ekt_bear: The first half I was able to make it through, yes.

As for the rest, maybe in a few days if I get around to reading it I'll let you know

Dunno why this professor doesn't see brevity as a virtue

ekt_bear: Damn that was a long read.

In this regard, I see something in the proposal of my colleague in the House of Representatives, Zakari Mohammed who is the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs. He is of the view that the House can influence the executive to implement the fuel subsidy report if adopted by the whole House by making its implementation a precondition for approval of any requests from the executive.

I have chatted with colleagues countless times about this executive rascality of not implementing probe reports and all I get in response is some finger-twiddling and heavy sighs of helplessness. Our role, they keep pointing out, is to present reports, not implement them.

But as I stated at the beginning, I am sick and tired of public money being siphoned by unscrupulous public officials and tons of public money spent by parliament on probes upon probes that end up in the executive waste basket! As a citizen sitting through these and watching on TV, I’m worried stiff that the politicians of my generation are missing the opportunity to make a positive change in my nation.

We are paid to check the excesses of the executive, not to condone them or give excuses why we can’t check them

Probes to Nowhere: Getting the Dividends

By Professor Sola Adeyeye
Senator, Federal Republic of Nigeria
 
May 24,  2012




It was the inimitable Joseph Sarwuan Tarka who in describing his working life said “I’m a teacher by profession, a politician by choice and a businessman by necessity”. I could be saying the same thing now about myself. However, at the moment, I cannot luxuriate in my working life, because as a politician, I am increasingly feeling like Alice in Wonderland in my conception and attempt to take charge of certain public issues, having been a hands-on teacher and businessman.

As a teacher, I am in charge of everything I do from conception to delivery. I have the syllabus, I prepare my notes (my wife and students say I do no such thing, as it’s all in my small head) and deliver this in class. I know what I need to give the students, what I have to examine them on and who meets the pass mark in whatever grade, because I have appropriate benchmarks to judge them by.

When the school authorities and I get the feedback from the students – from those who say I’m a genius to those who claim they have no clue what I was on about most of the time in class, I score myself as my employers score me and when by the next semester I’m still there teaching the same or another class, I know I’ve done well. When I hear news of progress being made professionally by students who’ve passed through me, be it in academia, business or any other sphere of life, I thank God for blessing my work and saunter on with a broad satisfied grin on my face. Forget the heavenly gratuity; my reward is here on earth!

As a businessman, I count the pennies and half-pennies. I know who to employ and who to let go, when to buy a product and when to sell one. I know how often I’ve got to check the books and when to call in the accountants and the auditors and discuss with my bank manager. I know that people working for me have to be paid and that they and their families depend on what they do with me and my business to get the good things of life. I know that I can always raise the excuse of a bad business environment, the recession or consumer weariness and all that, but I also know that no one will be accepting these excuses happily if at the end of the month, their pay cheques aren’t ready, in line with the terms of their contract of employment as they concern remuneration.

As a political office holder, apart from the period I was Chairman of Ifedayo Local Government in Osun State, I have served entirely as a parliamentarian at the Federal level; but, unlike in my incarnations as a teacher and businessman, here, I’m not entirely in control of decisions or outcomes.  Even personal propriety would seem vastly insufficient to hide one’s helplessness. You want to justify the huge salary you’re peculiarly paid as a Nigerian parliamentarian by applying yourself diligently to the work at hand, but parliamentary rules, procedures and processes and most times huge doses of political chicanery can get your butts glued to your seat, mouth firmly sealed for an incredibly long period of time.

I have sat here reading through the 205-page Report of House of Representatives’ Ad-Hoc Committee on the management of the subsidy. I have gone through a gamut of emotions – from anger to helplessness; but this is nothing new. It’s always how I feel when I read through or sit through these things. I’ve grown sick from a constant feeling of déjà vu, as I imagine another parliamentary tome flying into the executive dustbin! Yet, even though I’m a teacher, a businessman and a politician, I think of myself more crucially as a citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And that is precisely why I’m sick and worried.

As a citizen, I sit here and wonder how much more emotional battery Nigerians can take when they have to sit through public hearings of this sort and hear in gory detail, day after day, how their patrimony is being stolen and squandered by people they’ve given opportunities to serve and lead them! When I look back to the whole period of civil rule and see the strewn carcasses of unimplemented parliamentary probe reports, my heart bleeds deep red! It not only emphasizes the nature and extent of waste perpetrated in this country, it brings home the fact most strongly that there is a vicious hold on the nation by the cult of corruption.

When I was asked recently at a media chat whether the government was going to implement the report of the subsidy probe, I was quick to say I don’t think so, because we have a situation where the dominant party dictates public action or inaction. I mean, any conscious Nigerian knows that the ruling party has made corruption the instrument of state policy and the most vital ingredient that oils the wheels of governance to the detriment of the ordinary people. Even the ultra-conservative World Bank has cried out on our behalf! The effect on governance cannot be over-emphasized.

If policy-makers and service providers are in cahoots, loading imaginary costs upon imaginary costs, unconscionable greed upon unconscionable greed on a simple service or public product, because of corruption and the very many leeches on the trough, the value of that product or service will not be there for the people, because its cost would be far more than the enjoyment of the service or product. In essence, they would have been better off not getting the product and service at all than paying that much to leeches and termites whose survival depends on sucking the people’s blood and poisoning them at the same time!

On 22 January, this year, the Vanguard newspaper published an interview with my colleague, Senator Babafemi Ojudu. He was fielding questions from the interviewer, Bashir Adefaka on his membership of the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on the probe of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and what became of their Report. The reporter threw Ojudu’s words back in his face for saying in the course of the hearing that there would be no sacred cows. Indeed, the committee did a thorough job which indicted former President Olusegun Obasanjo and a whole lot of others.

At the time of his interview, they’ve submitted the report, but the journalist was making him squirm in the face of the larger Senate supposedly playing hide and seek with it. He asked Ojudu, if in the face of such a development, whether he himself wouldn’t develop cold feet if called upon to do such a job in the future. Mr Ojudu said he will not decline if called upon. “You do not stop struggling because you failed at one attempt”, he declared. Mr Ojudu, whose background as an activist-journalist is well known, said “we all should continue to ask questions and we must continue to demand answers.

In spite of what happened, I think the document that emerged is strong enough to serve in the process of asking strong questions and calling for actions”. What he said next is instructive: “Unfortunately, in Nigeria, we have a very weak opposition, an opposition that is not attentive enough to latch on to these little gains to demand vigorously for a more transparent Nigeria”.

Mr Ojudu is my partyman and we are both members of this opposition he criticizes. While I won’t be raising any defence here for the opposition, I would like to point out one thing. The publication of the Vanguard was in late January this year as indicated, but actually the Senate had on Tuesday, 20 December 2011 accepted and adopted the whole 45 recommendations by the Committee (I can only assume that the interview was granted before the adoption, but was published well after without the necessary caveat or correction).

The Senate President, David Mark at the session actually frowned at the reports and insinuations in the media regarding what the latter thought was unwillingness on the part of the larger Senate to adopt the Report, because of pressure from the powerful people indicted. He said: “Nobody forced us to undertake this investigation, we did it on our own and nobody should make efforts to stampede us. We have our own timetable and there was no time the report was withdrawn because of any external pressure or because there was conflict in the Senate.” Yet, after this adoption, the Senate President instructively noted: “Having adopted the committee’s report, it is not in our place or duty to execute or implement the recommendations. It is left for the executive to implement them.”

The Committee’s recommendations included a recommendation that the Director-General, Ms Bolanle Onagoruwa be removed “for gross incompetence and for the illegal and fraudulent sale of the federal government’s residual shares in Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited.” It indicted former President Obasanjo as well as former heads of the Bureau, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, Dr. Julius Bala and Mrs. Irene Nkechi Chigbue, the latter three for seeking approval directly from the president instead of the National Council on Privatisation as stipulated in the Public Enterprises (Privatisation and Commercialisation) Act, 1999. The Committee recommended that the unlawful and criminal sale of the Abuja International Hotels Limited, the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Abuja and the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria and the Delta Steel Company be rescinded and that they be re-advertised for sale to new investors under lawful procedures.

There were also recommendations that the Federal Government implements the July 2011 Inter-Ministerial Technical Audit Report on Ajaokuta Steel Complex and that the BPE should stop the use of privatisation proceeds to settle staff terminal benefits, consultancy fees, transaction expenses and execution of capital projects. The Committee stated that it should rather approach the National Assembly for appropriation as provided under Section 80 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). It recommended that the BPE close all privatization proceeds account in commercial banks and henceforth put all the proceeds in the Privatisation Proceeds Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria in compliance with Section 19(1) of the Public Enterprises (Privatisation and Commercialisation) Act 1999.

The Committee further recommended that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) be immediately brought in to investigate the economic crimes being perpetrated against the nation at the premises of VON Automobile Nigeria Limited in Lagos by Barbedos Ventures Limited (BVI), while the taxes and import duties accruable to the Federal Government on all goods smuggled into the warehouse of VON Automobile Nigeria Limited be computed and recovered by the Nigeria Customs Service and the Federal Inland Revenue Service.

Now, without prejudice to the right of persons and institutions indicted to defend themselves in a lawful manner, it is worth noting that not one of these recommendations by the Senate has been implemented by the executive. In fact, not a squeak has been heard from their front five months after taking delivery of the report. Everyone indicted, both in and out of office are going about their lawful and unlawful businesses as though nothing happened.

Mr Ojudu talks about not giving up after one failed attempt; but I wish it were so. There are tens of parliamentary recommendations that have passed through executive shredders. However, it is one thing for them to ignore the recommendations and another thing to smear it all in putrid political palm oil with the aim of killing the spirit of the ordinary Nigerian. For instance, one of the most enervating parliamentary probes since the return of civil rule is the Godwin Ndudi Elumelu-led House of Representatives’ Power and Steel Committee probe of the power sector. I’m highlighting it here, because it epitomizes the perfidy underlying attempts by the National Assembly to call people to account for their actions in public service, especially where these concern policy goals and public money.

The lies, the thefts, the multiple betrayals of public trust are just breathtakingly jaw-dropping that in the end, Nigerians were left in a frazzled heap not knowing what to believe or where to turn. They spent so much money probing the cause of national darkness and in the end it was all wrapped up in stifling obscurantism.  Hollywood could not have scripted a worse tragedy for a nation still grappling with basic electricity supply in the midst of unspeakable wealth and talented human and natural resources.

It began sometime in 2007 with the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, ‘Dimeji Bankole telling the nation that the $16 billion poured into the power sector, pursuant to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s promise to improve electricity supply hasn’t produced the expected result. In January 2008, the House passed a resolution mandating its Power and Steel Committee to probe the power sector with a view to ascertaining, amongst other things, what happened to the money spent so far. In March 2008, the Committee began the public hearing, followed by a long tour of related projects and facilities nationwide with a view to verifying the claims being made by the contractors handling the power projects. The Committee submitted its Report to the leadership of the House in May 2008.

Nigerians watched it all sitting in the public gallery in the House and on live television, thus the Report was not surprising in its findings and recommendations. It just confirmed the suspicion of a lot of knowledgeable people that a cabal of political interests had mindlessly exploited the expectations of Nigerians over power to loot us blind. The names of the indicted include once again, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the three persons who were Minister of Power and Steel after Bola Ige – Olusegun Agagu, Liyel Imoke and Mohammed Goje, all of whom became PDP Governors in their various States thereafter.

They were all indicted for using the vehicle of the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) to siphon huge sums of money. The Committee recommended that the law enforcement agencies interrogate the trio, Obasanjo, the then Central Bank Governor, Professor Charles Soludo and the then Accountant-General of the Federation, Alhaji Ibrahim Dankwambo. The latter’s name has latterly surfaced in the House of Representatives subsidy Report as the fellow who in a display of accounting abracadabra, signed cheques of N999 million 128 times within a 24-hour period. That’s some accounting record for which he’s been rewarded by the ruling party with the governorship of Gombe State, where he presently nestles as the hoopla over his act rents the air.

Chief Obasanjo was said to have been in cahoots with the then Minister of State for Energy, Alhaji Abdulhamid Ahmed with whom he mastered the art of approving waivers to contractors in what the Committee described as “economic sabotage”. The Report stated: “The committee identified the brains behind waivers of due process on NIPP disbursements. The justification at that time was to fast-track the completion of the projects.

But rather than fast-track or facilitate the completion of the projects as envisaged, waivers of due process became the major plank that facilitated payments to contractors and consultants that have failed to perform, at the expense of the nation and the power industry. These officers need to be thoroughly investigated by the appropriate agencies for economic sabotage to the country”. President Goodluck Jonathan, who came into office seizing the Power portfolio for himself with a promise to clear the mess, has since appointed Ahmed as our Ambassador to Turkey!

 

However, once the Committee completed its task in May 2008 and handed its Report to the House amidst great ovation (considering that the public has watched the riveting detail of sleaze right there on live television and the nation was all pumped up), Elumelu and his Committee became the subject of a N100 million bribery allegation by the Tell Magazine. The allegation was referred to the House Ethics Committee.

Ultimately, the Ethics Committee cleared Elumelu and his colleagues, but the poison had seeped in already, the public had begun to have doubts about the whole probe and the indicted were circling their prey. By May 2009, Elumelu was on the run, sought by the EFCC for an alleged N6 billion Rural Electrification Agency (REA) contract scam. For the next three years, up till today, Mr Elumelu has become more familiar with police stations and courtrooms than the chambers of the National Assembly. The EFCC charged him at the Abuja Federal High Court, where Justice Garba Umar struck out the charges of corruption levelled against him. But on 12 April, 2012, the EFCC filed an appeal at the Abuja Court of Appeal against that judgment.

While Elumelu faced his legal travails, the fight to kill the Report in the House of Representatives went on apace. In a typical Nigerian twist, the Report that was originally praised to high heavens began to be pilloried from the same quarters that welcomed it within the House. At a plenary session in April 2009, a couple of weeks before Elumelu was arrested, members took turn to attack Elumelu and the Report.

After an executive session, the leadership of the House emerged with some novel idea. They set up a seven-man committee to be headed by the then Deputy Chief Whip, Aminu Tambuwal (now the Speaker of the House) to review the Elumelu Committee Report. The other members of the review committee, apart from Tambuwal were Hassan Shekarau, Adisa Adeshida, C.I.D Maduabum, Patrick Ikhariale, Mohammed Mungono and Chile Igbawa.

They did the review and concluded that the Elumelu Committee had not established any loss of money nor has it established that any money was corruptly siphoned by President Obasanjo and his lieutenants. That was the end of the power probe and the late President Umaru Yar’Adua who had vowed to get to the bottom of the mess, with an eye on second term and Obasanjo a key player in his party, asked no questions. The only relic of the affair now is the occasional news of Elumelu shuttling between the police stations and the courts. The waste of public funds – from those siphoned to those used for the probe – is mind-bending!

To be honest, we can go on forever talking about the disappointing outcomes of several other parliamentary probes. The latest ones on the pension and subsidy are still on-going or fresh, so I wouldn’t want to conjecture on whether or not they would be implemented once passed to the executive. The subsidy probe is very close to my heart not only because of the social consciousness that engineered it via the January fuel protests by Nigerians, but also because I was principal co-sponsor of the motion in the Senate calling for a probe long before the national protests.

The motion itself was raised by Senator Bukola Saraki as early as October last year. He had pointed out that only N240 billion was appropriated for fuel subsidy in the 2011 budget for the entire year, yet by August of that same year, N931 billion has already been spent! What responsible legislature will overlook such a thing? Though, our own Senate Joint Committee on the investigation into the management of petroleum subsidy, headed by Senator Magnus Abe is yet to issue its Report, I doubt very much it would be radically different from the one of the House of Representatives, considering some of the fundamental facts already established. In the meantime, there are worries that the latest travails of Senator Bukola Saraki with the police over some alleged complicity in a bank loan scandal may not be unconnected with the fact that he is the one who blew the whistle on the subsidy scam. We are watching developments closely on that front, but I can assure Nigerians that the Senate will do a thorough job, because those of us pushing it recognise the historical importance of this mission.


However, having stated all the above, I am at this point looking beyond the probes precisely because of the seeming limit of our powers as parliamentarians. I have chatted with colleagues countless times about this executive rascality of not implementing probe reports and all I get in response is some finger-twiddling and heavy sighs of helplessness. Our role, they keep pointing out, is to present reports, not implement them. But as I stated at the beginning, I am sick and tired of public money being siphoned by unscrupulous public officials and tons of public money spent by parliament on probes upon probes that end up in the executive waste basket! As a citizen sitting through these and watching on TV, I’m worried stiff that the politicians of my generation are missing the opportunity to make a positive change in my nation.

The consequence of such inaction can only be imagined. Of course, some can continue to deceive themselves by claiming Nigerians are inured to the effects of corruption and that it is an acceptable way of life, but I do not believe that. Inasmuch as one can say corruption is endemic in our society, the responsibility for good governance cannot forever be compromised without a deadly effect on us and our children and at the forefront of factors militating against good governance is corruption. I believe it’s time those of us who call ourselves leaders begin to take another look at our actions and the results (or lack of same) with a view to beginning to address some of our core needs as a society.

I’m now strongly of the view that we have to begin to think of how to make these probes productive for the ordinary people. I mean, Mohammed Adoke, the Attorney-General ad Minister of Justice in a pre-emptory strike against implementation of the subsidy Report is already declaring it only as a “fact-finding exercise”, but I wonder whether it is wise to spend such colossal sums as we have on these fact-finding exercises without doing anything about their findings. How long would this continue before the bottom drops off the bucket?

I do not have anything against the Senate President rightly stating at the adoption of the BPE Report that all we can do as parliamentarians is submit our report and leave the executives to implement. I can add that on the face of it, there seems nothing directly in the law at present to indicate that we can compel them.

But a purposive reading of section 4 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) granting us legislative powers to “make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Federation” and section 88 (2)(b) empowering us to investigate with the aim of exposing “corruption, inefficiency or waste in the execution of administration of laws” within our legislative competence “and in the disbursement of administration of funds appropriated by it” would imply without question that it is not the intention of the Constitution to empower us to probe so that the result can lawfully be thrown in dustbins.

The law assumes that the executive will be working in tandem with us to ensure that our recommendations are implemented and where not implemented, to give valid reasons why it is not doing so. But it certainly cannot be the intention of the law to establish a culture of totally ignoring Reports of parliamentary probe. For all it is worth, that is where we are and that is what must now change for the health of our nation. We parliamentarians must rise to the challenge now and force the executive to do the right thing through a robust interpretation of the law and strategic repositioning.

In this regard, I see something in the proposal of my colleague in the House of Representatives, Zakari Mohammed who is the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs. He is of the view that the House can influence the executive to implement the fuel subsidy report if adopted by the whole House by making its implementation a precondition for approval of any requests from the executive.

In the light of our democratic practice, that may look a little desperate, but desperate times call for desperate measures! The key thing here is that parliament would be within its right to ask the executive to implement its report before granting it any request, based on the provisions of section 4 as it concerns its responsibility for good governance. This may lead to some kind of stalemate or even brinkmanship, but this nation cannot just go on this way!

It’s about time real grown-ups within the leadership begin to show themselves through exemplary patriotic action. We must begin to identify amongst ourselves, irrespective of parties, those who genuinely want to save Nigeria and we must do so without any sentiments whatsover. Gone are the days when you just come into the National Assembly, quietly collect all your entitlements, without saying or doing anything. Our job is to make laws for the good governance of Nigeria. So, not only are we to make the laws, the Constitution empowers us to make sure that these are for the good governance of Nigeria. It follows that any law being manipulated by anyone to create bad governance must be fought by us in every way possible!

[b]Finally, between Ojudu’s criticism of the opposition and my claim of seeming helplessness in the face of a dominant party, I think we can make the legislature more assertive. We can do this through the vehicle of the Public Accounts Committees of both the Senate and the House of Representative, first because of their extremely important tasks and secondly, because these are Committees whose chairmanships are conventionally given to opposition parliamentarians.

We have been witnesses to how, for instance, the Senate Public Accounts Committee led by Senator Ahmed Lawan (ANPP-Yobe) raised alarm over the unconstitutional practice of the NNPC and some other government-owned corporations and commissions employing unaccredited and unqualified auditors. Of recent also, we have seen the House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee headed by Hon Solomon Adeola (ACN- Lagos) question Federal Ministry of Agriculture officials over 17 queries relating to diversion of funds and violation of financial regulations, the Federal Ministry of Education and some of its parastatals, the Ministry of Science and Technology and Dr Paul Orhi of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

The core of these Committees’ work deal with public accountability and while their work may not be high profile, it is  at the real base and the right place to nip any corrupt practices in the bud if well structured. Indeed, there may be need for the legislature to look at the legal relationship between the Public Accounts Committee, the Auditor-General and the Accountant –General with a view that all should work in synergy, rather than in opposition as we have seen since the establishment of civil rule.  

For instance, there needs to be clarity about who is responsible for tracking spending and how constantly this must be done with a view to informing the Public Account Committees about questionable developments where necessary. A situation where a state official would have stolen tens and hundreds of billions before the alarm is raised does not show that the process of tracking is working and neither the legislature nor the executive can raise any excuse for that failure.

Frankly, there’s no need waiting for an annual report from the Auditor-General before kicking into action. In fact, we can, just like in the British system, simply co-opt the Auditor-General as a permanent witness at the Public Accounts Committes’ hearings, along with his staff who will provide briefings and assist the Committees in preparing Reports. We can further empower these Committees by giving them the full backing of the House by aiding their work in all areas, giving them high visibility in the press and generally ensuring that the present haughtiness and nonchalant attitude usually exhibited by some of those government officials that appear before them is seriously discouraged.

When people accused of stealing or misusing public resources behave as if we owe them apology or that they would rather be somewhere else, parliament has to summon its powers to call them to order. After all, they know how to act sweet and nice when they defend their annual budget proposals, so why can’t they act the same when questioned about their spending of public money?

I have not spoken here like a politician, but as a citizen, because I know the danger that lurks in our future if we continue blindly as we are going without regard for the Nigerian people. My proposals are aimed to at returning confidence immediately to the probe process. We may have all sorts of excuses, but the public perception of us is not great. The contagion of credibility deficit enveloping those of us who call ourselves leaders in the face of these economic and social injustices should not be ignored. We need to begin to change that by proactively tackling executive lawlessness.

We are paid to check the excesses of the executive, not to condone them or give excuses why we can’t check them. Vast amounts of money that would go a long way in addressing the paucity of social infrastructure and capital investment throughout our nation are being frittered away by callous thieves who appear before us knowing nothing will come out of our costly probes and day in day out we sit there, as is our duty, to waste public money on these probes we know will go nowhere in terms of implementation.

These are probes to nowhere! We’ve got to begin thinking hard now about how to make the probe process productive by proposing through legislative and executive actions measures that will lead to less pilfering of funds because of a strong accounting and auditing process overseen by the legislature and where such funds have been pilfered, a proactive recovery process that will make funds available for investment in capital and social infrastructure. We’ve got to turn the page, boldly. That is the least long-suffering Nigerians deserve. [/b]

My resistance to Action Congress of Nigeria’s forced conscription. Olusegun Mimiko

Excerpt from Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko’s interview with TheNEWS’ team of ADEMOLA ADEGBAMIGBE, TOKUNBO OLAJIDE and IDOWU OGUNLEYE

What is your current relationship with the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria, especially given your history with some its leaders?

The disagreement we have is that the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, said I should leave the Labour Party and join ACN, and I have insisted that there is no reason I should leave the Labour Party.

I have been very fortunate; I have changed party twice. And yet I’ve not lost the people. It is because there were reasons for me to change party. When I was leaving the Alliance for Democracy, it was clear to everybody in Ondo State why I had to leave. 
When I left, some people left with me. When I was leaving the PDP, it was clear to everybody that I had to leave and look for another platform. I have no reason now to leave Labour Party for ACN. That is the point of disagreement.

And I have always pointed out that if there are areas where we share same values, we can collaborate. I believe in state police for example. Whatever coloration of party you are in, if you believe in state police, I would be able to collaborate with you for us to be able to actualise it in the course of constitutional amendment. I believe that we must decentralise power to a very large extent in Nigeria. 

I believe the smaller, the better. I believe that the resources of the federal government can be devolved to the states and local governments for better and effective utilisation.

And when we talk of economic integration, the point I have always made is absolutely clear. When we talk of integration, what are you talking about? The sub-structure. The sub-structure in the integration is that we are all Yoruba people, we speak the same language. Because of common history and heritage, our worldview and value system are the same. The aspirations of an Ekiti, an Ondo and an Ogun man are the same. They are ready to give everything they have to educate their children, so they can be greater than them.

Then we have geography. Because of these common features that integrate us, we can create an economy of scale in some of our economic endeavours that would improve our fortunes. But it’s not the same thing as political integration. And this must be made clear. Even if there is going to be any political aspect of this integration, it must be a recognition of the fact that the people must be given the right to determine who leads them at any point in time.

Once we agree on all of these, then we can collaborate. But when people say, willy-nilly, they are going to capture a state, I think that belongs in the realm of the past. We should develop the democratic mindset and let the will of the people prevail.

In his reply the Attorney-General of the Federation through his counsel, B.R. Ashiru maintained that the Regulation was designed to protect women police officers from falling into the hands of criminals.

The state-owned oil company NNPC is accountable to no one. It owes the government 704 billion naira for various violations of the subsidy scheme and it owes a string of fuel traders, including Trafigura, $3.5 billion -- about the amount in the Excess Crude Account, meaning that Nigeria essentially has no savings.

Jarus:
Yes o. As the man that moderates the largest and most diverse assembly of Nigerian youths, at home and abroad, I need special invitation before attending.

Samoo01: Seun seems to be a quiet man. Which is the way brilliant and filled people always are.

I tweeted this Monday: Bunch of Sandmonkey wannabees mustered in downtown Abuja hobnobbing with the politicos. Pictures why the Occupy movement failed? #NGNewMedia


I still stand by my tweet.

Jarus: Mukina, are you attending this event?

Beaf:

I really loved this poem as a kid; I was in awe at the inventiveness of a man who could paint words so gracefully, beautifully and with such dreamy poignance.

Do you know he is Edwin Clarkes younger brother? I was shocked when I learnt that, cos I always assumed he was from Ibadan.

Another poet in his class is David Diop:

Ibadan,

running splash of rust

and gold-flung and scattered

among seven hills like broken

china in the sun.


-J.P. Bekederemo-Clark

That secret prisons can exist — and an apparently violent riot can go unreported — show the ability of Nigeria's government to keep its citizens unaware.

Nigeria island prison offers nation's dark history

By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press – 14 hours ago  

ITA OKO ISLAND, Nigeria (AP) — The prison, cut out of the dense jungle that engulfs this island outside Lagos, never officially existed in records, though critics of Nigeria's military rulers were locked up here decades ago in harsh conditions.

Ita Oko Island, accessible only by boat and helicopter, allowed Nigeria's military governments to hold opponents far from public scrutiny in the swamps of Lekki Lagoon. 

A newspaper expose in 1988 forced officials to close the prison, though local authorities later reopened it for what appears to be a failed $1 million effort to rehabilitate the gang members who dominate Lagos' streets.

As Nigeria plans to open another classified facility to hold and interrogate members of a radical Islamist sect, the Ita Oko Island prison's failed state shows the dangers posed by operating secret prisons and stands as a haunting reminder of past abuses of power that seem quickly forgotten.


"We're in the same situation as far as I am concerned as we were in 20 or 30 years ago, but the scenarios and the narrative are different," said Olisa Agbakoba, a lawyer whose civil rights group helped expose the prison. "We have a rapacious political party in power determined to do everything to retain power and the struggle for power is so intense now that I would not put it past the ruling party to conceal anything to keep it power, including abuses of human rights."

The prison island sits about 100 kilometers (60 miles) outside of Lagos, a rural area where villagers still make a living fishing along the long white sand beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. The 10 square-kilometer (4 square-mile) island is just inland in the lagoon, a wide expanse of water only lightly traveled by locals.

In 1978, then-military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo, who would become the country's elected president, opened the prison he later described as a work farm. But it wasn't until military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, now a perennial presidential candidate, that the prison became a massive holding cell for political prisoners, Agbakoba said.

Under a Buhari decree, anyone deemed by the military government to be a security risk could be imprisoned. Though such sentences were to last only a few months, many saw themselves detained indefinitely in Nigeria's mismanaged prisons.

Those deemed to be a major risk politically found themselves taken to Ita Oko by helicopter, where they worked on the farm and had no contact with the outside world, Agbakoba said. 

Even today, as the country has become a democracy with the guise of free information laws, it remains unclear how many inmates died on the prison island.

"It was abused by prison authorities," Agbakoba said. "If you misbehave, they said we'll send you as punishment to" the island.

In 1988, the wife of one inmate who discovered her husband had been sent there slipped a note to Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. Soyinka was on the board of Agbakoba's Civil Liberties Organization, which later traveled to the island with a journalist from The Guardian newspaper who published a story exposing the prison. Authorities quickly closed the prison.

[b]In recent years, Lagos state government said it invested about $1 million to rehabilitate the island into a training center for gang members, known locally as "area boys." But a recent trip to the island by Associated Press journalists found some of the buildings in ruins after what looked like an attack.  Fire destroyed some areas, with television sets and other equipment broken on the ground. State government files littered the floor, though a wall clock continued to run on a battery — suggesting whatever happened occurred recently.
Razor wire and security cameras sat on a 3-meter fence that surrounded what appeared to be dormitories for the site. 

The main entrance to that area had been padlocked. Someone also left the bones of a small animal on the gate — a black magic warning to stay away.

Locals from nearby villages said the gang members there had rioted some months ago and escaped. They later came back to free other gang members and destroy more of the property, the locals said.[/b]

Lateef Aderemi Ibirogba, the Lagos state commissioner for information and strategy, did not respond to questions from the AP about the facility.

That secret prisons can exist — and an apparently violent riot can go unreported — show the ability of Nigeria's government to keep its citizens unaware.

 The AP has reported that the Nigerian government now is opening a secret detention center for members of the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, which has been blamed for killing more than 520 people this year alone.

Meanwhile, alleged members of the sect arrested in recent months and accused of killing a British and Italian hostage in Sokoto and the Dec. 25 bombing of a Catholic church outside the capital Abuja that killed at least 44 people have yet to appear in a public court hearing. It remains unclear where they are being held.

Negro_Ntns:

Kilode, Maimuna was feeling you!


Buhari, this is end of translation.

In Nigeria, there is very little formal retail

isale_gan2:

What we have here (in the bolded) is a dilemma, a catch-22, if you will.

On one hand, the advice to not self-isolate, is sound. No group should limit itself where political participation and influence is concerned.

On the other hand, in an environment where one party predominates in a larger area, having a wider tent, or BEING PERCEIVED to have a wider tent. . . does hitching your wagon to that party tacitly endorse turning the country into a one-party system?

Which is more dangerous for the masses in the long run?

I see this as a real dilemma. Others may not.

The simplest and most accessible example is the USA. We all know that, at the national, regional, state, and local levels, the USA is a 2-party state. There are exceptions, in minor (Green Party and Libertarian party in MN and some parts) or short-term (Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Jesse Ventura) cases, but the Republican vs Democrat party apparatus are the predominant and consistent vehicle to any form of political power or activity in the USA. Anyone who wants to partake in politics or even, any regular person who wants his vote to count, knows from childhood that you are either one or the other. Even registered Independents are forced to choose one or the other in almost all elections - at any level - from Sheriff elections to State Representatives to, of course, Governors/President.

So, this 2-party system is already established there over many years. I personally detest this (especially as it is in the USA where the written ideologies of the 2 parties and their foreign policies are practically indistinguishable), but that is the way it is there - the way their electoral system has evolved.

But, going by the contentions of the subject of the opening post, if we decide to follow his advice and start supporting this other party in large numbers, is there not a risk of strengthening an already strong and overly-influential entity?

What happens to the balance of power, what happens to the adversarial system in legislature where the partisan competition and challenges can often serve as a check on the majority party?

There are so many issues one could bring into the discussion. . .

But, overall, Yes, it is a good proposal that no region wants to put all its egg in one political party (again, think of USA Blacks and their 90% enslavement to Democrats), but, there is a risk of creating a stronger dominating, and ultimately, totalitarian one-party system.

The happy medium would be an emergence of more diverse party affiliations in all regions. A good representation of various ideologies and political movement wouldn't hurt and may bring more competition and ensure wider voter participation with better candidates.

I am sure, for many, this debate is not over by a long shot.

. . does hitching your wagon to that party tacitly endorse turning the country into a one-party system?

Which is more dangerous for the masses in the long run?

But, going by the contentions of the subject of the opening post, if we decide to follow his advice and start supporting this other party in large numbers, is there not a risk of strengthening an already strong and overly-influential entity?

What happens to the balance of power, what happens to the adversarial system in legislature where the partisan competition and challenges can often serve as a check on the majority party?

There are so many issues one could bring into the discussion . . .

But, overall, Yes, it is a good proposal that no region wants to put all its egg in one political party (again, think of USA Blacks and their 90% enslavement to Democrats), but, there is a risk of creating a stronger dominating, and ultimately, totalitarian one-party system.

The happy medium would be an emergence of more diverse party affiliations in all regions. A good representation of various ideologies and political movement wouldn't hurt and may bring more competition and ensure wider voter participation with better candidates.

I am sure, for many, this debate is not over by a long shot.

eyin, E ma ku nii, e o ni so ri re, gbo gbo yin ma ku ni, to go to skul for 4 years is a problem for you, doctors go for eight years paying 300k per session minimum in state skuls> wo!!!, all u none doctors that r talking rubbish ehn, ur waterloo is not to far, problem will meet u at your work place, e so amin!!, Amin lo ru ko jesu!! BASTARDS!!!, go and take home 130 for doing more work that ur counterparts working in other states and FG

dejato: like all of u didn't want to be doctors, i'm sure u barely graduated philosophy and the likes, getting angry at folks that are living your dreams, because nigerian police studied for 8 years before entering cadet uniform, some people talk like the are operating at the peri-anal level