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Time to Reclaim Nigeria 3: What is to be Done?
By
Chido Onumah
Newsdiaryonline Wed Nov 16,2011
Mr
Chido
Justice is the first condition of humanity – Wole Soyinka,
The Man Died
Fifty years gone in a twinkle: how time has flown
Fifty years gone in a bubble: how a nation’s grown
Time to reclaim the nation. Time to end the plunder
Time to bask in harmony that beckons, that endures – Chiedu
Ezeanah, Golden Jubilee Stanzas
Late last month, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi rolled out figures about the parlous
state of the education sector in Nigeria.
Speaking at an event in Kaduna to mark the 80th birthday of
Prof. Adamu Baike, a former vice chancellor of the University of
Benin. Sanusi noted that
“although there are no comprehensive data on the number of
Nigerian students abroad, recent data have shown that there are
about 71,000 Nigerian students in Ghana paying about N155
billion ($1.03 billion) annually as tuition fees as against the
annual budget of N121 billion ($806 million) for all federal
universities”.
If those figures were intended to shock us, I am not sure many
Nigerians were shocked. We have become inured to the waste,
brigandage, and purposelessness of our ruling elite. And Mr.
Sanusi should know what I am talking about. Not too long ago, it
was reported that the CBN which Mr. Sanusi supervises spent
almost N20 billion ($133 million) of taxpayers’ money for a
piece of land (originally belonging to the federal government)
in Abuja to build “a world class international conference
centre”. The CBN, and its governor, have yet to offer any
plausible reason for such wanton waste of public fund. And
chances are that nothing will come out of a public enquiry, if
at all any is held.
That is the sad story of Nigeria. Everywhere you turn, there are
mindboggling excesses of
official corruption and abuse of office. Recently, the
Amazon of the oil industry,
and
Minister of Petroleum Resources,
Diezani Allison-Madueke,
told the House of Representatives committee investigating the
non-remittance of N450 billion ($3 billion) to the federation
account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
that the corporation was “too big for the federal government”.
"NNPC is not subjected to the consolidated fund of the federal
government. It cannot depend on federal budget because it runs
very capital intensive operations beyond what government can
finance,” the minister said. "The NNPC budget is not an
appropriated budget. We function largely like a private
commercial enterprise." Even if the NNPC is run as a private
commercial enterprise, does that excuse it from being
accountable to its owners, the Nigerian public?
For those wondering whether we have a government in Nigeria, you
need not look any further than the explanation offered by
Allison-Madueke. It is a perfect metaphor for the sorry state of
the country. Nigeria, not just the NNPC, functions largely like
a private commercial enterprise. It is in this light that we
must view the planned removal of fuel subsidy, an action that
will test the will of the Nigerian people and its readiness to
reclaim the country.
The removal of oil subsidy will be the greatest affront by the
present administration and it appears the battle line has been
drawn. “The
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has said though the removal of
fuel subsidy will be painful for Nigerians, there is no
alternative to it,” Punch newspaper (11/4/2011) reported
the acting national chairman of the party, Alhaji Kawu Baraje,
as saying.
According to the report, while the PDP “was not against the
public debate either for or against the proposed subsidy
removal, it however condemned the opposition who it said was
using it to advance its ‘warped and unrealistic arguments, using
populist sentiments to misinform the people’, and “as the
custodians of the peoples’ mandate and the resource base of the
ideas that inform government policies, the party owed it a duty
to Nigerians to break its silence on the matter”.
The PDP’s position is that “the removal of the subsidy was the
only way to revamp the economy”. “Nigerians are aware that the
federal government is deeply
committed to tackling decaying infrastructure, provision of jobs
to the youth, stimulation of investments in critical sectors and
provision of security. Baraje said, “They want their roads safe
and motorable; they want quality education for their children;
they want to see affordable and efficient health care delivery
systems; they want security of lives and property; they also
want a guaranteed supply of petroleum products at affordable
cost. These are achievable only if resources are harnessed to
finance these major developmental programmes.
“While declaring support for the federal government’s
determination to deregulate the downstream sector of the
petroleum industry, Baraje said the PDP was also encouraged by
President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to constitute a committee
of reputable Nigerians to advise on the management of the income
accruable from the removal of subsidy.”
The PDP may delude itself that it has the peoples’ mandate, but
it is only the people who will decide where power lies
ultimately when the time comes. If the party was really
interested in a public debate about subsidy removal, and not
just engaged in doublespeak, then it should know that
overwhelming majority of Nigerians (four out of every five
Nigerian, according to a report to be released next week) are
opposed to the so-called removal of oil subsidy.
Clearly, Nigerians are no longer interested in the oil subsidy
debate because it is quite evident that oil subsidy, so-called,
is nothing but a ruse. We are interested in knowing from Mr.
Baraje, and the PDP, why none of the four refineries in the
country is working after twelve years of PDP rule. We need to
know why Nigeria exports crude oil and imports petroleum
products. The collapse of our refineries is an indictment of the
PDP that has been in power for twelve long years – a period that
has witnessed the largest inflow of fund to the Nigerian state
since independence, fifty-one years ago.
Finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, an active supporter of
subsidy removal, said last week that fuel subsidies would cost
Nigeria at least N1.2 trillion ($8 billion) this year alone.
That money, I am sure, is more than enough to fix our
refineries. This will solve the subsidy conundrum, and provide
employment for thousands of Nigerians.
Nobody is enthused by the plan of the government to constitute a
committee of “reputable Nigerians” to manage the income from the
removal of fuel subsidy. Since the government can’t manage
income accruable to it, then it should hand over power to a
consortium of managers in the spirit of running the country as a
private commercial enterprise. If the government can’t manage
refineries, is it the purported trillions that will accrue from
the removal of subsidy that it will manage well?
The PDP has been in power since 1999, and all we have witnessed
is the withdrawal of services that benefit the common people. We
have had three PDP governments in more than a decade and they
have not been able to provide any tangible service. The real
sector of the economy has collapsed; our education sector has
crumbled; our hospitals are death chambers; unemployment is at
an all time high; poverty and insecurity stalk the land. All
this, in a country that has earned trillions of naira since
1999.
The last time we learnt of the huge amount accruing to the
PDP-led governments was in 2005 when then finance minister,
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, revealed that the federal government
received and disbursed N11 trillion ($74 billion) from June 1999
to December 2005. She noted that the figure did not take into
account money generated by other tiers of government (state and
local). In a country that ranks among the most corrupt in the
world – where last year alone, according to Transparency
International, civil servants took N450 billion ($3 billion)
bribe -- you can be sure that Okojo-Iweala figures didn’t tell
the complete story. So let’s just assume, for the purposes of
argument, that the PDP-led governments received and disbursed N4
trillion ($27 billion) between 2005 and 2010, Mr. Bajare should
tell us where all that money went to since, clearly, it did not
go into providing safe and
motorable roads, quality education, and affordable and efficient
health care delivery systems, things Mr. Baraje and the PDP are
now seeking to do with proceeds from the removal of oil subsidy.
Under the PDP-led governments things have gone from bad to
worse. The contradictions in the country are sharper today than
they were in 1999 when the PDP seized power. The ethno-religious
divisions have gotten worse; prebendalism has become the
directive principle of state policy. It is on record that since
1999, the Nigeria Police (under PDP-led governments) has not
been able to successfully solve a single case of murder in the
country. The current violence
sweeping the country is the product of PDP’s corrupt and
irresponsible leadership over the years.
So, when the likes of Baraje talk about the PDP
as the custodians of the peoples’ mandate and the resource base
of the ideas that inform government policies, they need to be
confronted frontally. The time has
come for Nigerians to call the bluff of the government and the
PDP. As it is, it doesn’t look like there is a government in
place in the country, or if anyone is really in charge. The
president has been AWOL; a commander-in-chief in retreat, as the
country is besieged by militants of every hue.
Six months ago, President Jonathan tried to seduce us with his
transformation agenda. But the only things that appear to have
been transformed are the fat bank accounts of those that are
closely associated with his government.
The president was at his comical best during the just concluded
17th Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) in Abuja,
when he told his audience that investors that failed to take
advantage of the investment opportunities in the country because
of the spate of violence would regret it. I am sure his
statement did elicit more than a chuckle, considering that the
event was disrupted for thirty minutes due to power outage,
causing panic about a possible terror attack at the Transcorp
Hilton, venue of the event.
This is how The Guardian of November 11, 2011, reported
the story:
“The smooth conduct of the 17th Nigerian Economic
Summit Group (NESG) in Abuja was yesterday disrupted for more
than 30 minutes following power outage at the Transcorp Hilton
Hotel plant, which sparked a melee as the audience thought a
terror attack was under way. The development forced some
dignitaries, including the United States (U.S.) Envoy to
Nigeria, Ambassador Terence P. McCulley, to hurriedly flee the
hotel despite being scheduled to address the media at the end of
the session, which was cut short by the power outage. President
Goodluck Jonathan had declared the summit open with a speech and
had left the venue before the power cut. However, the hotel’s
public relations manager, Sola Adeyemo, attributed the outage to
‘a very high voltage’ from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria
(PHCN), forcing the hotel’s power generator to switch off. But
by the time power was restored some dignitaries, including the
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Lamido Sanusi,
who were discussants at the interrupted session were gone”.
If this was an isolated incident, you wouldn’t mind when the
president talks about wooing investors. But those who live
through the Nigerian nightmare everyday know that power failure
is an essential part of daily existence. What kind of investor
will invest under this condition of insecurity and uncertainty?
But this is just an
aside.
Now that President Jonathan and the PDP have shown that they do
not care about Nigerians, it is only appropriate that we respond
accordingly. This is a long drawn
out battle, and the government has shown how intolerant it is of
opposing views with the repression of young Nigerians who
assembled at Unity Fountain in Abuja on November 11 to protest
the removal of oil subsidy.
The president is chasing shadows, while the country burns. How
else can one describe his recent meeting with Mr. Alain Juppe,
the French Foreign Minister where he sought to resurrect the
seven-year single tenure agenda.
He said his proposed seven-year single tenure for
Nigeria’s president “has been misunderstood by those who think
he wants to add that term to his current one”.
“My proposal for a single seven-year tenure is anchored on the
need for an incumbent president to focus maximum attention on
the execution of his development programmes, instead of
expending vital energy on re-election issues, though this has
been misunderstood to mean I want additional seven years”, he
told Mr. Juppe. Does the president need a single seven-year term
before he can settle down to govern? Perhaps, he was hoping that
the French government will put in a word for him on his
seven-year agenda, just as the EU did on the oil subsidy issue
through its Head of Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr. David
Macrae.
Sometimes, I wonder if the president and his cronies are the
only people who fail to see that we are headed on the road to
Afghanistan or Somalia, the poster children of failed states.
So what is to be done, now that it
is clear that President Jonathan and the PDP are unrelenting in
their quest to subjugate and continue the impoverishment of
ordinary Nigerians?
The first task will be to aggregate the discontent of the
suffering masses of Nigeria: the ones who die when a bomb
explodes in a market square; those who subsist on less than one
dollar a day; those who die from preventable diseases. We all
must learn to overcome
our differences and confront our common enemies. Hunger does not
have a tribe; poverty has no religion; disease has no state of
origin.
In the weeks and months ahead, we shall through this medium, and
other public platforms, intimate Nigerians about how we hope to
engage the present administration in the battle to reclaim
Nigeria. In this battle, we will count on the support of our
compatriots within and in the Diaspora. Nigerians should prepare
themselves mentally and psychologically to occupy every public
space, from the local government to the national level, as well
as our embassies in Washington, Ottawa, Paris, London, and other
major cities around the world when the time comes.
Governments are supposed to serve the
people.
But when they renege on that task, the people have a
responsibility to assert their citizenship rights.
We have seen it happen before our very eyes in North
Africa and the Middle East.
conumah@hotmail.com
Th
This is the document referred to in the Witness
Statement on Oath of Clifford O. Kokogho as
“Exhibit
COK.2”
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