Nigeria: We're Tired of the Lamentations of Jonathan

Two years of hopelessness

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan to the position of the Executive President of Nigeria. Whilst it was only in the acting capacity until Umaru Yar’Adua died in May of 2010, he was effectively in control and evidently his boss was probably comatose and thereby too incapacitated to have a voice in government.

In the first few months, the man appeared to have promise and ability, if not the resolve to bring the change necessary to take Nigeria forward, however, since he received a mandate of his own from the people regardless of the documented irregularities, he has become a glaring disappointment leading Nigeria into even more perilous times.

There are times when many would prefer the President was struck dumb than to be found uttering words that belie a sense resignation and possibly cluelessness as to why he is in office.

We are tired indeed

In a speech given [1] at the commissioning of a cement plant belonging to Nigeria’s foremost billionaire, he once again made some statements that should leave many worried about the rudderless heading of the Nigerian ship of state.

“Story about commissioning is what Nigerians want to hear; Nigerians are tired of hearing that there is bomb explosion in Maiduguri or Kano or Bayelsa states. Yes, we have security challenges in the country. We have challenges in terms of infrastructure but we are totally committed individually and collectively to getting the country out of this situation. Our children want a better Nigeria than this.”

“Our greatest problem as a country is the rate of unemployment. If anybody can come up with policy and programmes that will create jobs, definitely, government will embrace that person and will continue to encourage that person.”

Indeed, the stories we want to hear are of great strides in industrial progress but we cannot just wish away the serious security issues that have engulfed the country over the last 18 months.

An enabling environment

We need to have confidence in the fact that the government is up to the task of providing not just security but an enabling environment for growth and development to deal with the as it were greatest problem that the President has identified.

In terms of the enabling environment for business, it would appear security has raced up to the top of the list with reports of Boko Haram attacks hurting business [2] and the business environment. This has to become a priority such that we cannot afford to have terrorist kingpins escaping police custody for weeks.

Down in the South after the manifestly atrocious amnesty programme that appeared to appease terrorism and militancy presaging a failed state and communities of anarchy, MEND returned to their skilled expertise of attacking oil infrastructure – for a President who is primarily from that area, it is shame that this menace has resurrected to wreak havoc again.

We also are fed up of government boasts of annihilating the terrorist threat or the extra-judicial process of killing suspects long before it has been proven that they are terrorists or where we have not begun to tackle the fundamental issues feeding the terrorist escalation.

Infrastructure issues

Beyond security, the government has to address the matters of basic infrastructure starting with electrical power which for business is a great recurrent expenditure because each business has to generate their own electricity and most depend on fuel. The power generation issue has consumed billions of dollars with nothing to show for it but more promises.

The national grid to support power generation needs to be ungraded and we need to exploit power generation sources beyond water and oil to gas, wind and solar options – w do not have enough food security to go the way of biofuels yet.

Then road and rail transport need to be developed, the gathering yesterday was intimated of the need to work on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Sagamu-Benin-Ore Expressway, beyond that, the North is still the bread basket for Nigerian perishable foods – the links with those centres of agriculture need to be improved upon.

Local government

Next is the matter of education, health and local government development, most of the deprived areas in Nigeria are more the evidence of failings at state and local government levels of representation, things need to change.

There are many people with policies, programmes and ideas for job creation in Nigeria, in fact, the country is awash with talent and ability but lacking in opportunity.

Endemic corruption

The things that stifle opportunity in Nigeria are corruption and the lack of ease of doing business in Nigeria. Only today we learnt that the fuel subsidy issue might well be the fence for a massive fraud [3] coming to $12.6 billion in 2011 and this more by government agencies than by the faceless cabal that was the taking all the opprobrium until the Occupy Nigeria protests forced a probe into the scheme.

Nigerians are not confident heads will roll or the purveyors of this corrupt enterprise who seem to be in cahoots with the leadership that they are untouchable will ever be brought to book.

From 2010 to 2011 Nigeria fell in the Corruption Perceptions Index from 134 [4] to 143 [5], sadly, the government has not been seen to be ready, willing or able to tackle corruption. The escalation of the cost of fuel subsidy in 2011 has been attributed to funding of the electioneering campaign [6] of the ruling party in 2011 and it hardly paints the President in any good light but in the ranks of rotten plundering leaders of Nigeria who have gone before.

Hostile business environment

In the rankings of the ease of doing business [7] published by the World Bank Group, Nigeria stands at 133 out of 183 surveyed countries and ranks at 176 and 180 respectively for Getting Electricity and Registering Property – these, the President should already know these are the core impediments to business growth and consequently exacerbate the unemployment numbers – it is no rocket science at all.

No one is asking the President to create jobs but there is a lot he can do to create enabling environments for employment, development and growth with policies, laws and acts that address security, infrastructure, corruption and governance.

After two years in office, Nigerians are tired of the Lamentations of Jonathan; he should start acting like the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Sources

[1] allAfrica.com: Nigeria: We're Tired of Bombings - Jonathan

[2] Boko Haram attacks in Nigerian hurting business | The London Evening Post

[3] Nigeria Probes Possible Fraud Over $12.6 Billion Subsidies - Businessweek

[4] Corruption Perceptions Index 2010

[5] Corruption Perceptions Index 2011

[6] Nigeria: Power outage - FT.com

[7] Ranking of economies - Doing Business - World Bank Group

Other references

Nigeria: Why #OccupyNigeria should matter to all

BBC – A Nation Divided – The Health Demographic Map of Nigeria [Graphic]

BBC – A Nation Divided – The Literacy Demographic Map of Nigeria [Graphic]

Editorial: Nigerian Government Dishonesty About Fuel Subsidy

The Fuel Subsidy Debate

The Nigerian Social Media space has been considering the possibility of Nigerians waking up from their docility and acceptance of everything thrown at them by their indifferent government to the inspiration of their own Arab Spring early next year.

This has been predicated by the decision of the government to remove subsidies from Premium Motor Spirit what we generally call fuel subsidy early next year.

The chatter has really been confounded by the situation where over decades there have been threats and salami-sliced implementations of the removal but no one is particularly sure of how much that subsidy really is, that it has become some imaginary slush fund of ready cash that the government suggests it will plough back into the economy taking cognisance of the effects such a removal might have on the working classes.

The Truth About Our Government

Sadly, the government has never really had a track record of ploughing oil profits back into the pockets of Nigerians except in the mid-70s after which plunder and squander has been the tack of those in leadership with little consideration of the bottom-line and particular welfare of the generality of the people – there are points for argument in the previous statement but little to dispute in terms of results.

Fundamentally, the fuel subsidy is literally the substrate of the totality of the Nigerian economy, it will touch on every aspect of life in relation to prices for food, goods, transport and every other service apart from the inflationary pressures it will present, but those issues are best left to central bankers and economists whilst one deals with a few other brass tacks.

Plans or Fables?

As a producer of petroleum products, it is bordering on the atrocious that Nigeria imports about 85% of its refined fuel needs because its existing four refineries are poorly managed and are lacking in serious productive capacity which means that the federal government subsidies imported fuel to the tune of $4 billion annually. [TransparencyNG]

Commonsense will suggest that the long-term goal of the government will be to facilitate, encourage or sponsor raising our refined fuel capacity to levels that will ensure that the subsidy expended in imports is radically reduced, at least that is what informed the signing of the memorandum of understanding with the China State Construction Engineering Corporation in May last year to build refineries in Lagos, Kebbi and Bayelsa States at the cost of $23 billion. [TransparencyNG][China in Africa][BBC News]

Whilst it is interesting to note the activity of the Chinese in building refineries in Ghana, Niger and Nigeria, what made interesting news a few months ago was the idea that Niger might get way ahead of Nigeria in commissioning its own refineries and end up exporting refined fuel to Nigeria. [All Africa]

How Much Is The Subsidy?

Besides, it appears no one is sure of what the cost of subsidising fuel is, the Central Bank in its MPC Meeting minutes suggested that the cost was about $6 billion, the on-going debate in the Nigerian Senate suggests the Federal Government budgeted NGN 240 billion ($1.54 billion) for subsidies in 2011 but have found that cost inflated to NGN 1.5 trillion ($9 6 billion) in what is a looking like a typical Nigerian scam. [CBN (PDF) Page 3][All Africa]

This amazing discrepancy should have heads rolling faster than when the Bastille movement chopped off heads in the French revolution, but none such will happen because the matter of responsibility leading on to accountability is just absent in Nigerian governance.

As an aside, the real big cost of governance sits within the profligate nature of our Federal Government, the abuse of security votes at state government level and the exorbitance of our legislature that consumes over 25% of our Federal Government overheads without essentially being a productive sector of our economy.

Indonesia Caught in Denials

Much as the idea of building more refining capacity in Nigeria does not seem to appeal to those resolute in finding another largesse to nudge their greedy snouts into, what adds insult to injury in spite of the now seemingly white elephant plans to build refineries in Nigeria is the news that Nigeria plans to invest Rp 24 trillion (US$2.68 billion) in Indonesia to build three refineries. [Jakarta Post]

The Nigerian Government has gone to great lengths to deny this report, but one has to ask why Indonesia will dream up such a scheme if there were no iota of truth in the same. The Nigerian Government unfortunately for all its protestations has a Matilda Complex about it, its propensity for denying fact and defending lies is legendary especially with the instrument of Social Media personnel it has employed for propaganda, obfuscation, distraction and alienation. [All Africa][AkinBlog]

Our Insurrection In Planning

It has become known that any opposition to the government is quickly construed as unpatriotic whilst the government has perfected a complacency of siege mentality proffering more excuse than reason for any action or inaction they have found themselves in.

At the end of the day, the reasonable thing about fuel subsidy is for Nigeria to build and sustain its refining capacity by whatever means encourages that trajectory and it is only after that is put in place that the desire to remove the fuel subsidy can be justified.

Nigerians have two and a half long months to put everything in place to start off their justifiable insurrection against a moribund, ineffective government in détente and inertia, for once, let us – Arise, O Compatriots and heed a call for a democracy that is fair, just, honest and true.

Nigeria: Enough is Enough! March

The gathering

Tomorrow morning, the youth of Nigeria will gather at the National Assembly in protest about current issues affecting the governing and progress of Nigeria.

Courtesy of the http://whereisyaradua.com website [1]

I would believe that the collective noun of youth probably pertains to everyone who is 35 years of age and below which from certain statistics represents the majority of the Nigerian population.

I am pleased that they have gathered together to provide a significant and noticeable constituency to the leadership of the country and hope that their demands are met with some form of positive response.

When I wrote [2] about the impending protest last week, I felt their demands were hardly visionary nor bold, they have somehow fine-tuned those demands but they are hardly earth-shaking as to convince me of their readiness to seize the initiative on the leadership of the country.

Answers not easy questions

For a long time, we have known that our politicians are not given to providing answers to questions no matter how easy they are; rather they can only be out-flanked by answers that trump the ready excuses that belittle the intelligence and ability of the young and vibrant.

Much as I support this protest in spite of the difficulties of gathering the kind of support that allows them to be a noticeable voice of reason with Nigeria, I do hope their next attempt of garnering support reaches beyond détente and the comfortable to the challenging, exemplary and future-looking.

As a first step, indeed – Enough is really Enough.

Sources

[1] Enough is Enough Nigeria! Logo/graphic courtesy of the http://whereisyaradua.com website

[2] Nigeria: Enough is Enough [akin.blog-city.com]

Nigeria: Enough is Enough

One generation ago

I remember some 27 years ago as a student of Yaba College of Technology donning my large wearable front and back poster challenging the priorities of our then President Shehu Shagari at Tafawa Balewa Square.

The night before, the tallest building in Nigeria then, the NITEL tower had been destroyed by fire and the president did not see that significant enough to cancel his trip to India to receive an honorary doctorate degree just when our education ministry downgraded Indian doctoral degrees to the equivalent of Nigerian masters degrees.

The country was in drift, within the grip of a rampaging political mismanagement under the ruling National Party of Nigeria no different from what we now have with the ruling People’s Democratic Party.

The chief does the beat

What was most significant about our protest then as I recall it was to see the Inspector General of Police, Sunday Adewusi, himself get on the Student’s Union bus and beat student’s off the bus with his own truncheon.

If we could draw out the Nigerian chief of police into that hands-on activity of “protest abatement” we were a significant enough constituency and nuisance for the government to take note.

When I returned home after our school was closed I had a conversation with my father about our protest and the demands for better leadership in Nigeria, this is the advice he gave me and it still bothers me till today.

“There was a time when Nigeria was worth dying for, that time has passed” That was in 1983.

From that time, I have really wondered if all the blood shed in the quest for a better Nigeria has really been worth it all, I do hope that – the labours of our heroes past shall never be in vain – as our national anthem states, but do we really have that as a resolution?

The youth today

Next week, on Tuesday, the 16th of March 2010, one generation on from mine, the youth of Nigeria are gathering under the banner of Enough Is Enough [1] at the National Assembly asking three pertinent questions.

• Where is our president?
• Where is the promise of 6000MW?
• Why is there still fuel scarcity?

All those questions are important and significant for the purpose of highlighting the fact that the questions require good answers, to show that there are galvanising issues that Nigerians can espouse and that the young constitute a significant constituency in Nigeria that needs to be recognised especially by our political leadership.

The right actions?

The call to protest is very commendable and laudable, I am however not sure that the questions are the right questions for this time.

Whilst the as it were substantive president is lain comatose and out of sight we have an acting President who exercises authority in that office despite the lurking ghost of his boss in the background – Goodluck Jonathan needs support, he does not need reminding that Umaru Yar’Adua excites public passions he can hardly excite to show himself to the public.

The promise of 6,000 MW of electrical power would never be fulfilled without an active youth with the expertise and ability to move into those institutions, establishments and industries that manage the resources to produce the results we require.

Let the youthful engineers and managers step forward to man the oil, gas, wind, solar, hydro and hybrid energy resources that can make the promise true, that goal would never be achieved with what we have now and that is why it is not there – the challenge is clearly not met with the rabble of protest.

Indeed, it is absurd that a country that has petroleum as an exportable natural resource should suffer fuel scarcity; it is simply ridiculous and untenable.

A more effective protest

However, it presents another opportunity for the youth in relation to the views I have expressed regarding power, beyond the atrocious market forces, selfish interests of oil merchants and the troubles in the Niger Delta to come up with great ideas and abilities to realise the best of Nigeria’s resources.

In fact, as the future belongs to our youth, there is the hope that they might with protest hold our leadership responsible, with their proactive actions they might even make leadership accountable but with answers they are well on the way to assuming leadership and shaping Nigeria in image they have dreamt Nigeria could be.

Questions do require answers but a youth with answers that move beyond the answers to reactive questions are ready to take on the mantle of leadership from those who have mismanaged our great country.

Then, I believe we would have arrived at the point where Enough Is Enough of what we have had and we cannot get enough of the Good Nigerian our youth represent and act out to build a Great Nation.

God guide our youth and God bless Nigeria.

Sources

[1] Where is Yar'Adua? The youth of Nigeria say… Enough is Enough » About

Nigeria: 34 burnt to death siphoning oil

Pipeline breach deaths again

There is a fundamental issue that does not seem to receive adequate redress in Nigeria. It has become so recurrent that it is both an embarrassment and a tragedy.

News arrives that another pipeline was deliberately breached and in the process of people siphoning highly volatile and flammable fuel from the pipeline it was ignited and at least 34 people have been burnt to death. Exactly a year ago, we had the same thing happen.

The toll would definitely be higher for those who have momentarily survived with serious burns that may not get adequate treatment from our poor triage services.

Fuel for cooking

Evidently, the reason why these pipelines are breached is because fuel is needed for literally everything in urban settings like Lagos, first for cooking, then for lighting and transport.

Cooking most especially makes the most demands, the West African cuisine does not lend itself to cold foods that much, literally everything needs to be cooked and spiced – all for taste and the prevention of food-borne disease or dangerous parasites.

That does not in itself justify the vandalising national infrastructure for personal needs and that is where the government of the people for the people has a serious responsibility that it has failed to wake up to.

The transport angle becomes a harrowing tale of despair and the hopelessness when petrol stations were giving priority to hearses that had to show the presence of cadaver cargo to be served – it makes you weep; though this particular case was in Zimbabwe.

Affordable fuel for the people

Nigeria being an oil-producing nation should have in place the means and infrastructure to ensure that this oil is both available and affordable to the general populace.

We need to invest in refining capacity that means both the needs of our contracts in the international marketplace and the critical needs of our people for the primary aspects of survival and development. It is outrageous that Nigeria as the 7^th largest oil-producing nation in the world needs to import refined product to meet its needs.

Again, people cannot continue to countenance that fact that the pipelines in their backyards are the source of such unbelievable sums of money that comes nowhere near affecting their lives positively.

It is this same problem that gives oxygen to the insurgencies in the Niger Delta Region, people seeing their land and water laid to waste by national and international conglomerates; the profits from extraction ending in white elephant projects or corrupt enrichment.

There has to be fairness and equity in the management of our natural resources for the benefit of all people of Nigeria and it takes a government that understands its mandate to govern and service to humanity to take on that hard job.

They perish for need

The folly of people who approach leaking petroleum pipelines going from the many incidents that have happened in recent years is lamentable, but the underlying problem is evident – they cannot afford what is supposed to be a produce of their own land and our attention to protecting national infrastructure through maintenance and security is very poor.

It is a very horrid thing for those whose lives were lost and a sad time for those they left behind, possibly on the premise that they only wanted to feed their families and needed fuel to cook the little food they had to share.

Get doing something

The criminal element needs to be addressed, but the issue is in the causes of this activity, we should not need another panel of experts to write another white paper about the obvious – some sleeves need to be rolled up for this matter and none of getting it bogged down in some task force quango.

There have been probes which are simply a euphemism for appearing to do something but really achieving nothing and learning no lessons, they are a travesty.

May they who have perished in so horrific a mishap rest in peace, one cannot begin to feel the pain of it all – so sad it is.

Other readings

The affordability of refined product in Nigeria – Chippla’s Weblog

Nigeria: They were burnt like tinder to cinder – March 2007

Unnamed, unknown, unsung and undone in Nigeria – May 2006