Eze Onyekpere, Author at Centre for Social Justice

A rapprochement for fiscal renaissance

Eze Onyekpere — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 14:51:06 +0000

29th August 2022

Nigeria’s present fiscal crisis and challenges offer opportunities for tremendous reforms. It is in times of adversity and necessity that inventiveness and innovation are mainstreamed in governance, economic and social life. It is the time for radical departures from norms that have dragged society backwards and for taking steps to learn from obvious failures. This discourse highlights the need for the leadership and the led to come to a new understanding for the commencement of targeted and concrete steps towards national fiscal rebirth.

There are a couple of steps that could lead to this national fiscal renaissance. The first is the need for a national consensus and understanding that leadership leads. This will lead the followership to the appreciation of the need to select the best of our best, the finest of the finest into leadership positions at all levels, from the presidency to the councillor. As a person sows, shall she reap. The quality, capacity, honesty and credibility of elected officials will directly manifest in the quality of economic and fiscal governance and the ensuing outcomes from their outputs. In selecting the best of the best, empirical evidence will be the guide; primordial considerations will be kicked out of the equation and characters, who divide rather than unite, will not be given high consideration. Understanding the nuances of a modern state and not the ways of a master strategist of the old decadent political order becomes a plus. This is in recognition of the electoral period which will provide an opportunity to elect a new government in 2023.

The extant leadership or new leaders that will emerge after the elections, through high-level government officials at all levels, must stop living in denial. The reality of economic meltdown is already with us. Things are not the way they used to be and may not revert to how they used to be in a few years’ time. Therefore, political leaders must come clean to the people by clearly explaining to the people the depth and level of the rot in terms of the fiscal bankruptcy—and our inability to pay our bills. For instance, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), should address Nigerians, explaining the fiscal challenges. During this explanation, he must also come clean with the identification of leakages, wastes and frivolities in the system and propose steps to block them. The steps must start from his office at the state house, to the legislature and other government agencies. He must be seen to be contrite, acknowledge the misdeeds of his administration without shifting blames to any other persons and firmly promise to retrace the steps that led us to this dark alley. This procedure should also be replicated at various state governments and local governments.

Definitely, it will come down to the leadership asking for sacrifice and belt-tightening from the populace because we cannot get out of this virtual bankruptcy without hardship and sacrifice. This will resonate with the population if the majority are convinced that there is utmost good faith and transparency in the new ways fiscal decisions and commitments will be managed. Nigerians will need to see their president leading the sacrifice, not through “assuring” speeches but in real-life practice. The scenario of a bankrupt country where high-level public officials drive convoys of SUVs numbering between five and eleven is not only insane but an outright display of idiocy. Nigerians will not agree to make sacrifices where the leaders will simply ask the followers to do what they say and not what they do.
This openness, quality communication and reversing the steps of profligacy are imperative because as of today, even with all the challenges, a good number of Nigerians still believe we are still a rich country and see no need for any adjustments. They tease out their position from the lifestyle and quantum of money being spent by the leadership and even aspiring leaders. Clearly, when the leadership and led understand each other and the leadership take transparent steps in the national interest, there will be a galvanisation of the followership; a re-awakening of the community spirit that is fundamental to the building of a great nation.

Openness and transparency will lead to accountability even in matters of appointment to public offices. The idea that a president or governor can appoint anyone to assist him as minister or commissioner is not open-ended. It is about the ability of such appointee to deliver on the mandate of his office, especially if such office is related to the fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy. Contrary to the present approach of the Buhari regime, round pegs must be put in round holes. In respect of the rot in education, what is the qualification and background experience of Adamu Adamu that positions him to be Education Minister beyond parochialism? For him to tease the Academic Staff Union of Universities by asking students to sue them shows ignorance of the fundamental duties of the state in education. Nigerians do not pay tax to ASUU and ASUU cannot be the duty bearer. ASUU did not ask for votes and they are not the government. A minister abdicates ministerial responsibility and has zero ideas on how to advance education. Instead of resigning, he stirs unnecessary controversy. Pray, can Adamu or any other minister please tell Nigerians what qualifies him to earn more than a university professor?

The lingering strike of the ASUU presents a case study. It would have been easy for the government to plead lack of resources and ask the ASUU to go back to work if elected and appointed public officials were receiving emoluments and perks of office that were reasonable and somehow relative to the emoluments and perks of the ASUU members. To insist on paying a university professor less than 10 per cent of what a legislator, minister, etc., who has no verifiable school certificate earns is the crux of the matter and no matter the appeal, no reasonable academician is expected to listen to such demeaning position. The insistence of political office holders sending their children overseas to school, flash the pictures of their graduation in the media, while paying starvation wages to professors is insane and cannot be the basis of national fiscal renaissance. Such pictures only reinforce the will of ASUU members to continue the struggle against the “elected government of emperors.” To pay doctors peanuts, pretend to build world-class hospitals and use same as opportunity to madly inflate contracts, while jetting out to treat headaches and malaria in foreign hospitals is not only insane but amounts to economic sabotage. And when doctors demand reasonable wages, they are insulted by the same irresponsible political class.
The leadership must come down from their old-fashioned high horse and come back to their senses. They need to renounce their wasteful lifestyle and packages which they approved for themselves, give other citizens the chance to earn decent livelihoods through transparency and accountability of public expenditure. This would lay the basis for coordinated action between the leadership and the led and sacrifices and belt-tightening on both sides to get Nigeria out of the fiscal woods.

The post A rapprochement for fiscal renaissance appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .

Resolving the ASUU Strike

Eze Onyekpere — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 19:52:29 +0000

The strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities is in its sixth month. Unfortunately, the resolution of the issues in contention seems impossible for now considering the hard stance of the contending parties. This discourse reviews the strike and its impact on the right to education, national development, and the desire for economic growth in Nigeria and ends with recommendations on the way forward.It is imperative to start by acknowledging that education is an empowering right. It is a human right in itself and the means and vehicle for the realisation of other human rights. It is a vehicle for the liberation of the poor, vulnerable, and marginalised as well as enabling the full participation of individuals and communities in economic, political, and social life. Education facilitates the acquisition of knowledge, life skills, technical skills, and problem-solving skills for the development of society. It is the fulcrum around which value addition and technological breakthroughs revolve. In the modern societal context of democratisation, education is important for democratic consolidation, enabling individuals to contribute as voters through making the right choices as free human beings, not being deceived and entrenched in the bigotry of ethnicity, religion, place of birth, sex, etc. Education is also needed to hold leadership to account for their stewardship. Democracy presupposes rational human beings who understand issues and are able to exercise their franchise in their enlightened interests. Education positions the young to understand their society so as to take over the levers of leadership. It is against this critical background that education is always expected to be a priority in public budgets in consideration of the plan, policy, and budget continuum. Education plans and policies show the pathways, the agreed societal goals, and directions for the improvement of education, while the budget provides the resources to drive the achievement of the overall goals of plans and policies. This is especially imperative in the minimum core content of the right to education. This minimum core content drives the minimum core state obligation in education. This minimum obligation has been articulated in the bundle identified as the right to basic education. This is the basis of Nigeria’s federal legislation that pronounces basic education as compulsory, free, and universal. With the high number of out-of-school children stated at 13 million, it is clear that the goals of the universal basic education scheme are far from being realised. Furthermore, everyone is entitled to the satisfaction of their basic learning needs, which enables them to have full and realistic participation in economic and social life. Going by the quality and functionality of basic education delivered in our public schools, it is doubtful that basic education meets this standard. The ASUU strike revolves to a great extent around the issue of funding of public universities. Federal and state governments contend that there is the challenge of paucity of resources as the available resources are definitely not sufficient to attend to national challenges in all the sectors, including health, housing, power, security, other infrastructure, etc. The authorities are even contending that to meet ASUU’s demands, they may need to borrow. This is true. This is coming at a time when Nigeria is broke and insolvent and would have been penciled in for liquidation if it were a private sector entity. This raises a question: are ASUU’s demands unreasonable or outrageous? Obviously, their demands are extremely reasonable. But there is a deeper issue which is not generally brought to the fore and which underlies ASUU’s insistence on receiving their dues even if the heavens may fall. It is a fact that the government only claims to be broke when it is time to fund the relatively low wages of university teachers. University teachers live in the same economy and are living witnesses to the humungous salaries, allowances, and perks of the office of the president, vice president, governors, deputy governors, legislators, ministers, commissioners, special assistants, and all manner of charlatans masquerading as political office holders. These “entitlements” of political office holders are not only insensitive but nauseating and cannot meet the most elementary test of value for money considering that this is the political class that has run Nigeria aground in all facets of national life—economy, unity, insecurity, etc. The political leadership have failed, refused and neglected to do their jobs and have driven Nigeria into insolvency; a state that needs to borrow to service debts; the deepest insecurity situation (outside of the civil war years) since independence; the ;poorest health and education indicators, etc. But they do not blink an eyelid in their continued feasting on public resources. The paucity of resources is only raised when teachers demand a living wage. Beyond their official remuneration, these political office holders have presided over the unmitigated looting of public resources. If the system had been working, not less than sixty percent of the current office holders will be in jail while others will be awaiting their turn through judicial trials which will finally see them wearing the prison uniform. The other major issue is that the authorities over the years have been obtaining the services of tertiary teachers under false pretences, contrary to our criminal laws. Each time the government signs an agreement with ASUU, they make up their mind from the outset not to fulfil their part of the bargain while ASUU, on the strength of the agreements, goes back to the classroom. Years later, the issues remain unresolved. Who needs this type of governance which has become a naked display of dishonesty, refusal to honour agreements and lying to cheat people who build wealth for society? It will be recalled that some prominent Nigerians have in the past called for a complete overhaul of the educational system, including shutting it down for some time to make sense of a sector that is expected to deliver optimal results with suboptimal resources and funding. The strike is an obvious weakness and threat, which provides an opportunity for a review and a fresh start. It is not all negative if and only if the gladiators see the positive sides of the debacle. It provides the opportunity, either by the current government or the incoming one, to harmonise the entire remuneration structure across the public service – no sector should be left behind. There is an opportunity to review the funding of education, especially at the tertiary level. It even requires getting more education out of the present poor funding through greater efficiency and a value for money approach. A situation, as shown in our yearly budgets where universities vote funds for the purchase of SUVs and other ostentatious items, fritters away available resources. Various reports of intra-university crises show the usual public service contract inflation and procurement abuses. We need to ask: what is the role of ASUU in overall education budgeting or the role of the local chapters in determining the funding priorities of each university? The Auditor General for the Federation keeps reporting on money due to the public treasury but mismanaged by university administrations in an era where public funding of universities is grossly inadequate. The funding of tertiary education is not contingent on any particular philosophy of governance in terms of absolute state funding or imposing school and user fees on students. The spirit of our age and the reality of our time demand that we explore all possible funding opportunities, including endowments and investments by universities, contributions by alumni association members, etc.

The post Resolving the ASUU Strike appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .

2023 polls: Making state administrative resources work for all

Eze Onyekpere — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 10:56:57 +0000

The quest for political power and the enormous benefits associated with political power have made it irresistible for persons and groups of persons under the umbrella of political parties of variegated moral and ethical backgrounds to venture into politics. Politicians see politics as an investment that yields quicker returns than any other business. Right from the return to democracy in Nigeria in 1999 to the present time, the abuse of state administrative resources has been on the ascendancy and the reason for this can be traced to the process through which political leaders emerge into public offices. Politicians deploy huge resources to sponsor candidates into elective positions. Those who are already in political positions employ all manners of incumbency techniques to retain their seats or to retain their political parties in power.

As the race to Aso Rock and various State Houses officially draws near and intensifies, several political parties are adopting different strategies to either retain power or take over power from the incumbents. About four political parties seem to be mounting serious campaigns, especially for the presidency with the number thinning down at the state level. The Independent National Electoral Commission has assured and reassured Nigerians of free, fair and credible polls but there are still challenges littering the electoral landscape.

By S.95 (2) of the Electoral Act 2022 which re-enacts S.100 (2) of the 2010 Electoral Act (as amended), state apparatus including the media shall not be employed to the advantage or disadvantage of any political party or candidate at any election. This discourse reviews the various shades of state administrative resources and how they are abused and posits that this abuse will undermine the credibility of 2023 polls if INEC, political parties and law enforcement do not take steps to stem the abuse.

SARs are defined as resources put at the disposal of public institutions for the conduct of governmental or public affairs. SAR includes legislative, regulatory, coercive and institutional resources. Abuse of SAR for electioneering campaigns is illegal, unethical and against best practices in SAR management. Institutional resources generally refer to government resources like employees, vehicles, offices, contractors, equipment, stationery, building, symbols of authority, etc. The Code of Conduct for Political Parties 2013 in S.3 (17) states that: All parties shall discourage their members in government from using their power of incumbency to the disadvantage of other parties or their candidates during elections. Use of government vehicles, equipment and facilities for partisan political campaigns, secondment of officials paid at the public expense for partisan purposes and using the insignia of office to canvass support are all manifestations of abuse of institutional resources. The recent appointment and assumption of office of Festus Keyamo, a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, paid at the public expense as the spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign falls under this prohibition. He cannot be paid and sustained with money belonging to all Nigerians while he takes a partisan position to the disadvantage of other political parties. Mandating contractors to contribute to political expenses is also an abuse of institutional resources as well as procurement fraud and abuse of due process.

Regulatory and coercive resources can be deployed by incumbent administrations to the disadvantage of the opposition. This can be undertaken in a number of ways including discriminatory campaign and procession permits, regulation of the use of public places, discriminatory enforcement of laws and regulations, causing misrepresentation, disenchantment and loss of reputation to the opposition, partial dissemination of information, etc. Recently, state governments in Kaduna and Osun states have deployed refusal of permit to use a venue on the opposition. Late hour cancellation of an already given permit due to “security reasons”; unjustified and arbitrary cancellation of a booking to use a venue for a rally, for instance, a stadium or a public hall are all abuses of regulatory resources.

The task of maintaining state security and preventing corruption and abuse of office can be used to the disadvantage of the opposition. Unveiling charges of corruption that may not scale the prosecution hurdle in the courts is an instance. In a country like Nigeria where there is a popular agreement that corruption has contributed in no small measure to the political and economic backwardness of the nation, a charge or allegation of corruption even if unsupportable by credible evidence can be a hurdle on the path of the opposition. At least, it paints the victim in a bad light and tars him with social deviancy, which will take time to erase in popular minds. Discriminatory enforcement of laws can also lead to unfavourable circumstances for the opposition. Opposition candidates can also be arrested and or charged to court on framed-up charges during electioneering campaigns. The first objective would be to present the candidate negatively to the public while at the same time taking his time away from campaigns to save himself from conviction and imprisonment. The criteria for identifying frivolous charges would include: whether the agencies had the opportunity of prosecuting the opposition figures but deliberately failed, refused and neglected to do so but rather chose to mar their reputation through a public allegation of corruption or any other crime; the timing of the law enforcement action; the supporting facts disclosed and whether the facts can legally sustain a charge and conviction in law; whether the law enforcement authorities are in disobedience of a court order; whether the candidate has been prosecuted and discharged for the same offence in the past.

Public media resources belong to all Nigerians, especially the tax-payers. The provisions of the Code of Conduct for Political Parties and National Broadcasting Code call for equal and fair access to the use of state-owned media and adherence to the principles of pluralism of ideas and opinion, equal opportunity and air time to be provided to all political parties, candidates and views, with particular regard to the amount of time and belt during electioneering campaign period. Media resource abuse comes in various forms and includes the following: only candidates supported by the incumbent government have news coverage in the state media; opposition candidates are reported in disparaging terms; incumbent candidates’ activities are given live coverage as a news item; news organs sympathetic to the opposition are heavily regulated, and discounts in public media available only to state parties. It is therefore expected that public media like the Nigeria Television Authority and Radio Nigeria, etc., should give equal opportunities to all candidates and political parties and restrain from using taxpayers’ money for the support and benefit of the incumbent political party and its candidates

Enforcing this beautiful provision of the Electoral Act requires the collaboration of INEC, civil society including the media and academia, law enforcement agents, etc., to breathe life into the enactment. The 2023 polls provide an opportunity to entrench ethics in government, which starts with credible polls where SAR is made to work for all and not abused by incumbents.

The post 2023 polls: Making state administrative resources work for all appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .

Leadership failure and gullibility of electorate

Eze Onyekpere — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 09:46:47 +0000

Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa and we are proud to describe ourselves as a giant with all kinds of superlatives. But we lack leadership, which drives society to fulfil its destiny, and the essential societal management qualities that will navigate us on the road to development. This discourse focuses on leadership failure and gullibility of the electorate. It proposes the need for a discerning electorate who vote on the basis of existential issues as we move towards the 2023 general elections.

There is an unfortunate mindset prevalent across Nigeria where excuses and apologies are converted to a mantra of faith, which fuels a race to the bottom instead of a race to the top. There is this idea that we have all the time in the world to mess around as a nation, kill ourselves, steal the available public resources, convert them for private use of a few and still believe that “we shall get there.” We are quick to recount the hundreds of years of the British or American democratic models, and by that calculation prove that we are still infants and toddlers who should have the liberty to muddle up our democratic or civil rule experience. We often cite the differences and disagreements between different parties in these countries, and their political policy summersaults after elections.

However, we fail to appreciate that these countries have developed their economic, social and political fundamentals. They have systems built on the supremacy of the rule of law and institutions that can withstand pressures. Their economic fundamentals can endure stress; they have technology and productive economies where value addition and service delivery are the norm. This is the background of their political gymnastics and disagreements. Many of the things that the citizens of these countries take for granted constitute the reasons the average Nigerian may go to a church or a mosque for thanksgiving.

Unfortunately for us, we seem to be a people left behind in time and space. An uncaring leadership leading an undiscerning followership is a recipe for the disaster and arrested development that Nigeria has become. Democracy anticipates an educated and enlightened populace that understands the import of policies and the link between policies and political action and their lives and livelihoods. Democracy is about a politically aware electorate who vote based on their reasonable and enlightened interests. Every decision of the leadership in this scenario will be made against the background of the reward or punishment it gets for the political party and its leaders. If you please the majority, you get rewarded with re-election, while the kind of policies prevalent in Nigeria today automatically attracts rejection at the polls.

Democracy is not nurtured by docility and absence of political discernment. It will be recalled that the Academic Staff Union of Universities has been on strike for about five months now. One would have expected students and young Nigerians at the receiving end of an uncaring government to speak out, organise themselves and hold the leadership of the country to account for their future and their right to education. But sorry, not the present crop of students and young Nigerians. Even the protest strike and rally called by Nigeria Labour Congress did not witness the massive support of the victims of the strike. They stayed home and watched the rallies on television just like others who could claim that they had no immediate and direct stake in the ASUU/ Federal Government palaver.

Leaders in Nigeria claim and swear to take steps and actions for the development of the country, but most of their strategic endeavours are aimed at undermining the integrity and sovereignty of the nation, and calculated at pauperising the majority. These days, you witness politicians contesting for very high positions announcing to Nigerians that discussions in the popular media will not affect their chances because the bulk of their expected supporters/voters are either illiterate or ignorant, or are not on social media, etc. They deliberately keep the voters in their catchment area ignorant, without education, etc., so that they can lie to them, manipulate facts and use ethnic and religious sentiments to get the vote.

Even among the educated voters, the conscious decisions made on the basis of ethnicity, religion and or the proposal to teach a candidate, a political party or a section of the country some lesson, provide an ample basis for the claim of a right to stupidity or a right to idiocy. Fortunately, in jurisprudence, there is no right to stupidity, and unfortunately for the purveyors of this mindset, they hurt themselves the most in the attempt to despise others. Now that we have an economy that has virtually collapsed and insecurity that is decimating lives and property, is anyone or any section of the country spared? We made our decision in a four plus four presidential campaign in 2019, and we must abide by that decision. Is there a special market where persons who shouted the four plus four get discounts on the prices soaring over our economic roofs? Is anyone spared by terrorists upon proof that he supported four plus four?

To even imagine that a presidential candidate has promised to build on the foundation of this manifest presidential failure and to deepen the imagined successes is a nightmare. To dream of another four to eight years of insecurity and clueless economic mismanagement means an agreement to decimate the population of Nigeria, and should be met with a “God forbid” and “not our portion” response. There is nothing more to steal but our blood and the human being as a commodity, which is already manifesting in kidnapping for ransom.

If it is possible for some Nigerians to be allowed to exercise their democratic rights that will ordinarily jeopardise the lives and livelihood of the majority of the population, but the effect of their decision will be limited to them, their families and those who agree with them, then we can continue on the exercise of this democratic right not founded on reason. But if the votes of the unreasonable will affect reasonable Nigerians, it is time that all reasonable persons come together to shout down these unreasonable fellows who do not understand that the dance party is over-considering that the drummers and flutists have packed up and gone.

Nigerian citizens should work to position the country to take care of their needs and their right to live a life of dignity. Only after we have crossed this threshold of survival can we now continue to claim to be the giant of Africa. We can only assist others to stand if we are standing on our feet.

Democracy is not nurtured by gullibility. A vote based on gullibility and the exercise of imaginary right to idiocy is a vote in support of the massive violations of the right to life and livelihoods after 2023.

The post Leadership failure and gullibility of electorate appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .

Emerging Issues from the 2023-2025 Consultation Paper

Eze Onyekpere — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 10:53:46 +0000

On Thursday, July 21, 2022, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning presented a consultation paper for the 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework/Fiscal Strategy. Join us on a discourse that reviews the key highlights of the presentation, emerging issues and the logical next steps for Nigeria’s development, economy and the welfare of citizens.

Join the meeting tomorrow 27th July by 10:00am

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83251246420?pwd=YUJueCtIOWtIS2haMTdjaEFTV0lPQT09

Add to your calendar

download Download

The post Emerging Issues from the 2023-2025 Consultation Paper appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .

Accountability for insecurity

Eze Onyekpere — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 11:30:58 +0000

The security situation in Nigeria is degenerating by the day. Even though there are top-level, medium-level and low-level security officials, the trend suggests that no one is actually in charge or at best, that the persons in charge have been overwhelmed and they are just pretending to still be in charge. The body count on the number of lives lost is numbing. This runs against the constitutional aphorism that the security and welfare of the people is the primary purpose of government. Why is aggravated insecurity still the order of the day? This discourse seeks to introduce some common sense in an area that security personnel usually claim unnecessary expertise. The experience of the last heavy security breach in Kuje Correctional Centre is used as a focal point.

It is imperative at the outset not to sound dismissive, and to acknowledge the heavy and sometimes ultimate sacrifice of our security personnel in service to the fatherland. Thousands of security personnel have lost their lives to keep us safe. But the management of the national security architecture has left so many questions unanswered and has contributed to the continued insecurity, emboldening terrorists and sundry criminals and portraying them as invincible in the mind of the public. The recent successful attack on the Kuje Correctional Centre raises so many unanswered questions.

There are media reports that the Department of State Services gathered intelligence and reported to the other security agencies about the impending attack on the correctional centre. Also, Tukur Mamu, publisher of the Desert Herald newspaper and aide to Ahmad Gumi, an Islamic cleric, stated that those behind the Kuje Facility attack are the same as the perpetrators of the Abuja-Kaduna train attack. He claimed to have pre-informed security operatives of the threat of an attack on the facility. All these categorical and emphatic assertions have not been denied by the security agencies. What is the purpose of having intelligence-gathering agencies and negotiators who have acted as a go-between for the authorities and the terrorists if the information they bring will be ignored? This is not the first time the DSS will be reported to have given intelligence on an impending attack and the other relevant security agencies ignored or failed to act on it. It will be recalled that the DSS also claimed to have given a briefing on the Owerri Correctional Centre before it was attacked and no one took action.

The second issue that challenges the thinking faculty of all reasonable persons is the report that over 300 terrorists on motorcycles with some walking down approached a correctional centre without the security men on duty noticing their advance until they came within a firing range. Can we have such a high-level security facility without an observatory where movements in the immediate neighbourhood of a few kilometres can be noticed and reported before the attackers advance further? If we had an observatory, what did the observers see and why did they not alert the authorities? If they alerted the authorities, why was action not taken? If there was none, does it require any high-level thinking to know that a correctional centre, where terrorists are housed, needs an observatory?

On the attack, media reports, pictures and accounts from the authorities did not show or indicate a heavy exchange of gunfire or other ammunition. To overpower soldiers and security officers guarding a correction centre implies that the attackers neutralised them. But there is no report in that direction. Did the security officials run away in the face of superior firepower or did they just display cowardice in the face of the enemy? Does it mean that trained and disciplined members of the Armed Forces were subdued by a ragtag army of “blood civilians”? This is incredible. What of reinforcement from other military formations in the Federal Capital Territory? The attack was reported to have lasted for as long as three hours. What is the distance between the nearest barracks and base of the Army, Air Force and Navy to the Kuje Correctional Centre? In these days of mobile phones and internet applications that ensure messages are sent and received in seconds or minutes, how long did it take for reinforcement and support to come?

If the proper security architectural framework had been in place, a helicopter gunship or other military aircraft should have been able to take out these terrorists before they attacked the centre. Alternatively, similar reinforcement during the attack would have ensured that the majority of them were neutralised. If reinforcement actually came during the pendency of the attack, how did the attackers and rescued terrorists and prisoners all escape into thin air? Maybe they are no longer humans but spirits! How can a correctional centre with such a high number of certified terrorists have little or no resilient security protection? Who is responsible for providing security but failed in the discharge of his functions?

What has been the response of the President and Commander-in-Chief? Another round of endless meetings with no discernible action but assuring and re-assuring Nigerians even when the advance convoy to his home town was shot at by terrorists. Meeting service chiefs who could not set up a response mechanism to engage this foretold and elementary attack will yield no results. Enforcing the law as the command of the sovereign, backed by sanctions will do. Setting up and enforcing accountability mechanisms will do the job. The legislature as the sovereign authority has set the ground rules and the law on terrorism. No one knows what the executive is waiting for in order to enforce the law. It doesn’t need to foot-drag while Nigerians are slaughtered. Again, why have these terrorists not been conclusively prosecuted after so many years in detention? The Federal executive owes Nigerians a lot of explanations.

The post Accountability for insecurity appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .

Reducing the influence of money in political primaries

Eze Onyekpere — Mon, 30 May 2022 07:05:03 +0000

The monetisation of politics especially at the level of selecting standard-bearers for political parties has dominated the headlines of major news outlets in the last couple of days. It has become an open secret that aspirants in the two leading political parties—the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party—have been notorious in the deployment of money to buy votes that will transform them to candidates. The sad aspect of it is that everyone knows that this practice is illegal and immoral and has no redeeming feature. But it persists. This discourse reviews the extant practice and charts a way for democratising political party primaries.

The Electoral Act provides for three methods, which political parties can use to choose candidates vis direct primaries involving all members of the party in the appropriate constituency. The second is indirect primaries involving delegates while the third is the consensus option involving the agreement of the contenders to pick one aspirant and transform him to a candidate. The consensus option has been very widely abused as seen in the convention of the APC a couple of weeks ago. It led to imposition and aspirants who purportedly had voluntarily withdrawn from the race were seen crying and protesting at the podium on how they were forced to step down. The delegate option which is very widely practised is the foundation for the current monetisation crisis. In the current dispensation, a few members of a party are involved in the determination of the fate of the aspirants.

Delegates are supposed to emerge from a direct election by party members. But the strange situation is that the elections to choose the delegates never held in so many constituencies. Available reports indicate that godfathers, “owners of Nigeria” and persons who arrogate to themselves the privilege of playing God simply dictate the persons to act as delegates in utter contempt of the popular will of party members. Impunity throws up illegality and a bunch of supposed democrats without democratic credentials who do not believe in anything but filthy lucre.

The monetisation of political party primaries is not limited to the presidential primaries but runs across all cadres of positions. It runs from the State House of Assembly to the House of Representatives and the Senate, to the gubernatorial primaries, etc. The only difference is the quantum of resources being deployed and the number of delegates or electors being bribed with the money. The resources required to capture a candidacy increase based on the relevance of the position being sought and the resources that will be controlled by the office in the event the candidate becomes successful at the general election.

The message being sent is that the aspirants are buying the office, some sort of investment into public office. Like a typical investor in a legal and legitimate business, this is an investment in power. Thus, once the investor succeeds in capturing the office, he is entitled to recoup his costs as well as make a profit on his investment. The business investor has restraints on the profit he can make. Considering that he may not be the only person offering the goods or services, he cannot afford to price his services out of the market because he has competitors. Therefore, market forces compel the business investor to be on the path of reason. However, unlike the business investor, the political investor has no restraints on the quantum of profits he can make. The only restraint is the conscience which would have long been dead before he assumes office. The law would be unable to hold such elected officials to account because they started by compromising the system and would continue the compromise once in office.

Considering the poor value of the naira compared to major international currencies, the aspirants are no longer content with distributing the naira. They now deal in and distribute major international currencies, especially the dollar. In the last couple of weeks, in the run-up to the presidential primaries of the PDP and APC, the dollar to naira exchange rate moved from the N580 to US$1 benchmark to today’s rate of over N610 to US$1. The implication is that political party primaries put undue pressure on the value of the naira by increasing the demand for foreign exchange. But this is a misallocation of resources because it is not about using foreign currencies to procure machinery, spares, raw materials or capital goods needed in production and service delivery. It is not about using foreign currencies to bolster jobs, exports or reduce imports. It is just about using scarce capital and foreign currencies for consumption, frivolities and waste, and for a venture that instead of adding value to the economy subtracts from available capacities and competencies.

This illegality is no longer hidden; the exchanges take place in broad daylight and can be unveiled by security agencies if they so wish. The unfortunate aspect of this development is that everyone knows vote-buying is going on, in violation of the law and its due process, but everyone looks the other way, pretends it is normal and only complaints are heard from time to time. Yes, delegates may need support for flights, accommodation and logistics of attending conventions for selecting candidates in far-flung capital cities. But this can be borne and arranged by political parties rather than leaving the aspirants to convert the process to a bazaar.

This challenge is not beyond common sense and the ingenuity of Nigerians. The first point of departure is that political parties need to consider deepening democracy by holding direct primaries for the emergence of candidates. However, this can also be sabotaged just like the general elections. A clean and electronic membership register accessible to all members may be the foundation for this contest. This requires credible party machinery, officials and leaders who do not see primaries as a source of monetary windfall. Even if the delegate system is to be used, a credible electoral process that ensures that the vote counts in the emergence of delegates will be a good foundation.

Security, anti-corruption and monetary policy agencies need to get involved in monitoring the movement of huge quantities of electronic money, cash and other resources for political purposes and bring the perpetrators to justice for money laundering, bribery, vote-buying and similar offences created in our statute books. If these law enforcement agencies were not prepared for the primaries which will be concluded in the next couple of days, they have been given adequate notice to prepare them for action during the long period of campaigns by candidates.

We cannot continue like this. Once power is bought, democracy is compromised.

The post Reducing the influence of money in political primaries appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .

Top to bottom: APC’s withdrawal letter and Emefiele presidential aspiration

Eze Onyekpere — Mon, 09 May 2022 09:45:25 +0000

NIGERIANS dreamt and were hopeful that the 2023 elections will present an opportunity for course correction, for the country to retrace its steps from the recent years of aggravated clueless leadership by a regime that promised so much but deliberately failed in catastrophic proportions in its mismanagement of all aspects of national life. However, recent developments seem to point in the direction of a reaffirmation and deepening of the race to the bottom, the race to a complete failed state that may have no redeeming features. The prelude to the elections, especially the issues of aspirants and the process of nomination and expression of interest points in the direction of the bastardisation of democracy and further retardation of development.

Two key issues present case studies for interrogation and fuller understanding of their implications for our democracy and quest for nationhood. The first is the mandate of the All Progressives Congress for all presidential aspirants to complete and sign a withdrawal letter as part of the process for their valid nomination, while the second is the insistence of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, to aspire and contest for the presidency while still occupying the non-political and elevated seat at the CBN.

Ideally, democracy should be about contestation of ideas and philosophies of governance and leadership for the improvement of the security and welfare of the people. Under the 1999 Constitution, aspirants at the level of political parties should be free to present themselves to the electorate to seek their endorsement. The Electoral Act 2022 provides for direct primaries which would involve all members of the party; indirect primaries which would be done by delegates who could be statutory or elected delegates. The third procedure is for consensus which requires the free and voluntary written consent or withdrawal from the electoral race by all aspirants in favour of one of them. The Act did not provide for enforced or involuntary consensus or the achievement of consensus at gun point or through any other illegal and immoral means.

By making it a condition precedent for the validity of expression of interest and nomination forms and insisting that aspirants should sign undated withdrawal letters before their forms can be accepted by the party, the APC has violated the consensus option provided in the Electoral Act. It is not only undemocratic, it is illegal, unconscionable and an affront of unimaginable proportions on the foundation of constitutionalism, liberty, human rights and fundamental freedoms. This emerging scenario has been informed by the manner of reaching “consensus” adopted by the party for the election of their national officers. Once aspirants for national offices were successfully harangued and intimidated to step down, the success of that illegality has emboldened the beneficiaries of the illegality, being the current national officers, to think they can use the same method for the nomination of a presidential candidate for the party. If the APC succeeds in doing this, they would have denuded internal party democracy of its effective content and reduced it to the dictatorship of the presidency and party apparatus.

It is even ridiculous that members of the party and the media have been boldly proclaiming that the presidential aspirant that would transform to the presidential candidate of the APC will be anyone endorsed by the outgoing president. It will not be someone who commands the largest following and votes in the party. Pray, are we still discussing or thinking of a democracy or the rule of one man or a cabal? Where is democracy in all this and where are the democrats to power the democracy? It is, therefore, imperative for all presidential and other aspirants in the party who are faced with this dubious demand from the leadership of the APC to stand firm and resist the devilish democracy truncating agenda by refusing to complete and return the undated withdrawal form so as not set a dangerous precedent.

Now to Godwin Emefiele and his attempt at insulting the intelligence of the Nigerian people. The CBN is a hallowed institution for serious minds and persons of distinction in monetary policy and economic knowledge. The task before the institution and its leadership are so enormous and demand independence of mind and thought beyond the theatricals of the murky waters of politics. S1(3) of the CBN states that in order for the Bank to achieve its mandate under the Act and under the Banks and other Financial Institutions Act, and in line with the objectives of promoting stability and continuity in economic management, the Bank shall be an independent body in the discharge of its duties. The Bank is led by a governor in the name of Godwin Emefiele who evidently is a card-carrying member of the APC. Yes, his membership of the APC is what qualifies him to tender the nomination and expression of interest fee and for the fee to be accepted by the party leadership.

How can the CBN be independent in the performance of its duties when it is led by a partisan, a member of the ruling party? So, in essence, all the drama about intervention funds and purported achievements of the CBN is to position one man for the candidateship of a political party. It is about using public funds, taxpayers money to make Emefiele the candidate of the APC. This is not only absurd but one of the greatest desecrations of democratic and monetary policy norms. Emefiele states that he is about to make up his mind which implies that he has been a part of this charade. For Emefiele to claim that his friends bought a form for him is simply to think he is clever. But that line of reasoning is bereft of logic and seems to come from a mind that looks down on the intellect and understanding of the majority of the population. In actual fact, there is nothing elevated about CBN policies under the leadership of Emefiele beyond the sheer pedestrianism of throwing money at national challenges and none of those challenges has been resolved by the money the CBN has thrown at them. Indeed, most of the beneficiaries, for instance, under the Anchor Borrowers Programme have failed to pay back the loans.

Do we still have a president in Nigeria? If the answer is in the affirmative, then Emefiele should either resign, be compelled to resign or be dismissed by the president. If we still have a president in Nigeria who claims to be elected, then he should stop the charade of asking APC aspirants to sign withdrawal forms before their nomination and expression of interest forms can be accepted by the APC. If the president is not interested in any of these options, Nigerians are at liberty to interpret it as a continuation of APC promise to bring down every institution they met in Nigeria, “from top to bottom”.

The post Top to bottom: APC’s withdrawal letter and Emefiele presidential aspiration appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .

Oil magic: President Buhari’s letter to the National Assembly

Eze Onyekpere — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 10:18:59 +0000

LAST week, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) wrote to the National Assembly requesting that the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and by extension the 2022 federal budget be amended to accommodate a number of adjustments. Considering the rubberstamp nature of the National Assembly in fiscal matters, this request is deemed as good as approved by NASS. This discourse reviews the requests and posits that fiscal governance in an economy that, to a great extent, is dependent on petro dollars can be managed in a more prudent and sustainable manner.

The extant MTEF 2022-2024 is benchmarked on $62 per barrel of crude oil. The new request is a benchmark of $73 per barrel. This is founded on the increased price of crude oil arising from the Russia-Ukraine War. On the face of it, this request for an increased benchmark appears reasonable. But the poser is: how long will this war last? If the war ends in the next one to three months, will the new price be realistic and do we expect crude oil prices to continue going higher after the war? Will the president come back for an amendment of the MTEF to reduce the benchmark price if the price of crude oil falls below $72 per barrel? These are unanswered posers that should have played on the minds of the fiscal managers before proposing these changes for the approval of NASS. Ideally, money realised from a higher crude oil price, being a price higher than the benchmark price, is supposed to be saved in the Excess Crude Account and later appropriated after it has been distributed between the three tiers of government.

The second request is for a reduction in the production volume by 283,000 barrels per day. This means the daily production will be 1.6 million bpd instead of 1.83 million bpd approved in the extant MTEF and budget. The president premised this proposal for reduction on the activities of vandals. For some years now and under the Buhari presidency, Nigeria has not been producing enough to meet its quota from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Other OPEC countries have in the past exceeded their quotas and indeed have spare production capacity to produce beyond the quotas. The premise upon which the president is making the request for reduction of production is ridiculous. This is not just about vandals; a vandal is defined as a person who deliberately destroys or damages property belonging to others. This is not about destruction and damage. This is not even about some petty criminals stealing crude oil in jerry cans and pots. It is about industrial scale stealing, organised oil theft, directly carried out under the watch of a ministry supervised by the president. Nigeria, in some years gone by, had budgeted for real time monitoring of pipelines with the explanation that it was about introducing technology, facilities and services to monitor oil pipelines all round the clock. What happened to those budgeted funds?

At some earlier time, the regime had blamed what it termed under-investment in the sector by previous governments for the inability to meet the OPEC quota. This blame game is coming after seven years in office. Today, it is oil theft, yesterday it was under-investment. Tomorrow, another excuse will come. For how long will a regime continue to wobble, lacking in ideas and imaginations of good governance and yet insist on inflicting their incompetence and dereliction of duty on over 200 million Nigerians? The Buhari regime’s favourite story of previous administrations selling crude oil for over $100 has suddenly gone out of fashion considering the current price of crude oil. Thus, the regime has crippled Nigeria and rendered her unable to take advantage of geopolitical developments in the oil sector. Thus, we are made to believe that we are producing less at a time we should have ramped up production.

Then the big elephant in the room. According to the president, N442.72 billion was earmarked for fuel subsidy in the 2022 budget for the period of January to June. Due to the hike in the price of crude oil, Nigeria is paying more for the PMS subsidy. He is therefore requesting for an additional N3.557 trillion for subsidy. How the president arrived at the N4 trillion is not stated in the letter to NASS and it is not available in the public domain. But some fundamental analysis is imperative. If oil had continued to sell at the former prices, by the calculation of the president, we would have required N442.72 billion multiplied by two. This would amount to the sum of N885.44 billion. If this calculation is correct and the price of crude oil doubled in the international oil market, the implication is that Nigeria will require N885.44 billion multiplied by two to pay the subsidy. This would be the sum of N1.770 trillion. The request for a fuel subsidy vote of N4 trillion is not only outrageous but unsupported by empirical evidence. It lacks credibility and appears as an attempt to create a slush fund for political campaign expenses.

Nigerians are aware and this has been confirmed by the Minister of State Petroleum Resources and other top government officials that the 65 million litres per day on which subsidy is calculated is not based on empirical evidence. It cannot be true that fuel consumption rose from 35 million litres a day in 2015 to 65 million litres a day in 2022 after two recessions, high-level inflation and the worst unemployment figures since independence. That quantum of PMS is enough to power the whole of West Africa.

This is not the way to run a depressed economy where all the macroeconomic fundamentals are headed south, buffeted by unsustainable debt (debt service in excess of 95% of retained revenue), etc. The tragedy is that the regime has failed to position Nigeria to take advantage of high oil prices, to meet our OPEC quota and even exceed same considering our poor finances. While we cannot meet our OPEC quota, we keep borrowing to even pay salaries and overheads. Yet, the same administration presides over the inflation of consumption figures for oil subsidy claims.

The National Assembly is therefore called upon to insist on our producing enough crude oil to meet our OPEC quota as well as holding accountable the ministers presiding over the petroleum industry. NASS should request for evidence on the actual quantum of PMS consumed in Nigeria every day. The figures presented by the president do not have empirical value and should be rejected. Nigerians cannot be consuming more than 35 million of PMS every day.

The post Oil magic: President Buhari’s letter to the National Assembly appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .

We are tired: Consider resignation

Eze Onyekpere — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 06:20:39 +0000

Nigeria is challenged on all fronts by the evident failure of leadership. This is not just an ordinary failure but a cataclysmic failure that can be most appropriately described as the collapse of leadership. It is cataclysmic because it is a tragedy, awful, terrible, a leadership void of unimaginable proportions. This discourse posits the inextricable link between rights and duties and how this is linked with the current leadership collapse in Nigeria. It asserts that there is no right accruing to any individual, group or political party to assume the powers of the state without a concomitant duty, capacity and attempt at lifting a finger to solve societal problems.

Every Nigerian including the incumbent president, governors, legislators, etc., have a right to aspire to public office. Implicit in this right to offer oneself to be elected to public office is a concomitant obligation to perform the duties of the office once elected and to live up to the oath of office. There is an assumption of nobility of volition and intention for assuming public office. The right of an individual to be elected to public office cannot by any stretch of the imagination trump the rights of millions of Nigerians to good governance, access to education, health, water, energy, etc. Thus, once elected into office, the continued stay in the office after a reasonable period of adjustment is contingent upon good performance which validates the rights of the majority. A mandate freely given by the people is predicated on premises of the common good, for the official to work and be seen to vigorously and meticulously work towards the fulfilment of the rights of fellow countrymen and women.

However, a scenario where persons elected into public office have shown no intention of living up to their oath of office, abdicated their duty and even when reminded by citizens they swore to serve fail, refuse and neglect to change but rather attack and insult persons who seek to call them to order, then the public officials being the mandate holders have by their actions and omissions cancelled the mandate originally given to them. There is no right to occupy an office and instead of providing solutions to the myriad of societal challenges, it complicates and compounds the challenges. The fat salaries, estacodes, allowances approved for these key officials is predicated upon their being put in a position to make life bearable for the ordinary Nigerian. To continue to claim these perks of office while doing nothing or when whatever is being done is not solving the challenges amounts to robbery.

Where do we start this discourse from? We are current witnesses to the latest disgrace in the energy sector where a country richly blessed with hydrocarbons cannot produce or refine one litre of petrol, diesel, aviation fuel or kerosene for domestic consumption or for export. The extant public policy orchestrates the fuel crisis and the resulting suffering by millions of Nigerians. Where is the minister of petroleum resources, what is his plan for bringing this to an end? Busy enjoying the perks of office; he is not bothered one bit about the suffering of the people. The hydrocarbon crisis is compounded by the electricity grid that has suffered so much frequent collapse, providing darkness, unreliable and hallmarks a persistent increase in tariff where Nigerians are forced to pay for the hopeless inefficiency of the electricity cartels. Where is the regulator, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission – evidently pretending to be on duty, drawing huge perks of office without concrete deliverables?

Turn a corner and the education sector is in disarray with the government failing to fulfil its commitments voluntarily entered into with the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities. It has become the yearly accepted norm for government to allow university lecturers to proceed on strike while treating their requests with contempt and disdain. Pray, where is the minister for education? Is he interested in resolving the dispute? Obviously, the answer is in the negative. He is busy setting up a panel to report back in two months after the lecturers have been on a one-month warning strike. Would you blame a man who has no stake in the system for not caring about the resolution of the ASUU strike? With children and wards in universities in Europe and America, young Nigerians schooling in Nigeria can go to hell for all he cares.

At another corner is the massive brain drain going on in our health sector. Our best brains in the sector are leaving in droves whilst the minister of labour, a medical doctor, insists that it is a good development. The once derided consulting clinics have further deteriorated to confirming morgues. The hospitals were not designed to work as high-level health professionals are paid a slave wage. At least prompting, the president boards his jet and heads off to Europe for medical tourism. He has just returned to Nigeria two days ago from one of such trips. And to even show his contempt for over 200 million citizens, he failed to transmit power to the vice president when he travelled for the last medical trip. Despite official statistics which are now based on imaginary depositions, the price of food, energy, transport, etc., has virtually doubled between January and March 2022. Furthermore, the naira has lost ground to many international currencies.

It is therefore imperative to state that a purported four-year mandate is not a mandate to ensure that many Nigerians lose their lives within the four years as has severally happened under the watch of the current president and his team of appointees. It is not a mandate to impoverish, punish and enslave the majority. It is not a mandate to do nothing but simply to enjoy the perks of office. It seems that ministers and executive assistants are appointed for four years certain and do not serve on the basis of their good performance. Once appointed, they stay till the end unlike the practice in previous presidential tenures.

Therefore, Mr. President and members of the federal team, in the name of God, Nigerians beg of you to consider leaving us alone. Resignation is an option. Since you cannot improve our conditions from where you took over, you reserve no right to worsen our predicament. We are tired. You have already dealt us a very bad blow in the economic, educational, health, political and social sectors. The decision is up to you but history beckons.

The post We are tired: Consider resignation appeared first on Centre for Social Justice .