nation0428

dency on My 29, 2015. But like the proverbial
Whiteman that defecates on the chair before
vacating his seat, Jonathan is bent on leaving
behind some mess for the incoming administration.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has
raised concern over what it called last minute
looting of the nation’s resources, secret sales
of government property and massive recruitment
into the public service by the departing
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led Federal
Government. While these might not be entirely
true, it behoves the Jonathan administration
to tread with caution, its last days in
office, in order not to create problems for the
incoming administration.
And one of such likely problems is the
planned handover of the job of protecting the
nation’s oil/gas pipelines and waterways to
former militants and self determination
groups by President Jonathan. Barring any last
minute change, former Niger Delta militants/
warlords, Government Ekpemupolo (aka
Tompolo), Mujaheedin Asari-Dokubo and
Chief Bipobiri Ajube (aka Gen. Shoot-At-Sight)
together with Dr Frederick Faseun and Ganiyu
Adams of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC),
should be in charge of protecting these vital
economic facilities. They were billed to take
over from the various security agencies yesterday.
Looking at the implications of contracting
out such important duty of government to private
individuals/companies, to the security
of state, one would have expected President
Jonathan to leave the decision on the
outsourcing of such assignment to the incoming
administration. The pipelines and waterways
are treasured national assets that should
not be placed in the hands of anybody or
group of people other than agents of the state.
Considering the cry over poor funding of
our armed forces and other security agencies,
the N9.3 billion to be expended on the pipeline
protection contract for the former militants
could go a long way in adequately arming
the Nigerian Navy and the Nigeria Police
to provide the needed security for these pipelines
and our waterways. These are bodies/
organizations statutorily empowered to carry
IT is highly debatable whether it is proper
to set an agenda for progress and development
for an elected government which Ipresumably got the highest number of votes
on the basis of its manifesto. However it has
been a tortuous journey to the moment when
a ruling party in Nigeria could be voted out of
power for poor performance. There are many
gaps to fill and mistakes to correct such that
patriots cannot afford to be aloof. The moment
calls on hands on deck for a fresh beginning.
In this respect one is happy that the President-elect
General Muhammadu Buhari has
already promised to ‘lead a government
founded on values that promote and protect
fundamental human rights and freedoms, the
supremacy of the Constitution and rule of
law…and to build a country that is fair to all
its citizens…respects human dignity, promotes
human development…equality…and
freedom….’
I see here the recognition of some of our
past weaknesses which include wrong philosophy
of governance or inappropriate ideology
of development, exclusion of the state from
economic activities, low citizenry participation,
disregard for the provisions of the constitution,
infrastructural decay, rural neglect,
corruption, insecurity, unemployment especially
youth’s to mention just a few.
While it needless to ask for a proper focus
on these problems, the year 1999 when the
country returned to democracy provided opportunity
for a fresh start but which was
botched by the ruling elites by taking the
wrong road. As I observed in my book Power
of Youth and Other Essays on the Political Economy
of Nigeria the wrong step was informed by a
number of factors -both local and international
that must guided against henceforth. These
include influence of international politics of
ideology as was re-ignited by Margaret
Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the
USA in the 1980s to the effect that the market
is the engine of development and the state has
no business with doing business; the fall of
USSR and the belief that socialism was dead;
the influence of western media in projecting
the capitalist ideology across the globe in the
name of globalization, the persuasive activities
of the IMF, the World Bank on developing
countries to embrace western market
based model of development, the poor knowledge
and lack of creative thinking and development-oriented
nation-building local elites
as well as emergence of false prophets in the
That pipeline
protection contract
22 THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2015
COMMENTS
AFTER six years of lack-lustre performance,
President Goodluck Jonathan is
expected to relinquish Nigeria’s presiout
the job of protecting these facilities, and if
for whatever reason they have been unable to
do so effectively, the solution is not to
outsource their duties, but to ensure they carry
out such duties.
Moreover it is doubtful if any of these contractors
have any requisite knowledge or training
on how to carry out the assignment. Giving
them the contract amounts to merely giving
‘job to the boys’ to keep them quiet or
away from crime. While it is good and even
necessary for government to either provide
gainful employment for all or create a conducive
environment for everybody so willing
to be gainfully employed, this kind of job being
given to Tompolo and others is beyond
their level of competence and should be
stopped immediately.
If Jonathan insists on going ahead with the
contract, the incoming administration on taking
over power should halt the implementation
as soon as possible. If the government
feels there is a need for a special force to be in
charge of protecting these facilities, it should
create such and put under its control, just like
it created the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC)
and the National Drug Law Enforcement
Agency (NDLEA) to take care of road safety
matters and drug law enforcement in the country.
I had complained about this contract in the
past when it was first mooted. I have nothing
personal against the people involved, but I
believe that the security of state, including that
of the citizens and vital state facilities/resources
should not be put in the hands of private
individuals. And considering the past
activities of some of those benefiting from the
contract, I believe it amounts to rewarding
criminality if those who had at one time or
another taken up arms against the government
in the past, should be so rewarded, if at
all they should be rewarded, the Niger Delta
amnesty programme notwithstanding.
While the incoming General Muhammadu
Buhari’s administration has promised not to
probe Jonathan or any of his predecessors, this
type of pipeline protection contract could
leave the new government with no choice than
to look into the books of the outgoing government.
And Nigerians would definitely understand
if the new government came to this.
There are some actions of the Jonathan government
that would and should definitely be
looked into. No responsible government
would want to close its eyes to the disappearance
of 20 billion USD oil earning not remitted
into the federation account by the Nigeria
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as
alleged by the former governor of Central
Bank of Nigeria, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi,
the Emir of Kano.
Sanusi, as CBN government made the allegation
and instead of Jonathan looking into it
fired the apex bank boss. It is believed that
Sanusi’s appointment as Emir of Kano probably
prevented Jonathan from further persecuting
for making the revelation.
Long travel on the wrong road
By John I. Abhuere
corridors of power many of them novices in
development issues or nation-building matters.
One of the results was the wrongly taken
private–sector market driven economic patha
somewhat breach of the constitution. Rather
than being guided by the provisions of the
1999 constitution, the government adopted the
wrong philosophy of excluding the state from
economic activities in the name of globalization
of which privatization is a major plank. It
was a step informed by blind loyalty and uncritical
embrace of an inappropriate ideology
that was bereft of reason, historical and constitutional
support. In this way the state was
sent on leave of absence for 16 years.
Yet according to the 1999 Constitution, the
‘security and welfare of the people’ shall be
the primary purpose of government and the
‘participation of the people in their government’
should be ensured. Also the state ‘’shall
harness the resources of the nation to promote
national prosperity and an efficient, a dynamic
and self reliant economy’; and it should ‘control
the national economy in such manner as
to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and
happiness of every citizen on the basis of social
justice and equality of status and opportunity’.
It is clear from the foregoing that the constitution
envisages state intervention but instead
of this the elites excluded the state and went
ahead with a bogus privatization which saw
the sale of public enterprise that swelled the
unemployment load without any attempt to
establish labor-intensive industries. What
stopped us from having a national carrier,
more refineries, and agro –based industries
except economic heresy from abroad?
But such exclusion of the state was bad development
–economics and a-historical. It is
akin to denying the best player of a football
team from playing in a crucial competition
on the ground that it is not right to win through
him. The state in developing countries has
more muscle than the private sector to lead
and drive the economy. The private sector is
still at its infancy and thus weak. Values such
as trust, honesty, and discipline are in short
supply in Nigeria. Above all the purpose of
President-elect, Buhari is right in saying he
would look into the books on this matter once
he assumes office on May 29, 2015. Nigerians
would understand why. We need to know who
was saying the truth; Sanusi or Jonathan’s government
that says no $20billion was missing.
Corruption is at the root of our problems in
this country and until issues like the alleged
missing oil money is satisfactorily dealt with
and the truth uncovered, and punishment
meted out if necessary; corruption will continue
to thrive in Nigeria. $20billion is big
money and no effort must be spared by Buhari
to uncover the truth and no sacred cow must
be left untouched if at all somebody or some
people tampered with that money.
The president-elect should also look into the
bogus oil subsidy being paid by the federal
government to importers of petrol. This is
another platform where Nigeria is being defrauded
of huge sums of money.
The fraudulent practices are not of monetary
nature alone. There is so much fraud in our
electoral system which if not stopped could
derail this democracy. The last general elections
and the sham that took place in Rivers
and Akwa Ibom States just to mention a few,
in the name of election was enough to show
that all is not well with our democracy in spite
of the worldwide kudos given to the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC)
and its chairman, Attahiru Jega for a job well
done.
It was glaring that no election took place in
these two states and yet results, votes, running
into millions were declared. Who did
the voting? While the judiciary should be left
alone to determine whether it was right for
INEC to declare result in the face of so many
irregularities in these states, conscious efforts
should be made by the Buhari administration
to reform our electoral system such that votes
would count. It would be wise for the incoming
administration to look into the Justice
Uwais Commission report in this regard.
As Jonathan prepares his hand over notes, it
is hoped that the president would make himself
available to the new government for clarification
on some of his actions if need be. Let
us thank the president once again for that concession
speech. For once in six years, he did
something good.
the state is to provide for the security, and
welfare of the people and thus in a better position
to mobilize necessary resources to do
the needful including the provision of employment.
Most of the problems of today were all
there - unemployment, insecurity, rural neglect,
infrastructural deficiency, corruption etc
and they required strong frontier attack than
the indirect approach of the market adopted
by the ruling elites.
It is needless to remind us that the country
has been in serious economic crisis long before
1999.And the state has a duty to resolve
the crisis. In the history of nation-building,
the state has always led in the mobilization of
resources to lay appropriate infrastructure in
order to drive growth and development. The
USA used the approach in its formative years
in the 18 th , 19 th century and would use it in the
1920s & 30s era of the great depression to
stimulate recovery, and even in this century-
2008 to resolve serious financial crisis. The
Marshal plan for Europe after the World War
11 was nothing else than massive state intervention.
Dubai, Singapore, China etc are
driven on the principle of government-led
development efforts.
The new government must not give room
to the false prophets of development to misdirect
the country again because they are novices
in nation-building in developing countries.
They lack the ability for creative thinking
and adaptation of global ideas to local
condition. They chase shadows rather than the
substance of solving the daily problems of our
country. The new government must work out
an appropriate philosophy or ideology of development
based on justice, equity and fairplay
to be preached and driven by a well assembled
development oriented and nationalunity
conscious elite.
Another serious mistake of the past was the
alienation of majority citizens through barren,
harsh and unrewarding policies. One of
the consequences was low citizenry participation
which is one of the reasons for policy
failure of the era 1999-2015.
Any casual observer of the Nigerian scene
would appreciate that many Nigerians did not
bond with the development vision of the government
since 1999. For instance many people
did not understand what NEEDS, 7-point
agenda and Transformational agenda were all
about. Yet without people understanding and
buying into the leadership vision, nothing
much can be achieved in the development
arena. The mobilization of the citizen to share
in the leadership vision should be the starting
point of this administration.
Because the country was on the wrong road,
many things went wrong too: corruption, injustice,
immorality, profanity, unethical conduct
etc were on the increase. She failed or
was unable to appreciate where the shoes
pinched most. Otherwise national statistics
had since revealed that about 60% of the
nation’s active population are youths and that
unemployment was very high in the country
– 40% (about 40 million) people most of them
youths, thereby becoming a source of threat
to the economy. With over 40 million unemployed,
one needs not to be specialist to know
that the country was sitting on a keg of gun
powder. All these largely explain the rise of
more militia groups, kidnapping groups and
terrorist sects such as Boko Haram. And they
also explain the sprawling poverty and underdevelopment
across the country today. All
these must be given utmost attention through
frontal attack by the state at not the indirect
approach of the market.
• Abhuere, FNIM, writes from Uromi
‘With over 40 million unemployed, one needs not to be specialist
to know that the country was sitting on a keg of gun powder.
All these largely explain the rise of more militia groups,
kidnapping groups and terrorist sects such as Boko Haram. And
they also explain the sprawling poverty and underdevelopment
across the country today. All these must be given utmost attention
through frontal attack by the state at not the indirect
approach of the market’