Reflections on Faith and Society

It would be insincere to hope that Nigerian Christians had a “merry Christmas” on Sunday December 25, 2011, the day having been “celebrated” with bomb attacks on St Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla near Suleija in which scores of innocent worshippers were killed, courtesy of “Boko Haram”. In Jos, the terrorist Islamic fundamentalist organisation which seeks implementation of Sharia all over Nigeria also attacked a Mountain of Fire and Miracles (MFM) Church with gunmen shooting at departing worshippers and detonating improvised explosive devices. Last Christmas Boko Haram exploded bombs at several Churches in Jos, and in 2009, Farouk Abdul Muttalab chose Christmas day to attempt to blow up a US airline. I know the politically correct thing to say-that Boko Haram does not represent Islam; that this is not about religion or even politics, but unemployment and poverty. However as Boko Haram’s murderous campaign develops, those positions become less tenable. Boko Haram’s demand is for an Islamic state; all their attacks are directed against two institutions-the Nigerian secular government which it seeks to overthrow, including security agencies which sustain and protect the state; and Churches and Christians. As Senate President David Mark recently pointed out, the silence of Northern and Muslim leaders in the face of Islamist terror is deafening in its implications-either cowardice or complicity!!! Faith, Society and the Law I doubt if there is any legal system without roots in moral and/or religious principles. Most of the ideas that constituted the underpinnings of Western legal systems, which we inherited through British colonialism, have their foundations in Christian and Biblical moral principles and injunctions-the Ten Commandments (thou shall not kill; thou shall not steal; thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbour; thou shall not covet thy neighbour’s house etc). These principles were further developed in more detailed laws and injunctions in the Book of Leviticus. Western societies learnt, correctly in my view, of the necessity of codifying these principles into a secular body of law rather than rely directly on the Bible or Canon Law in other that the law may develop and cope with the complexity of modern society. The Islamic Sharia seeks total reliance on the Quran, Sunnah and other principles of their faith and practices of their Prophet, so Islamic law is explicitly religious law. Traditional African society was governed on the basis of traditional religion. In Yoruba societies for instance, all the laws enforced by the Oba, his Chiefs, the Ogboni and other institutions of Yoruba society drew inspiration from Ifa. If there was doubt about how to proceed concerning any matter of state, the Oba and his Chiefs would summon an Ifa diviner to seek direction. When an adherent of Ifa such as Professor Wole Soyinka appears to support homosexual relations as a private matter between two adults, he may in fact not have support in Yoruba religion, history and culture. I have no doubt that if two men were found having anal sex in Yoruba society of old, their actions would have been regarded as an abomination and they may have been summarily executed! Is it possible to have a legal system or society that abandons all moral and spiritual underpinnings? I don’t think so! As the West may already be finding out (without yet understanding or acknowledging it) what you’ll get is a dysfunctional society in which bankers bring down the global economy through greed and recklessness; where politics becomes dysfunctional (such as US Republicans and Democrats unable to agree on anything); where suicide rates rise as humans have no hope and no moral imperative to confront the challenges of life; where family life breaks down almost completely; and where British youths loot shops and supermarkets for sneakers and designer cloths! It is moral underpinnings that provide restraints on human behaviour. When you remove them, life itself and society-politics, economy and social relations will eventually become dysfunctional. Amoral societies are a slippery slope!!! CAN and Its Adversaries There was a report on internet news portals that Professor Jubril Aminu, a former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC); former university Vice Chancellor; former Minister for Education; former Minister for Petroleum Resources; former Ambassador; and until recently a Senator of the Federal Republic canvassed the banning of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) at the recent Northern Peace Conference in Kaduna! For some inexplicable reasons, this report did not show up in any of the mainstream media, possibly indicating that someone somewhere recognised the implication of the statement and tried to keep it out of circulation. I have waited for a denial from Aminu and/or the organisers of the conference, but none has been forthcoming so one must presume that he indeed made the comment. Which calls to question much about the quality of his thinking; his level of parochialism and prejudice; and is quite scary as it gives an uncomfortable peep into the mind of a man who occupied so many strategic positions in Nigeria. It also confirms that CAN is doing something right!!! Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor appears to have brought some insight, vigour and courage into the leadership of Nigeria’s Christians and clearly some ethnic and religious hegemonists are now quite uncomfortable. All I can say to CAN and Pastor Oritsejafor is, be vigilant, but keep doing what you’re doing!!!

Ojukwu and Nigerian Federalism (2)

The January 1966 coup was led by five majors-Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Wole Ademoyega, Chris Anuforo and Don Okafor, though there were three other majors (Humphrey Chukwuka, Tim Onwuategwu, John Obienu); five captains (Ben Gbulie, Nwobosi, Oji, Ude and Adeleke); four lieutenants (Ezedigbo, Okaka, Oguchi and Oyewole) and seven 2-Lietenants involved. Overall leadership and conceptualisation may be attributed to Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna. Nzeogwu was a first-class, Sandhurst-trained soldier, a radical, courageous, anti-colonial and revolutionary officer who had become disillusioned with the direction of the emerging Nigerian nation, and a nationalist and patriot, who appeared incapable of tribalism and other parochial thinking. Ifeajuna had revolutionary ideas, but was a less-predictable person. I accept Obasanjo’s depiction of him in “Nzeogwu” as a “courageous coward” who had been involved in rebellion in secondary school and university, but always managed to escape punishment. In my judgment, Ifeajuna was as much a soldier as a politician! Nzeogwu may have made an error of judgment (though Ifeajuna’s strategic position as Brigade Major in Lagos was a valuable asset to the plotters) in choosing Ifeajuna as his main collaborator. This would eventually lead to the failure of the Majors’ coup attempt. Many of the predominantly Igbo officers involved in the coup were clearly angry over seeming designs for Northern hegemony over Nigeria and particularly the introduction of tribalism, nepotism, favouritism, cronyism and general lowering of standards (to the benefit of Northern officers and men) in the army. I would say however that there were two naïve idealists-Nzeogwu and Ademoyega (who Gbulie described as a “Yoruba intellectual” who studied history in university and drove a fast sports car in his book “Nigeria’s Five Majors”) amongst the five majors. Gbulie in particular revealed the mindset of the Igbo core-disgruntlement directed mainly at the North’s blatant attempts to take over the nation and army; but also at senior Yoruba officers like Brigadier S. L Ademulegun and Colonel R.A Shodeinde who they regarded as “tribalists”. It is not improbable that ethnic and tribal sentiments, as well as Nzeogwu’s single-mindedness and dedication accounted for success of the plotters in eliminating their Hausa/Fulani targets in Kaduna and Lagos while Ifeajuna and cohorts failed to eliminate Igbo targets such as Army GOC General Aguiyi-Ironsi, Eastern Premier Dr Okpara and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. At the end of the coup, the prime minister, Tafawa Balewa, Northern Premier Ahmadu Bello; and Northern officers-Brigadier Maimalari, Colonel Kur Mohammed, Lt.Colonels Abogo Largema, and Yakubu Pam had been killed. The largely politically illegitimate Western Premier S.L.A Akintola, Ademulegun and Shodeinde were also killed. All Igbo political and military targets had somehow escaped except for Lt.Colonel Arthur Unegbe. It wasn’t long before the coup was transformed in the minds particularly of Northerners into an Igbo attempt to wipe away their political and military leaders and the counter-coup of July 1966 which brought Yakubu Gowon (and the North) back to power became inevitable. Where was Ojukwu in all of these? Lt. Col Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu then, Brigade Commander in Kano was never consulted by the plotters probably because they saw him as a pro-establishment officer who was unlikely to sympathise with their plans, and because he was senior to all the coup plotters. There is no dispute over the fact that as the actual coup unfolded, Ojukwu absolutely refused to cooperate with Nzeogwu in Kaduna and the other plotters. Rather he rallied and kept his troops loyal to the federal government. He also protected Northern citizens including his friend, Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero during the period of uncertainty after the coup attempt. Indeed Ojukwu’s appointment as military governor of the Eastern Region was a clear acknowledgment of his loyalty to the nation and army authorities. It is indeed an irony that it was this same pro-establishment, nationalist and loyalist officer who would soon lead the Biafran rebellion against Nigeria! It is clear that circumstances thrust this role upon Ojukwu and he merely accepted the role history had earmarked for him. In summary the January 1966 coup was not explicitly an Igbo coup, but it was clearly Igbo-dominated. While certain of the plotters clearly did not have an ethnic agenda (Nzeogwu and the Yoruba participants-Ademoyega, Adeleke, Oyewole and 2nd Lieutenant Olafimihan), ethnic sensibilities may have lurked consciously or sub-consciously in the minds of many of the participants and those sentiments may have ultimately subverted the coup and cast it in a negative or dubious light. The counter-coup of July 1966 was predictable in this context, although it must also be pointed out that anger at Northern hegemonic designs appeared supported by evidence of NPC actions to sustain an illegitimate government in the West; take over the army officer corps; suppress the Tiv riots; and to dominate the rest of the country. While it is debatable whether or not the January 1966 coup was Igbo, there was no doubt about the July version-it was Northern revenge for the killing of their politicians and soldiers. But the Northern response would not stop at killing soldiers and politicians! Worse was soon to follow!!! *The historical accounts presented are based on my personal reading of virtually all existing literature on the 1966 coups, the civil war, Nigerian history and political economy and military history. All judgments and interpretations are mine.

The Case For and Against Tolling

I have been thinking about road tolling a lot in recent days! I live in the Lekki corridor where the Lagos State Government (LASG) and its concessionaire-Lekki Concession Company (LCC), have announced that tolling will commence at the Admiralty Circle Toll Plaza on December 18. I am naturally not looking forward to that date!!! Tolling is not new in Nigeria-we had toll gates on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and other highways across the country years ago, until ex-President Obasanjo ordered their demolition! But those were inter-city highways through which commuters did not pass daily. Come to think of it, if toll plazas were re-erected on the Lagos-Ibadan or Lagos-Abeokuta expressways today, many Nigerians who live in Mowe, Ofada, Sango-Ota and other communities, and work in Lagos will pass daily through those toll gates. We have toll plazas on the international-domestic airport link road, but there are alternatives so no one is compelled to use the tolled road. I also recall some short link road somewhere around Oba Akran/Agege Expressway where tolls were collected by a local government in the 1990s, but again there were alternatives. The prospect of imminent tolling on the fast-expanding Lekki-Epe expressway corridor, in which numerous residential communities abound has raised passions in the area amongst residents and indigenous communities, such that the Lagos State Government had to suspend its earlier scheduled commencement almost exactly a year ago, in order for enhanced stakeholder communication and the completion of alternative routes. In spite of the one year delay (at a cost of N1.05billion in 2010 and N4billion in 2011 to the state treasury) some stakeholders remain unconvinced about tolling or fencing on the road. Emotions are perhaps understandably high, with opponents arguing that provision of roads and other infrastructure is government’s constitutional obligation; placing critical infrastructure in the hand of the private sector exposes citizens to the vagaries of the market place; tolling in Lekki is discriminatory since residents in wealthier neighbourhoods in Ikoyi and Victoria-Island do not pay road tolls. Others believe that proposed tolls are unduly high; tolling and fencing are a breach of citizens’ freedom of movement etc. More substantively is the need for an alternative road; tolling when only 6 kilometres of the road had been completed; and insufficient transparency around the contract with LCC. I do not support some of these arguments. Public private partnerships (PPPs-agreements between the public and private sectors with the purpose of delivering projects or services traditionally provided by the public sector) are a necessity in the face of financing constraints as governments all over the world seek to provide infrastructure to their citizens. PPPs foster faster delivery of much-needed road infrastructure; more cost-efficient design, construction and operation of road schemes; involve risk-sharing and transfer between the public and private sectors, along with leveraging private finance, enterprise, innovation and efficiency; and bring higher service quality and standards into public sector projects and services. According to a document, “Toll Collection Technology and Best Practices”, (Persad, Walton & Hussain) of the Center for Transportation Research, University of Texas at Austin, “road pricing is becoming a more appealing means of funding transportation since revenues from federal and state gas taxes have not kept up with growth in demand for infrastructure. Moreover toll financing allows projects to be built sooner instead of waiting for tax revenues to accumulate”. Tolling may also be a demand management strategy, encouraging car pooling and use of public transportation. The authors also note that “roadway tolling is expected to become more pervasive over time.” With the size, length and rate of expansion of the Lekki corridor, waiting for government to find the resources to expand and modernise the road may have been an interminable wait, and arguably more discriminatory! We have seen how in the telecommunications sector for instance, private capital sped up the delivery of infrastructure and services perhaps by decades over the rate of government provision! It is easy to forget how long we used to spend on the road before it was widened and improved-my travel time to my Broad Street office for instance (plus fuel consumption, vehicle wear-and-tear, stress etc) has been cut from one hour or more, to less than 30 minutes on average. The road is safer at night (one colleague was once shot by armed robbers right at the Lekki Phase 1 estate roundabout! The most tangible complaints based on my review of international best practices on tolling were the absence of an alternative road and perhaps insufficient transparency and communication with stakeholders. I believe these may have been due to initial learning curves. Fortunately the state government has developed a full infrastructure for PPPs-a law, an office and a procurement process and strategy that will mitigate such complaints. The development of infrastructure in Lagos is dependent on PPPs-power, rail, BRT, ferry services, Lekki Free Trade Zone, airport, seaport etc. LASG and LCC have now provided routes by-passing the toll plaza such that when you do not wish to pay the toll, you may veer off and return after the toll plaza. I would encourage LASG and LCC to engage in intense stakeholder and community engagement to address citizen concerns. However given the critical role of PPPs in infrastructural development in Lagos, I do not believe it is wise to allow this concession to fail.

Ojukwu and Nigerian Federalism (1)

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s father, Sir Louis Phillipe Odumegwu-Ojukwu was one of Nigeria’s richest men of the pre-independence era. Born in 1908, before amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1914, Sir Louis aged 5, followed village womenfolk to the Nkwo market place, where a small unit of British soldiers led by a Major tied the hands of Sir Louis’ father and other clan chiefs with ropes, broke their dane guns into pieces and set them on fire! This was part of British pacification and humiliation of natives into accepting colonial rule. Sir Louis subsequently got some limited education, became a produce inspector in Lagos, worked for John Holt and then entered business, becoming owner of the country’s largest road haulage company. He died in 1966. Emeka was Sir Louis’ first son, born in Zungeru on November 4, 1933 after his parents’ separation. He started living with his father in Lagos at age 3, attended St. Patrick’s School, CMS Grammar School, and at 10 in 1944 entered Kings College, Lagos. In 1946, Emeka was transferred to Epsom College, Surrey, England where he stayed six years excelling in sports-sprinting, rugby, javelin and discus-gaining admission to Lincoln College, Oxford in 1952. He took BA from Oxford in 1955 and MA both in History having lived a multimillionaire’s son’s life, driving a Rolls Royce, enjoying feminine company, and spending pleasant vacations in Lagos high society. Contrary to Sir Louis’ desire that he join the family business, Ojukwu chose to join the Civil Service, seeking a posting to Northern Nigeria. Due to Nigeria’s federal structure, he was posted instead in 1955 to his native Eastern Region, to Udi as an Assistant District Officer. Udi transformed Ojukwu into an authentic Igbo man! Before then he was a black British gentleman and Lagos boy, who spoke Queens English and fluent Yoruba. According to his friend and biographer, Frederick Forsyth, Ojukwu for the first time, found the land of his ancestors, “I became aware that I was Igbo, and a Nigerian, and an African, and a black man. In that order. And I determined to be proud of all four. In that order.” At Udi, he learnt Igbo language, forsook routine office paperwork in favour of working with villagers and peasants, and learnt the true nature of the African reality. As would later happen with other Igbos, the Udi villagers trusted him and he transcended official colonial administrator, becoming adjudicator and leader. He was subsequently posted to Umuahia and Aba until 1957 and might well have stayed in the civil service, but for his father’s actions. Horrified at Ojukwu’s next posting to Calabar (where he feared that an Efik woman would “capture” his son), Sir Louis deployed his connections with the Governor-General, Sir John Macpherson, who immediately cancelled the transfer. Evidently Emeka’s choice of the civil service was to craft his own destiny, rather than walk eternally in his father’s wealthy and influential shadows. Frustrated at Sir Louis’ interference in his career, he decided to join the army. There is an alternative view-that Ojukwu already had designs on political power and as a historian knew the army would be a good route to his ambitions. Frankly the evidence as we shall later see, does not completely validate that theory. Ojukwu may have stayed in the civil service, which he appeared to be enjoying and his actions during the 1966 coup are not consistent with those of a military officer seeking political power. Ojukwu at least in his early military career was a pro-establishment officer who may have seen the army as the only authentic national establishment in the midst of Nigeria’s ethnic and regional divisions. Ojukwu’s father again tried to prevent him joining the army as a cadet officer, prompting his joining as a private in 1957! It was only after British military officers recognised the futility and dysfunction of having a Masters from Oxford as a Private in the army with illiterates as contemporaries and superiors that his entry was regularised and his father’s wishes overturned. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu went through training at Teshie in Ghana; Officer Cadet School at Eaton Hall, England from February 1958 for six months; Infantry School at Warminster; Small Arms School at Hythe returning to Nigeria’s Fifth Battalion, Kaduna in November 1958. He was deployed in 1959 to Western Cameroun to join the hunt for rebel Felix Moumi at one point discovering over one million pounds worth of various European currencies which he sent back to Army Headquarters for which he received commendation, but (in early signs of corruption) reportedly never heard of the funds again. Ojukwu was already in military service at independence in 1960 and wrote in “Because I am Involved” that he “burnt my British passport and turned my back permanently on colonialism and neo-colonialism”; promoted Captain in December 1960; was staff Officer at Army Headquarters from 1961; became Major in summer 1961 (at which point his father reconciled with him); passed Joint Services Staff Course and was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel in January 1963 when he was appointed army Quartermaster-General. In January 1966, when the first military coup happened Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu was Commander at the 5th Battalion, Kano. •This is the first in a multi-part review of the life and impact of Ojukwu on Nigeria’s history and federalism

Alex Ibru 1945-2011

As students in the great Igbobi College in the late 1970s and early 1980s, we had some school “champions”-role models that our principal, the late revered Mr T A Ojo and tutors consistently held up as examples for us to follow. Usually old students of the school, they fired our imagination and ambition and gave us a sense of the reality of the words of our school song-“…wherever there’s an Igbobian, there also is a noble Nigerian…” In my time that list had some outstanding names-Justice Teslim Elias, Professor Adeboye Babalola, Chief Kweku Biney, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi and the Ibru Brothers. Chief Michael Ibru and Architect Felix Ibru were the most well-known of those famous Ibrus (with Michael in particular reputed to have been a charismatic Senior Prefect of the school) and few of us had heard of the quietly successful Alex Ibru as at 1981, when I left Igbobi College for the University of Ife, but he was soon to burst most powerfully into national consciousness. In 1983, Alexander Uruemu Ibru launched the Guardian effectively changing the face of print journalism in Nigeria. As a young undergraduate, I was a huge fan of the newspaper, and it is probably partly because of the Guardian that I am a columnist today. It was an intellectual’s delight and had a large body of first class brains, and opinion writers whose articles inspired me to want to emulate them “when I grew up”. The list was long-Stanley Macebuh, Yemi Ogunbiyi, Pat Utomi, Sonala Olumhese, Femi Aribisala and several others carrying on robust debate of unprecedented quality and insight on the pages of any Nigerian newspaper. It was the Guardian that effectively transformed news reporting and journalism from something done by graduates of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) and other post-secondary school types into an intellectual art in which university lecturers, PhDs and high intellectuals could partake. That trend may have started somewhat with the post-Jose era in Daily Times, but it was The Guardian that concretised and made it irreversible. The Guardian did not just redefine Nigerian journalism, it also attempted to retrieve national values from the vainglorious, materialistic and non-reflective path, the full maturity of which now threatens to destroy this country. The Guardian’s motto “Conscience, Nurtured by Truth” and its initial “simply Mr” were powerful representations of the papers values and of Mr Alex Ibru itself-simple and discreet; focussed on integrity and higher principles rather than vanity; abhorrence of the Nigerian “big man” syndrome; and a willingness to let your impact, rather than your noise speak for you! The fact that even the Guardian buckled under the weight of pressure to abandon the “simply Mr” policy speaks to the power, resilience and maybe the “irredeemability” of Nigeria’s power elite! Ibru reportedly founded the Guardian with a mission of making it one of the five best English language newspapers in the world. If the paper didn’t achieve that lofty height, it certainly came very close! Without doubt, it earned its appellation as “the flagship” of the Nigerian media. Very few Nigerians have gone into government and returned with their integrity and reputation intact. Alex Ibru was one of the few! In 1993, ten years after founding the newspaper, he accepted appointment as Minister of Internal Affairs and member of the Provisional Ruling Council under what later turned out to be Abacha’s murderous military dictatorship. Abacha evidently expected that having offered Ibru a high government office, he would turn his newspaper into a propaganda machine or at least a silent collaborator with the government. Ibru’s principled refusal so-to-do was high treason in the dictator’s goggled eyes, and Ibru almost paid with his life on February 2, 1996 (Igbobi College’s Founders’ Day-probably why the assassination attempt failed!) having left the Abacha government in 1995. While he was a serving Minister, the Abacha government shut down the paper in 1994 and security agents allegedly tried to burn down the paper. Alex Ibru was also silently active in the realm of philanthropy and especially spirituality founding the Trinity Foundation and Ibru Centre in Agbarha-Otor in Delta State in support of Christian theology, reflection and propagation, especially of his Anglican denomination. The youngest of the famous Ibru brothers of Urhoboland, Igbobi College and Nigeria, Alexander Uruemu Ibru aged 66 was born on March 1, 1945 and died on Sunday November 20, 2011. He was at Igbobi from 1960 to 1963 and later studied Business Economics at Trent Polytechnic (now University of Trent) and worked with his elder brother Michael before going into business in his own right and founding Rutam Motors Ltd. Alex Ibru was an untypical Nigerian, a quiet but courageous and principled individual, a change agent in the Nigerian media industry and nation, and a man of proven integrity. He proved that not all Nigerians are corrupt or corruptible; that those who abandon their integrity and values once they get into government probably never had those values; and that it is possible to stick to your principles in the face of intimidation and even danger.

Reflections of a Columnist

I have not written this column for four weeks, the first such absence since its inception in 2006. At first it was simply overwhelming work pressure; then a realisation that I was physically and mentally exhausted, and unable to secure the level of inspiration and stimulation required to gather my thoughts and put them down on paper-or rather my laptop!; in the midst of that, an overseas trip during which my schedule and activities made it difficult to write; finally a recognition that I really needed to take a break, reflect on the column and its primary subject-Nigeria, and re-assess the column’s purpose and strategy. Writing this column was not a random or accidental event. It followed a personal trajectory, and was a result of a deliberate decision, after much frustration at Nigeria, to acquire a voice, hopefully for good in our drifting nation. I had always been passionate about “current affairs”-I started reading “Daily Times” as a five year old, starting with the diplomatic and sports pages. News about Israel and the Palestinians, Europe, America and Asia, world leaders like Begin, Anwar Sadat, Gaddaffi, US and UK leaders, OPEC, the Arab-Israeli Wars, the boxing exploits of Cassius Clay aka Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman etc always caught my attention. In domestic matters, it was the exploits of Haruna Ilerika, Yakubu Mambo, Victor Oduah etc and their teams-Stationery Stores, Mighty Jets of Jos and Bendel Insurance and the other “super” teams-IICC of Ibadan, Rangers of Enugu, NEPA of Lagos and Sharks of Port Harcourt that captured my attention. The end of the civil war; Gowon’s proclamation that 1976 was “no longer realistic”; the retirement of “Black Scorpion”-General Benjamin Adekunle; the Murtala coup and Dimka’s failed attempt were some developments that stuck in my young mind. When Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1979, politics became interesting. Then in secondary school, I closely watched the bold attempt by Chief Obafemi Awolowo to attain the Nigerian presidency. For a form 2-3 student in Igbobi College in 1978-1979, it was amazing how much interest I devoted to the politics and campaigns of that era! I read all the political news, had my own exercise book for my analysis, and on election days, stayed up all night recording the seats won by the various parties. By the time the military returned in 1983, I was already a law student at Ife and my focus shifted to economic issues in line with the times-oil glut, austerity, import licenses, counter-trade, structural adjustment, deregulation etc as our economy took a turn for the worse! As I graduated, attended law school and made my way to Benin for national service in 1986, I had made up my mind to try in my own way to affect public opinion. Thus started my “letters to the editors” of weekly newsmagazines from 1986-1990 until I settled on Nduka Obaigbena’s defunct THISWEEK. My persistent letter-writing indeed earned me an invitation from the editors of THISWEEK to their Surulere offices. But then, my public endeavours were truncated (or at least suspended) by a career in banking from 1989 and I begun to slow down and eventually stop my letters and articles. Until Abacha!!! In 1998, frustrated like most Nigerians by Abacha who had become a human obstacle to the country’s development, I again picked up my pen and wrote an intellectual critique of Abacha, which fortunately perhaps was rather too sophisticated for Abacha and Al-Mustapha to understand. Many of my banker colleagues wondered at my temerity, but then I got away with that one! A few months later, Abacha was dead, but he had forced me out of my sabbatical from public commentary and I would continue with occasional pieces on the op-ed pages of The Guardian. My writing picked pace in 2003, as I consciously began to wind down my banking career (as my self-imposed exit date from the profession approached-I had decided to become self-employed and “free” by the age of 40!) and I was impressed by the outlines of economic reforms then been sketched by Obasanjo”s economic team, to at first sceptical reception from the Nigerian media and public. I was initially alone in supporting the pro-reform case, at least in the media. When I agreed to start this column in January 2006, I was clear what it would be used for. It would be pro-economic reform and anti-corruption. It would seek to advance the policy ideas I had pushed in my political economy and business strategy classes at the Lagos Business School. It would seek to educate the public and policy makers on policy, strategy and the economy; and it would seek positive change in our politics and governance. Very many readers tell me the column has had an immensely positive effect on them and the nation. Indeed I was very gratified at the expressions of concern and even alarm at the column’s absence for a few weeks. I am not so sure however that all policy makers agree! And some others may have celebrated (prematurely) the end of our interventions. The column will of course continue. Our work is not done! The effort to establish good governance, sensible public policy and sound economic management, and a better polity in Nigeria is far from accomplished.

Policy and Economic Review

The global economic environment is decidedly more risky and the chances of a second developed world financial crisis are clearly elevated! In its recent World Economic Outlook (WEO) released in September 2011, the IMF warns that “the global economy is in a dangerous new phase” due to the convergence of slower recovery in advanced economies and “a large increase in fiscal and financial uncertainty which has been particularly pronounced since August”. Uncertainty derives from sovereign debt concerns in Europe-Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Iceland and Spain initially, but concerns now include Belgium and even Italy-and worries that European banks and financial system could be affected as they hold the bonds of these countries. Only Britain and Germany are not been mentioned and even then British banks may themselves be tarred in the event of sovereign default. Meanwhile oil and commodity prices appear to have peaked since April in the case of oil, and February for some food prices. Oil prices have declined for six straight months, with OPEC basket going below $100 per barrel for the first month close since February while the FAO food price index stood at 231 points in August, down from February peak of 238. The IMF WEO reviewed global growth prospects for 2011 and 2012 down to 4% with the structure of uneven growth between developed economies (1.6% and 1.0%) and developing and emerging economies (6.4% and 6.1%) projected for the next two years. The Fund states that risks are clearly to the downside! In spite of declining oil prices, lower global growth prospects, falling foreign exchange reserves and clear pressure on our exchange rates, the federal government released the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for 2012-2015 in which oil prices were projected at $75 per barrel and exchange rates at N153/$ for 2012-2015. This was at a time the CBN was already selling dollars at close to N155/$! The MTEF however factored in supposedly less optimistic scenarios for oil prices at $70 and $65 per barrel. Cynics may describe the three scenarios-$75, $70 and $65 as all optimistic scenarios!!! The last time oil markets fell in 2008, they reached below $40 per barrel! In concluding that risks were to the downside, the IMF noted there would be vulnerabilities in some emerging economies-in my view Nigeria would be one clear possibility. As we were reminded in 2008, slower growth in developed economies means slower oil demand, which implies lower oil prices. The Nigerian economy remains structurally dependent on oil prices for government revenues, foreign exchange reserves and exchange rates! As oil prices fall, while oil importing nations rejoice, Nigeria experiences an oil price shock. We may be in line for another one if current oil price patterns persist! The CBN increased the Monetary Policy Rate to 9.25% on September 19 and shocked markets on October 10 with another increase, this time by 275 basis points! The CBN sticks to its stubborn (and perhaps emotional) rigidity concerning flexibility around exchange rates as it seeks to battle inflationary pressures. If CBN had taken the counsel of the IMF in terms of exchange rate flexibility and discouraging one-way bets against the Naira several months ago, perhaps the bank could have avoided its current exchange rate/interest rate quagmire! In the event, CBN has provided generous dollar subsidies to capital flight, export of corruption proceeds, currency speculation, foreigners, traders and consumption! The only worthwhile beneficiaries of this huge subsidy are manufacturers who constitute only 4% of GDP!!! Meanwhile a N15 margin has emerged between the official CBN rate and all other rates, providing an irresistible incentive to “round-tripping” and fuelling additional surge in foreign currency demand!!! The country has gone through eighteen months of extraordinarily high post-recession oil prices without a single dollar of additional savings, frittered away to the above-listed categories of lucky beneficiaries. Someday someone in CBN or the National Economic Management Team (NEMT) will recognise an unsustainable exchange rate management strategy!!! The economy however continues to grow above 7% with the star sector being telecommunications consistently over 30%; other high growth sectors include solid minerals, building and construction, hotels and restaurants, wholesale and retail trade, and real estate all between 10.4% and 12.3%. The problem remains that growth is not inclusive because of the structure of our economy (growth is dominated in weighted terms by sub-modern agriculture dependent on rainfall patterns, crude oil exports with no domestic value chain, and trading in imported goods; sectors which can generate jobs are either too small in GDP terms of growing too slow) and unemployment at 21.1% is too high. But policy appears to be rising to the challenge. The outlines of a sensible agriculture policy is emerging; power sector road map implementation appears to be proceeding; governance is beginning to look more competent; and there is leadership on the economic front. The financial sector has been a drag on private sector performance and may have boosted unemployment since industry turmoil appeared in 2009, but then resolution appears to have been achieved through nationalisations and the recently-concluded recapitalisations and mergers. We hope the industry will now be left alone to experience stability and growth, and to play its role of economic intermediation.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Nigerian society encourages cheapening of honours and lofty words-everyone is a “Chief”, “Alhaji”, “Honourable”, “Dr”, “elder statesman”, “chieftain”. Extraordinary words like “mega” “role model” or “icon” are so carelessly bandied as to become virtually meaningless. Every year hundreds of national honours, universities doctorates and traditional titles are offered usually to anyone who can donate large enough sums of money. When “Chief” became common, we created “High Chief” to differentiate the men from the boys! We have so devalued honour and achievement that it is often difficult to recognise true excellence. But like the Yorubas say, when you see an elephant you can not mistake it for anything else! Steve Jobs is the definition of the words “icon” and “visionary” yet he bore no title-he was simply Steve Jobs. My last obituary was for Tayo Aderinokun; alas Steve Jobs shared the same years of birth and death as Tayo, both deaths had links with cancer, and both were very wealthy men, within the context of their societies. I had a “relationship” with both men-Tayo was my boss in a professional banking environment; but like most citizens of the world, I only met Steve Jobs through his work at Apple Computers. I was however “intimate” with him as a business school professor teaching several of the many case studies written on the PC market, Apple and its truly iconic CEO. My first exposure to computers was not Apple products but the more conventional IBM, HP, Dell, Compaq and Sony personal computers and later laptops. Even though Jobs, his partners Steve Wozniak and A.C “Mike” Markkula and Apple Computers were industry pioneers, by the early 1990s, Apple had become more or less niche products leaders, restricted to devotees in graphics, design, printing, education and other markets where its strengths in graphical user interfaces, design dexterity and ease of use were highly valued. For corporate and professional users, especially in environments such as banking which depended on connectivity within the organisation and the outside world, Bill Gates, Microsoft and the IBM-compatible had basically wiped out Apple. Gates and Jobs had two differing visions of how the PC market would evolve and Bill Gates vision won overwhelmingly! Gates placed his emphasis on connectivity, open systems, the decoupling of hardware and software and a business model that depended on small, but regular annuity incomes. Jobs saw value in great design, productivity, differentiated products and large margins. When I started teaching business strategy in the early to mid-2000s, the case studies essentially cast Steve Jobs as a visionary who got it wrong in the PC market, drawing inspiration from industries (such as automobiles) where a superb product (say a BMW) earned premiums over less-differentiated cars, rather than looking towards perhaps telecommunications or broadcasting where value depended on the number of users and in the particular case of the then emerging technology market, their openness and interconnectedness. Many wrote off Steve Jobs, with Michael Dell of Dell Computers at one time mocking that Jobs should return money to shareholders and close down Apple! But in the event, the joke was on Dell (and we business school types!) as Steve Jobs re-invented himself in consumer electronics through the iPod and iTunes; then went back into computing and publishing with the iPad, and eventually to phones, through the iPhone! Jobs also had strong influence on other industries and companies-he founded NEXT when he was pushed out of Apple and eventually sold the company to Apple for $429million in 1997; he founded Pixar which produced animated films and had a serious impact on media and film industries, producing the popular “Toy Story” film series. Jobs later sold Pixar to The Walt Disney Company in a deal valued at $7.4billion in 2006 becoming Disney’s director and largest individual shareholder with 7% of the company’s stock. In 2010, Forbes estimated Steve Jobs net worth at $8.3billion, the 42nd wealthiest American and one of the richest men in the world. But Jobs significance was not in the amount of money he had in the bank. As he himself noted, “I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money“. Jobs was listed as primary or co-inventor on 338 US patents or patent applications for products and technologies as diverse as actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages. His real essence was his typification of the American dream; creativity, innovation and the courage to follow his intuition; quest for perfection and desire to impact the world; ability to recover and rise again after every failure; and the final lesson that money can’t buy you health or life. In his words, “almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart”

Dysfunctional at 51

Nigeria is not (yet) a failed state, but clearly failing and dysfunctional! Signs of system failure include inability of the state to protect its people and territory against sundry adversaries-regional militants seeking greater share of oil revenues; Islamic fundamentalists demanding a full Sharia state; armed robbers who take over public highways and banks; kidnappers who regularly and casually abduct citizens for ransom; an educational sector that has basically collapsed-most who can afford it (and many who can’t!) educate their children in countries as varied as UK, USA, Ireland, Canada, Ghana, Togo, Kenya, South Africa, Malaysia, Dubai etc and middle class families go abroad for medical treatment and simple health checks. The Judicial system does not work-litigation may linger for more than five years, and appeals to higher courts may elongate the process to decades; corruption subverts the state which has essentially been hijacked-apportioned for the benefit of those who paid nothing, but have basically converted the state for their own purposes! Policemen request, demand or plead for bribes on public highways; immigration officers solicit “gifts” from returning Nigerians and foreigners at airports; civil servants negotiate payments from citizens who require services from the state. There is no shared sense of common good and the only irreducible minimum is that the “national cake” must be shared equally in line with “federal character”, “zoning”, “rotation” and “consensus”. We cannot agree on anything-citizens’ perspectives are shaped not by any commonly-held values or national ethos, but by ethnic, religious, regional, state, or clan loyalties or alternatively personal interest. It is possible to reverse the process of state failure, but what worries me more these days is the all pervading dysfunction! Or perhaps that is just one more signpost down the road towards state failure!!! A system is dysfunctional when it doesn’t work normally or properly but contrary to normal design and expectations. Let’s examine some examples. Usually people with high risk appetite and entrepreneurial energy create businesses which generate economic activity and employment. Here entrepreneurial types become politicians! Only entrepreneurs will sell their houses and property in order to raise money to contest a party primary in which there are nine other contestants! And then borrow heavily to finance the actual election. Entrepreneurial energy is devoted not to business, but towards capturing a portion of the state. The successful “candidate” proceeds to earn stupendous return on investment, while the losers fight another day! In normal systems, contractors to federal, state and local governments should be business persons while civil servants are those with a passion for social services and administration but here most government contracts are executed by public officers, with the nominal contractors as mere stooges fronting for them. The same officers have responsibility for conceiving, costing and awarding the contracts and since they only can guarantee contract award and payment, they take the largest portion of the contract booty! The political scientist or constitutional lawyer will say the role of legislators in parliamentary democracies is making laws and providing “checks and balances” on the executive, but in Nigeria, legislators do make laws, but (as can be inferred from the relatively few laws passed by the National and State Assemblies since 1999) they may also be contractors as well, as illustrated by the Senate Education Committee and Rural Electrification Agency scandals. So instead of exercising “oversight” over the executive, a legislator may become co-conspirator in executive fraud. All these dysfunctional categories may indeed respond (with some validity perhaps!) that many journalists and newspaper columnists have become public relations consultants, and that much of what is said in newspapers and other media are paid for! The federal government insists on being in charge of every conceivable activity based on a defective constitution. You would imagine that federal authorities desire a long exclusive legislative list on which they alone legislate, as well as a concurrent list on which they can overrule state governments, because they actually intend to manage all those activities they have cornered via the constitution. Well wrong again! Virtually all federal agencies once deployed to the states are almost completely abandoned to state governors-police, customs, immigration, INEC, SSS and even military formations! Talk to any governor and you will understand that (except in cases where there is a political undertone) the notion of federal government is a myth in the states! State governors maintain and sustain virtually all federal institutions in their states, while ogas in Abuja “take care” of their budgetary allocations! There are other instances-state legislatures are de facto departments of state governors’ offices; governors recommend and “appoint” members of the federal cabinet; labour leaders posture for the benefit of naive members, while telling government privately to go ahead with any intended policy; many policemen are criminals; religious leaders are entrepreneurs and often the richest ones; many occultists are Pastors and Alhajis; Nigerians proclaim great religiosity but corruption is endemic; state governors ask for “true federalism” and then beg the federal government to take-over state universities and airports; NGOs are mechanisms for their founders and leaders to live comfortably; university lecturers and medical doctors are always on strike; police summarily execute armed robbers; SSS releases terrorists to Emirs! Nothing functions the way it was designed to work. Why are we surprised that Nigeria is failing?

Privatisation and Sector Competitiveness

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Annual Report for 2010 quoting National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data provides growth rates of sectors in the Nigerian economy. It should surprise no one that the fastest growing sector in 2010 was communications at 34.5 per cent! The sector has in fact sustained above-30% growth since 2001 when the digital mobile license auctions were held becoming 4.6% of total GDP (higher than manufacturing and banking and insurance!). The telecommunications sector vividly demonstrates not just the power of private capital and management in transforming sectors, but also illustrates the role government can play in fostering sector competitiveness and transformation through sensible policy (in this case through the BPE’s telecommunications policy 2001), and effective regulation. The second fastest-growing sector, solid minerals grew at 12.3% in 2010. Unfortunately mining activity is insignificant relative to total GDP so its high growth rate makes little effect on the wider economy! The other fast-growing sectors are building and construction (12.2%); hotels and restaurants (12%; wholesale and retail trade (11.2%) and real estate (10.4%). Moderately growing sectors include commercial, social and personal services (9.9%); manufacturing (7.6%); transport (6.7%) and agriculture (5.7%). Low growth sectors include crude petroleum (4.6%); finance and insurance (3.9%) and utilities (3.3%). Crude petroleum only recently began to grow after the amnesty programme restored peace in the Niger-Delta allowing increase in crude output; the financial sector has been hobbled by industry turmoil and has not only become slow-growing, but has also declined to 3.6% of GDP; utilities, essentially government-owned are the slowest-growing entities in the Nigerian economy! Certain sectors do not show up in the GDP data including automobiles and steel/aluminium. Now let’s relate all these to the privatisation data released by BPE and published in the media some weeks back. The data showed that BPE had privatised 122 enterprises in fourteen (14) sectors between 1999 and 2007. The sectors were automobile; cement; steel and aluminium; oil and gas; hotel and tourism; banking and insurance; sugar; solid minerals and mining; paper and packaging; sea ports and terminals; agriculture; aviation; block making; and energy. The data of course puts a lie to the propaganda spread so casually by opponents of privatisation that “80 per cent of privatised companies had failed” and supports BPE’s position that 70% were indeed successful. The list of “performing” companies includes Benue Cement Company; Cement Company of Northern Nigeria; WAPCO; Ashaka Cement; Onigolo Cement, Benin Republic; and Calabar Cement Company in the cement sector. Others are LPG Calabar Depot sold to Sahara Energy; Oando Plc; African Petroleum; Conoil Plc; West African Refinery Company of Sierra Leone and Eleme Petrochemicals all in the oil marketing and petrochemicals sector. In the hotel and tourism sector, successful privatisations include Golden Tulip Festac; Southern Sun Ikoyi; Le Meridien Abuja (now NICON Luxury); Transcorp Hilton and several others. Banking and insurance privatisations include FSB International Bank (part of the contemporary Fidelity Bank); IMB (part of Finbank); NAL Merchant Bank (Sterling Bank); NICON Insurance and Nigerian Re-insurance. There are many other examples of successful privatisations in solid minerals and mining, ports and terminals, agriculture, block making and energy sectors. The data also reveals that government failed even in sectors in which there were no issues of sector competitiveness-cement; oil marketing; hotels; ports and terminals; banks; energy companies etc!!! A careful analysis of the data in fact suggests that the much-trumpeted privatisation failures especially in automobile and steel sectors establish issues of lack of sector competitiveness, rather than necessarily company-specific performance or lack of it. It is analytically dubious for instance to shout to the rooftops over the “failure” of steel sector privatisations, when it is well known that the sector was a failure (as well as a funding drainpipe) long before the government sold off assets in that sector. Is there a need to review and prescribe a sector strategy and policy framework for steel rather than engage in a useless argument over steel sector privatisations? A similar argument relates to automobile (actually motor assembly plants) sector. The simple truth as one friend who had the misfortune of working in that sector has shouted himself hoarse explaining is that the auto assembly plants were structurally uncompetitive once Nigeria devalued its previously over-valued currency. Why do we think the technical partners-Peugeot, Volkswagen, and Mercedes etc. abandoned them to us and went back to their countries? Does anyone think these firms would have abandoned their investments if they saw prospect of success? The only factor that interested the foreign partners in those motor assembly plants was the huge exchange rate subsidy provided by the government of Nigeria through its over-valued currency! Once our dollar reserves were exhausted and we were forced to devalue the currency, the absurd logic of transporting completely knocked down vehicle parts thousands of miles to Nigeria was lost, and these “partners” duly walked away. The point again is that Nigeria needs a policy framework that carefully reviews the automobile value chain, decides what role Nigerian firms can be competitive in playing and creates conditions to enable Nigerian enterprises take advantage accordingly. The point I make is that we may be better off examining the competitiveness of economic sectors in Nigeria and evolving policy to build such where such opportunities exist, rather than a simple-minded lamentation over the “failure” of steel and automobile privatisations.

100 Unclear Days

I voted for President Goodluck Jonathan, privately supported him, publicly advocated support for him on facebook, and to friends, strategic groups and stakeholders I had access to; and endorsed him on this page. I didn’t do this because of a personal relationship (I’ve never met him); not because (as often happens here) I was paid to do so (I’ve never received payment to endorse or support any public officer, candidate or political party, including Jonathan); not because of ethnic or regional affiliation (I’m neither Ijaw nor “South-South”); and not because I requested or was promised any appointment or patronage (I was not). And I am certainly not a PDP member or supporter! In short, I am one of many Nigerians who “voted Jonathan and not PDP” as I wrote in my endorsement because “I regard Jonathan as the candidate of national unity, a federation of co-equal nationalities and national integration, freedom and openness, power sector reform, education and critical infrastructure”.

And if the election were repeated today, with exactly the same candidates and electoral mathematics, I would vote the same way! Jonathan’s minuses were evident before the elections (and I was clear that we “independents” who supported him would have to “police” him to ensure he didn’t fail!), but those of his principal opponents were also starkly apparent! However in the last 100 days, my emotions have ranged from surprise-when the president mentioned at his pre-inauguration lecture that four years was not enough to achieve transformation; alarm-at the worsening security situation in the country; confusion-when the president appeared to agree with Vice-President Sambo’s view that privatisation had failed; shock-when the president said after the police headquarters bombing that terrorism is a global phenomenon that could happen anywhere; bewilderment-when he began his “campaign” for an extended single tenure; anger-when the president after the UN bombing said maybe its our turn to experience terrorism; sadness-at the resumed killings in Jos; and thankfully hope-at the presence in the cabinet and economic team of a core of reformist-minded ministers.

The most evident character attribute on display has been a certain naïveté about the reality of politics and power, especially in a context of having displaced hegemonic elements with a publicly-expressed stake in his failure. This trait has been displayed in the manner the regime lost the speakership office to anti-regime forces; in cabinet composition where he ceded power over many nominations to state governors; and in the choice of “dialogue” as initial preferred means of resolving the “Boko Haram” bombings. In a sense, the president has allowed some sort of power vacuum and as nature abhors such, all sorts of characters-corrupt politicians, perennial power mongers, ethnic chauvinists and regional jingoists, feudalists and wards of the prebendal state, contractors and rent-seekers, civil servants, closet Jihadists and even his political adversaries (who may already have thoroughly infiltrated his inner circle) have sought to fill the gap!

The biggest significant policy and leadership gap in the last one hundred days is that President Jonathan has not articulated and communicated a grand vision and direction for Nigeria and (until the last few days) yet to provide policy content to his “transformation agenda” with the consequence that the words “transformation agenda of Mr President” remained an undecipherable mantra! What kind of country does Jonathan want to create? What does he want to “transform”? What does he think is wrong with Nigeria? What does he want to change? Does he want accommodation with Nigeria as it is, or does he really want to change it? How will he “transform” Nigeria? When? How will he measure success?

Let me summarise what I think has not gone well so far-non-articulation of a clear and compelling vision and non-definition of the “transformation agenda”; squandering of goodwill over the extended tenure distraction; often inexplicable display of insufficient presidential firmness and conviction; initial confounding response to the Boko Haram bombings and other cases of terror and insecurity; the naivety with which the zoning matter was handled and the subsequent displacement of the South-West from national leadership; the questionable quality of some critical personal and regime appointments; unduly large composition of the National Economic Management Team (NEMT)-when there were twenty-eight persons, I worried that it better resembled a “consultative forum” rather than an economic “management” team, and more members have since been added; the Petroleum Industry Bill is yet to re-appear in parliament; resumption of violence in Jos, with seeming connivance of some military and security officials; most importantly action was slow to commence on substantive policy and governance challenges of the Nigerian nation.

But the outlook may be more encouraging! The cabinet has a small core of strong reformers-Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Akinwunmi Adesina, Barth Nnaji and Olusegun Aganga in charge of critical portfolios-finance, agriculture, power, and trade and investment; while NEMT composition is bloated, the real work may get done by the more-focused implementation team; Ambassador Ashiru is very strong in foreign affairs and I strongly support the recognition of the Libyan Transitional National Council as a bold and proactive measure consistent with Nigeria’s interests and values; Finally the power sector road map is proceeding in spite of all obstacles. I expect the next 100 days to have many more positives!!!

The Role of the State

There are numerous activities which can ONLY be carried out by governments. Take defence and national security-maintaining disciplined and effective armed forces and intelligence agencies; defending the country and its citizens from external aggression or internal insurrection and protecting its territorial integrity; maintaining security agencies, carrying out covert operations to protect vital national interests; gathering information and “intelligence” regarding matters of military, security or economic interests etc. Intelligence agencies often work in concert with diplomatic services-another activity exclusively undertaken by the state. Governments maintain foreign relations, operate embassies, employ diplomats and ensure protection of the nation’s external interests.

The state ensures law and order, and administration of justice, maintains police forces, civil courts, enforcement of criminal justice, including prosecution of offenders, maintain prisons and rehabilitation centres and employs court bailiffs and other people and processes that ensure the ultimate sanction of law. The court system is maintained by the state, and judicial officers are employees of the state. The state organises the Civil Service-maintaining the continued operations of the state and delivering services to the public-land administration, town and country planning, traffic management etc-supporting elected public officials in executing their agenda and maintaining the integrity of the state.

The state is responsible for most public infrastructure-most roads, rail infrastructure, airports and maritime services are owned by government though services such as airport management or train shuttles may be private sector operated. I am not aware of any country in the world (even the most capitalist) in which up to ten percent of public road network is owned by any interests other than the state. Most social services are delivered by the state-public education and health, urban mass transportation, public libraries, city halls etc. The state is responsible for virtually all aspects of the investment climate and economic competitiveness-registration of companies; registration of title to land; effecting dividend remittances; security and law and order; enforcement of contracts; building approvals etc.

The state controls the entry and exit of goods (customs and excise), people (immigration), capital importation (central bank and banks); public debt management (ministries of finance, budget offices and debt management agencies); narcotics and restricted products; the state even controls entry to the world (birth registration) and exit there from (registration of deaths)!!! In the economic sphere, the state manages macroeconomic stability and fiscal operations, currency, exchange rates, inflation and financial sector supervision, taxation, sovereign savings etc. Indeed the entire job of regulating the private economy can ONLY be carried out by the state-aviation and airlines; banks and financial institutions; telecommunications and utilities; industrial safety and standards, food and drugs, environmental standards, weather and meteorological services, etc. The state is charged with ensuring free competition and absence of monopolies and anti-competitive behaviour. The list of exclusive state services and activities runs long!!!

How has the Nigerian state fared in these EXCLUSIVE and CRITICAL responsibilities it carries out (or is supposed to carry out?) Government’s report card will note that it has been unable to preserve public order or prevent armed robberies, kidnappings, militancy and communal crisis-leading to the deaths of thousands of Nigerians since our return to civil rule. In Warri, Aguleri-Umuleri, Sagamu, Niger-Delta, Jos, Kano, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano etc, lives were lost in hundreds and thousands to crises-over elections, Danish cartoons, beauty contests, communal differences, religion, land and other matters that should normally be resolved by a competent state. Administration of justice has basically broken down! Torture, summary executions, bribery and rampant corruption pervade our policing system-the police is NOT your friend, and the courts are slow and ineffective! Most recently our Chief Justice and Court of Appeal President have accused each other of corruption! Our intelligence agencies have demonstrated how easy it is to throw bombs-on Independence Day and at the police and UN headquarters! Niger-Delta militants, Northern Almajiri, Boko Haram and just about anyone who is angry have often fought the state to a stand-still!

Our most important highways-Sagamu-Benin, Lagos-Ibadan are totally derelict; Government abandons major middle-belt highways-Lokoja, Abuja, Nasarawa etc to armed robbers who routinely kill citizens including members of the ruling elite; South-East land is casually lost to erosion; Government could deliver only 470,000 telephone lines and less than 4,000 MW of electricity to 150 million people in fifty years; Ministries and agencies reportedly pay bribes to secure release of statutory allocations; Immigration officers openly beg visitors for bribes and customs officers are the biggest smugglers; The federal and state governments can’t manage their finances; Fake drugs and substandard goods are pervasive; Government has totally destroyed public education, and our Presidents travel abroad for medical treatment; The nation relies on a rail network built by colonialists almost a century ago; The state taxes probably less than ten per cent of its citizens; We send 25 and 28 year-olds to under 17 and 20 football competitions; The state has been subverted by corruption, ethnic and religious bigotry, nepotism and complete absence of altruistic behaviour and sense of common good!!!

Why would anyone want such a dysfunctional state to run airlines, banks, telephone companies, hotels, factories, or businesses of any sort? I may understand if Chinese, Japanese, UAE citizens or Singaporeans ponder the role of the state in business, but Nigerians? We’ve got to be joking…or worse!!!

A Call for a Second Dialogue Committee!!!

Religious Harmony

The Yorubas of Western Nigeria offer the world lessons in forging societal harmony in spite of being of different faiths. In virtually all Yoruba families you find Christians, Muslims and adherents of traditional and alternative (Grail, Eckankar, Rosicrucian etc) faiths. All my four grandparents were Muslims, indeed Alhajis and Alhajas. My parents were born Sikiru and Raliatu and only became Christians, thus Solomon and Margaret, as young persons, as the combination of Christian evangelism and education persuaded many to the Christian faith. Yet some of my parents’ brothers and sisters remained Muslims, so I have uncles, aunties, cousins, nieces and nephews who are Muslims. To the best of my knowledge, my grandparents never objected to their children’s adoption of Christianity, yet never wavered in commitment to their Islamic faith till their death.

I remember once observing my mother, herself now late, feeling quite unhappy. She, a committed Christian was apparently concerned that her mother who earnestly desired to, had not been able to observe the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. She was determined to remedy that situation, yet the cost of our education did not readily yield space for the expenses of the obligatory trip to Mecca! Well whatever sacrifice it would have required, the next year, my maternal grandparents went to Mecca, and we found the money to welcome them with an “Alhaji and Alhaja Kaabo” owambe party in typical Yoruba fashion! I may be known as Opeyemi Agbaje, but my grandparents duly gave me a Muslim name (which shall not be revealed in this column!) and indeed there were those who would only call me by that name!!!

As a teenager, the best time to visit my beloved “Alhaja” (as my maternal grandmother became known), was during Ramadan when I could eat my cake, and have it! Alhaja would wake you up to break the fast with her (even though you had not really fasted!); you could then go back to sleep and wake up late morning to a “regular” breakfast; have a normal lunch with the non-fasting and/or Christian members of the large household; “break fast” again early evening; and again enjoy dinner within the nightly fast-breaking window. I recall also joining the local boys as they took “Ileya” rams for head-butting contests during the bigger Islamic festival season! In Yorubaland, there is no telling, except for insiders, who is a Christian or Muslim during religious ceremonies, as everyone joins in the gaiety and celebrations.

This multiple religious heritage accounts for why Yoruba society has been largely immune to religious politics and why the people remain by-and-large unaffected by religious differences. Any politician, who tries to import religion into politics in Yorubaland, is likely to receive a shocker as Christians, Muslims and even traditionalists are likely to turn against such a person. In this season of Ramadan, I commend this approach to people of faith all over the world.

A Call for a Second Dialogue Committee!!!

Last Friday evening, I posted the following comment on facebook-“Boko Haram has bombed the UN office in Abuja killing at least 18 people and injuring several others. I urge President Jonathan (as usual) to set up a committee to dialogue with Boko Haram. In the spirit of reconciliation, the members of the dialogue committee may include Tanko Yakasai, Ibrahim Babangida, Muhammadu Buhari, Adamu Ciroma, Abubakar Atiku and Nasir El-Rufai! Troubled Country!!!” The post attracted interest and comments from “my friends and I” and we unanimously adopted the suggestion as a “vigorous and robust” response to the “dastardly” bombing. Some important modifications came from my friend “T.O” (any educated Nigerian newspaper reader must know who that is!) who noted that the proposed membership did not reflect “federal character”. Accordingly he recommended that we include my friend Femi Fani-Kayode to represent the Yoruba Council of Elders!

T.O also highlighted the need for a committee spokesperson proposing either Kazeem Afegbua or Senator J. K. N Waku. I deemed Waku rather old for the “onerous assignment”, so I chose Afegbua who has adequately demonstrated the “vigour and robustness” required for this critical national responsibility! Another Facebook friend, Chigozie wondered why I had excluded the (in his words oh!) “Almighty Gusau” I agreed to redeem this omission, but the resourceful T.O pointed out again that Gusau would be a good fit for the position of “Coordinating Member of the Boko Haram Dialogue Committee”!!! One fellow suggested including Tunde Bakare in the committee.
I am not sure this recommendation was accepted! On my part, I wondered which constituency Bakare would represent, not been from Borno or Bauchi States or anywhere in the precincts from which Boko Haram originated, and not been a known apostle of dialogue! We are undergoing “further consultations” on that particular nomination! Meanwhile in place of Bakare’s controversial nomination, I suggested Mallam Yahaya Kwande, which was unanimously accepted. Finally Benjamin nominated the Sultan of Sokoto, who we all agreed should serve as Chairman.

“My friends and I” agreed that “the perpetrators of this heinous act must be apprehended” in order that after their apprehension, we can explain the importance of dialogue and peaceful nation-building to them. We also disagreed with Christian Purefoy who claimed on CNN that “after this kind of thing, nothing gets done” noting that setting up a dialogue committee is not “nothing”.

Giving Privatisation a Bad Name!!! (2)

For over fifty years, Nigeria had a telecommunications monopoly, most-recently called Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd (NITEL) by the time of the Digital Mobile License auctions in 2001. In spite of a large underserved market and extremely high prices, NITEL refused or was unable to exploit the market opportunity providing only about 470,000 lines across the whole country! It cost over N200,000 to obtain a telephone line and a Nigerian Minister for Communications was reported to have proclaimed that telephones are not for the poor! As an upwardly mobile manager in a leading bank, I recall having to go through a friend, whose uncle was federal permanent secretary simply because I wanted an analogue mobile phone!!!

According to Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) data, there were 117 million connected lines, 90.5 million active lines and installed capacity of 160.9 million lines with tele-density of 64.7% as at April 2011. Given current installed capacity, the industry now has capacity to provide a telephone line for every Nigerian, rich or poor! Beyond sector transformation, the impact on government revenue (corporate and employee taxes), import duties, employment and GDP growth has been phenomenal. The telecommunications sector has grown to just under 5 percent of GDP in just 10 years-higher than manufacturing!!! Meanwhile the state-owned NITEL has virtually disappeared from the industry radar due to a combination of corruption, incompetence, bureaucracy and sabotage.

The domestic airline industry has also been transformed due to sector liberalisation leveraging private capital and management. I recall the bad old days of Nigerian Airways when you could not get around Nigeria in less than one week! The airline frequently oversold tickets and prospective passengers risked getting on the plane to find all seats taken, except of course you had a powerful government official or Airways official to secure your seat. Ex-president Obasanjo has frequently lamented how Nigerian Airways fleet of over thirty airplanes was depleted to just one in a space of twenty years due to corruption, mismanagement and greed. While there are still problems with private airlines, air travellers can get to and from Abuja, Port-Harcourt, Enugu or Lagos in one single day! The difference is that you have a choice between Air Nigeria, Arik, Aero Contractors, DANA, IRS and whoever else is able to muster capital and requisite regulatory approvals to set up an airline.

Government ownership was also disastrous for the financial services industry in the 1980s and 1990s. No one who has read the case study of the old International Merchant Bank (IMB) as contrasted with the Guaranty Trust Bank case both written at the Lagos Business School will countenance the return of government ownership of banks in Nigeria (unfortunately as the CBN has just executed!) Hopefully that will be a short-term intervention. Government ownership meant that promotions, employment, lending and credit decisions and board and management composition in banks were subject to political interference and abuse. Most federal and state government-owned banks did not survive that era-Continental Merchant Bank, Allied Bank, Nigerian Merchant Bank, Nigerian Arab Bank, National Bank, Progress Bank, Lobi Bank etc. Private banks are not free of mismanagement (as we have recently being reminded), but the difference is that owners of private banks are more likely to be allowed to suffer the consequences of mismanagement than government!!! Had government control of our leading banks-First Bank, UBA, Union, Afribank, Federal Savings Bank etc continued for just a few more years, it was virtually inevitable that those banks would also have gone the way of the others.

I find it curious that journalists and activists are often opposed to privatisation, not recognising that they are important beneficiaries of private sector investment. When government controlled the “commanding heights” of the Nigerian economy, most newspapers, radio and television stations were owned by federal and state governments-Daily Times, New Nigerian, Radio Nigeria, Lagos Television, OGBC, Radio Lagos, Sketch, Observer, Nigerian Tide, Herald, Triumph etc. Government media ownership was a major constraint on civil liberties, especially freedom of expression and the press, and only very few media organisations such as Chief Awolowo’s Tribune offered an alternative to official propaganda. Journalism and civil society flourished with media entrepreneurship making it impossible for schemes such as “third-term” or “self-succession” to succeed in Nigeria.

Activists and commentators freely offer alternative, often anti-government views on various privately-owned media platforms-STV, Channels, THISDAY, Guardian, Trust, Businessday etc. It was their self-employment in private professional practices that enabled activists like late Kanmi Ishola-Osobu, Tunji Braithwaithe, Alao Aka-Bashorun, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Gani Fawehinmi, Bamidele Aturu and Femi Falana to survive the intimidatory powers of the Nigerian state! Associated with growth in private media is the marketing communications industry (advertising, public relations, branding, outdoor marketing etc) which have blossomed as private media expanded.

The transformative impact of private capital and management has been felt in other sectors-hotels and hospitality, information technology, cement, oil marketing, professional services, food logistics etc. Is it a coincidence that the areas in which our people suffer-electricity, refineries, water and public utilities, transportation, public health and education-are state-owned? I don’t think so!!! The Nigerian public sector has more than enough to do in maintaining security and public order, building regulatory institutions, investing in education, health and social services, providing roads and public infrastructure, administration of justice and stamping out corruption.

Giving Privatisation a Bad Name!!!

When you want to hang a dog, first give it a bad name! Evidently some powerful constituencies in Nigeria viscerally dislike privatisation and the notion of private-sector led development. They prefer the prebendal, statist, semi-feudal development (actually underdevelopment!) model in which banks, refineries, telecommunications companies, electricity generation and distribution utilities, hotels, airlines, newspapers, television and radio stations etc are controlled by Abuja and bureaucrats, politicians, traditional rulers, government contractors and sundry patrons and wards of the state control all economic resources and determine who gets rich or stays poor! This coalition and their agents hate privatisation as it takes away their control over the destinies of our nation and its peoples.

But they can’t say this, can they? So instead they focus on persuading us it has failed! That privatisation is over-rated and state-owned enterprises are better after all. It doesn’t bother them that massive corruption is endemic in state-owned enterprises, but they carefully scrutinize privatisations for opportunities to call the kettle black! And they succeed in persuading some naïve or hypocritical “comrades” (who own private professional practices; carry three mobile phones; work for private banks and telecommunication companies; and appear regularly on private broadcast stations!!!) to their cause!!! The current leader of this “Anti-Privatisation Coalition” is Vice-President Namadi Sambo, who ironically as Chair of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) presides over privatisation. In Sambo’s view, “80percent of privatised firms moribund” (Thisday May 13, 2011) and “the process of privatisation has been going on for about ten years but has not been successful due to obvious non-performance” (Peoples Daily May 12, 2011). Meeting with the Russian Ambassador, Sambo re-stated that “many of the privatised companies have not met been able to meet the aspirations of government” (Punch June 28, 2011).

Unfortunately Sambo may have persuaded President Jonathan! The Nation newspaper’s screaming headline proclaimed “Privatisation has failed, says Jonathan”!! This at the inauguration of NCP!!! Jonathan’s late boss, Umaru Yar’adua reversed the privatisation of Refineries which were concluded just before ex-President Obasanjo handed over to him. Yar’adua also refused to proceed with the expected privatisation of unbundled Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) entities; and later formally outlined a policy championed by Rilwanu Lukman which rested the private sector electricity model in favour of state control. Should we then expect that Jonathan will abandon the Power Sector Roadmap and Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005 both of which are based on privatisation of electricity generation and distribution, while transmission is billed to be concessioned to the private sector? Is the power road map dead on arrival, since we can logically expect Namadi Sambo to frustrate expected privatisations?

Interestingly a replay of Yar’adua’s strategy of stalling Obasanjo’s power reforms, (as Engineer Foluseke Somolu recently pointed out), through public disinformation that $16billion had been wasted on power; and Ndudi Elumelu’s House of Representatives Power Committee probe appears ongoing! The Senate has commenced its legislative agenda with an adhoc committee investigating privatisation!!! Senate President David Mark while inaugurating the panel declared that privatisation has not achieved the desired objectives and actually blamed privatisation for loss of jobs, financial deprivation and loss of revenue to the federal government!!! If the Senate had already reached these conclusions, why did it bother setting up an investigation? I urge Nigerians to be calm and circumspect in responding to the “alarming revelations” emerging from the Senate probe!!!

By all means, any clear infractions must be dealt with based on law and due process. Indeed this columnist has long identified conditions which make for successful privatisations-an independent technical agency overseeing the process; proper valuations of assets being disposed of; open, competitive and transparent bidding by all participants; a process that first establishes technical qualification of bidding firms before proceeding to competitive financial bidding; and the absence of corruption and political interference, except in cases of national security and overriding national interest. The industry structure must ensure existence of a competent regulator; and privatisation must not result in private monopolies. Where specific transactions breached these principles, that is not a failure of privatisation but the corruption and political irresponsibility that afflicts our nation!

But the bigger picture is that the private sector has been vastly more successful than government in Nigeria. Can anyone compare Oando and Conoil to Unipetrol and Nolchem? Would First Bank and UBA have survived (remember Continental Merchant, Allied Bank, IMB, NMB etc) government ownership? Can you compare Federal Palace Hotel, Golden Tulip Festac, Ikoyi Southern Sun, Notore and Eleme Petrochemicals to their rotten pre-privatisation predecessors? Does anyone miss the scandal-plagued, massively corrupt, pre-privatisation African Petroleum or NAFCON? Aren’t Nigerians aware that military rulers and bureaucrats used Aluminium Smelter Company and Ajaokuta Steel to enrich themselves? Can’t we see what difference private capital and management has made in telecommunications, financial services, aviation, newspapers, radio and television broadcasting, private universities, hotels etc? Do we miss the days when Nigerian Airways, Daily Times, New Nigerian, NTA, Radio Nigeria and inefficient and politicised government-owned banks were our only alternatives?

Does anyone want a return to the days when state-owned parastatals consumed billions of Naira every year without returning a kobo to the treasury? I don’t!!!

The Extended Tenure Distraction

President Goodluck Jonathan was reported to have stated at the Presidential Inauguration Lecture delivered by Professor Ladipo Adamolekun just before his inauguration on May 29 that in his view, four years was too short to achieve transformation. The statement was unexpected from a president just elected overwhelmingly on a mandate of “transformation” and upon whom Nigerians had invested hopes for national renewal. Jonathan has now in effect launched a campaign to persuade the National Assembly, the political elite, State Governors and legislatures on the desirability of a constitutional amendment to extend the tenure of the President and Governors from the current four to between five and seven years with no prospect of second terms.

I have since been bewildered as I pondered how the president and his advisers considered this issue his most important policy and legislative priority? Even though I would prefer to believe the president’s assertion that he doesn’t intend benefitting from the proposed change, the question remains why this matter occupies such elevated position on the president’s agenda? And the wisdom, from the point of view of strategy, of the president personally making the case; the consequence been that Jonathan has squandered political capital so early in his term on a debate of at best doubtful value! This column, as well as many other commentators and stakeholders have spent time articulating an agenda for the Jonathan administration covering power, transportation, infrastructure, economic diversification, unemployment and poverty, education and health, housing mortgage and land reform etc-did anyone identify extended presidential and gubernatorial single tenures as an important national imperative?

Beyond misplaced priorities, the case being made for longer tenures appears shallow and simplistic!!! The logic advanced is that extending presidential and governorship tenures would reduce cost and ferocious competition associated with four-year electoral cycles and allow office holders focus on performance without re-election worries. These arguments do not stand much scrutiny! The 2007 elections, probably the worst in Nigeria’s chequered democratic history was conducted by ex-President Obasanjo who wasn’t a candidate. Yet it was a “do-or-die” matter because like all incumbents, Obasanjo was interested in his succession! So were ex-Governors Gbenga Daniel, Bukola Saraki and Ali Modu Sherriff of Ogun, Kwara and Borno states respectively in the last governorship elections even though they weren’t contestants, having served mandatory two terms. The point is, in corrupt political systems (particularly), departing incumbents and parties remain interested in succession irrespective of whether specific individuals are running!

The prospect of exclusion from political power for five to seven years may in fact have the unintended consequence of making intra and inter-party competition for political power a more deadly fight-to-finish! The knowledge that another opportunity is only four years away moderates desperation to win elections at all cost. I worry also about the consequences of electing a wrong governor or president! The electorate is condemned to five, six or seven years of drift and stagnation once it makes the error of electing a wrong leader. Given that most Nigerians regard most of those they have elected as failures in office, I wonder whether they have any reason to project that giving longer non-renewable terms will make a positive difference. The more likely consequence is that a corrupt, incompetent or irresponsible leader with has no prospect of re-election will become totally irredeemable, lacking no incentive to attempt better performance. In my view, six or seven years of mis-governance may amount to a generational calamity!!!

In a yet-developing democracy, rife with corruption, self-aggrandisement and unaccountable leadership, this proposal is likely to weaken, rather than strengthen our democracy! Leaders will get more insulated from the voters; the electorate will further lose “power” over their rulers; and elected officers will become near monarchs! The proposal assumes that the over-riding motivation for seeking political office in Nigeria is the quest for service, with the political system and elections being a distraction rather than the other way round! Most Nigerians will for good reason, contest such an assumption. The truth appears to be that many seek office for pecuniary gain, and may simply appropriate the gains of longer tenures in cash, rather than focused service. A truly committed leader would excel in four years, and the voters will reward him with a second term as they did for Fashola in Lagos.

I concede however that there may be need to debate the more comprehensive proposals contained in the draft 1995 Constitution (which never became law) which recognised six geo-political zones; created the offices of President, Vice-President, Prime-Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister; created five-year single terms for president and governors; recognised the principles of zoning and rotation of political offices among geo-political zones and senatorial districts; created a 30-year transition period for such zoning and rotation to operate; created a process to ensure succession from the same zone in the event of succession or death of an incumbent; and recommended proportional “all-party” governments to eliminate the “winner-takes-all” system which is the real cause of deadly political competition. Even though these proposals emerge from the “national cake sharing” paradigm of the Nigerian nation, they are worth re-examining to see if they offer any value.

The Extended Tenure Distraction

President Goodluck Jonathan was reported to have stated at the Presidential Inauguration Lecture delivered by Professor Ladipo Adamolekun just before his inauguration on May 29 that in his view, four years was too short to achieve transformation. The statement was unexpected from a president just elected overwhelmingly on a mandate of “transformation” and upon whom Nigerians had invested hopes for national renewal. Jonathan has now in effect launched a campaign to persuade the National Assembly, the political elite, State Governors and legislatures on the desirability of a constitutional amendment to extend the tenure of the President and Governors from the current four to between five and seven years with no prospect of second terms.

I have since been bewildered as I pondered how the president and his advisers considered this issue his most important policy and legislative priority? Even though I would prefer to believe the president’s assertion that he doesn’t intend benefitting from the proposed change, the question remains why this matter occupies such elevated position on the president’s agenda? And the wisdom, from the point of view of strategy, of the president personally making the case; the consequence been that Jonathan has squandered political capital so early in his term on a debate of at best doubtful value! This column, as well as many other commentators and stakeholders have spent time articulating an agenda for the Jonathan administration covering power, transportation, infrastructure, economic diversification, unemployment and poverty, education and health, housing mortgage and land reform etc-did anyone identify extended presidential and gubernatorial single tenures as an important national imperative?

Beyond misplaced priorities, the case being made for longer tenures appears shallow and simplistic!!! The logic advanced is that extending presidential and governorship tenures would reduce cost and ferocious competition associated with four-year electoral cycles and allow office holders focus on performance without re-election worries. These arguments do not stand much scrutiny! The 2007 elections, probably the worst in Nigeria’s chequered democratic history was conducted by ex-President Obasanjo who wasn’t a candidate. Yet it was a “do-or-die” matter because like all incumbents, Obasanjo was interested in his succession! So were ex-Governors Gbenga Daniel, Bukola Saraki and Ali Modu Sherriff of Ogun, Kwara and Borno states respectively in the last governorship elections even though they weren’t contestants, having served mandatory two terms. The point is, in corrupt political systems (particularly), departing incumbents and parties remain interested in succession irrespective of whether specific individuals are running!

The prospect of exclusion from political power for five to seven years may in fact have the unintended consequence of making intra and inter-party competition for political power a more deadly fight-to-finish! The knowledge that another opportunity is only four years away moderates desperation to win elections at all cost. I worry also about the consequences of electing a wrong governor or president! The electorate is condemned to five, six or seven years of drift and stagnation once it makes the error of electing a wrong leader. Given that most Nigerians regard most of those they have elected as failures in office, I wonder whether they have any reason to project that giving longer non-renewable terms will make a positive difference. The more likely consequence is that a corrupt, incompetent or irresponsible leader with has no prospect of re-election will become totally irredeemable, lacking no incentive to attempt better performance. In my view, six or seven years of mis-governance may amount to a generational calamity!!!

In a yet-developing democracy, rife with corruption, self-aggrandisement and unaccountable leadership, this proposal is likely to weaken, rather than strengthen our democracy! Leaders will get more insulated from the voters; the electorate will further lose “power” over their rulers; and elected officers will become near monarchs! The proposal assumes that the over-riding motivation for seeking political office in Nigeria is the quest for service, with the political system and elections being a distraction rather than the other way round! Most Nigerians will for good reason, contest such an assumption. The truth appears to be that many seek office for pecuniary gain, and may simply appropriate the gains of longer tenures in cash, rather than focused service. A truly committed leader would excel in four years, and the voters will reward him with a second term as they did for Fashola in Lagos.

I concede however that there may be need to debate the more comprehensive proposals contained in the draft 1995 Constitution (which never became law) which recognised six geo-political zones; created the offices of President, Vice-President, Prime-Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister; created five-year single terms for president and governors; recognised the principles of zoning and rotation of political offices among geo-political zones and senatorial districts; created a 30-year transition period for such zoning and rotation to operate; created a process to ensure succession from the same zone in the event of succession or death of an incumbent; and recommended proportional “all-party” governments to eliminate the “winner-takes-all” system which is the real cause of deadly political competition. Even though these proposals emerge from the “national cake sharing” paradigm of the Nigerian nation, they are worth re-examining to see if they offer any value.

Sanusi's Many Controversies (2)

I support the case, for reasons of financial inclusion, for providing non-interest banking for those who for reasons of faith, find conventional interest-based banking objectionable. However this must be done in line with BOFIA and our Constitution, rather than by creating a precedent that could lead towards Nigeria’s “Sudanisation”. The problem as I see it is that Sanusi seeks to take his regulatory framework from Malaysia, Bahrain and other officially Islamic nations, rather than countries that insulate their laws and Constitution from religion! The Central Banks in UK, USA, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong and those other places the CBN touts as having Islamic banking products, certainly would not accept banking guidelines which blatantly infringe on the separation of state and Church or Mosque!

The Banking and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) enacted by two Muslims, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulkadir Ahmed as President and CBN Governor respectively, made provision since 1991 for non-interest banking as a constitutional and non-divisive means of allowing those Nigerians who abhorred interest to create and/or patronise non-interest financial institutions(NIFI). Section 61 of BOFIA defines NIFI as “a profit and loss sharing bank” which is “a bank which transacts investment or commercial banking business and maintains profit and loss sharing accounts”. Jaiz International Bank received an approval-in-principle to conduct non-interest banking several years ago, until Soludo’s N25billion minimum capital proved an obstacle. There was no objection then to Jaiz’s imminent license, until CBN’s January guidelines which introduced religion into banking regulation. Sanusi, it must be noted, has since re-introduced Arabic lettering on the Naira and now seeks to float sovereign Islamic bonds (“Sukuk”) so his critics can legitimately point to a trend!

As I pointed out last week, Sanusi’s January 2011 guidelines contained several inappropriate provisions- it defined a NIFI as one who conducts business “in accordance with Shariah principles and rules of Islamic commercial jurisprudence”; defined Shariah principles as “the divine guidance as given by the Holy Qu’ran and the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet and embodies all aspects of the Islamic faith, including beliefs and practices”; contained terms such as “Shariah-compliant products and services”, Arabic terms such as “Istitna”, “Ijarah”, Ijarah wa iqtina”, “Mudharabah”, “Salam”, “Sukuk” and many others; required all licensed NIFIs to establish “an internal Shariah compliance review mechanism and a Shariah Advisory Committee”; and required the CBN to establish a “CBN Shariah Council” to “advise the CBN on Shariah matters”!!! With those guidelines, Sanusi put to question his credentials as a technical financial sector regulator and public servant in a multi-religious entity like Nigeria.

The June amendment according to one commentator was “clever(er) by half”. Instead of a “CBN Shariah Council”, you now have a “CBN Advisory Council of Experts”; Arabic words are omitted; and instead of a mono-definition of NIFI based on “Shariah principles and rules of Islamic commercial jurisprudence”, it created two categories-those based on “Islamic commercial jurisprudence” and “any other established rules and principles”. The document prescribed modalities for the “Islamic” ones while the CBN promised to “subsequently issue guidelines governing the provision of non-interest financial services based on established principles other than Islamic finance”. These guidelines remain problematic as they purport to redefine NIFI other than as specified in BOFIA and establish “Islamic Financial Institutions” contrary to the letter and spirit of BOFIA and our Constitution. They may also be discriminatory, prescribing capital requirements for Islamic banking lower than for conventional ones for equivalent coverage. As pointed out by others, the CBN should have simply issued operating guidelines which are faith-neutral (like those for private universities or broadcast stations by NUC and NBC) and allow individual institutions set up internal mechanisms (in this case such as product papers; credit and risk management policies; ethical guidelines; corporate governance and corporate social responsibility principles; memorandum and articles of association; and other institution-specific governance mechanisms) to fulfil their mission.

Beyond the Islamic banking controversy, it is necessary to caution the current Central Bank against getting involved in political, religious or socio-economic disputations. Unlike most global central bankers, Sanusi has tended to court controversy-at his Senate confirmation hearings, he criticised the governance agenda of the government that appointed him; he took on errant bank owners at a point calling for their public execution; he once declared that Nigeria’s stock exchange operated like a casino; disagreed openly with the International Monetary Fund (IMF); launched a blistering attack on the national legislature; and urged the public not to believe bank rating agencies, which are licensed by the CBN! Some months back, he publicly threatened to liquidate the 8 “intervened” banks if they didn’t recapitalise by September 30, 2011, recently altering the threat to nationalisation. It would be inconceivable that any of these statements could be made by US Federal Reserve Chair, Ben Bernanke or Bank of England Head, Mervyn King!!!

The CBN has fundamental challenges to deal with-indices on access to credit; unemployment; financial deepening; financial sector stability; and exchange rate management are all going negative. All these economic limitations can be remedied. It would be sad however if the manner of introduction of non-interest banking leads Nigeria further in the direction of Sudan, Yugoslavia or Indo-Pakistan!