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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off (847 Views)
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Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Nobody: 6:06pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
ABUJA (Reuters) |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Nobody: 6:06pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
POWER GODFATHERS |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Nobody: 6:07pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
OTHER PLAYERS |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Nobody: 6:08pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
"LACKING TRANSPARENCY" Source |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Nobody: 6:32pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
Very incisive, excellent report. Look, we need to tell ourselves some home truths. The only way we can move forward is to make it profitable for the monied men to push the nation forward. And that's the way it's becoming. There's a growing realisation among that group that they can expand their already massive wealth by expanding the nation's economic and technological assets and profile. |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Nobody: 6:56pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
@Rossike, your matter-of-fact view on the encroachment of a home-grown oligarchy ("money men") is both refreshing and disturbing. Disturbing because it ignores the experience recorded in Russia, where there has been a concentration of political power and former state assets in the hands of a few. |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by ektbear: 7:03pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
this is pretty bad |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Gbawe: 7:38pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
ekt_bear: Indeed.... and highly definitive of the PDP. I.e sell off Nigeria's assets, critical to National success, to cronies and minions without even so much as a patriotic thought for securing competence along with the requisite and almost 'cultural' need, accepted in African politics, to enrich 'awon boys'. In other African Nations, and I know this from experience, "awon boys' are increasingly becoming content making their money moderating greed with patriotism to the extent they are happy to limit their participation to 'midwifing' relatively safe aspect of critical concessioning while leaving the technical operation wholly to qualified and experienced operators. Vodafone in Ghana is an example I continue to cite. Talks about the Ghanaian Government accepting millions of dollars to favour Vodafone won't go away but what is important is that Vodafone, certainly one of the world's top telecoms giants, was not cynically turned down for a front run by Jerry Rawlings or John Kuffour. Today this is all to the benefit of Ghana as vodafone has proven an able National carrier aiding Ghana's progress. Creating an Oligarchy should not be an option for African Nation given our challenges that means we , more than most, must eschew redundant economic models of extreme capitalism , arguably discredited today, for greater institutional efficiency and accountability - even if it is others outside Africa who can help us achieve that. We all know how critical the power sector is. Perhaps people now get what I mean when I predicted that "pseudo-privatisation" is what the PDP will deliver in many sectors. I still stand by my prediction that the usual Oligarchs (Otedola, Dangote et al) are future bid 'winners' whenever our Refineries will be privatised. |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Kilode1: 7:48pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
eGuerrilla: @Rossike, your matter-of-fact view on the encroachment of a home-grown oligarchy ("money men" is both refreshing and disturbing. I share your worry, but like I often say, the biggest ideological struggle in Nigeria is/will be between Radicals and Gradualists. May the gods put us on the right side of history. Rossike's opinion is not an outlier, i've heard so many people express same in the last 4 years. I believe this administration and their top advisers share that opinion too... eGuerrilla, Your own opinion is very common also - the idea that we are strengthening a super-class elite that will answer to their own rules, even more than they already do now and by so doing bring our people more ruin, more economic oppression and concentrated poverty... Those are just my interpretations, they may not be correct for you guys.. Those two positions will continue to shape Nigeria's political economy. The quote below from Jeffery Winters, Northwestern professor of political science, aptly described why we must not let ourselves get carried away, why we must apply balance... "Oligarchy rests on the concentration of material power. Democracy on the dispersion of non-material power" - Winters Quote edit* |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Gbawe: 8:10pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
Kilode?!: Precisely my opinion. Trying to justify the creation of ultra-wealthy Oligarchs by dressing greed in a toga of 'patriotism' is redundant for where the world is today and where it is heading ala global Village, fast shrinking borders, transfer of technology and greater ease of the competitive/profit-led movement of highly skilled and technical labour/enterprises. There are extremely critical sectors Nigerians must demand excellence in i.e power, refining derivative of crude, rail infrastructure et al. No distracting talk of "Nigeria in the hands of Nigerians" should blind us to what is obvious. For example, I would not particularly favour Adenuga buying NITEL to become National carrier if he is up against British Telecoms or Vodafone because Nigerians communicating effectively and reliably , as an addition to the 'mix' that will make us great, is far more important than the intangible concept , only useful for chest-thumping, that a Nigerian Company is handling our telecoms needs. We can even see how the extreme capitalistic greed of a few , currently playing out before our eyes, got the world in trouble in fairly well-regulated Nations. In Nigeria, with nil regulation, we want to sell the Nation into the hands of morally bankrupt AGIPs (any government in power) like Otedola? If we learn from others proactively, we will be looking to ensure we put more power in the hands of businesses of excellence and sterling reputations as they will be unlikely to fail us. What should not be acceptable is for Otedola, Abdulsalami, IBB or any other members of the 'owners of Nigeria' club putting together a consortium yesterday, whenever there is a national 'sell-off' of any kind, that will begin 'winning' bids for critical concessions tomorrow. Even semi-ambitious Nations are not doing this any more !!!! It makes me wonder if Nigeria is for real when this kind of nonsense is no longer even happening in Nations we talk/look down at. What happened in Russia will wreck us. No two ways about it in my opinion and I certainly hope I am wrong. |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Nobody: 8:31pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
I was wondering were you lot hide these days. Seems other OND holders with very little meaningful contributions to make have taken over nairaland. Well to be frank, i'd come here to rubbish threads whenever i want to feel like a boy. When i want to teach and learn, i will stick with various high-level discussions on Facebook. Seun it amazes me there are people actually advertising here still. Can't you perceive piss? |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by RickyRoss1(m): 9:13pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
Gbawe: The vodaphone Ghana deal is a bad example my brother. Most Ghanians are sad that the government didn't listen to the voice of the majority of Ghanaians. Today Vodaphone has sacked hundreds of workers, vodaphone is still sacking workers every month. Ghana Telecom was better, tell me one single SPECTACULAR thing vodaphone has done which Ghana Telecom didn't do? Vodapohne paid million dollar bribe to MP's etc to take over Ghana Telecom, today all profits they make is repatriated to The United Kingdom. |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by FrankC3: 9:37pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
While I have my fears about raising oligarchy that will have the capacity to stifle us, I still believe that unless we want to throw away fairness from this process, these guys will still meet the requirements to win any big deal in Nigeria. Look at Emeka Offor and Gen Abubakar's business strategy, they engaged the big names as technical partners for these deals and the process allows this. Do we want to change the rules? Is it not better to have foreign companies with substantial Nigerian interests in our shores? Would it not have been better if a deal allowed the Abachas to be part owners of MTN, at least some of the funds presently hauled to SA will still be within our shores. This is reality... While we take up our position to push against oligarchies, we should not lose sight of the fact that almost all businesses have strong political backing, including Apple and Microsoft, Chevron and Shell. They can be local or foreign, that is the only difference. Which do we prefer? Foreign or local oligarchies? And what is our opinion about repatriation of stole wealth? Nobody today can imprison Gen Abubakar, even the West see him as a noble. How can you imprison him and return the wealth he allegedly stole and starched away in offshore accounts if not through processes like this? Fact is that the legal perspective is tedious, difficult, costly and highly inefficient. Ibori's loot is case study. We just have to, as a matter of National policy, design a framework that will easily encourage our own Dick Cheneys to use their wealth (whether stolen or acquired by government patronage) to create value within our bothers. I am not saying that we should encourage corrupt leaders, but emotions apart, what are our chances of legally getting back the stolen wealth? I think we should take a robust look at this issue at intellectual level, while maintaining patriotic disposition. Every society have their super-elite. Countries like Cote d'Ivoire and Gabon may have them as French Nationals and in most cases, super-elite are corrupt. Which do we prefer as Nigerians? Is it really fair to come up with a privatization framework that will hand over our national assets to foreigners without substantial local interests? Would it have been fairer if Oando Consortium had won the bid? Can the 'upright masses' buy Discos? Do you think that Nigeria can execute a successful privatization process if our own super-elites are sidelined (as with NITEL) or foreign super-elites favored? I think the process have been substantially fair, going by the rule of the game. I also think that any disagreement with the process should be at the level of the privatization philosophy of Nigeria. It happens that nobody asked these questions until some persons (both local and foreign interests) lost out in the bids. Now, as with the fuel subsidy protests, is this really about Nigeria or individuals who think that they will lose out in the new order? |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by Gbawe: 9:44pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
Ricky_Ross: When do Ghanaians not complain, over-dramatise and make a big thing of everything? Is this not how, according to some melodramatic Ghanaians, 9 out of 10 robbers in their Nation are Nigerian? Sometimes, perhaps it is best for outsiders to give them an insight regarding what they don't see. Ghanaians complain, others come in and 'crack on'. I am someone who believes personal experience is very powerful to inform and 'calibrate' opinions. I have a House in Accra and my experience with Vodafone was very good. From demanding services to actually being connected. My wired telephone and broadband delivery are good and efficient. Technical assistance, when I had problems, was fairly prompt to respond and restore my services. That is what should matter. If other Ghanaians have similar experiences, then it is obvious that, beyond their complaints, the Country is communicating better because of Vodafone's efforts. Today Vodaphone has sacked hundreds of workers, vodaphone is still sacking workers every month. Ghana Telecom was better, tell me one single SPECTACULAR thing vodaphone has done which Ghana Telecom didn't do? My guy, many African Government parastatals are havens of nepotism, ghost workers and bloated inefficiency. Most Companies will actually 'trim' waste almost automatically if taking over and looking to be optimally efficient. Look at our NITEL, PHCN et al. Anyway, there will always be unhappy folks on every side of actions taken. If sacking folks aids legitimate cost-cutting, efficiency and productivity then I cannot just criticise that action for nothing other than how retrenching is generally perceived as condemnable and automatically bad. Let us not forget also that global conditions currently predisposes many to embrace "cost cutting". Vodapohne paid million dollar bribe to MP's etc to take over Ghana Telecom, today all profits they make is repatriated to The United Kingdom. I have already mentioned that there was controversy over Vodafone allegedly paying millions in bribe. The repatriation of profit is rather a complex issue in this day and age of global competitiveness. The argument can also apply to the many Nigerian businesses operating in Ghana. My brother, it is certain not everyone will be happy with Vodafones takeover of telecoms services in Ghana. I hinted at this when I said some will not move beyond the rhetoric of "Ghanaians running Ghana". To be honest, this is not a bad thing when non-critical sectors is considered. When looking at the telecom sector, the Government may just feel running Ghana Telecom has become an issue of pride rather than that of economic sense, efficiency and the success Ghana wants for the future. The Story was the same with Ghana Air to the extent flyers , towards the horrid end, were being escorted off planes in the UK by armed escorts because of the massive debt the National airline had run up !!!! I generally give things pass marks when they work well for the purposes they were designed for. Side issues aside, since those are open to subjective interpretation, I think Vodafone is more efficient and doing better than Ghana Telecom. |
Re: Insight: Murky Deals Cast Doubt Over Nigeria's Power Sell-off by redsun(m): 9:54pm On Oct 21, 2012 |
Isn't obvious that it is another scam,just like they shared our oil wells among themselves?What has nigerians benefitted from that apart from chaos,scarcity,poverty and misery as always? As long as nigeria remains in the hands of untouchable and undemocratic criminals called leaders,nothing will ever be right. |
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