APC

By Amir Abdulazeez

Some weeks ago, I was caught up in a debate involving some people trying to justify the Federal Government of Nigeria’s ban on Twitter and those who opposed it. If I am to be fair to both groups, every side had some very good points, strong enough to sway a neutral person to their side. However, one thing remains fundamental and clear even to the debaters; the Twitter ban will not solve any of our short and long-term problems, including the very ones for which the Federal Government used to justify the ban.

It will not be difficult for any critical observer to note that the Buhari administration had not taken lightly any action that will or can undermine official state authority or that of the President since its coming in 2015. This is perhaps why over 1000 Shiites were allegedly killed in the administration’s early days for blocking the way of the Chief of Army Staff, among other things. It may also be why IPOB and End SARS protesters were not treated with the kid gloves with which bandits and mass murderers of ordinary citizens are apparently treated. Twitter had not offended ordinary Nigerians as much as it had offended the Presidency and hence the ban. Regardless, at least the ban is a strong message that not everything can be tolerated by Nigeria, especially the sort of highhanded arbitrariness on the part of the social media tech giant.  

A few hours before the ban came into effect, I was surfing the platform to catch up with the day’s national and international news when I came across an interesting statement credited to ex-Senator Dino Melaye.  Melaye was reported to have said that any Nigerian that survived this APC’s administration to its end alive deserves a certificate of survival. I don’t know whether he actually said that or not, but the statement is typical of him. Besides, the truth is that ordinary Nigerians are currently receiving the suffering of their lives.

According to the Consumer Price Index report, recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s inflation rate for May 2021 stands at 17.93%, a slight drop from April 2021, which was 18.12%. Food which is the most critical item, recorded an inflation rate of 22.28% in May. This is the highest since April of 2017. Nigeria ranks 13^th in the global inflation table and 7^th in Africa, making it among the worst worldwide. At less than $80 per month, Nigeria’s minimum wage is one of the poorest in the world. A substantial percentage of the Nigerian population has been reduced to begging. The crime rate in almost every state of the federation is on the increase; income is static, expenditure is growing, no jobs and opportunities.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the change over time in the prices of 740 goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living. The index weights are based on expenditures of both urban and rural households in the 36 states. How good a measure it is to quantify our real suffering from this hyperinflation is another question of its own.

Our real problem is that these figures only give us an idea but not an accurate picture of the cost of living in the country. We all know that these figures are mainly hypothetical; we have essential goods and services that have recorded a 100% increase in prices within weeks. Another concern is that other countries facing inflation are somehow doing well relatively. For example, the twelve countries worse than Nigeria in the global inflation ranking are better off in terms of peace and security (except maybe Syria) and prosperity (except perhaps Sudan and South Sudan).

The country faces multiple, unprecedented and overwhelming security challenges from all fronts. With no clear end in sight, many people in some parts of the country live every day in uncertainty while helplessly waiting for the worst. In parts of Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger States, people live to tell the daily stories of tragedy while hopelessly waiting to be consumed like their brethren. Survival has become a privilege these days.

The government is overwhelmed and had resorted to foreign debts to keep the collapsing economy working. Nigeria’s External Debt has reached $32.9 billion US Dollars as of March 2021. Roughly, each Nigerian is indebted to the tune of 65,000 to 70,000 Naira at the official exchange rate of dollar to Naira. We have not stopped borrowing; a substantial amount of our current and future budgets still depends on external borrowing. We are not talking of internal debt.

Ordinary Nigerians are finding life unbearable. Are these sufferings temporary? What are we doing to stop this? Why is every previous year better?  How does the future look like for ourselves and our children? How many of us will survive this? Is survival our emerging national culture and priority? People are employing any available means to stay alive, thereby gradually turning societies into jungles where everyone wants to thrive even at the expense of others.

What is the overall implication of all these? Now here comes the real danger. When a greater majority of a country’s citizens are preoccupied with how to survive, no one will be left to create and add the value that will take the country to the promised land. When most people spend 75% of their time trying to fetch their families amidst rising costs and harsh conditions, they can only spend the remaining 25% to rest against the subsequent struggle, leaving them with zero time to think and create anything. When almost everyone lives to attain Dino Melaye’s survival certificate, we will have no other aspirations other than food and shelter. The result will be a backward nation that will remain static for only God knows when.

We cannot say that the current government is doing nothing about all these challenges, but they are doing nothing revolutionary. Measures like N-power, Conditional Cash Transfer and the likes are cosmetic, inadequate and unsustainable. Even their effects in the short term are too minimal to reflect on the general quality of national life. First and foremost, the country must have a comprehensive and exhaustive national development plan with inputs from local, state and federal stakeholders. This plan must be well developed, implemented and not politicized. If needs be, it should be backed by legislation. Government appointees at any time must be people that understand and can implement that plan religiously irrespective of their demography and political affiliations.

The development plan should strengthen sectors like manufacturing, power, infrastructure, security, and justice because such sectors can automatically create and consolidate direct and indirect development. For example, if there is adequate security and power supply, independent businesses would run for 24 hours. When some people who conduct businesses during the day are asleep, some others resting during the day will operate businesses during the night. Nigerian companies will work for 24 hours with no valuable time to waste, thereby hugely increasing productivity. We should be able to produce most of the goods we import.

When power is available, thousands of jobs would be created both directly and indirectly. Therefore, rather than investing in providing direct jobs that cannot satisfy all, let the government strengthen security and power.  We have seen what the telecommunication and entertainment industries have done to our economy through direct and indirect jobs creation with ripple effects. I think that success can be replicated in many other sectors. When this is done, governments will rely on happy and self-employed citizens for taxes rather than the other way round.

Unfortunately, we cannot implement essential solutions now and then because politics has been our number one national priority since 1999. This has made many people lose interest in providing any meaningful input to the Nigerian development discourse. I have received countless messages over the last eight months, including from some newspaper editors over my long break from analytical writing with some enquiring on what must be responsible. I usually didn’t have any consistent answer; sometimes, I’ll only compose any reply that comes to mind.

Whatever will be said has been said many times before. We just lack the will as a nation to take the bull by the horn. Just some days ago, a reader reminded me that it had been a year since I wrote an opinion piece asking why. I doubted and quickly went to my personal online blog only to confirm what he said was indeed true. I was surprised myself; the reader didn’t know that I am currently battling to obtain my own Certificate of Survival.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

By Abu Haneef

The governors of southern Nigeria held a meeting in Lagos on Monday, July 5, 2021. They, among other things, demanded the return of the presidency to the South in 2023. They also rejected two sections of the recently passed Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB). While the governors are entitled to their opinion, the return of the presidency to the South will however require much more than a demand from the governors—it will require fielding a Southerner that can win in a free contest. As for the rejection of some sections of the PIGB, their opinion on such a legislative matter is hardly any different from that of ordinary Nigerians and indeed of no legal significance to the implementation of PIGB. Perhaps they need to summon their legislators for an honest discussion. 

Between the 4th and 9th legislative assemblies in Nigeria, the PIGB was stalled for over 20 years due to unrealistic demands by many interest groups. This has led to the inefficient utilisation of our petroleum resources and the inability to open our economy to private investments. Therefore, the passage of this bill brought a huge sigh of relief to many who appreciated the impact its delay had on our development and economy. And today, PIGB is arguably the most debated bill in Nigeria’s history. 

The two sections contended by the governors are the allocation of 3% of NNPC’s profit to host communities (they need more) and 30% of the profit to exploration activities in the basins (they need less exploration elsewhere). 

Although the situation of the host communities is something every Nigerian should be sympathetic to, such sympathy should not mean giving them everything while other regions suffer deprivation. The host communities have 13% derivation, deducted from government revenues (not just oil). They also have a federal ministry dedicated to their needs and another government parastatal, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). Although these considerations will not replace what the region has lost (and is still losing) of its livelihood to oil exploration activities, particularly those illegal activities by the locals, it nonetheless does not justify the denial of the country to increase its revenue by exploring the basins. And lest they forget, the oil in Niger Delta was explored through revenues from our erstwhile groundnut pyramids. It also does not justify the disproportionate allocation of the nation’s resources to them exclusively. 

For example, in addition to sums budgeted for the Ministry of Niger Delta and the NDDC, Delta State alone received almost N190 billion in federal allocation in 2020, which roughly equates to what was received by four North-Eastern states of Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, and Adamawa during the same period. And this will be more appreciated when the difference in population and landmass is added to the analysis. 

I’m not mentioning this to suggest that the host states (which now include Bauchi and Gombe States, by the way) do not deserve this patronage. Still, I do so to disagree that the nation has neglected them as always projected when the leaders require additional resources of those communities. And looking at the resources allocated to the host communities in the last decade alone, their leaders, rather than Federal Government, are the ones guilty of this neglect. 

But all this argument and counter-argument can only be a lamentation or justification, depending on what side of the divide you find yourself, as those saddled with the constitutional responsibility of determining the matter have done so, albeit after a very long time. And any effort to undermine the National Assembly is actually a renegotiation of this country through the back door, which any reasonable person should not contemplate at this critical period of our history. 

As for the governors’ request for the presidency to be returned to the South in 2023, they, particularly those amongst them who championed the jettisoning of zoning arrangement in 2011, such as Wike, need to be reminded that if the aggressor forgets quickly, the victim does not. 

In 2011, the South, led by President Jonathan and many of those clamouring for it today, abolished zoning in defiance of all reasons and a gentleman agreement established by the North to protect the South that is unarguably the minority in Nigeria. This is true regardless of how one chooses to look at it—either by landmass or population. 

Now that zoning has been thrown into the bin of our history by the South; the presidency shall remain open to a free contest by all. And even if this zoning arrangement will be revisited in the future, not now, if you ask me; a good lesson needs to be taught and learned on the importance of the sacrosanctity of agreements, or else, we may see a repeat of the logically fallacious arguments tossed left, right and centre in the justification of abandoning zoning by the same actors calling for its return today. 

Abu Haneef can be reached via imabuhaneef@gmail.com.

By Mubarak Ibrahim Lawan

“At least 1,126 villagers killed by bandits from January to June 2020”, reported Amnesty International on 24th August 2020. And only God knows how many people so far killed from that time to date. JUST LAST MONTH as reported by different papers, remember that many are not reported, they killed 48 people in Danko/Wasagu Local Government area of Kebbi State; 93 people in Kadawa village of Zurmi, Zamfara State; 20 people at Zungeru, Niger State; 4 and 11 people in Southern Kaduna; 7 persons including police inspector in Zandam Village, Jibia Local Government of Katsina State; 12 people at Maikujera in Rabah Local Government of Sokoto state, etc. And, how many kidnappings and Boko Haram killings? Still, only God Knows!

So as every sensible Northerner grieves over these killings, banditry and kidnappings in Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi Niger and Borno, our leaders celebrate Governor Matawalle’s defection from PDP to APC and throw parties in Zamfara against the background of bloodbath in the State. Comparatively, great leaders mourn fewer deaths in their country, resign their position for such tragedies that outsmart them or show doubtless commitment to resolving the mystery behind the deaths, but ours turn a blind eye. I worry that their inhumane unconcernedness is diffusively affecting us as we become less and less shocked by the deaths and savagery of the human beasts around us.

Notwithstanding attacks on traditional rulers and the politicians themselves, like the attack on Ganduje’s convoy on their way back home from the Zamfara party, that particular nonchalant behaviour of the leaders is making us believe that there’s no way out of the “new normal” because of two possible reasons: (1) the ungovernability of those criminals, or, in other words, they are more powerful than the nation and, (2) the nation has decided to relinquish control of their places silently. When the army or police complain, indirectly, of being ill-equipped to win the wars with the criminals; that they are overstretched, and their number is insignificant to address the herculean task, I agree that the second hypothesis above is true, because the nation can do better.

On the inadequacy of the Nigerian army, Samuel Ogundipe of Premium Times wrote, on August 4, 2016, that “Nigeria has one of the lowest military-to-civilian ratio of nine personnel to every 10,000 people, a situation it said was alarming for the country’s security framework.” Still, as of then, Ogundipe asserted that “Nigerian military personnel can be found on active deployment in no fewer than 30 states of the federation, tackling internal security threats that ordinarily should have been left to the police and paramilitary agencies to contain.”

Then there is no need for us to know exactly how many military personnel we have today in the country. But it is good to know that from about 10,000 strong in 1966, General Yakubu Gowon then expanded Nigeria Armed Forces to about 256,000 strong before he was overthrown in 1975. So more than 40 years after, we still have a similar or less number of Armed forces strength.

After continuous retirements, deaths and below-par recruitments in years after Gowon, Buhari, in 2015, met about 205,000 strong and now expanded them to about 220,000. But, unfortunately, military politics and these years of democracy have politically bastardised the military through favouritism, nepotism, corruption, poor salary and allowances, inferior weaponry and morale.  So with the spate of incessant violence from 2010 to date, the Nigeria Army has been made the scapegoat for leaders’ failures.

Nigeria police face similar or worse political bastardisation. We have 371,800 strong in a country of about 200 million people. Still, the governments waste resources on recruiting Hizba, KAROTA, KASTELIA, Amotekun, Civil Defense and the like. If these youths were to be absorbed into the police force, no bandit and kidnapper could wander freely. But, I see the accurate picture of our chaotic country these days when, on lockdown days, I encounter people on roadblocks with different uniforms working for unnecessary organisations. I pity us!

We really need thoughtfully progressive leaders who could reduce nomenclatures, harmonise, expand and sanitise ministries, commissions, boards, services and what have you! We, “the leaders of tomorrow”, should make this a measure for picking a political candidate if he presents us with sound plans, especially on security services. Most police and military personnel are left without seminars, courses, workshops and training that would bring out their best. So we need leaders who will make that possible.

Mubarak Ibrahim writes from the Department of English, Al-Qalam University Katsina.