Dignifying Labour In Nigeria

I have been following with keen interest the recent strike embarked upon by members of the Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie – led Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), likewise the various comments from some of the concerned stakeholders, each advocating ways of ending the strike. My interest was influenced by two main factors; first as a former student and second as a former university teacher though in the United Kingdom. I could relate to what the affected students are going through especially those in their final year because my graduation and NYSC call – up was almost derailed by the many ASUU strikes of the 90s when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Uyo particularly the long forced stay-at-home in 1992. This was in the days of the Attahiru Jega – led ASUU.

As generous as the federal government’s 40% salary increase offer made by the federal government appointed Gamaliel Onosode Re-negotiating committee to ASUU may seem, as against the 109% increase the lecturers are asking for; ASUU maintains that the issue goes beyond money, that they are actually looking at the bigger issue of access to university education in Nigeria. As the impasse continues to the disadvantage of the students, one can see a servant (ASUU) / master (federal government) relationship at play once again which may have influenced the application of the ‘tokenism’ concept by the master in resolving the issue to the neglect of the other issues ASUU has raised. Whatever ASUU may be fighting for, the current strike has provided a good opportunity for the government and employers of labour in Nigeria to look at the recurring issue of employee welfare and benefits in Nigeria.

A casual look at many of the sectors will easily expose the disparity in conditions of service amongst the various categories of staff. There is now a ‘we’ against ‘them’ culture in place in many organisations and sectors which also reflects in compensation and conditions of service; the ‘we’ being the high salary earners with mouth-watering perks, and the ‘them’ being those caught unfortunately in the bottom cadre, including artisans and other sundry service providers such as vulcanisers, bricklayers, drivers, mechanics, cooks, office assistants etc who service and prop up the ‘high yallas’.

One need not be a sociologist to observe that the great disparity in pay and conditions of services has led to a condition I chose to describe as the ‘dehumanisation of the Nigerian worker’, and the ‘pauperisation of the professions’. This has resulted in a crisis of confidence, and forced extinguishing of the career dreams of some of those who find themselves practicing certain trades and rendering certain services in Nigeria which society seem to have come to regard as dead-beats but this should not be so.

It is as if the Nigerian society accords no regards and dignity to drivers, teachers, nurses, members of the police force and other armed services, tradesmen and other artisans hence the very low wages and income they earn. It may seem also that some of these categories of workers have come to accept the presumed low status of their jobs, and also fail to see how their services contribute to national development, thus, they do not act in ways that dignify their labour and profession. Sometimes in Nigeria, if you bring a workman or artisan into your home, you are asking for trouble. If you look the other way, he or she will rob you dry just like the guys that came to do some repairs at my house the other day. I haven’t set my eyes on my Samsung camera or my Diesel wrist watch since they left, and who knows what else? Take your car to be fixed by the mechanic and all he may be thinking about is how to take some of your car spare parts and replace them with bad or reconditioned ones. It is as if the culture of cheating has now been entrenched in all the trades and professions.

During this ASUU strike period, I found myself visiting the Bar Beach police station on Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos where my trusted driver of almost 16 months was being detained on suspicion of stealing my Nokia handset containing my United Kingdom T-Mobile contract SIM card which he used to chalk up calls of over two thousand four hundred pounds (£2,400) without my knowledge, an offence he readily admitted to in addition to confessions of other stuffs he has been stealing from me.

While attending to this matter, the opportunity presented itself severally to banter with some of the police officers I met at the station. I came away with the impression that yes, some members of the police force do take bribes but perhaps the government and the Police Service Commission are yet to grasp the ticking time bomb they have on their hands as they continue to play politics with the issue of police welfare, training and equipment, the lack of which may be at the root of all the other issues bedevilling the police force in Nigeria. During one of my visits, I met a band of junior police officers celebrating a recent promotion, on enquiry, one of them told me that his has been 16 years in coming. How can this be acceptable?

This scenario also plays itself out in the education, health and other strategic sectors. From the Bar Beach police station, you could see the multi-storey building located at the back which serves as barracks or quarters to some of the police officers. The run-down building can only be described as somebody’s nightmare and you wouldn’t expect any police officer living inside any of the flats to come to work in the morning with bright ideas of how to crack the rising armed robbery and kidnapping menace in Nigeria. I am told that police barracks all over Nigeria are also in similar states, and some are in even worse conditions.

Back in the United Kingdom, I was attracted to university teaching because it was one of the highly regarded professions. Alongside members of the Police Authorities, Nurses and other allied health workers, teachers were categorised as Key workers by the UK government. Around 2002/2003, we all benefitted from a scheme introduced by the UK government known as Key Worker Living Scheme. The scheme gave priority social housing to members of the profession I mentioned who are covered by the scheme. The U.K government also gave qualifying key workers the sum of £50,000 as down payment towards the purchase of their own homes. Aspiring teachers had their Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) teacher training tuition paid for them and also received a bursary of £6,000 during their training year. Science, Maths, Engineering and shortage subjects teachers received higher bursaries and a special ‘golden hello’ sum of £10,000 if they completed their training and signed on to a teaching job. Teachers’ salaries were comprehensively reviewed upwards and in most cases were higher than what the private sector was paying. This led to many people leaving banks and other private establishments to join teaching. For both the teachers, the government and the society, one could see a high regard for the teaching profession, and the teachers really felt a sense of dignity of labour and didn’t have to wait till they got to heaven for their reward.

While you may think that the teachers were having it all laid out for them on a golden plate, a massive shortage of skills hit the trade sector comprising plumbers, bricklayers, technicians, builders, electricians and such other skilled and semi-skilled craftsmen. These category of workers commanded higher hourly rates than even the teachers and some city workers. Around this time, there was a reported case of a university teacher resigning his teaching job to learn the plumbing trade. These tradesmen or ‘white van men’ as they are called view their job with a high sense of professionalism, they are dedicated to good workmanship hence the high premium they charge and the society also recognises their importance and compensates them adequately.

In our own situation, such tradesmen may have been pushed to view themselves in negative lights hence the low fees many of them attract. Rather than looking at ways to add value to the work they do, many like my driver have now resorted to underhand activities to live a lifestyle they have not worked hard for. A driver today wants to live big like his Oga, without knowing that his so-called Oga may have paid his dues along the way offering similar type of services in the past before getting to where he may be in life presently. My driver could not believe it the day I told him all the different odd jobs I did when I went to Europe newly; from cleaning office complexes to loading containers at a clothing factory, later graduating to dish washing at a hotel, driving Nigeria - bound cars from Germany to London, and later still as a student, working nights as a security officer while I went to college in the day.

It was at the police station that I told the investigating police officer what I thought the problem with our society was. People, particularly young people are so much in a hurry to reap where they did not sow, workers not having a passion for the work they do, the society not having any regard for some type of professions and workers. There is so little pride left among the professions. In Nigeria, unless you work in a bank, oil, telecommunications or any of the other upscale fat-salary paying professions, the society appears to have little regard for you. There is no longer dignity of labour but great nations have always been built on the strength of the productivity of skilled and semi-skilled workers whose services are recognised, appreciated and rewarded accordingly.

President Obama's Speech In Accra-Ghana

Good morning. It is an honor for me to be in Accra, and to speak to the representatives of the people of Ghana. I am deeply grateful for the welcome that I've received, as are Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama. Ghana's history is rich, the ties between our two countries are strong, and I am proud that this is my first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as President of the United States.
I am speaking to you at the end of a long trip. I began in Russia, for a Summit between two great powers. I traveled to Italy, for a meeting of the world's leading economies. And I have come here, to Ghana, for a simple reason: the 21st century will be shaped by what happens not just in Rome or Moscow or Washington, but by what happens in Accra as well.
This is the simple truth of a time when the boundaries between people are overwhelmed by our connections. Your prosperity can expand America's. Your health and security can contribute to the world's. And the strength of your democracy can help advance human rights for people everywhere.
So I do not see the countries and peoples of Africa as a world apart; I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world — as partners with America on behalf of the future that we want for all our children. That partnership must be grounded in mutual responsibility, and that is what I want to speak with you about today.
We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans.
I say this knowing full well the tragic past that has sometimes haunted this part of the world. I have the blood of Africa within me, and my family's own story encompasses both the tragedies and triumphs of the larger African story.
My grandfather was a cook for the British in Kenya, and though he was a respected elder in his village, his employers called him "boy" for much of his life. He was on the periphery of Kenya's liberation struggles, but he was still imprisoned briefly during repressive times. In his life, colonialism wasn't simply the creation of unnatural borders or unfair terms of trade — it was something experienced personally, day after day, year after year.
My father grew up herding goats in a tiny village, an impossible distance away from the American universities where he would come to get an education. He came of age at an extraordinary moment of promise for Africa. The struggles of his own father's generation were giving birth to new nations, beginning right here in Ghana. Africans were educating and asserting themselves in new ways. History was on the move.
But despite the progress that has been made — and there has been considerable progress in parts of Africa — we also know that much of that promise has yet to be fulfilled. Countries like Kenya, which had a per capita economy larger than South Korea's when I was born, have been badly outpaced. Disease and conflict have ravaged parts of the African continent. In many places, the hope of my father's generation gave way to cynicism, even despair.
It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants. In my father's life, it was partly tribalism and patronage in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for far too many.
Of course, we also know that is not the whole story. Here in Ghana, you show us a face of Africa that is too often overlooked by a world that sees only tragedy or the need for charity. The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on a firmer footing, with peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections. And with improved governance and an emerging civil society, Ghana's economy has shown impressive rates of growth.
This progress may lack the drama of the 20th century's liberation struggles, but make no mistake: it will ultimately be more significant. For just as it is important to emerge from the control of another nation, it is even more important to build one's own.
So I believe that this moment is just as promising for Ghana — and for Africa — as the moment when my father came of age and new nations were being born. This is a new moment of promise. Only this time, we have learned that it will not be giants like Nkrumah and Kenyatta who will determine Africa's future. Instead, it will be you — the men and women in Ghana's Parliament, and the people you represent. Above all, it will be the young people — brimming with talent and energy and hope — who can claim the future that so many in my father's generation never found.
To realize that promise, we must first recognize a fundamental truth that you have given life to in Ghana: development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.
As for America and the West, our commitment must be measured by more than just the dollars we spend. I have pledged substantial increases in our foreign assistance, which is in Africa's interest and America's. But the true sign of success is not whether we are a source of aid that helps people scrape by — it is whether we are partners in building the capacity for transformational change.
This mutual responsibility must be the foundation of our partnership. And today, I will focus on four areas that are critical to the future of Africa and the entire developing world: democracy; opportunity; health; and the peaceful resolution of conflict.
First, we must support strong and sustainable democratic governments.
As I said in Cairo, each nation gives life to democracy in its own way, and in line with its own traditions. But history offers a clear verdict: governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable and more successful than governments that do not.
This is about more than holding elections — it's also about what happens between them. Repression takes many forms, and too many nations are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers. No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end.
In the 21st century, capable, reliable and transparent institutions are the key to success — strong parliaments and honest police forces; independent judges and journalists; a vibrant private sector and civil society. Those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in peoples' lives.
Time and again, Ghanaians have chosen Constitutional rule over autocracy, and shown a democratic spirit that allows the energy of your people to break through. We see that in leaders who accept defeat graciously, and victors who resist calls to wield power against the opposition. We see that spirit in courageous journalists like Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who risked his life to report the truth. We see it in police like Patience Quaye, who helped prosecute the first human trafficker in Ghana. We see it in the young people who are speaking up against patronage and participating in the political process.
Across Africa, we have seen countless examples of people taking control of their destiny and making change from the bottom up. We saw it in Kenya, where civil society and business came together to help stop postelection violence. We saw it in South Africa, where over three quarters of the country voted in the recent election — the fourth since the end of apartheid. We saw it in Zimbabwe, where the Election Support Network braved brutal repression to stand up for the principle that a person's vote is their sacred right.
Make no mistake: history is on the side of these brave Africans and not with those who use coups or change Constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.
America will not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation — the essential truth of democracy is that each nation determines its own destiny. What we will do is increase assistance for responsible individuals and institutions, with a focus on supporting good governance — on parliaments, which check abuses of power and ensure that opposition voices are heard; on the rule of law, which ensures the equal administration of justice; on civic participation, so that young people get involved; and on concrete solutions to corruption like forensic accounting, automating services, strengthening hot lines and protecting whistle-blowers to advance transparency and accountability.
As we provide this support, I have directed my administration to give greater attention to corruption in our human rights report. People everywhere should have the right to start a business or get an education without paying a bribe. We have a responsibility to support those who act responsibly and to isolate those who don't, and that is exactly what America will do.
This leads directly to our second area of partnership — supporting development that provides opportunity for more people.
With better governance, I have no doubt that Africa holds the promise of a broader base for prosperity. The continent is rich in natural resources. And from cell phone entrepreneurs to small farmers, Africans have shown the capacity and commitment to create their own opportunities. But old habits must also be broken. Dependence on commodities — or on a single export — concentrates wealth in the hands of the few and leaves people too vulnerable to downturns.
In Ghana, for instance, oil brings great opportunities, and you have been responsible in preparing for new revenue. But as so many Ghanaians know, oil cannot simply become the new cocoa. From South Korea to Singapore, history shows that countries thrive when they invest in their people and infrastructure; when they promote multiple export industries, develop a skilled work force and create space for small and medium-sized businesses that create jobs.
As Africans reach for this promise, America will be more responsible in extending our hand. By cutting costs that go to Western consultants and administration, we will put more resources in the hands of those who need it, while training people to do more for themselves. That is why our $3.5 billion food security initiative is focused on new methods and technologies for farmers — not simply sending American producers or goods to Africa. Aid is not an end in itself. The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it is no longer needed.
America can also do more to promote trade and investment. Wealthy nations must open our doors to goods and services from Africa in a meaningful way. And where there is good governance, we can broaden prosperity through public-private partnerships that invest in better roads and electricity; capacity-building that trains people to grow a business; and financial services that reach poor and rural areas. This is also in our own interest — for if people are lifted out of poverty and wealth is created in Africa, new markets will open for our own goods.
One area that holds out both undeniable peril and extraordinary promise is energy. Africa gives off less greenhouse gas than any other part of the world, but it is the most threatened by climate change. A warming planet will spread disease, shrink water resources and deplete crops, creating conditions that produce more famine and conflict. All of us — particularly the developed world — have a responsibility to slow these trends — through mitigation, and by changing the way that we use energy. But we can also work with Africans to turn this crisis into opportunity.
Together, we can partner on behalf of our planet and prosperity and help countries increase access to power while skipping the dirtier phase of development. Across Africa, there is bountiful wind and solar power; geothermal energy and bio-fuels. From the Rift Valley to the North African deserts; from the Western coast to South Africa's crops — Africa's boundless natural gifts can generate its own power, while exporting profitable, clean energy abroad.
These steps are about more than growth numbers on a balance sheet. They're about whether a young person with an education can get a job that supports a family; a farmer can transfer their goods to the market; or an entrepreneur with a good idea can start a business. It's about the dignity of work. Its about the opportunity that must exist for Africans in the 21st century.
Just as governance is vital to opportunity, it is also critical to the third area that I will talk about — strengthening public health.
In recent years, enormous progress has been made in parts of Africa. Far more people are living productively with HIV/AIDS, and getting the drugs they need. But too many still die from diseases that shouldn't kill them. When children are being killed because of a mosquito bite, and mothers are dying in childbirth, then we know that more progress must be made.
Yet because of incentives — often provided by donor nations — many African doctors and nurses understandably go overseas, or work for programs that focus on a single disease. This creates gaps in primary care and basic prevention. Meanwhile, individual Africans also have to make responsible choices that prevent the spread of disease, while promoting public health in their communities and countries.
Across Africa, we see examples of people tackling these problems. In Nigeria, an interfaith effort of Christians and Muslims has set an example of cooperation to confront malaria. Here in Ghana and across Africa, we see innovative ideas for filling gaps in care — for instance, through E-Health initiatives that allow doctors in big cities to support those in small towns.
America will support these efforts through a comprehensive, global health strategy. Because in the 21st century, we are called to act by our conscience and our common interest. When a child dies of a preventable illness in Accra, that diminishes us everywhere. And when disease goes unchecked in any corner of the world, we know that it can spread across oceans and continents.
That is why my administration has committed $63 billion to meet these challenges. Building on the strong efforts of President Bush, we will carry forward the fight against HIV/AIDS. We will pursue the goal of ending deaths from malaria and tuberculosis, and eradicating polio. We will fight neglected tropical disease. And we won't confront illnesses in isolation — we will invest in public health systems that promote wellness and focus on the health of mothers and children.
As we partner on behalf of a healthier future, we must also stop the destruction that comes not from illness, but from human beings — and so the final area that I will address is conflict.
Now let me be clear: Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at war. But for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fighting among faiths and tribes.
These conflicts are a millstone around Africa's neck. We all have many identities — of tribe and ethnicity; of religion and nationality. But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe, or who worships a different prophet, has no place in the 21st century. Africa's diversity should be a source of strength, not a cause for division. We are all God's children. We all share common aspirations — to live in peace and security; to access education and opportunity; to love our families, our communities, and our faith. That is our common humanity.
That is why we must stand up to inhumanity in our midst. It is never justifiable to target innocents in the name of ideology. It is the death sentence of a society to force children to kill in wars. It is the ultimate mark of criminality and cowardice to condemn women to relentless and systematic rape. We must bear witness to the value of every child in Darfur and the dignity of every woman in Congo. No faith or culture should condone the outrages against them. All of us must strive for the peace and security necessary for progress.
Africans are standing up for this future. Here, too, Ghana is helping to point the way forward. Ghanaians should take pride in your contributions to peacekeeping from Congo to Liberia to Lebanon, and in your efforts to resist the scourge of the drug trade. We welcome the steps that are being taken by organizations like the African Union and ECOWAS to better resolve conflicts, keep the peace, and support those in need. And we encourage the vision of a strong, regional security architecture that can bring effective, transnational force to bear when needed.
America has a responsibility to advance this vision, not just with words, but with support that strengthens African capacity. When there is genocide in Darfur or terrorists in Somalia, these are not simply African problems — they are global security challenges, and they demand a global response. That is why we stand ready to partner through diplomacy, technical assistance, and logistical support, and will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable. And let me be clear: our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold in the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa and the world.
In Moscow, I spoke of the need for an international system where the universal rights of human beings are respected, and violations of those rights are opposed. That must include a commitment to support those who resolve conflicts peacefully, to sanction and stop those who don't, and to help those who have suffered. But ultimately, it will be vibrant democracies like Botswana and Ghana which roll back the causes of conflict, and advance the frontiers of peace and prosperity.
As I said earlier, Africa's future is up to Africans.
The people of Africa are ready to claim that future. In my country, African-Americans — including so many recent immigrants — have thrived in every sector of society. We have done so despite a difficult past, and we have drawn strength from our African heritage. With strong institutions and a strong will, I know that Africans can live their dreams in Nairobi and Lagos; in Kigali and Kinshasa; in Harare and right here in Accra.
Fifty-two years ago, the eyes of the world were on Ghana. And a young preacher named Martin Luther King traveled here, to Accra, to watch the Union Jack come down and the Ghanaian flag go up. This was before the march on Washington or the success of the civil rights movement in my country. Dr. King was asked how he felt while watching the birth of a nation. And he said: "It renews my conviction in the ultimate triumph of justice."
Now, that triumph must be won once more, and it must be won by you. And I am particularly speaking to the young people. In places like Ghana, you make up over half of the population. Here is what you must know: the world will be what you make of it.
You have the power to hold your leaders accountable and to build institutions that serve the people. You can serve in your communities and harness your energy and education to create new wealth and build new connections to the world. You can conquer disease, end conflicts and make change from the bottom up. You can do that. Yes you can. Because in this moment, history is on the move.
But these things can only be done if you take responsibility for your future. It won't be easy. It will take time and effort. There will be suffering and setbacks. But I can promise you this: America will be with you. As a partner. As a friend. Opportunity won't come from any other place, though — it must come from the decisions that you make, the things that you do, and the hope that you hold in your hearts.
Freedom is your inheritance. Now, it is your responsibility to build upon freedom's foundation. And if you do, we will look back years from now to places like Accra and say that this was the time when the promise was realized — this was the moment when prosperity was forged; pain was overcome; and a new era of progress began. This can be the time when we witness the triumph of justice once more. Thank you.

What’s Obama Looking At?

Obama is human afterall, confirmed. This must be President Sarkozy’s thoughts as he stood bemused at the sight that got the American President looking like a High school kid on a first date. The sartorial Obama looking dapper as ever like a model out of a GQ page must be wondering why the object of his desire didn’t even bother to cast a look his way. Who says you can have it all, and where is Michelle when you need her?

A Recap of some of the Week’s Headlines

Fellow compatriots, just in case you missed some of the week’s headlines, here is a recap:

Varsity teachers go on indefinite strike. Govt blames oil firms for Niger Delta crises. Robbers kill two policemen. Transcorp chiefs get bail. Uduaghan locks out commissioners, others for late coming. Oshiomole denies role in governors, Harvard pact. Adamawa ANPP sacks chairman. Suspected kidnappers kill two brothers in Akwa Ibom. Police release 185 on bail over Bama unrest. Bauchi NLC rejects reforms, threatens strike. Ekiti shuts news stations, sends workers home. Suswan faults critics of Nigeria Rebrand. Madness in Bama. LAWMA warns reckless compactor- truck drivers. All-share index dips further as market capitalisation drops. Police Service Commission reviews dismissed officers’ cases.Kumuyi decries youth unemployment. Labour protest moves to Maiduguri today. OAUTHC workers give conditions for halting strike. Labour tasks CBN governor on stronger naira. Edo abolishes casualisation in civil service. Nigeria’s attitude to child right is abysmal. U.S. bound passengers stranded at Lagos airport. Senate worries over 2009 budget. (Guardian, Tuesday, June 23rd 2009).

FG can’t beat militants. Orkar Coup: Oyinlola exposes Tony Nyiam. Man, 53, arraigned for fraud. Police kill 2 robbery suspects, arrest one. Abacha’s son set to join PDP. Police clash with kidnapers as doctor regains freedom. N’Delta victims still in hiding. Pro-democracy protest: security beefed up at NASS. Ekiti radio, TV shut indefinitely. Supreme court justice expresses worry over court congestion. NAFDAC engages Interpol to fight illegal importation of fake drugs. Panic grips oil firms in Rivers. Itse Sagay decries election rigging. Bayelsa unmasks ghost workers cartel. JTF probes attack on N4bn dredger. (Daily Sun, Tuesday, June 23rd 2009).

$180m Halliburton scam: Senate flays Aondoakaa for ignoring invitations. Yar’Adua seeks scrapping of REA, backs death penalty. Deregulation: Labour vows to ground economy. SSS arrests Asari-Dokubo as FG, militants meet. Drama as plot to remove Reps’ chief whip fails. 52 Delta communities sue FG, seek N100bn damages. Tokyo arraigned for murder, remanded in police custody. Patients vacate OAUTH a strike bites harder. Assembly declares ‘emergency’ on federal roads in Edo. Ekiti lawmakers, Oni may clash over BSES.EFCC to charge IMO VC to court for fraud. FCC summons PTDF. World Bank’s, CBN governor’s comments rock stock market. Fashola sounds the alarm over low quality telecom masts. Naira dips versus dollar. Ohabunwa laments inadequate funding of drug research. Group tasks Obi on security. Nigeria named 15th most vulnerable country in the world. Sports: Death, ‘accord’ marred league season. (The Punch, Wednesday, June 24th 2009).

We’ll surrender Friday; Bin Laden, Ateke Tom, Boyloaf, other militants pledge. Alleged Forgery: Police quiz Aregbesola’s lawyer. Strike: FG rebuffs ASUU. Niger House crises: PDP fingers IBB. Drug peddling: FG orders security beefed up at airports. Ribadu faces extradition as tribunal fixes trial for Sept 23. Nigerian worker lives on N40 daily –NLC boss. Crises in Oyo NURTW. The fake lecturers of Ebonyi.. UK: Married Nigerian clergyman defrocked for having sex with church cleaner. (Nigerian Tribune, Wednesday, June 24th 2009).

Nigeria runs out of crude, refineries shut. World Bank to upgrade Nigeria's airports with $11m. Court okays sack of Ondo council chiefs. Slok Airline ends operations in The Gambia. Oil demand drops to record level since 1982, says BP. Illegal LASTMA officials in Lagos. Relocation of Nigeria's industrial outfits to Ghana worries Lagos lawmakers. FEC suspends new contracts’ approval. Nigeria, Russia sign pact on nuclear energy. Reps to tackle presidency over budget. Labour threatens to join ASUU strike. Two feared killed as drug dealers, NDLEA clash.Obi reads riot act to commercial cyclists.EFCC arrests film institute’s chief. Ekiti NUJ faults media chief over closure of stations. Adamawa health workers begin strike over pay.Residents raise alarm over ‘poisonous Asian rice’ in Sokoto, Kaduna, others. Edo council officials petition House over alleged bribe-for-pay rise.Anambra PDP set to curb Uba’s claim to governorship ticket. Bauchi probes fertiliser firm. PTDF boss bemons dearth of skilled personnel in oil, gas industry. Akpabio gives hospital deadline to explain ex-governor’s death. Europol, others arrest Nigerians for sex traficking. Lawmakers reject new revenue bill. (Guardian, Thursday, June 25th 2009).

2.3GHz: Who is mastermind of alleged forged petition? Court Grants Three Oceanic Bank Staff Accused of Stealing over N24m Bail. MAN Decries Low Performance of Industrial Sector. FRSC, EFCC move against fake driver licences. Crude supplies to refineries ‘ll dry up in 15 days —NNPC. Retired soldiers to protest pension arrears. Killer rice floods Northern states. OGONI NINE: ‘Shell’s compensation can cause friction in future’. Charge electoral offenders with crime against democracy —Justice Ayoola, ICPC boss. N800m consignment trapped at port over absence of cargo handling equipment. Share value dips further by N163bn, as 21 stocks gain. (Vanguard, Thursday, June 25th 2009).

The Case of Chris D and Chris O

I recently stumbled on Backwater Views, the blog site of a South African living in Saigon. In the post Leaving Lagos, he shares the story of two Nigerians (Chris D and Chris O) living in Vietnam which I thought makes interesting reading. Check it out.

Operation “Throw My Shoe at Nigerian Looters”

By Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh

The Nigerian socio-political space is now a socio-pathological “Absurdistan”; an iniquitous amphitheatre, dedicated to the atrocious eroticization of political stupidity. This arena has degenerated into an essential arena where hopeless ignorance meets primeval greed. The leadership is not only intellectually challenged, irredeemably myopic and visionless, but convokes a conglomerate of petty egoisms, whose sole vocation in life remains the congenital consultation of primitive greed and the celebration of fraudulence in its most atavistic forms.
It has matriculated into a realm of infernal iniquity and political simony, where the ability to consult or advertise superlative impunity in celebrating the most atrocious of political brigandage, is the only admission fee. Such a congress naturally attracts the most destructive strains of visionless opportunism, sycophancy bordering on socio-historical imbecility, and the worst variants of Machiavellian perfidy. But its Nigerian impress confounds belief and floors the imagination. The internal syllogisms of such convocation, coupled with Nigeria’s peculiar history, and social evolutionary experience, conduced to our political space surrendering itself to the obscene banditry of monstrous hooligans and high-level charlatans.

From this temple of infamy, Nigerians are daily deluged with bacchanalian orgies of political debauchery, from the political and elite class, whose vocation in sane climes, is to drive the development of their people and confer dignity on the sources of social legitimacy, by their dignified actions, considered comportment, and utterances in public and in private. Such debaucheries stretching from the bland pedestrian to the sanctuaries of the hyper-ridiculous, has continued not only to affront our sensibilities, but to deny our land of development and its place in the apogee of human achievement. In the clutches of such purveyors of anomie, our land risks being embezzled unto extinction or surrendered to the bowels of history as one of the most tragic of comic disappointments in African political chronicles.

brings new scandals in its wake, which is in competition with its previous incarnations and latter epiphanies, to dwarf commonsense with their brazenness and ability to shock our multiply brutalized, and shell-shocked sensibilities. A visit to any online news portal or weblog dealing on Nigeria on any day; a mandatory pilgrimage to which many of us are daily condemned by the nebulous and mysterious medley of distance, bi or multilocational impossibility, technology and the love of our homeland; you be left in no doubt that the Nigerian public space is hostage to the intellectual filth and scandalous obscenities of haughty micro-emperors and midget conquistadores going by the name of politicians and public servants. Every such visit leaves a bland taste of hopelessness, and anger in one’s heart by what a cabal of scoundrels have made of Nigeria; conscripting our active collusion, postural apathy, or conspiratorial silence and inaction to their reign of knavery.

One such scandals that has unforgivably flogged my fragile sensibilities shitless for a week now, is the news report that a group of Nigerian governors under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) dressed themselves in infamy, marched up to the guardians of knowledge in an American university; Harvard to be precise; and begged and pleaded in obsequious servility unbecoming of their office, to be allowed to come and celebrate their ignorance in her hallowed halls. They allegedly signed an MOU, which they proudly published to thumb the face of Nigerians and indicate their disdain for the Nigerian educational system. Harvard issued a wooden denial. The Nigerian governors according to news reports went on the offensive, drumming it down our throats that there was an MOU to that effect. The truth of the matter is buried somewhere in between the two parties. But what is undeniable is that there were contacts between the parties in question, and intentions were expressed to have Nigerian governors come to Harvard for the said capacity building exercise. What Harvard is denying is that it does not indicate an official sanction of what is still in process.

What is seriously disturbing is that such a move could be made by Nigerian governors, without giving thoughts to the message their actions would be sending to the world in relation to our own local universities in Nigeria? It beggars belief that after all the accusations we lay at the feet of colonialism for both its guilt and our own self-tailor problems, our leaders are still conceptually colonized and so very mis-educated that everything that comes from the Whiteman’s land is the best for us. It pains my heart that these leaders would elect to mutilate a perfect right foot in other to look like a left foot because “Massa’s” foot is left.

Over and above that, one then begins to wonder how low a man could stoop to disgrace himself with a pomp and pageantry that attests to a diseased, consolidated, and irredeemable ignorance and self-loathing; let alone, governors of States, in the most populous Black nation on earth. How could Nigerians empower such constellations of individual ignorance and inferiority complex, to pretend to the majesty of our offices? What is it in our political genes that recommend our abiding such a tasteless insult to all that we cherish? Are we a people bereft of pride, as to be so very willing to lap up every inanity that comes from the West because it bears a name, made reputable by its owners in service to their objectives, which never included us in the first place?

The questions could not stop flowing in my shocked mind. Why go to Harvard to get educated on how not to steal state’s resources in obeisance to their avarice? Do we need Harvard to make a governor know that his primary responsibility lies in attending to the needs and welfare of his people? What can Harvard teach these men of ill-repute about patriotism and democratic practice? How could these guys pass a vote of no confidence on Nigerian universities, and turn around to wonder why our graduates are unemployable? Why tell the world that our universities cannot withstand global competition?
They would not wonder why more and more Nigerian graduates are becoming armed robbers or kidnappers because they armed most of these guys in the first place, to butcher anybody legitimately opposed to their gubernatorial ambitions. They would give no hoot to that since they marshal and conscript half the men and resources of the State Police into their obscenely ostentatious entourages, as well as that of their wives and mistresses; and convert the remainder into their “mai guards” (watch and gatemen). To this end, armed robbers can ravage ordinary citizens in their homes, which they have walled-in like some Super-maximum prison facilities with burglary proofs and high walls; waylay them on the notorious stretches of human abattoir or slaughter slab, pockmarked with pot and manholes, that we call roads; murder them in broad daylight on the streets on their way to work and play; storm houses of God and that of men; and even sack banks and market stalls, while the state, which we theoretically allowed the monopoly of violence to protect us looks on in grotesque paralysis; superlatively bereft of ideas.

If the Nigerian situation of today is not a testament to the consolidated ignorance manacling the leadership of the Nigerian state at all levels, I wonder what is. To this effect, one cannot be legitimately accused of defamation, if one asserts that the Nigerian leadership corridors, right from the lowest to the highest level, is in the thraldom of pervasive ignorance. We have battled hard to resist the temptation to say that Nigerian leaders at all levels, are simply self-aggrandizing nincompoops, but the action of the Nigerian Governors Forum signing an MOU with Harvard to train them on the content of their jobs, weakened and compromised our resistance.

Our anger knew no bounds in spite of the wooden apologetics of the paid hirelings and other mercenary voices oozing inanities in defence of such a profound affront to reason. The fact must be recognized for what it is. These governors who are nothing but absentee landlords came before the whole world to pass a vote of no confidence on Nigerian universities, by signing a Memorandum of Understanding for capacity building seminars for the Nigerian Governors with a foreign university. Are there no universities in Nigeria that can train these guys? This is to say that they know that the Nigerian educational system suffers compound dysfunctionality due to what they and their predecessors did to scuttle education in Nigeria. The same could be said of every other sector of our economy and national life. The kids of Nigerian governors and public officials do not study in Nigeria. How can they do that after their parents have succeeded in destroying every public utility and source of social legitimacy? They are soaking the best of western education on public funds. Our president buys his paracetamol at the HSK hospital Pharmacy in Wiesbaden, Germany. The legislators check their blood pressures in Paris, Washington, New York and some other Western capital. Why wouldn’t they? Their visionless squandermania, incompetence and primitive thievery have succeeded in forestalling the articulation of any healthy policy for our health system, and destroyed any policy that showed some potential of success.
Why wouldn’t they go to Harvard since the facilities in Nigerian universities today are the obsolete ones left by the founders some four odd decades ago?

The same could be seen in our infrastructures. The paltry ones dotting our landscape were in the many parts of the country, the ones left by the colonial masters. This attests to the fact that the British colonialists were more benign than the local colonialists that have ruled Nigeria from independence till date. The Niger Delta is the ultimate desecration and monumental testament to the failure and criminality of our ruling class. Sitting atop huge resources, our leadership and elitist class have succeeded in bequeathing Nigeria with inexcusable poverty that invites a revolution in climes where people still lay claims to sanity.

These fools in their impious and corrosive tomfoolery think that they are fooling anyone save themselves. In their haste to seek a new avenue to launder stolen public funds, they couldn’t come up with a smarter excuse. Harvard is an American university primarily attending to American needs, and the need of American world dominance policy. Anybody who is really thinking about capacity building for Nigerian actors in the art of governance, should first of all have consulted local universities in Nigeria, who have the epistemic privilege as well as the gneologic and ontological priority as far as it concerns knowledge of Nigerian political space and the complex dynamics and range of factors that gave it birth, sustains and nourishes it. There is nothing like local knowledge in proffering functional answers to contextual problems obtainable in their locality; much more than any external body ever could. But our governors feigned ignorance of this in obeisance to their conceptual slavery, and marched off to Harvard to advertise same on a global pulpit.

What these governors, nay African leadership actually need is above all, conceptual decolonization. They are still bestriding Nigeria with the same mindset, which informed colonial policies of her majesty’s errand boys sent to Africa, on the exploitative mission of raping the continent for British pleasure. The same dysfunctional conceptual scheme and pathological metaphysic is what our politicians have drank to the dregs; and which unfortunately informs their celebration of anomie in the Nigerian public space.

I have never known of a Western politician coming to Nsukka to consult the world renowned political scientist Prof. Asobie on political matters or any matters at all. George Bush will never consult our brilliant Wole Soyinka or how to rule the USA. Hilary Clinton, the American Secretary of State will never come to Igbobi to repair her fractured elbow. The German chancellor Merkel would never come to do her shopping at Alaba international or Ochanja market in Onitsha. But ask any Nigerian or African politician where they buy their underwear? These guys are so hopeless that they order toothpicks from China and bottled water from the Philippines. They have even passed a vote of no confidence on made in Nigeria Ashawos!!!! Abacha was not the only one that had that disease. Many of our tainted “honourables” come abroad to sleep with European prostitutes, with public money. Yet, they come, plate in hand to beg for aid from western governments. I wonder how many Nigerians are working in Western embassy except as drivers, cooks or cleaners, but a German sits in the deepest halls of the Nigerian embassy in Berlin, giving consular appointments to Nigerians, who needs consular services from their embassy.
You only need to mingle one day in decision making circles here in Europe to see the level of disdain and mockery that African leaders are subjected to. Many Western governments are now aware that every African minister or Nigerian public official is a potential money launderer. And they are gradually doing away with diplomatic niceties at their airports. Dora Akunyili, Nigeria’s information (read propaganda) minister, was frisked early this month at Chicago airport in utter violation of diplomatic protocol.

This is not even made better by the personal comportment of our officials when they are abroad. In fact, their personal comportment on such occasions makes you so very ashamed to have come from the same climes as these people. The bloated and noisy ostentation of their entourage, the ignorance and grovelling nature of their exchanges with European technocrats are so convulsively ugly that you keep wondering, why Africa is so cursed. Just as an aside, I was a participant at the German Bundestag-The German parliament, in the caucus of the CDU/CSU faction of the German government, about a week ago, where German foreign aid policy on Africa was discussed. An African president came in with his retinue of hangers on. First and foremost, he was so very late for the occasion. Secondly, on this day, it seemed that he had to depopulate his country to fill in his entourage. It is no exaggeration. Almost half of the men in his country were a part of this of this entourage that was flown to Germany at public expense. And they are there to seek help from Germany. Contrast this with the Germany chancellor Angela Merkel, who was billed to speak at 2.45pm on that day. AT 2.43pm. She walked into the hall with only four body guards and no fanfare. Very prompt, punctual and simple. It was a festival of contradictions in relation to our African entourage.

Back to our point: Against such backdrops, one cannot cease to marvel and get angry at the imbecility of African leaders and particularly Nigerian governors, who allowed themselves to be tainted by that monumental goof. I wonder what Harvard and its professors know about the deepest dynamics of the local context of Nigeria, which Nigerian universities is not ontologically prior in its possession, by the epistemic privilege arising from their being products of that environment, as well as its living, breathing part.

In the face of all these, one is at a loss for answers on why haven’t Nigerians risen up to chase these usurpers of our commonweal off our land. Anyone who passes a vote of no confidence on his charge has lost every moral right to continue to enjoy the duties and privileges of that office. These governors are shameless scoundrels. Asking a Nigerian public official to resign an office that he has desecrated is like asking faecal matter to give up its vocation of smelling. They would not. How do we get them to leave the office they have so despoiled and tainted with dishonour, when we cannot even vote on Election Day?
Electoral democracy in Nigeria since independence has remained a personification of farce. Charade in Excelsis! The Nigerian people who are supposed to be the repository of ultimate power are denied their voices, and stampeded into timid acquiescence. Once their silence is squeezed out of them, the trans-tribal cabal of Machiavellian opportunists bestriding our land like robber barons, then sit down to unveil new master plans and manifestos of embezzlement. With these blueprints in operation, Nigeria continues to generate darkness instead of power and light for her people. She continues to haemorrhage her resources into rogue pockets. The Nigerian state then graduates into the colossal cannibal, whose great vampyrean appetites must be regularly assuaged by the blood of her intellectuals, the poverty of her people, and the dysfunctionality of her institutions.

This has been the case that so much so, today, at the dawns of the 21st century, Nigeria in spite of boasting a brilliant population and superabundant natural resources remains a valley of tears for ordinary Nigerians who are now over 75 percent of the population, but a feudalistic paradise of medieval dimensions for the politician and man of power or wealth. This paradise is naturally irrigated by canals of milk and rivers of honey requisitioned off the poor, and accessible only to this tiny cabal of remorseless monsters ruling Nigeria, and their acquaintances. The land has remained an essential arena were obnoxious rascality has married an audacious impunity that is brazen, dangerous and impoverishing.

This explains why the fact that some Nigerian State governors would abandon their states to perennial dysfunctionality, and came to the United States of America, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Harvard University, so that Harvard will train them in the art of governance fills me with fiery rage. And that such a bunch of political scoundrels, whose political simonies bought desecrated gubernatorial offices for them, could throw all cautions to the wind, and elect to televise their consolidated stupidity to the world, and were not met at the airport with sacks of stones, and the fiery rage of an oppressed people, is a testament to the totalizing and pervasive political emasculation of the Nigerian populace.

This emasculation created a very unsettling equation in the Nigerian social space. This equation sired by a eons of bottled anger, and primitive appreciation of justice fertilizing the failure of the State to live up to its responsibilities of monopolizing violence, and guaranteeing justice; paved the way for a conceptual scheme and ratiocinative framework in which Nigerians are more likely to lynch petty thieves and celebrate monumental bandits.
The promulgation of this toxic equation went on to erode every semblance of restraint in the commission of high crimes against the commonweal, by those who could advertise raw, undiluted violence in their hijack and latchment to power; a pedestal from which they could celebrate the rascality, with ample impunity, and expect no sanctions of the law. But on the other hand, it equally eroded every restraint in the vengeful anger of an oppressed populace, to exact maximum punishment on their fellow wretched of the earth, for petty crimes, which may have been recommended by the terminal necessity to forestall gastronomic emergency.

This is why Nigerians have now resorted to giving chieftaincy titles to people like Andy and Chris Ubah, whom Nigerians have come to know as monumental rogues, while petty thieves or pick pockets caught in the act are roasted over some slow barbecues, convoked with tyres hung burning around their necks.
My question to Nigerians remains: why do we burn petty thieves and celebrate our governors? Who is worse? A guy who pilfers a few pennies to buy bread for his starving kids, or a president who stole billions of dollars he doesn’t need, to hire a Concord to fly his daughter to a wedding? On whom should the stones of our anger descend? On an Amina Lawal whom patriarchal arrogance designated an adulteress, or on an Ahmed Sanni Yerima, who sanctioned a cow-thief losing his wrist, but ended up stealing billions of his state’s funds and sitting in our senate to laugh at our timidity? Who should we lynch? A thug, who to earn some bread for his stomach snatches a ballot box or the president and politician, who, pursuant to stealing our mandate commissioned and underwrote that heist? Who should the armed robbers visit? The poor hapless Nigerians, who are not sure where the next meal would come from, or the Representa-THIEVES, who embezzled funds mapped for job creation for these youths? Who should the Niger Delta Militants kidnap? The innocent kids of parents legitimately earning their keep in Port Harcourt; or our officials, and their collaborators, who have cooked a soup of ecological infamy, off the Niger Delta landscape and resources?

Why is it that the aphorism “Do not steal because the government hates competition” has remained the operative principle of our men of power in Nigeria? Is it because we have empowered that with our silence, or because this cabal deploys the army and police force on any peaceful protest to break the will of the Nigerian people and secure Nigeria as their ngwongwo pot; thereby further consolidating our emasculation?

If the latter options in all these questions are the case, Nigerians should do the right thing. They should start now to gather stones for the job at hand. They should get ready to tell these guys who the real masters are. George Bush got a shoe thrown at him in Iraq for what the Iraqis perceive as the devastation of their land. The Harvard insult is a clarion call for all Nigerians, both at home and in the Diaspora to rise up and be counted. It is a fatwa passed on all Nigerian governors and public officials. It is the duty of every patriotic Nigerian to get his shoe and “takalami” ready to be hurled at any Nigerian governor or public official that visits a western capital, or the part of the western world where he resides.

For the Nigerian governors and public officials: we are going to make the globe so very hot for any of you that comes to any western capital to launder our funds again. We will never give the goldfish a hiding place any more. You guys have squandered my generation. We are not going to let you squander that of our children. Get ready; shoes will be landing on your faces pretty soon. You can ask George Bush what the experience is like. In Bush’s case, he was granted the immunity of occupying the powerful office in the world. But in your insignificant cases, the Western press and government will smile under the table and let us do our thing of hurling shoes at your inglorious faces. Ask Mr. Obasanjo what his London experience was like. This is a warning, you guys better stay put in Nigeria and start finding solutions to the mess that you have made of our homeland.

With this article, I am inaugurating a mass movement “Operation Throw my shoe at a looter”. This is a movement of Nigerians who are angry at what the politicians have made of Nigeria. We would pledge and dedicate ourselves to meeting Nigerian public officials of whatever configuration, and known looters of our treasury, who come to Europe or America for any public or private engagement whatsoever, with our shoes.

We would be throwing the shoes at them, like was done to George Bush in Iraq. With this we would be sending the message to the whole world that the era of African leaders and politicians coming to Europe or America, or any western capital to launder our funds or fuck white prostitutes with public funds are over. We are to inaugurate an end to the era when your paracetamols are purchased in Europe, your toothpicks in China and your blood pressures checked in Paris, while ordinary Nigerians are dying of curable diseases, hunger and ignorance.

I urge every Nigerian of goodwill to join this action.

For The Love of the Game

I have been tracking the summer transfer market in Europe, for lack of nothing better to do since the Premiership season ended and must say that Kaka’s £50M switch from AC Milan to Real Madrid, and Ronaldo’s impending £80M transfer to Real Madrid are transfers that will change the dynamics of world football forever.

We all know that squad assemblage in the magnitude being pursued by returning Real Madrid President Perez is no guarantee to winning silverware at the end of the season, afterall; didn’t we see this during his earlier tour of duty? During the Galaticos days of Roberto Carlos, Zidane and Beckham etc. However, what this Ronaldo transfer suggests is that maybe, it is about time that UEFA and the various European Football Associations created another league for Europe’s elite super rich clubs, the Madrids, Man Utds, and Chelseas because as the game stands now, it is no longer a level playing field. The Hull Citys and Getafes have been priced out.

Michel Platini, the UEFA President has said that the body would look into transfer pricing in Europe hoping to come up with a policy that ensures that smaller clubs are also able to attract top players.

What is El-Rufai’s Motive?

Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the diminutive former minister of Nigeria’s capital city Abuja has come out smoking in a recent essay which I suspect he wrote for the Kennedy School, where he is currently pursuing Postgraduate studies.

He did make a lot of shocking revelations in the piece which to me serves only the purpose of positioning him as the ‘good guy’ in the mess that Nigeria has been plunged into from the actions of his co - political travellers.

The piece which is posted on http://www.nigeriavilagesquare.com/ is a must-read for all those following the breaking Nigerian story, which seems unending.

Interesting times indeed we live in. Click here to download or read the piece.

Anambra Oni Baje

I owe the title of this piece to Okechukwu Obinwa (Ayola), a classmate at C.I.C Enugu who responded to an entry I made in my Facebook status with the ‘Anambra Oni Baje’ expression. I had jokingly suggested that since Governor Raji Fashola of Lagos state was kind enough to accommodate our brother Ben Akabueze in his cabinet as a commissioner, Anambra people should reciprocate such kindness and ‘borrow’ Governor Fashola as governor in 2010. Though this was meant as a joke, however, the seriousness of the suggestion and the desperateness of the Anambra situation were not lost on many who commented in the Facebook thread. One commentator, Dafe Ivwurie I think it was, wondered if Lagosians will be willing to ‘release’ their hardworking governor for such a rescue mission and went ahead to request that Fashola come to Delta, his home state instead.

It is not difficult to see why Ndi Anambra and others would not mind having a Fashola as governor in Anambra state or in their states. As Ndigbo would say, it is difficult to conceal pregnancy. Majority who commented live in Lagos and are familiar with the efforts of the current administration to create a mega city from a city that was almost grinding to a halt due to decaying infrastructure. Today, there is a new sense of direction and renewed hope in Lagos state. In slightly over two years, Governor Fashola has demonstrated that once there is a will there is a way, as shown by his multi-pronged approach to tackling the issues that Lagosians hold dear to heart such as roads, housing, education, environment, transport etc. These attempts to make Lagos a good place to work, live and play have been hailed by various people and organisations including other state governors who openly confess that Fashola is the best performing governor in Nigeria. A possible candidate for President in 2011 then? Maybe.

A favourite school address for Nigerian public officials is Oxford or Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government which is reputed to be one of the best in the world in terms of teaching, plus the added social and professional networking opportunities for the students. Nuhu Ribadu, ex-corruption Czar and EFCC Chieftain is currently enrolled at Oxford while Nasir El-Rufai, former FCT Minister is pursuing graduate studies at the Kennedy school. Knowing the Oxford and Harvard traditions, one could safely assume that such high quality education does not come cheap meaning that every year, millions of dollars leave the Nigerian economy as tuition fees for public officials wishing to acquire new skills and knowledge in governance.

In an era where adopting global best practices is most desirable, there may be nothing wrong with Nigerian public officials going to Harvard and other top universities to update their skills. This is because of the enriched experiences they may bring back having worked on simulation projects with peers from other countries. However, where the problem may lie is in the outcome of such intellectual pursuits. To what extent are the officials able and willing to practice what they have learnt when they return? Does the system even allow them to put the newly acquired knowledge and skill to best use? Will the opportunities present themselves for the Harvard returnees to take this country forward sector by sector by applying the various models and theories they may have learnt?

Other state governors that have been mentioned as doing well in their respective states are Governors Sullivan Chime of Enugu state, Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers state and Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom state. Those who have visited these states attest to the rekindling of good governance spirit evidenced by the level of planning in the projects being embarked upon by the respective state governors. In Enugu state, Governor Sullivan Chime who shies away from publicity choosing instead to let his government’s good works speak for him has changed the face of Enugu, the capital city through his many infrastructural projects. It is surprising that all these could be achieved in just less than two years with another two years left from his 4-year mandate. Now Enugu citizens are happy again and singing Chime’s praises even as they look forward to his promise to do more in all the local government areas.

Lagos is another example, arguably one of Nigeria’s most complex states to govern but Governor Raji Fashola does not give the impression of a man who could be fazed by daunting challenges. In under two years, he has shown that government can actually be made to work for the citizens. The level of civil and infrastructural works going on in Lagos at the moment is unprecedented, all aimed at improving the quality of life of people living in Lagos. Through some agencies such as LASTMA and LASAA, the Lagos state government is changing the way people behave as Lagosians now say that the fear of LASTMA is the beginning of wisdom.

While other state governments are complaining about dwindling fortunes as a result of the fall in federal allocation, the Lagos state government has through a re-engineered tax system been able to generate the revenue it needs to execute its many projects. It has also set up a PPP office thus ensuring that priority projects are concessioned in the best interest of the tax payers.

Fashola may not be coming to Anambra state as governor in 2010 but it will not be out of place to expect some of the cowboys and hopefuls for the Anambra state governor’s seat including the incumbent, Mr. Peter Obi to undertake a one-week internship at Lagos state government house, Alausa - Ikeja for some basic and rudimentary lessons in governance. Other state governors and political aspirants are also welcome. I am sure Governor Fashola will oblige them on pro bono basis. This is more practical and cheaper than going to Harvard or Oxford. The tried and tested successful model of governance by The Fashola School of Government could also be adopted and taught in Nigerian universities, at NIPPS, Kuru – Jos, CMD Shangisha and LBS.

As they say in Lagos, Eko Oni Baje (Lagos will not spoil), Ndi Anambra are also saying Anambra Oni Baje (Anambra will not spoil).

May it be well with Nigeria, and with Anambra state. Ise!

Nworah is the author of Nigeria Confidential

Don’t Envy Lekki Residents, Pity Them

The Lekki part of Lagos may be home to expensive mansions but you can’t help but pity its residents, particularly during this rainy season when the roads become flooded after every downpour.

For residents of some Lekki Phase 1 streets, it is sorrow all the way as the roads become impassable except for owners of 4x4 trucks and SUVS. Some residents who thought respite may have come their way late last year when some construction work went on along Admiralty Way are now left licking their wounds as the work did not cover the whole stretch, thus residents who live further down the road towards end of Admiralty Way have had to resort to navigating the back streets of Lekki, or is it the back waters, before they could come out to the first roundabout.

While it is the work of government to provide infrastructure like roads, one wonders if perhaps Lekki residents and property owners who can afford such stately homes and shylock-type rents are not better off grading the roads and providing drainages themselves as part of a wider sense of social and civic responsibility. Waiting for government to do the roads may take forever and it is the quality of life of the residents that we are talking about here, you know. Also, can some residents not at least cut the grasses growing in the middle of some of the roads? or are they waiting for government grass cutters to come and cut them?