If Buhari Becomes President - BY MINABERE IBELEMA

For a long time now, the voice of General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) has been a constant buzz on the Nigerian political scene. Actually, for a while — after the election of 2007 — the erstwhile autocratic military head of state rescued himself from the political scene, complaining bitterly and implausibly that he had been cheated out of presidential election victory.

Then, propelled by his unfulfilled appetite for power, he re-emerged soon after. It is entirely understandable that he couldn’t stay away for long.

Any observer of the Nigerian political scene in 1984 has to know that Buhari is a man with an imperial bent and an oversized ego. During his short-lived tenure as Nigeria’s military head of state, he imposed his will as no other had done before or after.

His War Against Indiscipline (or WAI) permeated every aspect of Nigerian life, for better and for worse. He brooked no dissent. His Decree No. 4 was as draconian a law as Nigeria has ever witnessed. Under the decree, many a journalist was imprisoned for questioning Buhari’s policies or even inveighing against military rule.

Some pundits have claimed that many of the dictatorial excesses of Buhari’s tenure were actually attributable to his second in command, the late General Tunde Idiagbon. I am more inclined to believe that Buhari was the ideologue behind the policies and Idiagbon was his strategist.

Not that it matters that much. Buhari was the head of state, and whatever happened under his watch should duly be credited to (or blamed on) him.

The important point now is that Buhari’s tenure was too short to quench his appetite for power. And that’s why, even after publicly shedding tears in 2007 and vowing to leave politics, he came back with more doggedness than ever before.

While Buhari was the flag bearer of the All Nigeria People’s Party, he had little chance of being elected president. His political fortunes improved somewhat when he bolted from the ANPP to form the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2010, but it was not enough to hoist the presidential banner.

That’s why Buhari’s claim of being cheated out of the presidency in 2007 and 2011raised serious questions about his political astuteness.

Then Buhari started to push harder for the merger of parties that could challenge the PDP. He must have realised at last that his losses in previous contests had little to do with being rigged out and much to do with his narrow electoral base.

Now with the merger of the CPC and the Action Congress of Nigeria and two other parties to form the All Progressives Congress, Buhari has overcome the problem of a narrow base. And for the first time since his overthrow in 1985, he has a better-than-realistic chance of becoming Nigeria’s president.

Problem is that while Buhari has solved the problem of his narrow electoral base in terms of party formation, he has not shed his narrow political ideology. Rather than truly reaching out and positioning himself as a healing force in Nigerian politics, he is demonstrating ever so convincingly that he is too provincial to be president.

If the APC nominates Buhari for the presidency in 2015, it would be opting for someone who is anything but progressive. And the party is likely to lose the very advantage of its prospective size by the fact that Buhari continues to be divisive and alienating.

There is no better evidence of this than his interview last Sunday in Kaduna with Liberty FM’s Hausa Service Programme, ‘Guest of the Week.’

In the interview reported in the Punch, Buhari blasted the ongoing military campaign against Boko Haram, claiming that they are getting harsher treatment than the Niger Delta militants. Moreover, he attributed the rise of Islamic militancy to the Niger Delta insurgency.

Perhaps, Buhari is not aware that the Joint Task Force that was deployed in the Niger Delta to combat the militancy there used jets, naval gunboats, and armoured vehicles. Perhaps, he has not heard of the razing in 1999 of Odi village in Bayelsa State by the Nigerian military and many more such communities since then.

Buhari rightly points out in the interview that the arming of Niger Delta youth by politicians who were running for office played a major role in the militarisation of the region. What he doesn’t explain is how that gave rise to the ethno-religious campaign being waged by Boko Haram.

The Niger Delta militancy arose in support of a negotiable demand for a more equitable sharing of revenue from the region. And so the militants focused their military campaign against the oil industry and infrastructure. They did not target Muslims or Northerners.

In contrast, Boko Haram is demanding the un-negotiable: the Islamisation of all of Nigeria. And they are bombing churches and killing Christians to advance that cause. How do such demands and atrocities compare with the activities of the Niger Delta militancy?

From his current and previous utterances, it seems certain that Buhari will be a disaster for Nigeria if he becomes president. His apparent disregard for the need for equitable redress of the Niger Delta’s grievances will certainly precipitate a titanic clash in the region.

Significantly, it was during the presidency of fellow Northerner, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, that an amnesty agreement was reached with the Niger Delta militants, resulting in the beginning of a draw down in their insurgency. If Buhari becomes president, the opposite will happen: he would stoke the militancy by words and action.

Buhari’s evident sympathy for Boko Haram also suggests that he would use his power to push Nigeria ever closer to a theocratic state (in the Muslim mould) than a secular one.

Yet, as is evident in the uprisings in Egypt and Turkey against theocracy-leaning regimes in those countries, Nigerians, including Northerners, will revolt en masse against theocratic encroachments on civil liberties. And so a Buhari presidency is certain to unleash a level of civil unrest that Nigeria has not witnessed in a long time.

In external relations, a Buhari presidency is also certain to damage Nigeria’s relations with the Western world, especially the United States. In fact, it is not an overreach to speculate that Nigeria could become listed as a terrorist state.

The US recently announced a $7 million bounty on Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau. If Nigeria elects a president who cuddles the group, the bounty would in effect be on the country.

In the interview with Liberty FM radio, Buhari said that he didn’t join the APC because he wants to be president.

“If APC fails to give me the ticket, I will remain in partisan politics and in the party,” he said. “Anyone the party picks as its candidate, I will support him because I will remain in the APC.”

Buhari is, of course, being coy about his presidential ambitions, and it is hard to take him seriously. What with his early and intense campaigning — with posters all over Abuja, I understand. Buhari does indeed belong in partisan politics, but not in the presidency.

Power Reps shouldn’t have

It is not in the democratic spirit for the lawmaker to unilaterally kick out a President or Vice President

Majority of the members of the House of Representatives seeking to make it easier to impeach a President or the Vice President are clearly on a frolic of their own. Despite their claims that they are acting in the public interest, it is clear that the protagonists of the proposed amendment to the constitution are merely on a self-seeking adventure to garner more powers for the Legislature, at the expense of the health of our democracy. In my view, the process of impeaching a President or a Vice President, as provided in section 143 of the 1999 constitution (as amended), is just rigorous enough, and should not be made easier for a misguided cause.

It is surprising that the bill was able to scale the second reading, despite the succinct arguments of the leaders of the majority and minority parties in the House, during the plenary. To show how jejune the reasons adduced for the proposed amendment are, one lawmaker, Mr. Emmanuel Jime, had posed what he considered a constitutional quagmire: ‘how can the Chief Justice of Nigeria, who himself is an appointee of the President, be the one to set up a panel to investigate the allegations?’ The sponsor of the bill, Mr. Yakubu Dogara compounded the irrationality thus: ‘the essence of the bill is to hold the Executive accountable so that checks can be created, and it is not meant to target this term but rather to make the process less ambiguous on grounds of misconduct’.

With these puerile arguments, the House accepted to subject this reckless bill to further legislative action. If we may ask, is it not elementary knowledge that the presidential system of government is built on the doctrine of separation of powers based on the tripod of the legislative, executive and judiciary arms of government? Again, is Mr. Jime, by his argument suggesting that he is not aware that the Legislature shares constitutional responsibility with the President in the appointment of the Chief Justice? By accepting the reasoning questioning the impartiality of the head of the Judiciary, is the House suggesting that Nigerians should regard as prejudicial, all judgments of the highest court of the land, in any matter involving the Executive arm of government?

The reason offered by the sponsor of the bill is indeed very self seeking, and a dishonour to his competence as a legislator. He had talked about checks, when by the contents of the proposals, the sole aim of the bill is to locate all powers over the impeachment of the President or his vice on the Legislature, while excluding the Executive and the electorate represented by the eminent panel of seven as provided in section 143(5). If the bill were to become law, then the Legislature will be the sole determinant of a misdemeanour by the President or his vice, the prosecutor and the judge, all by themselves; and that in the opinion of Mr. Dogara and his co-travellers will amount to checks.

Except for purposes of misguided publicity, why would the proponents of the bill seek to amend the constitution on their own terms, shortly after the 360 members of the House had publicly interacted with their constituencies, on the pending proposed amendments to the constitution? It is such conducts like the current one that give the impression to the public that most of our legislators are ill-equipped for the onerous responsibility placed on their shoulders by the constitution. For, if the proponents of this bill know their onions, will they not appreciate that such divisive bill like the one they are proposing will not be approved by a majority of the states, or even the upper chamber; or are they hoping to also exclusively amend the bill all by themselves, as they also wish to single-handedly sack the President or his vice without any other authority looking into the genuineness of their conduct?

For the purposes of emphasis, the possibility of a misguided Legislature sacking an Executive President elected by the entire electorate in the country must be made very stringent. Tragically, at the state level, the removal of the state governors and their deputies had been thoroughly abused, and we hope the House members are not wishing for such possibility at the federal level. Indeed, there have been clear cases of the National Assembly straying into the territory of the Executive, or even abusing their privileges; and if Mr. Dogara’s wishes were to be realised, then for every time the Executive resists legislative interference, Nigerians may be gifted a new President. What even stops the Legislature from turning the presidency into a circus, if they get the powers they are seeking, as they could always impeach the President and his vice, to have one of their own take over, even if on an acting capacity?

A PEOPLE IN DENIAL

"Boko Haram has not committed any wrong to deserve amnesty. Surprisingly the Nigerian government is talking about granting us amnesty. What wrong have we done? On the contrary, it is we that should grant you (government) pardon"- Abubakar Shekau, the spokesman and leader of Boko Haram speaking to the French News Agency AFP. 
 
Whilst our President is still busy offering amnesty to those who have rejected it and whilst the Nigerian people and intelligensia are involved in a barren and futile debate about the merits and demerits of granting amnesty to terrorists, Boko Haram continues to kill, maim and destroy. It is clear to me that our people are in denial and that our government is deluded, irresponsible and insensitive. As we are busy debating about amnesty or no amnesty for Boko Haram, the Niger Delta terrorist organisation known as MEND have quietly given us notice about their sinister plans for our country. After killing 14 policemen in a ruthless attack just last week they have told us through their spokesman, one Jomo Gbomo, that it is their intention to "start killing muslims and attacking mosques as from 31st may, 2013 in order to protect and save christianity in Nigeria". This warning and statement of intent was published and reported in the American website magazine called Bloomberg.com on the 14th April 2013. 
 
Yet despite all these troubling signs and signals the Nigerian people and the Nigerian Government, in their usual manner, are still napping and pretending as if all is well. Perhaps we all deserve what is coming. A people that do not even have the guts to courageously demand that their government rise up to the occassion and do their job by protecting the lives and property of its citizens deserve prayer and pity. When Boko Haram and MEND finally face one another in a terrible war of reprisal killings and bombings that is when our people will understand the implications of tolerating a government that is incapable of doing its job and confronting terror with a firm and decisive hand.
 
 Meanwhile Nigeria continues to bleed and die as many of her citizens are bombed to pieces, maimed and have their throats slit open every day by islamist terrorists who do not know, or care to know, the meaning of peace, restraint, decency or dialogue. President Goodluck Jonathan has handed our country over to a bunch of butchers who have no value for human life. Under his watch our people continue to die and die whilst he sits in the Presidential Villa and drinks champagne.
 
Worst still is the sheer irresponsibility and shameless behaviour of one or two of our northern governers who, instead of attempting to provide more security for their people in their respective domains, are besides themselves trying to either get on the lucrative gravy train known as the Boko Haram Amnesty Commitee or are actually speaking for Boko Haram and explaining their actions. If the latter were not the case how do you explain the illogical and frankly absurd contribution from my old friend Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi state who said that ''the real Boko Haram will accept amnesty'' and that ''it is their criminal and political sect members that are rejecting the offer?'' (Leadership Newspaper, 15th April, 2013). 
 
I have three questions here. Since when has a democratically elected governor of one of the largest and most important states in northern Nigeria and a man that was a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under President Obasanjo's government for almost eight good years become the official spokesman for Boko Haram? How come he appears to know who is who within that terrorist organisation and the attitude and nature of each of it's factions and why does he seek to absolve his preferred faction of the evil that they have collectively visited on the Nigerian people in the last two years? The third question is this- since when has any part or faction of Boko Haram not been criminal and political? I daresay that every part and every faction of this wicked organisation of heartless men and women is not only criminal but they are also political and religious.
  
Boko Haram is an islamist organisation who are dedicated to imposing and establishing an islamic fundamentalist state in northern Nigeria through the use of violence. They also wish to wipe out christianity and true islam in the north and they reject the idea of living in a country where christians can take any position of leadership let alone be President. Yet these are the type of people that Governor Isa Yuguda and a number of other northern leaders is now speaking for and trying to absolve? A vicious group of people that have slaughtered no less than 4,200 Nigerians and non-Nigerians in the last two years and that have burnt down and bombed virtually every church that existed in some commiunities and states in the north? If anyone doubts that they should find out from the catholics what happened to 50 of the 52 churches that they established in Borno state. 
 
The implication of Yuguda's contribution is that there is a faction of Boko Haram that is wholesome and righteous. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Every single person and group that is a part of or is in any way associated with Boko Haram is evil, is destructive and has blood on their hands. And anyone, no matter how highly placed, reverred or distinguished, that tries to rationalise their actions or absolve them of their murderous ways is equally evil and equally guilty of murder. Nigeria is a country in denial where leaders are always ready, willing and able to rationalise, defend and forgive the actions of beasts. Yet this has not always been so. Remember the public beheading of Gideon Akaluka in Kano in the 90's by an irate mob of islamists for allegedly using a page of the koran as toilet paper and General Sani Abacha's decisive response to such madness?
  
When Abacha was in power he knew exactly how to handle the islamist tendency that plagued Kano in his time, including those that organised and incited the mob to kill Akaluka. He had them killed quietly one after the other until the problem was solved and the plague of islamist terror was abated. One of the leaders of those that killed Akaluka, as a consequence of his royal connections, survived and escaped death only because he was hidden in a Sokoto prison for two years whilst Abacha was told that he had been killed. That individual certainly came bouncing back into the public space and the circles of power and has now reached ''high places'' but that is a story for another day. How I wish that the present leadership of our country could learn a lesson or two from General Sani Abacha's approach to the islamist rebellion that we have been confronted with. They can also learn a lot from the approach of another moderate muslim by the name of Kamel Attaturk who was the founder and father of the modern Turkish state. He knew what to do to the islamist terrorists in his midst and he did it without thinking twice or batting an eyelid.
 
Yet sadly Nigeria is not blessed with such leaders today. Instead we are saddled with a President who, only a few weeks ago, described Boko Haram as his ''siblings''. We have a President who does not appreciate the fact that it is his job to provide security for our nation and to protect the Nigerian people from the enemy within and the enemy without. We have a President who is on his knees morning, day and night begging the islamist terrorists to accept an amnesty that they never asked for in the first place and which they have consistently rejected. We have a President and a people that just don't know what they are up against. We have a President and a people that are suffering from the worst form of denial. May God save Nigeria and may He send us a deliverer.

Boko Haram and the tortoise doctrine By Obi Nwakanma

President Goodluck Jonathan,truly found his vocation: with a doctorate in Zoology, there could be no better place for him to put his skills to work than in the Zoo called Nigeria. Nigeria is a zoo, with all kinds animals: the benign and the ferocious; their instincts are the same. At the top of this zoological food chain, are the big animals – the elephants of the jungle – where ever their footsteps fall – the grass was forbidden to grow.

But let me tell a little Igbo story, and Chinua Achebe had told it in some part in Anthills of the Savannah: the peaceful and indistinct tortoise was walking down a pathway one day when the lordly lion met him on his way, and roared: “aha! God done catch you today!” He said to the Tortoise; “I have been looking for you!”

The Tortoise of course knew the lion’s reputation for bullying, but he retained his dignity. “Beg your pardon,” he said to the lion, “but why have you been looking for me?”

“To beat you!” said the lion.

‘Is that so?” said the Tortoise.

“Na so e be” said the lion.

“In that case give me a minute” said the Tortoise, “grant me my last wish…”

“Ah. Take ten minutes” said the Lion, amused, and feeling very generous. Well, the Tortoise began to trample on the ground, scatter the soil; and beat the grass; to make the place generally rough and well acted upon. The Lion was taken aback by this, and he couldn’t contain himself.

“Tortoise, what’re you doing?”

“Writing down my own story…”

“What? You crazy little thing. You no get sense!”

“Balogun lion, look at me, what do you see?”

“A crazy little thing whom I’m going to beat up soon.”

“Good. But you do not see it yet. I am a small thing, and you ask why I scatter this place.”

“Yes…”

“Well, you’re powerful and I cannot match your physical strength. So, you’re going to beat me, I have no doubt. However, when people come here, and see this place, they will say, “the great tortoise put up a fierce fight against the mighty lion. They will know I did not go down very easily.”

It is the uncommon wisdom of the oppressed to rise to the occasion of history and deploy, by all means necessary, their own means of resistance. Nigerians too should not go down too easily. It is obvious that this ship called nation is sinking, and very fast, and a firefight is going on.

It is obvious that Nigeria’s political leadership has been withholding the absolute secrets of Nigeria’s final days from the Nigerian public. They seem to have prepared for themselves means of escape, nest eggs in various secret banks in foreign lands; emergency evacuation of their families and close friends; simply, at the high places are the Nigerian equivalent of the “Noah’s Ark projects” that will save only a few privileged species of the Nigerian animal, while the fire and conflagration that is close by burns the land.

In preparation for the final days of Nigeria, while Nigerians hide and pray, the Nigerian elite has systematically stripped every public institution of its meaning: Nigeria’s University and research facilities have gone to the dogs; Nigeria’s electric and energy delivery system has been sold part for part and in bits to the highest bidders; its oil fields have been mortgaged to foreign interests in the knowledge that there will not be a future generation; its strategic telecommunication infrastructure was the first to be farmed out, as no other country in the world does.

No nation other than Nigeria has ever handed its national telecommunication system – the basis of its national security – to private foreign interests, nor its core strategic national industrial infrastructure – steel and aluminum plants – bought and sold, and those that could not be sold, allowed to slide into decay.

It is clear, that the purpose of the Nigerian government in the last fifteen years, at least, has been to oversee the liquidation of the shared space of nation; to make Nigeria irretrievable, to supervise its demise, and seal its final treaties. The federal government itself acts like an enemy of the Nigerian people.

Those who have held power at the center and the states in Nigeria in the last fifteen years are not our brothers or sisters, our neighbors, our kinsmen, our classmates, they do not care for us as Nigerian citizens; they are not out to build the future of this nation; they are the millstones on the neck of the Nigerian people, acting out the orders of powerful global forces to reduce and erase what is currently Nigeria from the face of the globe. Boko Haram is the final nail in the coffin of Nigeria. What is Boko Haram? Nobody knows.

They are “ghosts” said the Nigerian president. “Give them amnesty” says the Sultan and the so-called leaders of the North. “Bring them out and we’ll begin negotiation” says the Jonathan government. In this case, the president is right. No one can offer amnesty to ghosts. If Sultan Abubakar and General Buhari knows them, let them bring out Boko Haram, and then any talk of amnesty might rightly begin.

But at the moment, and as General Azubuike Ihejirika, Chief of the Nigerian Army said last Monday, Boko Haram’s method is “baffling.” Well, this might just be because, there are too many Boko Harams. It is now a franchise with many mimic groups, including “Black Ops” groups within government, milking dry the national security vote which is now higher than the budget for education and research, industry and labour, put together.

Everybody is now Boko Haram. And Nigeria is like tinder, right at the edge, about to combust. And I say, Nigerians should not go down too easily. They should adopt “the Tortoise doctrine” of resistance, and they have two options: either commit mass suicide, one agreed “national suicide night” at the family tables, or organize and fight, and take back the sovereign mandate.

Nigerians should protest and reclaim their rights, create inter-community defense pacts to defend themselves in the coming anarchy because the federal government, it increasingly seems, no longer has the capacity to defend Nigeria or guarantee the rights and internal security of Nigerian peoples.

Everyone thought I’ll fail – Udeme Ufot, SO&U boss

Remember that popular Guinness TV commercial “My friend Udeme is a great man”? Until I spent over an hour with this innovative middle-aged man who actually produced that ad, I couldn’t grasp why he had to adjudge ‘Udeme’ great. Mr.Udeme Ufot is the Group Managing Director of SO&U, one of Nigeria’s most influential advertising agencies, affiliated to Saatchi & Saatchi, a global advertising agency. ‘A great seat!’, you might exclaim, but believe me, that isn’t the reason our friend Udeme is a “great man”. In 1990, Udeme Ufot had resigned his rewarding employment with a foremost advertising firm, Insight Communications, and had ventured into private practice relying solely on his creativity and dynamism, knowing well that the field was highly manipulated by the “bigger and older practitioners”. He seemed too brave and almost everyone thought it won’t be long before he crumbled, but it’s over 23 years on and Udeme Ufot is still making great strides in the world of advertising, even to the extent of winning the Fate Model Entrepreneur Award 2012.

Courageous beginning

When 23 years ago he became restless about venturing into private practice, Udeme Ufot did not have the ideal prerequisites for setting up an advertising firm. But today, Udeme is a great man. He had studied industrial design and specialised in graphic design at the Ahmadu Bello University where he graduated  and then worked for several years with Insight Communications as a creative artist. That knowledge was of course not enough to run a successful advertising business considering the presence of people who had perhaps studied advertising and managed frontline seats in the industry. “What a disadvantage!, one would ordinarily think. But Udeme was smart and decided to rely on the main substance visible in advertising- creativity, and within 18 months, the agency was named the most creative in the country.

Naïve team

“Getting started was not easy. We had a bunch of very green, naïve young people. SO&U is an acronym for Gbemi Sajay, Julia Oko and Ufot. We used to be among the backroom guys who get things done in the advertising industry. I have a creative background, Sagay was an art director and Oko was a copywriter. So, in the first instance, setting out to establish such business was an anomaly in the industry.  This made people laugh at us. But what have seen us through are resilience, determination and focus. We said to ourselves that we’ll go by a very simple strategy- nobody can deny seeing a good thing when he or she has seen it.  What was important to us was to ensure that we very quickly make a mark in our calling”, Udeme reveals.

“Therefore, we agreed that any work we found to do, we must do it differently and well. We rendered outstanding services above what we were paid for! We put our people through intensive training, and we virtually turned the agency into a school. We gradually turned our entire agency into an environment for continuous improvement and learning”.

Gift of creativity

Udeme didn’t just stumble into the creative world of advertising- he had dreamed of it as a teenager! He co-incidentally discovered he had the skills and made conscious efforts towards improvement. Being the son of the Registrar of the University of Calabar at that time, he had access to the university library and read voraciously. While studying a journal on advertising and marketing one day though he had wanted to be a political scientist, he came across an illustration of an impressive looking fellow, and the caption under that illustration read: “A Trendy Art Director”. Immediately, Udeme fell in love with the art director and his work and began dreaming and working towards becoming one someday. That was between 1975 and 76.

He adds: “What helped me was that I was talented creatively. Right from my primary school, I could draw very well, I could act in plays and I was very good in literature. In fact, when I sat back and analysed myself, I saw that I had the relevant skills. That’s why I always tell people that it is easier to succeed when you’re doing what you enjoy doing”.

Between passion and success

To Udeme, the relevance of passion to success was invaluable. Having been in business for 23 years, and with a clientele comprising conglomerates and the banking sector, you cannot but wonder how he became one of the few doyens of the industry. “Passion makes the difference! It drives everything. It’s one thing to have the talent and resources, but you must have the drive, and that drive comes from the passion to succeed. Because we had nothing when we set up SO&U, everyone told me and my team we’ll fail. For the first six months, we couldn’t afford a telephone in the agency, not even curtains. The first furniture we had was my dining table in my own house. We all sat round that table to do our work! The first furniture in my office as MD was a sofa I brought from my house. I didn’t have a worktable, so, I would write my notes on my thighs. Of course, these lacks aren’t the things that will make one fail, unlike what many think. I believe it’s about knowing what you lack and being able to improvise. But when you have the passion and drive to succeed, nothing can stop you. That passion drove us and every income we made, we invested in ourselves to acquire knowledge and upgrade our skills. We invested in our business too to furnish the office, buy computers and make ourselves more efficient because we had the vision of where we were taking our agency. If you lack passion, you’ll sit back and lament about what you don’t have: ‘I don’t have a godfather, I don’t have money, I can’t find clients because I’ve not worked with clients before…’, but when you’re being fired up by passion, nothing will stop you”. 

Financial barrier

True to his word, not even financial constraints could make him jettison his aspiration of going into private practice 23 years ago. “This company was started with N60,000 of my life savings in 1990”, Udeme was quick to add. He had started the business in the guestroom of his house, and when in the third month he found an office in Apapa that would cost him a hundred thousand naira rent, not even his age-long bank was willing to loan him N60,000 to augment what he had. A childhood friend came to his rescue and in less than two years after SO&U took off, because he had become influential in the industry, a delegation from the same bank came to woo him to bank with them!

FEYI BANKOLE

Put Back the Sword: Our Father is Abraham

In the Shakespearean masterpiece, Julius Caesar, the Plebeians, the poor people were used as the door mat of the great power play. When the conspirators led by Brutus and Caius Cassius stabbed Caesar at the capitol and gave the reasons for their actions, accusing Emperor Caesar of inordinate ambitions, the plebeians shouted, good for him and they gave their full support to the conspirators. When Mark Anthony, the true friend of Caesar came to address the plebeians at the permission of the leaders of the coup, in no time he swayed the emotions of the people against the conspirators with his powerful speech of “I have come to bury Caesar not to praise him” fame. 

In the Christian and Jewish world over, this week is considered the holiest of the weeks of the year. This is the week the Jews celebrate their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, this is Passover Week. And since last Sunday 24^th March 2013, Christians started the Holy Week, holy because it is the week of the Lord’s passion and death that gave freedom from slavery to sin and death. During this week, one of the high points of the activities is the capturing of Jesus Christ from Gethsemane by the detachment of the guards, who were fully armed to arrest a defenseless man. Jesus said to them, “Am I a brigand that you come with clubs and swords to arrest me?” (Mark 14:48). It was a violent attack on a defenseless man who meant no harm. His only crime was that the Jewish leaders could not tolerate his form of teaching. Their arguments were simply borne out of fear of losing what they thought was God’s treasure put in their care, the leadership of the people and principles of their father as led down by Moses. They had cogent reasons backed by the laws of their religion. And the verdict was simple, he must die! For the High Priest, Scribes and Pharisees to succeed, they had to win the support of the crowd. Even those who had cheered Jesus on his triumphant entry into Jerusalem just few days back, were bought over with the accusation of the leaders “This man said he will destroy this Temple which took our fathers 46 years to build, he will change the laws of Moses and he claims to be God”. For the ordinary unschooled follower of the Jewish religion, these were weighty accusations, tantamount to blasphemy. So he must die. So the song of “Hosanna to the Son of David changed to Crucify Him”. Crowd manipulation! Yes, crowd manipulation is a dangerous thing. When people leave their will and faith in the hands of dubious people, that nation is in trouble.  

It has become very difficult for the adherents of the two great religions in the world today to relate and live in peace because many unholy things have been brought into the practice of religion. Religion has been taken over by mercantile, political and leadership interests and the followers are manipulated to further these interests in favour of the leader. The violence that has enveloped the greater part of Northern Nigeria today is nothing more than crowd manipulation and control of the mind of man. It is foolhardy for one to think that they are fighting for the cause of God by destroying properties and human lives. Telephone masts, schools, police stations, markets, business places, banks and anything that catches their fancy goes up in flames. This cannot be in the name of God. This made the Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders, both Christians and non Christian to say that this fight can be anything but religious. But imagine that it is religious, which kind of god can tolerate this? It is encouraged that we allow our good religious values to rob on our daily lives including politics but it is wrong to use religion to feather political nests. When you mix religion with politics then you are working against the will of God.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam trace their religions to the root of Abraham. They are called Abrahamic religions. So can we call this a fight between brothers? Brother killing brother? The first account of human killing as contained in the holy books is that of Cain killing Abel and the reaction of God to that act was very disastrous to the perpetrator. Your brother’s blood cries from the ground to me and I have heard his plea. When Jesus was being rough handled by the mob, Peter out of religious duty also pulled the sword, aimed it at the ear of Malchus, a servant of the High Priest and sliced it off in the name of religion. Jesus the master rebuked him, “put back the sword into its scabbard” (Matthew 26: 52). Violence is not a way of religion. God cannot be defended since he can defend himself. Jesus who is also known in Islamic religion as Prophet Isa, rebuking Peter against violence said “Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26: 53). In the same manner Jesus will say to “His Excellency”, Governor Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this kind. If my kingdom was of this kind, my servants would have fought to stop me from being brought before you” (John 18:36). If Jesus Christ, (the Prophet Isa) says that the kingdom of God is not of this kind, which other kingdom are we fighting for? 

Nigeria has lost human beings, houses, valuable properties and resources because of the interest of the few people who manipulate the rest of us. How come suddenly everything in Nigeria is judged by religion? Is it for the interest of religion?  Where is God in all these? I cannot find God in any of these. What is religion without God? The person who practices religion without God is a dangerous person. There are many dangerous persons in Nigeria today because many practice and preach religion without God. All they do is the crowd manipulation. That is the reason everything in Nigeria is interpreted with religious coloration. So we hear sayings like, “a Muslim has been ruling, so it is our turn”. A Christian has been ruling, so we are next.” Same evil men, when the religious sentiment does not fly, they toss the tribal and regional coin. All is with the desire to control and manipulate the people. The Emir of Kano was attacked and he lost his aides and some other persons. Where is the religious dimension of going to a motor park and blow up a bus load of travelers and killing and maiming? What is the religious dimension in blowing up the United Nations’ building in Abuja and killing and maiming both adherents of both religions?

Some Christians and their leaders are agitating that Christians should return fire for fire. For every Christian killed an adherent of Islam should die. Some call for retaliation in the guise of self defense. Recently Madgi Allam, a prominent Italian journalist who converted from Islam to Christianity and was baptized by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in March 2008 left the Catholic Church saying that Catholic leaders have not been strong enough in their opposition to Islam. His anger was that Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council of Interreligious Dialogue in the Vatican said that terrorist violence is a betrayal of the true Islamic faith. For Madgi Allam, Islamic extremism and terrorism are the mature fruit of that religious tradition and Catholicism is not strong enough to counter the “intrinsically violent ideology” of Islam. There are various sets of Islam as there are many denominations of Christianity. Some are moderate and accommodating while others do not tolerate others. The intolerant versions of both religions are the ones that mix other intentions with the practice of religion. Islam is said to be a religion of peace and Christ is the Prince of Peace. There is no teaching of violence in the real ideology of these Abrahamic religions. So where did we get it wrong? While we are searching for the answers, I will only repeat what Jesus said to Peter “Put your sword back into the scabbard for he who kills by the sword, dies by the sword” and moreover, Abraham is our father.

Rev. Fr. Ojaje Idoko is Director of Pastoral Affairs Department in the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja     

N10.8 trillion 2012 revenues: Where is the evidence?

In this exclusive report, Economic Confidential reveals that even as it has become apparent that Nigeria may not meet any of the key points in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Debt Management Office (DMO) and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) crowd out the private sector from the debt market, a large chunk of money accruing to the Federation Account is spent without consideration for value.

Despite massive unemployment, high rate of maternal mortality, terrible state of the roads, epileptic power supply and all the other hallmarks of backwardness apparent in the Nigerian polity, a cool sum of N10.8 trillion was shared among the three tiers of the Nigerian government in 2012.

This was despite the yawning loopholes in the revenue sources of government through which knowledgeable sources insist, at least another N4 trillion escaped into private pockets without getting into the federation account.

An extensive and exhaustive research by the Economic Confidential revealed that the N10 trillion was disbursed from the federation account at the monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meetings statutorily chaired by the Minister of State for Finance although the Constitution vested this sharing responsibility in the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC). Part of the allocations was also disbursed extraordinarily by the National Economic Council (NEC) at its quarterly meetings chaired statutorily by the Vice President of he Republic.

Of this amount, N8 trillion came from two sub-heads of statutory allocation and value added tax (VAT). In the first part of the exclusive research published by the Economic Confidential magazine earlier in the month through the on-line edition, it was disclosed that from the N8 trillion, Akwa Ibom State got the highest share of N217bn followed by Rivers which received N177bn and Lagos N168bn in the 12 months of 2012.

On the other end of the table, Ebonyi State, Gombe State and Nassarawa State emerged the poorest states with total allocations of N45bn, N48bn and N49bn respectively.

Additionally, both the Debt Management Office (DMO) and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are regularly in the market deploying both money market and capital market instruments to raise funds. Statistics show that public domestic debts amounted to over N6.153 trillion as at mid December 2012.

In as the fresh table just compiled, other subheads like NNPC refund, foreign excess crude account, naira excess crude account, budget augmentation and others were included thus amounting to a total of N10.8 trillion.

UK Prime Minister, David Cameron recently challenged the Nigerian Government to account for $100 billion oil money that accrued to Nigeria in 2012 from crude oil sales alone.

According to Mr Cameron, “last year Nigerian oil exports were worth almost $100 billion, more than total net aid to the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Put simply, unleashing the natural resources in these countries dwarfs anything aid can achieve – and transparency is critical to that.”

Speaking at G8 Economic Summit in Davos, David Cameron said, “a few years back a transparency initiative exposed a huge black hole in Nigeria’s finances – an $800 million discrepancy between companies’ payments and government’s receipts for oil. This is leading to new regulation of Nigeria’s oil sector – so the richness of the earth can actually enrich the people of that country. And the potential is staggering.

“So we’re going to push for more transparency on who owns companies, on who’s buying up land and for what purpose, on how governments spend their money, on how gas, oil and mining companies operate, on who is hiding stolen assets and how we recover and return them.”

Another report from its Committee on Finance just adopted by the House of Representatives documented how parastatals and agencies illegally withheld N8.06 trillion realised by 60 bodies between 2009 and 2011.

The report revealed that the agencies, the collected N9.3trn as revenues in the period under review but only remitted N174.7bn to the government coffers.

The list include, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC; Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN; Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA; Nigerian Port Authority, NPA; Federal Mortgage Bank, FMBN; the Federal Capital Territory, FCT; Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN; Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC; and Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, NBC.

Others are West African Examination Council, WAEC; National Sports Commission, NSC; Standards Organization of Nigeria, SON; Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC; Federal Housing Authority, FHA; Nigeria Shippers Council, NSC; Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC; Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA; Industrial Training Fund, ITF; Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC; Bank of Industry, BoI; and Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB.

Only NNPC and its subsidiaries generated N6.132trn between 2009 and 2011 as internally generated revenue (IGR), and remitted no part of it to the Federal government and this even excluded what was generated from the sales of crude oil and gas.

Another investigation by a national daily, Punch also alleged that over N5 trillion of government funds have been stolen through fraud, embezzlement and theft since President Jonathan assumed office on May 6, 2010.

The amount according to the paper is the summation of government funds said to have been stolen, according to the Nuhu Ribadu-led Petroleum Task Force report; the Minister of Trade and Investment’s report on stolen crude; the House of Representatives fuel subsidy report and investigations into the ecological fund, SIM card registration and frequency band spectrum sale.

The investigation revealed the fraudulent activities carried out on a large scale in some ministries. The Ribadu report on the oil and gas sector for instance, put daily crude oil theft at a high 250,000 barrels daily at a cost of $6.3bn (N1.2trn) a year. This puts the total amount lost through oil theft in the two years of Jonathan’s government at over $12.6bn (N2trn).

Another fraud scheme was discovered in July 2012 when the House of Representatives Committee on Environment discovered a tree seedling fraud worth N2bn awarded by the Ecological Fund office.

Similarly, in the telecommunications sector, the 450MHz frequency, which was valued at over $50m, was allegedly sold for less than $6m (a difference of $44m or N6.9bn) by the Nigeria Communications Commission. In the same sector, the reps, earlier this year, commenced investigations into the N6.1bn SIM card registration project embarked upon by the NCC in 2011.