Legalising All Illegalities

In many of Shakespeare’s plays, he pondered why “Men have lost their reason”. Mark Anthony expressed disappointment at the action of Brutus who took an undue advantage of his closeness to Julius Caesar to stab him to death, maintaining as the only reason for such a diabolical action, that Caesar was ambitious. We find absolutely reprehensible, the stand of Hon Phillip Shuaibu and Hon. Paul Ohonbamu, both principal officers of the Action Congress extraction in the Edo State House of Assembly, “Whatever decision that was taken during the administration of Professor Osunbor was legal since he was sworn in by the Chief Judge of the State” (VANGUARD, Wednesday, December 24, 2008, p. 11). In the months ahead, we can see the Assemblymen struggling to wriggle out of this mess. In fact, wouldn’t have been bothered an inch if this stench had come from a less disciplined party.
A man shoots his way to power through the instrumentality of what has been adjudged the worst election ever conducted any where in the entire universe. For 18 months, he clings to power by all means. He breaks all known laws and disobeys all court orders. He plunders the treasury. He walks justice on its head. He leaves unpromoted, all those who deserved to be promoted and promotes all those undeserving of it. On the eve of his departure from Government, he dumps on establishments, all manner of people not needed by the establishments, ostensibly as staff. Haba!
The Osunbor administration was totally bereft of ideas and it brought none to Governmen. From Day One, Osunbor’s government lacked legitimacy. It did not have the confidence of the Edo people to rule them. Like the Bourbons, the administration had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. In other words, the administration killed itself and Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is simply helping to bury it. Now, the Assemblymen who ought to know better are coming up with the ludicrous idea that every action taken by this illegal regime should be accepted as sacrosanct since the regime “was sworn in by the Chief Judge of the State”. Absolutely preposterous!
Our Honourable Members must answer a few salient questions: Since when did swearing in become a panacea for legitimacy? Why was it necessary to go to the Tribunal and the Appeal Court, which ultimately annulled the election? Again, was it not really because the Chief Judge whose duty it was to swear in the administration had no power to “swear it out” that it lasted that much? After all, which decent body, including the Judiciary and the Chief Judge, did that illegal regime not smear with its illegality? One simple example will do here. We recall, with sadness, that after the sham Local Government elections, the Chief Judge appointed men of integrity into the Local Government Election Petition Tribunal. That was how Hon. Justice Akinbami and two others were appointed Chairman and members respectively. The Chief Judge received kudos for the fine appointments, unaware of the rude shock that was to follow.
On the appointed day for the swearing in, Hon. Justice Akinbami and the two members dressed up in their best custom-made black suits and proceeded to Government House. But just before the swearing in started, a spurious petition came from Prince Solomon Aguele (then PDP State Chairman), alleging that Justice Akinbami would not do their bidding as he was the incorruptible Judge who had a few days before then granted an interim injunction in favour of some PDP members who had insisted on due process in the nomination of candidates for the Local Government elections.
Right there at the Festival Hall, Hon. Justice Akinbami was replaced with Justice Ighodalo, Professor Osunbor’s kinsman and loyalist who was the same faithful servant that illegally vacated the interim injunction granted by Hon. Justice Akinbami. This was how the Professor of Law turned himself to the de facto appointing authority of the Tribunal’s Members, thus usurping the constitutionally assigned responsibility of the State Chief Judge, the same Chief Judge that sworn him in!
The Bible’s stand is clear: Vanity upon vanity is all vanity (Ecclesiastes 12:8). Anything emanating from an illegal regime is illegal. Even at that, nobody is prepared to go the whole hog. The obvious atrocities are enough to occupy the full attention of any government. Need we begin to enumerate the numerous ways in which the Osunbor administration ran foul of the law? A few instances will do. On assumption of office on the 29th of May 2007, Prof. Osunbor met on the table, a court ruling by Hon. Justice E.F. Ikponmwen of the High Court of Justice, sitting in Benin City: That the Resolution of the State House of Assembly mandating the 2007 Local Government election to be put on hold and also requesting the State Governor to remove the chairman and members of Edo State Independent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC) from office were “unconstitutional, invalid, null and void and of no effect whatsoever”. The court also ruled that “appointment of persons into Local Government Councils… without democratically conducted elections is declared null and void and of no effect”.
We saw how even in the face of these, Prof. Osunbor sent the legitimate chairman and members of EDSIEC he met on ground packing and in their places, he appointed his own cronies, who were essentially PDP card carrying members. We saw how this soon became the albatross of the Osunbor-led administration by portraying it not only as an administration that relishes itself on disobedience of court orders but also as an administration that would never be able to conduct a credible election since it chooses to wallow in illegalities.
We are all living witnesses to the charade they called Local Government elections of last December; that advanced fraud in which the results were written and announced in Government House and other safe havens. While voters wailed endlessly at polling stations to cast their votes, the “Presiding officers” had finished their job at their chosen rendezvous.
We have said often enough that good government demands good leadership. This means the ability not only to choose staff that are loyal, but also those who have the competence to generate ideas that would enhance the implementation of the fundamental objectives of state policy.
Instead of this, while the illegal regime was beating a retreat from Government, it deliberately deposited a lot of debris on its trail, including a heavy load of undesired staff with the resultant overweight in wage bill; in utter defiance of the need for due process, it pushed its cronies into the so called statutory commissions; it selectively picked and chose which staff to promote, again without due process; it littered the entire place with contractors who were by and large cronies who had collected millions and billions of Naira for work not done; and finally, while leaving all these liabilities behind, it decided to take away every available asset, including looting the treasury and removing the last kobo, leaving the various bank accounts in deep red, and looting of other Government property, ranging from vehicles to cutlery, window blinds and tooth picks.
Of course, Government had an institution on ground, which would have squarely checkmated them from these wanton destructions. These cannot happen under a House of Assembly that knows its onions. Through the instrumentality of the doctrine of checks and balances the State House of Assembly would have prevented a lot of these from happening but apparently, they were partners in crime. What else does one expect from a House that has chosen to be compromised to the detriment of the electorate? That explains why the same House of Assembly is now telling us that whatever the Osunbor-led administration did was in order since the State Chief Judge swore it in.
The Oshiomhole Administration has started on a sound footing. The irregular promotions have been reverted to status quo ante; the irregular appointments in Edo City Transport Service (ECTS) have been terminated. This is just a tip of the iceberg. They must go through with the cleansing. And this is only one side of the coin. A thorough cleansing presupposes a situation of reward and punishment. In the process, some people must have also been oppressed, suppressed and compressed. There must be adequate amendatory action for these categories of people who were deprived during the illegal regime.
All the same, we are still convinced that these palliative measure, simply beg the question. Until we get to the point where those who rig themselves into office are made to vomit all their drawings and spending while illegally occupying office, the marginal propensity to rig will never be reduced. The evil that men do should live with them.

African Policy Issues for Obama (2)

Credit should also be given to the former government of Bill Clinton for his pro-Africa foreign policy initiatives. For example, in the vital area of world trade, the Clinton administration took a significant step of conceding tariff-free exports of African goods into the U.S through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGoA) – an initiative that was laden with potentials of fuelling economic growth on the continent.
Hopefully, the incoming administration of Senator Obama would build on such landmark African policy initiatives of its predecessors. As “son-of-the soil” of the continent, the Illinois senator should employ his international goodwill to wade into various armed conflicts that have buoyed political instability, economic collapse, social dislocation and underdevelopment and the attendant human suffering. For example, in the troubled Great Lakes region (DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda), Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Algeria, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic and a host of others, vicious cycles of political violence and armed conflicts have spread like cancer and claimed millions of lives. The cases of Somalia and DR Congo paint the most pathetic picture, as the former is riven by bloody clan conflict that has occasioned anarchy, turbulence, disintegration, looting, plundering and devastation since 1991 and the latter by monstruous civil war and the resultant instability, violence, ethnic cleansing, rape, massacres and unparrallel refugee crisis since 1997.
Given that classic failed states in Africa like Somalia have constituted a major source of anxiety to Western countries, especially the U.S, because of the likelihood of anarchy there providing a perfect environment for small but dangerous groups of terrorists and bandits (including Somali pirates now threatening sea transportation within and beyond the country’s territorial waters), the incoming Obama government should draw attention of the international community that has seemingly shown cold indifference to such continuous and silent Tsunami of conflicts and brutal insurgencies. The administration should help restore some semblance of normalcy in such conflict – stricken African states through provision of additional support and assistance with programmes of reconciliation, disarmament, demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration.
As part of the impelling necessity for conflict resolution and peace-building in the post-Cold War Africa, the Obama administration should assist the continent with capacity building in the area of preventing and managing conflicts through fostering of the policies of good governance, the rule of law, social justice, fundamental human rights and equitable distribution of economic resources. The administration should enlist the support of the Group of Eight (G-8) highly industrialised countries for African peace-keeping through the AU and other regional peace-keeping initiatives like ECOMOG in West Africa. And aware that conflicts and wars are a deterrent to economic growth and development, the new occupants of the White House should encourage international financial institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank to strengthen their efforts in post-conflict reconstruction in war-torn countries like Mozambique, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Eritrea, DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan, Guinea-Bissau and others, to enable them not to fall back to the dark and hideous past of bloodletting and destruction.
It is also hoped that the incoming Obama administration would make the growth of democratic process in Africa one of the fulcra of its foreign policies. This can be done through economic aid, capacity and institutional building and development of institutions of democracy – including the justice system, legislatures, the police, local authorities, trade unions, the media, electoral bodies and civil society organisations.
The Obama administration should equally assist in efforts to build democratic and free countries in the seemingly close political societies of North Africa, which have lagged behind sub-Saharan African countries in embracing political reforms. Notably, most of the countries in the region, though economically buoyant but democratically backward, have been under absolute monarchy (like Morocco) or under one-man rule like Ghadafi’s Libya (since 1969), Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt (since 1981), Zine al Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisia (since 1987), or under shaky democracy marked by repressive conditions like Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s Algeria and neighbouring Mauritania.
Considering that full democratisation of the national societies in North Africa would be crucial in appeasing the rising sense of alienation, disillusionment and political bondage that led to the upsurge of hardline Islamic militancy in the region, as found outlet in violent guerilla uprising in places like Algeria and Egypt, as well as nefarious activities of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb region, which also portends danger to the U.S now waging war on terror, the Obama administration should help re-stimulate interest in democratic process in the entire region. To achieve this, the administration should elicit the support of other Western democracies and supranational bodies like the UN and AU to clear out the swamps of political oppression and socio-economic alienation that have made such region one of the hatcheries of international terrorism. Thankfully, in his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Senator Obama wrote of America’s need to build a new international consensus to confront international threats, which religious extremism and virulent ethnic nationalism are part of. Hopefully, his incoming administration, unlike that of outgoing President Bush that fights fire with fire, would meet the destructive hate and bigotry of Islamic zealotry with creative love of dialogue and engagement.
The incoming administration in the U.S. is also expected to give support to politically convulsive states in Africa like Nigeria, Chad, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Kenya and other sub-Saharan African countries where the process of political pluralism, spurred by public protests and demands for greater leadership responsibilities, has been captured, under the guise of bitter and divisive competitive elections, by the authoritarian groups already in control of power and the state resources. The untoward effects of such turbulent partisan politics in some of these countries that are on the rocky road to democracy are the epidemics of authoritarianism, disregard of the rule of law and electoral fraud that have not only undermined democratic and civic institutions, but have also heightened the level of civil tension and unrest.
The incoming Obama administration should also assist Africa to grapple with climate change and the associated global warming. Needless to say, the environmental degradation on the continent is alarming and unsustainable in the long run, as phenomena like global warming can radically alter human existence through negative impact on health, agriculture, land use, water resources and energy sector. In view of this, the Obama administration would need to play a critical role in enabling African countries to cope and adapt to the so-called “new order” unleashed by ecological catastrophes of climate change and global warming. To this end, the administration should make the U.S to be duly committed to the UN Kyoto protocol on climate change, which the country, one of the world’s major industrial polluters, has pulled out from. The Obama administration should use American global influence to persuade other major industrial polluter countries like Japan, China and Russia to respect global conscience on climate change by subscribing themselves to the principles of the Kyoto system and tackling global warming through cleaner energy technologies and promotion of a post-Kyoto agreement to cut green house gases.
The incoming Obama administration would as well face an uphill task in Africa in the area of disease control, especially in rolling back the menace of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis – deadly diseases that have caused an alarming public health emergency on the continent. Take HIV/AIDS as an example, one estimate has it that more than 30 Million Africans are infected with this dreaded pandemic that has devastated families, produced orphans and presented economic and security threats to states on the continent through undermining of manpower of all institutions by illness and death, as witnessed in the critical agricultural, educational, judicial, policy-making and security sectors. Given this, the Obama administration is expected to produce a positive knock-on effect by complementing efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis on the continent, in addition to major causes of maternal and infant deaths. The administration should enlist the support of bodies like Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Harvard AIDS Institute to help African states to produce cost-effective generic drugs or anti-retrovirals (ARVs) that have made HIV survivable in the U.S and Europe for treatment of Africans living with AIDS. That several Western countries like America are investing billions of dollars in fighting terrorism but failing in subsidising ARVs for HIV/AIDS patients in Africa is a clear case of egoistic obscenity of the Western world that should be reversed by the incoming Obama administration for a humane world.
Another African policy issue facing the incoming Obama presidency is how to resolve the lingering North-South dichotomy, or the division between the developed world and developing nations (including those in Africa) over a huge developmental gulf between these geo-economic zones. Some aspects of this gulf or gap arise from the structural defects in the international political economy that put developing countries in unfair and disadvantaged positions. These include the Bretton Woods Institutions (the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO) that are adjudged in some quarters as not working in the better interest of developing countries, the lopsidedness and imbalance of the brave new world of globalisation, globalised economy, ICTs and bio-technology and the peripheral position of the developing nations in the decision-making and implementation apparati of the UN (especially the Security Council).
To reverse the stagnation and suffering associated with such conditions that have contributed to making Africa “a scar on the conscience of the world”, the incoming Obama administration should help bring the New International Economic Order (NIEO) agenda of the 1970s and 1980s back to the front burner of international discourse. Of particular interest to the continent, in this respect, are the paramount issues of debt cancellation, development aid, free and fair trade, poverty alleviation, technology transfer and radical overhaul of the Bretton Woods system. Surely, with the best will in the world, the Obama administration could set the ball rolling in making the North and the South to patch up their differences over varied issues, including world trade talks. Expectedly, the administration would inject momentum into attempts to accelerate the pace of global trade by using morasuasion or moral persuasion to nudge the developed world of the North to exude good disposition towards the developing South by working firmly and quickly for a re-ordered international political economy that is underpinned by inclusion, social justice, fairness and equality of opportunities. Of course, America is required not only to show leadership in abiding by international commitments directed at achieving a genuine new world order, but also at living up to its billing as a powerful nation that is morally obligated to helping the weaker states of the world, including those in Africa, to survive, in the interest of international peace and coexistence.
As the agitation for expansion of the seats of the UN Security Council, based on geo-strategic representation, gathers pace, the incoming Obama administration is well-advised to support any of these three countries, namely Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, in their bid for the coveted seats. The administration should also ensure that the cornerstone of its foreign policy is to work actively with the world body as a friend of Africa. To this end, the Obama administration should influence the Security Council to resolve conflicts and political instability in different parts of the continent through peace-keeping and pressure on governments of affected countries to tackle the root causes of the conflicts, which include political oppression, social injustice, human rights abuse, extreme poverty and deprivation and illicit flow of small arms and light weapons.
It is impossible to conclude without stating that the emergence of Senator Obama as U.S. president-elect has rekindled hope of increased presence and support of the super power in Africa after the lofty years of John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. It was former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain who said in 2005 that: “A changed Africa could change the face of the world”. True, Senator Obama cannot afford to miss the opportunity of being part of the centripetal international forces working for evolution of a renascent Africa, marked by political stability, social cohesion, economic progress and techno-industrial transformation. With the goodwill and visionary dreams of the Illinois senator as a liberal progressive interested in global order and stability, Africa cannot be relegated in the U.S. foreign policy framework. And his election as president has provided a focal point for the emergence of a new spirit of trust, friendship and cooperation between America and the continent after the unfortunate echoes of Atlantic slavery, the Cold War and Apartheid system that hit this neglected part of the world hardest. Indeed, President-elect Obama is a Western leader African countries would be eager to do business with. He is overwhelmingly plebian in his leadership vision and pro-international cause and through his unbridled liberalism, he would make the U.S. a good state actor on the international stage without much display of power politics.

Repositioning Non-oil Exports

The desire of President Umaru Yar’Adua to fund the nation’s budget mainly from non-oil exports is quite laudable. This quest to depart from the usual reliance of funding our budget from crude oil sales is long over due given the economic crisis that engulfed the world recently.
From rising cost of food items, crash in stock prices to an unprecedented high cost of living, it is crystal clear that any nation that fails to diversify its economy but depends solely on one source of revenue to drive its economy is laying a foundation for crisis and indeed, bequeathing an unpredictable future for its generation.
The recent global economic crisis has again drawn our attention to the fact that repositioning our non-oil export sector is the only road map to sustainable economic development. There is no gain saying the fact that soon there will be a major break through by the industrialized and technologically advanced countries of the world regarding the issue of alternative energy source.
We are now too familiar with issues like Biofuel, an alternative source of energy which is produced from any (biological) carbon source, the most common sources being photosynthetic plants while steady progress is being made in other areas like solar power, wind mill etc in an effort to reduce over dependence on crude oil and gas supply from OPEC countries like Nigeria.
Reports have further confirmed that Biofuel industries are rapidly expanding in Europe, Asia and the Americas. The question, therefore is with all these developments in the energy sector coupled with the fact that the economies of the developed countries are knowledge-driven (not resource based) how then do we reposition our non-oil export sector to guarantee a secured future for us all particularly in the wake of dwindling oil fortunes.
The answer to this question is not far-fetched as all we need to do especially those saddled with the responsibility of running the affairs of the country is to channel our developmental effort towards the non-oil export sector by ensuring that agriculture and our agro-allied industries are given all the necessary support by the federal and state governments.
Reason being that agriculture, till date, remains the only sector that can provide the leeway to productively engage our (restive) youths, create employment opportunities as well as for wealth creation.
Besides, for Nigeria to belong to the league of highly industrialized nations there must be concerted effort towards revitalizing the agricultural sector, as it remains the only sector that guarantees regular source of raw materials for some of our ailing and now moribund industries.
And until we are determined to reposition our non-oil export sector by conscientiously initiating and implementing policies that will catapult our economy to the league of 20 largest economies of the world by the year 2020, we will continue to depend on crude oil sales as our only source of revenue. That is why it is disheartening that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), according to a recent report by Thisday newspaper said the government was not ready to fund the nation’s budget from non-oil revenue.
The saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step aptly describes the manner in which the funding of our budget from non-oil revenue can be realized. But adopting a defeatist approach to the issue is definitely not the way to go rather putting the right structures in place viz – feasible policies, adequate support for our entrepreneurs particularly the small and medium ones in terms of adequate incentives (tax holidays, interest free loans etc), regular power supply, good road networks among others, should be top on the list of things that can be done to reposition the non-oil export sector for sustainable economic development.
There is no doubt that to realize these objectives is a Herculean task. However, repositioning the sector for sustainable economic development can be realized through the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), an agency statutorily responsible for driving activities in that sector. Since its establishment 32 years ago, the Council, within the limited resources available has put in place structures that have, significantly, assisted in growing the sector.
Only recently, Nigeria joined the league of African countries exporting apparel products to the United States, following the first shipment of apparel by F and D Garments (worth N18 million) to the USA under the African Growth and Opportunities Act on July 17, 2008.
The company was able to record this feat with the support of Human Capital Development Centre, otherwise known as “The AGOA Training School” which was established in 2006. The Center which is located in Ikoyi, Lagos was conceptualized by the NEPC to train Nigerian entrepreneurs on how to produce apparel that meet the requisite standards required for the United States market.
Obviously, the non-oil export sector boost of huge, yet untapped potentials that can drive our economy, and thus reduce our dependence on crude oil. Take for instance our music and movie industry. Through dint of hard work, creativity and sheer determination to succeed players in that industry have succeeded in developing and promoting that industry to the level it is presently, in spite of the menace of piracy and seeming lack of support from our mega banks. Oil and gas will not last for ever, now is the time to concentrate our effort towards diversifying our economy in order to ensure sustainable economic development by repositioning our non-oil export sector.

Furore over Helmet Law

Nigerians are a patently difficult people. We always look for excuses to beat any law made either for the good governance of the country or even for the enhancement of our personal welfare, safety and general well being. Ironically, even when compliance with a new law would neither cause us anything nor detract from our personal comfort, we still find one reason or the other to resist such well-intended regulations. A sure manifestation of this awkward tendency is the ongoing battle over the directive by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on crash helmets usage by motorcyclists, which took effect from January 1 and the various antics by both commercial motorcyclists and even their passengers to kill the new regulation on arrival.
Our inexplicable intransigence when it comes to obeying simple rules and regulations cuts across all facets of our national lives. We disobey simple traffic rules at will and at great consequence to ourselves and other road users; we flout basic building and town planning laws without qualms; basic personal hygiene tips are routinely disregarded and so do we disobey street trading laws that are made in our own interests to reduce road carnage and the menace of area boys who thrive in rowdy and chaotic situations.
It would appear that we are a compulsively incorrigible lot as we take delight in always undercutting every reasonable rule and regulation.
And this attitude is partly responsible for the systemic failure the nation currently witnesses in most areas. Most traffic gridlocks we experience in urban centres are caused by senseless disregard for simple traffic regulations by some motorists. For instance, an impatient driver would drive against traffic thereby obstructing on-coming vehicles and causing road accidents in the process; urban slums keep multiplying because of builders' disregard for basic building and town planning rules; most urban roads are bad because of incessant digging by people laying electricity/telecommunication cables and water pipes; NEPA/PHCN failure is mainly due to cable vandalization by unscrupulous Nigerian businessmen; pipe-borne water flow is often disrupted in most areas where it is available because of pipes' destruction by vandals.
Such pernicious attitude is also responsible for some personal/communal calamities and health hazards that have claimed many lives in the country in recent past. For instance, stubborn disregard for personal hygiene invariably leads to cholera and other epidemic outbreak; indiscriminate dumping of refuse in gutters lead to drainage blockage and this invariably cause urban flooding in the event of any slight rainfall; disregard for the use of quality building materials is the major cause of most building collapses that take several lives; and the various petroleum pipeline fire disasters we have so far witnessed in the country with their attendant massive fatalities, are the handiworks of selfish vandals.
Nigerians always call for change anytime a bad leader is foisted on the country but we always resist any simple initiative that is meant to improve our lives or prevent unnecessary disaster or mitigate its intensity when it occurs. For instance, when it was first introduced, the seat-belt rule was vehemently resisted by motorists who considered it an unnecessary burden. Before it sank in, many motorists were penalised for a law that is basically in their personal interest and which they ordinarily ought to embrace with enthusiasm. The monthly environmental sanitation exercise is one particular instance of total resistance by Nigerians. Since its inception during the Buhari/Idiagbon regime, hundreds of offenders who find the two-hour movement restriction from 7 am to 9 am during the exercise unpalatable are arrested and penalised every month. It is baffling that almost 24 years on, many Nigerians still find it difficult to come to terms with the sanitation law that is meant to enhance the cleanliness of our surroundings and so drastically reduce stench-related health hazards.
This type of senseless resistance to good laws is manifesting again in the on-going controversy surrounding the wearing of safety helmets by motorcyclists in the country. Worried by the high rate of motorcycle accidents-induced fatalities, the FRSC directed that as from January 1, it would be mandatory for every motorcyclist and the passenger to wear the protective crash helmet. This, according to the Commission, will at least protect the head from fatal brush with the hard surface of the road in case of accidents, which is a fairly frequent occurrence with commercial motorcycle (okada) riders.
However, it has been a tough battle enforcing compliance with this law since it took off about two weeks ago. Motorcyclists have devised various means of rubbishing the helmet law. While some don't want to wear it at all, some would not buy the specified and safe helmets, but would improvise with all sorts of funny hats ranging from head pans to hard hats used by construction workers and even paint buckets! Also, most motorbike passengers would not even want to hear anything about crash helmets let alone wearing them as they consider the protective headgears rather incongruous with their dressing. Weird tales of people disappearing after putting on the helmets are even bandied about in Lagos just to underscore our unwillingness to comply with the law.
But pray, what is bad in using a device that is bound to save our lives in case of okada accidents. There is no gainsaying the fact that most urban dwellers have woken up to the reality of the ubiquitous okada being an undeniable mode of transportation, in deed, a painfully convenient one at that. In the face of grossly inadequate and inefficient public transportation system, the okada has become a ready alternative, and a much swifter one at that. Even with its well known associated risks borne out of the operators' unruly road manners, this informal means of urban transportation has virtually supplanted the conventional commutter buses and taxi cabs as veritable means of public transportation system in most urban and even rural areas. This has underscored government's woeful failure in this crucial public service obligations to the people. Most urban and rural roads are mostly dilapidated and this is greatly impairing vehicular movements, which is the main reason why commercial vehicles shun most inner-city routes thereby giving commercial motorcyclists a field day.
To me, it is in the interest of okada riders – both the commercial operators and passengers – to cultivate the habit of using safety helmets as long as okada remains their preferred means of transportation in the absence of better and safer alternative.
But beyond the enforcement of this crash helmet law, something urgent must be done about the parlous state of urban transportation and mostly dilapidated urban roads in the country. It is really a shame that nearly 50 years after independent, Nigeria cannot boast of efficient intra-city mass transportation and commuters still have to depend on motorbikes, with its attendant risks, for daily transportation. This is why it is apposite for the government to fix most bad intra-city roads to open them up for commuter buses and launch aggressive mass transit schemes to ease the daily hassles faced by commuters who at the end of the day mostly have no choice than risk their lives hitch-hiking on okada.
The efforts of the Raji Fashola administration in Lagos State in these two areas are worthy of commendation. For, not only is his BRT initiative bringing visible transportation succour to Lagosians, his aggressive opening up of several inner city streets along with the banishing of street trading and uprooting of illegal roadside stalls, has made it possible for commuter buses and taxi cabs to access roads that were no-go areas few months back. But he has to do more to achieve total success. And with that, okada's relevance in the area of mass transit would become a non-issue.
But in the meantime, it is bad law to think of banning okada, like it is being tried in Rivers State, if you cannot provide any visible and affordable means of transporting the people

Case Against Immunity Clause (2)

Apart from financial corruption, the immunity promotes executive lawlessness as we all witnessed during the last government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. We witnessed a situation where a former head of federal government was involved in an unsuccessful overthrow of elected state governor, loan was granted to a foreign country and a territory of Nigeria-Bakassi was signed away to Cameroon without the approval of National Assembly. The governors too got away with so many infractions. Things have not changed. They even seem to have deteriorated.
There are those who argue that removing the Immunity clause would expose the executive arm of our government to too many distractive legal actions. This argument lacks empirical and historical support because right now, the Senate President, the Speakers of the House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly and the Chairmen of the 774 Local Governments in Nigeria do not have any immunity but there is not a single case of malicious legal action or prosecution against any of them. Any State official that conducts his state functions transparently will not encounter any malicious prosecution because Nigerians are not bloodhound. The further fear that it could be a lethal weapon for dictators like former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to remove the governors whimsically is untenable too because no President would do this if he knew that he had no immunity against criminal trial.
The centrality of the any law should be sustenance of good governance and not eliminating the fears of the President, Vice President, Governor, and Deputy Governor of being hounded out of office for crime. In fact, we want them to govern perpetually under this fear as a stimulus for restrained public conduct. Our legal environment should create a very strong climate of fear against bad governance. This is how it is in serious nations.
One other bizarre consequence of the immunity is that it legally raises the beneficiaries above the State and the law of the land. It makes the President, the Vice President, Governor and the Deputy Governor, a sovereign of the feudal order in a supposedly republican state like Nigeria. In a criminal case, the action is always between the State and a Citizen. Thus, an immunity that incapacitates a State from seeking a legal redress on criminal matters against a rampaging Governor, President, or their Vice will only make them an outlaw and is therefore a bad law. It is a bad law because an individual whether as a President, Vice President, Governor or Deputy Governor can not be bigger than a State. This is why Nigerian Executives are the most powerful, reckless and lawless in the world.
What is the solution? The first is judicial. We may toe the line of some countries with successful and mature democracies. In United States of America, United Kingdom etc, there is constitutional immunity but the heartening fact is that the Courts in these countries do not interprete the immunity to shield the men in power from criminal prosecution. If we desire to emulate them, we may not need to amend the Constitution to make our executives amenable to law. What is required is for the Nigerian Courts to follow the trend in the civilized clime by interpreting this constitutional immunity clause to shield the Governors, President and their Deputies from civil proceedings only but to make them judicially liable to be prosecuted while in office for crimes they committed while in power. This would tremendously elevate the character of our public governance.
As an alternative to the foregoing, I would humbly also suggest a legislative approach which would involve an outright removal of the immunity of the Governors because under municipal and international laws they are not sovereign as they are not the heads of government of independent states. This obtains in Europe and United States of America. Article 28 of European Convention on State Immunity 1972 provides that the Constituent States of a Federation do not enjoy immunity. Presently, the Governor of Illinois of US, Mr. Rod Blagojevich is facing criminal trial while in office because he has no immunity. If actually it is necessary, it should be a privilege of the President and Vice President, because they are the heads of an independent state and should be restricted to civil matters only. President and his Vice should have no immunity against criminal prosecution for crimes they committed while in power. Even at that, we need to know that in modern government, where the ruled and rulers are deemed equal because the latter are the representatives of the former in government, there is no place for immunity. This is why Bill Clinton, former President of US was almost impeached for mere inappropriate sexual relationship with a Whitehouse intern. Similarly, under international law, some former heads and senior officials of governments, Rebels that led insurrections etc (and some other ones like Sudanese President and Konny of Ugadan Lord’s Resistance Army would soon join) are presently facing criminal trial in the International Court of Justice (IJC) for acts that breached jus cogens (international norms) for example, genocides, slave trade, apartheid etc they committed while in office. Some of them like, Charles Taylor, Slovadan Milosevic were forced out of power and sent to ICJ for prosecution. Nigeria must march with the global times.
Finally, if the call for removal of the immunity clause is to win the anti-corruption war, I would say it would not be enough. However, it is a vital part of the composite strategy. It should be supported with the amendment of the constitution separating the office of the Attorney General of Federation/State from the Ministry of Justice. Because since Buhari’s government when the Attorney General of the Federation, drafted the obnoxious Decree 4 that restricted press freedom and the Anti-drug Decree that had retrospective effect, it would appear that it is impossible for the occupants of the office to free themselves from the politics of those who appointed them. For this reason, Attorney General who must be a non- Politician should be appointed by the National Judicial Council with input from Nigerian Bar Association and should report to the National Assembly or State House of Assembly as the case may be. The anti-corruption agencies should report to him. Our constitution should provide for Private Independent Prosecutor who would take up the duty of prosecuting corrupt officers in public and private services where the State agents decide to turn a blind eye for political expediency. The Courts as they are today cannot deliver the needed contribution in winning the anti-corruption war because they are too few for 140 million Nigerians and their practiced direction slows down trial process. Imagine a Supreme Court presently comprising about 14 or so Justices presiding over the affairs of over 140 Million Nigerians! That is one Supreme Court Justice per 10 Million Nigerians! The court system should be decentralized to meet the needs of our contemporary society. The Executive and Legislature have full independent structures at State and Federal levels. For example, States have separate and independent executive and legislative arms with their full structure and power so do the Federal government whereas the Judiciary is unitary in character. Therefore our judiciary should be federalized. Thus, the States should have a semi-autonomous judiciary and court system starting from High Court to Supreme Court. Similarly the Federal Government should also have Federal High Court, Federal Court of Appeal, and Federal Supreme Court with their jurisdictions distinctly categorized as it is in other federations in the world. There should be a central judicial body to control them. This would provide Nigeria with the optimal population of courts that can take adequate care of the conflicts and disagreements that result from our daily interactions leaving no room for resort to extrajudicial conflict resolution. We have enough constitutionally qualified lawyers to fill the positions.
And the Practice Direction of the courts should be amended to do away with procedures that slow down trial. Wherever part of this planet that has witnessed civilization and quantum progress, it has always been led by a virile judiciary that first fertilized the ground. We may accuse the present EFCC of not doing much to combat corruption. The reality is that it can not do much if the court is not reformed to meet the demands of the anti-corruption campaign. Among all, there must be the will to fight corruption because the absence of this would make the campaign a failure even with strong legal framework.
The Immunity clause should be expunged from our constitution for good because it is a recipe for corruption.

Case Against Immunity Clause 1

Recently, the President, Alhaji Musa Yaradua, suggested the removal of the Constitutional immunity barring the courts from trying the President, Vice President, the Governor, and the Deputy Governor for the misfeasance committed by them while in office. Having been a Governor and now the President, he is one of those in the best position to know the benefits or otherwise of this constitutional provision. Predictably the issue has turned into a red-hot polemic in which Nigerians have taken implacable positions. On one side are those who support its retention while on the other side are those who want it expunged from our Constitution. To avoid being unfair to those who support its retention, it is necessary to state that by supporting the retention of the immunity clause it should not be taken that they support corruption rather they are concerned with the distraction its removal would expose the heads of government. Whichever side one belongs, it reveals the depth and velocity of smouldering anti-corruption sentiments which very soon might blaze into a revolution.
To some Nigerians, the call by the President is a credible measure of his determination to run a transparent, clean and corruption-free administration. To others, the call aligns with the President‘s philosophy of abstaining from corrupt practices without insisting on others to emulate him. A ready example is his public declaration of assets which he never made mandatory for his ministers and subordinates thereby making it a flash in the pan. This school of thought see the suggestion as a diversionary molehill that can not make a mountain in the fight against corruption considering his closeness to some Nigerians undergoing criminal trial over corruption charges. They insist that retention or removal of the clause can not go far in eradicating corruption unless there is a seminal will by the Federal government to decisively deal with the scourge.
Before going further, it is instructive to define immunity, make incursion into its origin and explore its relevance or otherwise to governance. The Immunity law as is provided by our 1999 Constitution bars the Courts from entertaining any legal proceedings whether civil or criminal against the President, the Vice President, Governor and the Deputy for misfeasance committed while in office. While the Citizens or the State may have the right to sue any or all of them, the Nigerian Constitution has stripped the Courts of the power to hear such legal actions. Thus, it legally makes it impossible for any party, even the State to bring any of them to justice in our municipal courts.
Initially, the immunity law was besides, thought to bar the Police or any other State Security agency from investigating the person until the Supreme Court in GANI FAWEHINMI Vs IGP contradicted this position. The law now is that the Police or any other State Security can investigate a Governor, his Deputy, the President and also his Vice over any allegation while in office. But the trial or prosecution will have to wait until he leaves office.
Historically, Immunity arose from the concept of sovereignty. A Sovereign is any legal entity with supreme political authority whose actions and decisions cannot be challenged by any other authority or the Courts of the land. The origin of immunity could be traced to the evolution and practice of monarchical government in which the Monarch or King was held to be a Sovereign with the power to solely make laws for his subjects which himself was not subject to. Being the sovereign, it was considered absurd for the King to be subject to his own laws. He therefore could not be tried or be made to appear before the Court. This was the era of monarchical dictatorship. With advancement in political development leading to parliamentarism or representative government, it was enshrined in the Bill of Right of 1689, conferring parliamentary immunity on the members of the parliament over speeches, statements, remarks etc made during parliamentary sessions. Also under international law, immunity was extended to the independent States or their Representatives against prosecution by the Courts of foreign nations. The aim was to promote global peace within the comity of nations. An Independent State in international law is a defined territory with an ascertainable population and a public administration backed by law. The principles of immunity of States were laid in the US case of THE SCHOONER EXCHANGE V MCFADDON, 7 CRANCH 116 (1812).
It is when the law of the land regards a legal being as a sovereign that it takes legal steps to protect that being from being sued in Courts. It is for this purpose that the makers of the 1999 Constitution provided section 308, which makes the President, the Vice President, the Governor, and Deputy Governor immune to court jurisdiction. It is the position of the proponents of this law that this Immunity clause is necessary to shield them from the distractive effect of adverse legal actions, which could completely clog the machinery of state governance.
While the concept of immunity and its provision in our 1999 constitution might be appropriate, it must be balanced with our contemporary political realities. The reality is that our political class is corrupt from top to bottom, a fact that was known to the makers of the 1999 Constitution. These Politicians are the product of the incurably corrupt military class that arrested our development and despoiled of our resources and politics for over 35 years. Like the Military that groomed them, they are locust that eats the leaves, stem and root of the tree of our state resources, leaving nothing for development. Conferring on them an immunity clause is synymous with legally barring Police from arresting armed robbers or giving Police the power to investigate crimes immediately while postponing the prosecution 4 years after. The result is the raging corruption we have been facing since 1999 in which the President and Governors have been competing among themselves to excel in corruption and lawlessness. Right from the President to the Governors, they breathe a palpable air of impunity and have succeeded in providing evil example for those below them such as the Directors to join in the race of public stealing. This is so because it is the natural tendency of man to be inordinate in his ways in the absence of institutional and legal restraints.
The Military that crafted the 1999 constitution must have foreseen that their products that would run the government when they leave would be corrupt. If this was not their mindset, how would they have emphasized corruption-free governance in Section 16 of the 1999 constitution and turn round to provide immunity in Section 308 of the same Constitution for those who would run the government. What makes this curious is that the holders of these offices conferred with immunity control and disburse the wealth of the nation. Thus, the President with his Vice and the Governor with his Deputy manage our budgets, finances and any other form of our resources and are the likeliest arm of the government to be tempted by corruption in the application of these resources under their care. Besides, a preponderance of the state power is vested upon the executive arm of the Government, for example, the control of armed forces, other security services, and state instruments or articles of violence. The President and to some extent the Governors are vested with the power to give order on the use of our weapons through the police, and other security agencies on routine state challenges. They are therefore by the circumstances of their functions the least qualified for immunity. Rather than immunity, there should have been a stringent legal safeguard against the abuse of this awesome power the constitution vested on them. Instead the other two arms, the Legislature and Judiciary which do not control as much resources and state power were denied immunity indicating that this provision was borne out of conspiracy or devious calculation or at best devoid of political sagacity.
The Military that drafted the Constitution obviously wanted the post-military executive arm of government to enjoy unfettered freedom they too enjoyed in managing our national resources and exercising state power. That we have Houses of Assembly and National Assembly vested with the disciplinary power over the executives does not mitigate this constitutional aberration. This is because the legislative arm our Government is still struggling with political infantilism, servitude or excessive acquiescence to the executive due to lack of self confidence which arose from its absence from power during the long period of military dictatorship. They lack the spine to stop a rampaging President or Governor as we all witnessed during the last democratic government. We have not forgotten that most of the last National Assembly Members called former President Obasanjo, ‘Baba’ in body and spirit and could not be seen to contradict him. Apart from the short period former Senate President, Pius Anyiam and Speaker N’aba presided over the National Assembly; it had always been era of acquiescence and deferential servitude to Obasanjo’s Presidency. Even the little independence shown by Pius Anyiam and Na’aba was borne of political animosity and not progressive political motives. It was this timidity that made Ken Nnamani’s led National Assembly unable to override Obasanjo’s veto of the Freedom of information Bill. They allowed Obasanjo to get away with too many excesses. The courage they had in killing the Obasanjo’s third term project came from the political firework outside the National Assembly. The culture of legislative acquiescence or deference to the executive arm of the government has not abated under the present government.
There are those who argue that the mere fact that the President, Vice President, Governor and Deputy Governor could now be investigated while in power and the report kept for their prosecution when they leave office is a sufficient legal safeguard. This position is wrong. It is as untenable as it is inimical to good governance. In whose interest would it be for the State to allow a corrupt Governor, Deputy Governor, President or Vice President to continue to amass wealth corruptly while in power while the State waits for him to step down from office before he could be tried? This was why some of them were able to amass so much wealth and clout that it now costs Nigeria huge resources in terms of money, distraction and time to prosecute them. It is the awesome level of their clout that draws the officials of the present government to them as some of them still decide who gets appointments in government. In some cases, those who suppose to prosecute them not only visit them while in detention but go extra mile in shielding them from trial both in municipal and foreign courts. Without the immunity they would not have accumulated this deadly clout. Trying them while in power will make some of them that do not have the iron nerve for crime to avoid crime. Besides, our fraudulent electoral process permits a corrupt out-going public officer to influence the election of a lackey who would cover his trail.

As Obama Becomes President (1)

It must be acknowledged that Senator Barak Obama, now the President-elect of the United States of America, has scored many firsts which even his most ardent critics have acknowledged as impressive. The aspects of his victory which drew most attention included his age, race and the subtle nuances and initial hesitation by a section of Americans and others around the world.
Some may seek cosmic explanations for Senator Obama’s spectacular emergence on the political scene just as they did over the achievements of Usain Bolt in the Beijing Olympics track events and Lewis Hamilton in Formula One motor racing. These people have become the new millennium’s outstanding manifestations of change and hope thrown up by nature to the consternation of those comfortable with the old order.
But Senator Obama’s own spectacle is pre-eminently mysterious. It calls for explanations that go beyond sheer brilliance, hard work, or even good luck. Everything so amazingly rallied together to work for his historic election one is tempted to believe there must be something prophetic about the Obama phenomenon. And I think prophecy can offer us a reliable explanation since it makes its pronouncements about a given significant event well in advance. No matter how strict or liberal our use or understanding of the term, “prophecy,” it will always seem credible to note that an unlikely event someone had talked about many years ago came to pass exactly as he had said it.
In 1963, in front of Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C, the great civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rev. Martin Luther King Jnr., delivered his prophetic “I Have A Dream” speech. It was a speech which reaffirmed the equality of all men as espoused by the founding fathers of America. But it was prophecy or the dreams of King which made that speech resonate till today. “I have a dream,” one prophetic element of that speech said, “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”
King spoke those prophetic words on August 28, 1963, at the height of racist segregation in the US. He was shot for dreaming so wildly. For decades, the world wondered if King’s dream will unarguably ever come true. Even with the later emergence of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as US military chief and Secretary of State respectively, the world still held its breath. Then came August 28, 2008, Senator Barak Obama officially won the Democratic Party’s ticket to run for the presidency of the United States. He defeated the formidable Hillary Clinton. It was a ticket Obama won “by the content of his character” rather than “by the colour of his skin.” Thus, what King prophesied about on August 28, 1963 was fulfilled on August 28, 2008, exactly 45 years later. And with Obama’s victory over John McCain in the presidential polls, Martin Luther King’s prophecy was solidly validated.
In a sense, therefore, King’s word, quoted above, could be said to be a prophecy whose time came in Obama’s election. Not surprisingly, Senator Obama’s simple campaign theme, “Change,” was overwhelmingly bought by the American electorate. They damned all misgivings about his apparently disadvantaged circumstances. In his campaign he promised new approach in doing things in Washington. Consequently, there are high expectations among Americans and the world that he is indeed going to make some positive difference, especially in the face of the current economic downturn in the U.S and other parts of the world. But in reality how much “Change” can we expect President Obama to bring to America and the world? How far could he go against the awesome power of the establishment he wants to change?
The long campaign for US presidential office had forced the candidates to pander to countless interests in and outside the U.S. to whom they made promises. On the home front, Senator Obama had made pronouncements on various socio-economic issues and policies which were at variance with those espoused by the Republicans. His statements on the various issues in the Middle East, the hub of American foreign policy under President Bush, were most interesting and probably equally more difficult to match with decisive actions.
While some of Senator Obama’s pronouncements during the campaign may be considered as mere electoral rhetoric, some addressed serious and fundamental issues which he could not run away from while in office. These issues will haunt him and the ever-alert American media and enlightened commentators would constantly remind him and even taunt him to act on them according to his words.
President Obama’s personal vision is expected to bear on government machinery and policy formulation in line with his declaration that the buck stops at his table. But it is common knowledge that governance is never a one-man show. There is the kitchen cabinet, the establishment and entrenched bureaucracy to carry along, and their enormous influence would certainly bear on policy formulation and execution.
The establishment is the product of all that America stood for since its inception as a sovereign nation. It is incrementally enforced by successive administrations, led by Republicans or Democrats. This formed the bedrock of American political culture. The individual could make a significant mark on governance as every one expects of Senator Obama, but that cannot dislodge the main elements of the system and a President Obama had to come to terms with this. In the last half a century or so, there has been virtual monopoly of governance by the Republicans and, therefore, it is the Democrats that would want to change the status quo. But going by the inability of President Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton, during their tenures, to unravel the entrenched and vested ways of Washington as molded by the Republicans, it is clear that Mr. Obama has an uphill task ahead of him.
The President-elect is cautiously picking his team from Clinton and even from the Bush administration to form a bipartisan cabinet or a “national” government. This suggests that he wants to carry the establishment along and run a consensus-based administration. This is a handicap, and it is difficult to see how he could change the establishment by accommodating it in the heart of his cabinet. There may be changes in tactics and strategies. It could be at the end of his half term or even second term, before Obama could be assessed properly. His liberal supporters are now crying out that he has sidelined them in appointments announced so far. But it may be too early to draw any conclusions.
President Obama’s albatross in the external front are the so called global war against terror, the twin problems of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as frosty relations with Syria, Iran and Lebanon. There is also the nagging issue of Israeli-Palestinian / Arab relations; and the new cold war in Eastern Europe triggered by American/European intention to build a missile defence shield in Russia’s neighbourhood. The fight against HIV-AIDS scourge and climate change are other issues the US is being looked upon by the rest of the world to provide unambiguous leadership and demonstrate clear commitment.
The Bush administration has hastened to fashion out a security agreement with Iraq which seems to pre-empt what President Obama intends to do. This may explain why the President-elect is already playing down the time frame. Rather, he now says he wants to ensure “responsible” withdrawal and would listen to his commanders on the ground. Well, some of the commanders who, in their appearances before the Congress, never agreed to suggestions for a withdrawal time frame, are still very much on the ground in the Middle East. How would Obama accomplish his desire for early withdrawal of US troops? Would President Obama so soon revise the agreement which by its provisions requires no less than one year notice to do so? What about Guantanamo Camp which the President-elect promised to close down? Bush is working hard to dispose of the inmates so that President Obama would meet a fait accompli on the ground and be denied the credit of cleaning up the place which has seriously dented U.S image as a respecter of human rights and decency.
More intricate will be the handling of the Afghanistan / Pakistan war front the momentum of which is shifting to Pakistani soil. Pakistan which had been reluctant to allow fighting on its soil has been forced to concede some grounds in an effort to prove its innocence in the recent acts of terrorism in India. This concession is at the expense of its own internal security, national prestige and, to some extent, sovereignty. Even then, the Afghanistan/Pakistan border remains the rugged terrain that had defied all odds since the abortive campaigns of Alexander the Great. Allied soldiers fighting in that area would not only be fighting the tough local fighters who withstood Russian military hardware, but also the hostile terrain itself. As in Vietnam, the tough terrain would usually give the locals advantage, in spite of the sophisticated weaponry amassed against them.
Quite predictably, the Israeli–Palestinian problem has remained static in spite of the intense shuttle diplomacy employed by President Bush and the fulltime involvement of Mr. Tony Blair. It has been motion without movement. As such, there is hardly any tangible legacy of the Bush administration regarding this problem. The bottom line is sincerity and impartiality in intervention. This was commendably demonstrated by President Jimmy Carter but was hardly discernible in nearly all the subsequent approaches made by leaders who succeeded him.

The New Mortuary in Town

Perhaps unknown to these children, we now know their nicknames for most of our friends. As they were receding to their apartment, we heard them grumbling aloud: Paddyman’s friend, Aproko, is coming. That man can talk. He jumps from one topic to another, without caring if anyone is listening. He must have a long sermon today and daddy has a way of pretending that he is going along. Let’s escape to our section before he enters.
Aproko: My main man, what’s up? Long time no see….
Paddyman: Oh fine. And you?
Aproko: Fine…. Only that this your country is sick. Did you see those theatricals at the 36th convocation ceremony of Obafemi Awolowo University? In fact, that was the day every thing went wrong. That was the day your people walked protocol on its head. As usual, they soon forgot that a Foreign Head of State, President Boni Yayi of the Republic of Benin was being conferred with an honorary doctorate degree and that he was personally present to receive the award. In that circumstance, normal protocol demands that your friend would have been there to solidarize with his counterpart and if he was too busy, he would have sent the Vice-President to stand in for him. It was bad enough that none of the above was there. It was worse still that they had to step the transformer further down to the fifth rung of the ladder by dispatching Dr Goke Adegoroye, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education to represent your President.
Paddyman: What’s wrong with that? Is a Federal Permanent Secretary in Nigeria not high enough to receive the Head of State of a small country like Republic of Benin?
Aproko: There you go again. We are talking of sovereignty, my dear. All countries are equal. A situation where you leave the President, Vice President, Minister and the Minister of State and ask the Permanent Secretary to meet the Head of State of a foreign nation is akin to that situation where the Governor of one state is visiting another state and the host Governor dispatches the Director of Finance in his office to go and meet him.
The civil servant is always the whipping boy in any situation. I hope Dr. Adegoroye doesn’t earn himself a sack for accepting to go on the errand, which his super-ordinates rejected. We have no way of knowing whether he knew of the assignment before the very morning of the event. We therefore do not know if he had any time to sound out the bosses who sent him.
Apparently, as soon as he knew, he tried to pin a few points together in the form of a key-note address, which he delivered on behalf of your president. In the process, Adegoroye went to town in reeling out the height of corruption in the nation’s University system – he highlighted the problems of sexual harassment on our campuses and went as far as reeling out the current price list for student’s purchase of grades and project supervision from lecturers.
Of course, we trust our media. Adegoroye’s address on behalf of the principal was the cover story in virtually all the media. The President has since disowned Adegoroye’s speech, claiming that it did not originate from him since the draft of it was not submitted to the presidency for vetting…
Paddyman: Yes, what is wrong with that? In all conscience, should a man not disown a statement that he knows nothing about and which has been wrongly credited to him?
Aproko: That is the point! Lack of co-ordination. With this administration, everything is “jaga jaga”. Everyone is on his own. The widespread belief that your President is heading a Government of indecision; a Government of Auto Reverse Gear has been further amplified here. Adegoroye has apparently blown their cover. Most issues are like the tooth paste: Once the tooth paste is pressed out of the tube, it cannot be put back. What really is your friend now disowning? True, that representation may not have been properly coordinated. But where does the President’s denial now leave the embarrassing issues of sexual harassment and blocking in our institutions of higher learning? Are those issues not important enough to be brought to the front burner? For how long are we going to keep pretending that they do not exist? Meanwhile, the blind sees them and the deaf hears them. And they are the very albatross of our educational system. Again, that a convocation ceremony is hardly an appropriate occasion to bring the issues to the fore is another kettle of fish entirely. But we cannot run away from the inevitable conclusion that they are important enough to merit presidential and national attention.
Paddyman: My friend, I am getting bored by your monologue. Why don’t we leave the president alone?
Aproko: Yes, I can change the topic but your friend will still be at the centre of it all, if only he knows that he has turned the entire Estate to a mortuary. My heart bleeds for this country. It is now one year since the House of Representatives instituted a probe on the power sector. All those sordid revelations, like others before them, have now been buried under the carpet. Ideally, apart from improving the quality of legislation, the findings of such probes are supposed to assist the Executive in determining where to beam the searchlight. But not here in Nigeria. NEPA, by whatever name, has become the sick child of every administration. It has also become the drainpipe of every regime. All we now hear is about the number of mega-watts that will be available to us by the year 2056. Meanwhile, things are getting worse by the day.
More than all other years put together, this year alone, in fact in the past few days, NEPA has reduced every home to a malfunctioning mortuary. Most homes that should otherwise be smelling sweet in this yuletide season have now turned mortuaries because the extra meat and food items, which were intended to be frozen, have since decomposed, no thanks to NEPA. In the days and weeks ahead, we are probably going to experience a total outbreak of epidemics as a result of the rotten meat consumed these past few days.
In every situation, Nigerians are fast at developing survival instincts, and survive, they will. As soon as the economic conditions were becoming threatening to the Nigerian workers, many of them went into thrift savings and monthly contributions aimed at their Christmas and New Year festivities. All those who contribute toward the purchase of cows always slaughter their cows as from the 20th of December. Teacher Muda had contributed so much that at the end of this past year, she got the full leg of a cow and was also able to buy a deep freezer. Of what use is a deep freezer when there is no light?
NEPA pretended to be available but its supply of light was so epileptic that Muda’s deep freezer refused to freeze. Before she knew what was happening, the entire meat had gone bad and the whole Estate had become polluted. Her problem has since become that of disposal. What does anyone do with the type of toxic waste, which Muda now has in her hands? Which bus would convey her and the toxic waste to the disposal point without suspecting that she was carrying a human corpse? That was the problem she had when I saw her before Christmas. She must have found a solution, God helping her. Success here means that she has succeeded in burying her hard-earned money, her meat, the joy of her entire family at yuletide replaced by melancholy, and of course, who will blame her if in subsequent years, she becomes phobic to saving and planning for Christmas? After all, is it not true that a burnt child dreads even the ashes?
Muda is not alone. NEPA has rendered many people useless, the billions and trillions of Naira sunk into that sector, notwithstanding. The small artisans who depend on NEPA for their existence have been dispatched to the unemployment line and sometimes sentenced to armed robbery and prostitution. The major production lines have since learnt to put on their plants more than 75 percent of the time, thus pushing up the cost of production – all to the detriment of the consumer!
Paddyman: What a day! For everybody, NEPA provides a no-win situation, even for itself. With the advent of the new meter system, consumers now pay for their little consumption of perhaps seven days in entire month, as against the hitherto atrocious billing system. In turn, the consumer quickly invests the windfall on the purchase of “I better pass my neighbour”, which again has become a greater killer than the much dreaded AIDS pandemic. As we write this essay, there is a report that eight persons have been consigned to their early graves in the Downtown Benin City through this inglorious means. With NEPA, head you lose, tail you don’t win. It’s a sad, sad affair, after all!

Futility of Wishes

If wishes were horses, beggars, they say, would ride. But in the light of the barrage of good wishes exchanged in Nigeria during the last Christmas and New Year, we could give this aphorism the magic touch of Nigeria and say instead: if wishes horses, Nigeria would have become a better place by now. Our ingenuity in couching beautiful goodwill messages is unmatchable. Check out this beautiful New Year message which a bosom friend sent to me at the dawn of the New Year: “10 good wishes in this New Year: joy unspeakable, love, affection, peace now and always, favour, promotion, good health, break-through, victory, anointing for excellence”.
In principle, nothing, absolutely nothing is wrong with exchange of good wishes and messages. But the only reason why we are perturbed by the sanctimonious wishes and message crisscrossing Nigeria is that they sometimes reveal the new disease ravaging the land-pseudo-religiousity mixed with superstition and voodoo, or better put, the new paganism. You see, the old pagan oracles, shrines, diviners and futurologists might have disappeared quite aright in some places in Nigeria, but they have been replaced by the new paganism which always harps on material prosperity, financial breakthroughs, supermarket Christianity etc. That is why any small boy who manages to erect a sign board with the inscription: miracle, is sure to harvest dozens of gullible women who will start following him and start calling him their everything. Somebody should write a book on the new paganism in Nigeria . We revel in high superstition too. Look at the massacre of Akwa Ibom children well over 132 years after Mary Slessor stopped the killing of twins in Calabar. Also look at the new wave of strange belief sweeping across town now. Before you were warned not to shake the hands of passers-by in the streets otherwise your thing will disappear. With the enforcement of the okada helmet regulation today, many okada passengers have simply refused to wear the crash helmet in the strong belief that the okada rider had secretly planted wicked juju inside it which will make them to instantly disappear with the okada rider. Who will redeem us from superstition and strange beliefs? Maybe that is why we are the happiest people in the world, albeit it is doubtful whether it is real joy or just the happiness of someone intoxicated by alcohol or the happiness of a madman.
Whichever is it, the important thing is that we are a happy people. Isn’t? Therefore as we happily cruise into 2009 we have to remind ourselves that no new year comes with an already-made bounties or new lease of life. Nobody reaps where he did not sow: having failed to work hard in 2008, what right do we have to expect a bounteous harvest in 2009? If there were no plans in 2008 to create jobs for our hapless young graduates, why do we hope for a better employment opportunities for them in 2009?. If the Governing Councils of Federal Universities have not been appointed, what right do we have to expect a smooth academic program in the affected Universities in 2009? If the whole nation is virtually in darkness right now owing to intractable power failure, how can the citizens be productive in their respective homes and offices in 2009?. You can go on spewing out these posers ad inifinitum
That is why I join other commentators in begging President Yar’Adua to sit up in this 2009. Nigeria is drifting before our very eyes. Only a fool thinks otherwise. Granted, what Chief Obafemi Awolowo termed a mere geographical expression may still be standing, but the spirit of the nation is almost dead. Our only alternative at the moment is to arrest the deteriorating human condition in Nigeria . Reveling in New Year wishful thinking, flowering speeches, misguided religious doctrine of predestination, or participating in Alice Wonderland fantasy games, will not solve the problem. The miracle we need in Nigeria urgently is the miracle of putting our human intelligence to work to make to improve the well being of our fellow human beings. This is what Governor Fashola is ingenuously doing in Lagos State . You see, God has created us and given us Will, freedom and intelligence. That is why we human beings have thinking faculty, hands and legs. God has no reason to work miracles to solve small human problems in Nigeria that have not surpassed our human intelligence. For example, the reconstruction of the Benin-Ore road has not surpassed our human intelligence for us to expect God to work miracle and fix the road. Since the former Minster of Works went to the road to weep, nothing has happened to the busy expressway except that several Nigerians were gruesomely killed in several ghastly motor accidents there at the last Christmas owing to the bad condition of the road.
We are in a critical period in the history of our country, the grinding global financial crisis notwithstanding. The human condition in Nigeria has been deteriorating calamitously over the years. It was Lyman Bryson who once said that great citizens are built when their leaders dare to let them use their minds, when the State helps them to know the competing choices open to them, preserving for them the essential democratic, which seeks the truths by its own efforts. But the opposite of what Bryson said is happening in Nigeria at the moment. To begin with, you can hardly use your mind well in the afternoon because you haven’t slept well at night owing to the suffocating heat. When you hit the road to ward off the frustration, a uniformed road merchant dashes out from nowhere and signals you to an abrupt stop. He may end up extorting money from you under one flimsy excuse or another. Upon reflection it dawns on you that governance at the federal level is in abeyance. The great disconnect between the people and the federal government keeps widening day in day out. Many sick Nigerians are desperately fleeing to India and other countries in search of improved health-care facility. The paradox is that many of these hospitals abroad are staffed by well-trained Nigerian medical doctors. Here our medical doctors are always on strike for one thing or the other. Although Nigerian lawyers are yet to go on strike, but as at the time of writing the gates of most High Courts and Magistrate Courts in the country were still under grid lock owing to the strangulating strike of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN). Just think about it: the judiciary, a veritable third arm of government, going on strike. The painful aspect is that the matter is hardly discussed in bigger circles. Somehow we are now used to oddities. We have lost our humanity. That is why a dead human body may be lying in the middle of the road and no road-user raises an eyebrow or expresses ordinary human sympathy.
Certainly we cannot continue to live like this. First: the people must regain their humanity. Second: government must live up to expectation a little bit. Nobody expects a big transformation of Nigeria overnight. We appreciate the enormous problems. We equally appreciate that the problems are overwhelming. We also appreciate that some of our political office holders are not so gifted to tackle the problems. But there is one thing they can do: they can remain focused in solving little problems which improve the life of the ordinary man in the street. Playing the Ostrich under an amorphous 7-Point Agenda is not the solution. No pseudo-rationalization, preaching or other forms of escapism will solve the problem either. For a vast majority of Nigerians, the biggest problem in Nigeria at the moment is the energy crisis. So let the Yar’Adua government fix our electricity. We have just been told that N6 billion has been budgeted to run the electricity generating sets of the Presidency, other federal Ministries etc. We also hear that while the country’s roads and public infrastructure are broken down from head to toe, a staggering N47 billion had been returned to the treasury. You can see the way we are: we like sharing the money, but not solving the real problem.
In sum, we need more men to put their intelligence to work in 2009. That is God’s miracle for us in Nigeria . We are tired of listening to flowery speeches. Now we want more action. Faith without works is a dead faith. New Year wishes not backed up by sustained hard work are useless.
Welcome to 2009.

Ministry of Works and Returned Funds

Often, the stock complaint in government circles, is the insufficiency of funds to execute their many competing projects. It was therefore strange to hear that the Federal Ministry of Works returned a whopping sum of unspent N47 billion to the nation’s treasury at the end of 2008. For a nation dying to have its infrastructure upgraded and revamped, it smacks of aberration, somewhat, to return monies meant for given projects.
While we commend the honesty displayed by the ministry in the return of the funds, unlike what obtained in the past, we are at a loss to understand why the appropriated funds were not used for the purposes they were meant. Nigerians have long been treated to a cocktail of excuses from Ministry of Works officials. Once, it was zero allocation, then, we heard that “funds allocated is not funds released”, and now funds released are being returned.
Although we commend the returned autonomy of the Works ministry which was, last year, subsumed under the Transport ministry, it is yet unclear if the Ministry suddenly lost all its engineers and other workmen as to explain why work was not done leading to the non-utilisation of the allocated funds? Or did the ministry not get the job schedules for which the returned funds were allocated?
It is disturbing irony that with the degree of infrastructural decay in the country, the problem will be much funds and no work to do. With our highways, (remember Benin-Ore expressway, the East-West Road or the Onitsha-Owerri road) being almost impassable and public water supply completely not available, it is amazing how the Ministry of Transport remained idle in this area all through the year even when funds to implement the budget were available. So, if available funds cannot be well utilized, why the search for private partners?
But we are not exactly surprised. It has been the aged practice for some civil servants to frustrate the implementation of projects all through the year so there will be unspent funds which they often help themselves with at the end of the year. It is strange that even last December 31, reports indicated that civil servants, once again, stayed so late in office, even till the wee hours of the new year day. It is curious that contracts for supply of items were still being awarded on the last day of the year with payments effected same day, using backdated cheques all in a bid to circumvent the directive to return unspent funds. We wonder why such contracts were not awarded until the last day of the year, even after official hours? In a way therefore, the
civil servants must share in the blame of the under development of the nation.
While we blame both the presidency and the civil servants for the shoddy implementation of the year’s budget, we are wont to express worry over the seeming nonchalance of the federal legislature which should exercise over-sight functions over the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government. If the legislature did their work propitiously, they would have blown the whistle both on the lethargy in the ministry.
All said, the new Minister of Works must rise from the state of inertia of the past and get the country going, by ensuring that appropriated monies are not only released, and timely too, but also that they are used for what they are meant for. Nigerians want, from this government, safe and smooth road network across the country. We need even the basic but yet scarce facilities like rail transport, water, stable electricity supply, and above all, food and security. It is only in doing these that the nation can experience the needed incremental growth.

Government’s Austerity Measures

The Federal Government is living up to its word by cutting its 2009 expenditure through the introduction of austerity measures in the executive arm.
Presenting the 2009 budget at the National Assembly last month, President Umaru Yar’ Adua had noted that ‘The decline in international oil prices has compelled Government to make some exceptional adjustments in our spending plans and priorities. In this regard, this Administration is introducing certain policies to curb inefficient spending in MDAs.’
To further demonstrate government’s determination to implement an austere budget the President announced the introduction of new Public Spending Efficiency Policy Measures, under which, recurrent expenditure by way of overheads is being frozen, in the main, at the 2008 level or substantially cut, in a number of cases. Investments in non-priority capital outlays such as the acquisition of new vehicles, and the construction and furnishing of new headquarters for MDAs, have been suspended; and excessive expenditure on international travels and training has been curbed by 50% with expenditure on local travels slashed by 25%. Also payments for goods and services will be discharged through the e-payment system to increase efficiency and reduce avenues for corruption.
Last week, some more details of the measures emerged. They include a two-year ban on procurement of new vehicles and suspended foreign training for civil servants.
These are commendable first steps at living the reality of the times, and the fact of the size of the civil service. With so many countries deep in recession in a globalised world, Nigeria cannot go to sleep.
We also support the proposal of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance that the austerity measures embedded in the document should be brought to bear on all facets of governance including the semi-autonomous revenue generating agencies.
But we wish to go further: To be effective, all arms and tiers of government should move quickly to reduce expenditure to make the Federal government’s efforts at cutting cost effective.
However, the experience from similar efforts in the past shows that it is easier to announce such measures than to implement them. Many of the plugged holes have been channels through which some people in government enrich themselves. For example, the average civil servant would want to travel overseas as often as possible because of the allowances they get for such trips.
The fact that such avenues to enrich themselves exist, the only plausible reason some people go into government as middle-class citizens and turn out to be billionaires overnight. As much as Presidents wish to control such tendencies, news loopholes are discovered and exploited. We therefore charge government to introduce an efficient monitoring system to ensure that the measures are not abused.
It would be very convincing to know what Government saves from these measures and how the proceeds are otherwise used to the benefit of the nation.
We are however frightened by the possibility of extending austerity measures to the impoverished average Nigerian, who is in desperate need for government to turn his fortunes around this year. The average Nigerian remembers clearly examples where she has been told to tighten his/her belt only to turn around to see government officials flaunt big tummies without belts.

The Gaza War

Images of mangled bodies, soldiers and civilians alike, from Gaza, though familiar, are horrifying. Those morbid pictures, it must be admitted, are sad products of the long-drawn conflict between the two sides that rightfully lay claims to provocation. Now, it takes more than rhetorics for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) cease-fire resolution passed last Thursday to end this gruesome run.
Israel whose military action has caused more of the destruction, has remorselessly pointed to the consistent pounding of its southern territory with rockets and mortar bombs by Hamas since it (Israel) evacuated its army and settlers from the Gaza Strip three years ago. It also has plausible reasons to believe that those weapons were smuggled into Gaza long ago and that more are still being brought into the area to torment it. On its border with Lebanon, Israel already faces formidable danger in the form of Hezbollah, the militant group it waged an unsuccessful war against in 2006. The ferocity with which it is prosecuting the present hostilities could be traced to the determination of the Jewish state to redeem its bruised ego and institute an atmosphere of deterrence in a region. Ordinarily, these grounds are cogent.
On its part, Hamas hinges its belligerence on the fact that Israel has tightened Gaza’s borders, thereby hampering its economic progress, while enhancing that of West Bank , controlled by Hamas’ political and more secular rival, Fatah. Even while the truce which was shattered by the on-going conflagration lasted, Israel permitted the delivery of only a token of the humanitarian aid meant for Gaza. But despite the heavy losses they have incurred (nearly 800 casualties as against Israel’s just above one dozen), the Palestinians have continued to insist that their foes must open up Gaza before they would stop the bombardment. The organisation’s spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said in response to the UNSC resolution thus: “This resolution doesn’t mean that the war is over. We call on the Palestinian fighters to mobilize and be ready to face the offensive, and we urge the Arab masses to carry on with their angry protests.”
That threatening declaration did not come as a surprise to watchers of the precarious life in Palestine. After all, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, had equally voiced the combative stance of her government at the beginning of the war two weeks ago, long before the UNSC proposition. As she put it, “Israel has acted, Israel is acting and will act only according to its own considerations, the security of its citizens and its right to self defence.”
Both Israel and Hamas have credible excuses to fight but they should learn from their own past that is littered with failed attempts at armed prosecutions. Israel ought to know by now that the gun alone is not strong enough to subdue a people. The Palestinians should also come to terms with the futility of prompting the annihilation of Israel . The earlier both sides embraced the fact that they will be neighbours forever, the better.
It is instructive that the UNSC move is overwhelming. With 14-0 vote (only United States abstention), the warring parties should be clear about the expectation of the rest of the world.
In the light of this despondency, therefore, the UNSC’s direction to the international community to “intensify efforts to provide arrangements and guarantees in Gaza in order to sustain a durable ceasefire and calm, including to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition and to ensure the sustained reopening” of border crossings is timely. Everyone, particularly the United States and the other countries that have traditionally taken part in the peace process, has key roles to play in healing the sore that has plagued humanity since 1948 when Israel’s determination to actualize its nationhood started.

wrong signal on power supply

The Federal Government’s promise to stabilise power supply has run into credibility issues with the news that key government agencies saddled with the responsibilities of fixing the power sector plan to spend huge sums of money on the purchase, fuelling and maintenance of power generating sets this year.
Reports indicate that the Presidency, the National Assembly, ministries and parastatals have decided to commit over N2 billion to power their services this year in the face of PHCN’s undependable services.
Figures gleaned from the 2009 Budget already passed by the Senate shows that the State House will spend N27 million to fuel its generators and N14.3 million to maintain them this year while the National Assembly will spend N233 million on generators and fuel; the National Assembly Service Commission will spend N63 million on fuelling its generators and N57.2 million on maintaining them.
Other government agencies and their power budgets include, Police formations across the country, N110 million; Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, N37.4 million; Ministry of Defence, N89.5 million The Nigerian Navy, N63 million; The Nigerian Air Force N93 million; Ministry of Works, Housing and Urban Development, N48 million Ministry of Interior, N182 million; Ministry of Information and Communication, N43 million.
If the power generation expenses of the 36 state government ministries and agencies; all the manufacturing and industrial companies across the country, all banks, airlines, artisans, big traders and even millions of domestic users are computed, the annual bill on generating sets purchase, fuelling and maintenance would definitely surpass the N100 billion mark. This is just by conservative estimate.
Indeed, the generating set market is going through a certain boom at the expense of the overall health of the national economy. This situation is a clear pointer to the manifest collapse of the nation’s power sector with the bitter realisation that the Nigerian state is now virtually run on generating sets, which serve as our governmental, industrial and domestic life-support mechanism. Incidentally most of the generators are imported, and much of all the money leaves the country. It is certainly an avoidable leakage.
Sadly, this is a sector into which over $16 billion has been sunk in the last nine years and the fact that power sector reform is one of President Yar’Adua’s famed seven-point agenda. It is sad indeed that instead of making visible effort to fix the power sector once and for all, the government has settled for expensive alternative energy source. This, to say the least, is an unconscionable pandering to escapism. If government can afford that, certainly the average Nigerian does not have that option.
To be sure, the situation cannot continue like this. Something has to be done to remedy it as far as possible. This is where the Independent Power Project (IPP) becomes relevant once again. The IPP initiative by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration is a brilliant attempt to solve the nation’s power problem. The problem is that the notorious Nigerian factor would not allow the initiative to bear the expected fruit. That is why despite gulping over $16 billion within nine years (the IPP) not much progress has been achieved. So, zero corruption by those charged with delivering electricity power to Nigeria is the first step towards uhuru in this sector. That is why we call on the Federal House of Representatives to quickly consider the report of the probe panel it set up on the IPP scandal so that culprits can be brought to book to teach others lessons in accountability and probity.
It is a national shame that most of the South-East Asian countries that were at the same power generation capacity with Nigeria in the 1960s and early 1970s have surpassed our installed capacity by as much as 10 times at the moment. For instance, Thailand, which was in the same league with Nigeria in the 1960s, today has about 40,000 megawatts generation capacity as against Nigeria’s miserable 4,000 megawatts.
All efforts must be geared towards improving the nation’s electricity power generation capacity rather than incurring needless expenses on generating sets.

Okada helmet and the Nigerian spirit

NIGERIA is a country where laws are made to be broken.

Perhaps, reasons for this may vary from lack of enforcement to lack of faith in the system due to years of dashed hopes and the undermining of people's power. Hence, the people have left their fate in the hands of the government - the powerful. At times, the government, which is meant to make and enforce the law, is the one that breaks it, contorts it and confuses the people all the more.

Late into the end of the year 2008, the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) set out safety laws regarding commercial motorcyclists. They were told to use crash helmets whenever operating an okada as it is popularly known in major cities of the country. The enforcement of the use of safety helmets in itself is one of the ways a responsible government looks out for her citizenry because the responsibility of government is to make healthy decisions for the civil populace.

The commercial motorcyclists have been told to procure helmets; most of them have gotten the helmets - albeit some of them must have dug up the helmet from God-knows-where - and appear ready for action. We Nigerians, however, never cease to amuse ourselves. There have been stories of okada riders and pumpkin helmets in Kano. For the purpose of clarity, a pumpkin helmet is made from the shell of a pumpkin (Can you dig that?).

And here in Lagos, there are improvised helmets made from plastic buckets. Nigerians and humour are truly synonymous. Little wonder in 2003 we were declared the world's happiest people. FRSC, over to you. It has also been observed that the police have been arresting these commercial motorcyclists and their passengers and extorting money from them. In some cases, they collect as much as N2,000 from the passengers thereby preying on their ignorance. This is highly unacceptable, as those who are meant to enforce the laws and enlighten the people should not be the ones to violate the law and confuse the people.

According to the FRSC, only erring motorcyclists are to be charged the fine of N2,000 if they or their passengers do not have their helmets on when cruising on a motorcycle. It is the responsibility of the motorcyclist to insist on the use of the helmet by his passenger. If the passenger chooses not to, the commercial motorcyclist may not pick the passenger. A situation where the passenger and the motorcyclist are forced to cough out money, which does not go to the government's coffers, should be discouraged.

Stories also abound about the Lagos State Transport Management Agency (LASTMA) officials "arresting" the so-called offenders and collecting money from them. The activities of the Nigeria Police and LASTMA have always been under the searchlight. These bodies should not allow these fresh accusations to spread in addition to existing accusations and the poor PR image, which they are still battling with.

This is where the operation of the police and the state monitoring teams come into play. Dishonest police officers should be identified and sanctioned. People should not be dispossessed of their hard-earned money due to the greed of some public officials. In Lagos State, especially, the efforts of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola in turning Lagos into a world-class state should not be negated by the everyday people we see around us.

There should be enlightenment, enlightenment and more enlightenment of both the civil populace and the unconscionable members of the police and LASTMA as well as any other set of individuals involved in the enforcement of the helmet regulation. As stated earlier, nipping the exploitation of the okada riders in the bud can go a long way in helping matters and putting things in the right perspective. Nigerians should also be made to realise that they cannot be hoodwinked all of the time by people who are meant to serve them.

Furthermore, the prices of safety helmets should be monitored as it has been observed that some unscrupulous capitalists have seized this helmet-rush period to inflate prices of the safety helmets by as much as nine-fold the normal rate. It is no news that helmets which used to cost N1,500 could now go for as much as N9,000. Nigerians should try and learn to be kind to fellow Nigerians. If we do not help ourselves in our own country, there is no way outsiders can help us. Granted, capitalism is about profit maximisation, but this should be done in moderation. The "me-first" syndrome should be done away with and it will be surprising how situations will improve.

Nigerians only need to be told what to do. With proper enforcement of laid-down regulations, Nigeria will, no doubt, be a better place. In essence, Nigerians are actually law-abiding people who are not asking for too much and would actually conform if an enabling environment is provided.