17 Aug 2008 |
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The Honourable Chairman, they are always honourables, of the Federal Character Commission was on Channels Television yesterday. Again, it was an interesting interview, a very revealing interview. The Chairman did not disappoint. As I was later to understand, he was a retired university administrator. A former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin whose "illustrious" career in the academia was distinguished by the sacking of 49 innocent lecturers (forty nine innocent lecturers only!) in one fell swoop for embarking on industrial action. An action that has since given rise to more than a dozen industrial actions and an equal numbers of court actions, threats of court actions, threats of industrial actions, warning strikes and other collateral damages. I hope he followed federal character in carrying out that "laudable and patriotic" duty. Actually, he only lectured, he did not answer questions. According to the Chairman, President Yar'Adua has made less than a dozen appointments in over a year of taking over! Only the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and one or two other agencies of government are in contravention of the "laudable" principles of federal character. He cited a portion of the FCC Act that forbids the employment of non-qualified staff in fulfilment of federal character. The Chairman lectured his uncle, the Hon. Justice Mustapha Akanbi, retired President of the Court of Appeal on the legal technicalities of the Federal Character Commission Act. It was live lecture. When reminded that all the three arms of government - the executive, the legislature and the judiciary - are all headed by northerners, the Chairman lectured that it was not the President's making. When asked to give details of the Management staff of the FCC, he gibbered about how he has not made any appointments. Asked if it was true that no southerner has been found worthy and patriotic enough to head the Commission since inception, he blamed it on the military, and then the former southern president who appointed a northerner, and the incumbent northern President who appointed him, another northerner, and the National Assembly who confirmed him, a northerner. Up federal character! Let us examine the Chairman's lecture point by point. It is not true that the President has made less than a dozen appointments in over one year. At least he appointed his Special Advisers and there are over 20 of them. To the best of my knowledge none of them is from the South-East. He constituted a Committee to address the power sector problem. To the best of my knowledge nobody from the entire South Eastern Nigeria, with all their world acclaimed expertise in science and technology is qualified to be in that committee. He appointed (or nominated, if you like) the current FCC Chairman; the heads of NEPA, NNPC, NTA, EFCC, Nigeria Customs, Nigeria Police, and DPR to mention a few, except for the IG of police, none of them is from the South, not to talk of the South East. And the "Honourable Chairman" did not even notice. Talk of selective amnesia. Check out all the agencies that are said to be in contravention of the federal character principle, with the exception of the SEC and NBC, the rest are headed by southerners. In fact, two are headed by South Easterners (the only two positions held by South Easterners under the current dispensation). The message is clear: if we are not in charge, then we are marginalized! If as the "Honourable" Chairman said, MDAs are required to make periodic returns of their nominal rolls to the commission, and the returns are not doctored (I suspect that the reports must be doctored because the extent of domination by our northern brothers nowadays is too much to be disclosed even to a friendly and an indulging and redundant commission like the FCC), and the "Honourable" Chairman and his equally "honourable" colleagues are yet to see the naked truth, then we do not need the FCC because it has nothing to offer. If the Chairman does not know, there has not been any Director from the South East in the Accountant-General's office since the past four years! Out of over 40 directors in the pool of the Accountant General not a single one is from the South East. Yet Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Kano and all states of the north have at least two directors each on average! Yet these are the same states which the Chairman admitted to be lagging behind in education, or western education as he prefers to call it. I know it as of fact that there is hardly any MDA where you cannot find a northerner amongst the top three management staff. But there are tens of MDAs where you cannot see a single southerner in the top ten management staff, and where there is no single South Easterner amongst the staff. I mentioned the MDG office before as a typical example. These are facts. Hard, verifiable facts. So on what grounds is the Chairman complaining about just three or four MDAs? It is true that the President did not appoint the heads of the Executive, the legislature and the judiciary but can the Chairman imagine a power structure in Nigeria whereby no northerner is heading any of the three? Has he realised that the highest position occupied by the South East is Deputy Senate President. I mean the South East, the entire Igbo nation! Can our Hausa/Fulani brothers permit this to happen to them? Does the "Honourable" Chairman realise that the last time an Igbo person came close to the corridors of power at the centre was in 1985/6 under the General Ibrahim Babangida/Ebitu Ukiwe combination? Where has federal character been since then? Does he remember that both Generals Mohammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon were northern Fulanis who ruled this country together? Can there ever be a time when two southerners - say, two Igbos - can be President and Vice President in Nigeria at the same time? So why the song and dance over CBN? Where is federal character? Where is justice? Where is conscience? I do not know the management composition of the FCC but the Chairman may wish to publish the nominal roll of the FCC for the public to see. He was talking of commissioners being appointed from every state. That is true. Every state has a commissioner representing it. They are political office holders. Actually, like all "Commissions" in Nigeria, the commissioners are usually a collection of retired school teachers, village champions, unemployed and under-performing professionals and fortune-seeking party loyalists who are brought to Abuja to enjoy or for rehabilitation. But how about the management itself: the Executive Secretary, Directors of Departments and their deputies? These are the people who are in charge of the day-to-day administration of the commission. How many of them are from the south and how many are from the South East? If the Commissioner already knows what happens at CBN, FIRS, SEC, and NCC, how come that he could not answer a simple question of telling his audience the management composition at his own office? How many South Easterners, if any are working in the State House whether as political office holders or as civil servants? What are their ranks and schedules? Could the Chairman kindly publish the nominal roll of the State House, the National Assembly management, the Supreme Court management, Nigeria Police, EFCC, ICPC, FCTA/FCDA, to mention but a few? Where is federal character? Where is justice? Where is conscience? Where on earth is justice? It is good to know that the FCC Act prohibits the sacrifice of merit at the altar of federal character and equally wonderful for the Chairman to cite same, but what is the reality on the ground? I have instances; factual, verifiable instances, where set standards have been lowered to accommodate our northern brothers. I have it on good authority that at CBN recruitment exercise a few years ago northern candidates performed so woefully that a different and lower cut-off mark was fixed for them. Let the FCC cross-check this fact. How and why then is CBN being accused of bias? If the feelers out there are to be believed, a northerner is set to take over at CBN and given their track-record, it will not take more than three months before CBN complies with "federal character" once again. Up federal character!! If an internationally reputable recruitment agency were to be charged with the responsibility of recruiting staff into all federal MDAs, is it conceivable that the north can hold all the positions it is currently holding in federal establishments? Has the Chairman noticed that apart from federal MDAs, there is just no other area that the north dominates the south? Has he realised that you hardly find northerners in private sector multinationals because their recruitments are based on international best practices which emphasises merit? Has he realised that since Federal Government divested from the banks very few northerners are now in the banks? Can he see what difference, what positive difference that has made to the way the banks are run as against when Federal Government was in total control? How many northerners are occupying management positions at MTN, Celtel (ZAIN), Glo, Visafone and the rest? How many northerners will qualify for employment into these companies and how many can sit and pass their aptitude test? Contrast with the days of NITEL/MTEL. For how long shall Nigerians suffer injustice and for how long shall Nigeria endure mediocrity at the altar of federal character? How wicked can a country be against her citizens? Can someone out there please tell me where else in the whole wide world that they practice this kind of travesty of merit and federal character that we practise in Nigeria? Has the Chairman realised that it is injustice in Nigeria that has forced South Easterners into trade and industry? Does he know that it is the unjust and inequitable admission policies that have forced southerners to pursue their educational dreams in Europe and America? Does he realise that some of the world's most respected academics and professionals are southern Nigerians living abroad? Has he realised that the south has since abandoned federal government colleges and universities for qualitative education at private colleges at home and abroad? Has he realised that while the north thinks that WAEC is hard to pass and then created NECO, the south is embracing British and American college certificates? Has he realised that while the north is embracing ANAN, fake CPA, and fake ICMA ( all in a bid to gain employment and promotion in federal government MDAs) the south is pursuing ICAN, ICEAW, ACCA, genuine CPA and the likes (in a bid to be internationally competitive)? The result: you find Nigerians -Southern Nigerians, rejected at home, shining and flying Nigerian flags at top Universities and corporations all over the world. What an irony! What a tragedy for a nation!! In the long run, our northern brothers will discover that they are not doing their children any good for feeding them with poor education and wangling them into lucrative federal positions. This is the age of ideas and knowledge. The new world order is tilted in favour of the well educated and the competitive. This is the knowledge age where the best and the brightest hold the ace in an ever shrinking globalized and networked economy. Whatever may be my misgivings, let it be known that I have nothing against my northern brothers, friends and colleagues. I am only pointing out obvious realities of present day Nigeria in the genuine belief that those concerned may make amends in the interest of national unity, equity, justice and progress. This is a case of one nation with 4 destinies: one destiny for the North, one for the West, one for the East and one for the South-South. I am saying that Eastern Nigeria has been so unjustly marginalized and cheated that people like the FCC Chairman has come to accept it as their constitutional duty to perpetuate it. It is good that the FCC has started this debate, or controversy as Channels Television called it. Let us use it to look into the criminal inequities in the Nigerian system. Let us seize this moment to discuss our differences and grievances with a view to healing the nation and putting it on the track of true greatness. Let us debate federal character. It might well be the tonic we need to get out of this suffocating state of arrested development; out of this crippling snare of under-development and negative progress.
Tamuno Okere PortHarcout, Nigeria.
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