I don't know if this qualify as a chore or not but anytime my girlfriend is working in the kitchen, i like to stroke her back, and it makes her works better.

Why is Yaradua so tribalistic? Why?

I am shocked this is even a question for debate.
Homework? Waste of time??
The BEST advice I was ever given was: Do your homework.

I have applied it beyond primary school. Doing my homework has helped me made success of my life and career. I learnt it at an impressionable age, thankfully.

It is hard, even foolhardy, to give an answer that will be applicable to all cases. In human affairs, there will always be exceptions and situations must be judged on a case-by-case basis.
Having said that, I will say it depends on what kind of information I am withholding and how forgiving I think my spouse is. Some people just don't have the gift of forgiveness. Some events are dead and need not be awakened others have subsided but some unfortunate circumstances may arouse them to catastrophic proportions so it may be wiser to provide a disclaimer ahead of time.
So my answer is:
It depends on:
1. The kind of information.
2. The perceived maturity of my spouse.
3. The number of people who knew the information.
4. The characteristic of people who knew the information.
5. If the information is a pattern of behavior or an isolated incident.

untainted:

stand up, stand up, for the champions, stand up!
5 is a crowd let the party begin                                          

cool! I wish we are staying in the same part of the world

July 27
if u r in US and u r free, I plan on going on a Bahamas Cruise and I have a free ticket for one more person.
You can contact me!!
P.S.
Of course you must be born on JULY 27!!

bolicks:

Sure, when a group of people who cannot tell that  Nigerian people essential needs  are just, Good Governance, Shelter, Food, Good Education, Water, Good Infrastructure. Some of these needs have been provided by ordinary people, local village heads and chiefs  in many communities.

Harvard awaits them, with Diplomas of Shame.

Stale news. Harvard has rejected the claim. The institution has said nothing like that will happen.

George_D:

also kindly consider the 'cost' women bear in taking care of their
jobless husbands. let's not be so myopic as to think that all
wives are layabouts and waiting to be 'maintained' like a jallopy.

Good question but that is not what this thread is addressing.
When we get to the thread that focuses on that, we will discuss it too.

Sweet T:

@Poster

I love my African women but what i do not like is the "copycat" BS. When an African woman adopt a western lifestyle, they go to the extreme with it.

I agree. I guess they don't know that being confident in your skin is a very sexy trait.

How come we men always wanna remember equality when it comes to money?

My point is that rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. So if I have a wife who wants to be my equal then she should forget about me carrying an unequal financial burden of the relationship. I think that is only fair.

If I have to choose between poison and septrin, I will gladly choose the poison! I have had two very fatal cases of septrin reaction and the doctor warned that I should be extremely careful. He just stopped short of saying the next time, it will be instant death.

I find it ludicrous that someone posted that I have to pay to touch, caress etc. Women ENJOY these things more than we men. I have seen enough girls with bad boys and when I dig deep to why they still hang on to these losers (as the women like to call them), it all boils down to good sex. The guy gives them good sex and so nothing else matters.

In this day and age where women are crying and shouting for equality, I wouldn't even bother to think of how much it costs to keep her, since we are "equal" then we should equally share responsibilities too. If she wants me to take care of her then she must renounce her oath of equality!

As soon as I came across the phrase "diesel-powered locomotives" I thought Otedola! The whole thing is just to make some people richer that's all

@lannre and trustonyi,
I am guilty as charged.

Their job is to mess each other very well, just as the people they are assisting too will soon do

Outstrip:

I am sort of surprised that the responses. What is so wrong about this. They have tried a lot of things but always fell flat on their faces. Is this just a case of not expecting much from a place like Nigeria or simply that we should stick with what we are doing and keep fasting and praying for things to change.

Are you kidding?

What a waste! I love to learn on my own. Some months ago, I went to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government websites and downloaded their course curriculum, course materials and required reading. I also used their online resources all for FREE.
They are just going there to waste money.

I do 1 hr Cardio (6:30 till 7:30am) on Mondays and Wednesdays with my Trainer
Tuesdays and Thursdays are for Teakwondo
Friday (and sometimes Saturday) is for swimming

Tùdor:

Oh soludo! Soludo!
Soludo the eye of the tiger,
the powerful son who killed an elephant like the proverbial ant
the charging naked warrior who fears not the cold
as tall as the iroko yet wise like the tortoise
and so on. . . . .

I was waiting for this
I have nothing against Sanusi as a man, but not allowing Soludo to continue just reeks of too much politics. In this period of a global economic crisis, we need someone with a global knowledge and in this area we can't just compare the two.
When Yar'Adua came in we were all happy because of his credentials, two years later, we are all wiser now. So I'll give this guy too two years, before then I wish him good luck and hope Nigeria still remain a viable entity by then.

Short Answer: NO

Must the North always make money this way?
Why can't they think of ways to make their own states productive?
For now, Nigeria is a classic case of Monkey (oil-producing states) dey work, Baboon (the North) dey chop

@adigun101,
I read through all of your posts on this thread and compared them with those that are opposing you and found a strange similarity, you are like Soludo and they are like Sanusi!!
You argue your points reasonably, you give unassailable points and sounded much more intellectual. Kudos.

I think not allowing Soludo to continue is a mistake, time will tell.

We were simple the better team! Yay!

This thread cracks me up. Thumbs up to you all.
More seriously, though, I think the culprit is our proclivity to confuse incomprehensibility with depth.

I have my copy. 319 pages is much though so I will be reading it "small small" till I finish it.
Thank you!

This is the concluding part of Nasir El Rufai's memoirs on Yaradua.

PART 4 – YAR’ADUA’S GOVERNANCE: A QUICK ASSESSMENT

14. Has Yar’Adua Delivered “Political Goods”?

Rotberg (2007) identified eight categories of ‘political goods’ which comprise good governance
and separate good performers from poor performers. Based on our review of Yar’Adua’s
pronouncements, decisions and actions so far, an attempt will be made to assess the quality of
his governance.

As far as human security is concerned, it would appear that things have either remained the same at best or got a little worse. The Niger Delta issue has not been addressed. Attacks on pipelines and flow stations persist, and kidnappings have increased exponetially. The much-vaunted “Niger Delta Summit” is yet to take place. An important report produced by a technical committee set up by the Yar’Adua administration is yet to be approved for implementation since submission in November 2008. The quality of the Nigeria Police remains poor but a committee on Police Reform submitted a report which is expected to be implemented with financial contributions between the states and the Federal Government.

(Note - See for instance, International Crisis Group Briefing – “Seizing the moment in the Niger Delta” which strongly recommended the implementation of the Ledum Mittee Technical Committee Report, online at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6080&l=1 accessed 04/30/09.)

Rule of law is one thing President Yar’Adua would like to be remembered for. How he will be
remembered is of course too early to tell. There is a lot of sloganeering about rule of law, but with Andoakaa, Okiro and Waziri as the public faces of this, the Nigerian media and civil society are rightly skeptical. In reality, the Nigerian state is yet to provide “predictable, recognizable, systematized methods of adjudicating disputes and regulating norms…and mores of society….” (Rotberg). Time will tell whether Yar’Adua ‘s administration will take the right steps in putting these in place.

The third political good is free and open participation in the political process – do Nigerians
have political rights? Some rights certainly do exist, but one can say, not enough. Votes matter
little in elections in many parts of Nigeria in 2007 and now. The recent attempt by the PDP to
win the elections re‐run in Ekiti at all costs remains an unfolding drama that will test whether
Yar’Adua is willing to deepen and broaden these political rights if that will lead to his person and party being voted out of office. While we will wait and see how it all plays out, both Ekiti and other re-runs so far show clearly that this sacrifice will be too much to bear for Yar'Adua, family and political dependents.

Economic opportunity is the fourth political good, and provides a platform for a citizen to
pursue and realize his economic potential. This exists in Nigeria, but the expansion of state
intervention, contrary what Yar’Adua promised in his inaugural speech may threaten that
unless checked urgently. To exploit the market opportunities, maintaining macroeconomic stability is vital and sound money necessary. It would appear that under Yar’Adua’s watch, both have deteriorated, and this has been aggravated by the global economic crisis.

Investments in human capital – education, health and social services, and in physical
infrastructure are necessary for a productive populace and connection of markets for goods
and services. The administration has done little to add to the inherited levels of the supply of
these goods. In Nigeria today, electricity generation has fallen from 3,200MW in May 2007 to
less than 1,000MW and all inherited power investments put on hold while being endlessly
investigated and falsehood propagated to discredit badly-needed investment decisions. The railway investments have been suspended too, but the privately‐owned telecoms sector continues to boom – over 50 million Nigerian now carry cell‐phones.

15. Yar’Adua’s Governance on the African Leadership Index

What appears to be the heartbreaking story of reversals in Nigeria indicates the truth of the
proposition that in Africa, more than anywhere else, individual leadership is more decisive of
outcomes than anything else. From Obasanjo to Yar’Adua, Nigeria has changed so much, mostly
for the worse, that one wonders whether Obasanjo’s successor was hand‐picked, of the same
party and of the highest level of education than any leaders has ever had!

a. Vision: Yar’Adua has not within his first two years articulated a clear vision. The
Vision 20‐2020 inherited from Obasanjo has not been detailed into strategies,
programs, plans and timelines. NEEDS has been dumped and the Seven Point
Agenda has become the butt of jokes.

b. Transformational or Transactional Leadership?: Yar’Adua is certainly not a transformational
leader. The activities of those around him, particularly his family would point to him
being a transactional leader, but perhaps too early to conclude.

c. Hedgehog or Fox?: Yar’Adua does not seem to have one good overarching idea that
he relentlessly pursues. Even his “rule of law” idea is not fully understood and
respected by his inner circle, his attorney general and family. The administration
seems unfocused and in the words of a critic, ‘clueless!’

d. Effective mobilization of Citizenry: Yar’Adua had a unique opportunity after his
inaugural address to build on the desire of Nigerians for change to mobilize them,
build consensus and sell a vision higher than their personal interests – but blew it within months due
to policy reversals and intentional unraveling of the popular anti‐corruption war.

e. An Inclusive Leader? Yar’Adua’s limited knowledge of Nigeria and the world (for instance - he had
never visited more than a handful states in Nigeria before joining the presidential race, and never been to the USA until he came to visit President Bush in December 2007) and his introverted nature made him easy to capture by a small clique (K-4) now called “the Katsina Mafia”. Since coming into office, he has appointed a disproportionate number of Northerners to virtually all the important ministries, departments and agencies. This has drawn the ire of other parts of the country, particularly the South‐West and the Niger Delta. Yar’Adua has therefore failed to show he can be a universalist and comes across as sectional, or even worse, clannish.

f. Democratic by design, expression and example? – Certainly not. Right from his days
as governor of Katsina, Yar’Adua is known to be taciturn, intolerant of dissent, and not open to disgreeable opinions. He prefers pre‐arranged selections using caucuses like K-11, K-34 to open, transparent and competitive politics. Yar’Adua is not democratic by design or example, but speaks a lot
about being democratic! He is not known to be consultative or participatory. He promised to be a servant‐leader – a listener and doer – and failed to be ‐ so far.

g. Building Social Capital on a National Scale? – This would have been possible if Yar’Adua had seized the moment and kept the momentum of his Inaugural Address. Sadly, he lost it due to poor decisions taken early in the life of the administration retaining geriatrics in office (and bringing in many more, later), fraternizing with corrupt ex‐governors and blocking the anti‐corruption war. In his recent Guardian interview, he clearly articulated a preference for his 'fellowship' with the corrupt governors to the integrity of his person, the presidency and the nation. James Ibori and Company are more important to Yar'Adua than 150 million Nigerians!

h. Alignment of Means and Ends? – Yar’Adua inherited a sound, debt‐free economy.
During his tenure, oil prices rose as high as $147 per barrel. The excess crude account and reserves were in excess of $60 billion. Yet, he failed to appreciate the good fortune, and dissipated most of the excess crude account. Foreign reserves are down to levels lower than in 2007 in a classical proof of failure to align means and ends. More alarming are news reports of Yar'Adua's intention to borrow from the Eurodollar market to finance a self-created budet deficit - a slippery slope to Paris Club bondage for the next generation of Nigerians which our administration got Nigeria out of in 2005, while Umaru was relaxing in Katsina!

i. Building Trust: For the reasons already outlined, the levels of trust in Nigeria have
fallen under Yar’Adua’s watch. The crisis in Jos, and in Ekiti both resulted from suspicions rooted not in ethnicity or religion, but manipulation of electoral contests. Yar’Adua’s antecedents in Katsina suggest that he considers electoral victory a higher priority than anything else. Things may get worse in this
area before they get better.

j. Intellectual Honesty and Integrity: Yar’Adua does not seem to have a national vision and self‐mastery. He has not shown prudence and ability to solve problems. Instead, he has created problems where none existed and aggravated some that he inherited. Though he appears thoughtful and deliberate, his actions seem to reveal deep‐seated insecurity to prove that he has absolute power. The case of the persecution of Nuhu Ribadu and Yar'Adua's comment thereon in his recent Guardian interview reveals more about the President’s character, sense of priorities and loyalties than anything he has said or done since coming into office.

k. Legitimacy: Yar’Adua came into the presidency through an election which observers within and outside Nigeria have condemned as the worst in our history. For nearly one‐and‐half years, his presidency was threatened by what the Election Tribunal will decide. These legitimacy challenges which were not helped by 4‐3 split decision of the Nigerian Supreme Court on the presidential election. Yar’Adua enjoyed a wave of initial popularity that would have overcome this challenge, but he lost that within months due to some of his own ill‐advised appointments, decisions and inactions. Though he is not personally ostentatious, the association with corrupt governors and dodgy businessmen, the elaborate weddings of his two daughters and the many stories of his wife have put question marks on his true levels of modesty, honesty and integrity.

l. Feeling of a National Transcendent Enterprise? – Not really. When all the above are put together, many Nigerians today feel a sense of loss – something is missing in the leadership equation. Even those that despised Obasanjo’s autocratic ways thought that at leat, Obasanjo made us slightly more proud to be Nigerians than in the last two years. Yar'Adua's failure to lead ahs made us all feel somewhat smaller as Nigerians, particularly when President Obama's first visit to Africa would be to Ghana, not Nigeria.

16. Conclusions and Way Forward

As I write this essay, President Umaru Yar’Adua’s associates have started his campaign for a
second term in office. That he is still ‘planning’ the first term and there are concerns about his
health have not discouraged the campaigners. As is usual with Yar’Adua, he will publicly decry
their activities, but privately get his inner circleto encourage and fund the protagonists!

Every Nigerian hopes Yar’Adua’s administration will start delivering those political goods which every
society is entitled to, and what Yar’Adua promised in his Inaugural Address. But the strength of
the hope dwindles with each passing day. As Nigerians, we must raise our voices to demand for these goods, and pray for our leaders to appreciate that they are in office to solve societal problems - not just to make a few friends, relations and cronies better off.

In my considerecview, three issues cry for attention in Nigeria, and which if addressed will enable the country resolve its numerous challenges in the long run – electoral reform to make votes count,
investments in physical and human infrstructure, and security and improved governance of the states in the Niger Delta. These translate into Free Elections, More Electricity, No Fuel Queues, Organized Multimodal Transport, Better Schools, Well-Paid Public Servants, Affordable Housing and Healthcare for all - and are within our grasp within years if we have leadership that cares, and builds upon the work of predecessors rather than engage in endless and fruitless destruction we have seen in 2007-2009.

The issues listed above should command the attention of all Nigerians that care, as well as friends of Nigeria – and Africa. As a Nigerian, I hope we start in the last two years of Yar’Adua’s tenure. As he said at the end of his Inaugural Address, which he may have forgotten:

“The challenge is great. The goal is clear. The time is now.”

It is our duty to remind President Yar'Adua of these constantly and require him to live up to his promises. Those that remain silent, in anticipation of some recognition, an appointment in government, an inflated contract, that lovely plot in Abuja or the safety and comfort of their current situations are betraying the Nigerian nation and even Yar'Adua himself. It is only because we care that we take risks. It is because we love that we sacrifice. Let us all care for and crave a better future for our children by insisting on better governance and management of our affairs. We are entitled to nothing less.

Today is May 29, 2009. To 150 million Nigerians, it is not just another day, it’s Democracy Day! My nation has suffered from destructive forces within and without. Colonized by Britain, raped by oil companies, decimated by a civil war and tyrannically ruled by one despot or the other since independence, Nigeria was free at last when democracy came (again) some ten years ago. People’s voices will now be heard, crime rates will go down, corrupt officials will now be prosecuted and we will now have our place in the comity of Nations, or so we thought.
I will discuss at length how I think we can get out of this mess…but that is for another time.
For now, I just want to share with you a conversation that took place between two leaders and for one reason or the other, it escaped the watchful eyes of the media. CNN, BBC, NTA and even SaharaReporters failed to report it…maybe because it happened in my imagination.
Yar’Adua: Welcome to Nigeria! The whole nation is happy to see you.
Obama: Thank you!
Yar’Adua: We were all happy that our own son is now the President of America.
Obama (looking uneasy): Thank you
Yar’Adua (walking gauntly on the red carpet): How did you find the journey? Tiring?
Obama (walking besides him with a steady gait): Interesting, actually.
They then drove off in armored Hummers.
Yar’Adua: Your book was one of the best I ever read.
Obama: Which one?
Yar’Adua: Have you written any other one since the Audacity of Hope?
Obama: No. I wrote one before that.
Yar’Adua (looking stupid): Oh! I see. (He then gave an affected smile)
At this point, power supply went off and an automatic generator quickly kicked in.
Yar’Adua (smiling squirmingly): Those generators are powerful, Mikano brand, from Japan.
Obama (soliloquizing): How can a people living in darkness [be expected to] reason in the light?
Yar’Adua: I beg your pardon?
Obama: Will you say that power generation is the most important problem facing your country?
Yar’Adua: No.
Obama (surprised): huh
Yar’Adua: I will rate the Swiss bankers as my number one problem. Can you believe those Europeans won’t release over a billion dollars illegally stashed away in their vaults to me, to us…I mean to Nigeria? I don’t know how the West can help us in this regard.
Obama: There are channels you can explore to recover stolen public funds. The Economic Intelligence Unit is a good starting point. They will need facts and figures though and not hearsay. Some monies were recovered recently; I hope they have been put into good use…
Yar’Adua (cutting in): I hope so too. It’s just that the money received so far is not enough.
Obama: So how are you going about the power generation problem? I understand that generation has gone from 3200MW two years ago to below 1000MW now.
Yar’Adua: We have invested over $15 billion in the power sector and there’s nothing to show for it. Can you believe that? Nothing! There are people bent on sabotaging our efforts.
Obama: Who are those?
Yar’Adua: I don’t know. Maybe the generator dealers, diesel suppliers…
Obama: Maybe? Are you using Hydroelectric, coal, gas or geothermal plants?
Yar’Adua (exasperated): I don’t know these things. Walahai, I don’t know. We appoint Power Ministers every now and then but they don’t deliver. They don’t. (looking resigned)
Obama: Nigeria is an influential player in the AU and critical in maintaining peace in this region so it is in our interest to make sure she is stable. How can the US collaborate in peace keeping efforts?
Yar’Adua: We need help in fighting the Niger Delta militants. We need better bombs, snipers (the ones that took out the Somali pirates) and more helicopters.
Electricity was back so the generators were switched off. Yar’Adua excused himself apparently to give a stern warning that electricity must not be interrupted again – they should just stick with the generators since they are more reliable.
At this point, Obama checked his Blackberry to read the updated CIA reports on Nigeria: he read about the Ekiti re-run election, MEND and JTF, the sale of the embassy at Washington DC, the Seven-Point agenda in the light of actual deliverables, James Ibori, the newly emasculated EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu US hearing…
Yar’Adua (stepping into the room): So you see, we are fighting on many fronts. We need help.
Obama (speaking loudly to his aide so that Yar’Adua can hear): Can you please give me the name of a country, in Africa, whose President was actually elected rather than selected, whose President will not be “planning” to carry out his campaign promises two years into his term, whose oil discovery doesn’t translate into killing of women and children, who would quit whining about saboteurs who he has power to deal with but refuses to…
Aide (cutting in): But we are here already.
Obama: I’m not afraid to own up to my mistake. Coming here is a mistake. I just want to go where the leader seems to have at least an appearance of respect for the people whose lives are daily touched by the decision he makes…I’m sure there should be a country like that even in Africa that can boast of uninterrupted power supply.
Obama (checking his Blackberry again, read the last line of the CIA report): Ghana will be a better country to pay a visit. But going to Aso Rock will be, well, revealing.

For the first time I hear all Nairalanders talking with one voice! That's progress for a start!! It also goes to show how these PDP people have gotten on our nerves. My question is: how can we channel our energies to rooting them out in 2011?
I love you all!

I started posting El Rufai's dairies on the Yar'Adua administration as published on his Facebook profile. If you missed Parts 1 and 2, please look for it, I posted them earlier. If you read this third piece, you will understand why the new EFCC is looking for him with renewed enthusiasm. These are stuffs you don't get in the pages of our newspapers.
PART 3 – UMARU YAR’ADUA AS PRESIDENT


12. Optimism, Expectations, and Early Steps

The Inaugural Speech that President Umaru Yar’Adua gave was inspiring and raised the nation’s hope and expectations. He admitted the flaws in the Elections that brought him to power and promised to set up a panel to study what happened so Nigerian can reform its electoral system. He promised a generational shift that will herald new governance from those born after Independence. He outlined what he referred to as four areas of “national consensus” – deepening democracy and the rule of law, a private sector driven economy, zero tolerance for corruption, and restructuring government for efficiency.

Yar’Adua undertook to rebuild infrastructure and human capital, accelerate economic reforms and address the Niger Delta issue. He pledged to create more jobs, lower interest rates, reduce inflation and maintain the stability of the exchange rate. He promised to make rail development a reality and achieve dramatic improvements in electricity supply. He said he was committed to being a ‘servant-leaders’ who will be a listener and a doer – who will tackle poverty and protect lives and property of all citizens. This speech will be the benchmark for evaluating Yar’Adua’s performance in office now, and forever, and we will rely on it in this essay.

The nation waited to see the first set of appointments that Yar’Adua will make – who would be his Chief of Staff, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the National Security Advisor. He appointed Babagana Kingibe, then 62 years of age, an old-breed politician who was the vice-presidential running mate to late Chief M. K. O. Abiola in the 1993 Elections that were annulled by the Babangida military junta. He retained Obasanjo’s appointees for the other two key positions . All the three appointees were older than Yar’Adua and the promise of generational shift began to lose credence.

President Yar’Adua immediately published the details of his assets – an unprecedented move in Nigerian history that got many citizens excited and hopeful that a new dawn of openness had arrived. The assets declared however included 29 cars which were donations to his campaign organization and Umaru Yar’Adua claimed them personally. These cars were not strictly speaking personal assets, and furthermore the assets of his children of age remained undeclared, but grateful Nigerians overlooked these minor violations since they now know that their president and his spouse were worth only about $8 million! A few weeks later, Yar’Adua’s Vice President Goodluck Jonathan was compelled by media pressure to do declare his own assets. He was of more modest means than Yar’Adua.

President Yar’Adua invited all the political parties to nominate their representatives to join what he called an inclusive government of national unity. The ANPP overrode the objections of its presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari, and nominated persons that were subsequently appointed into cabinet, advisory and sub-cabinet positions. The PPA also agreed to join, but the AC and APGA declined. An undisclosed part of the deal required the parties to withdraw any petitions they have filed challenging Yar’Adua’s election – something that neither Buhari (ANPP) nor Atiku Abubakar (AC) were willing to accept.

In July 2007, President Yar’Adua swore in a cabinet of 39 ministers that many commentators labeled “lackluster”. Each state of the Federation, except Lagos was represented, and most of them were selected from the lists forwarded by state governors and party leaders. Some states like Kano had two ministers – one representing the state PDP and another nominated by a key financier of the party. This was the second sign that the Yar’Adua administration was not going to depart from the distributive culture of appointments of previous administrations.

13. Promises vs. Accomplishments – Inaugural Speech v. Actual Deliverables

In what appears to be the most serious signal of retrogress, Yar’Adua’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice announced on August 6, 2007 that the ICPC and EFCC will now prosecute corruption and money laundering cases only with his express permission. The public reaction to this announcement was overwhelmingly against the administration. The next day, the administration backtracked and reversed itself. This became the beginning of a series of actions taken to weaken the war against corruption. A few months later, the BBC published a short story that described the state of the anti-corruption war, and things were to get much worse.

Some early policy reversals then followed:
(i) Increases in the prices of petroleum products were cancelled
(ii) The increase in the levels of value-added tax from 5% to 10% was cancelled, and
(iii) The hurried privatization of Kaduna and Port Harcourt Refineries were suspended.

This pattern of undoing virtually all the major decisions of the Obasanjo administration would continue with the suspension of funding of the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) , the contract for the construction of the Lagos-Kano double track standard gauge rail system , and the proposed redenomination of Naira by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Some of these reversals were quite costly as the Chinese are claiming $2.5bn cancellation costs and damages for the railways contract .

One of Yar’Adua’s positive first steps was the inauguration on August 28, 2007 of the Electoral Reform Committee (ERC) under the chairmanship of respected jurist and former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mohammed L. Uwais. At that and other occasions, Yar’Adua emphasized the need for financial autonomy for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), emphasized that only credible elections will guarantee peace, and promised that by December 2009, a reformed electoral system will be in place in the country. The BBC expressed pessimism at the pace of electoral reforms in April 2008, in a story that turned out to be prescient by March 2009.

The initial dawn of optimism waxed and intensified as it became clear that Yar’Adua was not only NOT Obasanjo’s puppet , but intent on demystifying his predecessor’s eight years in office. Within a year, this view and expectation had waned as it became clear that nothing was getting done. Some critics of Yar’Adua gave him the nickname “Baba-go-slow” labeling the administration “All talk, no action”. This was reinforced by Yar’Adua’s interview with the Financial Times of London to commemorate his first year in office. By then, little had been achieved by way of outcomes but Yar’Adua said his administration was still “planning”:

“The quality of your planning, the quality of your programmes, determines the nature of their achievements.”

(Note - See BBC News, May 28, 2008 “Nigeria’s ‘Baba-go-slow’ one year on” at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7420327 accessed on 03/25/09 and ALSO See Financial Times, June 23, 2008 – “Umaru Yar’Adua: In pursuit of respect for the rule of law” online at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e497845c-3f43-11dd-8fd9-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1 accessed on 03/29/09)

In the same interview, Yar’Adua promised the following:

(1) The Niger Delta Summit will be held within eight weeks (i.e. end of July 2008),
(2) Restructuring of the NNPC will be completed in 12 months (by May 2009),
(3) National emergency on power will be declared soon (his spokesman in a later interview announced that this will be in July 2008),
(4) Regulations for the concessioning of airports, seaports and trunk roads will be published, and
(5) The next 12 months (to May 2009) will be “very, very interesting” year for Nigerians.

In his most recent interview with The Guardian (published on April 29-30, 2009), none of the above promises had been fulfilled or projects been completed, and indeed, it is now clear that nothing has changed by May 2009.

(Note - In this most recent press interview, it is clear that the administration is still planning what to do, and he admitted that his most important legacy will be “rule of law” without indicating how Nigerians can measure when that has been achieved. See the Guardian April 29 and 30, 2009 – “The President’s Interview” online at http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/news/article00//indexn2_html?pdate=010509&ptitle=THE%20PRESIDENT%27S%20INTERVIEW accessed April 30, 2009.)

It was in the reversal of the war against corruption that the Yar’Adua administration did the most damage to its credibility with Nigerians and the international community. The systematic destruction of the EFCC by the Yar’Adua administration began as soon as James Ibori – former governor of Delta State (and a recruiter, ally and financier of Yar’Adua), was charged for money laundering and corruption at the Federal High Court in December 2007 . Ibori and his two wives faced similar charges in UK courts. A quick succession of events led to the extra-legal removal, demotion, and dismissal of the EFCC’s respected chairman – Nuhu Ribadu, and the deployment of all the investigating EFCC staff trained by the FBI and London Metropolitan Police. Two attempts were made on Ribadu’s life and he is currently on exile as a visiting fellow at Oxford University, UK and Center for Global Development, USA. In a detailed interview with PBS, Ribadu recounted his experience, concluding that “when you fight corruption, it fights back”.

Since the firing of Ribadu, all the case files on the so-called 31 corrupt governors have disappeared or declared non-existent by Farida Waziri, his successor at EFCC. The cases already in court have been withdrawn, delayed or settled in what many consider dodgy plea-bargains, like Igbenidion's. Other well-known cases of corruption that the administration has blatantly refused to prosecute include bribery payments by Willbros – an oil services company, corruption involving Siemens – a German engineering company (in which senior PDP leaders collected $10 million in bribes) and the well-known Halliburton/KBR case in which $180 million were pocketed by various officials.

Yar’Adua’s wife is widely believed to be engaged in influence-peddling and all manner of interventions in public procurement and executive appointments – something documented so clearly and accurately by Nigerian bloggers based mostly in the USA. The successive weddings of Yar’Adua’s daughters to state governors is being perceived as an attempt to recreate a new feudal dynasty in Nigeria.

(Note - Perhaps the most influential and factual of all the bloggers is Omoyele Sowore of Saharareporters. A public administration graduate of Columbia University, he is based in New York and has been the scourge of both the Obasanjo and Yar’Adua administrations. See www.saharareporters.com for regular revelations and photographs of the First Family. Two of Yar’Adua’s daughters have married first-term state governors. The third is expected to marry either a serving Minister or a wealthy, Lagos-based gasoline importer whose company is known as ‘Rahmaniyya’.)

In the area of foreign relations, Yar’Adua’s administration has been virtually off the African radar. He visited the USA early in his tenure – in December 2007 where he expressed the desire to partner with the US on Africom. Upon return to Nigeria, he denied making such a commitment. He has shown a preference for economic relations with Russians (Gazprom), Iranians (Nuclear Energy Power MoU) and Germans (Energy Partnership for non-prosecution of Siemens bribes) than most other advanced nations of the world. He addressed the South African Parliament in June, 2008 and avoided most international forums since then. There are unconfirmed speculations that the state of his health does not allow for long trans-continental flights, but the health of our President is the nation’s most closely guarded secret.

Electoral reforms have not fared much better either. The Uwais ERC submitted its report and recommendations but the government’s White Paper rejected many of the far reaching recommendations. The recommendations if accepted and implemented would have granted INEC latitude to be free of executive control and end electoral manipulation . The reluctance of Yar’Adua to remove the discredited head of INEC – Maurice Iwu has fuelled speculations that Yar’Adua no longer wants any such reforms. Respected commentators like Femi Falana, President of the African Bar Association gave a scathing assessment of the White Paper .

The sum total of all these is a climate of cynicism – a feeling that the administration is weak in policymaking and implementation , focused on destroying functioning institutions and using “rule of law” as a slogan to do nothing, and that the so-called rule of law is observed only in breach. The uncertainties and policy reversals scared portfolio investors who began to divest from the once-most-profitable stock market in Africa – the Nigerian capital market.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (See EIU Viewswire, March 18, 2009 – Nigeria: Finance Outlook online at http://portal.eiu.com/ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/index.asp?layout=dis, Accessed on 03/31/2009) , the market fell from a high of 65,000 points in March 2008 to about 21,000 in March 2009 – a loss of two-thirds of market and the worst stock market collapse in the world. And this began well before the global financial crisis hit late in 2008. The macroeconomic stability that Nigeria had enjoyed for almost five years has been dissipated as the Naira lost nearly 30% of its value in 2009 alone . Reserves have declined as the authorities tried to defend the Naira in the currency markets.

It appears that there is still no clear economic strategy. This led one commentator to ask whether the administration cared about the economy. The Planning Minister Dr. Shamsudeen Usman announced in March 2009 that the documents articulating Seven Point Agenda, National Development Plan and Vision 20-2020 which the administration had been talking about since May 2007 will be released in October 2009. One wonders what has guided state policy since May 2007, and what would guide policy from now till October 2009!

Now that we know this much, I yield the floor to Nairalanders to comment as appropriate.

df2006:

at last!! something to comment on, Fantastic!!!! it was really getting boring in nairaland.

Exactly, that was one of the reasons I pasted it. I'm also surprised at the level of our journalism, stuffs like this should have been on the pages of our newspapers since.
I wouldn't comment on the contents of these things until El Rufai has finished telling us his part of his story.