Patitos Post

From: Adedeji John Oduwole
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 12:59 AM
To: utomifornigeria@yahoo.com
Subject: Protecting the Nigerian Producer

Right before our very eyes, we are being treated to a mass action of people power in Iran where people are insisting that their votes must count. People have taken to the streets demanding that the voice of the people be heard. This is again a demonstration of the fact that freedom is not free and people need to enforce their freedom as an inalienable right when an oppressor tries to take it from them. And very symbolically Iran’s elections were held on June 12, the day that Nigeria came together irrespective of tribe and religion and united and defated the cabal at their own game.

What has happened in Iran is not worse than what happened in Nigeria in 2007.   Then, we had several prominent statesmen appealing to the public and the opposition to accept the election results with the plea that with Obasanjo gone, the incoming admninistration will usher in true democracy and respect of the people’s will. But we have been living witnesses to the antics of this administration.

First we saw the president slowly but surely moving against the leading lights of the reform efforts of the Obasanjo administration.  Before our eyes, we witnessed Ribadu being sent on ’study leave’, then demoted and manhandled at NIPSS. As if that was not enough to stun us we witnessed the president receiving the same ex-governors that Ribadu had arrested and arraigned in court for corruption. President Yar’adua received not one, not two, not even three but multiple governors that had been arrested for corruption at the presidential villa. When asked by the Guardian newspapers why he still fraternised with corrupt ex-governors Yar’adua gave what I consider to be the weakest defense ever. He said that he could not abandon them because they were his former colleagues! How does he expect the EFCC to confidently try the president’s friends.

Not only does Yar’adua fraternise with notoriously corrupt ex-officials, he has included them in his kitchen cabinet. How can he justfiy appointing former ministers who could not deliver into sensitive national positions? If they could not deliver in their previous positions and he re-appoints them what motivation do public officials have to perform? The message he is giving them is this-steal and have enough to contribute to the party in power and your future is assured.

But that is not the height of it. This administration that came in via a crooked election and which promised to clean up the system has shown Nigeria what it is capable of doing in Ekiti State. If any election could be worse than the 2007 election it has to be the Ekiti elections. Even the REC who supervised the elections was so ashamed of her handwork that she resigned rather than announce the results only to be declared wanted and summoned to Abuja to change her story after meetings with senior government and security officials.

And how have we reacted to this? We shouted for a while. Talked and talked. We used the refrain ‘God dey o’, but we forgot that God made man sufficient to stand and yet free to fall.

Now just a few months after the Ekiti saga, the whole episode has been forgotten. The media has moved on to something else. We forget that if we accept what happened in Ekiti the government will know that we will accept another ‘do or die’ elections in 2011.

The media and the rest of us have also forgotten about the Justice Uwais Electoral Reform Committee.  Dont we realise that INEC is like a mould and the government that we have today is a product of that mould, and unless we change the mould that is INEC, any election that it supervises will produce a government in in the same mould as this one. The only thing to do is to break the mould and create a new one based on the principles of justice and equity. Since he who pays the piper dictates the tune it follows that as long as the president appoints the chairman of INEC we will never have an independent electoral body, we will only have a padi padi electoral body and the more we look, the less we will see.

If Iranians who live under a totalitarian government can rise up and demand genuine elections, we Nigerians have no ecxuse for not doing the same. If we are tired of crooks ruling us  we are not showing it. We will never change what we tolerate and as long as we tolerate fraudulent elections we will continue to have leaders who have no loyalty to the public and who serve the interests of the corrupt elements that put them in power. And as long as we have a corrupt leadership, we will continue to experience social problems like the Niger Delta crisis, kidnapping, severe insecurity, decaying infrastructure and the like for the simple reason that a corrupt leadership breeds corruption in the governed. This is known as the headship principle.

The world today complains about corruption in Nigeria, this corruption has spread to our youths and outside Nigeria no one trust Nigerians. Because no one trusts us any more, we do not have Foreign Direct Investment, we do not benefit from outsourcing, the few foreign investors we have are leaving Nigeria, our youths are denied visas to developed contries. All these are the multiplier effects of a total failure of leadership in Nigeria. What we fail to consider is that Nigerian youths do not have a natural aptitude for crime but many are the product of their environment which is influenced by corrupt leaders.

An example of how corrupt leadership breeds corrupt followership is seen in what happened in Nigeria from the mid 80s. Because Nigerian leaders were celebrated for their skills at trickery and manipulation and dribbling the public with lies and also getting rich by cunning means many of our youths thought it was okay and cool to be tricky. From that period on we started to hear of 419, obtain by trickery and advance fee fraud. This is because of the headship principle. We can not make progress if we violate this principle. We have to break free from corrupt leadership and no one will do it for us. We have to demand it by resisting electoral fraud.

I salute the Iranian people who have taken their destiny in their own hand, and I call on Nigerians to remember that a people deserve the type of government they get and the day that we refuse to stand for election rigging and ‘do or die’ politics is the day that we begin to see a change for the better in our lives. Once again, God bless Nigeria.

PU

A lot of you have sent me emails to get on twitter. As they say Vox populi vox dei. I am now on Twitter and you can keep track with me at http://twitter.com/utomi2011. PU

A lot has been said about the dwindling fortunes of the industrial sector and manufacturing in Nigeria. Obviously the poor power situation has a lot to do with this, however, Nigeria is in a desperate situation with its industrial capacity constantly shrinking and as we develop our power infrastructure to help stem this tide, we also need to protect our manufacturers from foreign goods.

I was particularly pained that Nigeria lost over a hundred thousand jobs when textile company’s shut down due to their inability to compete with imports. The question I asked when this happened about four years ago is still pertinent now,  why doesn’t Nigeria protect her markets?

The laws of demand and supply are such that people will always prefer cheaper items and so will choose foreign imports over domestic products where the import is cheaper, however the only way domestic products can compete properly with foreign products is if we consume them providing the manufacturers a profit margin that allows them to plough the profits back into the business and make better products at a better price. Eventually their prices will match or become cheaper than imports. If you do not protect them, until they become independent to a very high degree, local goods will never be able to compete with foreign goods. In order for our manufacturers to produce goods that can compete in the world market, they have to be grow like an infant, fraom dependency to independency and finally become an interdependent part of the world market, but you can only be interdependent where you have learnt how to be independent to a very high degree.

Our populace has to make sacrifices for a better future. A better future does not just happen, it has to be planned for and the more we delay gratification now the greater our reward in the future.

Who says we can not all wear made in Nigeria shoes, jeans, and shirts. Why must we import tooth paste? We live in the tropics and yet import fruit juice. We import sugar and salt! I know for a fact that there are people in Nigeria manufacturing these items. I’m involved in the banking industry, I have canvassed for loans to be given to such manufacturers only to hear their complaints of inadequate market share as a result of cheaper imports.  We need to protect our won and help them grow. We can not perpetually be consumers.

For example in India the government realized that if they allowed Coca-Cola to operate in India, their own bottlers will never be able to compete, so Coca Cola was asked to leave in 1978, as a result Thums-Up an Indian bottler became the national beverage and gradually improved until it began to compete with Coke even outside India because it had a similar quality at a far cheaper price. However if the Indian government had not protected their bottlers, Thums-Up would never have acheived this development. And even today in 2009 sixteen years after Coca Cola was allowed back into India it is still trailing Thums-Up which is still the largest selling soft drink in India.

The same is true for China which closed its markets to most American products making its populace patronize Chinese goods which gradually grew in quality that America now imports heavily from China.

If we continue to allow cheap imports indiscriminately our local manufacturers will NEVER mature and we will FOREVER be consumers and will become vulnerable to any country that wants to hold us to ransome.

Let me illustrate further. Presently Nigeria imports most of her fuel. Imported fuel is so cheap that the federal government is unwilling to invest in infrastructure to increase domestic fuel refining and the Private Sector prefers the easy profits they get from importing fuel rather than the long term capital intensive effort to build refineries. Now if our suppliers refuse to supply us fuel, what becomes of our economy? I must remind you that dependence on foreign fuel imports from The U.S by Japan was what led to the war between The U.S and Japan. The U.S in 1941 decided to place an embargo on fuel exports to Japan as a way of punishing them for supporting Germany. Japan’s economy gradually slowed to a halt which necessitated them to attack the U.S at Pearl Harbour.

If we continue to be dependent on foreign imports, we can not really claim to be an independent nation because our policies can and will be influenced by those on whose imports we depend. Also our capital is going outside and servicing a foreign economy. If we however patronize our local manufacturers the capital stays here and circulates growing our economy.

A good example is this. MTN Nigeria Ltd. makes over a billion dollars annually. What do you think they do with this money? They repatriate it back to South Africa and it helps to make South African banks stronger and gives them leeway to lend to South African industrialist who produce goods for exports to countries like Nigeria.

But when you patronize GLO, its profits are likely to stay in Nigeria, in Nigerian banks, and this money finds its way into other sectors of our economy and the multiplier effect grows.

Just look at it like your on child. If you do not teach your child how to fend for himself/herself because you have a retinue of domestic servants, the child will never mature.

 The fact that we continue to be so dependent on imports means that we will always depelete our foreign reserves and will not have enough stored up to shore up the value of our currency the Naira. Every time we import, we are depeleting our foreign reserve and preventing money from circulating within Nigeria and if money does not circulate in Nigeria it can not stimulate the production of goods and services and this means not enough job opportunities will be created and please remember we have a population that consist mostly of young people. We need to do all we can to stimulate the growth of the non oil sector of the economy.

We lose more by importing all sorts into Nigeria than we gain from foreign aids from Western nations and donor countries.

I have dealt a lot on the subject of education on my blog because I know for a fact that education is what will aid Nigeria turn the corner and overcome her current challenges. For education to be seen as a means for progress, it must go beyond teaching people to read and write. It does not stop at ridding people off ignorance, education must be qualitative i.e. it should enable the recipient to make something out of it which is practical and tangible. In other words simply going to school to enable you get a paper qualification to get a civil service or office job is only a part of education and in itself can not qualify as being qualitative education. No country has ever become great from office work or white collar workers.

In the fourth chapter of his book Stupid White Men, Michael Moore (Himself a white man) reveals government statistics which showed that the percentage of Americans of Asian origin with a university degree was 15% of the entire Asian population, while for Caucasians (White people) it was 9% and for Blacks and African Americans it was 4%. When compared with Nigeria, particularly the southern parts of the country, you would find that our universities have a high turnover of graduates too, perhaps higher than these American figures. But the very bulk of these graduates produced in America (about 62%) have their degrees in the sciences, technological Fields, medicine and sociological sciences and businesses. But in the case of Nigeria, while we do not have exact statistics, but what statistics we do have show that our graduates are focused on the arts, social sciences, humanities, and philosophical sciences. For instance in the year 2008, the National Youth Service Corps complained that a disproportionately large amount of corpers with degrees were only suited for office and academic positions rather than for practical purposes.

And it is not the fault of the Nigerian pupil because right from primary school, our educational system is geared towards theoretical studies of social studies, English maths etc, with very little thought being spared to teach our young ones practical skills. In The West which we like to copy, right from the elementary (primary) level, to the high school (secondary) level, kids are taught skills like photography, shoe making (cobbler skills) furniture and wood works, typing skills etc. While it is desirable for all students to aspire to the highest level educationally, we need to realize that there are often not enough job opportunities in the economy and there is the need to equip our students such that upon leaving school they are not just job seekers, but have the practical skills needed to start a small business, become self employed and ultimately become an employer of labour.

For those who think I am talking rubbish, let me cite a few real life examples. Bill Gates one of the richest men in the world and the most prolific American entrepreneur has no university degree he dropped out of college. He used the skills he learnt in High School, to improve on the systems available in the early eightiesand built upon it, and today his business is so big that the United State government feels threatened enough by it to want to break it into several small companies. Oprah Winfrey has now become the first black billionaire in the U.S and her Harpo productions is now a fortune five hundred company, but she went to the university of common sense and practical skills that all American youngsters go to. The same can be said of Sam Walton founder of Walmart, of Conrad Hilton of the Hilton chains, and a string of others.

This is not limited to the U.S. In the U.K, the most prolific business man is probably Richard Branson who just has a very basic education. Branson did not even finish the requisite British education, but Left school to start a business in Liverpool, from where he launched himself as a record label executive, then a chain store owner, an airline executive and soft drink company owner.

In Ghana, they had a big economic problem, such that they began fleeing their country in droves. Many came to Nigeria, and if we are fair to them, we will remember how the skills, that Nkrumah’s educational system taught them helped them survive in Nigeria as cobblers (shoemakers), tailors, teachers, and handy men. Can we say the same of our educational system? Does it provide the Nigerian student with practical skills that he/she can put to good use in creating wealth for himself?

Mrs. Thatcher once said that if the biblical good Samaritan only had good intentions he would never have been remembered. He also had more than intentions he put his good intentions into practise. With all government’s good intentions in setting up the National Poverty Eradication Programme, I posit that that is a short term quick fix. What Nigerians really need in the long run, is a system of education that would provide them skills which can earn them a living independent of government and big business. A system of education that will teach them to fish. We need to make it compulsory as part of UBE, that every Nigerian child must learn practical skills from primary to Secondary school, and by the time he is out of Secondary he/she has basic computer skills and can also sew, barb or have salon skills (hair dressing for ladies) , baking skills, wood work and furniture making skills,Leather tanning (hide and skins) poultry farming skills, snail rearing,fish farming, Grasscutter rearing, in fact the list is endless. We are approaching a knowledge worker age and Nigeria is being left behind, we need as a matter of urgency to begin to prepare our youth to compete in a global economy. We need to prepare our youths to be entrepreneurial because quite frankly not all of them will end up in the civil service, banks, telecommunication firms and the oil industry. If we do not want them to continue to thrive in 419, yahozee, credit card scam and the like, we need to prepare them now otherwise………

PU

I was recently in The U.S and was introduced to an African American, a perfect stranger who upon meeting me asked if I was a Nigerian. I answered that I was whereupon she asked me if I knew Genvieve Nnaji, I was momentarily stunned, and she must have seen the expression on my face because she immediately explained that she watched Nigerian home videos and proceeded to reel out a list of Nollywood stars that even as a Nigerian I do not know. ‘How did you come by Nigerian movies’? I asked, she responded that its all the rage in New York where she lives and you could buy them at many corner shops. My curiosity got the better of me and as soon as I got back in my hotel, I went on the Internet to research Nollywood. Of course I knew that Nollywood has grown and is now the 3rd largest film industry in the world, but it blew my mind to discover that a large bloc of African Americans and Carribeans as well as European blacks patronize Nigerian Home videos. This is in addition to the large population of indigenous Africans in Africa who hero worship our Nigerian stars. And then it occurred to me that our government can actually do more to build this industry which has been created by the genius of our Nigerian youths.

With all the noise about rebranding Nigeria, I would have thought that a serious government would recognize Nollywood as THE vehicle to project Nigeria’s better image to the outside world. We have nothing as positive as Nollywood which is accepted by the outside world with perhaps the exception of football, but unlike football, Nollywood is not seasonal. Every single day at least one new home video is introduced into the market.

Imagine how we could grow this industry even more by tackling the menace of piracy. A serious government ought to see the possibilities in this industry. If the producers of Nollywood movies can produce movies of such quality to captivate the attention of Blacks in the Diaspora, imagine what they can achieve if the government finds the will to enforce anti piracy laws and promote intellectual property.

We are so focused on oil rent we fail to see the potential of this indutry to add value to Nigeria’s GDP. In 2002, the contribution of entertainment and other intellectual property copyrights proprietors to the U.S economy was $1.25 trillion dollars please see http://www.wipo.int/ip-development/en/creative_industry/pdf/ecostudy-usa.pdf. One Indian movie alone Sholay, grossed over $53 million dollars and India’s film indusrty, Bollywood, averages over 800 movies annually. Now we have an Indian movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ that has swept the world off its feet and was this years winner of the Oscar for best movie beating big budget Hollywood movies! Why will India spend billions on rebranding? This movie has rebranded India positively to the world. You can not watch Slumdog millionaire and have negative feelings towards India.

As I write this, I am convinced that Nollywood can produce its own Slumdog Millionaire and can contribute a similar amount to what oil brings into Nigeria. We simply have to be less focused on oil rent and do that which is required to sustain the long term development of this industry. I am an entrepreneur and I know that this industry is a viable money spinner for this country helping to project our image positively to the world and earn us foreign exchange. We have to find the will to help this industry thrive by clamping down on piracy and granting their producers access to capital to produce and market their movies.

This is what oil does to Nigeria, it blinds our eyes to other streams of income, it makes us so lazy and dependent on something that we get for nothing hence we pay less attention on industries that require patient nurturing to grow and yield returns. Instant gratification has taken over our leaders and we  do not know that gratification deferred is greater in satisfaction because it yields profits in geometric progression. Oil money is merely seed money. It is meant to be used to build sustainable industries that will sustain us in the rainy day-and that day will come soon. Oil will dry up, but Nollywood will not. We can not become great if we do not suppress an impulse in favour of a principle. If we keep eating our seeds we will not have a harvest, we need to plant the money we amake from oil.

In the area of science and technology, the West has made such strides that it is difficult to catch up with them though we should keep striving to do so and not relent, however we can easily catch up with and even surpass them in the area of entertainment as an industry. Nigerians are naturally stylish and engaging and we can use this quality in Nollywood movies to reverse the negative image that 419, yahozee and credit card scams have brought on us.

My advise to Dora Akinyuli as she tries to rebrand Nigeria, is to seek out the stars of Nollywood and engage them to use their star power to project Nigeria positively. The money spent on consultants could be put to better use in supporting the growth of Nollywood. As I have said publicly and keep saying, a realistic rebranding should be a projection of things that are already happening. You can not rebrand the current Nigerian government with what happened recently in Ekiti state. That would be an impossible task.  But you can rebrand Nigeria with what our young people are doing in Nollywood and the music industry. Once agin, God bless Nigeria.

PU

It is very disheartening that 10 years after Nigeria returned to democratic only 3 states have developed their Internal Generated Revenue to an extent where they can be independent of the Federal Government. All other states depend almost entirely on the federal allocations they collect monthly and the Federal Government itself depends on Oil rents for 90% of its revenue.

In our individual lives we all know what we do with money that we have not worked for, not sweated for. It is very difficult to put such finds to the best use because as they say, easy come, easy go, and this is the dilemma facing Nigeria today.

Nigerians do not pay tax and as such do not feel that they have a stake in government and this accounts for the politcal apathy displayed by most of us. The state and federal governments do not develop other strings of revenue like taxation because they are so focused on the easy money from oil rents and as a result our governmental structures have suffered from an arrested development because there are no stake holders in government other than God fathers and money bags who bank roll desperate politicians.

At this moment Nigeria is haemorrhaging because there is no structure in society that breeds good leadership and without good leadership we will never have good followership.

You will find that the propelling force behind citizens taking a greater interests in government and moving from onlookers to stake holders is taxation. Where we can develop a proper tax regime, peole who pay tax will lose their political apathy and will demand accountability and good governance because their money is involved. People including Nigerians will never care enough to confront government unless their taxes sustain the government. To move people you have to get them to commit financially to an idea. Once a man’s money is involved, his heart will automatically involved.

For instance as an individiual notice how much more aware you become of a friends spending pattern when that friend owes you money. Before he owed you money you never cared that he bought drikns for everyone at the bar you both frequent, but whilst he owes you money this gesture takes on a whole new meaning. Then notice how you lose interest in what he does with his money soon as he pays you back. The reason for this is that before he owed you money, your paradigm, which is the way you see things was that of a beneficiary of his largesse, but while he owed you, your paradigm changed and you saw yourself no longer as a beneficiary but as an unwilling benefactor. This is what the English mean when they say ‘he who pays the piper dictates the tune’. Unless Nigerians pay the piper from their pockets they will never dictate the tune.

For Nigeria to make progress, she needs a patriotic leader who can gradually begin to develop and enforce tax laws to such an extent that taxation rather than oil rents becomes the mojor source of government revenue as it is in other democracies. Unless these states who depend on the federal government can start developing tax regimes that will create a sustainable Internally Generated Revenue they will never grow from independece to dependence to interdependence with other staes in Nigeria.

My readers and Nigerians will say that they will not pay tax unless they see a good government, however they have the process backwards, they will never have a good government unless they start paying tax simply because they will not care enough to demand better from their government until they evolve from being onlookers to stake holders.

I challenge anyone to point to a matured and thriving democracy in which people do not pay taxes. There is no such thing. It is a myth. Recently in England, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, resigned because of a scandal involvong expense claims of his fellow parliamentarians that involved a figure less than what a Nigerian legislator takes home in a quarter. While not personally involved,  he resigned as a result of public anger and the reason for that public anger is due to the fact that this figure though not very large came out of the pockets of the tax payer. Now why haven’t Nigerians raised dust about the 532 billion spent on the National Assembly since 1999 with only 523 laws being passed, worse still those few laws have had little to no bearing on Nigerians? Simple, because this money does not come out of their pockets. The source of the money is oil rent. The only people who feel bad enough to complain are some in the Niger Delta and the reason is because the oil rent comes from their land hence they feel they have a greater stake in oil which they do.

My fellow county men do you now see the relationship between having a stake in government and demanding good governance? Unfortunately citizens can not initiate a tax regime only people in power can. So where do we start? Always with ourselves. This is where we come to the difference between a leader and a manager. Leaders will create wealth, managers will be allocated a budget. We need to move from management to leadership come 2011. Nigerians have to care enough about the state of Nigeria to jump start her development by identifying and voting into power  men of proven leadership capabilities. It will not happen unless Nigerians make it happen. We can not leave the business of politics to charlatans and expect that we will make progress. No. As Veno Marioghae sand in her 80s hit tune ‘Nigeria go survive’  ” Andrew no check out o, stay and build your country, na who go die for you o?”

We have to care about Nigeria enought to insist on good governance. It might require a sacrifice that may lead to some losing all, and all losing some, but it is worth it. We can not continue the way we are where men of low morals hold us to ransome and give the world the impression that Nigerians are not capable of running their affars when we have men of proven integrity and leadership, with a track record of honest service to the community who are willing to serve.

AsI keep saying and never tire of saying, a people deserve the type of leader they get! Nigerians, we have to awaken the giant within us and step up to the plate by making an intellectual decision today to participate in the political process with a view to making 2011 the turning point in leadership for Nigeria. God bless Nigeria!

PU

Nigerians are notoriously stereotyped as a very resilient people who are willing to take anything from their government without reacting beyond mere talk. This mythical ability to adjust to any situation is also taken for granted by various Nigerian governments who take actions injurious to the well being of the people they were (s)elected to lead because they fear no repercussions. The resilience of Nigerians has been the stuff of legend, prompting the late Fela Kuti to compose his mega hit ‘Shuffering and Shmiling’  a song which mocked our attitude of accepting all forms of indignities from our leaders without reacting.

With this in mind, I am sometimes taken aback at the behaviours of many Nigerians when their favourite English premier league wins or loses. Only recently the headlines screamed with the story of a young Nigerian Manchester United supporter who was so pained at his team’s loss to Barcelona that he drove a minibus into a crowd of jubilating Barcelona supporters! The other day the headline was of a Liverpool supporter stabbing a Chelsea fan to death. There are too many of such stories that I daresay my readers would have heard of at least one.

Nigerians are so passionate about football which is not really a bad thing. What is so sad is the apathy which our youths now show towards politics and the way we are ruled in Nigeria. This is the main reason why we are governed in such an ‘anything goes’ manner because those imposed on us as rulers know that there will not be any major resistance to bad governance and bad policies.

At times I am tempted to ask what has happened to the Nigerian youth of yore, who were so energized in the struggle against bad governance in the 60s, 70s and 80s? The Nigerian students who formed NANS and challenged any bad policy from a military government that was willing to use lethal force against them has become in recent years too complacent and close to today’s politicians that I am appalled to read headlines at which they are reported to be visiting under performing governors and ministers and passing vites of confidence on them or of holding solidarity visits to politicians who are having running battles with the EFCC!

As nigerians we have to remember that a people deserve the type of governments they get. No longer can we afford to be so complacent and accepting of anything that is done to us by government. We have to be a check on government and insist on good leadership. It will not just happen!

We have to channel some of our famed passion for English and European premier league footbal into our own political life. We need to be concerned about how we are being ruled! Our dedication to European soccer does nothing to diminish or add to the status of those clubs, but our dedication to how we are being ruled will produce results in good governance as it did recently in Georgia, Ukraine and Zimbabwe!

I call on Nigerian students to recall their rich history of advocacy and activism in politics and retrace their steps back to their origins. They should remember that the true cost of good governance is eternal vigilance and not eternal romance with bad leaders! Nigerian universities are going down the drain and these leaders for whom they organize solidarity visits and pass votes of confidence on are by and large  the cause in league with the ex-leaders who imposed them on us and who being aware of their acts  of omission place their own children in better run foreign universities.

How dramatic that 50 years after independence Nigeria’s elite now send their wards to universities in Ghana! This is enough grounds for student leeaders to press for better funding of the education sector! They should not be paying solidarity visits to legislators who have lavished 523 billion naira on themselves since 1999 without a commensurate result in legislative work! This is money that could and should have been put to better use in rebuilding Nigeria’s ivory towers so that we can compete better in a knowledge worker age!

Nigerian youths should not distract themselves from the evidence of bad governance which surrounds them daily by dedicating their spare time to European Premier soccer. They should not project their anger and despair at the way they are misgoverned on their fellows who support rival football clubs. They should remember that most of Nigeri’a population is under 30 and the day they realise their power to effect positive change is the day that Nigerian begins to develop in all spheres of human endeavour including the football they are so carzy about. In reality, Nigerian youths have more affinity with each other than with the rival European clubs they support. Problems will not go away if we project our anger onto something else, they will only grow!

To Nigerian youths, I have a message for you this day-think GLOBALLY and act LOCALLY. Think of the good institutions that have made Europe what it is and has led to the development of the ir football into the World class sport that it is, then act locally by pressing your local governments, state governments and federal government to follow suit and provide the same enabling environment you see in better run countries.

For instance when you see British MPs being called to account for hundreds of pounds and resigning when they could not do so as happend in England this month, you youths ought to be livid and demand more from your legislators on whom Nigeria has lavished 523 billion naira only for them to pass 523 laws in ten years. You do the maths!

So youths when you see President Obama working at a frenzied pace trying to cure the American economy, you should think and demand that President Yar’adua act now in fixing Nigeria and fighting corruption by stopping his association with ex-governors who have been arrested and charged to court by the EFCC. The thing to ask is how the EFCC can confidently go about its job when they see the president hobnobbing with those they have previously arrested. What kind of subliminal message is the president passing on to law enforcement officials?

To NANS and Nigerian students, I urge you to think of univeristies in Ghana, in the U.S and in Europe which are well funded, and better run centers of intellectual pursuit with Internet facilities taken for granted, with libraries swollen with the latest  books, with research institutions coming out with cutting edge innovations ready to be put to practical use by their military industrial complexes and act locally by demanding same for yourselves , not because of Pat Utomi,  but so you can have a better future for yourselves and your children and your children’s children!

PU

When you talk about a servant leader you refer to a leader who serves his people and is responsive to their needs. A leader who is sensitive to what the people want and relates with them by embracing an open door policy. With such a leader, there is a free flow of information both to the people and from the people. A servant leader is a populist wo takes time to mix with the people over whom he serves as a leader and who has an ear to the ground. He is known to them and he also takes time to know them.

Do we have such a leader in president Yar’adua? Let us examine two actions of the president and see if these are the actions of a ’servant leader’ that the president promised to be during his campaign.

A little while ago, Nigerians woke up to read in the  news headlines that president Yar’adua had instructed a judge to administer an oath of secrecy on his aides as well as those of the vice president! Why will a democratically elected president seek to conceal state affairs from the people who supossedly ‘elected’ him?  This was even more stunning considering the fact that the Nigerian civil society had been lobbying the administration to help pass the Freedom of Information bill. Say what you will about ex-president Obasanjo at least he took the time to do a monthly television and radio interactive session with Nigerians. With the present Nigerian administration, the question can be asked how many peoplle have heard the president speak after he was sworn in? He is so reclusive! Givernment is not a secret cult, nor the exclusive preserve of the president, he was put there supposedly to work towards the well being of the people and the way he goes about doing this (or refusing to do this) should not be a secret. No one lights a candle and hides it from view? If the president has good intentions he should be interested in openness, what former Soviet leader Gorbachev called Glasnost which referred to the policy of the politburo under his leadership to allow for discussion of societal problems with candour and openness. If the Soviet Union at the time it was under communist rule could celebrate Glasnost/Openness, how do we explain a democratically ‘elected’ government practicing the exact opposite in this new millenium?

Another instance which will help shed light on whether or not president Yar’adua is a servant leader is his reaction to corrupt persons. Several polls have demonstrated very clearly that Nigerians consider corruption as the major problem of the leadership of the country. One would expect that as a ’servant leader’, President Yar’adua would be sensitive to this and do all within his power to eradicate corruption. But we have seen the president surround himself with several ex-governors and ex-officials who have either been previously arrested and charged to court by law enforcement officials or who have been named in probes into allegations of corruption. How does the president want these law enforcement officials to proceed with confidence with the trials of these ex-governors and other past officials when they see him hobnobbing with them cozily and giving them power as his kitchen cabinet? A ’servant leader’ ought not to be so closely associated with  persons under investigation for corruption. A true ’servant leader’ has zero tolerance for corruption.

For instance it is a known fact that governor Blagoyejich was an acquaintance of President Obama being the governor of his home state, but since he was tainted by corruption Obama wisely stayed away from him. This is the action of a leader who wishes to lead by example.

This is the reason why we must fight for electoral reform in Nigeria so that we can elect a leader of our choice who would be a true ’servant leader’. Machine politics and the politics of Godfathers anointing chosen candidates will only produce ‘private leaders’ who are accountable to the cabal who put them in power. Who when (s)elected proceed to faether their nests and in so doing will try everything to hide their actions from the average citizen. This ought not to be so. We also need to struggle as hard as we can to ensure that the Freedom of Information bill is passed into law and most importantly given effect by the judiciary. If for instance the FOI is in existence, by now we would know the identities of those who partook of the Haliburton bribe scandal as well as the Siemens  bribe spree. We would also know those behind the disappearance of the Gulf war oil windfall as well as those who may or may not have benefitted from inflated power sector contracts, but because we have no FOI bill, we wont know the identities of these people and tomorrow they can use their ill gotten loot to fund a successful campaign for president or governor and you can guess what will be the fate of the FOI bill and electoral reform!

The Nigeria of our dreams will not just happen, it has to be created by us using our God given talents. Every lover of Nigeria should insist that this government implement electoral reforms as well as pass the FOI bill.

Finally, the term servant leader has to be used genuinely as an intention to serve the people not just as campaign rhetoric to be discarded after the candidate has achieved his aim of getting ‘elected’. That is an act of deception! My prayer for Nigeria as I go to bed this evening is that her citizens be discerning enough to forget tribe and religion and seek only competence, capabilit and a proven track record of honest accomplishment as they return to the polls again in 2011.

PU

This is a portion of the Apapa-Oshodi 'express' way. A road that leads to MMA International Airport

Still smarting from the state of shock I was thrown into when it was revealed that 523 biliion naira had been spent on the National Assembly since 1999, I was further moved to despair at Nigeria’s current state by the condition of the Apapa Oshodi express way. The picture above highlits the state of disrepair the road has fallen into. Here is a federal road that leads at one end to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport and on another end to the Apapa port. Considering the importance of this road one would expect that the federal government would have acted quickly in rehabilitating this road. But alas.

This same administration that has not found time to repair its own road is at this very moment frittering away money on a wasteful and unnecessary FIFA fiesta only to be publicly told of by the VP of FIFA! What a shame! Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska sold of her official jet to help reduce her state’s expenses, I daresay that if President Yar’adua sold of one of his numerous presidential jets he would find more than enough money to repair this and other roads.

PU