants of death masquerading as businessmen in Nigeria, life was good in Makurdi, her place of birth in Benue State. Born to a wealthy businessman, Chief Paul Edemobi, and his wife, Grace, life, for Dora Nkem Edemobi, then a little but exceptionally brilliant girl, was full of bloom and no blight. She pleasured her parents and teachers to the heights with her razor sharp intellect. She regaled them with her ingenuities. “In fact, due to my performance in school (she always topped her class), my father exempted me from all household chores, afraid that they may distract me from my studies,” recalls Professor Dora Nkem Akunyili, former Minister of Information and erstwhile Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC. “My father’s slogan was: Dora’s brain will earn her cooks and stewards.” How prophetic. Dora’s exceptional brilliance, content of character and a steely resolve to success where others failed, effectively ensured that her parents never spent a dime on her education. “My entire education, from high school through university in Nigeria, to doctorate and post-doctoral studies in London, was possible due to government scholarships,” Akunyili, who turns 59 on July 14, this year, writes in the book. The same qualities, especially her honesty and hard work, also recommended her for all the top public service positions she has held so far. They also account for the almost 700 awards she has garnered so far, both locally and internationally. However, Akunyili’s success, as she recalls in this interview conducted in Niamey, Niger Republic, almost brought her ruins as some agents of darkness attempted to kill her for doing what was right and just. But like the Holy Book says, many have been the afflictions of Prof. Dora Akunyili, but the Lord saw her through them all.
Here are excerpts:
The forces that you fought at NAFDAC were formidable. Apart the assassination attempt on your life, what were the other attacks that you also escaped?
There were many threats. Prior to that attack, they would write letters, make phone calls, call my husband and tell him that ‘if you don’t caution your wife, she may not come out of this job alive’.
And what did your husband do?
He was supporting me but he was a little bit afraid. He was afraid for my life and it’s natural. But my spirit was stronger. When they harassed him, he would call me. In some other instances, he would not even tell me so as not to create any panic. Oh, those criminals, they did a lot. There was a time they went to my house at Abuja and looked for me. Fortunately, I had left for Lagos. I had an emergency in Lagos and I left from the office. They came to my house that same night, beat my cook almost to pulp, repeatedly asking him: where is she? They ransacked everywhere. If I had slept in that house that night, only God knows what would have happened. What I found worrisome was that the day these people came, the police security people on duty did not come to work. I reported to the then Commissioner of Police in charge of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr. Lawrence Alobi. Till today, nobody has told me what really happened.
That was exactly what happened the day Chief Bola Ige, a sitting Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice who was killed right in his bedroom after his police orderlies left their post to eat. Did you suspect any high level conspiracy?
You cannot put anything beyond the cartel behind counterfeit medicines. There was another day they planned to attack me in the Lagos office. Somehow, something prevented the plot. We had that kind of reports (of planned attack) about two or three other times and asked for our police protection to be reinforced. On another occasion, they put a tortoise in my office.
Live tortoise?
It looked dried.
How did they get into your personal office? Was it not locked?
Of course, my office was locked.
So, what happened to the tortoise?
I didn’t touch it. It was my assistant that sprinkled holy water on it and removed it. I didn’t even want to talk about it. It’s not worth announcing. It was the Minister (of Health), Prof. A.B.C. Nwosu, that got so frightened that he said offhandedly that: “People should leave this woman alone! Why should anybody put tortoise in her office?” They didn’t attack just me, they also attacked our staff at Onitsha. Do you think we closed Onitsha Market just because there were fakes? No. If there is fake, you screen the system and flush out the fakes! We were screening the system with their cooperation. But on one occasion, my staff went there and they attacked them and destroyed six cars. So, I said ‘enough is enough!’ Since they would not even allow us to screen, we needed to close the market. And we did. Gen. Owoye Azazi, may his soul rest in peace, was the Chief of Army Staff then. The Inspector General of Police was Mr. Sunday Ehindero. President Obasanjo got them together to give us support to clean up the place. They attacked our staff in Onitsha. They attacked our staff in Kano. They attacked them in Dukku Local Government Area of Gombe State. . They destroyed our vehicles. The then Governor Danjuma Goje of Gombe State consoled us and promised to replace the cars. I think he did. So, it is not just attacking me and threatening me, they were also attacking the staff of NAFDAC. They were threatening my family members. There was even one staff member in Gombe State that I had to relocate the family. What about my son? They attempted to kidnap my son but for God. My son was in Igbinedion High School (Benin, Edo State) then, and two men came and told him that his uncle, Clement, was looking for him. When he came out, he saw two fierce-looking men. Before he knew what was happening, they grabbed him, and said: You are Obuneme, Professor Akunyili’s son. My son said: ‘No, she is my aunty!’ He swore vehemently that I was his aunt, so they left him. They almost kidnapped him. That was why we quickly bundled him to America. All his other siblings had gone to America because I won the American Visa Lottery. But we didn’t want him to go to America because he was too young. We felt he should stay and get older. But after that incident at Igbinedion High School, we quickly sent him over.
I never knew that big people like you also play the American Visa Lottery…
I did not only play, I also prayed out my heart that God should let us win. I wanted it so badly so that my children would go to school in America. It was a direct prayer point to God. It was my earnest prayer.
You were still teaching then?
I was in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and that is the power of testimony.
How did it happen?
A lady came to look for my head of department, Dr. Okonkwo, and she waited till evening. I said ‘You have been here since morning, I don’t think Dr. Okonkwo will still come to work today. What do you want him for? Is it something I can do for you or you want to go to his house?’ She said she would go to his house because she won the American Visa Lottery. I said ‘What? How? Who are you?’ She said she was his niece, and she brought out the letter that was sent from America. I asked if she knew anybody in America because I didn’t see it as a lottery that anybody could win just like that. She said she didn’t know anybody. She said she filled it at Awka, sent it and she won. She also said “But, aunty, I prayed out my heart.’ So, I took her to Dr. Okwonkwo’s house. From there, I went to Big Heart Memorial Seminary, visited five different Reverend Fathers, and told them to book mass for me for 30 days. I told them to tell God that I wanted to win the American Visa Lottery so that my children can go and study in America. The five Reverend Fathers booked 30 days masses for me. When I got home, I called my children and told them to let us start 30 days Novena prayers to Our Lady. I told them I wanted them to go and study in America. But without the lottery, it would be impossible for six of you to study in America. We will not be able to pay. So, we started the prayer, everyday for 30 days. While we were praying, I called one of my husband’s relations to enquire if there was any special form that we must fill. He said there was none; that we should just apply. So, we applied. But, because I wrote in a hurry to give to somebody travelling to America to give to my husband’s relation, I made a mistake on one of my daughters’ date of birth. One day, we got a phone call saying that we won the American Visa Lottery. My God, we were very happy. We were excited. We rejoiced. But we still needed to go to the embassy in Lagos because it is not automatic. Somehow, my husband felt he didn’t need it. He said since it’s the children that needed it, we should go. So, I went with my children. Meanwhile, my first daughter had left Nigeria on NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) scholarship. They asked her to come back because after the NASA scholarship, she would still not be able to get a Green Card. So, she rushed back from America for that. The first day we went to the embassy, they looked at my papers and asked me to sit down. We just sat there, from morning till afternoon, waiting for the counselor. One man told me that if they keep you for too long, it means they want to mess you up. With faith, I said it’s not possible. Immediately, I told my children to join hands and let us pray that one prayer: what God has given to us, nobody can take it away. I told them we would be praying it even if it takes four hours for them to call us. People who saw our mouths moving were wondering what was going on. Finally, they called us. The female counselor asked: how are you going to take care of six children in America? Do you have a job? I said I was a pharmacist. I could work in any lab. I could teach. I would earn enough resources with my skill to take care of them. The woman looked at our paper and stamped it. She gave all our documents to me and told us to come and collect our visas, maybe the next day or whatever. I carried everything to the hotel. I didn’t open it. When we got to the hotel and started cutting out the papers, we noticed that immigration in America had written a letter to Lagos telling them that there was a discrepancy in the date of birth of one of my children. Now, if they had seen that kind of red flag in Lagos, that would have been the end of the journey. My interpretation of that miracle is that it’s either an angel did not allow them to read that letter, or somebody read it and forgot. That is the highpoint of my testimony about our Green Card. That’s how I took my children to America, left them with our relations who took care of them, and they started going to the community college because it is free. But we left out my last born because we thought he was too young to live in America, …until that kidnap attempt in Igbinedion High School.
While all those attacks were going on, weren’t there moments you felt like quitting the job?
Well, not really. But there was pressure from my husband, my children and my relations. One day, this particular Obuneme that was almost kidnapped said to me, ‘Mummy, when is this job coming to an end?’ I said, ‘I have spent two years, it remains three.’ So, every year, the boy was counting. He was actually singing it to all his siblings. So, when we were celebrating our four years at NAFDAC, my husband came. When he was talking, he said that ‘Thank God, by next year, this job will be coming to an end.’ He said that I would not go for second tenure; and that was the family’s decision. When President Obasanjo heard it, he asked me to call him. I called him.
What did Baba tell him?
Of course, you don’t expect Baba to say ‘please’. In Baba’s characteristic manner, ‘Why are you discouraging her instead of encouraging her? You should be encouraging her.’ Then, he stylishly appealed to him: ‘Do not discourage her. Please, encourage her.’ My husband felt good that he (the president) called to talk to him about it. And that really helped. Now, normally, if you desire second term, you are supposed to write a letter two months to the end of the first tenure. I didn’t write any letter. It was one-and-a-half years into my second tenure that my board members said ‘listen, by law, whatever you were signing in the last one-and-a-half years, somebody can pick it up and use it against you. You must write a letter.’ So, I wrote.
Is there anything you did in office that you regret?
Yes. My husband’s first cousin, who was living in London, and who loved me to a crazy point, had some drugs to register. For more than five years, he was not doing his documentation properly. And I kept telling him that if ‘you don’t do things properly, they cannot be registered’. There is no brother or sister in this job because if I bend the rule, my staff will start bending the rule too. Once I bend the rule, all that I have struggled to build in the past would be rubbished because they are also watching me. But because I am able to stand erect, nobody can bend the rule without facing the consequence. So, my brother-in-law kept begging me: ‘Please, do this for me’. I couldn’t do it. Unfortunately, he died without getting the approval. It haunts me.
Even till now?
Even till now because he never got it. Maybe he felt that he didn’t need to do everything that was required by law. He never concluded it until he died. And when he died, my pain was that he was not able to register those drugs. Even the day I was launching my book (The War Against Counterfeit Medicines, My Story), I said, ‘I pray that he has forgiven me.’ I said the same thing to those people, in general, who also felt I did not bend the law for them. I said, I hoped they had forgiven me. Then, President Jonathan got up and said I did not need to ask for forgiveness from anybody. He said I was a worthy daughter of Nigeria; that I did not owe anybody any apology; and that Nigerians appreciated what we did. Indeed, I also got very motivated by the support of Nigerians. I don’t know any public office holder that got the kind of support I got when I was working with my great team to fight drug counterfeiters. The support was unprecedented, all over the country and even outside the country.
I want to take you back to your fibroid surgery that you told me about at the beginning of this discussion. Was that the first fibroid you had or you had more?
That was the first. But luckily, since I was no longer having children, they had to remove the womb.
You did hysterectomy?
Yes, I did hysterectomy. The doctor suggested that and I agreed with him that removing the womb would be better, because if you remove fibroid, it might re-grow. So, I had the surgery in America.
It couldn’t be done in Nigeria?
Why not? We have great doctors in Nigeria. Our surgeons are among the best in the world. Given the same work environment, given the same opportunities, given appropriate equipment, they would work excellently. But I didn’t go to America because of surgery. I went to visit my daughter-in-law who had a baby. But when I got there, I decided to do some check-up. It was during the check-up that they found that I had fibroid. And I was caught between coming home, prepare for it and then return to America; or I do it straightaway. I figured that since I wasn’t working back home, and my children are there in America, and they are doctors, why shouldn’t I stay and do it? That was the first time fibroid was detected.
What year was this?
Last year. 2012.
That means you had been carrying it all over the place without knowing it?
I didn’t know because it doesn’t pain.
No symptoms like heavy menstrual period?
Yes, I had heavy menstrual period but I felt it was the onset of menopause.
How old were you then?
I was 57 then. I was 58 last July. I started getting into menopause at 56. And that was when I started getting irregular and heavy menstrual period. So, I felt it was part of the process. I didn’t know it was fibroid.
What are the things that made you know that you were getting into menopause?
My menstrual period started getting irregular and very painful; then, age. When you combine that with your age, you can then guess. After 45, people start expecting menopause, depending on the family. For my family, we start expecting it from 55. These things are genetic.
When the late President Yar’Adua appointed minister, most Nigerians were disappointed. They felt you should have continued the great work you were doing in NAFDAC?
Their reactions were born out of the love they had for me. But we must appreciate that this is a developing country where the president of the country calls you from a parastatal. NAFDAC is a parastatal. It was just that by the grace of God that we raised it to a level that made it to look larger than a parastatal, because of the work we were doing. So, when the president says, ‘come out of NAFDAC, I want to make you a minister,’ do you really have a choice? Could you, in all honesty, say ‘No’? Besides, I didn’t have the opportunity to say, ‘minister of what?’ And I don’t know of anybody that had the opportunity. And won’t it even sound and look a bit naïve and not fair-minded for you to tell the president of Nigeria that, ‘Sir, let me be. I don’t want to be promoted. I want to remain where I am.’ It’s impudent.
Meanwhile, the same Nigerians that were saying we are disappointed she left NAFDAC, will also say there is something she has there that she doesn’t want to leave. What does she have in that NAFDAC that she doesn’t want to leave? The same Nigerians will say that ‘after being in a job for seven-and-a-half years, with all the threats to her life, with the assassination attempt, is she not tired? Shouldn’t she be released?’
To be honest with you, I was relieved to leave because I was happy that I didn’t leave NAFDAC out of fright, out of fear, or out of cowardice. Remember I told you that I told my husband, when he was saying that I should not take a second term, that if I left at that point, the drug counterfeiters would feel that they had won. They were actually popping champagne at Onitsha when my husband said I was not going to continue. I said they were celebrating and we cannot allow them to have the last laugh. So, when, by the grace of God, two-and-a-half years later, the president now said ‘come, I want to give you a higher responsibility, if I were your wife, would you say no? Even if the president did not appoint me minister, I would still have left two years after because the law would not be changed for me.
So, how did you react when you heard that you had been appointed minister?
It further strengthened my belief that nothing happens without God’s approval. Six months before I was appointed Minister of Information, my elder sister, Mrs. Obala, phoned me and said she had a dream where I was made Minister of Information. I said to her: ‘You must have malaria, and you know that malaria causes hallucination. Go and drink Coatem. What is my business with Information?’ She stood her ground. She said that was how she saw it, and that the dream was very vivid. Now, after the announcement as ministers, after the screening and all that, on the day that new ministers are being sworn in, the last thing they normally do is the announcement of portfolios. And that is after the swearing in. When they announced Dora Akunyili, Minister of Information, I nearly broke down. I quickly collected papers and started taking minutes of the (Federal Executive Committee, FEC) meeting because the meeting started immediately.
So, the Minister of Information is the secretary of FEC?
Yes. He takes the minutes. He reports the decisions from the meeting to the public.
And you had never done such a job before, even at board level?
No. But when you are properly educated, you are actually prepared for anything. That is what I feel. Bill Gates did not study computer science but he put his mind in it, focussed on it and he was able to develop it. In other ministries, people are not appointed to positions just because of what they studied. It is out of competence because in most ministries, what you do is that you are managing human beings and resources. So, after the announcement of my portfolio as Minister of Information, I almost broke down.
What was your disappointment?
My disappointment was that I expected anything but Information.
Were you expecting Ministry of Health?
Yes. I was expecting health but I never dreamt or believed it could be Information. So, I went to President Yar’Adua during lunch break. As I said ‘Your Excellency’, he said ‘No, don’t talk. Please, I want you to be the one handling the ministry. We have huge problem and I know you can handle it.’ He never allowed me to talk. I don’t know whether he knew what I wanted to say. Maybe he saw my face. So, I went into the toilet and cried my heart out. I was shattered. What consoled me? I remembered my sister’s dream. I said ‘God, you want me to be there (Ministry of Information), and you have a reason; to you be the glory. You have your reason for taking me to this place that I don’t know anything about; this place that is regarded as a ministry where people just talk. I would have loved to go to the ministry where I would effect a change, a total change in the system. It doesn’t have to be health. If I went to environment, I know I will change the system. If I went to aviation, I know I will change the system. All I wanted was any of these critical areas where people would see changes in six months. That was what I wanted. But when I remembered the dream of my sister, I said ‘God, you know everything. You have your reason and to you be the glory. For you to reveal this to my sister, to prepare my mind, I give you all the glory. I will put in my best.’ Again, my daughter, who came from America for the swearing-in ceremony, said ‘Mummy, I want you to know that no matter what people say about Ministry of Information, it is the soul and image of the country. So, it is out of trust that it is being given to you. Stop crying.’ My daughter, and the mother-in-law, who came from Cote D’Ivoire, spoke to me. The mother-in-law said what my daughter said was correct. She said ‘Ministry of Information is not given to questionable characters. Please, bring your make-up, people should not see your face like this.’ So, I cleaned my eyes and did my make-up with them right there in the bathroom. We finished the meeting, I reported it. When I got to the ministry, the wretchedness I saw at the place crashed my spirit again. It was unbelievable. It was not as good as my directors’ office in NAFDAC. But I must quickly add that that one didn’t crash my spirit like the first day I got to NAFDAC. When I went to NAFDAC, there was nothing. When I got to Information, journalists came around. They asked me, ‘How would you do this? You are not a journalist.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t have to be a journalist to do this job. My trainings, over the years, have prepared me to be able to fit into any system.’ They said Minister of Information is expected to be telling lies. I said ‘I am not prepared to tell lies for anybody and I will never.’ At the same time, some journalists were writing in the papers that they did not want me. But when council was dissolved, the same people started writing that they wanted me because in that space of one year, they saw that I put in all my heart into what I was doing. I don’t know how to work halfway. I started the Rebranding Nigeria Project. I said, let us change the negative perception. And it was gathering momentum. Even now, go to Heathrow Airport (in London), you will see (the slogan…) Nigeria: Good People, Great Nation. We feel so good that many Nigerians are still putting it in their products’ packs. When we were dissolved, there were a lot of write-ups from journalists association. They wanted me back; and when I was reappointed I didn’t feel terribly as I felt the first time. I was going back to a familiar ground. Then, one year after, my governor (Mr. Peter Obi of Anambra State) invited me and said I should come and run for Senate. And I said well, it’s good to get another platform, because I didn’t really feel totally utilized at Information.
Why?
I was doing my best but I didn’t see the system changing.
There were too many resistances?
Yes, too many resistances. Even the Rebranding Nigeria Project met a stiff resistance, even in-house, because people didn’t want too many activities. They were comfortable with the laid-back system. So, I couldn’t change the place the way I wanted. But I did a lot.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-82280444000224880552013-04-13T16:43:00.001-07:002013-04-19T06:56:54.671-07:00Worry over poverty as govt spends N18tr in one yearWednesday, 27 March 2013 00:00 From Mathias Okwe, Assistant Business Editor, Abuja News - National
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=117530:worry-over-poverty-as-govt-spends-n18tr-in-one-year&catid=1:national&Itemid=559
AT least, N18.844 trillion was generated and spent between 2011 and last year in Nigeria by the Federal and State governments, according to figures by the Budget Office of the Federation. The Budget Office also declared that the country recorded real growth, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of seven per cent in 2011 and 6.28 per cent in 2012. Apparently, these are impressive numbers and really support the classification of Nigeria by the Breton Wood Institutions as a medium income country. But stakeholders are worried that though the country is rich, a vast majority of her citizenry continue to live in abject condition as the recently-launched United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI) has indicated, signifying that most of the Nigerian people are excluded from the “impressive growth.”
The UNDP report places Nigeria amongst the least countries of the world that recorded achievement in the upgrade of the welfare of their citizens - the Low Human Development category, where mostly poor nations or low-income countries as they are called belong. Overall, Nigeria on the rating table is placed number 153 out of a total of 186 countries around the world where the survey was conducted. The countries are classified into four categories, namely: Very High Human Development; High Human Development; Medium Human Development and the least, Low Human Development. The indications as contained in the report on Nigeria are frightening as they are disturbing.
For instance, the report says 143 under-five children die yearly of preventive diseases out of every 1000 births; 630 women die out of every 100,000 deliveries in the country; the population of people living under one United States dollar and twenty five cent per day (an average of N170) is 68 per cent while life expectancy is 52.3 years, meaning the majority of Nigerians die before even the public service’s retirement age of 60 due apparently to deprivation. This is so, according to the report, because Nigeria’s public spending on health yearly, relative to the size of her GDP, is just 1.9 per cent, which earned the country a score of less than one per cent - at 0.510 per cent. The report says: “The HDI represents a push for a broader definition of well-being and provides a composite measure of three basic dimensions of human development: health, education and income.
Nigeria’s HDI is 0.471, which gives the country a rank of 153 out of 187 countries with comparable data. The HDI of Sub-Saharan Africa as a region increased from 0.366 in 1980 to 0.475 today, placing Nigeria below the regional average. The HDI trends tell an important story both at the national and regional level and highlight the very large gaps in well-being and life chances that continue to divide our interconnected world.” Perhaps, it is this worrisome human development numbers that informed the World Bank’s latest intervention in the country where it is expected to commit $300 million on a social safety net programme aimed at attacking poverty by directly identifying the vulnerable in the society with the sole aim of addressing the sharp inequality in the country where a few are stupendously rich while the majority continue to wallow in abject want.
As a prelude to the commencement of this new initiative, which is a partnership between Nigeria and the Breeton Wood Institutions, its Director for Human Development Group, Dr. Ritva Reinkka, was in Nigeria penultimate week on an assessment and on the spot analysis visit. At the end of the country tour, Reinkka explained that the new initiative known as Youth Employment and Social Support Operation was the World Bank’s new strategy of combating poverty through prosperity sharing and cash transfer by critically identifying the core vulnerable in the society and empowering them, as opposed to the several social safety net programmes in the country that may have been hijacked by the privileged few and directed at the wrong people, thus widening the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.
Already, Reinkka assured that the board of the bank is to give approval for the release of the credit before the end of March to enable the project to kick off next month. Although she said 20 states in the country had indicated interest to participate in the project, the pilot scheme is to start in seven states: Bauchi: Niger; Cross River; Ekiti; Osun; Oyo and Kwara. Under the scheme, the vulnerable will be identified and selected for the purpose of conditional cash transfer under the social safety programme like public works and skilled acquisition programmes as an empowerment tool to give them a lift in life.
Reinkka expressed concern that though Nigeria was recording growth, it was not inclusive as there was still wide disparity between the haves and the have-nots in the country with even a large population of about 10 million Nigerian children dropping out of school because of funding. She said: “There is a lot more that needs to be done to have inclusive growth in Nigeria and scale up on child and maternal mortality rate and the quality of education. It is disturbing that about 10 million kids are dropping out of schools in Nigeria.
Nigeria does have a special challenge in this regard because it is one of the countries in the region with the biggest challenge in this regard. There is a big issue concerning the quality of education. There is a concern that your education leaders and leaders in finance are doing well but a lot still needs to be done. “In health, what we see in Africa is that under-five death is reducing. We are hoping that Nigeria will join other 14 countries that have halved the under-five mortality rate. “We are also concerned about the growing inequality and the different income and human development indicators between the North and the South of Nigeria. That is why under our social protection and safety now a reality in Africa, we are going to the Bank’s Board for approval of a $300 million next week for social safety in Nigeria.
“This is in line with the thinking of our President, a medical doctor who sees himself as a civil society activist as he is shifting emphasis from inputs and consultancy to results and output. He has been shaping our thinking to accelerate the speed to poverty reduction,” the visiting director further said. Present at the briefing were the Nigerian World Bank Country Director, Madam Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly and the Sector Leader of Human Development for the World Bank Country Office Nigeria, Prof. Foluso Okunmadewa, among others.
Each year since 1990 the Human Development Report has published the Human Development Index (HDI) which was introduced as an alternative to conventional measures of national development, such as level of income and the rate of economic growth.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-83307977496644478972013-04-13T16:41:00.001-07:002013-04-19T06:57:55.352-07:00Ikere Gorge Dam Must Not DieSaturday, 23 March 2013 00:00 DEBO OLADIMEJI Saturday Magazine - Saturday Magazine
Ikere Gorge Dam is about 35 kilometres to Iseyin, Oyo State. Apart from fishing and irrigation, the dam can generate six megawatts of electricity that can be linked to the national grid. Mr Emmanuel Oke, the vice chairman of Iseyin Elders’ Council spoke to DEBO OLADIMEJI on why the government should revive the dam.
Why your present agitation for the revival of Ikere Dam?
As the vice chairman of Iseyin Elders’ Council which was inaugurated by our Monarch, Oba Adekunle Salau, two years ago, I have been in the vanguard of trying to see that Ikere Gorge Dam does not die. Since 2004 I have been in that crusade. But my present position gives me a good opportunity to actually intensify my efforts to actualize my dream that Ikere Gorge Dam must not die. That is why I have been telling the government of Federal Republic of Nigeria to revive this dam. It is designed for electricity generation. It can produce six megawatts of electricity. As far back as 1983, the project was awarded to a French company to produce electricity. Subsequently, it was abandoned. The irrigation farm which the former president Olusegun Obasanjo commissioned in 2006 has never functioned. This is probably due to error during the start of the execution of the project. We are trying to request our government to ensure the irrigation farm is not dead. This will also provide jobs to our youths. A lot has been said about agriculture. It does not take long to produce rice. The dam was designed to have an irrigation farm of about 3000 hectares. It was meant to help Nigerians to produce more food and vegetables.
Are there access roads to the dam?
Today, there is no good road leading to Ikere Gorge Dam. The road that was constructed by the farmers remains there till today. Before the road became so bad so many institutions and universities used to go there for excursions. We appeal to the Federal Government to make sure that the Ikere Gorge Dam becomes one of the tourists havens in Nigeria. We also want the government to re-assess the electricity capability of Ikere Gorge Dam. If Akosombo Damin Ghana could produce 1,200 magawatts of electricity, Ikere Gorge Dam could do something similar or even better. A natural dam cannot be compared to an artificial one.
What is the government now saying about the dam?
The Minister of Water Resources, Mrs Sarah Reng Ochekpe, has been so fantastic. The two times we met her, she has attended to us. She even promised during our last visit that she would arrange fingerlings in millions to be dropped into this big dam. But then there is a problem: the dam is so expansive that the supervision may not be thorough. The fishermen should be educated not to use nets that will only catch fingerlings and subsequently destroy the intention of the minister. Recently, we noted that there is a pivot irrigation farm coming up. Pivot irrigation farm is now coming up. But this is so small for the people in the area. There is potential for market and tourism. The Federal Government has previously built chalets that could house tourists. You can go on the dam for about 40 kilometers. It is a natural gorge. Our main issue at that time was to appeal to the federal government to make sure that the access road leading to the dam is constructed. It will encourage first of all tourism. I had personally taken many students to the place before. But today, you cannot go there because of bad roads. I have been to Akosombo Dam in Ghana two times. It is about two and half hours by road from Accra city. Villages are springing up. Even at the back of Akosombo Dam, there is a commerce bank. Tourists from all over the world are now going there. The same thing can happen to Ikere Gorge Dam. If the road leading to the place is made motorable.
What has been the efforts of the government to develop the place?
The Western Nigerian Development Corporation, through Chief Obafemi Awolowo, discovered the dam and eventually transferred it to the Federal Government around 1950-51. Then the Western Nigerian Development Corporation also developed a big farm there by relocating the inhabitants. I do not know whether any farmer was compensated with ten kobo ever since. The starting point was very good. During the Awolowo period, there was a big farm. That could be compared to even in Argentina where meat production is their major mainstay. Around 1966, which I know very well, there were about 10,000 herds of cattle in this area. There was also a large cashew plantation. And it is a product of delight needed everywhere in the world. The oil and every other thing that can come out of it is very good.
Why are you just waking up in letting the government know your ordeal?
We have been helpless. There have been no political will. The irrigation project started as early as 1983. About three thousand hectare has been irrigated. There must be an error in the process, because no irrigation farm can be effectively monitored on diesel generator. Generators were to be used to provide water for irrigation. By that time diesel was about three naira per litre or even less. When these caterpillar generators were purchased. One of them can even produce electricity for a city as big as Abeokuta. What is the consumption of diesel they will need? They will need a minimum of 2000 litre of diesel for 8 hours farming. The owner of the dam is the Ministry of Water Resources. It is from there that all efforts will be going out.
Can the private sector also invest in the project?
Yes, but before the private sector comes in, the Federal Government has to do the visibility study of the place. We are glad that even the minister mentioned that private participation will be encouraged on or before the end of this year. Foreign and local investors may be interested to come and salvage the dam. The place is very peaceful. There is a peaceful interpersonal relationship between the people in the community and other ethnic groups fishing in the area. At the dam we have the people from Benue, Taraba, Ijaw living there and fishing peacefully.
So when are you going back to do a follow-up with the minister?
We are trying to collaborate with Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority. That is the Federal Government parastatal in charge of this dam. There activities have brought about the pivot irrigation farm in the area, our only plea is for them to expand the project. Many of our retired officers are trying to go back home. We have solders among them who are interested in farming. We need enough land for irrigation. But with just 20 hectares of land for irrigation, it is just not enough for the farmers. It is a starting point but we appeal to the government to see to it that people in this area are gainfully employed. The land is good for planting tomatoes. cucumber, water melon which can easily flow to Lagos.
What do you think the state government can do?
The state government, through the dam, can provide water for the whole of Oke Ogun. The dam was meant to provide pipe-borne water in those days to about four local governments. The problem is that water is not a sort of priority to the government because many people now make use of water from well and boreholes. I think it is a national issue. The water level at Ikere Gorge Dam is about 38 metres deep. Akosombo Dam is 36 metres. If there is the political will, Ikere Gorge Dam could be expanded at least three times. It is a natural fortune for human beings to enjoy. It is about six miles wide and 10 miles long. It is the source of Ogun River.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-36400656793450829852013-04-13T16:39:00.001-07:002013-04-19T06:58:55.499-07:00How we award oil blocks – FGOn March 19, 2013 • In Energy
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/03/how-we-award-oil-blocks-fg/
As the controversies generated over which region controlled more of Nigeria’s oil assets intensify, the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, has said that such controversies are baseless considering that oil blocks are awarded based on bids offered for them globally. Against this backdrop, the industry regulator noted that when such bid rounds are being conducted, the region of the bidders is not one of the prequalification for winning such oil blocks. The Director, DPR, Mr. Osten Olorunshola, who made the clarification last week in Lagos, said, “The Federal Government does not allocate oil blocks and marginal fields to individuals and corporations based on region or where they come from. So, DPR does not ask if an individual is from the North or South when allocating the fields.”
Ownership controversies.
Pressed further, on which region owned more of Nigeria’s oil assets, Olorunshola, who spoke at the launch of the Nigeria Oil and Gas, NOG Intelligence, a weekly print and online industry newsletter, insisted that “The DPR has no records of 83 per cent Northern ownership of oil blocks anywhere.” According to him, Nigerians currently own 52 per cent of the country’s 173 active oil blocs, while foreign oil companies own 48 per cent. He added that of the total of 388 oil blocks in the country, only 173 of them have been awarded to individuals and corporations, while 215 blocks were yet to be awarded. Broken further, of the 173 so far awarded, Nigerians owned 90 blocks while foreigners owned 83 blocks. He, however, lamented that all the 90 blocks awarded to indigenous players account for only six per cent of the country’s total crude oil production, while the 83 awarded to foreign oil companies account for 94 per cent of the total output.
Steering the hornets’ nest
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Business and Rules, Senator Ita Enang, a forth night ago steered the hornets’ nest, when he alleged that 83 percent of Nigeria’s oil blocks were in the control of the northern region. This led to a series of claims and counter claims by various groups in the different geographical regions in the country, including activists and non-governmental organisations, NGOs. Many even called for a review of oil block awards. Even newspapers (not Vanguard) went agog with their own versions of the real oil block owners. However, DPR’s recent pronouncements on the issue that Nigerians own 80 oil bocks where foreigners had 83 have nullified every other previous pronouncements on the controversial oil blocks ownership, including the list of 77 oil blocks and their owners recently published by one of the dailies. Analysts are of the view that to end the controversy, the DPR should go a step further to publish the full list of the 173 oil blocks so far awarded, indicating who owned what, whether local or foreign.
Poor indigenous output contribution
Notwithstanding the fact that Nigerians owned the larger share of the nation’s oil assets, their contributions to total production as revealed by the DPR is abysmally poor. According to data provided by the regulator, Nigerians are producing about 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day, representing six per cent of the Nigeria’s total crude production; while foreign oil companies account for the bulk of 2.35 million bpd or 94 per cent of total output. He blamed this on the lackadaisical attitude of the Nigerian players towards the development of their blocks. He said that majority of them have not commenced any serious production activities on the oil blocks since they were awarded to them. He said, “It appears that people just want to own oil blocks and put it on their complimentary cards. We are not happy with that. It is absurd that six per cent of oil production is coming out of 90 leases. “Government decided to dig deeper as it was not so happy with the performance of the indigenous oil companies. That is the reason why government put in place the Marginal Fields policy,” he noted. He disclosed that about 24 marginal fields were allocated in 2003, and only six fields are doing well, while the rest have refused to develop theirs, adding that many are faced with litigations, funding constraints, non-bankable proposals, and a host of others issues. He said, “The major issue that negatively affected the production capacity of majority of the marginal field owners is the fact that the owners could not access funds. As at 2003, when the fields were awarded, Nigerian banks where in difficult situation, making it impossible for majority of them to give out loans. “Also, another challenge that served as a drawback to the marginal fields programme is the unending litigations by most of the parties the fields were awarded to. The bid rounds brought a lot of litigations, due to the fact that the parties were technically asked to merge before the fields will be awarded to them. Till today, majority of them are still in court and are yet to kick start the process of production on their fields.”
The active and producing marginal fields are:
• Asuokpu/Umutu field owned by Platform Petroleum
• Ibigwe field by Walter Smith and Morris Petroleum
• Uquo field by Frontier Oil
• Ajapa field – Britania-U
• Umusadege field by Midwestern Oil and Gas, and Suntrust
• Obodogwa/Obodeti field by Pillar Oil
Olorunshola further stated that of the five marginal fields that were awarded on a discretionary basis, only Oriental Energy owners of two of the fields – Okwok and Ebok fields; and Niger Delta Petroleum Development Company, owner of Ogbelle field are involved in active production. He, however, maintained that over the last couple of months, the Marginal Fields programme is gradually living up to expectation, as production is now up to 60 million barrel per day in addition to about 100 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscf/d) of gas. Despite the identified challenges, Olorunshola argued that the marginal fields owners are still breaking new grounds, as they integrating value, unlocking stranded molecules, creating opportunity for employment and empowerment. He further stated that the programme is deploying new technologies, recording unprecedented collaboration and are now handling local communities better than before.
Block revocation, new bid rounds underway
In view of the poor performance, Olorunshola disclosed that the licences for some of the marginal fields will be revoked. In the revocation of the licenses granted to individuals and corporations, emphasis will be placed on fields that are yet to be developed. As a result, he said the licenses will be revoked next year, and the fields will be taken from the current owners and given to new owners. The DPR boss disclosed that the Federal Government is considering undertaking another bid round for the country’s marginal oil fields, irrespective of whether the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, is passed or not. He explained added that this was with a view to streamlining the bid rounds and reducing the process to about seven months from about one year and above in the past.
According to him, once the advertisement calling for bids is published in the newspapers, the DPR is targeting 90 days for people to submit their bids, and 60 days for evaluation of the bids. He argued that the period will enable it to properly assess the bids, while expressing the hope that it will record a significant oversubscription. He further disclosed that the DPR is striving to ensure that subsequent bidding rounds are conducted every three years, while making sure that the reserves volume are bankable and the bid rounds are made simpler and transparent.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-75077265953465461532013-04-13T16:38:00.001-07:002013-04-19T07:00:08.942-07:00How firms grow the economyPosted by: Our Reporter on March 15, 2013 in Brand week Leave a comment
http://thenationonlineng.net/new/business/brand-week/how-firms-grow-the-economy-3/
Over the years, brands and their parent companies have succeeded in building the economy of their countries and foreign hosts. This is possible because of the profits the brands make, employment opportunities they generate for citizens and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), including provision of electricity, roads, pipe-borne water and manufacturing plants. Such is the value they add to natural economy that the companies are really supported by the host countries in period of economic adversity.
Between 1998 and 2007, Nokia contributed a quarter of Finnish growth rate and in the early part of the 21st century it employed more than 24,000 people. In a country where only natural resources are its vast forests, Nokia succeeded in putting Finland on the world map. It is the first phone manufacturer to own a care centre in Nigeria. The company also partnered with the Lagos State government to implement the house-numbering project. That is why Nokia users have access to a detailed offline map of Lagos State.
They connect with their consumers, sell more with the new improved application that provides detailed offline map. Yet, Nokia has no manufacturing or even assembly plant in Nigeria. Among many Chinese companies, Huawei has distinguished itself as a telecommunications’ equipment manufacturer. Today, it is the largest telecoms equipment manufacturer. In 2010, the company announced a net profit of over $3 billion. In addition, Huawei runs a training facility in Abuja, where people are being trained. This facility is the first of its kind in West Africa. Samsung Group, which has about 80 subsidiaries with Samsung Electronics as its main firm, is responsible for 20 per cent of South Korea’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Samsung has a care centre in Nigeria for the servicing, repair and maintenance of its products. In partnership with the Lagos State government, the company also owns a Technical School in Ikeja, Lagos.
After training, however, beneficiaries still have to go hunting for jobs. In effect, its impact on alleviating unemployment in the country is minimal. If Samsung had a manufacturing plant, the students would have qualified to work there since they already have the technical-knowhow. For instance, Nestlé—the consumer-goods company—contributed 15 per cent of Switzerland’s GDP in 2012. It has a vibrant Nigerian subsidiary with a functional manufacturing plant that employs many Nigerians. It has just opened a multi-billion centre in Agbara, Ogun State. Guinness storehouse, the home of Guinness, welcomed over one million visitors last year and served as Ireland’s major international major tourist attraction. Guinness Nigeria owns a manufacturing plant in the country and undertakes many CSR projects in the community. Coca-Cola has over 90,000 employees across more than 200 countries; it contributes immensely to the economy through the employment of many people and execution of projects spread across communities. With Toyota as its spearhead, Japan’s automobile industry contributed 10.5 per cent growth to that country’s economy in 2009. It has more than 300,000 employees with the majority being Japanese. Toyota has no manufacturing or assembling plant in Nigeria, yet it is the top selling automobile in the country. Same goes for Germany’s Mercedes Benz.
Every year, Nigeria churns out graduates in their thousands from different universities with no assurance of employment. Yet, different foreign brands have turned the country into a cash cow. It is projected that the sales of smartphones in Nigeria would hit N900 billion by 2015, yet unemployment is at its all-time high, crime in increasing and government is complacent in tackling the malaise. These companies have defended their corporate actions. They are shortage of electricity as a crippling factor. The cumulative effect of the staggering cost of generating power in Nigeria is a substantial increase in the cost of production, which means that the goods produced are more expensive than expected. Setting up manufacturing and assembly plants should serve to help cut costs for manufacturers since it would mean a reduction in overhead costs such as transportation. But when weighed against the astronomical cost of generating power in Nigeria, locating plants outside the country seems a more logical and cost effective choice. The recent spate of insecurity in the country, has served as a further encumbrance as far as this goal is concerned. Would Nigeria continue to be a dump site for these brands? Who is to blame for this misfortune – the government or the companies?
A Professor of Economics, Makinwa Olusegun, said: “A nation that would grow must first of all grow its manufacturing sector, encourage foreign investors to build their manufacturing plants in the country. Countries such as India grew like that. If we continue to be consumers and not producers, we would end up being stagnant and may not be able to cope with the level of unemployment that would hit the country in another 10 years. “The government should first of all create an enabling environment for local brands to grow, and also for foreign brands and investors; make importation almost impossible and make foreign companies see the cost effectiveness of stabling their either manufacturing or assembly plant in the country. “For example, many companies are running to Ghana to produce and then come to Nigeria to sell. They sell 90 per cent of what they produce in Ghana here, that fact is quite unnerving. This would surely continue if it does not get worse if the government doesn’t do anything about it on time to salvage the crisis,” he said.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-19724196413908951672013-04-13T16:37:00.001-07:002013-04-19T07:01:33.731-07:00Group Asks Imo Assembly to Impeach Okorocha for Abuse of Office22 Mar 2013
Amby Uneze in Owerri
With the alleged bribery scandal rocking the Imo State Government, which has led to the impeachment moves against the state Deputy Governor, Mr. Jude Agbaso, a group noted for its activism for good governance, Save Imo, has petitioned the Speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly to immediately commence impeachment moves against the state Governor, Chief Rochas Okorocha, for abuse of office. A three-page petition accompanied with a sworn affidavit of facts sworn to at the High Court Registry, Owerri and signed by the coordinator of the group, Mr. Ebubeagu Godwin Ekenulo, urged the assembly to immediately investigate and start impeachment proceedings on the governor for alleged abuse of office, diversion of government revenue and other related offences which the governor has used his office to commit.
“We wish to most sincerely in the interest of the masses of Imo State and to save the state from monumental fraud and diversion of government resources presently going on in the state to present to Mr. Speaker, these catalog of impeachable offences committed by the governor of our state on which we call on you for his immediate impeachment,” Ekenulo said. Although, the governor’s spokesperson, Mr. Ebere Uzoukwa, said such a petition had not reached the governor and as such government could not react to it, he stated that the Imo Assembly has a right to perform its oversight functions and could go ahead to investigate the governor, whom he said has not committed any impeachable offence.
The Save Imo group who also sent a separate petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) identified about 13 offences which it accused the governor of committing while in office, adding that if nothing urgent was done to bring the governor to book, the state would be insolvent and uninhabitable for the people. Ekenulo commended the state assembly for starting the impeachment process on the deputy governor, but noted that the governor being a partner of the deputy governor had committed more incriminating impeachable offences and in the process had abused his oath of office, and therefore cannot be left unscratched.
Among the list of offences the governor was accused of include: unlawful use and diversion of government revenue and funds to establish his private University at Ogboko contrary to his oath of office; concealment of revenue from proceeds of the concession of Imo Concorde Hotel, Adapalm, Imo Transport Company, Imo General Hospitals and conversion of proceeds of same to personal use contrary to his oath of office as governor; approval of 100 percent upfront payment for road contract to JPROS International Nig. Ltd. without proper evidence of work completion contrary to the public procurement laws. Other offences are: unlawful use of the proceeds of the Imo State bond by diversion to unapproved project contrary to the Imo State bond law; unlawful use of the proceeds of the bond to the tune of over N13.3 billion without appropriation; approval of award of contract to JPROS International without advertisement and other contract processes contrary to the public procurement laws; unauthorised and unlawful use of local government allocation to the tune of N63 billion; and conversion of government assets and properties such as Imo deputy governor’s lodge and two-story building at Director’s quarters, Orlu road to Lamonde Hotel, a company in which he has interest contrary to his oath of office.
The coordinator of the group, however, appealed to the assembly to show that her action against the deputy governor was not propelled or induced but motivated by genuine concern for probity, transparency and accountability, stating “I believe that the assembly is desirous to fight corruption, so they will not be selective. I also believe that the assembly will treat this matter this dispatch in order to make Imo people believe that they are fair and that their oversight function is in order.”
Tags: Politics, Nigeria, Featured, Imo Assembly, Okorocha
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-89925331055539669452013-04-13T16:36:00.003-07:002013-04-19T07:01:52.737-07:00General Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR in London 2013Protocols
1. May I thank the organizers for inviting me and my associates to this conference which, if I may say so, is growing in influence by the day. The presence of many Nigerians and distinguished Britons on these historic premises testifies to the importance and to the high expectations of this occasion. At the end of today’s proceedings many of us hope to have a better understanding of our problems and perhaps identify more effective solutions to those problems.
2. My contribution today is based on reflection and practical observation rather than on studious research or scholarly presentation. It is a soldier’s and politician’s broad observations on democracy and economic development in my country, Nigeria.
By convention one usually would like to talk about his country outside its shores in glowing terms extolling its virtues and defending its values and interests. But the situation in our country is so bad and no one knows this better than the international community, that it would be futile to take this line today.
Furthermore, it would be counter-productive to efforts we are all making to understand and accept our shortcomings with a view to taking steps towards a general improvement. If you continue to be in denial, as Nigeria’s government and its apologists are wont to do, you will lose all credibility.
DEMOCRACY
3. There is no point in rehearsing all the text-book theories of democracy to this august gathering. But in practical terms there are, I think, certain conditions without which true democracy cannot survive. These conditions include, but are not limited to, the level of literacy; level of economic attainment; reasonable homogeneity; rights of free speech and free association; a level playing field; free and fair elections; adherence to the rule of law and an impartial judiciary. But these imperatives are not applicable to all countries and all climes. India for example, suffers from great poverty and diversity but its efforts at running a democracy are exemplary.
4. Democracy can best flourish when a certain level of educational attainment or literacy exists in the society. The vast majority of the voters must be in a position to read and write and consequently distinguish which is which on the voters card to make their choices truly theirs. In recent elections in Nigeria, many voters had to be guided – like blind men and women – as to which name and logo represent their preferred choices or candidates to vote for. When one does not know what the thing is all about, it is difficult to arrive at a free choice. It will be even more difficult to hold elected office holders to account and throw them out for non-performance at the next election. Under these circumstances, democracy has a long way to go. Our collective expectations on a democratic system of government in less advanced countries must, therefore, be tempered by these realities.
5. Nor must we discount the role of economic development on the democratic process. An even more compelling determinant to human behavior than education is, I think, economic condition. I will return to this topic when discussing elections, but suffice to remark here that if, for example, on election day, a voter wakes up with nothing to eat for himself and his family and representatives of a candidate offer him, say N500 (£2) he faces a hard choice: whether to starve for the day or abandon his right to vote freely.
As the celebrated American economist, late Professor J.K. Galbraith said: “Nothing circumscribes freedom more completely than total absence of money”.
6. For democracy to function perfectly, a reasonable level of ethnic, linguistic or cultural homogeneity must exist in a country and this applies to all countries whether more developed or less developed. In the US, which like Nigeria is a federation, Hawaii and Alaska send two senators each to Washington as do California and New York. In our own country, Bayelsa with a population of less than two million elects three senators to the National Assembly in Abuja equal to Lagos State with a population of over ten million. Nassarawa State with about two million people and Kano State with over five times the population also send 3 senators each to Abuja. Such dilution clearly negates the intent and spirit of democracy.
7. Central and critical to democracy is adherence to the rule of law. That is to say, no individual, institution, not even government itself can act outside the confines of law without facing sanctions. Executive arbitrariness can only be checked where there is respect for the law. Other desirable conditions of democracy such as freedom of speech and association can only flourish in an atmosphere where the law is supreme. Law does not guarantee but allows a level playing field. In the absence of the rule of law, free and fair elections and an independent judiciary cannot exist.
8. As a result of the virtual absence of the rule of law, elections in Nigeria since 2003 have not been free and fair. As a participant, I can relate to this audience my experiences during the 2003, 2007 and 2011 Presidential elections. Hundreds of candidates have similar experiences in State, Federal legislature and Gubernatorial elections. Under Nigerian law, these elections are governed by the 1999 constitution, the Electoral Law and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) acts of 2002, 2006 and 2010. Ordinarily, an election is an occasion when contestants will join the electorate in celebration of freedom, because the will of the majority has prevailed. Winners and losers alike come together to work in the interest of their country. But this happens only if the elections were deemed free and fair. In 2003, INEC, the body charged with the conduct of elections in our country tabled results in court which were plainly dishonest. We challenged them to produce evidence for the figures. They refused. The judges supported them by saying, in effect, failure to produce the result does not negate the elections! In a show of unprecedented dishonesty and unprofessionalism, the President of the Court of Appeal read out INEC’s figures (which they refused to come to court to prove or defend) as the result accepted by the Court. The Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, said this was okay.
9. In 2007, the violations of electoral rules were so numerous that most lawyers connected with the case firmly believed that the elections would be nullified. I will refer to just two such violations. The Electoral Act of 2006 stipulated that ballot papers SHALL be serially numbered and voters result sheets must also be tallied on serially numbered papers. INEC produced ballot papers with NO serial numbers and also used blank sheets thereby making it well nigh impossible to have an audit trail. At all events, at the final collation centre the chief electoral officer, after 11 (eleven) states (out of 36) were tallied excused himself from the room – apparently on a toilet break – and announced the “final results” to waiting journalists. He had the “results” in his pocket. At the time, several states had not completed transmission of their tallies. As in 2003 the courts rubber-stamped this gross transgression of the rules. Some election returns confirmed by INEC stamps included, 28th April, two (2) days before the election, 29th April, a day before the election and astonishingly, 31st April a date which does not exist on the calendar, illustrating the farcical nature of the election. The Supreme Court split 4-3 in favour of the Government.
10. In 2011 all pretences at legality and propriety were cast aside. In the South-South and South-Eastern States, turn-out of voters was recorded by INEC at between 85% - 95% even though in the morning of the election the media reported sparse attendance at polling booths. The rest of the country where opposition parties were able to guard and monitor the conduct of the Presidential election turn-out averaged about 46%. In many constituencies in the South-South and South-East, votes cast far exceeded registered figures.
11. Which brings us to the need for an impartial Judiciary in a democratic setting. The judicial arm of the government, properly speaking, should be the interpreter and arbiter of executive and legislative actions but the Nigerian government since 1999 has successfully emasculated the judiciary and turned it into a yes-man. An independent and impartial judiciary would have overturned all the Presidential elections since 2003. In addition, hundreds of cases of judicial misconduct have marred elections to Local Government, State and Federal Legislatures. The Judiciary has run its reputation down completely since 2003.
12. Here, I would like to say a few words about the international observers. In 1999 the greatly revered former US President, Jimmy Carter walked off in a huff at the conduct of that year’s Presidential election. But compared to what took place afterwards, the 1999 election was a model of propriety. I am sure many Nigerians like me feel gratitude to the international community, notably the Catholic Secretariat who deployed over 1,000 observers in 2003 and the National Democratic Institute in Washington for their work in Nigeria. In 2003 and 2007, all the international observer teams, along with domestic observers concluded that those two elections fell far short of acceptable standards. The Nigerian government, along with the international community ignored those critical reports. Some members of this audience may recall the trenchant criticisms by the UK and US governments on the Zimbabwean elections held about the same time as Nigeria’s. Now the Zimbabwean elections were very much better conducted than the Nigerian elections as the opposition party in Zimbabwe actually was declared to have won the parliamentary elections.
13. Yet Western Governments turned a blind eye to Nigerian elections and an eagle eye on Zimbabwe’s and its supposed shortcomings. No better illustration of double-standards can be cited. Accordingly, in 2011, the international observers, having seen their painstaking work in earlier years completely ignored, took the line of least resistance and concluded after cursory examinations that the elections were okay.
14. So it is quite clear from these brief recollections that many preliminary elements of a democratic set-up are missing in Nigeria namely: level of educational development, level of economic development, homogeneity, level playing field, rule of law, impartial judiciary and free and fair elections.
15. As observed earlier, democracy cannot function optimally without a certain level of economic attainment.
16. Economically, Nigeria is a potential powerhouse, a large population, 167 million by the last official estimate, arable land, more than 300, 000 square kilometers, 13,000 square kilometers of fresh water. In addition, the country has gas, oil, solid minerals, forests, fisheries, wind power and potentials for tourism and hosting of international sporting events. It is a miracle waiting to happen. The lack of leadership and policy continuity has resulted in great under-achievement.
17. Many Nigerians in the audience today will relate to the situation of our countrymen and women. More than 100 million of our people live below $2 a day according to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics and many internationally recognized estimates. We lack security, are short of food, water, live in poor shelters with hardly any medicare to speak of. Small scale farmers, foresters, micro businesses such as market women, washermen, vulcanizers, tailors, street corner shop-keepers and the like lack both power and meaningful access to small scale credit to ply their trade and prosper.
No wonder, the publication, “The African Economic Outlook 2012” under the auspices of the United Nations lamented that poverty and underdevelopment were on the increase. In fact, GDP figures in the raw or in outline tell little about the spread of wealth, employment levels, infrastructural development and the effect of socio-economic programmes such as schooling, health care, and security on the generality of the population. You may sell a lot of oil in an era of high oil prices and boost your GDP and boast about it. But there is nothing to boast about when 100 million of your people are in poverty and misery. Life is a daily hassle; a daily challenge. It is under these circumstances that many a voter is tempted to sell off his voting card for a pittance on Election Day.
CONCLUSION
18. We now come to crux of the matter by attempting some answers to the very pertinent questions which the organizers of this conference put to me. How stable is Nigeria’s economy? The short answer is that it very much depends on the international oil market. The failure over the years to diversify and strengthen the economy or to invest in the global economy has left Nigeria perilously at the mercy of global oil prices. Instead of using the so-called excess crude account which in other countries goes by the name of Sovereign Wealth Fund to develop major domestic infrastructure such as Power, Railways, Road development, the account has been frittered down and applied to current consumption. There is no magic, no short-cut to economic development. We must start from first principles – by developing agriculture and industries. Sixty years ago, we exported considerable quantities of cocoa, cotton, groundnuts, rubber and palm kernels. There were sizeable incomes to the farmers. Indeed in two years, if I recall correctly, 1951 and 1953, Nigeria produced a million tons of groundnuts. Today, other than a few thousand tons of cocoa, hardly any cotton, rubber or palm products are exported.
19. Until and unless serious budgetary attention is paid to agriculture, the vast majority of rural population will remain on subsistence basis and will eventually wither away by migration to the cities and increasing the stress on urban life. What is required is applying today’s technology, primarily improved seeds and seedlings, irrigation systems, use of weather forecasts, and above all, substantial subsidies and access to cheap credit. In Nigeria, the basic tools for agricultural take-off, the Six River Basin Authorities were wantonly scrapped in 1986 under the disastrous Structural Adjustment Programme. They are the best vehicle for our country’s agricultural revival and expansion.
INDUSTRIES
20. Next to agriculture, government and railways industries are the country’s biggest employers of labour. Industries are vital in absorbing urban workforce. Nigeria’s burgeoning industrial growth was brought to an abrupt halt by the Structural Adjustment Programme which massively devalued the naira under IMF harassment and bullying. Uninterrupted Nigeria’s capacity by now would have been able to produce basic machine tools, bicycles, motor cycles, car parts, parts for industrial machinery and the likes. But alas, the car industry is down; tyre manufacturing is down, both Michelin and Dunlop have closed; battery manufacturing and sugar industries are down; cable industries all but down: all in the wake of the Structural Adjustment Programme. The last 14 years have added to the misery due to red tape, high interest rates, power shortages and competition from developed economies under World Trade Organization (WTO) imperatives. Subsuming all these problems is the old and ever-present devil: corruption.
Corruption has shot through all facets of government and economic life in our country. Until serious efforts are made to tackle corruption which is beyond the capacity of this government, economic growth and stability will elude us. On corruption, don’t just take my word for it. The Chairman of one of the bodies charged with the task of fighting corruption in Nigeria, Mr. Ekpo Nta of Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offensive Commission (ICPC) was quoted by the Daily Trust newspaper of 14th February, 2013 as saying that there was no political will to fight corruption in Nigeria.
21. A second fundamental question asked by the organizers is: Can Nigeria as presently structured administratively and politically emerge an economically competitive nation? I believe it can. There is a lively debate going on in our country about the need to re-structure the country. What shape this reform is going to take is uncertain. Even the most vocal advocates of re-structuring the country, although long on rhetoric seem short and vague on details. We have tried regions and this was deemed lopsided and a trap to minorities. We tried twelve, nineteen and now thirty six (36) states and there is clamour for more. I firmly believe that state creation has now become dysfunctional, as disproportionate amounts of our meager resources go to over-heads at the expense of basic social services and infrastructural development. Moreover, I also believe that Nigeria’s problem is not so much the structure but the process. Nevertheless, I believe a careful and civil conversation should be held to look closely at the structure.
22. But how do we go about it? Go back to the Regions? I do not think this would be acceptable; except perhaps in the old Western Region. Try the present Six Geo-political Zones as federating units? I believe there will be so much unrest and strife in South-South and North-Central; this is not to say that there will be no pockets of resistance in the North West and North East as well – the consequence of all these will unsettle the country. Go back to General Gowon’s 12 state structure? Here too, entrenched personal or group interests will make collapsing and merging states impossible to operate in a democratic set-up. It is only when you come face to face with the problem you will appreciate the complications inherent in re-structuring Nigeria.
23. However, once a national consensus is reached, however defective, the environment will facilitate political and economic stability. At long last we can look forward to Nigeria finding its place among the BRIC nations and instead of BRIC, the media would be talking of BRINC nations: Brazil, Russia, India, Nigeria and China. I sincerely hope this happens in my lifetime.
24. The third question put to me by the organizers is: Can the present electoral body in Nigeria guarantee and deliver credible elections that will strengthen the nation’s democracy in 2015?
25. All the present indications are that INEC as it is presently constituted would be unable to deliver any meaningful elections in 2015. I have gone to some lengths earlier in my talk to describe INEC’s conduct in the last decade. The Electoral Body has developed a very cozy relationship with Executive and Judicial arms of government that its impartiality is totally lost. In the run-up to the last elections INEC requested (and received with indecent haste) in excess of 80 billion naira (about £340m.) a hefty sum by any standards, so that it could conduct the elections including organizing bio-metric voters data specifically for the 2011 elections.
26. But when opposition parties challenged the patently dishonest figures it announced and subpoenaed the bio-metric data in court, INEC refused to divulge them on the laughable excuse of “National Security”. INEC’s top echelon is immersed deep in corruption and only wholesale changes at the top could begin to cure its malaise. What is required is a group of independent minded people, patriotic, incorruptible but with the capacity to handle such a strenuous assignment of conducting elections in Nigeria. It is not difficult to find such people but whether the Government and the National Assembly have the inclination to do so I am not so sure. The only way I and many more experienced politicians than myself expect the 2015 elections to be remotely free and fair is for the opposition to be so strong that they can effectively prevent INEC from rigging. I would like, here, Mr. Chairman to repeat what I have said time and time again at home in Nigeria with regards to the election aftermath. Some commentators and public figures have wrongly pointed accusing fingers at me for inciting post-election violence. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have been a public servant all my adult life: a soldier, a federal minister, a state governor and the head of state. My duty is to Nigeria first and foremost. Post-election violence was triggered by the grossest injustice of election rigging and accompanying state high-handedness.
27. Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I will attempt to address the two very important questions you put to me namely: How can the poverty level in Nigeria be reduced? And How can the masses generally benefit from the nation’s vast wealth? As remarked earlier, there is no short cut to poverty eradication than to get people to work and earn money. Poverty means lack of income. If serious efforts are made to support agriculture through states and local government apparatus in the shape of inputs, i.e fertilizers and pesticides, extension services and provision of small-scale credits, agriculture will boom within 5 – 7 years. Farmers will generate more income to enable them to grow the food the country needs and to look after our environment. In addition, the drift to urban centres will be greatly reduced. Equal attention should be paid to the revival of employment-generating activities such as Railways, Industries, notably textiles and other land and forest resource based industries to absorb urban labour to tackle poverty, reduce urban stress and crime and at the same time boost the economy. However, these two major policy initiatives can only succeed if there is substantial improvement in power generation. As remarked earlier, adequate provision of power will help small scale business to thrive and link-up with the general economy. Power is the site of the legion, in other words, it is central to all economic activity.
28. May I, Mr. Chairman, conclude this presentation by referring to the distribution of income in Nigeria today? No better illustration of the huge income disparity can be quoted than the statement of Malam Adamu Fika, Chairman of the Committee set up by Government to review the Nigerian public service. In the course of presentation of his Report, the Chairman pointed out that 18,000 public officers consume in the form of salaries, allowances and other perquisites N1.126 trillion naira (£4billion) of public funds. The total Nigerian budget for 2013 is N4.9 trillion (£20 billion). This is the worst form of corruption and oppression. A wholesale look at public expenses vis-à-vis the real need of the country has become urgent.
29. Mr Chairman, the Honourable Members, Distinguished Guests, I thank you for your patience and attention.
General Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR
London – United Kingdom
Tuesday, March 5th 2013.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-15472573799148775132013-04-13T16:34:00.001-07:002013-04-19T07:02:22.486-07:00FG Needs N350bn Annually to Tackle Water Supply, Sanitation, Says JonathanBy Muhammad Bello
http://www.thisdayonline.com/
19 February, 2013
The Federal Government needs N350 billion every year for it to tackle issues on sanitation and water supply in the country. President Goodluck Jonathan disclosed this Monday at the opening of a two-day Presidential Summit on Water tagged: “Innovative Funding of the Water Sector”, at the Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja. The president said his administration had been making commitments to the sector, which had yielded positive results, adding that in the last two years, over N84 billion had been spent in addition to the another N80.4 billion expended on dams and irrigation schemes across the country. These are the Goronyo Dam, which gulped N3.4 billion, Kashimbila Dam, N38 billion, Gurara Dam and irrigation project, N36 billion and Ife Dam N3 billion. In its unrelenting effort to make sure that Nigerians are availed of their water requirements, Jonathan said the Federal Government “has proposed to spend N39 billion in this year’s budget on water-related projects, in addition to funds the sector will receive from special intervention funds”. Despite these huge investments, the president said the purpose of the summit is “to explore new investment opportunities in this critical Sector,” by examining how water projects could attract more financing and new technologies from both public and private sources.
Other targets he set for the summit are: “leveraging the nation’s water resources to be in tandem with that of its partners and the international community to strengthen our effort towards meeting the set targets in 2015; identifying issues militating against optimal water infrastructure development; and its sustainability, as well as evolve innovative funding to ameliorate this situation.” The president also charged the summit to redefine the intervention approaches, facilitate linkages and engagements and “critically reviews the present financing and investment models in the sector; determine which model works and the opportunities that exist for leveraging resources from non-traditional sources in the light of growing competing needs.” In her welcome remarks at the occasion, Minister of Water Resources, Mrs Sarah Reng Ochekpe, stated that despite government’s support on the development of a roadmap to reform the sector, there is still a need for funding as the appropriations made to all the tiers of government cannot bankroll the gigantic project. According to Ochekpe, “the implementation of the road map has brought to the fore the huge funding gap in the sector and annual appropriations alone by the three tiers of government will not be sufficient to develop the sector in line with global trends.”
Towards this end, she said the ministry apart from completing many projects and initiatives that are billed for inauguration soon has also “established a Public-Private Partnership Unit in 2012 and the unit is working along with the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) and the Nigeria Infrastructure Advisory Facility (NIAF) and is presently screening various water sector projects for concession.” Senate President David Mark, who decried the prevailing water supply situation in the country, submitted that the summit “must critically evaluate the issues that afflict our water sector such as poor operation and maintenance, insufficient technical capacity and persistent failure in policy implementation”. According to him, “these failures have dramatic consequences on the lives, livelihoods and development of Nigeria and Nigerians. Sadly, millions of Nigerians who have no access to potable pipe borne water depend on dirty and contaminated water for domestic use and millions die every year from water borne diseases.” Dignitaries who graced the summit included Vice-President Muhammad Namadi Sambo, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Ghanaian counterpart, John Kuffour. Others were the Egyptian Minister of Water and Irrigation, Dr. Mohammed Bahaa el-Din, governors, ministers, water sector experts, legislators and captains of industries.
The summit ends today.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-9052484362164803142013-04-13T16:32:00.001-07:002013-04-19T07:03:22.365-07:00Ezekwesili: Rivers Squandered Development OpportunitiesFrom Ahamefula Ogbu in Port Harcourt, 08.25.2009
http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=152632
President, African Region of the World Bank and former Director General, Due Process Office, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, yesterday said Rivers State had squandered its development opportunities due to lack of financial discipline, when it earned over N1.2 trillion between 1999 and 2008. The state was ranked among the best 100 economies in the world, but still lacked improvement in its development index.
The situation was blamed on lack of public procurement policy which ought to have protected the economy of the state from excessive bleeding in public procurements, since government is the highest spender and sustainer of the economy. Speaking yesterday at a public enlightenment programme organized by the state Bureau on Public Procurement, Ezekwesili expressed regrets that while Rivers State was the second largest economy in the country and earned so much, the people still live in poverty.
“Many of you are probably aware that Rivers State is the second largest economy in Nigeria after Lagos State. As of 2007, it had a total GDP of US$21 billion (equivalent of US$3,960 per capita). It is important to reflect on this briefly. This is equivalent to $3,960 per capita and compares to the GDP per capita of such middle-income countries as South Africa ($3,562); Botswana ($4,511), and Mauritius ($4,522).
“The figure – which is well above the African average of $823 – also compares favorably with per capita GDP of Brazil ($5,860), Malaysia ($6,420) – countries that are classified as upper middle-income. Using the 2008 World Development Indicators, Rivers State would have been ranked among the top 100 economies in the world. “It is very surprising therefore that in spite of this potentials and gross allocation of more than N1.2 trillion ($7.97 billion) between 1999 and 2008, 46 percent of the population of the State still live in poverty.
Rivers State still has amongst the highest in infant mortality rates with less than half of the population having access to safe drinking water and 68 percent of the population still using firewood as a source of energy”, she lamented. She however observed that how the resources of the State was managed determines how the economy and its people will fare which makes the enthronement of a procurement policy imperative if the best is to be got from public resources spent. Ezekwesili reminded the audience which was held spell bound by her presentation that broad based economic growth was only possible through sound policies.
“As someone who initiated the procurement reforms at the federal level. I know that public procurement is one activity of government that is most prone to corruption. As a major interface between the public and private sectors, it provides multiple opportunities for both public and private actors to divert public funds for private gain, waste and inefficiencies, ” she added. She said that when viewed from the standpoint that most private businesses depend on public budget, the policy of government on monitoring to ensure that value was got for public spending determines the well being of the people.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-83927665829900052742013-04-13T16:31:00.003-07:002013-04-19T07:07:21.118-07:00The wealth and poverty of a nation: Who will restore the dignity of Nigeria? – Oby EzekwesiliOn January 27, 2013 • In For the record, Top Stories
Mrs. Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Solid Minerals and of Education, delivered this keynote paper at the 42nd convocation of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Thursday, 24th 2013.
Protocols
I am hugely delighted to return to my alma mater the great and only University of Nigeria to speak at your 42nd convocation. Twenty eight years ago I sat just like you those of you who are part of the graduating Class of 2013; excited by my graduation. It was 1985 and I was very privileged to be one of the then only 3% of our own youthful population that had the opportunity of a university education. Today, you are still fortunate to be one of the yet paltry 4.3% of your own youthful generation with an opportunity for university education. For Nigeria that percentage does not compare favorably with 37.5% for Chile 33.7% for Singapore 28.2% for Malaysia, 16.5% for Brazil and 14.6%.
Our lag in tertiary education enrolment is quite revealing and could be interpreted as the basis of the competitiveness gap between the same set of countries and Nigeria.
The reason is that “…. tertiary enrolment rate which is the percentage of total enrolment, regardless of age, in post-secondary institutions to the population of people within five years of the age at which students normally graduate high school…….plays an essential role in society, creating new knowledge, transferring knowledge to students and fostering innovation”.
The countries with the most highly educated citizens are also some of the wealthiest in the world in a study by the OECD published by the Wall Street Journal last year. The United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Finland, Norway, Israel, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia also have among the largest Gross Domestic Products. All these countries aggressively invest in education. The same cannot be said of Nigeria. The crawling progress in tertiary education enrolment since my graduation more than two and a half decades ago is therefore one key reason former peer nations left us behind at the lower rungs of global economic rankings.
Economic growth rate and ultimate development of nations are determined by a number of factors that range from sound policies, effective and efficient public and private investments and strong institutions. Economic evidence throughout numerous researches proves that one key variable that determines how fast nations outgrow others is the speed of accumulation of human capital especially through science and technology education. No wonder for these same countries by 2011- South Korea of fifty million people has a GDP of $1.12trillion, Brazil of one hundred and ninety six million has $2.48 trillion; Malaysia of twenty eight million people has $278.6Billion; Chile of seventeen million people has $248.59Billion; Singapore of five million people has $318.7 Billion. Meanwhile with our population of 165 million people we make boasts with a GDP of $235.92 Billion- completely way off the mark that we could have produced if we made a better set of development choices.
More dramatic is that this wide gap between these nations and Nigeria was not always the case as some relevant data at the time of our independence reveal. In 1960 the GDP per capita of all these countries were not starkly different from that of Nigeria- two were below $200, two were a little above $300 and one was slightly above $500 while that of Nigeria was just about $100. For citizens, these differentials are not mere economic data. Meanwhile by 2011, the range for all five grew exponentially with Singapore at nearly $50,000, South Korea at $22,000, Malaysia at $10,000, Brazil at $13,000 and Chile at $14,000. Our own paltry $1500 income per capita helps drive home the point that we have been left behind many times over by every one of these other countries. How did these nations steer and stir their people to achieve such outstanding economic performance over the last five decades?
There is hardly a basis for comparing the larger population of our citizens clustered within the poverty bracket with the majority citizens of Singapore fortunate to have upper middle income standard of living. Again, how did this happen? What happened to Nigeria? Why did we get left behind? How did these nations become productively wealthy over the last fifty years while Nigeria stagnated? How did majority of the citizens of these nations join the upper middle class while more Nigerians retrogressed into poverty? There are usually as many different answers to these sets of questions as there are respondents on the reasons we fell terribly behind. Some say, it is our tropical geography, yet economic research shows it has not prevented other countries with similar conditions from breaking through. Others say it is size, but China and India are bigger, yet in the last thirty and twenty years have grown double digit and continue to out- grow the rest of the world at this time of global economic crisis.
Furthermore, being small has not necessarily conferred any special advantages to so many other countries with small population yet similarly battling with the development process like we are. Some others say it is our culture but like a political economist posited “European countries with different sorts of cultures, Protestant and Catholic alike that have grown rich. Secondly, different countries within the same broad cultures have performed very differently in economic terms, such as the two Koreas in the post-war era. Moreover, individual countries have changed their economic trajectories even though “their cultures didn’t miraculously change.”
How about those who plead our multi-ethnic nationalities as the constraint but fail to see that the United States of America happens to be one nation with even more disparate ethnic nationalities than Nigeria and yet it leads the global economy!
As for those who say it is the adverse impact of colonialism, were Singapore, Malaysia and even China not similarly conquered and dominated by colonialists? That Nigeria is a paradox of the kind of wealth that breeds penury is as widely known as the fact that the world considers us a poster nation for poor governance wealth from natural resources. The trend of Nigeria’s population in poverty since 1980 to 2010 for example suggests that the more we earned from oil, the larger the population of poor citizens : 17.1 million 1980, 34.5million in 1985, 39.2million in 1992, 67.1million in 1996, 68.7million in 2004 and 112.47 million in 2010! This sadly means that you are children of a nation blessed with abundance of ironies. Resource wealth has tragically reduced your nation- my nation- to a mere parable of prodigality. Nothing undignifies nations and their citizens like self-inflicted failure.
Our abundance of oil, people and geography should have worked favorably and placed us on the top echelons of the global economic ladder by now. After all, basic economic evidence shows that abundance of natural resources can by itself increase the income levels of citizens even if it does not increase their productivity. For example, as Professor Collier a renowned economist who has focused on the sector stated in a recent academic work countries that have enormously valuable natural resources are likely to have high living standards on a sustainable basis by simply replacing some of the extracted resources with financial assets held abroad. Disappointedly, even that choice eluded our governing class who through the decades has spent more time quarrelling over their share of the oil “national cake” than they have spent thinking of how to make it benefit the entire populace.
There are perhaps three broad classes of resource rich countries.
The first are those which like Norway which have built up all other types of domestic investment from which revenue is generated and can therefore save their huge revenue from gas in foreign assets.
The second are those mostly of the Middle East countries like Kuwait which also have saved huge revenue in foreign asset and generate sufficient revenue from the asset to be better off than other countries without resources. However, for Kuwait this may be only because they live well from resource rents rather than becoming productive.
The third category of which our country is a classic example are countries which though resource rich have neither been able to build up foreign asset for citizens to live well off of nor evolved new and alternative sectors of productivity.
The appropriate response to the revenue extracted from our oil over the period 1959 to date would have been to use it in accumulating productive investment in the form of globally competitive human capital and physical asset of all types of infrastructure and institutions. Such translation from one form of non-renewable asset to renewable capital would have been the right replacement strategy for a wasting asset like oil. Unfortunately unbridled profligacy has made us spend and continue to spend the free money from oil like a tragic Rentier state that we are called in development circles. We spend most of what we generate on mere consumption with no tangible productive asset to show for our so called “wealth”.
Due to profligacy we have dismal human development indicators which are inconsistent with the scale of our earnings. For example using life expectancy as a proxy measuring how we score on human development, 51.4years for Nigerians falls far short of the 80years for citizens of Singapore and South Korea, 78years for citizens of Chile, 73 years for citizens of Malaysia and 72years for citizens of Brazil. We may in fact be the world record holder in the rank of natural resources rich countries that tend to have worse human development scores when compared to countries without endowments. As our human development scores have lagged, we continued with our binge on oil revenue and became trapped in cyclical decline of national competitiveness. It explains why every other economic sector in Nigeria has suffered the effect of the oil enclave economy.
Oil has unleashed shocks and volatility of revenues on our economy due to exposure to global commodity market swing, proliferated “weak, ineffectual, unstable and systemically corrupt institutions and bureaucracies” that have helped misappropriate or plunder public resources. Nations with abundance of natural resources especially in Africa, Latin America and part of South Asia have experienced the fuelling of official corruption and “violent competition for the resource by the citizens of the nation” .While there may not be concurrence on the causes of Nigeria’s colossal underperformance, most of our citizens however agree that poor governance and the more visible symptom of corruption have had virulent impact in arresting the development of Nigeria.
The poor in our land have paid the highest possible price for being born into the world’s best example of a paradox. The common wonderment of these poor citizens – whether east, west, north and south- is “why would more than half the population of a country that earned nearly one trillion dollars in oil revenue since the Oloibori discovery of crude oil; continue to wallow in poverty?”
Well, economic evidence shows that the answer which we must all ponder deeply is that oil wealth entrenched corruption and mismanagement of resources in government and warped the incentive for value added work, creativity and innovation in our public, private sectors and wider society. This being the case, the larger population of our people is deprived of the opportunity to overcome poverty and this is what economists call the “resource curse”. The oil revenue induced choices made by our ruling elite over the five decades of political independence cursed several of our citizens to intergenerational poverty!
Endowment of oil resulted in an indulgent elite class – the generations of your great grandparents, grandparents and parents in leadership- who have made disastrous choices that have trapped the destiny of Nigeria in oil wells. It is the reason our economic structure has remained unchanged for more than fifty years. Fact is that our political elite suffers from delusion of greatness simply because we sell barrels of crude oil to finance 80% of our national budget, cover 95% of our foreign exchange and petroleum sectors represents a larger portion of industry’s contribution to our GDP.
Little wonder that manufacturing is a mere 18% of our Gross Domestic Products compared to that of all those other nations with which we set off on the development race. Manufacturing which has its major driver as education enabled those nations develop a huge base of human capital with skills and competencies to drive new ideas, creativity and innovation. They embraced their comparative advantage, mimicked nations that were ahead of them, perfected some aspects of manufacturing and became extremely competitive. While these countries moved up the manufacturing and economic development ladder in my fifty years of existence all I can say for Nigeria is that during the same period I have known at least five cycles of commodity booms that offered us rare opportunities to use revenues generated from oil to transform our economy.
Sadly, each cycle ended up sliding us farther down the productivity ladder. The present cycle of boom of the 2010s is however much more vexing than the other four that happened in the 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s. This is because we are still caught up in it even as I speak today and it is more egregious than the other periods in revealing that we learned absolutely nothing from the previous massive failures. Furthermore, it is happening back to back with the squandering of the significant sum of $45 Billion in foreign reserve account and another $22Billion in the Excess Crude Account being direct savings from increased earnings from oil that the Obasanjo administration handed over to the successor government in 2007.
Six years after the administration I served handed over such humongous national wealth to another one; most Nigerians but especially the poor continue to suffer the effects of failing public health and education systems as well as decrepit infrastructure and battered institutions. One cannot but ask, what exactly does Nigeria seek to symbolize and convey with this level of brazen misappropriation of public resources? Where did all that money go? Where is the accountability for the use of both these resources plus the additional several billions of dollars realized from oil sale by the two administrations that have governed our nation in the last six years? How were these resources applied or more appropriately, misapplied? Tragic choices! Yes.
Our national dignity continues to be degraded by cycles of stagnation because of the terrible choices my generation and those before repeatedly make as a result of free oil money. The wealth and poverty of a nation never found a better Symbol! There is no better example of the cost of the imprudent choices than what has happened to Education. The failures and limitations of the education you have received during your time here leading to your graduation today will become clearer to you should you ever seek to do what was very easy for me to do –that is, gain admission to one of the best schools in the world for my graduate studies simply on the strength of my University of Nigeria education.
Countries invest in the human skills that can help their citizens use modern technology and eventually rise to the stage where those same citizens can develop their countries’ own technology. A country’s educational system is the key to its long-run development. According to economic study of the role of education in economic development, “Less than half of the rise in living standards since 1960 in industrial countries has been due to savings and investments from its citizens. The rest of the increase – more than 50% has been due to rising educational levels and to improvements in technology that raise factor productivity across the board”. I had known this as a Minister of Education in this country a few years ago.
That knowledge inspired and fuelled my zeal to bring education to the front burners of our national development at that time. The result of the diagnostics that we produced on the state of our education system and sector was so heart wrenching that I was filled with angst at how low we had sunk educationally. Deciding to channel the angst positively, we built a strong team that articulated some three hundred and sixty eight ‘root and branch’ reforms measures across the six levels and aspects of education- early childhood, basic, secondary, tertiary, special needs and adult/informal education.
The response of resistance by some of the key political elite to the absolutely necessary reforms when we laid them out before the nation to generate consensus and implement is made clearer by what one today knows of the incentives that drive the choices of extractive elites. I will return to this as I get closer to the conclusion of my speech. I read an article by David Wraight in which he posits that there is a globalized generation of youth – often referred to as the Millennial Generation. “They believe that they can change the world for the better, but they are unsure what they should change the world to; so they search for an ideology or system of belief to use as a foundation for the change they seek. They are actually searching for something worth living for and dying for.” They are optimistic and idealistic with a deep desire to make their mark in the world. They dream of what can be, and follow their dreams with passion and perseverance. They are no longer prepared to be spectators watching the world go by, but want to be ‘players’, to get their hands dirty, to make a difference. They are knowledgeable about the affairs of the world and very mobile, travelling as much as resources and opportunity allow.”
As globalization and modern technology continue to shrink our world people are connecting worldwide as never before – particularly young people – and overcoming cultural, geographical, language and ethnic barriers with ease. For the first time in human history we are seeing the emergence of a global youth culture with common values, dreams and desires. You are actually not different from your generational peers in Tunisia, Egypt, the United States and many other countries that have have questioned and overturned the status quo and established new norms in the governance of their nations. When it becomes an imperative for your generation to save Nigeria from its cycles of disastrous and destructive choices promoted by the older generations then you can rightly be called the Turning Point Generation.
The turning point is when there begins to emerge a New Nigeria that is radically different from all that we have known of failure. The turning point is the point of restoration of Dignity. Yes. That quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect; of being regarded as nobility and having worth! One of America’s legendary leaders; President J. F. Kennedy called it the “source of national purpose” when he said “I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, human liberty as the source of national action, the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas”. Like individuals, nations have or lack dignity depending on how well they practice these famous words of John D. Rockefeller – “I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living”.
Dignity of honest toil and the sweet triumph that results from such strenuous effort is after all what confers deserving honor on people and societies. Booker T. Washington expressed this Truth powerfully when he wrote that “no race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem”. We must take way a lasting message from the profound thoughts of these historical figures that helped build the still greatest nation in the world- the United States of America. The clear message is that Dignity is conferred on a life of effort and hard work and not on a life of ignoble ease for the latter can easily become dulled by contemptible wealth. To be born into inheritance like our nature endowed oil wealth does not of itself confer any deserving honor on us and our nation.
Our oil rich nation merely makes us a Rentier state. Even worse, the oil wealth has created not the right kind of Elite class across the length and breadth of our nation but rather an Extractive Elite class. These political and business elite have been comfortable with living on rent from oil revenue without seeing the desperate need to redirect the focus of this nation to sources of economic growth that are more lasting than the depleting riches of natural commodities. They fail to realize that a Rentier economy like Nigeria sows the seed of its implosion if it does not advance into a productive economy. Had we been of a lesser population, we may perhaps have been able to all comfortably live off the income from oil as the revenue will make Nigeria sufficiently rich to be able to provide all of us high incomes on a sustainable basis like my friend Paul Collier so scholarly wrote drawing a parallel between individual bequeathed and inheritance and a nation blessed with natural resources. Collier wrote “just as a billionaire can ensure that his descendants need never work.
But, just as many billionaires realize that it is good to earn a living, so all societies sensibly aspire to be productive. Resource extraction should make a society more productive”. My dear young friends, all Nigerians but especially our very prebendalist leadership class must realize that it is good for both individuals and nations to earn their living! So I ask you as representatives of your generation, “Who will restore the Dignity of Nigeria?” As my big brother, former President of South Africa -Thabo Mbeki- once asked along the same vein “When will the day come that our dignity will be fully restored, when the purpose of our lives will no longer be merely to survive until the sun rises tomorrow”! Your word of response to my difficult question will not persuade anyone. It is the follow on action that stands the chance of being persuasive. The reason is simple. Word is cheap. As was profoundly observed by Marti Jose, “other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness”. So I ask you again, “Who will WALK AND WORK to restore the Dignity of Nigeria?”
Through my probing question, I abide with the challenge of Shriver Sargent who believed that every new generation must be taught the dignity of work- “Do we talk about the dignity of work? Do we give our students any reason for believing it is worthwhile to sacrifice for their work because such sacrifices improve the psychological and mental health of the person who makes them?” Do you know that your embrace of a new mind-set – an entrepreneurial mind-set that takes pride in problem solving can change the course of our history and place us on a new economic development trajectory? Do you know that in order to herald a New Nigeria we must accept the words of Michelle Obama on learning about dignity and decency – “that how hard you work matters much more than how much you make…..that helping others means much more than just getting ahead yourself” is what we need to herald a New Nigeria? A New Nigeria would be one where the citizens and leaders alike converge on a common vision for our nation.
That vision need not be complex. It is in fact extremely important that because everyone who reads it must desire to run with its ideals that the Vision must be simple. For me a simple Vision will read- “we believe in Dignity”. Although it sounds so ordinary but it profoundly conveys that we believe in the Dignity that lays within ourselves and not the fleeting sense of wealth that oil money creates. WE are our best endowment. Our capabilities- nurtured and nourished by a just society- and not our oil, not our gas not even our thirty four classes of minerals scattered across the country represent the lasting and renewable asset of our nation.
Whereas as a Madagasy proverb says, oil induced “poverty won’t allow us lift our heads; dignity which is the fruit of hard work won’t allow us bow them down.
For Nigeria’s dignity to be restored your generation must build a coalition of your entrepreneurial minds that are ready to ask and respond to the question “What does it take for nations to become rich? Throughout economic history, the factors that determine which nations became rich and improved the standard of living of their citizens read like a Dignity treatise in that they all revolve around the choices that ordinary citizens made in defining the value constructs of their nation. We learn that it takes a very strong interplay of political and economic dynamics for nations to climb out from the rung of poverty and raise the standard of living of citizens. The political foundation of nations emerges as the principal reason why some nations grow rich while others remain poor in the field of development economics.
A ground breaking work by Daren Acemoglu, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and James Robinson (economist), a Harvard professor has brought politics to the center stage of economic development. Although sound policies and access to capital for investing in development priorities remain very important for economic success no country can however achieve development without having a strong political foundation made up of political players, system, processes and structures that are grounded in inclusivity and accountability. The active participation of the citizens who seek to restore their individual and collective dignity in the politics of their nation is what ensures that THE PEOPLE and not a bunch of power hungry and extractive elite will set the agenda and determine the quality and substance of governance.
The simple version of this thesis is “sort out a nation’s political mess and you improve the chances of getting a productive economy that grows and delivers the benefits of growth in the form of jobs and improved incomes to all citizens”. Although this advice is rooted in empirical evidence from economic research it does sound very basic. Not being one of those earth shattering solutions that Nigerians are often enamoured of, we may choose to ignore it. Yet if we are willing to confront our past and present reality with sincerity and ruminate on our political history, this thesis may actually be a Turning Point “Aha” moment for us.
The Turning Point is that moment when we all suddenly realized that Politics- a process that defines the How, Who, Which, Where, When and for What any individual or group of persons who seek to govern Nigeria- is indeed the root cause of our repeated failures. Neither our thirty four years of cumulative military governance nor the nineteen cumulative years thus far of our democratic governance provided us “inclusive and accountable governance.” Evidently, it is the undeveloped character of our political history, inchoate political structure and system and mostly uninspiring cast of political leadership that threw Nigeria into a hole from which it must climb out quickly to secure its continuing existence.
Instructively, a person or as in our own case; a nation is counselled to “stop digging when in a hole”. Lamentably, in our case we have consistently rebuffed the wisdom behind that counsel. We have instead dug deeper and the more we have dug, the deeper into the hole we have sunk and all because of political misadventures. Trace the political history of our country since independence in 1960 and you will better understand the horror of our faulty political foundation. The first democratic government ushered in an independent Nigeria but was cut short by a coup in 1966, a counter coup in 1967, civil war from 1967 to 1970, military rule from 1970 at the end of the war until another coup in 1975, another unsuccessful coup in 1976 the then Head of State was murdered, continued rule of the military until 1979 when a successful political transition ushered in the second republic but it became a democratic process that was known more for its prodigality than for governance until it was cut short in 1983 by yet another military coup but this new junta was itself sent packing by a coup in 1985 with a new military junta ruling from 1985 until 1993 when it thwarted the political rights of citizens who had elected a democratic president by annulling the elections.
It responded to the public disturbance and agitation that followed by installing an interim national government that lasted only three months following yet another military intervention that was more heinous than ever until 1998 when divine providence cut short that particular leadership ushering in yet another military ruler who committed to and successfully conducted a transition that ushered democratic governance in 1999. That it is now fourteen years of uninterrupted even if fledgling democratic governance since 1999 is perhaps the very tiny ray of light in what is otherwise a canvass of political tragedies. Yet, despite the general consensus satisfaction with the record number of democratic years since 1999, darkness still ominously clouds our political landscape.
While the nation continues to experience the paradox of plenty and citizens are once again provoked by this latest round of prodigality of our political elite one cannot but sigh in disbelief that these casts of gladiators seem not to have learned anything from our inglorious political history. The recklessness and impunity with which public institutions and resources are being handled; the daily news of systemic and now democratized corruption by political office holders and their business elite collaborators has entrenched cynicism and pessimism in the land. How can our political elite not see that we are all sitting on kegs of gun powder? How can they not see that whatever peace we may appear to have at this time is like the peace of the graveyard? How can they not see that the teeming population of extremely angry and more interconnected young people cannot be silent for too much longer?
How can they not know that preachments of patience and sacrifice will no longer placate the two million young people who annually enter the terribly constrained labor market pushing up the already worrisome 40% unemployment ratio among our youthful population? How can they not see the hypocrisy of the platitudes on sacrifice to poor citizens who thanks to greater access to information are able to closely follow the lifestyle of delusional grandeur and debauchery that their leaders finance from the public treasury? Where is the much needed innovative and entrepreneurial mind-set that the public sector must earnestly deploy in solving the multiple problems of our nation? Why does our own variant of political elite not even understand the most basic necessity for change of the status quo methods that have failed to deliver benefits of governance to citizens?
“Elites resist innovation because they have a vested interest in resisting change — and new technologies that create growth can alter the balance of economic or political assets in a country. Technological innovation makes human societies prosperous, but also involves the replacement of the old with the new, and the destruction of the economic privileges and political power of certain people,” wrote Acemoglu and Robinson. Yet when elites temporarily preserve power by preventing innovation, they ultimately impoverish their own states. Sadly, they most often do not care what happens to the rest of the nation, and that arguably has been the lot of Nigerian through the years. In the course of the last six months of my returning home to Nigeria after five year in international public service at the World Bank in Washington DC, I have many times come across the cutting anger of unemployed, disillusioned citizens who are louder in their disaffection with the condition of the country.
The strident voices of citizens in public debates of national issues are louder and more penetrating than ever before. We are indeed at a turning point. How it turns however will be determined by you my dear friends. Today, you are the generation that holds the ace. You are the generation for whom the stakes are highest on the issue of how well this nation turns its governance corner. You are the generation that can define a new character and quality of politics in Nigeria and inherently the quality of governance outcomes in the decades and century ahead. You are the generation that can birth a New Nigeria devoid of all negatives that have inhibited our greatness and one in which every citizen is mobilized to construct a “National Integrity System” which is imperative for the building of every decent society.
You can do so by seeking to understand and to engage the stunted political context and nation that you have inherited. You will have to take hold of both and turn them around into a mature democracy and nation. What you must seek to do is to create a new political context in which citizens’ demand for good governance and accountability begins to compel those who govern to persistently make choices that will more likely improve the outcomes of economic management for the larger number of Nigerians. You have the tools needed for massive political and civic education of your illiterate peers on the importance of political rights and participation in the political process. By virtue of your university education and experiences you understand the economics of politics in Nigeria better than your illiterate peers who ignorantly trade off their political rights and chances for better governance outcomes for a mere mess of porridge. Economics teaches us that there are some basic Smithian conditions (as espoused by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations) for sustainable economic growth. No country has become rich, and stayed that way, without establishing these conditions.
Countries such as Great Britain and the United States became rich because their citizens overthrew the elites who controlled power and created a society with political rights more broadly distributed and the government accountable and responsive to citizens. In these countries the great mass of people could take advantage of economic opportunities and so the entire nation prospered. To the contrary, nations dominated by self-centred elite fail and they are extremely poor. Your generation can work as collectives across this country and set the agenda for lasting positive change in the political architecture of Nigeria. Only after reading Why Nations Fail did I finally understand the wise words of Plato that “one of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors”. Therefore, do not be like me and my kind who have ignored politics and left it to professional politicians to determine its character and substance. The incentive that must drive your own impulses on whether to engage or not is the knowledge that except the insalubrious political context that has produced a persistently failing Nigeria changes positively; your individual talents, opportunities and greatness will not materialize nor be maximized. In deciding to free Nigeria from its legendary political failures, you will actually free yourselves to excel like your contemporaries in the rest of the world.
“The positive dimensions of succeeding at this task democratizing political powers beyond the minuscule are accountability, property rights and rule of law, which in combination provide low transactions cost so that markets can work effectively and efficiently. When these conditions are absent, a society faces corruption, instability and poor human rights. Investors, including domestic investors, flee such settings”. Do you now see how inextricably connected our political and economic fortunes are in determining the quality of life of the Nigerian? Do you now see what our Big Problem is? A recent global survey showed that your generation around the world stands out as the most connected to the developments in international affairs. So, most of you will assuredly be aware that not just in our nation but that everywhere else world over, people are seeking for those who can solve the Big Problems in their respective nations. In several other nations the solutions to Big Problems are coming from your generational peers. Surely, having established that our own Big Problem is the failure of politics to deliver the right environment in which a productive economy can thrive outside of the extraction of natural resources that fuels the destructive choices of our ruling elite you have the information needed for driving change.
You would have to decide whether you are ready to play the role a change catalyst or would rather adopt the safer option which is to “siddon look.” There is no better time to make such life changing decisions than the day of one’s graduation from College. I should know about making decisions on graduation day! On my graduation day in 1985, my fertile mind having absorbed as much of the eclectic knowledge available on this campus as possible was budding with curiosity about the challenges of good governance in Nigeria. I made up my mind at that time to never lose my VOICE in the society and that for as long as I lived, I would always speak up on matters of governance, transparency, accountability and probity.
Divine providence followed that decision and the supportive actions I took to back it and my steps began to be ordered on a trajectory that had me as one of the leaders of our own generations’ campaign for democracy and good governance- The Concerned Professionals with the likes of Pat Utomi, Sam Oni, Morin Babalola and many others. Staying committed to that decision that I made on graduation day was what provided me the rare privilege of becoming one of the few co-founders and a founding director of Transparency International the Berlin based global non-governmental organization that pioneered the work on anti-corruption and promotion of transparency. That decision that I made on graduation day informed all my life choices and paved the path for what you know of my vocational endeavors. So what decisions are you prepared to make today, dear friends? I assure you that the greatest gift of God to mankind is the power to choose. You are therefore empowered to make decisions and choices today that will ultimately determine what, where and how you will be in the next twenty eight years and beyond……..
But I warn you to be mindful and not rush to decide. You will need to fully assess all the possible costs of your decisions and choices and then determine whether you have the strength of will to bear them. Whatever choices you make from today for the purpose of helping build a New Nigeria will most certainly cost you something. Such is the reality of nation rebuilding. Those who truly build their societies pay a price. They are not For example you cannot be one given to the lure of free money, one who cannot defer gratification and one for whom the path of least resistance holds abiding fascination; and then say you are part of the Turning Point Generation. No! The willingness to “enjoy” wealth that is not earned is not consistent with such Turning Point paradigm.
For example, for anyone of you in the Class of 2013 you cannot having perverted the maxim “reward for effort” cheating in exams or using forged certificates to gain your admission and say you are a catalyst for the emergence of the New Nigeria. If your decisions or choices from today are driven by some selfish interest of replacing the failed and fading generations so as to repeat their nation-hobbling pattern then please know that you are not of the Turning Point Generation. I have spoken to you today to stir up your collective effective angst at the indignity of your inheritance. If I have succeeded in raising your determination to free our nation from the trap of oil, then my coming is worthy. If I have succeeded in helping you see how continuous education not more extraction of oil will help you outperform and take Nigeria up the economic development ladder, then my coming worthy.
If I have succeeded in preparing you to embrace dignity of labor as your philosophy of life –never shunning legitimate vocation that helps you earn a living regardless of how lowly it might seem- then my coming is worthy. If today, I have succeeded in preparing you for a life of private and public integrity then my coming is worthy. If I have deposited in you a deep seethed contempt for poor governance, then my coming is worthy. If I have succeeded in preparing you for a lifetime of costly choices that invariably ennoble your path then my coming is worthy.
If I have succeeded in helping you realize that you are not weak- that you are actually very powerful- and have both the exceptional opportunities and the tools like your peers in other nations to solve our own Big Problem then my coming is worthy. If I have moved you to decide that you will be one of those that will redefine and build a New Nigeria of our dream then is my coming worthy. If I have succeeded in inspiring a resolve within you to uphold from today a strong sense of personal responsibility for the political governance of Nigeria then my coming is worthy. Above all, if I have succeeded in getting you motivated and empowered enough to walk out of this hall seeing ready to walk and work as a part of the Turning Point Generation that courageously dares to restore the dignity of Nigeria then my BEING is truly worth it!
I salute you, the great lions and lionesses of the class of 2013! All of you, my dear fellow alumnae of the University of Nigeria are indeed the true Wealth, the Greatness and above all the Dignity of Nigeria!!
Thank you for listening.
OBIAGELI KATRYN EZEKWESILI
CLASS OF 1985, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA SENIOR ECONOMIC ADVISER, AFRICA ECONOMIC POLICY DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE
OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATION.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-53387350906378615602013-04-13T16:30:00.001-07:002013-04-19T07:08:53.077-07:00Doing business in Nigeria
•Why experts rate it worst among 185 nations
By ISAAC ANUMIHE
Doing business in Nigeria has been discovered from expert finds to be one of the most difficult among the over 185 economies of the world. A study by the World Bank, which examined the procedures, time and cost involved in launching a commercial or industrial firm with up to 50 employees and start-up capital of 10 times the economy’s per-capita gross national income, found that Nigeria was the costliest in terms of money, time and infrastructure deficit. Even the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) online system commissioned in June 2005 to facilitate the process, has not helped matters as it immediately went comatose as soon as it took off.
The system was expected to search unique company names immediately upon the purchase of an e-payment card from an accredited bank. “Although, this service was widely advertised by CAC, until now the system is not fully operational either because of power fluctuation or because of lack of availability of the pre-paid cards necessary to conduct the on-line transaction. In most cases, the applicants have to go to the CAC office to complete this procedure,” the study said. It further said that to prepare the requisite incorporation documents, the incorporators must complete the requisite statutory forms, prepare and print the memorandum and articles of association and have them stamped by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and this takes seven days with a 0.75 percent stamp duty paid on capital. The declaration by the solicitor engaged in the formation of the company may be sworn to at either the State High Court for a fee of N250 and that lasts one day. ?
The same way, the declaration by the solicitor engaged in the formation of the company may be sworn to at either the State High Court for a fee of N250 or at the Federal High Court for a fee of N100. After this, the person will register the company with the CAC and pay fees at the bank desk at CAC. However, to register the company with the CAC, the following incorporation documents are submitted:?? •Name reservation and availability form that will include two copies of memorandum and articles of association, stamped by the commissioner for stamp duties Forms CAC 3, CAC 4, declaration of compliance, Form CAC 7, particulars of directors, Form CAC 2, statement of share capital and return of allotment of shares. That is followed by the payment of incorporation fees of N10,000 for company whose nominal share capital does not exceed N1,000,000, and N10,000 for every N1,000,000 thereafter. Incorporation fees for a company whose share capital exceeds N1,000,000, N10,000 for the first N1,000,000.00 and N10,000 for every additional N1,000,000 or N500 incorporation forms, stamp duties payable on the share capital of a company at the rate of 0.75 per cent, N500 for each additional copy of memorandum and articles of association stamped, N3,000 for certified true copy of memorandum and articles of association, N2,000 for certified true copy of particulars of directors, N2,000 for certified true copy of particulars of shareholders. Moreover, N60,000 is the approximate cost of company incorporation conducted by professionals (lawyers, chartered accountants or chartered secretaries) accredited by CAC and the payment can be done at the bank desk at CAC.
A study on the rigours of business in Nigeria noted that “in June 2005, the CAC commissioned a system for online company registration, in which registration documents and payments may be processed electronically by the commission’s accredited lawyers. But the system is not yet fully implemented. This costs N59,592 legal fees; N500 incorporation forms; N20,000 incorporation fees; N500 for each additional copy of memorandum and N500 for additional copy of the Articles of Association stamped; N 3,000 for certified true copy of memorandum and articles of association; N2,000 for certified true copy of particulars of directors; N2,000 for certified true copy of particulars of shareholders.” Also, to register with the Federal Board of Inland Revenue Department of the Ministry of Finance for income tax and VAT, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) requires the applicant to complete tax registration forms for corporate income tax registration as well as VAT. “The company submits an application letter to the tax authority for a tax clearance certificate and, for income tax purposes, registers at the integrated tax office.? The registration requires submitting a completed tax office–issued application (taxpayer registration input form, TRIF/2006/001 COYS) with:?Tax registration forms for corporate income tax as well as VAT; an application letter to the tax authority for tax clearance certificate and, for income tax purposes; registers at the integrated tax office.? It requires submitting a completed tax office–issued application (taxpayer registration input form, TRIF/2006/001 COYS) with: completed FIRS questionnaire; memorandum and articles of association; certificate of incorporation; directors’ names and addresses; tax adviser’s name and address; letter of appointment of a tax adviser and corresponding letter of acceptance; the date the company commenced business; names, addresses and mobile numbers of major promoters and the chairman of the company, including their email addresses? Besides the cost of time, money and lack of infrastructure, corruption at every facet and stage of the processes of registration and the general economy are huge drawbacks for investors.
Any serious business organization in Nigeria runs on generators to process its goods and services and this affects the cost of products and services to the effect that even imported finished products are cheaper in the Nigerian market. For example, mobile telecommunication companies power over their over 10 million cell sites all over the country with generators; pay security and operators of the generators. Even after paying for the location of the base stations, they still have to tip the community in which the base stations are located for them to allow the stations to stay. The security question has been an intractable issue in Nigeria today. Most of the masts have been blown off by vandals and the companies have replaced them at extra costs. So, for investors, Nigeria is a dreaded place for business because investing in Nigeria is not only at a great cost but at a great risk. Following this, most of the firms have relocated to the neighbouring countries. The result is increase in unemployment and crime. In addition to that, interest rate for credit facilities is unacceptably high in Nigeria. While some banks charge up to 17 per cent, others charge as high as 21 per cent. This has made borrowing difficult for small scale industries.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-6754871642868956792013-04-13T16:28:00.001-07:002013-04-19T07:10:15.351-07:00Utomi: Agriculture and the boundaries of povertyFriday, 15 March 2013 00:00 By Pat Utomi Opinion - Columnists
HOW people notice shifting emphasis so subtle that even you who is the object have not been as deliberate about it, puzzles me. When a friend recently asked how come agriculture was my new thing, I paused to wonder how true that was. Then it dawned on me I was speaking more and more about poverty and agriculture as critical to its alleviation. But my response to the friend was that I had always been passionate about agriculture and was actually on my third missionary journey into farming and agro-allied business.
If I was not emotionally connected to the land when I first farmed plots allocated by the Benin Owena River Basin Authority in 1983 along the Ogwashi Uku – Kwale road, I should be now. Middle age suggests the earth will sooner consume my mortal remains in higher probability than when as 27 years old I was just driven by a sense of opportunity in agricultural enterprise, and finding anchor to my country cousins. Today though, the urgency is much higher. Poverty gnores at us and the conscience of the still sane in our land is troubled by the unequal society we have created and the ticking time bomb, so those who still think, ponder where the solution can come from as they cast envious glances at Brazil that dramatically reduced poverty during the Inacio Lula DaSilva years.
For some of us, a big part of redemption possibilities come from agriculture not only for enhanced incomes to a broad base of the population but for food security and for feeding value chains where Nigeria has factor endowments and must become globally competitive to and claimed the promise of a leading economy on the planet. I am a cheerleader for the Agriculture Minister, Akinwunmi Adeshina. This is not just because he is smart but because of his understanding of his mission, what status may surface here and there in mastering the context so implementation can be seamless. I felt this way from the time of his appointment but I grew in appreciating him when by happenstance we sat next to each other on a flight from Abuja to Lagos.
I told him how agriculture must become business and have sex appeal so a new generation that aspires to a high quality of life can see in it much attraction. As I told him my farming story and initiatives I was working on to help farmers overcome the middlemen that keep them poor and therefore see incentives to grow more, and to bolster the value chain, I could see his eyes pop up like a Christmas tree, I knew for certain then he was the man for the job. What has challenged my missionary journeys into agriculture. It is an insight into the Nigerian condition and led me to horrifying conclusion that will shake Thomas Hobbes in his grave about the Leviathan and man’s escape from the brutish state of nature.The reason Nigerians are poor is without doubt in my mind the nature of the governments and politics of Nigeria. My farming Odyssey is a good illustration of this.
America’s rise as an economic power was profoundly affected by 18th century Act of congress that ceded to anybody who could cultivate certain acreage of land. Hernado De Soto in his discussion of the mystery of capital and institutions that sustain intermediation follows many others who anchor the American ascendancy on law that, this is why as you fly across that vast country all you see is cultivated land. The land grant university system that would follow and hire purchase of farm equipment innovation by John Dare round up to the rise that equally endowed Argentina failed to capture. The lack of imagination here is that those who desire to farm lack access to it and so all you see is bush, vast stretches of uncultivated rich lands in country of people strangely malnourished.
As the UNICEF deputy country representative said at a recent forum, when the statistics of malnourishment in Nigeria presented to the Governors Forum, Chibuike Amaechi, its chairman, exclaimed, in this Nigeria? This clear show of the disconnect between policy makers and reality is at the heart of why government is sadly the trouble with Nigeria. My first missionary journey into farming, which I said started in 1983, was abandoned when I discovered one danger of the absentee farmer. On a visit my partner found that the farm lands for whom we had built lodging rooms inside the farm had covered one corner of the 70 hectares into a private venture of their own, growing Marijuana. We quickly shut down the farm. It would take nearly 20 years for a trusted childhood friend who had been manager of several big farms to be free and fully available to be on ground, to try again.
With 12 hectares from the 1983 location we started out, seeking government help to acquire more. When Delta State Government wanted to showcase its gains in agriculture it was to that farm they brought a film crew. But the bureaucracy continued to play games with our desire for more land to expand. If with none to zero financial capital and other goodwill we could have the showcase farm why would the needful not be done? The ways of governance in Nigeria challenge belief. Then suddenly the land we had been assured of just across from us was allocated to Obasanjo Farms. Obasanjo Farms has utilized less than a quarter of the land, yet those who want to farm cannot find land. The intervention of the governor has resulted in new efforts to make things right but this is classic example of how well intentioned efforts get aborted with consequences for spreading poverty and for the common good, that is untoward. Had I no access to the governor’s goodwill it would never even appear on the radar as one more thing that stalled possibilities. It was almost the same thing that mortally frustrated another initiative, 12 years earlier for a valley type ICT cluster near Asaba, on the outskirts of Illah.
In that case people using the cloak of government deliberately set out to frustrate a private sector initiative that could have placed the state in technology leadership in this region of the world. What makes it more scary is that the purpose of our venture is more the hope of example to the local farmers as an out-grower hub than the chase of great profit, even though there is nothing wrong with profit. A personal truth, for which gratitude to the giver of the gift of reason is worthwhile, is that I am already as rich as I possibly can be. Simple minded as it may sound, a decent roof over my head, three meals a day if I desire, but usually two seem enough, and the ability to pay fees for children into whatever school in the world they choose, if they qualify, is the ultimate in wealth and seems to have been within my reach for many years already. So I could not figure out the nature of how governments work in Nigeria. When it fails to incentivize those who can be the source of future taxes and reducing unemployment for the citizens. The farm project was part of a vertically integrated initiative to create a market system that would put profits in pockets of farmers rather than middlemen that add little value. In that initiative we would have fruit and vegetable wholesale markets and retail supermarkets.
Working with South African franchisors we approached Lagos and Ogun State governments for land. Ogun came through, bank facilities and equity was raised, and construction started. Then a new governor was elected in Ogun State a watch hunt of which we were not the target ensued. Frustrated investors, facilities in excesses of a hundred million tied up later and we are still wondering why the people are poor.
And often it is one civil servant with ulterior motives, driven by the now widely acknowledged disposition to goal displacement who deceives the new governor and lead him to personal embarrassment. But we must not give up because the graveyard and judgment beckon us all. Agriculture has to become attractive business. When one of the big consulting firms invited me to address select officers of the Ministry of Agriculture last year and my staff wondered if they should discount on my speaking fee and how I chuckled. I was going to do something that was duty and joyful play and I would earn more value for it in a way more than some hamlets of subsistence farmers could make in a year. If we all cannot work to raise such income levels of those peasant farmers we have a case to answer. How can progress come when the typical farmer still lives as in Jawney’s metaphor, which opened Scott’s Moral Economy of the Peasant: so deep in water even a ripple could drown him.
My commitment to agriculture and its redeeming value even sipped into my academic work at the Lagos Business School. Not long before unhappiness with how political life was crippling Nigeria and my decision to seek engagement in partisan politics, I founded the Centre for Applied Economics at the Lagos Business School. Its core purpose was to focus on value chain analysis with a view to engaging in research to generate evidence showing how building from select factor endowments into global value chains could boost Nigeria’s economic performance. Four of the five factor endowments the centre’s research has to focus on were from agriculture.
These were sesame seeds, Gum Arabic, oil palm and my favorite, rubber. My view was Nigeria would create millions of jobs and earn more income from these than crude oil on enclave sector. The fifth was the hydrocarbons value chain for obvious reasons to answer. Well. Guess I will just continue to dig my grave. Six feet may seem shallow but it is a long way to sink when life’s journey is through stone hard poverty territory. Nigeria, unfortunately, and undeservedly, is hard rock territory in quality of life matters. The shame is that government and politics make the rock harder. Surely it should be instructive that the private sector arm of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) will not touch any project that has government interest. Amazing paradox is that what was designed to relieve the pain of the citizen has become a greater source of grief for him.
• Prof. Utomi, Political Economist and pioneering professor of Entrepreneurship is founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-17520109348655312402013-04-13T16:27:00.000-07:002013-04-19T07:10:24.308-07:00 Convoy Clash: I am Still in Shock, Traumatised, Says Anyanwu
By Senator Iroegbu
31 Dec 2012
http://www.thisdayonline.com/
The echoes of last Thursday’s convoy power-show between the security aides of Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Navy, Senator Chris Anyanwu, along the Owerri-Umuahia highway is still reverberating, as Anyanwu said she is still traumatised and in shock.
But the governor in a statement by his Special Adviser Media, Mr. Ebere Uzoukwu, claimed that it was Anyanwu’s convoy, which broke into the convoy with a view to killing him (Okorocha).
Anyanwu in a telephone conversation with THISDAY Sunday , said she was yet to come to terms with the reason behind the dehumanising treatment meted out to her and her aides by Okorocha’s aides on that day.
The Senator, who represents the Owerri/Imo South senatorial district noted that what baffled her most was that she visited the governor on the day of the incident, and wondered what may have informed the “brutal act of macabre dance,” while he (Okorocha) watched with “mean” approval.
“This is traumatising, and I am still in shock as am talking to you. I don’t know what this show of power is all about,” she said.
Asked if she had had any personal squabbles with the governor to prompt the incident, she simply said: “Not at all.”
“In fact, in the morning of the sad episode, I visited the Government House to say hello to the governor. I was actually going home (from Owerri after the visit), and they were just behind me, way-laid me in the middle of the road. I don’t know that this man (Rochas) is so deceptive and criminally-minded,” she said.
Anyanwu, who is a member of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), which Okorocha also belongs, said something must be done to “stop such abusive acts.”
“I don’t understand where this is coming from because if you see the picture of my driver...they almost broke his skull. I am numbs, if nothing is done to tell this people...if they can do this to me, what would have happened to other people. I think I am numbs because whatever you might say about Okorocha, it is not about harassment,” she noted.
Continuing, she said: “It is like what happened in Enugu (convoy brutality) but he denied it. He is so deceptive that you can never predict what this man can do. Here is a very serious situation that we need to seriously look into.
“This man saw me on the road, way laid me and his security men pointed their gun at me and he could not stop them and say; ‘hey this is my Senator’. Even if I am not a Senator, I am a human being with rights of movement and dignity.”
Meanwhile, Uzoukwu said Anyanwu’s claim that Okorocha sat in his car and watched his security aides drag out her drivers and security aides from her convoy of three cars to beat them was false and a “blatant lie”.
“It was a planned action to get at the governor and if possible eliminate him in the process... the entire story that the Senator had fed to the media, were all lies concocted to save her face after her plans were aborted.
“The governor is yet to fully recover from the shock of the experience and investigations are on to unravel other culprits who were also involved in the obvious plot to eliminate the governor, who since assumption of office has remained a symbol of peace and mutual coexistence among all political and religious groups in the state,” he said.
Tags: Featured, Nigeria, News, Rochas Okorocha
War over Imo gov’s convoy accident
Our Reporter December 29, 2012
From GEORGE ONYEJIUWA,Owerri.
The controversy trailing Thursday’s clash between the security aides of Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and those of Senator Chris Anyanwu along the Owerri-Umuahia highway continued yesterday with exchange of harsh words between the warring parties. While the governor in a statement insisted that Anyanwu’s convoy broke into his with a view to kill him, the Senator who incidentally is representing the state in the National Assembly and elected on the same political platform,
All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA as the governor accused Okorocha of telling lies by feeding the public with a false account of what happened. She narrated how the governor sat in his car watching his security aides drag out her drivers and security aides from her three car convoy to beat them and break their heads in a naked show of state power.
The governor however in a press statement signed by his media adviser, Ebere Uzoukwa said that contrary to claims by Senator Anyanwu that Governor Okorocha ordered his security details to attack her convoy, the governor narrowly escaped death after the Senator ordered her Naval security aides to open fire on the vehicle conveying the Governor, adding that, “he was quickly shielded by his security men, who whisked him away to safety”. In her own account of the incident, Anyanwu described the governor’s narration as a blatant lie.
According to her: “The governor lied. This is one case governor Rochas cannot cover up. And no amount of propaganda can turn the truth on its head. What happened was a simple case of shameful show of power….a governor visiting the governed with brutality for absolutely no reason. “My three cars were ahead of the governor. There was no indication the governor was approaching. No flags, no advance outriders. There was a hyundai bus with tinted glasses , a number of small cars and open hilux with many uniformed men. Being ahead of them on the busy Owerri- Umuahia road, it was difficult to know who was coming until the hilux passed us.
We then immediately cleared the road and stopped for them to pass. But instead of passing, five vehicles completely surrounded our three cars. Over thirty men from all sides descended on us. “First they tried to force open my car. My driver locked it. Then they went to my advance car and back up cars. Pulled out the drivers, plummeted one and pushed him into the gutter. The other one they dragged into the bush. Ten men descended on him., gashed his head and continued to pound him until I ran out of my car barefooted pleading “ don’t kill him. He is my driver. I am Senator Anyanwu. One non-uniformed man turned on me, cocked his gun at me and said he would blow me away if I didn’t back off.” She further accused the governor of ordering his security aides to disarm her own security aide. “Governor Rochas had ordered his men to disarm my police security.
They tore his uniform, ripped off his belt used it to flog his body and snatched his gun. In the struggle that ensued from that order, my men were able to snatch back their gun. “It is clear that if I had not run out to beg and shout against their ferocious brutality, they would have killed someone and come out lying to cover up their acts. But by coming out to identify myself, it was obvious that they had been caught in their act. They scampered off and immediately called a press conference to do damage control. Here are the questions to ask….
If we were ahead of the governor’s motorcade, how then was it possible to run into his motorcade, block him off, do all the things that read like children’s fiction. Ask the governor how did my driver end up in the bush with his ahead gashed. What did he do and what did he say. He was watching it all. We saw him. A statement released by the governor’s spokesman yesterday however countered Anyanwu saying danger was averted because the governor who was visibly shocked by the Senator’s show of ‘recklessness’, remained calm, while she continued to rain abuses on Okorocha after slapping his Aide Camp and Chief security Detail with her shoe.
Uzoukwa maintained that the conduct of the Senator during the encounter that attracted a siezable crowd on the highway showed that, “it was a planned action to get at the Governor and if possible eliminate him in the process”, adding “that the entire story that the Senator had fed to the media, were all lies concocted to save her face after her plans were aborted”.
He added that “the Governor is yet to fully recover from the shock of the experience and investigations are on to unravel other culprits who were also involved in the obvious plot to eliminate the Governor, who since assumption of office has remained a symbol of peace and mutual coexistence among all political and religious groups in the state”.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-83370114047690343932013-04-13T16:26:00.001-07:002013-04-19T07:11:24.144-07:00Oshiomhole @ 61: STORY OF MY LIFEOur Reporter April 6, 2013 2 Comments »
By ERIC OSAGIE
On Thursday, April 4, 2013, Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, marked his 61st birthday. For him, it was a time to look back at his life, as he took time off to tell his story. In this interview, the governor talked about his growing up, his life as a unionist, his wife and close to five years in government.
Excerpts.
Congratulations on your 61st birthday, comrade governor. Looking back, how has the journey been for you? Do you feel anything different?
Of course, the body can’t be the same. However, talking seriously, I think my life has been one of a miracle. It is in the sense that, looking back at my little village, Iyamho, where I was born, the very humble condition of my parents, all I had then, my dream in life, I mean everything has been miraculous. First, leaving the village for Kaduna, not knowing anybody there but just believing that if I get there I have a job, naivety, the innocence and of course, getting there to find out that life was not as exactly as I had assumed. In that condition, I had to sleep in a police station for three nights!
When you got to Kaduna?
Yes. There was nowhere to stay. Only God can explain all that happened. That is why I said it is a life of miracle. But it has always been exciting. Nothing has come easy; everything has been the result of struggles. The struggles were not by my strength. I believe God just used me to do those things. God has shown comforting power that is awesome. Only God can shield you from the poisonous teeth of those forces that I had to confront. And even to be alive can only be ascribed to the infinite powers of God to protect those He chose. Being here today, after our struggles at the factory level, the NLC etc is amazing. It has been a very exciting life and I have every reason to appreciate God, thank Him for His infinite powers to favour those He chose to. I think am one of the very few of such people.
What was your childhood like for you?
It was tough, extremely tough. You come from a village, your parents are peasant farmers, you had to go school as well as go to the farm, get support here and there to be able to meet your obligation even at secondary school level; it was quite tough. But I also believe that that tough beginning prepares you for the rigours of life. Like my late father used to say to me, when he felt that he had made us to work too hard and we were beginning to feel that he was hard on us, ‘Adams, hard work does not kill but laziness kills.’ And that hard work is physical; it is on the farm. You don’t say because it is raining, we are not going to farm today, no. Because it is raining, you must quickly prepare and go to farm and plant so that seedling will be ok.
So you actually farmed?
Yes, as a little boy we had to follow our parents to the farm. It was normal. What was abnormal was to stay at home when your father was at the farm. Even when you go to school, as you close by 2pm, you still had to go to the farm to do few things.
Were you the eldest?
Yes , I was the first born.
Who were you particularly close to, your mother or father?
My father was a very gentle guy; he worked so hard, he didn’t like to hurt his children; he would advise you, counsel you but he never beat anyone; he would never raise his voice. But my mum is a typical headmistress, very strict. She would abuse you as well as physically deal with you if you do not do what she asks you to do. So, in my innocence, I thought my father was a much more friendly parent than my mum. I thought my mum was too hard. In fact, I had once complained that if my mum were like my dad, I would be such a happy person. My mum is a bit on the very hard side. When she heard of it, she called me and said something to the effect that I did not like her. I said no, that I was just saying that my father was a good man.
What were those childhood pranks you did while growing up in the village. What were they?
The truth is as my mum would tell you, there were many things that my age mates used to do which I never indulged myself in. I was very serious-minded. We went to climb palm trees when my mates were playing around. I climbed palm trees to get palm kernels, palm fronts to weave baskets etc, but my friends and mates were going about looking for little thing. So, mine was hard work. I can’t remember any of those things like pranks.
At what point did you make up your mind to go to Kaduna and what was the motivation?
In the village, we were told that in the North, there were a lot of opportunities; that once you finished secondary school and have your certificate you can pick any job there. Based on this road side, under the trees conversation, I got convinced that I could get a job in Kaduna. We just arranged, did some work, raised some money to pay our fares and we went on the big truck, Man Diesel. I don’t know what it is called now. Oh yeah, we sat at this section called ‘second class.’ It took us about three days, going through Ilorin. Obviously, I am a Kaduna made. I left my village at about the age of 16.
What was your first shock in Kaduna?
We got there in the night. We discovered that life was not as we were told. The first shocker was that we thought that once we met our people there, those from our village, they would just welcome us with open hand, but that was not to be. We thought like that because the practice in the village was that when a stranger comes and he wants where to stay, families that have a space will volunteer a space; the strangers will live there without paying any rent. We thought it was like that everywhere. We went to Kaduna and found out that everywhere we went; they said there was no space. Then I thought they were wicked, but now I understand the reason for their action. These are also poor people who were living in one room with wives and children. They just divide the room with curtain. So, where will they put you if they accept that you stay with them? It is contrary to what obtained in the village, where you may be poor but you will have a large compound; you will build a large house; there may be no windows, but the space will be big for everybody. So, we just found out that there was no place to stay; we ended up in the police station for three nights. After the third night, the police ejected us and told us that the place was not a hotel. But then it shows that in those days police were very friendly. All we needed to tell them was that we were stranded.
How many of you were in the journey?
We were three.
Are they still alive? Yeah. We were stranded, when it was getting to 9 pm we didn’t know where to go. We later resolved to go to the nearest police station, report ourselves and they accepted that we should sleep there. In the morning, we went about looking for where to stay; we didn’t find. We returned to the station. We did that for three days.
What was your first job?
My first job was as a boy who worked for surveyors. I did that for about a year before I went to Arewa Textile, where I was employed. Again, it is interesting; in those days you would register with the Ministry of Labour. When the employers wanted who to recruit, they contacted the Ministry of Labour; they will ask the number they wanted. They conducted the interviews and sent to them the number of employees they wanted.
You rose through the ranks, becoming the General Secretary and later NLC President. At what point in your career did it become obvious to you that you had to fight for the downtrodden?
After being employed, usually before you were offered full employment, you had to go through what they call medical examination and all that. When they were certified that you were fine, they would then give you uniforms, usually two pairs; they will take you to various departments. In my own case, we were about 16 that were recruited. We were handed over to the supervisor. He just looked at me and said stay there. I was looking the smallest. I wasn’t the youngest, but the smallest. He assigned the others to their various sections and units. He came to me and said he didn’t think I could work, saying I was too small and looked too fragile and therefore wouldn’t cope. He said they did 24-hour operations, 7am to 7pm, 7am to 7pm, two shifts, 12 hours each and therefore I wouldn’t cope. I said he should try me. He took me back to the personnel department and handed me over to the personnel man and said they were not accepting me. I pleaded with him but he refused. He had not tested me; it was not that I couldn’t do the job I was employed for. He just looked at me and dismissed me. The man is called Mr. Joshua. I pleaded with him, but he would not accept. When he took me back to the personnel manager, Mr. Shaba, from Niger State. He said, ‘Sir, we cannot accept this boy because he doesn’t look fit to work.’ The man asked if he gave me a job to do. He said that I wouldn’t do anything. I had to talk. I told the man I could do the job. The manager told him to go give me any job available. That was how he dismissed both of us. As we were going back, the supervisor said: ‘well, if I refuse, it will look as if I have anything against you. I don’t have. It is just that I do not think you can do this job.’ I said: ‘No sir. I will be able to do the job, Sir.’ How do you just look at a man who you didn’t ask any question and you just conclude that he is not fit? How could I have looked fit when I was not employed and I was hungry? I had nowhere to stay. I had no money. I needed the job to look fit. For me, I saw abuse of power by the supervisor. I saw that he didn’t like me, not for what I said or did or what I failed to do but just on the basis of my look. My look disqualified me in his eyes. I saw that people who have power and have no wisdom can do anything. The guy would have just terminated my life because without a job, how would I have looked fit? I needed the job because I knew I was gradually going. That day I said to myself that if ever I had an opportunity, people like this needed to be humbled. I joined the union immediately I got employed. I needed the union for protection. Having seen that I could be dispensed with like that, I joined the union. I felt the union was not doing enough because I saw people being dismissed every day over minor cases. You just come in the morning, if the Japanese didn’t like your face, any little mistake would cost you your job. They may just give you pay cut. Workers were being suppressed and we had nobody to complain to. The union, in my view, wasn’t doing enough. At a point, I stopped paying union dues.
Was it voluntary?
Yes, it was voluntary. They were collecting it by hand. I felt they were collecting money from us but not protecting anybody. People said they wanted me to be the union man. That was the beginning of my unionism. I took the job. Even that supervisor who wanted me out, I had occasion to interrogate him on his decision on disciplinary issues. Eventually we got him out. He was a very reckless fellow. Another painful one was that when I became the secretary of the branch union, that manager who saved me had problem with the union. We agitated for his removal. Those politics he used in my favour which was firmness, was good, but when it comes to the issues of welfare, it’s different matter. When someone’s job has been wrongly terminated, the union took it seriously. The purpose of union is to question the authority of management. The man would say that it was management’s decision or prerogative, but we would say it should be subject to democratic scrutiny by workers, who were affected by the exercise of that prerogative. So when it was increasingly impossible to get him to negotiate and make some concession we agitated that the man be removed, it was popular among the workers that he should go because everybody had one story to tell. I provided leadership; we got rid of him. That is part of the union challenge, that when the majority of the people have made a decision your responsibility as a leader is to carry it out; it does not matter if you do not personally believe in that resolution or decision. For me, when it comes to personal friendship and my responsibility, it is clear you must sacrifice friendship. Workers said the man must go. Who was I to say he wouldn’t go? If I do that, I would have betrayed the workers, especially when they had a good reason, which included that he did not like to bend once he had made a decision, right or wrong. The purpose of forming union is to question managerial prerogative and to subject management to negotiate and make concession. All my involvement in union is as a result of my own experience. When I got more exposed, I saw how those who wield political power abused it.
How many years have you been in this struggle?
The time I have worked for employer was about three years to four years. The rest of my life was working for workers.
Can you recall some of the memories of those years? Memorable events…
You know the way the union thing operates, each time we organised; we were able to humble the employer, particularly when we fought SAP through the use of strike weapon. In the case of an employer or the big man up there, what he said he won’t do in the morning, two, three days, he is ready to do it; we feel a lot of joy that this guy who was so powerful is now ready to come to your level and negotiate and get him to reverse some of his decisions. One particular one I remember was the agreement we had with the management of Arewa Textile. We said every year, on the first day of March, which is taken to be the end of financial year, every worker shall be entitled to increment and those who were adjudged to be hard working shall be entitled to additional merit increment, like a bonus. At the end of the year, they did their assessment and about 25 per cent of the workers didn’t even get increment. They said it was because workers were not found to be worthy of any increment. The language of the agreement was clear: once you are in employment you will automatically have increment. But if you are very good management, in its discretion, can give you additional steps. But it has no discretion on whether to give you the annual increment; once you are still in employment, you are entitled to it. So, it was like the issue of interpretation. When the management consulted its lawyer, the legal adviser said the union’s interpretation was correct, no condition was attached except that you were in employment. But the Japanese managing director asked the general manager (administration), who was a lawyer to explain how a union could defeat him in an argument. We were happy that we, who were lay men, could write an agreement that could not be defeated by a lawyer. We always had problems. There were struggles; sometime you win, sometime you lose. We paid dearly, because that was under military rule. By 1969, government came up with the first prohibition of strike; they criminalised the right to strike under the emergency decree. It was on account of the civil war; they said the country could not afford incessant strikes, when it was still fighting war. Those laws, which were made to stabilise the polity had a negative impact on the power of the unions to interrogate their employers. The employers knew that if workers didn’t agree they could not go on strike. If you went on strike, you were confronting the state. In my own innocence as a young man, not so exposed, I was always wondering why government took side with foreigners against Nigerians. Why would the Nigerian police be harassing me for organising strike against Japanese, who refused to pay workers their entitlements? But now I understand better. The good thing is that because of our level of militancy, the union then allowed you to have as many unions as possible. I became full time union organiser. Even though initially I was employed in textile industry, I got appointed as the General Secretary of Peugeot workers’ union to help them organise their union. Anytime we organised a successful strike, workers in other industries would approach me to help them organise their union. I had more than 10 unions, even as far as Kano. I was in automobile, in furniture, chemical, Kaduna, Zaria, Kano etc. It is like a lawyer; if you win a case, people will say go for that lawyer anytime they have a case. The law then allowed you to work for more than one union. At the end of all of these, I was a little bit very comfortable, because at the end of each month, I earned more than a senior manager when I put together my earnings from different unions.
What has been the most traumatic period for you in the last 61 years?
I used to reflect on that, because I have had a lot of challenges every time. I think as far as our struggles are concerned, the most difficult one was the strike we organised in 2002 when the police killed more than 20 people in Abuja and Lagos. They killed one right in front of the NLC. It was heart-rending; it was tough. We called the National Assembly to investigate; that was extremely traumatic. You watched your followers being shot dead. The state wanted to demonstrate that it had the capacity to kill if that became necessary, to intimidate us to submission. At the personal level, I met my wife in the course of struggles because she was helping to type some of my petitions. She was always worried about my life. If I was detained, she was always there moving from one police station to the other. Some days I didn’t go home; the police would just come and pick and take me to where I do not know. She would be going from one station to another, depending on where I caused the trouble. I remember this particular time that she was very heavy and was in the hospital; she left there and came to where I was detained. The police told her not to worry, that her husband would soon be released, but she virtually slept at the Kaduna police station. Of course, just as we were coming into government. she had this cancer and died. For me, it s like her lot was to pass through the phase of trouble. We had reached a point when she ought to sit back as the wife of a governor and enjoy some privileges. There is no more fear that I would be detained, arrested or oppressed. This was the time she would have had rest of mind. Unfortunately, it was the time fate chose to snatch her away from me. When you lose a wife, you married at the time of your struggle, you cannot find another woman like her; it is not possible. Sometimes I used to say that she married me, probably, out of pity. I said this because when she drafted for me letters demanding the removal of a manager, writing petitions and press statements against the police, she would ask me if I was sure the people won’t come after me. On the one hand she liked my rascality; on the other hand, she saw me as one to pity. It is impossible to even recover from her death. On occasion when you have challenges, you realise that your number one adviser is your wife, because she understands where you are coming from, why you feel the way you do. She would counsel you much more than anyone who doesn’t understand a few things about you.
What prepared you for governance?
To be honest, what I found out is that even when I was in the NLC, I didn’t know what people thought, but I don’t think I was a typical union man. I didn’t follow the normal tradition. Now, when I travelled I discussed with our colleagues around the world. I saw the way they looked at things, but I always thought a bit differently. For example, I supported privatisation of NEPA. I accepted to be a member of the National Council on Privatization. This was not well received by many of my colleagues, including my deputy at the time, who felt that, traditionally, unions should oppose privatisation. I was familiar with those tradition, but as I got more and more exposed, I recognised responsibility of the union, with regard to job security. The union must have an economic-wide view of job opportunities rather than sectoral view. I got this in the course of my trip to Japan. I visited a textile factory and saw that the job we did here manually was being done by computer. I asked my colleagues there why they were supporting high-tech computerised textile operation because my traditional British union literature was scared of technology and that was the background I was coming from, which has guided my action. I told them we must oppose change, we must defend systems. If use of machine would lead to job losses, it must be refused, we just needed to create jobs. But the Japanese guy said in his country they didn’t have natural resources. He said that what they had in abundance was human capital. He said they must be competitive to maintain export-led growth. He said that if they were not competitive, they would lose their share of the world market and jobs at home will die. I reminded him that what they were doing would lead to job losses in this industry. He agreed, but added that if they lost jobs in the textile industry because of computerization, they would gain some job in the chemical sector, automobile sector etc. He said they took economic-wide view of job opportunities because if you didn’t, some sectors will no longer be competitive. I took my lessons from there. If we have to lose 200, 000 jobs in NEPA and gain 10 million jobs overall in the Nigerian economy, I will go for that. My responsibility was not just to NEPA workers but also to textile workers, leather industries, chemical sector, furniture industries, automobiles etc. These sectors were stagnating due to lack of power supply. As regards governance, my best year as President of NLC was the year we had N132 million annual gross. The money was for the payment of salaries at the head office, pay rents in the state councils, pay all the travelling and meeting expenses etc. Perhaps, the highest cheque I ever signed was probably a million or two. You come from that background to government, and somebody is bringing a file and said that he needs N2 million to make a trip to a place. This is wasteful, judging from my background. That was why we saved about N5billion in my first year as governor. All those frivolous trips, excessive wastage, recurrent expenditure, useless running cost etc, we cut them off. I think my union background affected my attitude to spending. Also, having travelled round the world, I have interacted with governments and private sector people; it was clear to me that the life of a country or state is not quite different from that of a family. If you are clear on what you want to do and you have the courage to do it, things will begin to happen. But if you are overwhelmed and you perfect lamentation, nothing is going to change. I had always mocked governors that commission public toilets or if they rehabilitate a tractor, they will go and commission it. Some vehicles that have been unserviceable, they got a mechanic to repair them and they would commission them. This is crazy. Because I have travelled round the world, I have met government officials particularly at the level of NLC. And all the things I see here I do not see them there. When I want to go out, I tell my ADC not to wear uniform. I have problem with the police on that. As a civilian government, I should look civil when I go out, not being followed by gun-toting, fierce looking mobile police. In any case, can I be better protected than President Barack Obama? Do you see uniform men around him? But he is well secured. You see him shaking hands. Those things maybe well-arranged but the leader must be seen. For me, these are lessons I learnt in the course of going out. I see the humility that other world leaders display. They just sit around the table, not people carrying coffee for the president. It makes you feel that he is just like you, even though that is not the reality. They have powers. When they say roundtable, they make it truly round table. But we know the man who has the power. My worry is that when we travel we see good things but the only thing we bring back is the shopping bag. We drop the ideas at the airport. When I got here, I said the roads I see abroad have walkways. You build a road in the city and assume that everybody is driving a vehicle. In fact, majority of the people are on the sidewalks. So, I said that any road that we are building must have walk ways. Outside that walk way there is a deep drainage that is well covered, so that when it rains the water flows out. If you walk on the streets of London, Germany or anywhere, you find under those walk ways drainage. Those ideas are what we must put into practice here. When we are designing roads, they must have those features. That is why I wanted to be governor, to try to move away from passing resolutions, recommendations, complaining etc. We have showed an example in Edo and I am sure that nobody is going to come to Benin after my tenure and build road without walk way or build road without drainage. People will revolt if that is done. I will say that union exposure gave me the opportunity to interact with senior executives of multinationals. I talk with them and they analyse the way the world works and why they are doing what they are doing, their forecasting etc. Even as you argue to defend your constituency you don’t fail to know that these guys have brains and they are not just doing trial and error. They have their long term projection, nothing happens by accident. I went to Japan. I tried to understand their compensation structure as a union man. In Japan, the teacher is seen like a baker. You must cater for your bakers very well because people like to eat bread. Every family has bread to eat every morning. If the bakers are angry and they put poison on the bread the entire race is gone. Why are the teachers referred to as bakers? Teachers are responsible for baking future leaders. If you don’t have the right human capital, well-skilled with the right orientation, there is no future for Japan. So, the country will do everything to attract the best brains to teach. Just to say that what people don’t understand about unionism is that it gives you the opportunity to meet with the management and engage them. There are two kinds of dialogue. There are people you are discussing with, even if you don’t agree with them, you don’t fail to ignore the point they are making. When you meet Japanese, Chinese, Americans you see different management styles; you can see the one that works and the one that doesn’t. You have the opportunity to choose the one to adopt. I will say clearly that my union exposure has influenced my management style. I am more of a private sector person. What I tell my commissioners and permanent secretaries is that they should not give me excuses. I don’t want to hear we wanted to go there but we couldn’t because it was raining; I came late because I had a flat tyre. No, you ought to know that tyre can go flat when budgeting for time. Japanese will say don’t tell me why you failed, tell me the extra steps you had to take in the light of unforeseen challenges in order to deliver on your obligations. No stories. You must perform, no story. In Nigeria, somebody will say, ‘excuse me, Sir, so and so happened.’ No, no story. They don’t take story. I learnt it from them. For me, don’t tell me stories. When I arrived Edo, people said all manner of things. It was at the peak of economic crisis; our revenues dropped such that what we earned was less than what we needed to pay salaries. What that meant was that I would have continued with the regime of non-payment of salaries, which Edo workers had been used to. In the past, the workers would stay two, three months without being paid. In fact, when I asked teachers recently what has happened that majority of our teachers are women, in primary and secondary school levels especially, they told me that before I came, when they were not being paid regularly the male decided to leave. You are the bread winners, you are not being paid, how do you cope? Those who found something else to do left. The women managed to stay back. They also devised means of selling T- shirts, going to Onitsha market to buy things to sell. That is part of the problem that we are still dealing with till date. They have got used to working out a roster among themselves on how to cope. Their agreement is that some will work for two days and others will work for two days, but everybody will get full pay at the end of the month. They say that because the pay will not come at the end of the month, they needed ways to survive until they are paid. Unfortunately, now that we are paying, as at when due, that arrangement has not been totally stopped. Back to the management of our lean resources; I said we could just publish at the end of every month our total receipt of Abuja, which dropped to N1.6billion; our local revenue was about N300 million to N280 million. All together everything was about N1.8billion or N1.9billion but our wage bill was N2billion. In one of my party’s meetings, I told them that you cannot transparently explain failure as a leader. How do you transparently tell your people that you have failed and showed them the reason you failed? The challenge of a leader is not to accept failures. We talk of transparency; it is in context. It is not to transparently explain failure. No. Failure is failure. My objective is not to come here to fail.
<b>After governorship what is the next phase of your life?
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I will go back to my community and be doing petition (laughs). The real joy in public office is that at the end of your service you are able to walk the street. Even at old age people can say, oh yes, nice guy, he did this, he did that. You will have internal joy when you hear this. What bothers me any day I wake up is what we do to sustain the enormous public support that we have. My hope is that at the end of my tenure in 2016, we would have succeeded in first, repositioning Edo State on the part of sustainable development such that a future government can’t come and buffet our people with excuses and lamentations. Politically, Edo people can never be enslaved again. There will never be in history when any one man again will impose his will across the three senatorial districts. No. They would have leaders who might command respect or fail to command respect but no one will impose his will without question. Like one of the members of the royal family said, nobody will come in future to say Edo case is a hopeless case. Edo is a beautiful place. Everything is possible here.
A land of possibilities?
Infinite possibilities because all those things you require for greatness are present. First is the industry of our people. Our people are sharp; they are intelligent; they are industrious; they are hardworking; they are enterprising and they are bold. And they are rugged! What more do we need? We have good land, geographically located; we are central; we have everything going for us. What was missing was a focused and clear leadership and I feel over the next two, three, four years, my prayer is that we sustain this and we will be leaving behind crop of democrats who will defend the democratic space. I hope one day when I am in my village, if God gives us all the gifts of good health and longevity, I will say ‘oh yes, I remember that guy, he was my so and so, oh yes, I am happy he is doing well but tell him I greet him oooooo.’ You know, because really, there is nothing else in life. And I want my children to be able to go to anywhere and say, ‘I am the son of Oshiomhole, I am the daughter of Oshiomhole.’ They should never be ashamed of their father’s name. For me, that is the final pay-off. If my children can go anywhere and say, ‘I am the son of Oshiomhole’ and they are not ashamed, then my life is fulfilled. The fear my children had, because I didn’t have the support of my late wife and my children for politics, they argued and I believe, to some extent rightly, that usually, when you are in politics, all you get is insults, abuse and you end up being ashamed. Bad headlines, damaging stories et cetera. But I told them that even before I went into the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC was down and out. If you review the media coverage of NLC, NLC was dismissed as a military apologist. Gani Fawehinmi was particularly hard on the NLC. The human rights community had dismissed the NLC as part of the government establishment et cetera. And even Professor Jega, I remember one day, he gave a lecture and said he didn’t se
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4973056513081955101.post-43220854202691106932013-01-05T06:52:00.002-08:002013-01-05T06:52:13.851-08:00 Amaechi: Rivers to Spend N21bn on Trans-Kalabari Road
29 Dec 2012
By Ernest Chinwo
Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Amaechi has said his administration would spend N21 billion on the construction of the Trans-Kalabari road, the major road project covering the Kalabari-speaking area of the state.
He said contract for the project has been awarded to Lubrik Construction Company (LCC).
He stated this during a Town Hall Meeting with the people of Asari-Toru Local Government Area of the state at the Kings National College Field, Buguma.
“Trans-Kalabari road is coming. We have awarded the contract to Lubrik for N21 billion. You know before, what I promised the chiefs is that I will stop at Bakana, but now we have agreed to take it to the end in Buguma and one assurance I give you is that by January, I will mobilise the contractor to start work.
“We will do the roads according to importance. The most important road for me is the Trans-Kalabari road and the money is heavy, N21 billion, allow me focus on that road first then we can talk about the other roads,” he said.
He said his administration had been working on completing old projects in Asari-Toru Local Government Area and congratulated the Kalabari people and the youths for being peace-loving and for stopping kidnapping and other criminal activities as foreign contract workers now do their job undisturbed.
“When I was campaigning right here, I promised to consolidate on the old projects that we have. I did not say I will do too many new projects and if you look at it we have been trying to complete the old projects. The only new thing we have done in Buguma or in Asari-Toru is the farm, but before I talk about the farm let me congratulate the Kalabari people, you have changed completely,” he said.
The governor said his administration would reclaim more land from the rivers in Buguma and finish up land reclamation already going on in Abalama community in Asari-Toru Local Government Area.
Amaechi assured the people of the preparedness of his administration to fully furnish the 10 model primary schools in the area and complete the model secondary school in Buguma.
He also disclosed that three general hospitals to serve as referral points are to be built in each senatorial zone.
He said, “We are looking at developing three general hospitals that will serve as referral points. The one for this area is in Degema. We will look at the Degema hospital and renovate it between now and early next year so that anybody around here, Asari-Toru, Akuku-Toru everybody can go there and be attended to.”
Amaechi also promised to build skills acquisition centre in Asari-Toru to train the youth on various skills to keep them engaged, stressing that micro-economic activities would again grow with peace restored in the area.
Earlier, Chairman of Asari-Toru Local Government Area, Hon. Ojukaye Flag- Amachree, praised Amaechi for developing the local government area.
He also commended the Governor for locating the N1.5 billion fish farm project and the on-going multi-billion naira model secondary school in the area.
He said, “Governor Chibuike Amaechi has done more in development of Asari-Toru Local Government than any other past governors of the State. I wish to reveal to all here present that Asari-Toru Local Government has received about half a billion Naira from the State Government.”
Joachim Ibeziako Ezejihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01358953829908161905noreply@blogger.com0