Madam Aviation and the President's Friends

Last week Thursday Arik Air, Nigeria’s de facto “national carrier”, was in limbo, with all its domestic flights grounded. I was a victim, stuck in Port Harcourt “International” Airport for many hours, until good fortune intervened in the form of an Aero Contractors plane diverted from Owerri late in the day (night actually), which evacuated many of us stranded Lagos-bound passengers. Arik’s domestic operations had been disrupted by the aviation unions, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind who had ministered the instigation! At the time of Arik’s grounding, the airline was responsible for perhaps seventy percent or more of domestic flights with the exit of DANA Airlines, Air Nigeria, First Nation Airways and Chanchangi Airlines. The only alternatives to Arik – Aero and IRS – accounted for less than thirty percent of domestic passenger traffic. And once Arik was grounded, aviation services effectively came to a halt within Nigeria! Only an irresponsible manager could have conspired to foist such a situation on Nigerians. The cost in economic and social terms to the Nigerian nation was incalculable! The political goodwill lost by President Jonathan was not quantifiable! As I sat along with hundreds other frustrated Nigerians AND EXPATRIATES in shabby and uncomfortable airport terminals, I wondered how Nigeria got this way. The apparent offence of Arik was that it owed aviation agencies some amount which was itself a subject of disagreement between the airline and the aviation authorities. How come the sector unions woke up one day and proceeded to disrupt airline operations? Is that one of the functions of trade unions? Was there any connection between the action taken against Arik and the request by a National Assembly committee that Arik be designated the nation’s official national carrier? I recall that the current minister of aviation, Stella Oduah (Ogiemwonyi), has a pet project of creating a national carrier for the country? I also recall Air Nigeria’s proprietor, Jimoh Ibrahim, declaring in the wake of the airline’s troubles that he would not be blackmailed into being part of any national carrier project? Is there any truth to these blackmail allegations? We have since heard rumours of demands by someone for five percent of Arik’s shareholding. Is there any truth in these allegations? Who made such demands? We have also heard rumours that the purported demands were expressed to have been on behalf of a higher authority? Is this true? These are allegations that require immediate investigation by law enforcement agencies – the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the police – so that the confidence of Nigerians and the international community in our government and aviation sector will not be irreparably damaged! Now we have numerous controversies in the sector, including the forceful ejection of MAEVIS Limited, FAAN’s erstwhile revenue concessionaire, from the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos; the ministry’s troubles with Bi-Courtney, the concessionaire who built the MM2 domestic terminal; the banning and unbanning of DANA Airlines in the aftermath its air crash; the grounding and exit from the industry of Air Nigeria; and now the current problems of Arik Air. Are the officers in charge promoting or destroying the fortunes of the sector? Given reports that the minister is very close to President Jonathan, I have a suspicion that the presidency may sooner than later suffer grave embarrassment on account of the activities of this ministry! “Madam Aviation” is not the only friend of the president that may cause him serious headache. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has recently released a list of AMCON debtors whom it has restrained Deposit Money Banks from extending further credit to. At the very top of the list is a notable friend of Mr President and member of the regime’s National Economic Management Team (NEMT), Femi Otedola. According to the CBN, Otedola’s company owes AMCON N192.4bn. Other major debtors who may be considered proximate to the presidency include Patrick Ifeanyi Uba’s Capital Oil and Gas (N48bn); Arumemi-Ikhide’s (also owner of Arik!) Rockson Engineering which owes N60.4bn; recently resigned power minister, Barth Nnaji, whose Geometric Engineering owes N19.7bn; Wale Babalakin whose three companies – Bi-Courtney Limited, Roygate Properties, and Resort International are indebted to the combined total of N54.2bn; former minister of interior, Emmanuel Iheanacho, whose Integrated Oil and Gas owes N6.7bn; and Gitto Construzioni whose debt stands at N11.83bn. I recall warning on these pages about the dangers of crony capitalism, a path we now seem to be treading. This style will only get our president into trouble, in office or afterwards! Talking about the NEMT and the president’s friends, I was amused to notice the president deploying three “billionaire” members of the team (Atedo Peterside; Femi Otedola; and Aig-Imoukhuede) to persuade Nigerians about the merits of Sanusi Lamido’s N5,000 note. Did the presidency think these very rich men could persuade poor and angry Nigerians to support the policy? Anyway, while Otedola and Imoukhuede were a bit circumspect, Peterside blasted: “If I was the one, I would have printed N10,000!” or words to same effect. How does he feel now that the policy has been “suspended”? Someone should please beg our respected Atedo Peterside to stay out of public advocacy – it is evidently not his calling!

Obama's Failed Appeasement Strategy

President Obama’s foreign policy has centred on improving relations with Arab and Muslim nations. He appears to proceed from an assumed guilt complex and seems apologetic for America’s (or Republican?) exercise of global power. He went to Cairo to “speak” with the Arab/Islamic world; he bowed waist-level before the Saudi King, a curious gesture that still requires interpretation given his off-handed, almost superior posture with Western dignitaries (e.g. The Queen of England); he tolerated the notion of a Mosque at the World Trade Centre bombing site against majority US opinion; and has consistently shown irritation with Israel. Indeed Obama’s body language suggests willingness to sacrifice the US-Israeli relationship for a US-Arab/Islamic one! As Iran marches determinedly towards nuclear weapons, it seems in spite of his words and reluctant sanctions, that Obama is willing to countenance Iranian nuclear arms. While the Israelis, for good reason given Ahmedinejad’s genocidal rhetoric, are paranoid about the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama seems unperturbed and if one focuses on actions rather than words, one would think that Obama really does not mind Iran getting the bomb! As the Arab “Spring” developed, Obama quickly sacrificed US allies in Egypt (Hosni Mubarak) and elsewhere. While this columnist sympathised with America’s decision to side with Tunisians, Egyptians and Libyans against their erstwhile dictators, I wondered at the complete loss of US initiative as events unfolded! America was being led down a path it did not define; could not influence or control; and yet its power and resources were deployed in support of the protesters, activists and rebels, including a diverse crowd of Islamists, former terrorists, far right Salafists, Al Qaeda extremists, and other dangerous groups with barely-disguised hatred of America. As the Arab uprisings progressed, the US did not insist on projecting its values-would the emerging states make an irrevocable commitment to democracy? (In Egypt some former protesters later carried banners saying, “We don’t want democracy, only Islam!!!”); would they protect religious minorities? (Such as Egypt’s Coptic Christians who have subsequently been victims of religiously-inspired violence); would they protect women? would they adopt secular constitutions? In short US policy makers, often led by their noses by people like Fareed Zakaria and Christiane Amanpour, did not define their objectives based on US values and interests! It is a sign of the shocking naiveté of US policy that the new Muslim Brotherhood leader in Egypt, has since visited Saudi Arabia, Iran and China! Meanwhile Hillary Clinton was heckled and booed as she visited Cairo, presumably to remind Morsi of America’s role in his emergence! Remember also that in spite of America’s help, the transition government arrested and prosecuted US NGOs for spying against Egypt! It is the same helplessness and confusion that defines US policy in Pakistan! This is the nation that harboured Osama Bin Ladin and much of the leadership of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network, all undisguised American enemies. Like Egypt which collects well over a billion dollars in US military and non-military aid annually, Pakistan is a major recipient of US aid, yet at best ambivalent about its US relationship. Reports suggest that Osama Bin Ladin regularly evaded the US trail whenever it shared intelligence with the Pakistanis. Eventually the US learnt to keep its plans to itself and killed him at a location proximate to a major Pakistani military facility! The Pakistanis have subsequently put the medical doctor who assisted the US CIA on trial for treason! US appeasement and political correctness is also evident in Nigeria! Recall that Ambassador Johnnie Carson, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and other members of the sentimental, liberal crowd in the State Department have urged a strategy of appeasement on the Nigerian government in response to “Boko Haram”. They have agonised and dithered over designating our local terrorists as a “foreign terrorist organisation” despite its bombing the UN building in Abuja, killing thousands of civilians, bombing countless Churches across Northern Nigeria and attacking newspaper houses. The State Department’s overriding consideration has been that designating “Boko Haram” as a terrorist organisation would portray the US as against Nigeria’s Northern Muslims! The US Congress has had to take the initiative in that regard. This past week, Obama and Clinton’s appeasement strategy has fully come home to roost!!! There are fierce anti-American demonstrations in twenty states across the Middle-East and North Africa; the US Ambassador to Libya who helped the rebels take power (and performed sentimental gestures such as eating in his Arab-Muslim driver’s home with his wife to show America’s love for the romanticised “new Libya”) and three of his officers have been killed; the Egyptians nearly allowed a similar occurrence as US Cairo embassy was attacked; Sudan and Yemen would not even allow US marines in to protect US lives and assets; President Morsi would not issue an unequivocal condemnation of the Cairo attack! While Egyptian officials expressed sympathy in English tweets, their Arabic version justified the US embassy attacks! Obama now reminds of Jimmy Carter during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980! Anyone who thinks this was a spontaneous reaction to a stupid film is irredeemably naïve!!! In his eagerness to build friendly relations with Arab and Middle-East nations, Obama ended up projecting weakness and simple-mindedness. Hopefully he (and Clinton) will snap out of romantic delusions and begin to define US foreign policy based on substance, geo-politics, interests, shared values and pursuit of global peace.

The Lagos Road Traffic Law

I alluded to the new Lagos State Road Traffic Law in my article “A law and order state” a few weeks back. In a recent interaction with the Lagos State attorney-general, Ade Ipaye, he asserted that “the law fundamentally goes beyond road traffic to issues of how we use our roads and the unacceptable road culture in Lagos; impact of road traffic behaviour on economic productivity; impact of road traffic culture on social relations and society as a whole” or words to the same effect. I agree with the honourable attorney-general and more! My personal view has always been that the way we manage traffic in Lagos affects our livelihoods, mobility, quality of life, economic productivity, mental and physical health, safety, environment and life expectancy, tourism prospects and security. Indeed, it fundamentally defines us as a people – the type of culture and civilisation we are trying to bequeath to our children, and whether we seek to build a society based on law and order. As Ade Ipaye argued, let’s examine where we are coming from and what unfortunately we have come to accept – a society in which the average citizen wakes up at 4am every working day and goes to bed around 11 o’clock every night essentially due to traffic constraints! That Citizen Ade, Olu or Ola leaves his or her home by 4.30-5am to escape excruciating traffic, yet spends the next two hours in traffic, arriving the office drained and exhausted. Those who leave their homes later than 6am will usually spend hours sitting in slow moving (or no moving) traffic and essentially go to the office to rest from their daily ordeal while dreading their inevitable return journey home. The impact on economic productivity is severe, and there is no doubt that traffic and road usage are significant contributing factors to low national productivity. There are many obstacles on the way – commercial motorcycles in their thousands (some statistics say millions, in Lagos State alone!) ridden by untrained, illiterate, often under-age riders weave in and out of traffic causing accidents and daily deaths and injury; bus drivers high on “paraga”, “ogogoro”, and, I heard a new one recently, “seven-seven”, drive recklessly and irresponsibly like mad men causing obstructions and scratching cars as they go; some guy in a hurry suddenly opts to drive against traffic, and as he gets away with it, hundreds other motorists follow his example leading to predictable gridlock, and everyone coming thereafter is condemned to spend one hour at the spot before the confusion tapers off! Meanwhile, as they wait, armed robbers on “okada” take advantage, robbing people as they are stuck immobile in traffic. During the day these robbers operate; at night, they have a field day! In a modern society, we accept all these and worse – we accept that motor parks should be places where alcohol and drugs are sold; indeed, we laugh and joke at the notion that virtually all bus drivers and their conductors are high on intoxicating substances, and yet we proceed to enter those same buses; we see people die and maimed every day from “okada” accidents, yet we act like it’s an unavoidable state of affairs; we see these “okadas”, despite the high accident rate, carry pregnant women and children or people carrying heavy luggage, yet we think society can or should be organised in this manner; street traders add hours to our travel time and we don’t complain – indeed, some of us buy meat, pepper, electronics, textiles and virtually all our household provisions in traffic! We struggle for right of way with “omolanke” and refuse cart pushers who inevitably scratch our cars and buses, but I guess we say “that’s life”! Some big man gets fed up with all the bedlam and seeks to insulate himself by equipping his car with a siren and patrol vehicle, with which he drives all of us off the road, and we say “that’s life”! Trailers park on one lane of a two-lane road, and that’s life? Windscreen wipers, often under-age children who should be in school, intimidate and blackmail us on the road, and that’s life! We hear that most robberies are now conducted on “okada”; we hear that the overwhelming proportion of injuries and fatalities reported at outpatient wards of general hospitals are caused by “okadas” and “that’s life”? What type of people are we? What type of society and culture are we trying to create? What civilisation is this that we are willing to live in? And then people focus on the punishments! I have a friend who has lived in Canada until recently and yet complains about the punishment for one-way driving. Have you ever seen someone drive against traffic in Canada, United Kingdom, USA, Ghana, or South Africa? If someone does, he would clearly be presumed to be insane. What is inevitable about such behaviour that all we complain about is the punishment? Why should we condone drunk and or reckless driving in spite of the high price that society pays in economic and social costs? Why should we accept road behaviour that would be inconceivable in other parts of the world? Why should we keep talking about the good things in other societies when we are unwilling to pay the price they paid, and still pay?