What Mr President should do

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I have always felt Goodluck Ebele Jonathan might be the wrong sort of president for Nigeria.

The peculiarities of the Nigerian experience, I felt, are too diverse and complex to be left in the care of a man whose past experiences show that he lacks the kind of strong will leadership of a country like Nigeria so clearly needs.

My misgiving about the man and his antecedents was shared by many, but our numbers were not enough to keep him from winning a largely free and fair election.

Those misgivings of mine have proven to be justified, as he seems not to realise the enormous power he wields as president of a regional super power. He has tried to act, but only succeeds in appearing more helpless to stop Nigeria’s gradual slide to anarchy.

Truth be told, President Jonathan did not cause much of the problem he is saddled with now. It has been said that the man means well for the country and has himself said it is his desire to leave the country better than he met it. He has even, a first for Nigeria, declared that he will not run for a second term.

Perhaps the man may go on to become successful as a president all the same; perhaps his self-professed good intentions will become clear to Nigerians. While all that reside in the realm of speculation, what is clear is that Nigerians are largely unhappy with their president.

Even those who still hang on to the notion of him being a messiah with a divine mandate to rescue Nigeria feel Goodluck Jonathan is missing in action, though they believe his failure for effective leadership stems from the fact that he had surrounded himself with the wrong sort of people.

On Friday, January 20, 2012, Boko Haram fighters overran Kano and held the ancient city to ransom for hours on end. They killed hundreds, destroyed properties, threw the populace into a heightened state of panic and disappeared.

The attack was a new angle to the ever-shifting Boko Haram mode of operation, a new vista of the reach and bloodlust of a sect whose insurgency have been said to have started as a localised conflict between them and allegedly heavy-handed police officers.

While it would not be right to blame the president for the acts of a sect that has defied coherent definition and who have rebuffed every call for dialogue, it is right to blame him for not doing enough to safeguard Nigerians within the borders of a country that is the regional power broker.

Why him? Some may ask.

Well, because he is the president and the buck stops smack on his extra-large desk.

So far, Jonathan’s media managers have made a very big mess of the simple job of reading the mood of the nation and making sure the president understands it and articulates the right kind of response. Perhaps they misunderstand the issues themselves or are still caught up in that stale system of governance that underestimates the intelligence quotient of the average Nigerian.

Examples of these gaffes abound, whether we look at the erstwhile-celebrated presidential spokesperson Reuben Abati’s insult in the face of the Kano carnage (“seven people dead” he said, when the body count is in hundreds) or the attempt by Information Minister Labaran Maku and co to sell the fuel subsidy bullshit to Nigerians.

I understand what Goodluck Jonathan is facing, maybe just a little but that should suffice here. I know how difficult it is for one to function effectively as a leader when people who feel they are your superior intellectually and those who may have played big roles in ensuring your electoral victory surround you. It is worse when the wishes of those “powers” differ from yours and when hurting them may spell more trouble than you can handle.

The president needs to understand that no matter the route he took to get to where he is now, no matter the role played by any individual, he is there and that is the status quo. The nature of that position places him above everyone else, as he is the lord of the land until the next election. He wields enormous powers; he is in charge and should be seen to be thus. The only people he needs to answer to are the Nigerian people.

Going forward, the president needs to take more proactive measures, seek advice beyond the traditional channels.

He needs to, as a matter of urgency, suspend the Minister for Petroleum and ensure investigations into that rotten-through sector, which remains the mainstay of the Nigerian economy and the centre of corruption.

He needs to start a process that will overhaul the nation’s security apparatus, moving them from job creation agencies to the professional bodies they should rightfully be. Besides there are too many uniforms in Nigeria, all doing the very same thing.

Bottom-line, Nigeria is in dire need of a comprehensive overhaul, and Goodluck Jonathan should be man enough to begin the process. Let us for the first time in its history see Nigeria work right.

This is a version of my article on Jonathan's failings as a leader published by Daily Times Nigeria here
For the raw, uncut and lengthier version, go here

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Why I am occupying Nigeria

This is a rant, with which I aim to show how the governance of Nigeria has personally affected me and why I do not have faith in our so-called leaders.

I never expected that a time would come when I would have to explain why I am against the government that runs my country. This is because since I got old enough to analyse and understand what governance is all about, I have not found a Nigerian government that I can wholeheartedly say I am in total support of.

Even as a child, I saw many of the people that purportedly lead us for what they were—selfish men and women who are more concerned about the size of their bank balance than the diminishing returns that has characterised the country for years. From my first vote, cast in the 1999 presidential elections that brought in Olusegun Obasanjo, I have continuously voted against PDP and its band of nation wreckers. In other words, I have always been part of those that occupied the mindset that until we do away with PDP and any politician that have had lengthy involvement with that party, the nation will continue with the downward spiral.

I boldly stand this ground today, occupying and unwilling to back down, because the history of this country and my experience as a patriotic law abiding Nigerian is riff with examples of how insincere and roguishly criminal people in government can be.

As a child, visiting my grandmother in the foot hills of Obeagu, Awgu LGA, Enugu state, the songs of otanishi—a play of the word austerity using an Igbo word that loosely translates as head-biting, or a sting to the head, referencing the austerity measures introduced by the Shagari administration—was one of the lasting memories I took away. The refrain of “otanishi egbu’go anyi o, ka’anyi’changie shagari o, o ’iwe di anyi na obi, iwe!—austerity has killed us, let’s change Shagari, anger is in our hearts, anger” rings in my head to this day.

As a kid attending primary school in Kaduna during the heady IBB days, I still recall the much-vaunted structural adjustment program (SAP) and how it was supposed to only bite for a while, but the bite lasted longer than was promised and continues to this day.

Even though still just a child in 1993, I still remember with pride how my dad and his friends would argue endlessly about the merits of an MKO presidency and how SAP will finally be laid to a well-deserved rest. Well, what happened to that expectation is well documented and Nigerians continued the speculations of my father and his friends to this day.

For decades, I heard promises of reform that never materialised; promises of good life that still eludes us; promises of increased opportunity that goes no further than the vile mouth that issues them; promises of better education in the face of increasingly ridiculous and never actualised education policies, and can’t help but snicker at the promise of a coming magic year that constantly kept being officially moved forward as each one loomed.

While sitting on the floor, in primary school, listening to a teacher chalk away at the ancient blackboard in Army Children School New Cantonment “A”, I exactly believed that was how life was meant to be, that sitting on the floor is normal and that that it is our lot. I thought so, even though the Command Children School that shared the same compound, and which two of my siblings—using my dad’s old army ID and resultant quota—were fortunate to attend, had desks, better-dressed students who eat cake at break time and more teachers. I thought so because I felt Command Children School and others like it were for academically gifted children who needed more care than we do. Anyway, even the Command Children Schools of those days were not too much removed from us—aside from having more desks and those juicy cakes, yes I tasted them for my now late brother used to sneak into our zinc and wood classroom to share with me.

True we saw standard classrooms in the few movies we got to watch and in Sesame Street, but that was another life, one of fantasy, one that belonged to the TVs we escape to at 4pm. I also felt there was nothing wrong with there being two sections of the same school, one for morning, and another for afternoon. Yeah, Command Children School had only one morning section, but that was ok, they are more brilliant kids, they don’t need to go to school under the morning sun. Can’t remember much what I learnt in primary school, other than the best way to play dead during the game of police and thief. Mind you, I learnt to read and write from my father, who also taught me elementary mathematics, and much of what I know about maths to this day.

Secondary School was worse; I got to go to Government College Kaduna, a very popular secondary school renowned for its past glory because my father could not afford the better private ones that were just then beginning to spring up.

There, the sitting on bare floors was worse, especially with our uniform being white on white. We also had to go to school in the afternoon, at least those of us in the junior section had to. The memories I have of junior secondary school were of not having teachers and spending the day playing fives or shooting pigeons with catapults in the school’s extensive vegetation. Yeah, the chairs did come—think I was in JSS 2 then—from Buhari and other alumni. As for teachers, nothing changed until we entered SS 1, extremely under-educated and most barely able to string English words together without blunders. I must add that we had no teacher for mathematics and English the entire duration of our Junior Secondary miss-Education.

I was lucky; yes, I was, for I had inherited the love for books from my father and a fight, its resultant punishment and a kindly librarian who supervised the dusty task of sweeping the school library introduced me to a world far removed from the one I know. I began reading, garnered knowledge on my own and managed to make the best out of a very bad situation. I was not alone in this, and those of us who learnt anything from Government College Kaduna, did so on our own.

Then came the battle to enter university, a mighty struggle for us half-baked secondary school graduates. We struggled, paid for extra lessons and read until our eyes watered until the university doors opened and swallowed us. Back then examination malpractice in the form that it is today was the preserve of those who can afford it and you only steal from those you feel know more than you, unfortunately, I fell into the group that were presumed to know, so I didn’t get to steal from anyone.

My stay in the university was marked by increase in school fees. I got admitted in 1999 and paid N1600 (one thousand six hundred naira) as a fresher, by the time I left five years later in 2004, school fees was N17, 500 (seventeen thousand five hundred Naira). Math understandably never became my thing, so let someone else do the maths on percentage increase over a four-year period. I can’t recall how many strikes from the Academic Staff Union of Universities occurred while I was an under-educated undergraduate, but I know it was enough to add an extra year to my four course.

The story of how I eventually got a job and the struggles and anguish in between will be better told in the future, but the fact that as an editor of a magazine and with a salary many times over the recently reviewed minimum wage, I still find it very impossible to survive month to month. I don’t have vices and have learnt from my years of struggle to respect money, yet I can’t afford a tokunbo car on my salary or a house big enough for my family, not to talk of taking proper care of them.

I am a half-baked Nigerian graduate, all my life the Nigerian government has not shown it cared I exist or that I have a stake in this country they claim is ours. Therefore, until I am assured that my children will not pass through the same hard route I did to get here, I shall continue to occupy.

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Joint Communiqué of the Emergency Meeting of the National Executive Councils of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) Held on Wednesday 4th January, 2012.

The National Executive Councils of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) took place today, Wednesday 4th January, 2012.

The NLC and TUC noted that:

The Presidency announced the removal of petroleum subsidy and adjusted upward, the pump price of petrol on 1st January, 2012 even when it claimed it was consulting Nigerians.

Due to this upward review of prices, the pump price for petrol is now selling for between N141 and N200 per litre nation-wide rather than N65. This prohibitive increase in price of PMS once again confirms the position of Labour that deregulation to this government means incessant price increase of a strategic product (petrol) that impact on cost of living, cost of production and the general well-being of increasingly impoverish Nigerians.

The immediate generalized negative impact of this price increase on transport cost, food, drugs, schools fees, rents, indicate that government is totally wrong to underestimate the impact assessment of the so-called  deregulation policy.

Due to the untoward hardship workers and other Nigerians are experiencing based on excessive increase in petrol prices,  there have been sporadic protests by Nigerians in at least 10 cities;

These protests, which are peaceful have witnessed the use of unprecedented force by the Police leading to harassment, intimidation, arrests and the murder of a protester.

There is a subsisting understanding between Congress and the Federal government in 2009 that removal of subsidy will not commence until certain conditions have been met. These include the fixing of all the refineries and building new ones, regular power supply, and provision of other social infrastructure such as railways and repairs of roads as well as eliminating the corruption associated with supply and distribution of petroleum products in the downstream sector of the oil industry;

After exhaustive deliberations and consultations with all sections of the populace, the NLC, TUC and their pro-people allies demand that the Presidency immediately reverses fuel prices to N65.  If the Government fails to do so, they direct that indefinite general strikes, mass rallies and street protests be held across the country with effect from Monday 9th January, 2012.

From that Monday, 9th January 2012 date, all offices, oil production centres, air and sea ports, fuel stations, markets, banks, amongst others will be shut down.

We advise Nigerians to stockpile basic needs especially food and water.

We call on all Nigerians to participate actively in this movement to rescue our country. The emphasis is on peaceful protests, rallies and strikes while refusing to be intimidated.  Labour calls on the police, armed forces and other security agencies to reject orders that they turn their weapons on fellow Nigerians.  We warn that anybody who does so, will be individually brought to justice.

The primary objective of this patriotic call and movement is to revert PMS price to N65, restore normalcy and reclaim Nigeria for Nigerians.

No Retreat!

No Surrender!!

Forward Ever!!!

Abdulwahed I. Omar                    Peter Esele

President, NLC                         President, TUC

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Badluck for Nigeria

As we trudge the streets, we bear this in mind. They do not feel our pain!!!

Nigerians Brace for Tougher times

Back in May 2011 when President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria was being sworn in as president of Nigeria there was a palpable sense of anticipation that the Nigerian nation was back on the track of its much truncated quest for greatness, at least those who swore by the divine mandate of the president saw it thus.

Now, six months after that momentous day, the feeling of euphoria and hope for a new dawn has been replaced by something more ominous; the feeling of coming doom and failure to once again keep to the right track. This feeling is shared by both those who happily bought into the yarn about GEJ’s (as President Jonathan is referred to in Nigeria growing online media) heaven sent mandate and those who always believed the man is either too weak to lead a complex country like Nigeria, or too beholden to the corrupt puppet masters to do any good.

Much of the lack of confidence for the President and his team on the streets, homes and offices across Nigeria steams not from ill will over the election that brought the president to power or the usual ethnic and regional ill feelings that is synonymous with West Africa’s biggest economy, but as a direct result of what the President say is geared to advance the country, his economic blueprint.

Starting from January 2011, Nigerians have been told by the President and his economic team, led by World Bank top shot Ngozi Okonji-Iweala, that the all important subsidy on petroleum products would be removed, the toll gates across the nation’s highways – removed a few years ago during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo – will return, electricity tariffs will be increased and the Naira devalued (that has already happened, at least to an extent).

Aside from a bill to extend the presidential term by an additional 3 years, the foregoing is the sum of GEJ’s policy so far.

Looking at the main thrust of the economic team’s policy, which many Nigerians see as anti people, it is clear GEJ has fallen out of favour. Aside from the call for a single tenure of seven years, much of the policy statements by the GEJ administration are geared more towards reducing government spending and increasing inputs from the masses. While this is not in itself a bad thing, especially as Nigerian government spending is astronomically bloated by corrupt politicians and civil servants looking to enrich themselves, Nigerians say GEJ’s economic team is putting the cart before the horse.

Endless removal of oil subsidy

This is not the first time the issue of oil subsidy and its removal has brimmed at the surface of Nigerian national discuss and, like before, many Nigerians expect it to follow the path trod by its previous incarnations – into the “could have been” bag of politicians. The grouse is not with the oil subsidy removal, but with the lack of willingness by the government to tackle the issues that make removing it very controversial: the descript, non functional nature of much of the indigenous refineries that consigns Nigeria, Africa biggest petroleum exporter, to importing petroleum products, and the activities of the much vaunted cabal, with government connections, that inflate the subsidy and divert the massive overflow into their pockets and Swiss banks.

Reintroducing toll gates and the questions therein

“Why was the toll gates removed in the first place?” Nigerians ask.

The government reply, “Because the money being generated from them was not finding its way into government coffers and from there back to the roads where they would facilitate repairs and maintenance, but into the pockets of individuals.”

“But why not repair the roads first before tolling them?” Nigerians again ask. This time, they get no response, or as still waiting for response.

Paying more for even less electricity

The issue of power has for long been a key demand by the citizens to successive Nigerian governments; however, despite several promises and mega-millions sunk into making the industry viable, Nigerians still have to make do with power outages and blackouts. They are used to it, so much so that most households have generating sets that are the difference between staying in the dark or not, a situation that caused a Nigerian social commentator to quip “we have 160 million independent power producers”, a not so funny play at the country’s 160 million people.

The government says the increased tariff will encourage private entrepreneurs to invest in the sector; Nigerians say, improve the power supply before increasing tariffs.

In all, Nigerians say the government is missing the point, and that is, everything is tied together in Nigeria.

“If you increase the price of petroleum products, the price of every other goods and service will follow suit. Same thing goes for the increase in electricity tariff,” a Nigerian woman lamented.

While the government is insisting that the increments would be beneficial to Nigerians on the long run, the men on the street dread them, especially the hard times that they would usher in. The government is insisting on going forward, and if it gets its way, as many are predicting it will this time, Nigerians are sure to face serious tough times ahead.