Monkey Business

Sometimes I doubt if we will ever run out of political monkey business. Ours is a system running on mischief. Just when you think, “Hey, this has to be the farthest we can go in our hilarious attempt at democracy” we spring yet another shell shocking surprise. For instance, a few miles away from Enugu, where government officials converged to beat the drum in celebration of a mundane ‘achievement’ in the aviation sector, a teenage boy was stowing away in the tyre compartment of a commercial flight from Benin to Lagos undetected. How did a 13-year-old boy get through all the security at the airport? What if he was a terrorist? Is there anything that we are truly serious about? Yet we celebrate!

For those who thought that that would be the talking point for weeks to come, it took only days before another unbelievable event overtook it. A carry over.  Today, Taraba State is confronted with a situation similar to when the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua was hurriedly and unceremoniously transferred into an air ambulance from Saudi Arabia back home. His kitchen cabinet members, who had turned political hijackers, ran out of lies and time, and it was only then that they had no choice but to jockey and horse trade whilst they still could at the expense of the dignity of a dying or dead man. The Governors’ Forum took over from the laid down procedures as stipulated by the constitution of the country. They negotiated with the current president and had to give the nod before he could takeover as the president. His constitutional right!

After 10 months of treatment and rehabilitation abroad, Governor Danbaba Suntai had to be hurriedly re-instated as governor.  The premise is simple: If the governor failed to return this month, fit or unfit, the hitherto acting governor constitutionally becomes the substantive governor. Like in the Yar’Adua manuscript, mischief came into play.  Governor Suntai’s survival from that crash last October is in itself a miracle. He is one of a select few that can claim to have survived a plane crash. He is evidently not physically fit and we all appreciate what kind of pressure the rigors of leadership can put upon a man.  One can only feel empathy for the poor chap as he was assisted in pain from the airplane and whisked off to government house, unable to speak with waiting reporters. It was a sad picture of an ailing lion being preyed upon by ravenous and hateful hyenas.                                 

Section 189 of the 1999 Constitution is clear enough on this matter. No legal interpretation or “doctrine of necessity” is required to do the right thing in this situation.  During the Yar’Adua-Jonathan saga, we fretted that the cabal system could set a treacherous precedent in our country. It has.  And while we gnash our teeth and bite our lips, the treachery has grown beyond our imagination. Our politicians have redefined the mandate we gave them and floated arms and tiers of government alien to the rulebook.               

Where a governor or president comes from and who succeeds him is a key part of the brand of politics threatening to consume us. Power blocs and crushers emerge daily either to champion yet another obnoxious subversion of our constitution or to weaken our institutions. The Governors’ Forum, for instance, has assumed the role of an electoral kingmaker and arbiter. To hold on to this power is to control the soul of the most powerful association in the country. There is a titanic struggle going, as we are all aware. President Jonathan has first hand experience of this power. Instead of trying to crush it, however, he is trying to take control of it.

The choice of a second-in-command (a vice president or deputy governor) in our polity is just a constitutional role that is required to be filled. This person must be a political lightweight. He or she is to exert no influence and have no power except for what the principal allows. To give them a voice would mean that they could rock the boat. They are timid puppets that have no leadership skills and are capable, if they unwittingly find themselves in the principal’s seat, of causing untold damage to us.

As a people, the choice of a strong second-in-command should form part of our prerequisite for electing governors and presidents. Project Nigeria is a huge one and we need the best brains that we can get our hands on to get us there. These are the details we should look into in selecting the next set of leaders. We must pick candidates that will be capable of representing us and ensure at all times that our welfare is at the forefront of their actions.          

 

EDUCATION AND CAPACITY

“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.”  – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1882 – 1945.

The biggest problem militating against Nigeria’s education sector is management. With recurrent expenditure at 80% of the annual budget, perhaps the best thing is for us to look inwards at our capacity to run all the various sectors that make this country tick and start to understand how to run them in a more efficient manner.

Perhaps we should stop looking purely to corruption and understand that the causes of our mediocrity and failure may boil down to simple ineptitude in many areas and the dangers that this may cause. With regard to our education sector, the government should hearken to the axiom that a country which deliberately refuses to adequately set up and manage its schools should be ready to fund its prisons. 

Rather than looking for creative ways of solving the perennial problems of strike action due to inadequate academic staff, infrastructural decay and a poor quality of education at all levels, we keep recycling the same ineffective methods that are lethal to the future of our youth and the country. In the 2012 budget, N400.15 billion naira was allocated to education (second only to security with 921.91 billion naira) still, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) have gone on strike, whilst abysmal results were recorded in WAEC and NECO examinations. As we speak, government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have failed to come to a resolution that would end months of strikes, keeping university students idle and doing the devil’s work on our streets. It has almost become an annual festival to which with each passing year, the government becomes more complacent – a frightening state of affairs. 

In the 2013 budget, education got the lion’s share with N426.53 billion naira. However, as a percentage of the entire budget of 4.9 trillion naira, the education sector got less that 10 percent. That is a far cry from the 26% advocated by the United Nations. In a World Bank 2012 report, Annual Budgetary Allocation to Education by Some Selected Countries, Nigeria ranked the least (20th) with a paltry 8.4% annual budgetary allocation to education. Top on the list is Ghana with 31%; Cote d’Ivoire second with 30%; and Uganda third with 27%. For those who wonder why Nigerians who can afford it flock to Ghana for tertiary education, there you go!

Instead of strengthening our institutions, we have decided to weaken them. In 2010, the Federal Government announced plans to establish additional universities. The following year, the universities took off in Otuoke, Oye Ekiti, Dutse, Ndufu Alike, Dutsin-Ma, Kashere, Lokoja and Wukari. In all, over 20 billion naira was allocated to these 8 new universities in the 2012 budget, in addition to the two billion naira take-off grants handed to each of them in 2011. However, their purpose was not really to advance education, but to “correct” the inequality in the “location” of federal universities! This has only led to resources being spread even thinner, making our universities citadels of improvised learning churning out hollow shells of “graduates” lacking in the capacity to compete in today’s global job market. Would it not make more sense if the funds were spent expanding and upgrading existing universities that we can have something to write home about?

What we should be striving for is for our education sector to be amongst the top ten of the world. We can expect nothing better than mediocrity if all we can do is play the “federal character” card with education like all other sectors of our national life.  It is clear that government cannot manage education to attain those minimum standards of excellence.  We should admit that the present model of funding education has not worked, and that a new one is urgently required.  Education should be wholly privatized with grants or scholarships given to indigent students. In the UK for instance, there is education tourism, where foreign students pay the highest fees (up to three times what British students pay), whilst the poor receive grants, loans or scholarships from government and various institutions.

A private sector-driven education sector (whereby those who can afford to pay will pay and government will pay for those who cannot or are exceedingly clever) is capable of engendering a sustainable uniform standard because both the rich and poor will enjoy the same facilities.  The quality of education in our schools will significantly rise and healthy competition among students will propel a new era of meritocracy.  The strikes will be a thing of the past and this new asset will contribute to our economy in a positive manner.           

THE HOO-HAH ABOUT £3000 QUID

As we speak, there are more than 16, 400 Nigerians in prison in the United Kingdom. It costs the British taxpayers a whopping £1.6 million pounds (four billion naira) to feed them daily. In 2011, Britain directly responded to this by lobbying our National Assembly to amend the Enactment and Enforcement Act, which would enable transfer of convicted offenders from Nigeria and other Commonwealth nations to their various countries from the United Kingdom to complete their sentences.

In June, the UK Home Office rolled out another specific policy to deter visitors to the country from overstaying. From November, visitors on tourist visas from Commonwealth countries such as Nigeria, India Pakistan, Kenya and Sri Lanka would be required to pay a £3,000 cash bond to allow them to visit the UK for up to six months.    

The UK government knows that implementing such a scheme will deal a collateral blow to its own tourism-driven economy. Nigerians, believe it or not, are the sixth largest spenders in the UK. Amazing for a country that still gets aid from them! Airlines will record lower patronage because many ordinary Nigerian travellers will be forced to shelve their plans for lack of the huge cash bond. Or have they done a quick calculation and worked out that they will lose nothing? The rich, who are our politicians and civil servants, will have no problem coming up with this cash bond and once the first and club class cabins which they patronise are full, anything else is just a bonus. They only want these customers, the rest of us are just a nuisance and they have worked out that between the illegal immigration and the chancers who use their free services, hospitals, education and housing, we are costing them too much.

The fact that the Nigeria-Britain route is arguably the most expensive in the world is not enough to balance their books.  The cost of the freeloaders is more than the gain accrued through legitimate visitors from so-called third world countries. They are burdened by illegal immigration and the result, often, is crime, social insecurity and a drain on their taxpayers’ resources.          

Whether it is our skilled economic migrants who are legitimately migrating in droves to ‘greener pastures’ and help contribute to the further development of those countries, or illegal immigrants who nevertheless fulfil a role in performing menial tasks or constituting a nuisance to their unwelcoming host societies, it is imperative for us to admit that we are at the receiving end.

They only need rich African and Asian tourists with money to spend. With the expansion of the EU to absorb their kith and kin, which are poorer than they are in the West, they no longer need the services of Asians and Africans to perform such menial tasks. The Eastern Europeans are better trained and educated in any case.

The Irony is that we do not even have a slice of the aviation sector earnings; we instead boost foreign airlines’ earnings because our aviation sector is in disarray. From the heavy budgetary provisions for foreign trips to those fleeing the country tired of ‘e go better’, we patronize and create wealth for foreign airlines. We have no replacement for the defunct national carrier and government policies suppress the few private endeavours such as Arik who still ply the international route. Any responsible government should promote local industry and insist that international travel tickets by government functionaries on official business should be on locally-owned airlines. Please give us something back!

Have we not realised that we are a diplomatic outcast? There is only interest here because we have oil, which foreigners need. We cannot retaliate because we depend on them. We are a trading nation and produce nothing! We must travel. Countries like Qatar, Malaysia and the UAE, where we were free to move as we pleased, are now shutting their doors. The same for fellow African countries like South Africa, which has a non-refundable visa bond policy too.  Responsible governments are responding to their economic challenges by protecting their job markets. The available and best jobs are reserved for their kith and kin.

We have accepted £300million from Britain in aid this year alone. Another £1.14billion in foreign aid is expected from the UK over the next five years to finance Nigeria’s space programme. The UK’s Department for International Development stated that the country is trying to cut crime and illegal immigration. “Our investment goes into specific health, education and poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria is home to a quarter of the poorest people in Africa, and supporting their development will benefit our own trade and security.” 

We should read between the lines and put our house in order. 

The Deportation Within

What is wrong with us? How do we go about deporting Nigerians from one state to the other? Under what guise? What message are we sending to the over 250 ethnic groups that make up Nigeria? Are we being told that we should all bugger off back home? Where is home? I am an indigene of Kogi State. Are we saying that I am only allowed to live elsewhere if I am well to do; otherwise I am persona non grata and should get the hell out of “your state”?  This is where I live. This is home to me. I have nowhere else to go. So is what is happening in Plateau State justified? The last time I looked in the dictionary, I am sure that the definition of home was where one was born or where one has settled on a long-term basis. It follows therefore that we should all enjoy the rights and privileges of living in a community. That is what community is.  

I am so ashamed to be a Nigerian today. Indigene/settler – focusing on this has ensured that spirited efforts at upholding our unity will continue to suffer. In September 2011, the Abia State government sent civil servants working in its Ministries, Departments and Agencies whom were non-indigenes packing. The governor said he took the decision to enable his state service accommodate Abia indigenes! Can you imagine such brazen discrimination and racism? This is the apartied that we fought against in South Africa. What did the Judiciary and the National Assembly do to protect these people’s rights, uphold the laws and protect the constitution of the country? It shows how backward we are that where we come from is more important than a duty of care to another human being or getting the most competent person to carry out a function.

It is disgraceful that a person born and raised in a place, works and pays their taxes is referred to as a foreigner and is in this country thereby deprived of certain rights and privileges in the state. Lagos State government, one of our more “progressive governments”, in its bid to clean up the megacity, targeted purported misfits, rounded them up on the streets then shipped and dumped them in their “states of origin”. Unbelievable! What crime did they commit? Is it a sin now to be poor, to be an economic migrant? What about their fundamental human rights? How does destitute transfer solve the problem of destitution? The Lagos State indigenes that are destitute should look out. It will be you next! Perhaps they will feed you to the god of the sea and government spokesmen will ask if anybody has missed you. The Anambra deportation saga has brought to the fore the inequalities that exist still. Ethnicity, wealth and religion should not divide us. We should be careful not to point at others as the cause of our problems. That is what Hitler did to the Jews. It is called ethnic cleansing. It is an odious crime that no self-respecting person would ever be associated with.

The struggle for equality for the black race – discriminated against worldwide just because of our colour – has left us at the bottom of the food pile. This is where we should focus our energies: to draw us out of this cycle of poverty, discrimination and exploitation. That is the big evil that we should band together and fight. To witness us discriminating against ourselves and being cruel to the fellow black man leaves me in despair and with a lack of hope. Really this is the lowest that a man can be. We are discriminating against ourselves. May God forgive us because home is where the heart is. Has Nigeria ceased to exist as one nation bound in freedom, peace and unity? Or are we a prototype confederation of allied states divided by ethnicity, wealth and religion. Is this what we want? We live then in denial of the ironies in our penchant for the equity and fairness slogan that we sing daily.  

Today, there are many unresolved social crises in the country caused by how we perceive people who do not belong to and who do not share the same social affiliation with us. It is clear that we have not quite found a solution to our larger socio-cultural identity. We need to start to look deeply into our psyche and understand the message that we are sending to each other. Mastering this task and understanding that we are our brother’s keeper will take us to the safe, equitable and harmonious state that we so desperately need for us as a people to flourish.     

AUTONOMY

There are legitimate and defensible reasons why local government administration should be granted fiscal autonomy.  Given the required resources, independence over their affairs and manned by competent individuals, the local government is capable of catalyzing economic growth, generating employment, enhancing healthy living and protecting the environment.

Three quarters of local governments are rural communities. Does the governor in State House have the capacity to handle all the local government affairs? Does he understand the individual nuances of each community and does he have the time to pursue their needs? Giving the local government chairmen the responsibility that is required will reduce his load and amount to outsourcing some of the duties of governance, a model that has worked throughout the business community and has worked well. It also allows for inclusion and gives ownership of their affairs to the communities – under the governor’s watchful eye.

This will allow for a direct impact on the lives of all the host communities.  A town hall meeting will thus really be a town hall meeting.  Communities will know the local government chairman as they would have elected them and will have more direct access. How often are we laymen able to see let alone get close to the chief executive of the state? We only witness him in photographs posted above reception counters in business concerns or in all the government establishments. We only feel him as our cars are bullied or bumped off the road when ‘His Excellency’ is being ushered to a VIP meeting and we are stuck in the “go-slow” more often than not, caused by the poor state of the roads in the local government he is passing through as the dividends of democracy have not quite gotten here.

The state of affairs that we experience daily is a sad one as local government administration has been rendered ineffective, due to the fact that state governors merely handpick LG chairmen who receive monthly handouts from the governors to settle staff salaries with little left to carry out their constitutional duties. Their function has been reduced to foot soldiers of the ruling party in the state, who must be loyal to the governor and ensure that votes by hook or by crook are delivered come election day. That is why you will find that the same party which has won the state seat chairs all the local governments in that state. That is a fact. Leadership, accountability and grassroots development have therefore eluded us because the trickle-down effect has been severely hampered. The wide fissure between government and the governed therefore continues to widen because local government, which should serve as the link, is almost non-existent in its true form.    

We no fit see governor if dirty dey road and we no fit pass. Na only beer parlor complain we dey make. Ha, these politicians! Promises, promises but tomorrow no dey come lai lai! We have nobody to complain to when social and environmental services breakdown. We cannot pound on the local chairman’s door, as we know he has no funds and the governor is locked up in his gilded cage unless he decides to pass our way with his escorts and security detail. When the streets are filthy and pot holed, drainage blocked and water does not run, whom do we call? We can call no one, abuse the governor only and vow not to vote him in next time. But he has checkmated us already as he is in control of all the CASHOLA and the local government chairmen!

Governors and their cohorts in the National Assembly should desist from the frivolous and narrow-minded talk about fiscal autonomy amounting to creating emperors of LG chairmen. Citing arbitrariness as a reason for depriving this tier its due status is a testament to the failure of government at the centre to build strong institutions upon which accountability, probity, service and sincerity of purpose can be founded. Besides, governors have become emperors themselves and that is why so many of them have failed in service delivery. The provision for a joint body in the disbursement of funds at LG level will allow for healthy debate and monitoring. Unfortunately, only in Nigeria will a mechanism devised for due diligence be subjugated to create a brand of dictatorship by party. This is not the federalism we all signed up for.

Sadly, with most state legislators being stooges of their governors, the stakes will be high when the draft amendment gets to the state Houses of Assembly. However, if progress is the desired result, if indeed there is honesty (ha ha!), then we all know what should be done.