THE NATION TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2012
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EDITORIAL/OPINION
I
USED to know one Mr. West back then in my secondary school days in Ibadan around 1976/77. He was about two years or so ahead of me in school and as it was customary then, we used to prefix names of our seniors with Senior, so we used to call him Senior West. In addition, he was quite elderly, so we, the junior students had no choice but to respect him. He was a good sportsman, exceptionally good in Table Tennis. He stood out among our seniors not just because of his sporting prowess but also because of his name. How could someone’s surname be West and where is he from? We, in our limited knowledge of Nigeria and Nigerians then, used to wonder. But as we grew older and the name Professor Tam David-West came to our consciousness, we knew Senior West is from one of Nigeria’s tribes/nationalities called Ijaw where the name West is common. When I said we, I am talking of my generation at Eyinni High School, Ibadan. Four years down the line, the second Republic strolled in and I remember a certain legislator in the then Ondo State House of Assembly, whose surname I couldn’t pronounce because it didn’t sound like a Yoruba name. He was a popular man because he was the Speaker of the Assembly. On enquiry I was told he hailed from the Ijaw speaking part of the riverside area of Ondo state. As a reporter with Concord Press in the mid-80s, I came across a colleague who was reporting for National Concord then from Warri. His name is Asu Beks. When he was transferred to Lagos we became very good friends. I never knew Asu Bee, as friends use to call him, is Ijaw until the Alamesiegha saga and the campaign for Jonathan’s acting presidency came up, but his surname never ceased to amuse me. I was later told that Beks was a shortened form of a long Ijaw name. Asu remains a very good friend till date and still resides in Lagos. I have gone this far to recall my personal experience as a young man growing up in a multi ethnic society as we have in western Nigeria, to debunk the attempt by certain elements in the Ijaw nation to demonize the Yoruba of western Nigeria in order to be seen as protecting their son
To keep Nigeria one who is now the president of Nigeria; Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. These elements include a certain hitherto well respected banker called Atedo Peterside, a onetime Federal Minister and supposedly elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark, former Minister Alabo Tonye Graham Douglas and a host of other Ijaw men and women that one would ordinarily hold in high esteem, until their recent descent into ethnic politics. They have chosen the recent protest across the federation against the January 1 increase in the pump price of petrol by the federal government to reveal their hatred of the people of western Nigeria, especially the people of Lagos. As far as they are concerned, the subsidy should go because it benefits only Lagos people, and in the words of even our president, the nation can no longer afford to subsidize the price of petrol for those people in Lagos with four, five cars and whose children cruise round town in different cars. The president’s reported comment, taken together with his pre-election campaign in 2011 describing authentic Yoruba leaders as rascals goes to show the kind of respect or lack of it that he has for the people of western Nigeria. One is tempted to ignore the likes of Clark as people seeking relevance in a modern day Nigeria. He and his likes have probably lost touch with the reality on ground today in Nigeria. But one cannot and should not excuse the likes of Atedo Peterside. He is one of those who probably came to Lagos with nothing, welcomed into the city with open arms by the people and prospered here and yet does not wish
the people well. I am for the removal of the fuel subsidy as there is so much fraud to it on both sides that keeping it will only perpetuate the fraud, but to blame Lagos people and by extension the people of western Nigeria for being the main beneficiaries is equally fraudulent and unfair. The impression being created by Jonathan and his Ijaw friends/kinsmen is that the Yoruba are the ones not just enjoying the subsidy but also pocketing the proceeds. They talk as if Yoruba are the only ones living in Lagos, yet they know this is not true. Ibos are in their millions here so also are other nationalities. It is true there are Ijaws in Yoruba land. You find them in all the coastal states in western Nigeria, including Lagos. They are indigenes of these states, not even migrants. So if truly the subsidy regime benefits Lagosians more, then it affects all Nigerians because there is no Nigerian tribe, in fact any Nigerian family that is not represented in Lagos. To blame some people for sustaining the subsidy is to attempt to divide the nation along ethnic lines which Nigeria cannot afford, either now or in future. Attempts have even been made to identify one or two Yoruba businessmen as feeding fat on the subsidy regime. I hold no brief for them. If they have done anything against the law in this regard, punish them. But to demonize them and their people for doing legitimate business is unfair. It would be interesting to know the outcome on the ongoing flurry of investigations into the administration of
the subsidy regime. I also hope that those found guilty will be kind enough to tell us how much accrued to them and how they spent it, especially who among their accusers got what. But then as government and its supporters, especially the Atedo Peterside of this world attempt to justify the removal of the fuel subsidy, they should thread softly and avoid igniting sectarian hatred among Nigeria, as they themselves could be consumed in the fire that could follow. We have enough security challenges on our hands, they should not compound them. They should remember those of us, who grew up peacefully with other Nigerians from other tribes/nationalities, they should not turn us against one another because of what they want to eat. Jonathan, these are not your friends. Talking about the security challenges, our prayers go to those who lost their lives in the latest madness by the Boko Haram terrorists; the multiple bomb attacks last Friday in Kano. May their souls rest in perfect peace, amen. I don’t know whether to say the same prayer for the suicide bombers that took the lives of those innocent people, but I know their souls are not likely to rest in peace because what they claim to have done in the name of Islam is forbidden by ALLAH (SWT). I don’t know where they got their Islam from. Theirs is not Islam.
‘It would be interesting to know the outcome on the ongoing flurry of investigations into the administration of the subsidy regime. I also hope that those found guilty will be kind enough to tell us how much accrued to them and how they spent it, especially who among their accusers got what’
VIEW FROM THE FOREIGN PRESS
I
F one were looking for a classical example of how not to introduce potentially difficult policies to an unreceptive audience, you’d be hard put to script a better scenario than the current farce turned tragedy playing out across the length and breadth of Nigeria. Yet again, Nigeria and Nigerians are conflicted, epitomising the continent’s hopes and despair. The effective communication of policies is often detracted from by the means deployed by those charged to herald their coming. The often abrasive manner of the principal cheerleaders for deregulation (a World Bank denizen, an oil Tsarina and a cleric cum bank-of-last-resort regulator whose ego is matched only by the delusions of his sartorial sense) has not served the government well. Their often strident tone has obstructed the effective articulation of the imperative for change. All in all, there has been a dearth of sensitivity and a surplus of self-righteousness in the delivery of the message. In the twenty-first century, governments can no longer compartmentalise in the way the Jonathan administration has sought to. Its attempt to deregulate the downstream sector of Nigeria’s oil industry in one fell swoop, while leaving so many other areas of disputation untouched has gone down like a lead balloon. Instead of fostering discourse on the merits or otherwise of the fuel subsidy, new media has confronted it with a Pandora’s Box of discontent, throwing up a melange of issues around which a motley crew of malcontents have coalesced. The truth however is that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs and the challenge of leadership is the challenge of making what are often difficult choices. The issues the Jonathan administration has chosen to confront, which others avoided, are as difficult as can be and there is no way their resolution will not leave a large number of people dissatisfied. The fact that the amount being spent on bridging the cost of fuel importation with recompense for that importation is unsustainable is indisputable. The voodoo economics being deployed to reconfigurate that fact may be good populist politics but it is bad economics. The levels of domestic borrowing required to continue to do so threaten to mortgage the nation’s future to levels hitherto unknown. Whatever else may be said about the President, he is not without spunk. Timing however, is everything. Much has rightly been made of the levels of abuse that have attended the operation of the subsidy system, providing as it has, occasion and opportunity for a few persons (a “cabal”) to make indecent profits from our propensity for inefficiencies and illegalities. The government dropped the ball by first throwing up its hands in helplessness. It should not have acknowledged so readily its inability to ensure compliance
Fuel subsidy and the agenda for change By Abiola Phillips with the laws of the land; in doing so, it created yet another rod for its own back. The defects in the logistics of implementation do not impugn the duty of government to ensure that the laws of the land are obeyed. Somewhat belatedly the government appears to have accepted this duty. What it must go on to do is to ensure that the administration of justice is both time specific and blind to the standing of our modern day robber barons. In politics as in much else, perception is reality. At this stage the government sorely needs to reshape perceptions. At certain times, the old O-Level Economics question: Every economic issue is a political issue and every political issue is an economic issue, comment! comes to mind. This is such a time. We have spoken of the hard choices that leadership thrusts on mere mortals. All manner of persons with their own axes to grind are making common cause against the President; the main grievances being raised now spanning the full gamut of political and personal concerns. Those who were unable to best Jonathan at last year’s general elections have resorted to outlandish calls and claims. Clearly the agenda continues to change at a dizzying pace. The fuel price issue that brought the distemper to the table has been supplanted by broader but just as germane issues of good governance. With each passing day, the demands being made for reform grow wider and deeper; and, government increasingly finds itself trapped in a cycle of response that addresses grievances piecemeal. This approach not only weakens the foundations of public policy, it also reduces the ability to craft a holistic response to the matters at hand. The next biggest mistake President Jonathan can make would be not seeing the writing on the wall. The people being rolled out to explain and defend the deregulation agenda have become comical caricatures and are increasingly dysfunctional because they are cast as the mirror images of the problems at hand. The longer the President goes without lancing the boil, the greater the danger of his being unable to dissociate himself from what seems like a train wreck about to happen. We have spoken of the critical nature of the nexus between perception and reality. President Jonathan must, if he is to retain the capacity to tackle the commanding heights he has rightly
set for his administration, be able to restore his street cred. At this stage his best bet is to set the stage for large scale and wide-ranging changes by bringing the whole panoply of issues that have come to the forefront (and many that have not) under one roof. He must take ownership of the mantra of good governance for and on behalf of the Nigerian people, and articulate what it will entail in a clear and unequivocal fashion. He must set out an agenda for change. Good governance must be defined as leaner government. Leaner government will encompass a two-tranche approach to subsidy removal yoked to palliatives-in-place; a commitment to cut out waste across the whole of government within his purview, with measurable milestones; a disavowal of corruption that is not only real but seen to be real in its applicability and its application; and an insistence that the other arms of government and tiers of government hold themselves too levels of accountability hitherto exalted in word rather than deed. He must fashion a tent big enough to house these policies and more; in other words, he must lead by example. His Agenda for Change must be far-reaching enough to be perceived as the harbinger of true change and radical enough to be regain the street. There will of course be those that will tell the president that for him to take one step backwards at this time, to enable him take several steps forward later, would be a sign of his weakness but that is not the case. I remember the late Ikemba of Nnewi in a conversation we had at his residence while he was in exile in the Ivory Coast in 1981 telling me that the true measure of a man lies in his ability to change. For our purposes, read change course. It was Lenin that advocated, in language worthy of Machiavelli, that one must embrace one’s enemy so as to easier suffocate him. While I do not characterise the views marshalled in opposition to the removal of the fuel subsidy as the voices of the enemy, they are the voices gathered in opposition to this administration. What the President must do is seek to cherry pick from their agenda and merge it with his own; only by so doing can he hope to restore his street cred. Without that street cred he will effectively be a lame duck for the remaining 41 months of his administration. A tactical retreat does not mean and must not mean that economic imperatives are no longer imperative; they are. In politics, timing is everything. Democracy is a hollow space without the art of leadership. Those that fail to acknowledge the pivotal role of leaders in democratic spaces are either determinists or in denial. History is littered with the critical function of leaders in democracies and, once again, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan stands as the central spoke in the Nigerian wheel. • Phillips is a Lagos-based Legal Practitioner