General Obasanjo's albatrosses

AFTER nigh on 25 months in office, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua now likely appears to General Olusegun Obasanjo more as a promise of harm than a divine successor he'd announced Yar'Adua as two years ago. For even in a not so piquant coincidence, General Obasanjo had simply kept quiet on May 29 - at Nigeria's 10th anniversary of civil rule - choosing to say nothing for his successor, even as Ijaw militant groups in southern Nigeria were announcing they've killed and dis-embowelled a Lt. Colonel; "who is the son of a former head of state" deployed to the south marine commando by the Nigerian military in its on-going raids on Ijaw militants' bastion.

Three months earlier, Obasanjo's status as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was intentionally diminished to a sinecure post at a party convention organised solely for that purpose. At that convention, Obasanjo had cleverly abstained. Now, in effect, no longer shall Obasanjo have the personal power to call any PDP member to order, since that power shall henceforth be exercised by the 60-odd member Board of Trustees as a collective.

Before his personal diminution in the party hierarchy, certain bilateral agreements on crude oil exploration with South Korea, which General Obasanjo signed as Nigeria's President in 2005, were promptly shredded on January 7 this year by President Umaru Yar'Adua. "Non-payment in full by the Koreans for the two oil blocs" was cited as official reason for unilaterally revoking the oil blocs awarded South Korea by Nigeria under the bilateral agreement (in exchange for six billion dollars of promised Korean investments in Nigeria's energy sector).

Meanwhile, the more prominent of Obasanjo's official aides are wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for thefts and conversion of public property to cronies and family members. Nuhu Ribadu, for example, was the EFCC Chairman under Obasanjo. He fled Nigeria on exile into Europe whilst under investigation in Nigeria by the EFCC for financial crimes, fearing assassination by certain stalkers, as he said, who had shot bullets at his car.

Femi Fani-Kayode, Obasanjo's vociferous spokesman, probably had no such means of escape. He is on trial for N250 million allegedly deposited into his bank account, and his wife's, on the same day. "Yar'Adua's government is lawless", he'd blurted in frustration over his two-time detention in prison custody pending bail, but now, Fani-Kayode is on trial on 140-count charge for monetary crimes.

Nasir El-Rufai - Obasanjo's more vociferous Minister - is now subject of an extradition proceeding by Yar'Adua's government. He is alleged to have criminally allotted plots of land in Abuja to his wives and relatives in criminal breach of trust whilst in public office as Obasanjo's federal capital minister. El Rufai says he is very eager to attend his criminal trial but only at his own time and not earlier than when he shall have finished his self-assigned studies in the United States.

In a spirited fight-back meanwhile, El-Rufai wrote a commentary for the global audience on the internet last week, intending to seek logical inferences from a set of impossible facts - that Obasanjo's actions are the proper examples Yar'Adua fails to follow, but Yar'Adua's attorney-general (Aondooaka) earlier made clear that massive corruption, on the contrary, majorly defined Obasanjo's two-term presidency from 1999 until 2007, making Obasanjo's regime a crass example to avoid. General Olusegun Obasanjo's daughter, Iyabo, who is a Senator, has herself been on trial since 2008 for drawing out money from the Ministry of Health, knowing, as earlier notified by the EFCC, that the money in her possession was taken by the then Minister of Health, Professor (Mrs) Grange.

Iyabo's trial started just about the same time that her brother, Gbenga Obasanjo, was alleging in a divorce court paper that their father, General Olusegun Obasanjo, had incestuously slept with his own wife whilst in public office as Nigeria's President. The court proceeding was in consequence held in camera, to protect the children of the marriage, resulting in the grant of a court divorce on publicly un-disclosed terms.

In a further beleaguering development for General Olusegun Obasanjo since leaving office, a fellow named "Jack Stanley" - recruited by United States Halliburton Company - has testified at a United States federal court that $180 million was distributed to top Nigerian government officials as bribes to secure a $6 billion federal contract for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects in Nigeria between 1994 and 2006 - straddling the successive regimes of Generals Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo.

Yar'Adua's administration early this year said $140 million of that amount has now been found in a Swiss bank and frozen. Very quickly, a letter for mutual assistance in criminal investigation was dispatched from Abuja to both Switzerland and the United States two months ago by the Yar'Adua government. That mutual assistance letter, as later published, sought the evidence under seal in the United States federal court, but also irrelevantly sought the names of individuals and companies overseas who participated in the Halliburton bribes scheme, so that they might be prosecuted in Nigeria - thus complicating any immediate response from either the United States or Switzerland.

If replies to Nigeria's mutual assistance requests eventually come, officials of the Obasanjo administration could be indicted, perhaps including Obasanjo himself, if the evidence irresistibly point at his complicity, ex-officio, as head of government.

Not taking chances, President Yar'Adua has separately set up a multi-agency investigation team comprising the Nigeria Police, the EFCC, the Military, and Defence Intelligence Units, to "publicly name the Nigerian officials found complicit in the Halliburton bribes". That committee has till end of June to make its findings public, whether or not responses to mutual assistance letters are received. Whilst awaiting this "public naming and shaming process" ordered by President Yar'Adua, it is as likely as not that General Obasanjo would be under severe political pressure, since he has no way of knowing just what this multi-agency investigation could reveal.

And because the records of the evidence are perpetuated in a United States federal court - without any availing statute of limitations - there is hardly a wiggle room for arguments in denial by anyone indicted, except for arguments between any set of co-accused persons. In terms therefore, this criminal investigation now underway in four countries under the United Nations Merida Convention has the potential to escalate into a reputation-incinerating proceeding for all accused persons because international criminal law is in issue, and no single country is in control of the eventual outcome. For already, the United States government has begun extradition proceeding against a British lawyer, named Mr. Tessler, who is suspected to have finessed the money-laundering papers. Mr. Tessler has since sued for protection against extradition at the Royal Courts in England. The matter is pending a hearing.

Meanwhile, as this international legal web spreads home to reach General Olusegun Obasanjo's regime at its centre, there is the other key problem of Obasanjo having lost critical numbers of his erstwhile military allies. One such lost ally is Lt.General Yakubu Danjuma who gave an interview to The Guardian a year ago, saying he would rather see to it that General Obasanjo returns to prison. Lt. General Danjuma was paradoxically the chief fund-raiser for Obasanjo's 1999 presidential campaign who said he gave N600 million of his personal funds to Obasanjo as campaign donations.

Another lost ally is General Ibrahim Babangida who has not even bothered to visit General Obasanjo's residence since 2006, on the polite pretext of being too busy to visit - as he'd done every year prior. Thus left alone by his long-time military allies to bear these current burdens, General Olusegun Obasanjo looks too politically vulnerable to ride the rising storms as they trench on his governing reputation, especially given President's Yar'Adua's announced determination to jail everyone corruptly involved with Halliburton.

Unless Obasanjo can somehow be exonerated by clear and convincing evidence that demonstrates that he neither knew nor had any reason to know (as head of government) that Halliiburton distributed bribes over a 10-year period for LNG projects, it would be blues and goodnight to Nigeria's self-described "father of the nation".

AFTER nigh on 25 months in office, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua now likely appears to General Olusegun Obasanjo more as a promise of harm than a divine successor he'd announced Yar'Adua as two years ago. For even in a not so piquant coincidence, General Obasanjo had simply kept quiet on May 29 - at Nigeria's 10th anniversary of civil rule - choosing to say nothing for his successor, even as Ijaw militant groups in southern Nigeria were announcing they've killed and dis-embowelled a Lt. Colonel; "who is the son of a former head of state" deployed to the south marine commando by the Nigerian military in its on-going raids on Ijaw militants' bastion.

Three months earlier, Obasanjo's status as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was intentionally diminished to a sinecure post at a party convention organised solely for that purpose. At that convention, Obasanjo had cleverly abstained. Now, in effect, no longer shall Obasanjo have the personal power to call any PDP member to order, since that power shall henceforth be exercised by the 60-odd member Board of Trustees as a collective.

Before his personal diminution in the party hierarchy, certain bilateral agreements on crude oil exploration with South Korea, which General Obasanjo signed as Nigeria's President in 2005, were promptly shredded on January 7 this year by President Umaru Yar'Adua. "Non-payment in full by the Koreans for the two oil blocs" was cited as official reason for unilaterally revoking the oil blocs awarded South Korea by Nigeria under the bilateral agreement (in exchange for six billion dollars of promised Korean investments in Nigeria's energy sector).

Meanwhile, the more prominent of Obasanjo's official aides are wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for thefts and conversion of public property to cronies and family members. Nuhu Ribadu, for example, was the EFCC Chairman under Obasanjo. He fled Nigeria on exile into Europe whilst under investigation in Nigeria by the EFCC for financial crimes, fearing assassination by certain stalkers, as he said, who had shot bullets at his car.

Femi Fani-Kayode, Obasanjo's vociferous spokesman, probably had no such means of escape. He is on trial for N250 million allegedly deposited into his bank account, and his wife's, on the same day. "Yar'Adua's government is lawless", he'd blurted in frustration over his two-time detention in prison custody pending bail, but now, Fani-Kayode is on trial on 140-count charge for monetary crimes.

Nasir El-Rufai - Obasanjo's more vociferous Minister - is now subject of an extradition proceeding by Yar'Adua's government. He is alleged to have criminally allotted plots of land in Abuja to his wives and relatives in criminal breach of trust whilst in public office as Obasanjo's federal capital minister. El Rufai says he is very eager to attend his criminal trial but only at his own time and not earlier than when he shall have finished his self-assigned studies in the United States.

In a spirited fight-back meanwhile, El-Rufai wrote a commentary for the global audience on the internet last week, intending to seek logical inferences from a set of impossible facts - that Obasanjo's actions are the proper examples Yar'Adua fails to follow, but Yar'Adua's attorney-general (Aondooaka) earlier made clear that massive corruption, on the contrary, majorly defined Obasanjo's two-term presidency from 1999 until 2007, making Obasanjo's regime a crass example to avoid. General Olusegun Obasanjo's daughter, Iyabo, who is a Senator, has herself been on trial since 2008 for drawing out money from the Ministry of Health, knowing, as earlier notified by the EFCC, that the money in her possession was taken by the then Minister of Health, Professor (Mrs) Grange.

Iyabo's trial started just about the same time that her brother, Gbenga Obasanjo, was alleging in a divorce court paper that their father, General Olusegun Obasanjo, had incestuously slept with his own wife whilst in public office as Nigeria's President. The court proceeding was in consequence held in camera, to protect the children of the marriage, resulting in the grant of a court divorce on publicly un-disclosed terms.

In a further beleaguering development for General Olusegun Obasanjo since leaving office, a fellow named "Jack Stanley" - recruited by United States Halliburton Company - has testified at a United States federal court that $180 million was distributed to top Nigerian government officials as bribes to secure a $6 billion federal contract for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects in Nigeria between 1994 and 2006 - straddling the successive regimes of Generals Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo.

Yar'Adua's administration early this year said $140 million of that amount has now been found in a Swiss bank and frozen. Very quickly, a letter for mutual assistance in criminal investigation was dispatched from Abuja to both Switzerland and the United States two months ago by the Yar'Adua government. That mutual assistance letter, as later published, sought the evidence under seal in the United States federal court, but also irrelevantly sought the names of individuals and companies overseas who participated in the Halliburton bribes scheme, so that they might be prosecuted in Nigeria - thus complicating any immediate response from either the United States or Switzerland.

If replies to Nigeria's mutual assistance requests eventually come, officials of the Obasanjo administration could be indicted, perhaps including Obasanjo himself, if the evidence irresistibly point at his complicity, ex-officio, as head of government.

Not taking chances, President Yar'Adua has separately set up a multi-agency investigation team comprising the Nigeria Police, the EFCC, the Military, and Defence Intelligence Units, to "publicly name the Nigerian officials found complicit in the Halliburton bribes". That committee has till end of June to make its findings public, whether or not responses to mutual assistance letters are received. Whilst awaiting this "public naming and shaming process" ordered by President Yar'Adua, it is as likely as not that General Obasanjo would be under severe political pressure, since he has no way of knowing just what this multi-agency investigation could reveal.

And because the records of the evidence are perpetuated in a United States federal court - without any availing statute of limitations - there is hardly a wiggle room for arguments in denial by anyone indicted, except for arguments between any set of co-accused persons. In terms therefore, this criminal investigation now underway in four countries under the United Nations Merida Convention has the potential to escalate into a reputation-incinerating proceeding for all accused persons because international criminal law is in issue, and no single country is in control of the eventual outcome. For already, the United States government has begun extradition proceeding against a British lawyer, named Mr. Tessler, who is suspected to have finessed the money-laundering papers. Mr. Tessler has since sued for protection against extradition at the Royal Courts in England. The matter is pending a hearing.

Meanwhile, as this international legal web spreads home to reach General Olusegun Obasanjo's regime at its centre, there is the other key problem of Obasanjo having lost critical numbers of his erstwhile military allies. One such lost ally is Lt.General Yakubu Danjuma who gave an interview to The Guardian a year ago, saying he would rather see to it that General Obasanjo returns to prison. Lt. General Danjuma was paradoxically the chief fund-raiser for Obasanjo's 1999 presidential campaign who said he gave N600 million of his personal funds to Obasanjo as campaign donations.

Another lost ally is General Ibrahim Babangida who has not even bothered to visit General Obasanjo's residence since 2006, on the polite pretext of being too busy to visit - as he'd done every year prior. Thus left alone by his long-time military allies to bear these current burdens, General Olusegun Obasanjo looks too politically vulnerable to ride the rising storms as they trench on his governing reputation, especially given President's Yar'Adua's announced determination to jail everyone corruptly involved with Halliburton.

Unless Obasanjo can somehow be exonerated by clear and convincing evidence that demonstrates that he neither knew nor had any reason to know (as head of government) that Halliiburton distributed bribes over a 10-year period for LNG projects, it would be blues and goodnight to Nigeria's self-described "father of the nation".

AFTER nigh on 25 months in office, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua now likely appears to General Olusegun Obasanjo more as a promise of harm than a divine successor he'd announced Yar'Adua as two years ago. For even in a not so piquant coincidence, General Obasanjo had simply kept quiet on May 29 - at Nigeria's 10th anniversary of civil rule - choosing to say nothing for his successor, even as Ijaw militant groups in southern Nigeria were announcing they've killed and dis-embowelled a Lt. Colonel; "who is the son of a former head of state" deployed to the south marine commando by the Nigerian military in its on-going raids on Ijaw militants' bastion.

Three months earlier, Obasanjo's status as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was intentionally diminished to a sinecure post at a party convention organised solely for that purpose. At that convention, Obasanjo had cleverly abstained. Now, in effect, no longer shall Obasanjo have the personal power to call any PDP member to order, since that power shall henceforth be exercised by the 60-odd member Board of Trustees as a collective.

Before his personal diminution in the party hierarchy, certain bilateral agreements on crude oil exploration with South Korea, which General Obasanjo signed as Nigeria's President in 2005, were promptly shredded on January 7 this year by President Umaru Yar'Adua. "Non-payment in full by the Koreans for the two oil blocs" was cited as official reason for unilaterally revoking the oil blocs awarded South Korea by Nigeria under the bilateral agreement (in exchange for six billion dollars of promised Korean investments in Nigeria's energy sector).

Meanwhile, the more prominent of Obasanjo's official aides are wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for thefts and conversion of public property to cronies and family members. Nuhu Ribadu, for example, was the EFCC Chairman under Obasanjo. He fled Nigeria on exile into Europe whilst under investigation in Nigeria by the EFCC for financial crimes, fearing assassination by certain stalkers, as he said, who had shot bullets at his car.

Femi Fani-Kayode, Obasanjo's vociferous spokesman, probably had no such means of escape. He is on trial for N250 million allegedly deposited into his bank account, and his wife's, on the same day. "Yar'Adua's government is lawless", he'd blurted in frustration over his two-time detention in prison custody pending bail, but now, Fani-Kayode is on trial on 140-count charge for monetary crimes.

Nasir El-Rufai - Obasanjo's more vociferous Minister - is now subject of an extradition proceeding by Yar'Adua's government. He is alleged to have criminally allotted plots of land in Abuja to his wives and relatives in criminal breach of trust whilst in public office as Obasanjo's federal capital minister. El Rufai says he is very eager to attend his criminal trial but only at his own time and not earlier than when he shall have finished his self-assigned studies in the United States.

In a spirited fight-back meanwhile, El-Rufai wrote a commentary for the global audience on the internet last week, intending to seek logical inferences from a set of impossible facts - that Obasanjo's actions are the proper examples Yar'Adua fails to follow, but Yar'Adua's attorney-general (Aondooaka) earlier made clear that massive corruption, on the contrary, majorly defined Obasanjo's two-term presidency from 1999 until 2007, making Obasanjo's regime a crass example to avoid. General Olusegun Obasanjo's daughter, Iyabo, who is a Senator, has herself been on trial since 2008 for drawing out money from the Ministry of Health, knowing, as earlier notified by the EFCC, that the money in her possession was taken by the then Minister of Health, Professor (Mrs) Grange.

Iyabo's trial started just about the same time that her brother, Gbenga Obasanjo, was alleging in a divorce court paper that their father, General Olusegun Obasanjo, had incestuously slept with his own wife whilst in public office as Nigeria's President. The court proceeding was in consequence held in camera, to protect the children of the marriage, resulting in the grant of a court divorce on publicly un-disclosed terms.

In a further beleaguering development for General Olusegun Obasanjo since leaving office, a fellow named "Jack Stanley" - recruited by United States Halliburton Company - has testified at a United States federal court that $180 million was distributed to top Nigerian government officials as bribes to secure a $6 billion federal contract for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects in Nigeria between 1994 and 2006 - straddling the successive regimes of Generals Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo.

Yar'Adua's administration early this year said $140 million of that amount has now been found in a Swiss bank and frozen. Very quickly, a letter for mutual assistance in criminal investigation was dispatched from Abuja to both Switzerland and the United States two months ago by the Yar'Adua government. That mutual assistance letter, as later published, sought the evidence under seal in the United States federal court, but also irrelevantly sought the names of individuals and companies overseas who participated in the Halliburton bribes scheme, so that they might be prosecuted in Nigeria - thus complicating any immediate response from either the United States or Switzerland.

If replies to Nigeria's mutual assistance requests eventually come, officials of the Obasanjo administration could be indicted, perhaps including Obasanjo himself, if the evidence irresistibly point at his complicity, ex-officio, as head of government.

Not taking chances, President Yar'Adua has separately set up a multi-agency investigation team comprising the Nigeria Police, the EFCC, the Military, and Defence Intelligence Units, to "publicly name the Nigerian officials found complicit in the Halliburton bribes". That committee has till end of June to make its findings public, whether or not responses to mutual assistance letters are received. Whilst awaiting this "public naming and shaming process" ordered by President Yar'Adua, it is as likely as not that General Obasanjo would be under severe political pressure, since he has no way of knowing just what this multi-agency investigation could reveal.

And because the records of the evidence are perpetuated in a United States federal court - without any availing statute of limitations - there is hardly a wiggle room for arguments in denial by anyone indicted, except for arguments between any set of co-accused persons. In terms therefore, this criminal investigation now underway in four countries under the United Nations Merida Convention has the potential to escalate into a reputation-incinerating proceeding for all accused persons because international criminal law is in issue, and no single country is in control of the eventual outcome. For already, the United States government has begun extradition proceeding against a British lawyer, named Mr. Tessler, who is suspected to have finessed the money-laundering papers. Mr. Tessler has since sued for protection against extradition at the Royal Courts in England. The matter is pending a hearing.

Meanwhile, as this international legal web spreads home to reach General Olusegun Obasanjo's regime at its centre, there is the other key problem of Obasanjo having lost critical numbers of his erstwhile military allies. One such lost ally is Lt.General Yakubu Danjuma who gave an interview to The Guardian a year ago, saying he would rather see to it that General Obasanjo returns to prison. Lt. General Danjuma was paradoxically the chief fund-raiser for Obasanjo's 1999 presidential campaign who said he gave N600 million of his personal funds to Obasanjo as campaign donations.

Another lost ally is General Ibrahim Babangida who has not even bothered to visit General Obasanjo's residence since 2006, on the polite pretext of being too busy to visit - as he'd done every year prior. Thus left alone by his long-time military allies to bear these current burdens, General Olusegun Obasanjo looks too politically vulnerable to ride the rising storms as they trench on his governing reputation, especially given President's Yar'Adua's announced determination to jail everyone corruptly involved with Halliburton.

Unless Obasanjo can somehow be exonerated by clear and convincing evidence that demonstrates that he neither knew nor had any reason to know (as head of government) that Halliiburton distributed bribes over a 10-year period for LNG projects, it would be blues and goodnight to Nigeria's self-described "father of the nation".

AFTER nigh on 25 months in office, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua now likely appears to General Olusegun Obasanjo more as a promise of harm than a divine successor he'd announced Yar'Adua as two years ago. For even in a not so piquant coincidence, General Obasanjo had simply kept quiet on May 29 - at Nigeria's 10th anniversary of civil rule - choosing to say nothing for his successor, even as Ijaw militant groups in southern Nigeria were announcing they've killed and dis-embowelled a Lt. Colonel; "who is the son of a former head of state" deployed to the south marine commando by the Nigerian military in its on-going raids on Ijaw militants' bastion.

Three months earlier, Obasanjo's status as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was intentionally diminished to a sinecure post at a party convention organised solely for that purpose. At that convention, Obasanjo had cleverly abstained. Now, in effect, no longer shall Obasanjo have the personal power to call any PDP member to order, since that power shall henceforth be exercised by the 60-odd member Board of Trustees as a collective.

Before his personal diminution in the party hierarchy, certain bilateral agreements on crude oil exploration with South Korea, which General Obasanjo signed as Nigeria's President in 2005, were promptly shredded on January 7 this year by President Umaru Yar'Adua. "Non-payment in full by the Koreans for the two oil blocs" was cited as official reason for unilaterally revoking the oil blocs awarded South Korea by Nigeria under the bilateral agreement (in exchange for six billion dollars of promised Korean investments in Nigeria's energy sector).

Meanwhile, the more prominent of Obasanjo's official aides are wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for thefts and conversion of public property to cronies and family members. Nuhu Ribadu, for example, was the EFCC Chairman under Obasanjo. He fled Nigeria on exile into Europe whilst under investigation in Nigeria by the EFCC for financial crimes, fearing assassination by certain stalkers, as he said, who had shot bullets at his car.

Femi Fani-Kayode, Obasanjo's vociferous spokesman, probably had no such means of escape. He is on trial for N250 million allegedly deposited into his bank account, and his wife's, on the same day. "Yar'Adua's government is lawless", he'd blurted in frustration over his two-time detention in prison custody pending bail, but now, Fani-Kayode is on trial on 140-count charge for monetary crimes.

Nasir El-Rufai - Obasanjo's more vociferous Minister - is now subject of an extradition proceeding by Yar'Adua's government. He is alleged to have criminally allotted plots of land in Abuja to his wives and relatives in criminal breach of trust whilst in public office as Obasanjo's federal capital minister. El Rufai says he is very eager to attend his criminal trial but only at his own time and not earlier than when he shall have finished his self-assigned studies in the United States.

In a spirited fight-back meanwhile, El-Rufai wrote a commentary for the global audience on the internet last week, intending to seek logical inferences from a set of impossible facts - that Obasanjo's actions are the proper examples Yar'Adua fails to follow, but Yar'Adua's attorney-general (Aondooaka) earlier made clear that massive corruption, on the contrary, majorly defined Obasanjo's two-term presidency from 1999 until 2007, making Obasanjo's regime a crass example to avoid. General Olusegun Obasanjo's daughter, Iyabo, who is a Senator, has herself been on trial since 2008 for drawing out money from the Ministry of Health, knowing, as earlier notified by the EFCC, that the money in her possession was taken by the then Minister of Health, Professor (Mrs) Grange.

Iyabo's trial started just about the same time that her brother, Gbenga Obasanjo, was alleging in a divorce court paper that their father, General Olusegun Obasanjo, had incestuously slept with his own wife whilst in public office as Nigeria's President. The court proceeding was in consequence held in camera, to protect the children of the marriage, resulting in the grant of a court divorce on publicly un-disclosed terms.

In a further beleaguering development for General Olusegun Obasanjo since leaving office, a fellow named "Jack Stanley" - recruited by United States Halliburton Company - has testified at a United States federal court that $180 million was distributed to top Nigerian government officials as bribes to secure a $6 billion federal contract for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects in Nigeria between 1994 and 2006 - straddling the successive regimes of Generals Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo.

Yar'Adua's administration early this year said $140 million of that amount has now been found in a Swiss bank and frozen. Very quickly, a letter for mutual assistance in criminal investigation was dispatched from Abuja to both Switzerland and the United States two months ago by the Yar'Adua government. That mutual assistance letter, as later published, sought the evidence under seal in the United States federal court, but also irrelevantly sought the names of individuals and companies overseas who participated in the Halliburton bribes scheme, so that they might be prosecuted in Nigeria - thus complicating any immediate response from either the United States or Switzerland.

If replies to Nigeria's mutual assistance requests eventually come, officials of the Obasanjo administration could be indicted, perhaps including Obasanjo himself, if the evidence irresistibly point at his complicity, ex-officio, as head of government.

Not taking chances, President Yar'Adua has separately set up a multi-agency investigation team comprising the Nigeria Police, the EFCC, the Military, and Defence Intelligence Units, to "publicly name the Nigerian officials found complicit in the Halliburton bribes". That committee has till end of June to make its findings public, whether or not responses to mutual assistance letters are received. Whilst awaiting this "public naming and shaming process" ordered by President Yar'Adua, it is as likely as not that General Obasanjo would be under severe political pressure, since he has no way of knowing just what this multi-agency investigation could reveal.

And because the records of the evidence are perpetuated in a United States federal court - without any availing statute of limitations - there is hardly a wiggle room for arguments in denial by anyone indicted, except for arguments between any set of co-accused persons. In terms therefore, this criminal investigation now underway in four countries under the United Nations Merida Convention has the potential to escalate into a reputation-incinerating proceeding for all accused persons because international criminal law is in issue, and no single country is in control of the eventual outcome. For already, the United States government has begun extradition proceeding against a British lawyer, named Mr. Tessler, who is suspected to have finessed the money-laundering papers. Mr. Tessler has since sued for protection against extradition at the Royal Courts in England. The matter is pending a hearing.

Meanwhile, as this international legal web spreads home to reach General Olusegun Obasanjo's regime at its centre, there is the other key problem of Obasanjo having lost critical numbers of his erstwhile military allies. One such lost ally is Lt.General Yakubu Danjuma who gave an interview to The Guardian a year ago, saying he would rather see to it that General Obasanjo returns to prison. Lt. General Danjuma was paradoxically the chief fund-raiser for Obasanjo's 1999 presidential campaign who said he gave N600 million of his personal funds to Obasanjo as campaign donations.

Another lost ally is General Ibrahim Babangida who has not even bothered to visit General Obasanjo's residence since 2006, on the polite pretext of being too busy to visit - as he'd done every year prior. Thus left alone by his long-time military allies to bear these current burdens, General Olusegun Obasanjo looks too politically vulnerable to ride the rising storms as they trench on his governing reputation, especially given President's Yar'Adua's announced determination to jail everyone corruptly involved with Halliburton.

Unless Obasanjo can somehow be exonerated by clear and convincing evidence that demonstrates that he neither knew nor had any reason to know (as head of government) that Halliiburton distributed bribes over a 10-year period for LNG projects, it would be blues and goodnight to Nigeria's self-described "father of the nation".

Owerri: Sinking billions into the Nworie stream

AS far as I know, apart from a private academic study by researchers at the Imo State University's Department of Animal and Environmental Biology, which in 2007 recommended among other things the dredging of the Nworie stream because of its direct use as source of domestic water supply to residents of Owerri Municipality, there is no other basis for sinking N8 billion into the mud as the Ohakim administration is currently implementing vigorously in the name of dredging the stream. The truth is that the project is of no economic value to the people of Imo State.

If the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) had requested the State Government to identify projects that could be implemented in the state, in terms of priority, the dredging of Nworie stream would certainly be at the bottom. Rational resource utilisation demands that resources should be developed and managed in such a manner that they serve the interest of the larger segment of the society. This is the guiding principle. Imo people need basic amenities - good roads, standard classrooms, potable water, and primary healthcare facilities, among others. Above all, Owerri municipality has no potable water supply. That is why the residents resort to direct use of the Nworie stream. Why didn't Governor Ohakim embark on a massive urban water supply in Owerri, which would benefit the people?

Imo State is landlocked and Owerri is not a seaport. The Nworie stream is not a channel for merchant ships that bring cargo from the sea and in turn take goods for export. If any water body were to be improved in the state, it is the Oguta Lake and not the Nworie. The whole project is suspicious.

Worldwide, dredging is done to create waterway or new harbour for ships to berth. The Nworie dredging doesn't meet any of the many uses of dredging. If the purpose is anti-eutrophication, certainly, that option is most expensive for eutrophication remediation.

In the absence of any immediate useful economic purpose, dredging the Nworie stream at this critical time of economic meltdown and sinking a large chunk of the state's meagre resources into a project that doesn't give direct benefit to the people is misplaced priority. The implementers of the project should ask themselves whether it is sustainable? Has it been integrated into the overall Owerri urban plan such that future governments would sustain it and not abandoning it?

On the other hand, is this not a one-off event that ends with the present Ohakim administration without any plan for sustainability? Looking at the general backwardness of Imo State in terms of industrial and infrastructural development, there is no doubt that the Nworie dredging is a politically motivated white elephant project designed to rip off the state. The money being expended is a waste.

After dredging Nworie, what purpose would it serve? Those talking about using the stream to promote tourism are parochial and insincere. There is nothing to talk about tourism on Nworie. The stream is only about five kilometers across Owerri. There is nothing aesthetic over this distance that would attract tourists. Let us be sincere to ourselves.

I have lived and worked in Nairobi, Kenya, a country where tourism is the second highest foreign exchange earner after agriculture. The Nairobi River traverses the city. Notwithstanding all the manipulations and farming technology applied along its banks, the river is not mentioned among the tourist attractions in Kenya. The Nairobi River is highly polluted from industrial effluent discharge.

In the case of the Nworie stream, the odds are numerous. There are no photo safaris, parks, game reserves, or renowned scenery within the catchment's area to attract tourists. I also have experience from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where rivers and network of canals are constantly maintained and managed to serve as tourist attraction. The rivers and canals in Amsterdam are sparkling clean. On the banks of the watercourses are shops, hotels, recreation parks, clubs, etc that attract millions of tourists annually. Besides, there are beautifully designed cruise boats sailing on the canals. The boats ferry tourists from one part of the city to the other to behold the beauty of the town.

All these features are lacking on the Nworie stream. Here you have a stream channel that was for decades turned into a dumpsite for urban garbage. Also, the Nworie is eutrophic and dead from domestic effluents and farm nutrients washed from the adjoining farms. This is evidenced by water quality studies of the stream, which indicated low dissolved oxygen and high concentrations of carbon dioxide. The level of these parameters far exceeded accepted international water quality standards.

Since the main source of pollution of the stream is domestic and farm nutrient inflow, what plan is there to curtail these pollution sources after dredging? Except that is done, the effort would be wasted. It is not surprising that there is no industrial pollution because there are no industries in Owerri.

The researchers strongly warned against dredging that would involve merely raking up garbage and other pollutants that settled at the bottom of the stream to avoid increasing the chances for the outbreak of water-borne diseases such as typhoid, dysentery, cholera and intestinal parasitic diseases. Was this taken into consideration?

Again, there are different types of dredging. The type employed depends on the nature of the water body and the purpose. What type is employed on the Nworie stream? How is the waste being disposed? These issues ought to be taken into consideration because dredging could have severe environmental impacts.

For example, the dredging of Nworie would create disturbance in the aquatic ecosystem. There will be release of toxic chemicals, release of heavy metals from bottom sediments, increase in turbidity levels, contamination of sites where the dredge spoils are disposed. In all, if the dredging activity is not carefully handled, it may lead to adverse environmental and social impacts. Was a proper environmental impact assessment carried out to determine the spin-off of the project?

The researchers who recommended the dredging of the Nworie also recommended the re-construction of any bridge that impedes the free flow of the stream. What has been done in that regard? Has the state government identified the bridges? Is the reconstruction of the bridges part of the dredging project? If the stream channel has been blocked at some points along its course, what is the essence of dredging without first opening up the channel? Why put the cart before the horse?

Anyone standing on the Nworie Bridge by Holy Ghost College and Assumpta Cathedral off Orlu Road Junction would see brownish clogged water body with putrefying vegetative matter on both sides of the bridge. The Nworie is not flowing at this point. The reason is that underneath the bridge are clogged millions of cubit meters of garbage. Consequently, no amount of dredging would make any meaning except those bridges are reconstructed and opened up free flow of water.

If the State Government is sincerely desirous of dredging Nworie to serve any useful purpose, there should be a comprehensive plan to not only dredge the stream but also to rehabilitate the entire stream watershed from its source a few kilometers north of Owerri to where it joins the Otamiri River near Nekede. That would also include ensuring that wastes and domestic garbage don't find their way back into the stream after rehabilitation. Arguably, this has not been taken into consideration and can't be achieved at this time.

As far as I am concerned, the only plausible reason why the state administration may consider dredging Nworie is to provide municipal water to Owerri. But this is not the aim of Governor Ohakim. It is ironic that over the decades, Owerri town has remained one of the driest cities in the country and yet a freshwater stream traverses it. Successive state administrations have not thought it wise to exploit the Nworie stream to the advantage of the city. In other climes, the presence of such a stream would have served as the main source of water supply to the city.

Hydrologically, the Nworie stream is insignificant in Imo State. A hydrological map of the state would hardly show this water body. That explains the degree of its unimportance. The stream is mentioned simply because it traverses Owerri Municipality. It is not more important than the Oramiriukwa, Otamiri, Mba and Okitankwo. These streams form the major hydrological network of Imo State. There is also the Oguta Lake with its scenic beauty and tourism potential.

Considering the low revenue profile of the country, no sensitive state government is considering dredging any river anywhere in the country, not even the important rivers that have link to the sea. Talks of dredging the River Niger have lingered since 1963 until a few months ago when the Federal Government awarded the contract as part of measures to assuage the Niger Delta region.

Why then did the Ohakim administration decide to dredge a small stream (a pond) that is of no economic importance to the state? I suggest that in the interest of accountability and transparency and good governance, this project should be discontinued and the funds channeled to other critical areas of need begging for attention in the state.

Obama’s Visit to Ghana

Ordinarily, the choice of which country the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, visits is his own prerogative as well as those of his diplomatic advisers. It should therefore generate little or no controversy. But given the prevailing circumstances, the decision of President Obama to visit three countries in Africa: Egypt, South Africa and Ghana, leaving Nigeria out, naturally stirs some curiosity.
It should be curious to the people of a nation famed to be the giant of Africa, with the largest population of the black race in the world; a nation with strong economic potentials and a key supplier of crude oil to the US; and a nation once counted by the White House as one of the pillars for the development of the impoverished African continent.
President Obama will between July 10 and 11 this year be paying his first visit to Africa (Ghana) after he was sworn-in last January. Indeed, why did President Obama choose to ignore Nigeria and prefer to visit a country like Ghana?
No doubt, the American President’s visit to Africa has strong political significance, though denominated in diplomatic rebuff for Nigeria. This is the first American President with an African blood, who is visiting ‘home’ for the first time. The countries he chooses to go to are crucial in the sense of their diplomatic weight in international fora. It even blazes a trail for foreign investment and tourism both of which Nigeria needs badly.
It is against this backdrop that some Nigerians are showing concern for the diplomatic signal being flashed by America. In a way, it re-inforces the beliefs in some quarters that Nigeria is gradually losing its leadership status in a continent where she has not only dominated in many issues, but has also helped to stabilise and organise through support in money and kind.
While in Ghana, Obama will open talks with President Attah Mills of Ghana on a wide range of issues including bilateral and regional issues. There is no doubting the fact that such an opportunity will have tremendous economic on and bilateral spin-offs for an economy battling to stabilize, just like Nigeria’s. That is the more reason why Nigeria should feel concerned about the cold shoulder from America.
Although the White House has given no (and need not give any) explanation for the choice of Ghana, over and above Nigeria, the elite reading indicates that Nigeria’s fate in this circumstance, may have been determined by the baggage of democratic deficits and fraud in recent times.
Disappointing as the America’s decision is, what it all suggests is that Nigeria should stop sulking over the neglect it has suffered and work on its obvious deficiencies. At least, it is now obvious that the international community’s perception of a country matters so much. Even so, it is a direct function of the good things done at home.
Nigeria still has the chance to re-position itself for the leadership position of the continent it deserves. The Obama visit to Africa, more than anything else, should serve as a wakeup call for Nigerian leaders.
To dismiss the significance of the choice of Ghana over Nigeria, as some officials in government are wont to do, is not helpful. That will be tragic for a nation which in just a year should be marking her golden jubilee. Even in the African culture, it matters so much for a home or community to host an august visitor.

A judge beaten in his own court

A RECENT incident reported by The Punch newspaper ought to attract public outrage but in the absence of this in a society that is already shocked beyond further shock, the implications of the developments for the health of society and its moral fibre should not be allowed to pass unremarked. What exactly is wrong with us in this country? Is our country a large mental ward or just another land?

See The Punch, May 30, pp. 3 and 20, an interview titled: "While policemen beat me in court, their senior officers laughed - Wilberforce Meigbope, the magistrate beaten by Lagos policemen for granting suspects bail." Mr. Wilberforce Meigbope, the Presiding Magistrate of Court 8, Botannical Garden, Ebute Meta, Lagos, alleges in the newspaper interview that on May 19, he was beaten up in his court by policemen, while their senior officers laughed. He had made in the eyes of the police the terrible and unforgivable mistake of granting bail to 25 suspects who had been brought in on a three-count charge of conspiracy, allegation of demanding N15 million and being members of an unlawful society known as the Niger Delta Coastal Security.

These are bailable offences under Nigerian law and the duty of the judex is to apply the law. But the police had insisted on influencing the judge. When he refused, they resorted to self-help. The tragedy of it is that police men are part of the justice administration system with the court of law at the apex. The police have no powers to issue judgements: the role of all players within the justice dispensation system is well outlined. But when policemen begin to behave like thugs in a court of law, then the entire machinery of justice is derailed. The idea of policemen beating judges is preposterous. I guess it points to the continuing failure of Nigeria as a state. Mr Meigbope's experience had all the elements of the bizzare.

The facts of the case as reported by the Magistrate are as follows: On April 14, the accussed persons had been granted bail, but only one of them was yet to perfect her bail conditions. The police prosecutors had registered their objection to the bail on the grounds that "the matter is serious". On April 28, the police applied to withdraw the case, but the magistrate refused to grant the application. On May 19 when the case was called again in court, the police requested that the case should be adjourned till July 27 at 12 noon. The magistrate granted both requests. Meanwhile the bail that had been granted by the court on April 14 was still in effect. But as soon as the magistrate moved on to "other matters", hell broke loose.

The magistrate paints the picture himself: "About 10 minutes later, some lawyers just broke into the proceedings and said that despite the court order, the police had been arresting the 25 accussed persons, because on that day, the lady that was not able to meet her bail condition also came from Kirikiri. After listening to them, I rose and went out. I met with the policemen and said: 'Please comply with the court order.' They ignored me. They refused to stop. One of them even told me that he would shoot me. Before I knew what was going on, the accussed persons started jumping down from the two buses which had been hijacked for the purpose of rearresting them. Some jumped through the window and landed on my shoulder, some rushed out through the door. They held my hands and legs and started pleading, 'Sir, help us, you must help us'. The policemen started punching them against me and in a twinkle of an eye, I felt all manner of blows over my body. In the melee, my shirt was torn and three buttons fell off my suit."

His Worship was eventually rescued by "judiciary staff." "All the senior police officers that came to court that day were inside their cars within the court premises. It was raining. They saw the scene but they did not do anything. I believe they gave the order that led to the mayhem....Before I went to the buses that they hijacked, I told them (officers) to talk to their boys to comply with the court order. They did not even do as if they heard me. They were just laughing."

Commenting further on police behaviour, His Worship says one Inspector Julius Okoedo during the arraignment of the matter kept making noise in court and although the magistrate told him to stay where the lawyers were, the policeman told the magistrate that "he had no right." Meigbope reports that the Inspector, "the one who called himself a lawyer" had advised him not to grant the suspects bail, but "I refused. To play police game? That means you are already dead...I am here to maintain justice even at the point of death." For standing firm, Mr. Meigbope now suffers a lot of pains. "Now if I want to sleep at night, my heart would be throbbing. Whether it is broken, I don't know. Then my shoulder, my hips, my thigh where those people held me and they were beating them and beating me".

We sympathise with His Worship. His story should be read by all judges and magistrates for it raises not just the obvious issue of the lawlessness of the police, but also the conduct of the judex. The Honourable Magistrate in this instance abandoned his Bench and jumped into the arena with his hands and feet and mouth, and hence he found himself in the undignified position of being assaulted and threatened. He should have stayed on his Bench. And who are those jankara lawyers who rushed in to plead with the magistrate to come out and physically enforce his own order? And he too rushed out of the court, like a militant, to meet with the policemen to tell them 'please comply with the court order'! And he got beaten in the process, and he lost three buttons and his shirt was torn. He should thank his stars he didn't lose some teeth.

His Worship could have been shot and the police would have reported the matter as a case of accidental discharge. Strange things happen in the Nigerian magistracy, but this must go down as one of the funniest. The magistrate became a policeman, threatening to enforce his own orders "at the point of death", and the police whose original duty is to enforce the law became law breakers in court premises. What happened in front of Magistrate Meigbope's court on May 19 is a complete breakdown of law and order, with His Worship as the protagonist of a sordid drama. It could have been really sad still if the learned Magistrate had also tried to retaliate by hitting a policeman in return. Judges must realise that the best protection that they have is within the province of the law not physical exertion.

When the lawyers came to His Worship, he should have told them to take the appropriate steps to ensure compliance with court order. Those lawyers should know what to do and if they don't, it is not the duty of the presiding judge to act on their behalf by embarking on a rescue mission. Meigbope is a very articulate man and the interview that he has granted The Punch newspaper is quite entertaining, but he must be told that it is not in the place of judges to behave like village chiefs. He has brought the Bench to great ridicule and he lays himself open to charges of partisanship. He says he has reported the incident to the Lagos State Judiciary. The first response from above should be to take the case away from him, to prevent the absurd situation of further physical conflict in his court in this matter.

In the same interview, Meigbope points out that the Lagos State judiciary can boast of "well certificated judges, experienced and learned judges who are prepared to make sure that justice is done". Yes, but not through physical involvement, and certainly not through newspaper interviews! Meigbope's experience confirms the need for the training and retraining of the judex at all levels. Now, he says he will submit the bill for his medical treatment to the state for reimbusement...

But there is no doubt that the police in this case are useless and that their conduct, including the senior officers who laughed as the law was being broken is reprehensible. We have a police force, as Meigbope points out, where many of the officers are lawyers, and yet the police is the leading law-breaking institution in Nigeria. This points to the general collapse of values and standards in the land, and the failure of the police as an institution.When lawyers and judges exchange altercations in the court room and the police insist on over-ruling judges, with the accussed clinging to the trousers of the judge for physical help, it means that our society is lost. The judiciary fails in its function as the last hope of the common man and the reign of impunity is encouraged. We are unfortunately growing a society where there is widespread disregard for the law at all levels.

As I read Meigbope's interview and the accompanying Lagos State Police PRO's dismissal of the incident as mere "rumour", I thought of the riotous behaviour by voters, electoral officials and the police in the recent election in Ekiti State, the alleged execution of suspects in police cells, the number of awaiting trial persons in Nigerian prisons, and the well-reported menace of policemen on Nigerian roads... all in a country where the incumbent President says his primary ambition is to enforce the rule of law.

The Inspector General of Police and the Lagos State Police Commissioner, both of whom are lawyers should take personal interest in Magistrate Meigbope's case. Who are those policemen who threatened to shoot the learned magistrate? Was there a breakdown of communication on the bail process and why, if so? And is it possible that the accussed persons were being arrested for another offence different from the case already before the court? It is about time the Nigerian Bar Association and the Body of Benchers began to take a keen interest also in cases of this nature: errant lawyers who turn court premises into an arena for combat should have their names struck off the register, be they men of uniform or not. The Nigerian judiciary must also invest in the training of its officers, with special emphasis on decorum.

The continuing search for the Nigerian car

VICE President Goodluck Jonathan's lamentation at the recently concluded Abuja Motor Show over the absence of a Nigerian manufactured car on display was hypocritical and meaningless, as he didn't state what action government intends to take to reverse the situation. At best, the outburst was an admission of the failure of government to lift the industrial sector in general and the car manufacturing industry in particular. Most industries in Nigeria have closed down due to unfavourable conditions; the automobile industry has been most affected.

The Vice President should be aware that it is the responsibility of government to solve the country's problems, not to lament over them. It was not enough to be bothered; he should have given suggestions on how to make a locally produced car a reality. The ability to chart a way forward is what governance is all about. As a matter of fact, except there is a new industrial philosophy in the country, what would be on display at such shows would continue to be imported cars. That again raises the question of the logic for organising a motor show just to exhibit cars produced by other countries.

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Alhaji Adamu Aliero, who spoke on behalf of the Vice President, reportedly expressed the sentiments at the opening ceremony of the event and gave "fresh hope of a Nigerian car coming on stream". He did not, however, say how this would be realised but merely expressed "government's commitment to collaborate with willing private investors" to actualise the dream. What is the nature of that collaboration and what are the expected benchmarks?

We are amazed at the poor representation by top government officials who were shedding crocodile tears over a self-inflicted situation. That in a way amounts to sheer pretence and expression of ignorance. Efforts to develop and manufacture a Nigerian car started long before the establishment of the local car assembly plants. By the 70s and 80s, the country could boast of a number of automobile companies including the Anambra Motor Manufacturing Company (ANAMMCO), Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria (PAN), Volkswagen of Nigeria (VWoN) and National Trucks Manufacturer, which assembled cars in Nigeria and eventually attained a level of local content which raised hopes about the local manufacturing of vehicles.

Sadly, that dream was never realised. By the late 80s, VWoN had closed shop while PAN's fortunes dwindled. ANAMMCO became a shadow of its old self. The latter-day privatisation of these companies has failed to improve the situation due to the failure of policy and unfavourable economic conditions. It is most disheartening that even the local auto assembly plants are not receiving government patronage. There has been no serious attempt to encourage the local industry. Government departments and agencies shun locally assembled vehicles despite the seeming interest in local production. Besides, there have been allegations that government officials insist on receiving financial inducements and payment of commissions from local automobile companies as a pre-condition for patronising their products. How do we reconcile this with the Vice President's lamentation?

Some private individuals have also tried to invest in the search for a locally made Nigerian car without encouragement. Their efforts have been frustrated by the hostile industrial environment and lack of official support. For example, Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu, a private inventor, has been working on the Z-600 model, the first in his Z-car series for quite some time, without any support. According to him, 90 per cent of the car's components would be produced locally, and the unit cost will not be more than just $2,000, making it the cheapest car in Africa and indeed the world. The prototype, which was later assembled and displayed publicly in Lagos raised public expectations. But in April 2006, it was reported that armed men broke into the Izuogu Motors factory in Owerri and carted away various machines and tools including a design history notebook and the moulds for the various parts of the Z-600 car.

The invasion of the Izuogu factory smacked of sabotage. Since then, little has been heard about Dr. Izuogu and the car project. Thus, the continuing search for the locally made Nigerian car, and the attendant failures are a reflection of the crisis within the Nigerian environment: the insincerity of the leadership, the failure of policy, and the hostile social and economic environment. In addition, the Nigerian environment neither cherishes nor encourages scientific invention.

As the situation is now, if the Federal Government wants the country to have a locally produced car, it should start by giving necessary support to the automobile industry, in the form of a bail-out, or the restriction of imports, or the patronage of locally assembled vehicles and the encouragement of research and production-friendly economic policies. Countries like Malaysia and India have already proved the point that it is possible to encourage local industry by looking inwards. For Nigeria, mere rhetoric and righteous indignation would be inadequate

In the name of the 'God' of soccer

WHEN Nigeria's football team, the Super Eagles, confront their Kenyan opponents, the Harambee Stars, in the soccer World Cup qualifying match on Sunday, June 7, we expect the Eagles to win outright because God loves our players more than the Kenyans. The nation has put in so much in terms of prayers and fasting that the national team deserves to win.

The law of equity in religious worship states that whoever prays more, wins more. The team that prays together, stays together. That's the way we view things. That's the way we expect things to work in Nigeria. That's the way we understand the power of prayers. With sustained prayer sessions, all obstacles are conquerable.

According to the Daily Sun edition of Tuesday this week, the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) is about to commence a three-day period of praying and fasting intended to help the Eagles to overwhelm their Kenyan counterparts in this weekend's soccer World Cup qualifying match. The prayer session will last from 4-6 June 2009. Pastor Paul Bankole, the sports minister of the church (I didn't know that churches also have "sports ministers"), was reported to have said that prayers and fasting will be used to invite God to sit metaphorically on the Eagles' bench.

Bankole the pastor, who arguably understands God more than every other Nigerian, said: "There is need for us to go back to God in this country... It is high time for this country to go back to God and tell Him we are sorry for all that have taken place in Nigerian sports... I know God is a merciful God, I also know he can intervene for the Eagles despite being in a tight corner... This prayer is so important because the Eagles are meeting Kenya the next day...Our General Overseer... always prays for Nigerian sports. We want to pray that God should uproot all the uprootable to ensure nothing stops us from being in South Africa."

If you believe Bankole and other religious charlatans or devotees like him, you will also believe that, with God on our side, the Eagles need not waste their time training, sweating and fretting over a match in which victory has been guaranteed by virtue of the intensity of our prayers. This is the context in which we must analyse Bankole's rambling comments which also show the extent to which some pastors in Nigeria preach to their followers the virtues of laziness.

Bankole's words indicate quite clearly that there are indeed Nigerian pastors and religious leaders who believe naively that prayer alone can overturn all obstacles. When I saw the headline of the story in the Daily Sun for the first time, I thought it was one of those sensational but insignificant stories commercially packaged to attract the maximum attention of newspaper readers. The headline read: "Divine Intervention", with a kicker which stated: " ... RCCG takes Eagles case to God".

On its own, the story about national observation of three days of prayers and fasting for the Super Eagles reeks of utter ignorance. It casts us all as a group of day dreamers who need more than divine intervention to determine our priorities. Kenyans will have their ribs cracking with laughter when they read the story. How can prayers by Nigerians help to harm or confuse the Kenyan players on the field during the World Cup qualifying match?

The idea that the RCCG and its members will pray and fast for three days simply to help the Eagles to win the World Cup match shows how disingenuous some pastors have become. Could prayers alone win a soccer match for any nation? Perhaps the Kenyans don't know how to pray.

I have no problem with pastors and their followers who believe strongly in the power of prayers. But pastors and other religious leaders have an obligation to inform their followers that religious precepts are dressed up in metaphors and those principles should not be understood in the literal sense. Pastors should also educate their followers about the differences that separate the world of idealism from the world of pragmatism or common sense. For example, the fact that there is an injunction in the holy book does not mean that it can be applied to the world out there.

To suggest, as Bankole implied, that the Eagles do not need days of serious training and hard work but three days of adoration consisting of singing and dancing and praying, represents an invitation to indolence. Rather than preach about the rewards of hard work, constant training and practice as the sure path to victory, Bankole is busy sermonizing about the supernatural power of prayers.

If prayer is all the Eagles need to win matches, there would be no need to hire coaches, managers and technical advisers. If prayer is the magic bullet for victory in sporting competitions, no government would invest in the construction of stadia, training venues, and in the acquisition of sports equipment. If prayer is all we need to attain victory in soccer, we could easily hire - for half the cost of expensive professional players - a team consisting of pastors, bishops and archbishops to represent Nigeria in the World Cup and other continental competitions. Bankole's views make nonsense of the concept of talent development in sports.

The way religious leaders misinterpret the Bible or Koran or whatever holy book they adopt for worship has become a source of worry. Many Nigerians who follow their pastors blindly are so gullible they will believe anything. These are the people who deserve to be saved from further psychological, physical, spiritual and mental damage inflicted on their psyche by the all-knowing pastors.

Action is long overdue. The nation has kept quiet for so long while religious leaders commit murder and all manner of crimes against members of their congregation - all in the name of God or, preferably, all in the name of the dark forces they worship. I've heard some people say the reason they can't confront the fake pastors and their questionable practices is because of the fear that the pastors may invoke the so-called "Holy Ghost Fire" against people who criticise them.

There are three inherent impressions in the story. The first idea mirrors the level to which standards of soccer have collapsed in Nigeria. Resorting to prayers suggests that there are no skilled players in the Eagles' team that the nation must now prayer feverishly in order that the Eagles can win.

The second and perhaps more insightful impression underlines our foolhardiness in believing that prayer and fasting are sufficient to generate success for the Eagles even in circumstances where hard work and sheer determination are guaranteed to produce a favourable outcome. The third idea reconfirms the extent to which religious organisations are leading Nigerians astray. Anyone who believes that three days of praying and fasting would produce victory for the Super Eagles in a crucial World Cup match must be a religious extremist.

As the Eagles face the Kenyans in two days' time, it is futile for us to hang our hopes on prayers. If the Eagles didn't prepare well ahead of the match, they should not expect easy victory against their opponents. In soccer, prayers don't win matches. There is a limit to which we must rely on prayers to produce instant results that coincide with national expectations. If the management of soccer has not collapsed at the national level, if the players have not been behaving as if the nation owes them some kind of debt, there would be no need to seek God's intercession in this World Cup qualifier.

It is perhaps instructive that I should return to the words of Bankole, the pastor, to conclude this essay. His closing remarks expose the ambiguous side of a man who had argued previously for prayers and fasting as the pathway to Super Eagles' victory on Sunday. Hear him: "We should not joke with that match coming up on June 7 and avoid listening to the news coming from Kenya; it could be deceptive. Amodu and the boys should prepare very well, whether they are in disarray or not." Did Bankole actually use the words "prepare very well"? And did he understand the meaning of the word "prepare"?

150 years of CMS Grammar School

THE CMS Grammar School, Lagos, will be 150 years old on Saturday, June 6, 2009. Founded on June 6, 1859, it is the oldest secondary grammar school in Nigeria. It started modestly as a boarding school, with only five students in only four rooms, at the 'Cotton House,' at the end of Broad Street, facing the lagoon, now the site of Hallmark Bank, and previously the site of UTC. Subjects taught in the new school included English, Logic, Greek, Arithmetic, Geometry, Geography, History, Bible Knowledge, and Latin. The school was to make phenomenal progress in subsequent years, producing some of the most outstanding public figures in Nigeria's colonial and post-colonial history.

Its founder and first principal was the Rev. Thomas Babington Macaulay. A Creole and descendant of freed African slaves, he was one of the first two educated African clergymen, the other being the Rev. (later Bishop) Samuel Ajai Crowther. He was sent by the CMS (Church Missionary Society) in 1954 from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to Lagos, where he eventually settled and had a brilliant career, first as a clergyman in Abeokuta, and later as the first principal of the school. The Rev. Macaulay was educated at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, founded by the CMS in 1927. As a young and precocious lad he has been taken from Fourah Bay in 1848, and sent for training as an Anglican priest to the CMS Theological Training Institute in Islington, London. Encouraged by his academic brilliance at Islington, the CMS sent him to the King's College, University of London, from where he graduated in 1853, obtaining a B.A. in Arts from the university.

He returned to Freetown in 1854, from where he was posted to the newly established CMS Training Institute in Abeokuta, of which he soon became the Principal. It was from there that CMS authorities appointed him in 1859 the first principal of the school. He remained the principal of the school for nearly 20 years, until his death in 1878. It was he who shaped the early traditions and character of the school, developing it into a school famous throughout West Africa. A disciplinarian, he made it his priority to assist the boys in the development of their character and to prepare them for the church and public service. Over the years this has been the main focus of the school. The school's motto since 1859, given it by the CMS, is "Nisi dominus frustra", extracted from Psalm 127, meaning "Without God we labour in vain'.

This motto enshrines the faith of its founders, the CMS, and the traditions of the school. Some of the early students of the school who became famous later were Archdeacon Dandeson Crowther, the eldest son of Bishop Crowther, the Rev. B. Manuwa, the father of Sir Samuel Manuwa, himself an old boy, Dr. Henry Carr, the first African Resident of the British colony of Lagos, John Otunba Payne, the first Registrar of the Lagos High Court, and the great nationalist, Herbert Macaulay, the son of the Rev. Thomas Babington Macaulay, and his wife, Abigail, the eldest daughter of Bishop Samuel Ajai Crowther.

The fascinating and long history of this school is a matter of interest, not only to the old boys of the school, but the public as well. First, it is older than Nigeria. When it was founded by the CMS in 1859, Nigeria had not yet become a British dependency. Secondly, the school was the product of a private effort by the CMS of the Anglican Church in England, and not the colonial government. In fact, it was not until 1909, some 50 years after the CMS grammar School, Lagos, was founded that the first state secondary school, the King's College, Lagos, was founded, by the British colonial administration. And when it started, most of its foundation students were drawn from the CMS Grammar School. Similarly when Igbobi College was founded jointly by the Anglican and Methodist missions in 1932, both its first principal, the Rev. Waterton, and its foundation students were drawn from the CMS Grammar School.

The founding of the CMS Grammar School was the outcome of the CMS policy of "Ethiopianism", actively promoted by the Secretary of the CMS in London, the Rev. Henry Venn, that Africans must be trained by the church to take over the running and management of the Anglican churches in Africa. Equally, the British colonial administration had to depend, at great expense, on clerks brought in from Sierra Leone, the West Indies, and the old Gold Coast (now Ghana), which was the headquarters of the British colonial administration in West Africa.

Within a few years of its founding, products of the school had begun replacing both white and black expatriates as clergymen and administrators. It was the distinct privilege of the school to have produced the first generation of Nigerian University graduates in all professions such as law, medicine, engineering, and accountancy. For decades after it was founded, most of the Anglican clergy, including bishops, and colonial administrators, were all old boys of the school.

In January 1881, the school moved from its Cotton House site at Broad Street, to a new site at the junction of Odunlami Street and Broad Street, where it could boast of having a large boarding house, the principal's lodge, three class room blocks, a large school hall, a small chapel, and a small sports field. Later, in 1929, a science block was added, which was put to the use of not only the boys in the schools, but also other students from all over the country. In 1911, students from the school started taking the Junior Cambridge Certificate examinations, and in 1931, the Senior Cambridge School Certificate, with brilliant results in both cases. Under a succession of diligent principals and school masters, such as the Rev. (later Bishop) Melville Jones, the Rev. (later Bishop) Isaac Oluwole, the Rev. Joseph Fanimokun, Canon E.J. Evans, Ven. J.O. Lucas, the Rev (later Bishop) S.O. Odutola, Mr. (later Professor) L.J. Lewis, the Rev. (later Bishop) S.I. Kale, and Ven. B.A. Adelaja, the school easily established itself as one of the leading secondary schools in Nigeria, producing in all fields such outstanding professionals and public figures as Herbert Macaulay, Dr. Henry Carr, John Otunba Payne, Sir Samuel Manuwa, Bishop S.C. Philips, Bishop Adelakun Howells. The great organists Dr. Ekundayo Phillips, and his son Oluyomi Phillips, Mr. Akintola Williams, his brothers, Chief F.R.A Williams, and Amb. Soji Williams, Justice Adeoba, Justice Oyemade, Magnus Macaulay, Prof. Babs Fafunwa, Justice Somade, Mr. A. Manuwa, Michael Olumide, Bishop George Bako, Engr. Victor Haffner, Chief Bode Thomas, Chief Justice G.O. Sowemimo, Mr. Ola Vincent, Chief T.O.S. Benson, Professor Ishaya Audu, Justice Charles Madarikan, Chief T.A.B. Oki, Justice Olumide Omololu, Canon Yinka Olumide, S. Olabode Wey, the first Nigerian Secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr. C.O. Lawson, another Secretary to the Federal Government, Chief Adeyemi Lawson, Justice L.J. Dosunmu, Professor A. Babs Fafunwa, Professor T.O. Ogunlesi, the great music composer, Professor Fela Sowande, Professor O. Oke, Professor T.F. Solanke, Professor Ade Elebute, Professor Deji Femi-Pearse, Chief G.O.K. Ajayi SAN, Mr. Bayo Braithwaite, Chief E.A. Shonekan, Maj.-Gen. (Dr.) Henry Adefope, Prof. M. Banjoko, Dr. O. Ashley-Dejo, several high ranking diplomats, and the well-known Mechanical Engineer, late Professor Ayodele Awojobi, arguably the best Engineer produced by Nigeria. What sets the school apart from other secondary schools is the effortless ease with which its boys achieve success and fame.

The school has continued this excellent tradition of producing some of the ablest public servants and professionals in Nigeria at its new and expansive site in Bariga to which it moved from Odunlami in 1958. Regrettably, in 1979 the Jakande administration took over part of the premises of the school, and other private schools as well, in a misguided policy that set the school back for some years. But in 2001 this policy was reversed, and part of the school premises was returned to the Anglican mission.

The process of rebuilding the school has been under way since then, and much of the physical damage to it repaired by its old boys. The school is on the march again and will, without doubt, continue to contribute to the progress of our nation. The school is my alma mater and I am immensely proud of its enviable record and achievements. A history of the school, edited by me, will be launched at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, on Friday, June 5, at 3 p.m.

Niger Delta, state and people

THE emerging currents after the military incursion into the Gbaramatu communities in the Niger Delta tends toward believing the state's propaganda, that it launched the attack to deal with "criminal elements" in the Niger Delta involved in kidnapping of foreign and local people as well as sabotage of oil facilities in the region and who had also lately fell some officers and men of the of the occupation force in the Niger Delta, known as Joint Task force (JTF). According to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Nigeria, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, "No responsible Government will sit quiet and watch an unwarranted attack on its armed forces without any provocation".

Those who tend to believe this state's line in the misadventure in the Niger Delta are guilty of not only what Wole Soyinka calls partial amnesia with regard to Nigeria's history, they are also largely ignorant of the contradictory dynamics of the country, the specific character of the Nigerian state whose surviving logic is embedded in violence. At this juncture, let me ask the following questions: What is the geo-political and economic importance of the Niger Delta? What is a state? Is the Nigerian state really a state? What is the meaning of a people? Next, I shall proceed to answer these questions which I have posed.

The Niger Delta belongs to the South-South geopolitical zone in the unconstitutionalised six zones in the country which include the South West, South East, North West, North East and North Central. In specific terms, the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria comprises Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers states. The 1958 Willink Commission report which expressed the problems of the minority, considered Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States as the actual Niger Delta. The discovery of more oil wells in the region has altered the classificatory paradigm to cover the presence of hydro-carbon. Hence the Niger Delta, in strategic energy terms, refers to the oil producing areas (OPA), namely, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers. To be sure, Niger Delta has over 40 billions of proven hydro-carbon reserves, being the reason for its importance to international actors in quest of cheap source of energy and a parasitic local ruling class dependent solely on revenue accruing from the oil resources. As is well-known, Nigeria relies on earnings from oil, over 85 per cent of the GDP, to stay living. For the country, oil is the river between. Fundamentally, oil has come to shape the character and content of the Nigerian state. This is elaborated in what follows.

Scholarly, the state has been articulated by political scientists and statesmen alike in different ways. Its origin is hypothesised in the contract theories of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacque Rousseau in western philosophy. In African folklore, there are equally sundry narratives on the origin of the state. The crux of the matter is that the state arises out of the desire for collective freedom by the people, a condition which state of anarchy or 'war of all against all' cannot guarantee. For the purpose of this write-up, I shall highlight both the liberal and political economy perspectives of the state.

In the liberal standpoint, the state is underpinned by the doctrine of the separation of power in which the various arms of state have relative autonomy in their sphere of influence. The state is impartial and above all serves the interest of the competing groups within a society. It does not serve the goal of capital, it is classless. It is an embodiment of the whole society ala Hegel. Indeed, Marx Weber identifies three components of the modern state, namely, its territoriality, legitimacy and coercive force monopoly. The state has always tended to be authoritarian scorning its base origin in Shakespearean terms. It is the reason while checks and balances have been introduced to reign in its excesses in the context of constitutionalism.

Historically, the Nigerian state does not exhibit the neutral pretext or pluralism of the liberal state pretending to be umpire of the contending forces nor the service role of state-building. It bears through and through, the authoritarian content of the colonial state, its parent. Its territoriality defies logic as many nations are packed into a political space so-called Nigeria by Lugard's mistress. The process of colonial disengagement placed power in the hands of an ethnic feudal elite to whom power is warfare. The end in view for the British was to secure enduring neo-colonial future relations (for a full account of this read Peter Smithers at www.libertas.demon.co.uk and Professor Kunle Lawal's The United States and the Decolonisation Process in Nigeria, 1945-1960.). Its post-colonial existence was illegitimately brought about, and the post-colonial Nigerian state has only one asset, the monopoly of coercive force which successive regimes have deployed to fulfil the goal of accumulation of the local elite and their metropolitan counterparts. For this reason, the political economy approach best captures its dynamics. Its highpoint as an approach is that it focuses exclusively on the social relations of production.

In the words of Ralph Miliband (1969) the state in a class society "is primarily and inevitably the guardian and protector of the economic interests which are dominant in society. Its 'real' purpose is to ensure their continued predominance, not to prevent it." The political economy view of the state is that the state is the instrument of oppression of the oppressed class in society. In Karl Marx's precise words, "The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." The diverse ways in which oil has shaped the political economy of the Nigerian state has been described by Teresa Turner in his 1978 article, "Commercial capitalism and the 1975 Coup" as one involving the multinationals, compradors and state elite. The Nigerian state by virtue of its sole reliance on oil is a rentier state.

According to Hazem Beblawi, the Nigerian State is characterised by "a windfall wealth of unprecedented magnitude." This is the singular incentive for Nigeria's continuous existence and simultaneously underlines its elusive nature. The state collects rents from sale of oil and is merely distributed through the bureaucratic mill from where it is appropriated, misappropriated and stolen outright. Local content to the production process is absolutely nil, a fact that explains while the country has continued to import refined oil products into the country to the detriment of the country's current account balance. It is the struggle for this oil rent that has turned the contest for political offices in the country into 'a do-or-die affair'. In this primitive accumulation continuum where do the people lie? First and foremost, let me answer the initial question: what is the meaning of a people. People as a political category constitute the materiality and spirituality of a state. The state is an empty shell without the people who animate it. And when a state has diverse demography, it is the duty of the state institutions and agencies to ensure harmony and 'the rightfulness of the units' not as a partisan dispenser of oppression.

This done, it wins for it, consent and legitimacy, a tonic for its continuous existence. As the state alienates the people, it breeds resistance with negative consequence on state's sovereignty. The Nigerian state has failed in all these while its mainstay is authoritarian exertion. Its current assault on the peoples of the Niger Delta stresses the point being made. By definition it is not a state in the liberal sense but rather a rogue state.

JAMB result: Speed without accuracy

SINCE the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) released the results of the 2009 University Matriculation Examination (UME) five days after the examination was taken on April 4, there have been a flurry of complaints and apprehension by parents and thousands of candidates who sat for the examination over perceived inaccurate results or manipulation of the already released scores by JAMB or by some unknown persons. The complaints have added a new dimension to our battered education system, namely, the alteration of published results by the examination body.

A situation where a public examination body would release results and later embark on the alteration of the already released scores erodes the credibility of the examination. If the public can't trust JAMB and its examination, then it is finished, as its credibility is lost. To avoid this, JAMB should strive to maintain its integrity. Apart from conducting hitch-free examination, its results should be worth more than the paper on which it is printed.

JAMB should not sacrifice accuracy on the altar of speed. No one is pursuing it. After conducting the examination, it is at liberty to release the results at the appropriate time. There is nothing wrong if the board takes four weeks or more to properly mark the scripts and have them entered unto its website. Why rush to only make mistakes at the end? The board is not under any obligation to release the results in five days. If it impresses itself and displeases the public it has not succeeded. It is better to release trusted results after a month than to rush and release trash within five days. While we appreciate the effort of JAMB to re-build its damaged image and reputation, which led to the introduction of post-UME, the board should try to balance its decisions and actions in order not to drag itself down.

Trouble started when some candidates who had checked their results and ascertained their scores later found out on a second check that their scores had been changed. All the reported cases had marks added thereby jacking up the scores and giving the affected candidates undue advantage over others. The change occurred mainly in physics. For example, Nigerian Tribune on May 8, reported about a candidate that scored 214 when the results were released but on a second check discovered that his score had been jacked up to 242!

Shocked by the discovery, the candidate was alarmed. As he was no longer sure what his correct score was, he put a call to the newspaper asking what was happening? Did JAMB re-mark the scripts? Have hackers infiltrated the JAMB website? Are there some unscrupulous elements in JAMB who were probably collecting bribe and awarding undeserved marks to candidates? These were some of the pertinent questions that many people raised.

The fear is that if the released physics scores could be changed, what is the guarantee that some other subjects were not altered? That concern made many candidates go back to re-check their scores. Although, there have been no further reports of change in other subjects, what has been found so far was that all the changes made in physics involved score increases. No one had his or her score reduced. Instead, every affected candidate had his or her score jacked up. This raised questions as to why the alteration was one-directional? Why was no score reduced but all were increased? If there were mistake, it would occur on both sides.

There is reason for apprehension over such unholy development. Some public examination bodies in this country have been accused in the past of aiding and abetting examination fraud. It is widely known that some unscrupulous officials of the examination bodies collected bribes from candidates and their parents and in return awarded unmerited marks in their favour. There have also been reports of people who never sat for examination but had results issued to them by corrupt officials of the examination bodies. The route for committing such fraud is the computer system. The dubious staffers know how to manipulate the computer system. They succeed in uploading the cooked marks unto the computer system. On that note, there was fear that those who changed the scores in physics might have used their position to change other subjects of candidates. After all, this is Nigeria where corruption is a culture.

Apart from the score alteration, reports have it that many candidates who went to check their result didn't find it for one reason or the other. Thousands had their results seized. On the whole, this year's UME was adjudged one of the worst. Most of the candidates had very low score. According to JAMB, 50 per cent of the candidates failed to score the minimum 200. The development has dashed the hope of thousands of candidates. There are speculations that the hurried marking and release of the results by JAMB might have contributed to the mass failure. Some think that the scripts were not properly marked and scored.

Considering the large number of candidates that sat for the examination (over 1.2 million), many think that it is impossible for JAMB to mark that number of scripts and have them properly organised in two days. This is more so when it is known that electricity is not available throughout the country. Certainly, this would create problems assuming that JAMB had directed its staffers across the federation to work for 24 hours none stop. Notwithstanding the use of Internet Computer Technology (ICT), it would still be hard in Nigeria's context to accomplish that feat. The ICT is not yet widespread. And, by the way, why rush to release the result in five days? That is not necessary.

Although, JAMB has not made any formal public statement on the matter of scores change, its registrar, Professor Dibu Ojerinde was reported as saying that there was no cause for alarm, as the board had not re-marked any script. The registrar was reported to have admitted that "the board's website operators made some mistakes while uploading some results on the board's website". According to him, "the data was wrongfully loaded and it is being corrected. It is not that physics was re-marked...It was a mistake on the part of the website operators".

From that explanation, it is obvious that the so-called wrong data earlier inputted into the system and released was due to human error. The mistake could have been avoided if the board had taken more time to do a thorough job. I had commended JAMB in this column when it broke record last year by releasing results in two weeks. That was historic. Before then, I had also lambasted it for shoddy performance that gave rise to the agitation for the scrapping of the board. The heat generated by those criticisms apparently led to the introduction of the current post-UME conducted by the universities.

Unfortunately, the post-UME test has not fared better. As a matter of fact, the universities have turned the post-UME test into a moneymaking venture rather than an instrument to ensure quality in the admission process. It is obvious from the experience so far that JAMB would perhaps remain the only option if it could sit up and conduct more reliable examination. It is not just enough to call for the abrogation of the post-UME when there is a gap. The continued existence or abrogation of post-UME depends on JAMB's performance. It was the gap created by JAMB that gave rise to post-UME. Therefore, it is left to JAMB to live up to expectation and prove that it is capable of conducting entrance examination that could be used as yardstick for admitting candidates into the universities. To achieve that, JAMB must live above board and avoid making costly mistakes like the one in question.

The point is that if there was a mistake in physics, there is reason to believe that there could also have been mistake in other subjects. Otherwise, why was it only physics? Why not biology, mathematics and any other subject? Once there was a mix up in physics, the same problem could have occurred in other subjects. Besides, those who changed the physics scores are in a position to change any other score of any candidate that seeks their help. Because of what has happened, many people have lost faith in this particular JAMB examination.

From whatever angle one views it, the development is not in the interest of JAMB. The earlier the board took measures to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't recur, the better for it. I must acknowledge that there has been some improvement since Professor Ojerinde took over the headship at JAMB. He should not overstretch his genuine effort to instill efficiency in the board by attempting the impossible. He should do what is humanly possible at our level of development. He should concentrate in curbing examination malpractice and ensure that the examination is properly organised. Nigerians appreciate honest effort.

The President, legislators and the budget

RECENT exchanges between President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and the National Assembly over the implementation of the 2009 budget are a disappointing display that 49 years after independence and 10 years into the current democratic dispensation, the executive and legislative arms of government have refused to work together in drawing up the national budget for the sole purpose of promoting the general well-being of the people as constitutionally enshrined.

In sketchy sequence, Mr. President presented the draft 2009 budget to the National Assembly on December 2, 2008, two months later than was publicly expected. The National Assembly thereafter spent three unhurried months to exercise its constitutional power to appropriate by making several adjustments to the draft, introducing constituency projects purportedly in order to ensure that the entire country could benefit and setting a mandatory time schedule for the President to release funds uniformly for all projects as a way of breaking with (so it was claimed) the hitherto high levels of budget under-implementation.

The 2009 Appropriation became an Act on March 10 when Mr. President, amidst reservations, assented to it. Two months later, the House of Representatives, announcing the discovery of selective implementation of the budget contrary to clauses in the Act, authorised two committees to investigate the realised revenue from January to May and the sums disbursed therefrom. The President thereupon formally apprised the House of reasons militating against the full implementation of the budget as passed.

According to the President's letter, the adjustments made to the initial budget proposals included substantial reduction or outright removal of provisions for power-related projects, arrears of monetisation owed to parastatals and accommodation for security personnel. In their place the lawmakers inserted constituency projects that lacked proper design and costing. Because there was no consultation with the executive arm prior to their inclusion, no provision had been made for their execution to be adequately supervised.

It is common knowledge that the country has been worse off on account of the numerous abandoned and uncompleted public projects into which vast resources had been sunk. Given the very poor state of public power supply over the past decade, it was unconscionable for the legislators to have tampered with provisions for power-related projects. In any case, the constituency projects as portrayed above would merely compound the litter of uncompleted projects across the country from which the populace would derive no benefit. But by wrongly equating the release of funds to budget implementation and inserting clauses impelling mandatory release of funds for the ill-conceived constituency projects, the legislators were only preparing the ground for corrupt self-enrichment. That would amount to looting the treasury through legislation contrary to the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.

Since most of the legislators are members of the ruling political party, the removal of ongoing projects and their substitution with fresh ones in the passed Appropriation Bill bespeaks gross party indiscipline verging on rebellion. Ordinarily, it falls on the President as party leader to draw up a budget that is based on the party programme and which contains core projects to be executed in order of priority depending on available resources. Such projects, which cut across legislative constituencies (not necessarily all), provide overall national benefit.

As often happens in free and fair elections, the successful presidential candidate and the majority of elected legislators may belong to different political parties. Even then, by virtue of the President's national mandate, his budget proposals are not expected to be replaced in the National Assembly with the programmes of the majority party beyond a little give and take. There is no room for the individual preferences of legislators to be substituted for the draft budget proposals. Consequently we strongly advise that consultations and preparation for a rancour-free 2010 budget should begin now in earnest. There is need for the Appropriation Act to be ready well in advance to make it possible for its implementation to commence on Day One of the applicable fiscal year.

Budget implementation aims at both attaining the highest possible level of project completion that is verifiable and creates favourable conditions for the private sector, the main employer of labour, to actively complement government efforts at ensuring full employment. Because the legislative arm, through its oversight function, contributes immensely to successful budget implementation, the executive arm should eschew stonewalling above-board supervision by legislators. For instance, it was anomalous for the House to first carry out investigations in order to ascertain the volume of revenue receipts and disbursements since the beginning of the year.

While we agree with the President that the Accountant-General and all accounting officers of MDAs should in accordance with the principle of the separation of powers report directly to the Executive rather than the Legislature, the President should unfailingly furnish the National Assembly, which is entitled to know, with detailed monthly realised revenue by source not later than the first week of the succeeding month. Hence, the reported over 30 per cent shortfall in the first quarter revenue receipts, which was only made known in May in the President's letter, would have been self-evident to all legislators two months earlier. Early routine full disclosure clips corrupt tendencies, ensures transparent application of available resources, facilitates needful legislative oversight as well as contributes to efficient and high degree implementation of the budget.

On the other hand, as already noted, it was wrong for the legislators to equate the release of funds to budget implementation. Indeed, the existing quarterly blanket release of funds to MDAs for projects that are yet to be executed is anomalous as it not only fuels excess liquidity with serious adverse implications for the private sector but also creates avenue for MDA top shots to manipulate payments for executed projects and other specific commitments while trading with the funds for corrupt self-enrichment. The practice should stop and in its place the Executive should give detailed report to the Legislature every quarter on the stage-by-stage implementation of various projects along with corresponding actual expenditure.

Finally, Mr. President's statement that government was being cautious not to crowd out the private sector from bank credit is incorrect because there has been no let-up since January in both the CBN mopping excess naira supply from the system and the Debt Management Office issuing restructured bonds whose proceeds are simply sterilised, although their annual cost to the treasury by way of unearned interest to banks exceeds 75 per cent of the imperiled draft 2009 federal capital vote of N796 billion. Besides the heavy devaluation of the naira, unattractive lending rates in the region of 20 per cent, soaring inflation despite the substantial drop in Federation Account allocations, delayed execution of capital projects and the worsening state of infrastructure are not business-friendly. The very low industrial capacity utilisation over the past several decades coupled with burgeoning unemployment is ample proof that government's fiscal and monetary policies of printing and sharing naira equivalents of Federation Account dollar proceeds, are inimical to the private sector.

Rebranding Nigeria

"OL BOY, why do you have so many face-caps and tee-shirts with you? Are you into buying and selling now"?

"At all. They were given to us at the Federal Executive Council meeting last week. All the ministers were wearing these tee-shirts as well as the face caps".

"Interesting. What is this in honour of"?

"My brother, you ask too many questions. Nigeria is being re-branded and they are to kick-start the re-branding process".

"Re-branding? What are you talking about? Is Nigeria a commodity"?

"Apparently, you're the only one unaware of what is going on. There is a new project - Operation re-brand Nigeria, good people, great nation. The re-branding project is aimed at showing the world that Nigeria is a great nation, corruption is a thing of the past and the entire institutional framework works".

"What a huge joke! I love this country walahi. We are never short of theatrics. Are the leaders also involved in this re-branding campaign"?

"Sometimes you ask questions like someone who didn't go to school. Didn't you hear what I said earlier? I said the Federal Executive Council members gave out these tee-shirts and face caps at their last Wednesday meeting. The programme is the brain child of Aunty Dora, the current Minister of Information. The tee-shirts and face caps will be given out at most meetings and forms part of their meeting agenda. What other leaders are you talking about"?

"I'm asking if the leaders are also going to be re-branded or the re-branding is just for the masses".

"As with most Nigerian laws, my dear brother in Christ, the leaders are always exempt from the laws. Wetin concern big man with re-branding"?

"I repeat emphatically, that what the country needs urgently is re-branded leaders with a sense of vision and purpose. There are too many inept leaders in our country".

"Na you get your mouth. Use it as you like. Just be careful, because part of the re-branding campaign is to lock up people like you who spend all day lamenting and whining about the state of affairs of this great nation, good people".

"That means they will lock up so many of us. This re-branding campaign, are the people of Koma hills aware of it"?

"Koma hills? Why Koma hills? What has that got to do with anything? The last time I heard about those people must have been well over 10 years when Newsline carried a documentary on them. I'm sure even aunty Dora does not know anything about them".

"But the entire country is supposed to be aware...

"How would re-branding affect the poor woman in the village struggling to send her kids to schools that have no roofs? How would a young boy who has to wake up as early as 3 a.m to fend for his entire family, understand the concept of re-branding? What is the added value of re-branding to people who do not have light or are not even beneficiaries of the rural electrification project"?

"Speaking of rural electrification project, I understand that the gentleman, who was championing the power sector probe, is himself the subject of an on-going EFCC probe".

My dear, that is the beauty of re-branding. Both the prober and the probee are carefully watched and scrutinised. Then the prober is subsequently re-branded in order to be re-integrated into the dynamics of society".

"You are confusing me with all this wishy-washy grammar".

"That again, young man is another aesthetic value of re-branding. The more you look in re-branding, the more you realise that you're not seeing anything. The proponents of re-branding who claim to see the virtues inherent in re-branding a non-existent product are those who are gaining from the campaign in one way or another".

"These are interesting times indeed. America under Obama does not need to re-brand. He came in with a vision, a sense of mission and an overriding desire to actually change the system. And people all over the world can identify with him. You don't need to see a re-branding campaign to understand that the American structure is going through changes. He is proactively confronting the issues that have bedeviled the country for quite some time".

"Don't confuse moi-moi with burger. Protagonists of re-branding say that we need to pay attention to our image as a nation, re-brand it first and then confront all the developmental issues facing us".

"What a hare-brained approach. How do you extricate the image of Nigeria as a corrupt nation with corrupt leaders from the systemic underdevelopment that has continued to plague every facet of our lives as a nation"?

"You are the people causing problems for us in this country. You always want to use grammar to confuse otherwise very simple issues. Go to Lagos Business School and be a teacher. They will welcome you with open arms".

"But really, when last did you even hear about the re-branding campaign? I don't hear much about it these days".

"You're either not listening to the news, buying newspapers, or watching T.V. Re-branding is going on in different ways; the campaign is vibrant and we are of course on the right path to ensure this country is re-branded appropriately in every sphere of our national existence. Good people, great nation".

"So what is the latest, since the non-actualisation of the six thousand additional megawatts promised by the government has affected my ability to watch T.V"?

"Look at Ekiti elections. Did you hear about the Halliburton scandal? They traced $150 million to one man's account; the man says he doesn't know how it got there. Look at the fuel tap-dance. See the state of our hospitals. What about the landslide (let's not forget the moon and the stars) victory of the dollar over the Naira. Only a great nation, with good people can achieve these things I tell you".

"Don't make me laugh. Is this what you mean? By the way, what is Soludo's take on this falling Naira? It is really terrible. I don't hear anything from him these days".

"Ah, the guy has learnt his lesson. Once bitten, forever shy. But anyway, he is working out his own re-branding script for the Naira and a white paper will soon be issued".

"My dear, what other evidence of re-branding do you want to see? The drama in Ekiti re-elections, can win enough Oscars to make "slum-dog millionaire" look like Dora the explorer or some other kiddy TV show". How can one man have $150million in his account and not understand or know how it got there? Walahi, even spirits are involved in this re-branding campaign. Sege 9ja!"

"Have they released the names of the people involved in the Halliburton scandal? I heard the Minister of Information sometime ago, promising to release the names with no sacred cows, while Aondoakaa said they didn't have enough evidence yet to release the names. Conflicting signals in the whole drama".

"My dear, re-branding has many facets. This is another exciting dimension of the campaign. The image-makers are different from the actual dancers and masquerades. And you know that you do not normally see a masquerade in the day time for nothing. Night nko? Completely impossible. So just leave Halliburton where it is, if you know what is good for you and those tee-shirts and face caps you're carrying in your hands. If not, by the time they finish with you, your mother will be happy she gave birth to you, while your dog would wonder if you're still its owner".

"I even heard that the slogan was taken from some American institution and then modified to suit our own circumstances. So even the whole re-branding is standing on a false premise".

"Congratulations on your discovery. What is important is that we're a great nation with good people. That it was coined from something already in existence is immaterial and of no consequence".

Military expedition in the Niger Delta

WHATEVER might have triggered the on-going military expedition in the Niger Delta, the onslaught represents a dramatic phase in the government's containment policy towards the atrocities of the militants in the oil-rich region. For the past fortnight, the Joint Task Force has bombarded the militants' hideout, particularly the notorious camp 5 in the creeks of Delta State. The military have scorched villages and razed the fabulous home of Tompolo, a notorious militant kingpin, who has now been declared wanted - dead or alive. By last weekend, the operations extended to Rivers State, where militants also have their camps.

It is regrettable that while the militants are being smoked out, there have also been civilian collateral casualties. Women, children, the elderly, and members of the National Youth Service Corps have been displaced from Oporoza, Gbamaratu, Okerenkoko, and other riverine communities. A huge humanitarian crisis is, thus, unfolding. The response to the humanitarian emergency must not be that of the state and local governments alone. Even without being prompted, the Federal Government must pitch in with supplies and logistics to ameliorate the discomfort of the displaced persons. The Federal Government's involvement is all the more imperative, lest it be accused of waging a mindless war against the people.

Being the conundrum that it is, security operations in the Niger Delta present exceptional challenges. With criminality interlaced with genuine agitation for the redress of decades of neglect and underdevelopment, it is tricky to use a heavy hand against the militants without provoking an outcry that they are being persecuted because they want a better life for the region. But it is beyond dispute that the militants, whose ranks have long since been infiltrated by criminal elements, have overreached themselves. Oil facilities are sabotaged on a regular basis; oil workers are kidnapped routinely, and these days the victims include just about anybody.

Under the Constitution and the norms of international law, the State (i.e. country) has a right to defend its territorial integrity. In recent years, the militants have begun to stake out portions of the Niger Delta, where they are lords unto themselves. In such areas, they engage in illegal bunkering, engage in gun-running, and gravely undermine the government's capacity to earn appreciable revenue, which in turn affects the fortunes of all, including states in the Niger Delta region.

Last week, the cache of arms uncovered at the sacked residence of Tompolo was a shocking reminder of the militants' capacity to levy war against the state and to perpetrate their other criminal activities including kidnapping for ransom. Above all, the militants have on occasion attacked military personnel on patrol duties in the region. In fact, the current onslaught was precipitated in part by the killing of 12 officers and men of the JTF as well as the sinking of their two gunboats by the militants. The militants, thus, invited this wrath upon themselves, and sadly on the host communities.

However, lamentable the problems of the Niger Delta may be, the moves to address them must begin from somewhere. While the Federal Government can be accused of being sluggish in tackling the crisis of underdevelopment in the area, it would be unfair to accuse it of doing nothing. Only recently, in response to popular demand, the Federal Government created the Ministry of the Niger Delta, which cannot be expected to perform magic overnight, even though it is guided by the report of the Niger Delta Technical Committee, which was similarly set up by the incumbent government. The recent South-South Economic Summit is another pointer to the desire of other stakeholders to bring rapid development to the region, the past notwithstanding.

To create a peaceful environment for, among other things, the return of contractors who had hitherto been kidnapped or chased away from their sites in the Niger Delta, the Federal Government offered a blanket amnesty to the militants, a move that was widely applauded. But the militants rejected the amnesty. The current expedition is a necessary lesson that a government cannot allow the reign of lawlessness to persist in spite of its overtures for a new dawn.

Despite its rightful use of force to bring peace to the creeks, the Federal Government, through the JTF, must know when to apply the brakes. The government needs to remember that the problem of militancy is that its proponents did not know when and where to draw the line. There must therefore be a quick decision on the scope and extent of the on-going security operation.

The victims and the theatre of operation are in Nigeria, not some foreign territory. If collateral casualties escalate beyond tolerable limits, the military expedition will boomerang, leaving the government with a huge public relations disaster. This must be avoided. Let the forces mop up the last strongholds of the militants, and sweep the region clean of the menace. That, of course, is the stick. The carrot must follow immediately, by the government being as prompt and decisive in mobilising development to the area.

James Nwoye Adichie: Nigeria's first professor of statistics

THE most celebrated group of people in Nigeria are political office holders, business tycoons no matter their source of wealth and occasionally top executives and professionals. J.N.Adichie does not fall into any of the enumerated categories. He, like many other academic giants in Nigeria remain, by and large, unsung heroes. I believe that Nigerians should learn to celebrate people like him along with several other distinguished retired and active academic geniuses while they are still alive. Such celebrations will no doubt inspire our youths, who by and large, through the corrupting influence of our society do not seem to believe in academia. I am writing this piece to celebrate Adichie.

James Nwoye Adichie was born on March 1, 1932 in Abba, Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State. After passing the Advanced Level General Certificate of Education ('A' level GCE) examinations in Pure mathematics, Applied mathematics, English and Latin, he was admitted into the University College Ibadan (UCI) now the University of Ibadan (UI) in 1957 to read mathematics. In those days when the UCI was a college of the University of London and was the only university institution in Nigeria, it was a remarkable achievement for a student to be admitted into the College. He graduated B.A. Mathematics of the University of London in 1960 among the top three students in a class of 13. At that time a student was awarded the B.A. degree if his/her A-Level subject combination included arts subjects in addition to the mathematics subject; and the B.Sc degree if his/her subjects combination consisted of mathematics and science subjects.

Soon after graduating, he went on to lecture first at the Nigerian College of Science and Technology, Enugu, and later at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) until September 1963, when he proceeded to the prestigious University of California at Berkeley, USA. This is one of the greatest centres of statistical excellence in the USA if not in the world. In a record time of three years he earned a Ph.D. degree in statistics in 1966, the first Nigerian to do so. He promptly returned to the UNN and 10 years later, in October 1976, he was promoted a Professor of Statistics, the first of his kind in Nigeria.

Adichie's main area of research is Non-Parametric Methods of Statistical Analysis. These methods seek to develop new methods of analysis that are valid under realistic assumptions. He was such a renowned scholar in this field that he was invited by some leading British universities to deliver a series of lectures on his work. The universities are Cambridge, London (Imperial College), Aberystwyth, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Glasgow. At different points in his brilliant academic career, he was a visiting fellow at the University of Sheffield, England and a visiting professor at the San Diego State University, California, U.S.A.

Apart from delivering many brilliant academic papers at several workshops, conferences and seminars locally and abroad, Adichie has published numerous scholarly papers in reputable learned journals and has served as a reviewer for some of them including the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Annals of Mathematical Statistics, the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, etc. He is a member of many learned societies including the International Statistical Institute (ISI) of which he was the first Nigerian to be elected a full ordinary member in 1978; the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Mathematical Association of Nigeria of which he was once the general secretary, to mention a few. Incidentally, the ISI with headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, is the world apex statistical organization. He was the first editor of the Journal of the Statistical Association of Nigeria and at one time an associate editor of the ABACUS - Journal of the Mathematical Association of Nigeria.

At the UNN where he was a distinguished teacher of statistics for 33 years, he was the supervisor of the first post-graduate student to obtain a master's degree of the UNN in 1971 and in 1973; helped in the establishment of the department of statistics, one of the first two such departments in Nigeria, the other one being that of the UI. As the first head of that department, Adichie spent the next six years nurturing it to enviable heights. He was again made the head of the department from 1985-1988. He served as the Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Nsukka Campus of the university.

As an elected member of Council of the University, he made tremendous contributions to the progress of the university through his activities in the various committees of the Council and some other non-Council Committees. His activities are not limited to the UNN. He served as external examiner in mathematics and statistics at various Nigerian universities. Apart from his contribution to the development of statistics in the Nigerian university system, he played a key role in the development of the National Mathematics Centre (NMC). He, with three others, prepared for the Federal Government in 1987/88 a proposal for setting up the NMC. He later served as member of a Representative Group of Mathematical Scientists that met the Technical Expert Committee Visitation Panel for the upgrading of the NMC to the status of an International Centre for Excellence. He served the Centre in various capacities. He was a member of its academic board, a member of two of its strategic committees, and professor and coordinator of its statistics programme.. He organised the Centre's first Foundation Post-Graduate Course on mathematical statistics and the first Foundation Post-Graduate Course on Exact and Asymptotic Statistical Inference.

Adichie took to the international fora his passion for giving statistical education a pride of place in the curricula of Nigerian and indeed of African countries. On several occasions, he delivered papers relating to Statistical education and training not only in Nigeria but also in the whole of Africa. .In the administration of statistics in the Nigerian public service, Adichie's name will also feature prominently. He was a member of the National Advisory Council on Statistics and served as the Chairman of the Committee for the Reorganisation of the Federal Office of Statistics (FOS) which is now called the National Bureau of Statistics.

It is interesting to note that Adichie is not the only one in his family to have scored a first in his chosen career. Ifeoma, his wife of 46 years was the first female registrar of the UNN while his fifth child, Chimamanda, is the first young female Nigerian literary voice to be world-acclaimed. She has received many international awards and nominations for her literary works. Having demonstrated the main reason for writing about Adichie - that of giving honour to whom honour is due, I have two other reasons which, though, may appear personal, do speak volumes about the personality and integrity of the man. .As already mentioned, Adichie and I first met and became friends at the UCI. In fact, one of our lecturers, Chike Obi, who became famous for being the first Nigerian holder of a doctorate degree in mathematics, used to call us brothers because he thought that we looked so much alike..

Since graduation, we have crossed each other's path at the professional level on various occasions. I will mention only two of them. Adichie was one of the sponsors of my nomination in 1980 for election as a member of the ISI. With my election, I became the second Nigerian to be so honoured, he having been elected in 1978.

When I was the Chief Statistical Training Adviser at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, he requested some information needed for the preparation of a paper to be presented at an international conference on the teaching of statistics. I gladly obliged. Lo and behold, he included my name as a co-author of the paper. What a mark of intellectual integrity? My last, but by no means the least important reason is that every now and then I get embarrassed when I am introduced in public as the first Nigerian Professor of Statistics. Let Nigerians now be informed - James Nwoye Adichie is the first Nigerian Professor of Statistics! He is now retired and lives in Nsukka.