When any whiff appears wasting with the wind, it indicates a reaction to an initial action. This is the fact of life, being that an activity impacts a related outcome, more notably is the political flurry that has characterized the Buhari led government, whose privilege to power in 2015 has given birth to shades and kinds of disowned off-springs.
The first flounder was talking and not walking the talk embedded in his inaugural speech during his first term in which he said, “I Belong to Everybody and I Belong to Nobody”. The composition of his security chiefs didn’t quite align with the referred lines, where over eighty percent of the key protective apparatus of the most populous black nation were and are still in the hands of the president’s kinsfolk.
The tripod of security of lives and property; revamping the nation’s economy and fighting bestial corruption were manifesto commodities exchanged for the thumb printed ballot papers of many, but the bargain appears to be one sided, considering the miasma of disaffection that pervade the Nigerian space. Flipping the first few pages of what is called the nation’s Grundnorm, it is enshrined that the primary responsibility of government is the ‘protection of lives and property’. This responsibility seems an aberration in practice, beginning with the composition and control measure of the Nigeria police Force.
Ask and you’d be told what kind of police operates in a federation with full control from the Executive arm at the federal level, but her essential provisions, which include needed tools for work are provided for by the respective states. It is nothing new for the states to support the provisions made by the Federal government, afterall there should be justification for the security votes collected, but many instances have shown, that the presidency, under whose auspices the security operatives thrive repeatedly overrides states with respect to prioritized security needs. .
In 2014, the former governor of Rivers State Rotimi Amaechi was referred to as a ‘leopard’, by the self-acclaimed ‘lion’ Joseph Mbu, who was the former Commissioner of Police in the state. Matter of fact, the former governor had accused the police chief of colluding in the 2013 state legislative chamber crisis, calling him a PDP member. The first salvo had been fired by Mbu, who said he tamed Amaechi during his handover to CP Tunde Ogunshakin who had since had two successors. Rotimi Amaechi; the current minister of Transportation had labeled Mbu a member of the then ruling party, indicative of how chasms between public office holders could be thumbs down to securing the lives of people and their property.
By Implication, the first citizens in respective states have minimal powers over the police in their domain,while this power in-fact comes to zero during elections, especially if the state is controlled by a party in opposition. This has resulted in frequent criticisms by state ‘supremos’ who suffer such fate. The Ekiti state gubernatorial election comes readily to mind, where Nigerians got the shocker of their lives. At the height of the killings in Zamfara state, the APC led government deployed 30,000 of their personnel to monitor the July 14, 2018 election which saw Kayode Fayemi returned elected, whereas, just over 2,000 police officers were assigned to stem insecurity problems in Zamfara state about the same period. The business of securing lives and property cannot record any success if agencies of government have questionable alliances, while funds get frittered off without proper accountability.
Between 2008 and 2018, a whopping 6 trillion naira has been expended as budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Defence, while special operations like Operation Lafiya Dole aimed at dealing blows to insurgency in the North East; Operation Python Dance aimed at addressing the IPOB agitations in the South East, not to forget Operation Ruwan Wuta by the Air Force, which attract extra-budgetary provision, the Nigerian Security Chiefs have done more through press briefings according Nigerians, while leaving much more to be done in the light of ravaged areas in the vast lands of the north. Notably is the 12 A29 Tucano Embraer jets ordered for in 2017 and awaiting delivery, amounting to what the Bukola Saraki led National Assembly decried was not properly approved with respect to its funding.
Findings reveal that an A29 Tucano Embraer goes for 18 million dollars, bringing the price of 12to 218 million dollars but Nigeria paid 462 million dollars for it, with delivery date postponed from 2020 to 2024. Discussions around the amount paid against what it should go for are still ongoing, but the poser is how well the security chiefs have been able to stem the increasing tide of unrest across the Nigerian space. While the number of IDPs has increased over the past ten years to approximately 2 million due to resurging Boko Haram attacks, a recent twist in the tiger’s tail was the disappearance of #400 million cash in early July, when it was being moved from Sokoto to Kaduna to be handed over to an’ important personality’ – who is yet to be named. For this, Major General Hakeem Otiki is being court martialed, which without doubt is another subtraction from the quest to outwit insurgents.
The economy opens us up to very interesting conversations about the ailing frame of a nation which currently grapples with 23.1% unemployment rate, and an alarming projection for the jobless which will be in excess of 33% once the clock of 2020 resounds. Could we be reminded that underemployment stands in excess of 16%.It may be quick to allude to the round pegs in trapezium holes, with respect to those who constituted the recently dissolved economic team as headed by the vice-president, but more has to do with the obvious crass incompetence of those who held strategic economic positions in President Buhari’s first tenure.
It is needless arguing about the impressive academic records of Okechukwu Enelamah, the former minister of Industry, Trade and Investment during Buhari’s first tenure, but pitching his high recommendations beside the performance of the nation’s economy under his watch would go a long way. Between the third quarter of 2015 to the same period of 2018, the number of unemployed Nigerians rose from 7.5 million to 20.93 million, to the increasing point it now is. It may be difficult to ascertain a correlation by those who have deliberately put their perceptive capacities to optimal use, it could however be understood, that prolific trade and investment in an economy will automatically bolster industry. These connections under Enelamah were not realized.
His former counterpart in the ministry of Budget and National Planning,Udo Udoma led us with his boss on many borrowing voyages to China. Towards the end of 2018, Nigeria was indebted to the tune of $73 billion dollars, which translates to a whopping #23 trillion naira, reaching such figures under the watch of a man who was saddled with the task of steering the budget and planning of Nigeria rightly. It could be said, that while Udo Udoma held office, Nigeria made in excess of 7 trillion naira from tax collections and tariffs from customs charges alone, with so much more not accounted for despite relentless outcry from many quarters about the ill management style of the nation’s resources.
Apart from the Petroleum sector which has been bled to near death, the mining sector has largely been operated clandestinely, and prominence not given to its capacity to help shore up foreign exchange for Nigeria. Only recently it was discovered, that Niger state has some quantity and a better quality of Platinum on the continent than South Africa’s which ranks first in terms of its supply.This opaque approach has further burdened the nation’s purse with more being spent and less being earned. Imbalance on the nation’s ledger has been made worse by not reviewing a lot of Nigeria’s intra cum inter economic policies, some of which have become irrelevant and dysfunctional to the realities of present practices. A handy reference is the federal government’s ownership of resources found in the states and the ownership of the lands by the states where these resources are found, quite incongruous many would agree.
These issues continue to add to the country’s dismal impression at home and abroad. A new wave in Nigeria’s financial murky waters is a recent announcement to go body deep in debt to the World Bank, where a $2.5 billion dollar loan is in the works. A strong reason for switching gears and refreshing our lending relationship with the West may be connected to the advice given about the country’s foray to the East, and the need to be wary of the take-over of state facilities should there be debt-default to a country like China.
Fact remains, that Nigeria’s debt profile keeps increasing while the reasons for borrowing hinges to the cliché of ‘improving infrastructure and revamping the economy’, impact of borrowing has largely been lightly felt. The double digit inflation attests to the conundrum, while the contraction of Nigeria’s economy to about 1.9% in the second quarter from over 2% in the first quarter need no further poser about the performance of those who manage our common patrimony. To cream the tasteless crackers, the CBN announced another set of unwarranted charges on individual and corporate banking transactions. The government, as it seems, has entered desperate mode in terms of generating more revenue at the expense of God’s breath in the nostrils of her citizens.
The third of the unsettling buffet that was and is still being offered to Nigerians is anti-corruption. It is of utmost necessity apart from bandied importance, that corruption be understood as a Noun which transcends monetary or financial impropriety. It therefore means, that any infraction upon due process, such that there is a short-changing of what is right for every wrong, then corruption has taken place. This perhaps has become what must be interpreted to this administration, taking advantage of the re-appointed Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu to help make sense of the basic meaning that the word in question conveys. Interesting is the fact, that the word corruption when approached denotatively and connotatively has clearly comprehensive lines, and these are the borders often crossed by this government, herding many into the gallows of pitiful terminus, if at all they will initiate their buttons of redemption before it gets too late.
May I begin from the legal complexities associated with the appointment of the Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu? The supposed chief anti-corruption officer of the land who did not receive the approval of Nigeria’s top legislative armtwice, owing to weighty allegations against him by the DSS, yet this administration disregarded her agency’s report, looking away from issues against Magu. Although Section 2(3)of the EFCC Act prescribes the president as appointer and the Senate to confirm, overriding the EFCC Act was a resort, with some superior sprinkling from the constitution to keep a man not approved of, over an agency of transparency. Even if Section 153 (1 and 2) as well as 154 (1,2 and 3) clearly prescribe where the president must seek or not seek the confirmation of the Senate for an individual appointed, and fairly enough the EFCC happens to be a subset, the person chosen must at least be free of all forms of filthy baggage before occupying any public office.
As if the country has not had enough, the anti-corruption crusade produced a former finance minister, Kemi Adeosun who possessed a fake NYSC certificate; the same government had a Mounir Gwarzo of the Stock Exchange Commission, having being fingered in a fraud of over 104 million as severance benefit, while still in office. The erstwhile chairman of the Special Panel for Recovery of Public Property Okoi Obono-Obla served this government with a fake secondary school certificate and by extension fraudulently procured university and law school documentations. The ascension of corruption continues with this administration, when Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari smuggled in and granted promotion to a fugitive in the person of Abudulrasheed Mainaformer Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team. Ita Oyo, the former Head of Civil Service of the Federation also got booted out over an alleged #3 billion naira scam and another #600 million found in a subordinate’s account.
The zenith of corrupt acts eventually makes its home in the presidency, where the vice president could not answer to the entire stench oozing from the agencies under his watch, with indisputable allegations of unapproved transactions and now, the story of #90 billion granted him for the APC election campaign this year by the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
What more could be said, if the president of a country appointed a Chief Justice who created more obfuscation in defining the word technicality, how do we expect the president to not present affidavit as proof of secondary scholarship, and by extension given his unspoken sanction to unmerited occupancy of the apex office in the land.
Nigeria may dance in this sun for long, being imperiled by the impact of the unfavourable political climate, where gullible meteorologists predict clarity, whereas it is inclement pattering.
