TAX evasion is a chronic and widespread disease in Nigeria, It is more so among those (other than salary earners) who are assessed to personal income tax than amongst those who, because of their obvious poverty, are presumed to have an income of  between £I and £50, and are, therefore, called upon to pay only a Poll Tax or what is popularly known as Flat Rate Tax. In the published figures of the Western State, which is, comparatively, the most progressive and most developed State in Nigeria, about 210 people declared an income of over £300 each, whilst about 600,000 are each presumed to be within the  £I - £50 income range, Even if the number of tax payers in each income bracket is doubled to make up for tax evasions, the result for our present purpose is the same. The gap between the poor  mass of the people and the rich few is very wide, and is already generating growing and bitter disaffection between the two classes.

In 1963 when we gave ourselves a population of 55.6 millions, we had only a total of 563 medical practitioners including specialists, and a total of 25,794 hospital beds, giving us respectively a ratio of approximately I medical practitioner to a population of 100,000, and I hospital bed to a population of  2.000q. The present official ratio of I medical practitioner to a population of 50,000 is erroneous and misleading; because it does not take the existing estimated population, which has been growing at the rate of 3% since 1963, into account. In Britain, by comparison, there are 35,000 medical practitioners including specialists and 464,000 hospital beds, to a population of 54 millions. The ratio is I medical practitioner to a population of 1,540, and hospital bed to a population of 116. It would be invidious to compare the qualities of medical practitioners and hospital beds in Nigeria and Britain.

Altogether, only 3 million of our children are receiving instruction in 15,000 primary schools. Of these 3 millions, only half-a-million are receiving instruction in the Northern Region, which is 5-3.5% of the entire population of Nigeria. There are 160,000 pupils in our secondary schools, 6,700 in our vocational schools, 3,200 full-time and part-time students in our technical institutes and colleges, and 10,000 students in our universities. Comparable figures for Britain are  9 millions in primary schools, 2.8 millions in secondary schools, 2 million full-time and part­time students in vocational, technical, and technological institutes, and 167,000 full-time students in British universities.

Our backwardness in the field of education is aggravated by the fact that we are short of teaching personnel at all levels. There is a shortage of 4,550 graduates and of 5,182 intermediate-level teachers, in our post-primary and teacher training institutions.

Even at our present slow  rate of economic growth, year in year out, we trail very far behind our high-level manpower needs, both of the senior and intermediate categories. We are very short of everything: doctors, engineers, accountants, economists, managerial and administrative staff, etc., etc. We have already given the figures showing our shortage of high-level manpower in the teaching profession; another example relating to agriculture will suffice.

The F.A.O. records a shortage of about 1,000 graduates in agricultural faculties’ for adequate staffing of essential government services for agriculture’. According to the same authority, the immediate needs of agriculture are to expand total capacity for agriculture and veterinary students in our universities to 1,550 by 1967/68. In fact, the number of students in agricultural faculties in 1967/68 was below 1,000. With the loss of potential high-level manpower in certain parts of the country, caused by the current civil war, the position, in the near future, is going to be much worse.

Excessive waste of resources, due to injudicious investment arising from lack of technical and managerial competence on the part of Nigerian private businessmen, abound everywhere. With very few exceptions, Nigeria’s public corporations are veritable hotbeds of criminal waste of natural and human resources. This is due mainly to fraud, corruption, and unspeakable inefficiency on the part of the Nigerians and, sometimes, non-Nigerians, who manage these corporations.

Most of the Nigerian executives, in charge of these heavily capitalised public concerns, have been appointed out of sheer favouritism and nepotism, and are without any special merits or qualifications for their onerous assignments, with the result that most of Nigeria’s public corporations and public-owned companies are grave and almost unbearable public liabilities, and constitute a permanent drain on the country’s coffers.

From all accounts, it would appear that the Government of Nigeria has a knack for misapplying our capital investments.. It was excusable that the railways built for us by our colonial masters never could do more than 20 miles an hour on the average. But it is unpardonable for us to repeat this performance as we did recently in the case of the Bornu Railway extension. Our roads and bridges are indefensibly narrow; and constitute unmitigated death-traps for their users. Our telephone systems and electricity supplies are disgracefully inefficient and unduly expensive. All of them ­railways, roads, telephones, and electricity supplies - are hopelessly inadequate for our requirements.

(To be continued)

FROM the foregoing definitions and analyses, two inferences appear to us to be incontestable. First, a country is underdeveloped simply because it lacks the following indispensable prerequisites of development, namely: education, and good health; technical, managerial, and administrative competence; and capital. Second, an underdeveloped country, by the very fact of its underdevelopment, is permanently exposed to the foreign exploitation and deployment of its resources, and hence to economic dependence, subjection, and what is now called neo­colonialism, even though it is politically independent and sovereign.

We now turn to the facts which, in our view, place Nigeria so firmly, properly, and glaringly in the company of underdeveloped and economically dependent countries, as defined and described, as to permit of no reasonable quibble or rationalisation on the point.The per capita G.N.P: of Nigeria is £22. This is about 1/43rd of the per capita G.N.P. of the United States of America, and about 1/23rd of that of Britain. It is one of the worst two in the world, placing Nigeria in the same poverty bracket as India.

As we have noted earlier on, only 16% of Nigeria’s soil is under cultivation. Of the remaining 84%, 62% is uncultivated and not utilized; forests, mountains, and rocks cover about 21 %; while buildings occupy about1%.

By way of comparison and contrast, 81 % of Britain’s land area is cultivated and utilized. ‘The rest is mountain and forest, or put to urban and kindred uses.’ This comparison may sound unfair, having regard to the fact that 54 million people live in Britain with an area of 88,760 square miles. But the frightful inadequacy of Nigeria’s land utilization can be seen more vividly by comparison with Britain on other grounds. Of the 27 million Britons who are engaged in civil employment, only 800,000 of them-i.e., 3% - do farming, and utilise, among them, 46 million acres of land; an average of 571/2 acres per head of the active British farming population. In Nigeria, however, out of our 25 million active labour force, 20 millions - i.e., 80% - are actually engaged in tilling 37 million acres of land, an average of about 1.8 acres per head of our active farming population.

Thus, by the forcible and irresistible propulsion of statistics, we arrive at the very unpalatable but valid equation whereby one British farmer is equal to 32 Nigerian peasants. In the industrial sector, the output of one British worker has been said to be equal to that of between 5-10 Nigerian workers, all depending, in the case of Nigerians, on the particular industry and the kind of labour-saving devices in use.

If our farming, storage, and marketing techniques were modern, apd if the education, health, and general living conditions of our farmers were much better than they are, much more acreage of land would be brought under cultivation; far fewer people would be needed on the farm to produce more food and export crops than at present; and the productivity and standard of living of the farming population would rise considerably.

But the truth, as we know it, is that our farming and storage techniques remain more or less the same as those employed by Adam and Eve, soon after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. What improvement there is in our marketing technique has been brought about, unconsciously by the corresponding improvement in transportation. In the case of export crops, the techniques of storage and marketing in respect of plantation and non-plantation products are as good as can be. As for production technique, it is excellent in the plantations; and while there is big room for improvement in production technique among non-plantation producers of export crops, the technique employed in producing domestic crops is poorer by far.

The masses of Nigerian people are pathetically malnourished and disease-ridden, and wretchedly clad and housed. But the Nigerian farmers or peasants are more so. The annual output per farmer or agricultural worker is £40.2s. as against £177 per non­agricultural worker. Though there are no statistical data on the point, it is a notorious fact that farmers who are mainly engaged in the production of export products like cocoa, groundnuts, etc., are much more well off than those whose main occupation is the production of domestic food crops. At any rate it is estimated that only about 300,000 farmers are engaged in the production of cocoa. They cultivate an average or 5 acres each, and earn about £90 per head, i.e. more than double the average for all the 20 million Nigerian farmers. The picture is the same among those engaged in non-agricultural occupations. A top Civil Servant earns, all told, as much as £4,000 per annum, as against the daily paid male worker who earns only £90 in a whole year.

The comparable figures for Britain are approximately £ I ,000 per annum for a male manual worker - the equivalent of Nigeria ‘s daily paid worker, and £9,200 for the best paid Civil Servant. In other words, whilst the daily paid manual worker earns 1/44th of what is paid to the best paid Civil Servant in Nigeria, his counterpart in Britain earns as much as 1/9th of what is paid to the Secretary to the Cabinet who is the highest paid Civil Servant in Britain, It is easy to infer that, as between the Nigerian peasant engaged in subsistence farming on the one hand, and the Nigerian merchant, business executive, or entrepreneur on the other, the gap must be much wider.

(To be continued)

IN view of all that we have said on the point, AN UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRY can be defined as ONE WHOSE NATURAL AND HUMAN RESOURCES ARE PARTLY NOT UTILIZED, PARTLY UNDER-UTILIZED, AND PARTLY MIS-UTlLIZED, AND IN WHICH THERE IS A GROSS DEFICIENCY IN THE QUALITY OF THE THREE PRODUCTIVE AGENTS OF LABOUR, CAPITAL AND ORGANIZATION.

Two implied but important assumptions need to be explained. Firstly, it has been assumed that every underdeveloped country has enough of natural and human resources for its purposes. It is true that some countries are richer in these things than others. But it is also true that, granting a rational exploitation, mobilization, and deployment of these resources, each country has enough of them to make it carry on a happy and economically free existence. Instances are not wanting.Israel has shown that any kind of land or natural resources can be made productive, as long as the other productive agents are sufficiently qualitative and optimally quantitative.

What the Israeli experience has proved beyond any dispute is this: the only difference, between a country which is rich and the one which is poor in natural resources, is that the same dose of the other productive agents will produce better results, when applied to the one than when applied to the other.

In the Sudan, the Gezira Scheme has also shown that natural resources which appear hostile and barren can be tamed and made abundantly fruitful, when the right quality and quantity of the other productive agents is applied to them. Under the Gezira Scheme, not only has a once-barren desert land been converted into one of the most fertile and productive areas on our planet, but also the nomadic population, which was once uneconomically thinly spread all over the place, is now being permanently settled into viable and lively towns and villages.

Secondly, it has been assumed that Nature has so organised the affairs of this world that no country is deficient in or starved with natural or human resources. Those economists who speak of underpopulation or over-population relative to the natural resources of a country, are, like Malthus before them, only building far-reaching theories on a complete misunderstanding of man’s infinite resourcefulness in the face of difficulties. When Malthusl enunciated his famous but erroneous theory of population, he had taken the qualities of the productive agents as given for all time, and had not applied his mind to the vast improvement which was possible and which has since been made in the inherent qualities of such agents.

At this stage in human development, it should be admitted that the optimal concept of population is a measure of man’s incapacity to keep pace with his economic problems, as and when they arise.

Economic dependence or subservience is the opposite of economic freedom. In economic usage, however, economic freedom is a phrase of art. It is an inseparable characteristic of the capitalist system.  It means - for the individual, interest group, or a country - freedom of industry and enterprise. In this sense, economic freedom epitomises the postulates of capitalism, and its enjoyment is subject to the” two fundamental economic forces of (I) supply and demand or the price mechanism, and (2) marginal utility or productivity.

In other words, a country can be said to be free, in the capitalist economic sense, when, under the auspices of supply and demand and marginal utility, it exercises the right to property, to employ its resources as it thinks fit, to manage its affairs on the basis of equality with, and with the same opportunity as, other countries, and to pursue-its own self-interest to the exclusion of others.

We have seen in Chapters 6 and 7 how inimical to human welfare this kind of freedom is. To be of any good to a country, economic freedom must be understood in a politico-economic sense. In this sense, ECONOMIC FREEDOM EXISTS WHEN A POLITICALLY SOVEREIGN COUNTRY, INDEPENDENTLY OF OUTSIDE CONTROL OR DIRECTION, ORGANIZES THE EXPLOITATION AND DEPLOYMENT OF ITS TOTAL RESOURCES FOR THE BENEFIT OF ITS ENTIRE PEOPLE, UNDER A SYSTEM IN WHICH THE  FORCES OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND AND OF MARGINAL UTILITY ARE CONTROLLED AND CANALIZED FOR THE COMMON GOOD.

It is important to bear this distinction in mind for a number of reasons. Firstly, the postulates of capitalism, as we have previously noted, are false and a snare; and the forces of supply and demand  and of marginal utility, when they are allowed to operate without conscious control, are injurious to all human freedom. Secondly, it is possible for a country to be economically free in the capitalist sense while the majority of  its citizens are enslaved, as was the case in European countries under feudalism and laissez-faire capitalism. The converse of this is also true; namely, it is possible for the citizens to enjoy economic freedom, in the capitalist acceptation of the term, while the country as a whole is economically enslaved, as is the case with underdeveloped countries including Nigeria. Thirdly, economic freedom, in the politico-economic sense, is also the opposite of economic subjection, in the same sense. While, in this sense, economic servitude for a country is a concomitant of political subjection, economic freedom does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with political independence.

(To be continued)

IT is fashionable these days to refer to underdeveloped countries as developing countries. But it must be generally agreed that the phrase ‘developing country’ is a euphemism for ‘underdeveloped country’. The two phrases are commonly used as synonymous. But in our view, the expression ‘underdeveloped country’ is more precise and more forthright than ‘developing country’.

To confine the latter phrase to an economically backward country is misleading and deceptive. No country in the world is stagnant or static. Every country is developing all the time, whether it is already highly developed or terribly underdeveloped. Indeed, the so-called advanced or developed countries are, relatively, developing faster than the underdeveloped ones. The expression ‘underdeveloped’ is, therefore, a more appropriate epithet to distinguish those countries which are economically backward from those which are economically advanced.

A more or less arbitrary mathematical yardstick is sometimes used by economists to identify countries which are economically backward. If a country’s per capita national income is equal to or more than one­fourth of the per capita national income of the United States of America, it is said to be developed. If  it is below one-fourth, the country is said to be underdeveloped. But, if we go by this arithmetical identification, we miss the true badges of economic backwardness, and the real differentiae of an underdeveloped country.

The outstanding physical features of an underdeveloped country must, therefore, be stated. The most prominent feature is extreme povertv. In an underdeveloped country, both the natural and human resources are partly not utilised, partly under-utilised, and partly mis-utilised. This non-utilisation, under-utilisation, and mis­utilisation of resources is wholly due to lack of adequate capital and technique, and to ignorance and poor health, leading to general inertia and want of the requisite enthusiasm on the part of the country’s labour force.

Such of the country’s natural and human resources as are partially utilised and developed are mainly foreign-trade oriented. This orientation is promoted and encouraged by foreign enterprises for their own benefit, and it automatically generates a system of dual economy in the underdeveloped country. A lot of unhealthy economic consequences follow. The resources which are devoted to the production of export crops are comparatively better developed than those which are devoted to the production of domestic goods. The indigenous enterprises which are engaged in foreign trade are usually better off, economically and materially, than those of their fellow­citizens who are engaged in domestic economic activities. This difference, in material rewards, induces the economically active sections of the community to ignore the cultivation of crops for domestic consumption in favour of export crops. The country itself becomes dependent on foreign trade for its economic sustenance. In order to pay comfortably for the primary produce imported by them, the foreign entrepreneurs deliberately stimulate in the more prosperous sections of the underdeveloped country an inordinate propensity to import. The resultant effects in the underdeveloped country of this unwholesome foreign-trade orientation are unfavourable terms of trade, unstable export markets, and a persistent adverse balance of payments.

It is common knowledge that any form of economic activity or development demands, in addition to natural and human resources, the existence of adequate capital as well as technological and managerial competence. All these, as we have hinted, are very scarce in an underdeveloped country. Adequate capital is lacking because savings per capita are low, and savings per capita are low because technological and managerial knowledge is either nil or hopelessly deficient, and because the masses of the people are ignorant and unhealthy, and hence economically unenthusiastic and undisciplined.

In order to make up for these basic deficiencies, an underdeveloped country always strives to excel itself in creating a congenial and over-generous atmosphere for attracting foreign capital as well as technological and managerial personnel. In this process, it makes itself more economically subservient to foreign interests.

Furthermore, the gap between the rich and the poor is wider in an underdeveloped than in a developed country. The reason for this is not far to seek. The rich, in an underdeveloped country, are invariably the professionals, and those engaged in foreign-trade oriented activities - exporting agricultural products and importing finished articles; while the poor are those engaged in peasant and subsistence farming, and in unskilled employment.

There is one other feature which is common to all underdeveloped countries. As a result of the conquest of space and time, brought about by highly developed systems of communications and information media, all underdeveloped countries, without exception, are exposed to the demonstration effects of the consumption  patterns of the developed countries. For psychological reasons, the underdeveloped countries unreflectingly imitate these consumption patterns- placing a premium on ostentations, status symbols, and the like - with disastrous distortions to their economies, and disturbing and unsettling effects on their social structure and political progress generally.

(To be continued)

Chyz*:


And what was the name of the school, which made the urhobos angry?

How did it make them angry ? Was it not Nnmadi that was feeding them with lies.

Here are the words of G.G. Darah is Professor of Literature in English at Delta State University who is an Urhobo

Three momentous experiences warned us that independence was on its way for Nigeria. First was the building of a primary school in the village by Awolowo's Action Group government. To have a school a community had to guarantee a registration of about 30 pupils. Our village, Esaba, was quite small, it still is, and so finding the number was not easy. So the community congress issued a decree urging all parents to repatriate any child living away. That law was what forced me to leave Ilaje area of Ondo Province where I had gone as a baby-tender for an elder sister. By the time the community "come home" order came, I was already making progress as an apprentice in the life of a fisherman, looking forward to owning a house and several wives. I left with some fluency in Ilaje, Itsekiri and Ijaw languages. Thanks to Awolowo and independence, I would have been a fairly successful illiterate and polygamist.

http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/tarticles/this_day_41_years_ago.htm

Negro ntns sorry for derailing and I would edit my post at your call

The first secondary school had to wait until the setting-up of Okri's alma mater, Urhobo College, in the late 1940s. Independence made little immediate difference to this pattern of appropriation and naming. Warri was now part of the Western Region of the country, dominated by the Action Group Party under the Yoruba panjandrum, Obafemi Awolowo.

Account Ben Okri: towards the invisible city. read it up

And to finish it. Here is an actual account

So I put pisces on top, that’s my zodiac sign being born on the 6th of March,….er well, the year doesn’t matter, it’s the day that matters. And then on top of it I write Eebudola. All of you know the meaning of that. You know I don’t want to tell a long story but………………Awolowo school, omo Awolowo, the started in Urhobo land, in Mid-west in those days. They were ridiculing my schools, I was building schools –brick and cement, to dpc level, block to dpc level and mud thereafter. And so the big shots in the place..”ah what kind of school is this? is this Awolowo school? Useless school” and when they saw the children..”ah these Awolowo children, they can’t read and write, Awolowo children” that’s how it started, with ridicule, and it became blessing, and now they say “Awolowo children, they are good people” no more ridicule about it, that’s how it started, so the Eebu becomes honor, the abuse became honor.

http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2012/10/06/biafra-awolowo-replies-achebe-from-the-grave/

of course the urhobos were dum.b then so I don't blame them, all they did was out of ignorance.

Viemudu Igho (1919-2012): Typically Nigerian, Distinctively British!

By Eferovo Igho

Why are we here, and where must we need go after now? The story of Pa Viemudu Igho tells it a little. And a great account as this should start from cradle. Pa Igho is middle child of three children of grand Pa Igho Kodi and grand Ma Sheho Kodi (nee Mavaje), both of Owhrode, in present day Udu Local Government Area of Delta State. Ezekiel, his elder brother, is believed the first West African to hold the B.A. Natural Science from Downing College, Cambridge, and held the M.A. Cantab and Dip. Ed London; was first Vice Principal, Urhobo College, Effurun, and Chairman Western Nigerian Education Board, and a key pioneer and pillar in Obafemi Awolowo’s free education program before he sadly passed on 1956, a young man. Mary is the last of the children.

No problem Alhj. I think chyz moved on to something else already...hes restless!

(in continuation)

NIGERIA is a land of plenty and of want. It is very rich in natural and human resources, but it is extremely deficient in the quality of the three productive agents of labour, capital, and organisation. Politically it is free; but economically it is utterly subservient.

With an area of 356,669 square miles, Nigeria is ‘the size of France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom’ put together  And with a population of 55.6 million, it is half  ‘France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom put together’, and the ninth largest country in the world.

Its comparatively large area is replete with valuable agricultural, forest, animal, water, and mineral resources. In human and natural resources, it compares more than favourably with Congo Kinshasa and Mauritania, respectively, The density of its population is greatest in its South-Eastern and South-Western parts. But, otherwise, its peoples are fairly well-spread out all over its face; so that there is neither over-population nor under-population in any of its States,

Though only about 16% of Nigeria’s soil is under cultivation, yet the country produces enough of a large variety of foods and livestock for domestic consumption; and its exports include large quantities of agricultural, forest, and animal products, such as cocoa, oil-palm produce, cotton, groundnuts, rubber, timber, and hides and skins.

Even all this, impressive as it is, falls well below what the unaided fertility of the country’s soils is capable of producing, In its report, entitled Agricultural Development in Nigeria 1965-1980, the F A.O. classifies 37% of Nigeria’s soils as of high and medium productivity; 47% as of low productivity; 79% as having strong, good, and medium potentialities; and 10% as of slight potentialities. Only 16% of the country’s soils is classified as of very low or no productivity, and 11 % as of very slight or no potentialities.

Nigeria’s potentialities are enhanced by the fact that, geographically, it lies roughly between latitudes 5° and 15° north of the Equator, and is blessed with a fairly mild tropical climate.Consequently, barring malaria and other debilitating diseases, its climate favours human exertions of a high order. It also favours the growth of good-quality wheat, carrot, potato, etc., and the cultivation of better-quality cotton as well as a number of Mediterranean crops and fruits.

The country’s mineral products, so far as they are known, include tin, columbite, lead, zinc, iron-ore, uranium, coal, gas, and oil. Nigeria is now one of the largest mineral oil producers in the world. It would be reckless to say that Nigeria’s list of mineral resources is closed. Some twenty or more years ago, the country was a not inconsequential producer of gold; and there are speculations, even now, that diamond and reasonable deposits of gold might be discovered, if expert and diligent search is made for them. In this connection, it must be emphasised that the geological survey of Nigeria is still in its inchoate stages, and, therefore, very far from being comprehensive or thorough.


The ethnic diversity of Nigerian peoples has political disadvantages which we have noted; but its economic advantages are tremendous and without qualification. Each ethnic unit has innate skills and traits which, speaking generally, are peculiar to it. Some excel in agriculture, others in manufacture, and yet others in the distributive aspects of economic activities.

There is a very happy combination of geographical and ethnic divisions of labour in Nigeria: what one area or ethnic unit lacks the others supply; and the whole country stands potentially enriched thereby.As a whole, the peoples of Nigeria are by nature hardy, industrious, alert, ambitious, forward-looking, and eager to learn.Even the once-conservative, easy-going, and complacent sections of the community are fast undergoing a revolutionary change of outlook and behaviour in order to keep pace and conform, in modem economic terms, with their fellow-countrymen who have different traditions and are comparatively quicker in embracing some of the more beneficial patterns of Western civilization.

The rate of growth of the population is estimated at roughly 3% per annum. Thus, without more conscious effort than hitherto on the part of Nigerian governments towards economic development, this rate of population growth does imply, other things being equal, an equivalent autonomous growth rate in all the sectors of the country s economy.In spite, however, of its actual and potential abundance of natural and human resources, the facts reveal, as we shall demonstrate them presently, that economically, Nigeria is an underdeveloped and dependent country.

In substantiation of this assertion, it is necessary first to describe and define the essential characteristics of economic underdevelopment and dependence, and then to set out the factual circumstances which place Nigeria in the categories of economically underdeveloped and dependent countries.

(To be continued)

IN any case, speaking generally, it is our fervent hope that, for many a year to come under the new dispensation, austerity and discipline, in public as well as in private life, will be the order of the day, and that we shall have very few occasions for ostentation and vainglorious pomp and pageantry.

(30) The head, picture, image, representation, name, or description of any living person should not appear on any coin, currency, postal or money order, or stamp, in circulation and use in Nigeria; with the proviso that the signature of the Governor, Director or other official of the Central Bank of Nigeria on the country’s currency shall not be regarded as such a name or description.

(31) The statue, statuette, or bust of any living person should not be made or erected at Government expense.

Constitutional provisions to give effect to these propositions are necessary and urgent in order to prevent the spread to Nigeria of a fell political disease which is already in evidence in certain parts of Africa. Once a Head of State or Government begins to put his head on his country’s currency, etc., and to commission the making and erection of his life-size statue at Government expense, then it is certain that he has fallen victim to tenacity of office. At that stage he finds it extremely difficult to contemplate retirement or loss of office to an opponent in an electoral contest. For as far as he is concerned either event might mean the disappearance of his head from the coins. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons for putting his head on currency and coins, is to hold himself out as the fountain of the people’s wealth, as contrasted with his opponent who cannot make such a claim. In order to stay in office for the rest of his life and to keep his head on the coins and his statues in the streets, he descends to dishonourable and villainous practices during elections.

In the long run, however, he is deposed or assassinated; his statues are destroyed by the angry and exasperated citizens; and the country is involved in the new expenditure of having to withdraw the old coins, etc., from circulation and replacing them with new ones. All this has happened before in the Dominican Republic, and is already happening in Africa. The tragedy of this type of malady is that every megalomaniacal tyrant believes that his predecessors in infamy and depravity were just not clever enough!

In any case, what does an African Head of State or Government gain by having his head on coins and his statues all over the place, while the masses of his people wallow pitifully in a slough of ignorance, poverty, and disease? Nothing, but the contempt of civilized and right-thinking people all over the world!

(32) Documents circulated, or statements and speeches made, by any person in the Federal Parliament or Regional Legislature should not be given any special protection, but should be actionable in the same way as documents circulated or statements and speeches made by anyone at a public meeting.

It is common knowledge that many Nigerian parliamentarians have in the past employed the cover of parliamentary privilege to defame their private or public adversaries, viciously and deliberately, even when the latter had no opportunity of defending themselves on the same forum. It would appear that many of our public men have not developed enough broad-mindedness and sense of decency and chivalry to be accorded the sacred protection which parliamentarians enjoy in Britain and other civilized countries. And we are of the considered view that it would do our public life a world of good if this privilege were withdrawn.

(33) If it is to have any chance of permanency, the new Constitution should be drafted by a Constituent Assembly, and then submitted for approval to the people in a referendum.


We all know what a referendum means. But it does not appear that there is a union of minds as to what a Constituent Assembly connotes. For even when there was a duly elected Parliament for the country, many apparently intelligent people called for the setting up of a Constituent Assembly to review our Constitution. They went further to suggest that such an Assembly should  consist of representatives of various interests, including political parties, trade unions, farmers’ organisations, trading concerns, etc. A body constituted in this way and in the circumstances then prevailing, cannot strictly be described as a Constituent Assembly. The pre­requisite of a Constituent Assembly is the overthrow of a regime or the establishment of a new State. We already have the former. But the inherent and inseparable attribute of a Constituent Assembly is that it must be composed of the accredited representatives of the people duly elected by the registered voters in the country, in the same manner as members of Parliament or Legislature are elected. This we must have. Anything other than this, we submit, cannot in strict constitutional sense and usage, be a Constituent Assembly. And it would be a grand deception not only to give it that name, but also to describe any constitution produced by a handpicked motley assembly as the PEOPLE’S CONSTITUTION.

As regards referendum, the questions which should be submitted to the people must be few and straight forward and must  relate only to fundamental issues. In our own considered view, the people should be asked to make a choice from the following alternatives: Federalism or Unitarianism; Democracy or Non-democracy; Socialism or Capitalism.

(To be continued)

THESE and similar questions are not at all difficult to resolve. We could have tackled them here; but we consider that such an exercise involves too many minor details for the present discourse.As we stated at the beginning of this portion, it had been generally agreed until recently that the three Commissions which we have been discussing should have jurisdiction throughout the country-both at the Federal and Regional level .

The last nine months have witnessed a complete change in this climate of opinion. It is now being canvassed, with a considerable measure of success, that the Central and Regional Authorities should each have its own set of commissions. It is not our wish to join issue here on this change of front and the circumstances which have brought it about. All we would like to say is that the arrangement we have proposed is as applicable to the entire country as it is to each of the Authorities separately.

There should be three other Commissions as follows:

1. The Armed Forces Service Commission.
2. The Police Service Commission.
3. The Prisons Service Commission.

The members of each of these Commissions should be appointed by the President, acting in accordance with the advice of the Vice-President. If the latter is to discharge his responsibilities of maintaining the peace and safe-guarding the security of the Federation, he must be given a free hand in dealing with the affairs of these three powerful arms of the country’s order and security.

It may be feared that the Head of Government might employ these executive arms of the Government to oppress and victimise his political opponents. Our considered view  is that  this would be possible only if he tore up the Constitution or deliberately violated such of its provisions as we have already suggested. If he did this, certain unpleasant consequences would inevitably and inexorably follow. But if he observes the provisions of the Constitution and the other Organs of the Government do the same, the citizen should have nothing to fear from the provisions which we have here proposed.

Above all, the suddenness and total successes of the coup and counter-coup of 1966 have taught a grim lesson which no future Head of Government in Nigeria will ignore.


(28) The three Organs of the State, namely, the Legislature, the Executive, and the Judicature, should, as far as possible, be made to function separately from and independently of one another. In other words, there should be separation of powers.In Chapter 5, we have dealt fully with the doctrine of separation of powers, and we have nothing more to add to what we have said on the subject. This much, however, we venture to say. We believe that in all the proposals which we have made in the preceding pages for a new Constitution for Nigeria, we have tried scrupulously to adhere to the principle of separation of powers.

(29) Nigeria should be a secular State.The existing association between the composite State of Nigeria together with some constituent States in the country on the one hand, and the Church on the other, is embarrassing and should be completely severed. It is a British custom which is, to say the least, apish, unreflecting, and discriminatory for us to preserve.Why should there be State Services at all?

Why should the clergy participate in the opening of Parliament or Regional Legislature? And that reminds us: why should the judges also participate in such an opening, which is a purely political function? Why should there  be any religious Services at all in connection with the opening of the assizes? And why, if such Services are necessary, are they not held in Churches other than those of the Anglican confession, and in the Mosques as well?

The whole thing is ludicrous! God is everywhere; and His ever-ready responsiveness to our supplications is not confined to any Church or place.To be sure, it is a very good thing indeed for the Churches, the Mosques, and other religious gatherings, to pray, from time to time, for the success of the Government of the day, if they are convinced that its plans and programmes are good and promotive of the welfare and happiness of the people. But it would be wrong, and of course futile, for them to pray, as they did in recent years, for the success of a manifestly satanic administration. For the reformation of such a government, they certainly must pray. By participating in State Ceremonies, and getting too much involved in official functions, some religious leaders find it difficult to speak out with freedom, forthrightness, and courage, in condemnation of what they know to be evil in the doings of the State.

We have just been talking of separation of powers among the organs of the State. We strongly believe that, as far as possible, there should be separation of activities between the State on the one hand, and religious bodies on the other. By this same token, we think that it is time the Judges kept or were kept far away from such State Ceremonies as the opening of Parliament or Regional Legislature.

(To be continued)

’

IN most countries of the world, particularly in Britain which serves as our model in  many things, a Code of Conduct has no force of law. Ministers and other persons holding positions of public trust are left in their deliberate judgment to observe the rules of discipline laid down in the Code. In other words, it is up to public men to determine when they believe they have offended against any of the rules, and to take swift steps to invoke appropriate conventional sanctions against themselves. British political history is full of instances when ministers and other public men have not hesitated to be their own impartial judges. They had been known to have resigned from office, even when their colleagues had honestly thought that no violation of the Code had taken place. That is to say, British public men would rather err on the side of over-rigidity and over-strictness, in the observance of the Code of Conduct, than on the side of lenity.

Here in Nigeria, such a sense of honour as is exhibited by public men in Britain and in most civilized countries is unknown. Public men will stick to office after they have committed the most heinous breach of public morality. In fact, in the dying months of the First Republic, the brazen and unconcealed commission of acts of depravity’ and of violent breach of public trust by ministers was regarded as the hallmark of power.

Revolution, if it stems from the just indignation of the people, is a very useful and salutary political instrument.. When it is successful, it consumes and cleanses the political Augean stable as nothing else  known to man can. But an Augean stable is an odious thing. Wherever it exists, it pollutes the atmosphere and threatens to suffocate human decency. It must not be allowed to recur in any country. For apart from its oppressive stench, the operation which is required to cleanse it - as we now know from practical experience and not merely from reading the histories of  other lands - is of such a major character that its repeated performance is sure to undermine the stamina of the country concerned, if it does not actually terminate its life.

It is, therefore, incumbent upon us to so organise and order our affairs as to ensure that the things which favour the undisturbed accumulation of filth - until it becomes so colossal as to warrant a revolution to remove it - do not exist. That is to say, either the occurrence of filth must be prevented or every bit or piece of it must be abated as soon as it occurs. Fortunately for us, we know the distinctive characteristics of these filthy articles so well that, with some application of mental effort, we can adequately provide against their recurrence or accumulation.

Our new Constitution should, therefore, contain detailed provision for rules of discipline of Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, Members of Commissions, Boards, and Corporations, judges, certain categories of public servants, and other persons holding positions of public trust.

(27) The appointment and removal of the members of the following Commissions should as far as possible be free from any taint or semblance of political influence or partial affection:

(i) the Public Service Commission;
(ii) the Judicial Service Commission; and
(iii) the Electoral Commission.

Until recently, enlightened persons in Nigeria were agreed that these three Commissions should have jurisdiction throughout the whole of the Federation. The point on which there was complete in articulation was the manner in which the Chairmen and Members of these Commissions should be appointed. From this, it would appear that the implied suggestion was that the old method whereby the Head of State made the appointment on the advice of the Prime Minister should remain.

If this is so, we beg most emphatically to differ. If these commissions are to be truly independent, impartial and just in the exercise of their functions, arrangements should be made whereby their chairmen and members would be appointed independently of the Executive, the Legislature, or any single individual. To this end, the Constitution should make provisions for the setting up of a Body which we would like to call the ‘College of Appointors’.The College should be composed of the following:

1. The President, who will be ex officio chairman.

2. The Vice-President.

3. The Regional Governors.

4. Retired Presidents, Vice-Presidents, and RegionalGovernors

5. Twenty persons representing each of the following bodies:

(i) Christian denominations and organisations;
(ii) Moslem denominations and organisations;
(iii) trade union organisations; “
(iv) Nigerian Union of Teachers;
(v) Nigerian Union of University Teachers;
(vi) professional’ bodies and organisations other than the Nigerian Bar Association;
(vii) the Nigerian Bar Association;
(viii)Chambers of Commerce and other commercial and industrial organisations;
(ix) Farmers’ co-operative societies and other Farmers’ organisations; and
(x) Traditional Chiefs.

(To be continued)

THE qualifications of the twenty persons each,under paragraph 5 above, should include literacy in English and eligibility for election as a Member of the Upper House of the Federal Parliament; and disqualifications should include:

1. membership of Federal Parliament, Regional Legislature or Local Government Council, provided that a traditional chief who is an ex officio member of a Local Government Council shall not be disqualified by reason of such membership;

2. membership of the Public Service or of the country’s Forces;

3. holding any office of profit under the Government or any of its agencies;

4. holding office in a Political Party; and

5. ineligibility for election as a member of the Upper House of the Federal Parliament.

Within a period of time, which should be stipulated by the Constitution, the President should, in consultation with the Vice-President, compile a list of candidates for each of the three Commissions. The number of candidates in each case should be thrice the total membership of the Commission. That is to say, if the total membership of a Commission is seven, the President should get up a list of twenty-one candidates.

The President, in consultation with the Vice-President, should also compile details of the character, experience, scholastic qualifications, and any other information which may be useful in assessing the relative merit and suitability of every candidate. When all this has been done, he will then convene a meeting of the College.

The names of the candidates for each Commission will be submitted to the members of the College after they have assembled at the meeting. In other words, no one, other than the President, the Vice-President, and the President’s confidential Secretary should have any knowledge of the names of the candidates until after the members of the College shall have assembled. One hour or so after the names, qualifications, etc., of the candidates have been submitted to the members of the College, they would be called upon to vote on them one by one: one Commission being taken and disposed of before another.

Voting shall be by secret ballot. Only candidates who obtain an absolute majority will be returned. If there are more than the number of members of a Commission who obtain such a majority, then the required number will be chosen in order of votes scored.

At this meeting, there should be no speech-making, no canvassing or lobbying in favour of any candidate, and the College should remain in session continuously, that is, if need be, from day to day and without adjournment, until their task is accomplished. Arrangements for food and accommodation, if required, should be made at the place of meeting. In other words, the members of the College should have no contact with any other person outside their numbers, and those who cater for them, until they have duly appointed all the members of the three Commissions. For this purpose, the Secretary and other Officers of the College, all of whom must be so appointed by the President, should be deemed to be members of  the College, even though they cannot participate in voting.

The members of a Commission duly appointed by the College, should at its first meeting elect their own chairman for the duration of their term of office, which should be five years from the date of their appointment by the College; save that the Chief Justice of the Federation shall be both ex officio member and chairman of the Judicial Service Commission. A member of any of the Commissions should only be removable from office by the College on the grounds of inability to discharge the functions of his office or for misbehaviour.

It is our considered opinion that the method now proposed for the appointment of the members of these Commissions is much better than the old one. It combines the wisdom and sagacity of the President and Vice-President with the Appointors’ unimpeachable detachment and freedom from ‘bias or partial affections in determining the memberships of the three Commissions. To this extent it ensures the independence and impartiality of the members of the Commissions much more than the old system of appointing these members could ever pretend to do. .

We are not unmindful of the fact that in constituting this College, a number of problems will arise. How, for instance, are the Christian and Moslem organizations going to be defined and identified? Who is going to convene the meeting of all the traditional chiefs in the country with a view to getting them to elect their twenty representatives? How are factions within the trade unions going to be brought together to transact the business of electing their own twenty representatives? What rules will govern proceedings at the meeting of the College when they assemble for the purpose of appointing members of the Commissions, or of removing any of them?

(To be continued)

IN most countries of the world, particularly in Britain which serves as our model in  many things, a Code of Conduct has no force of law. Ministers and other persons holding positions of public trust are left in their deliberate judgment to observe the rules of discipline laid down in the Code. In other words, it is up to public men to determine when they believe they have offended against any of the rules, and to take swift steps to invoke appropriate conventional sanctions against themselves. British political history is full of instances when ministers and other public men have not hesitated to be their own impartial judges. They had been known to have resigned from office, even when their colleagues had honestly thought that no violation of the Code had taken place. That is to say, British public men would rather err on the side of over-rigidity and over-strictness, in the observance of the Code of Conduct, than on the side of lenity.

Here in Nigeria, such a sense of honour as is exhibited by public men in Britain and in most civilized countries is unknown. Public men will stick to office after they have committed the most heinous breach of public morality. In fact, in the dying months of the First Republic, the brazen and unconcealed commission of acts of depravity’ and of violent breach of public trust by ministers was regarded as the hallmark of power.

Revolution, if it stems from the just indignation of the people, is a very useful and salutary political instrument.. When it is successful, it consumes and cleanses the political Augean stable as nothing else  known to man can. But an Augean stable is an odious thing. Wherever it exists, it pollutes the atmosphere and threatens to suffocate human decency. It must not be allowed to recur in any country. For apart from its oppressive stench, the operation which is required to cleanse it - as we now know from practical experience and not merely from reading the histories of  other lands - is of such a major character that its repeated performance is sure to undermine the stamina of the country concerned, if it does not actually terminate its life.

It is, therefore, incumbent upon us to so organise and order our affairs as to ensure that the things which favour the undisturbed accumulation of filth - until it becomes so colossal as to warrant a revolution to remove it - do not exist. That is to say, either the occurrence of filth must be prevented or every bit or piece of it must be abated as soon as it occurs. Fortunately for us, we know the distinctive characteristics of these filthy articles so well that, with some application of mental effort, we can adequately provide against their recurrence or accumulation.

Our new Constitution should, therefore, contain detailed provision for rules of discipline of Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, Members of Commissions, Boards, and Corporations, judges, certain categories of public servants, and other persons holding positions of public trust.

(27) The appointment and removal of the members of the following Commissions should as far as possible be free from any taint or semblance of political influence or partial affection:

(i) the Public Service Commission;
(ii) the Judicial Service Commission; and
(iii) the Electoral Commission.

Until recently, enlightened persons in Nigeria were agreed that these three Commissions should have jurisdiction throughout the whole of the Federation. The point on which there was complete in articulation was the manner in which the Chairmen and Members of these Commissions should be appointed. From this, it would appear that the implied suggestion was that the old method whereby the Head of State made the appointment on the advice of the Prime Minister should remain.

If this is so, we beg most emphatically to differ. If these commissions are to be truly independent, impartial and just in the exercise of their functions, arrangements should be made whereby their chairmen and members would be appointed independently of the Executive, the Legislature, or any single individual. To this end, the Constitution should make provisions for the setting up of a Body which we would like to call the ‘College of Appointors’.

The College should be composed of the following:
1. The President, who will be ex officio chairman.
2. The Vice-President.
3. The Regional Governors.
4. Retired Presidents, Vice-Presidents, and RegionalGovernors
5. Twenty persons representing each of the following bodies:
(i) Christian denominations and organisations;
(ii) Moslem denominations and organisations;
(iii) trade union organisations; “
(iv) Nigerian Union of Teachers;
(v) Nigerian Union of University Teachers;
(vi) professional’ bodies and organisations other than the Nigerian Bar Association;
(vii) the Nigerian Bar Association;
(viii)Chambers of Commerce and other commercial and industrial organisations;
(ix) Farmers’ co-operative societies and other Farmers’ organisations; and

(To be continued)

Why are we suffering politically.
Why have we too many half baked politicians?
Many have a foundation to lay their political philosophies upon, yet they falter.
In my simple opinion, their actions are deliberate.