By Reuben Abati

"...take a census of the whole Israelites community by their class and their families everyone by name..." (Numbers 1: 1-4)

The proposed Population Census 2005 scheduled to take place in November was one of the issues that engaged our attention, recently on Patito's Gang, the television programme in which I am one of the regular faces. It turned out to be a particularly controversial edition, with the participants almost engaging blows on and off camera. M. M. Ibrahim had chosen to defend the government's decision to leave out ethnicity and religion in the census questionnaire, describing it as a progressive move, and religion and ethnicity as dispensable indicators in a head-count - particularly in a divisive nation such as Nigeria. Other panelists held a different opinion. We argued that a census exercise is not just a bland statistical exercise, but a fact-finding process through which a country can determine its own identity for purposes of development planning and to the extent that religion and ethnicity define the individual, it would amount to self-deception to leave out these two critical factors. M.M dismissed this as primitive. To which Pini Jason almost jumping out of his seat screamed: "there is nothing primitive about my being an Igbo. You can't say that because I am Igbo, I am primitive!" A shouting match followed.

This was supposed to be a discussion among friends but that episode and its sequel helped to demonstrate the serious divisions among Nigerians on the question of not just population indicators but the idea of census itself. The passion and anxiety that dominated that recording reflect the phenomenon of census rivalry in Nigeria. It is the truth for example that the present Census exercise as proposed has caused much division among Nigerians even before taking place. The argument over the content of the Census questionnaire has been particularly strident, but it is worth noting that in the last census exercise in 1991, ethnicity and religion were also excluded from the questionnaire, and the excuse offered by the National Population Commission, was that ethnicity and religion led to the widespread rejection of the 1973 Census.

The first census was held in this country in 1866. The colonial authorities conducted other census exercises in 1871, 1901, and 1911, and whereas all these covered only the Lagos Colony and in 1911, the Southern Protectorate, the first nationwide census involving the North and the South was organised in 1921. There was also the 1931 census and the three-year 1951 -53 Census. Although the census exercises during the colonial period were limited, and Nigerians thought they were meant to be instruments for taxation, one clear difference between them and the ones conducted in post-colonial Nigeria is the politicisation since 1962 of the Nigerian census. No colonial census was cancelled, but in post-colonial Nigeria, the cancellation of census results or the distrust of its outcomes has been the norm thus creating the impression that Nigerians cannot count themselves properly. The 1962 Census had to be cancelled because it suddenly began to threaten the survival of the newly independent nation.

The 1963 Census was upheld but only because the Supreme Court ruled against the Eastern Nigerian government which had gone to court to challenge the results. The 1973 Census caused widespread acrimony; the census officials openly disagreed with each other; there was tension in every state of the federation; so much that the Gowon government could not even summon the courage to release the results. When General Murtala Muhammed took over power, one of the first things he did was to cancel the 1973 Census. The organisers of the 1991 Census, which came much later, have been promoting it as a success, perhaps because it was not cancelled, but indeed, the 1991 census was grossly flawed, as it gave the impression that there was no growth in certain parts of the country whereas other parts of the country grew in numbers. It also reinforced the old myth that there are more persons in the desert and the savannah than in the Southern rain forest, using the specious instrument of land mass as opposed to population density. The result is that up till this moment, Nigerians do not know their exact number; every population exercise has been at best a guessing game, made worse by the politics of it all.

The political root of the Nigerian Census is to be traced to the 1951-53 exercise which the colonial authorities used as the basis for the allocation of seats in the federal parliamentary elections of 1954 and the general elections of 1959. Interestingly, TELL magazine did a two-part story recently in its February 21 and March 7 editions in which Harold Smith, a former British colonial officer confessed in a newly published autobiography, that the British deliberately used the census exercise to sow the seeds of disunity in Nigeria by manipulating statistics and circumstances in favour of the North. Since then, the North has rested its power and privileges on the myth of numerical superiority. Most conveniently, and with power in the hands of the North through the military, successive Nigerian constitutions have used the politics of number to determine resource allocation and states/local councils creation, and thus, the North has been enjoying an advantage which other parts of the country continue to contest.

The politics of numbers is therefore central to the politics of power in Nigeria. To worsen the situation, every census exercise since independence has been conducted close to elections. The 1962/63 census exercise came before the 1964 elections. The 1973 census was part of the Gowon administration's transition package. The 1991 census by the Babangida administration was designed as a component of the political transition programme. With every census prefacing an election, every political group then takes a more than ordinary interest in it, with a determination to manipulate it, in order to supply enough figures for the electoral register which would place their own region or state at an advantage. Every census exercise is in that sense, a form of election, and like every Nigerian election, it is open to fraud and manipulation.

Given this background, it is proper to assume that the task of any serious government seeking to organise a Nigerian Census, after 1991, should be a transparent process which can inspire confidence and settle the long-standing paradox about the inability of Nigerians to count themselves. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Obasanjo government has lost the opportunity to organise a proper census. What is being proposed as Census 2005 will end up as a waste of money and time and a further deepening of the fault lines in the Nigerian project. This is why I think that the proposed Census should be cancelled. There has been no demonstration of a capacity to learn from history, and no creativity in the packaging of Census 2005. The Census is scheduled for November. Why November? Why did the Census not take place earlier? The 1991 Census was held in the month of November as well. Is there any special reason that is not being disclosed?. I have made the point that previous Census exercises were tied to future elections, and this caused problems. It can be seen that Census 2005 is being organised ahead of the 2007 elections; even if the government does not admit a connection, the professional political class is bound to take the Census exercise as a pre-election trial. If present events provide enough intimations about the future, then we can safely conclude that the 2007 elections will be violent and so bloody with so much activity in the graveyards. Already, the killings have started in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party where a nest of killers appears to be having a field-day.

A credible census cannot be organised without a broad-based consensus about its viability and prospects. Less than three months to Census 2005, the country is divided over it. A census trial is going on, demarcation of enumeration areas has been conducted but there is no public information about the activities and plans of the Population Commission. In 1991, there was massive public enlightenment; the entire country including the private sector participated in the exercise; today, the census is being organised as a secret activity. In fact, in the week that has just ended, the Population Commission gathered its state commissioners and got them to swear to an oath of secrecy. They are not supposed to tell anybody anything concerning the Census!

Perhaps, this is why everything concerning the Census has been done in secrecy so far. But is this supposed to be a Census for Nigerians? The idea of a secret census is in itself destabilising. There is detailed information about census activities in India, Britain, Canada and the United States on the internet. You are even encouraged to ask questions. Talking about an oath of secrecy in connection with a Census gives the impression that the government has "a hidden agenda." And what can that hidden agenda be other than the perpetuation of old patterns? Senator Abraham Adesanya, leader of the Afenifere once complained about the tendency to inflate the numbers of the North by counting goats and chickens as human beings. Faced with talks about secrecy, he and others who nurse such suspicions, and they are in the majority, are not likely to change their minds nor would they accept whatever comes out of Census 2005. An oath of secrecy under a government that talks about transparency and accountability is inappropriate.

There is no doubt that the Population Commission is also unprepared. During the demarcation of enumeration areas exercise, most of the officials that were engaged were not paid their allowances and entitlements. There were reports of cronyism and favouritism with only the persons who were willing to do the bidding of the zonal directors being favoured. There is a Chairman of the Population Commission, Malam Samaila Danko Makama but he is a great unknown. More than half of the media stories on the Census exercise are negative. Does the Population Commission have a Public Affairs Department? If it does, then what are the carpenters in that office still doing there? The ineptitude of Census officials was once such a big source of concern that a Mr J. Warren, from Europe had to be recruited to run the 1962 Census! Vehicles, other materials and funds would be required in any census, it is clear that Census 2005 is bound to run into problems of logistics. The international standard is that it takes 36 months to prepare for a Census. Nigeria is putting its own together in a hurry.

President Obasanjo should take honest advice, and cancel the proposed Census 2005 exercise. Previous governments that went into it without the will to do that which is right, ended up regretting their folly. The Tafawa Balewa government paid a price for the 1963 Census, it was one of the problems that sowed the seeds of the civil war. The Gowon administration was still battling with the controversies arising from the 1973 Census when it was kicked out. The Shagari government wanted to do a census along the lines of its well-known profligacy, but it never got the chance to do so when the military struck in December 1983. The Babangida government organised a Census in 1991 but no one refers to it as an achievement. To go ahead with Census 2005 may amount to walking into a trap but it is a damage that would be perfectly self-inflicted.

What Nigerians want is a census that is based on truth, a census that will end the Nigerian lie, not a census that will be conducted by persons who will be willing to manipulate the figures and do as they wish because they have sworn to an oath of secrecy. In the long run, those parts of the Constitution which make population figures a basis for resource allocation, and grant enormous powers to the President in census matters must be reviewed and amended. Ours must become a country where what matters is the humanity and identity of every member, and the character of our communities, not the selfish ambitions of politicians who are ever-ready to play games with the life and future of the nation. Print this article Print this article Sunday, July 31, 2005 Third Term: He Won't Do It By Reuben Abati The hottest issue in Nigerian politics at the moment is the matter of alleged plans by President Olusegun Obasanjo to extend his tenure and do either an additional two years or six years. Northern lawmakers are planning a meeting in the next few days to issue a joint statement warning the President not to even think about the idea of an extension. In the South-West, both the Alliance for Democracy and the Afenifere have called on all progressive forces in the Nigerian society to be on standby in case there is need to confront those who may be tempted to shift the political goal-post at half-time. Last week, the Speaker of the House of Representatives as well as other political figures across the country also publicly opposed the idea. The emerging debate is not only heating up the polity; it is distracting public attention. But looking at the issues afresh, I am convinced that we have nothing to fear. President Obasanjo cannot impose himself on Nigerians beyond May 29, 2007; even if he wishes to do so, he won't be able to do it. The sit-tight syndrome, the most lucid indication of the onset of full-blown tyranny, has been effective in other African countries. Indeed the political history of the continent is littered with examples of sit-tight leaders who would stop at nothing including the manipulation of parliament and amendments to the constitution to remain in office, in violation of their original contract with the people. These include Arap Moi (Kenya), Houphouet-Boigny (Cote d'Ivoire), Omar Bongo (Gabon), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Kamuzu Banda (Malawi) and Eyadema (Togo). Because of these precedents, it is possible to aver that a similar situation may arise in Nigeria. And also because Nigerians tasted large-scale tyranny under General Sani Abacha, they have learnt to stop boasting that certain things that have occurred in other African countries cannot happen here. Military rule robbed Nigerians of their innocence, we have been socialised to expect the worst of all circumstances and to distrust persons in positions of leadership. Nevertheless, the current debate over whether or not President Obasanjo will succeed himself contrary to the 1999 Constitution which brought him to power and under which he has been elected twice as President, should be placed in a local historical context. To date, there is no Nigerian leader who has toyed with the idea of staying beyond his welcome who did not leave the office either in disgrace or unceremoniously. When former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon began to quibble about his promise to vacate office as Nigeria's military Head of State in the early 70s, he was eased out by his own officers in a military coup which was widely supported by the Nigerian people. When in 1993, former President Ibrahim Babangida started playing games with the political transition programme, including the annulment of a free and fair election, he was hounded out of office as Nigeria's Head of State. If it were possible for him to do so, he would have remained in office. He and his wife loved the power and the glamour that the office of President brought, so much that the wife was variously quoted as saying that only God could remove them from the Aso Presidential Villa. In the end, God removed them earlier than they had imagined with their public image in tatters. General Sani Abacha also wanted to defy the Nigerian people and make democratic rule impossible, but God also removed him. Today, his name evokes instant and ready objections. Only two leaders in Nigerian history, although as military leaders, have been able to leave office with their heads in the sky, and that is because they facilitated a return to civilian rule within the shortest possible time. And these two are General Olusegun Obasanjo, now President and General Abdusalami Abubakar. In 1979, General Obasanjo faithfully handed over power to the politicians and it is on this singular act, at a time when Africa was notorious for its vicious military rulers that the foundation of Obasanjo's reputation and relevance rests. When he acted in this seemingly atypical fashion, Obasanjo drew international attention to himself and gained a moral stature far in excess of what he should ordinarily have been entitled to. There are two deductions from these bits of Nigerian political history. The first is that any attempt by President Obasanjo to stay in office beyond May 2007, will be fiercely resisted by civil society and other political forces. The threats now being issued by certain groups in society should be taken as mere, idle threats. The struggle between 1993 and 1999 taught us one lesson which is that the struggle for democracy and against tyranny is ideological and economic, collective and individualistic, with definite advantages. Those who seized the platform at that time have been relatively idle since 1999; if they are provoked, the level of capacity that they will mobilise and display will be astonishing. If anyone is tempting Obasanjo to ride the tiger of public anger, all he needs to do is to re-read the stories of Babangida and Sani Abacha. The second point is that Obasanjo himself is fully aware of his place in history. He is in fact a man who loves history and would always want to be on the good side of it. When he left office in 1979, the international community opened its doors to him. He was made a member of the Group of Eminent persons, he got involved in the dismantling of apartheid and nuclear armament projects, he helped to conceptualise and design the development process in Africa, in a word, he became a moral symbol, a kind of example which the West wanted to identify with. While other former military rulers hid their heads in shame, Obasanjo travelled around the world. He became an outspoken critic of military high-handedness. No other Nigerian, with perhaps the later exception of Wole Soyinka as Nobel Laureate, enjoyed the same influence and international acceptability. Significantly, Obasanjo was appointed to the boards of such bodies as the Ford Foundation and the Transparency International. He also set up a successful think-tank on leadership called the Africa Leadership Forum which supported discussions of research into democracy, development and good governance processes. When Obasanjo leaves office in 2007, he may not exactly need the likes of Greg Mbadiwe, that fellow who says "there is no vacancy in Aso Villa", he should have enough to occupy him at the Africa Leadership Forum, the Obasanjo Library in Abeokuta and his Ota Farms. He can pick up his international connections and continue with his former career in retirement as an international statesman. That was one aspect of his life which he used to enjoy very much. As a former Nigerian military ruler who handed over power to civilians, there was no country in the world where Obasanjo was not treated with great courtesy. I do not think that he will throw all that away. He should know that if he does, he would have destroyed his own basis for relevance. If he violates the will of the Nigerian people in any way, he will become a prisoner in his own house after 2007, the same doors that used to receive him will be shut against him. IBB is yet to recover from what he did in 1993; only a few weeks ago, some British diplomats were asking President Obasanjo in London whether Babangida is still alive. If anyone were to say that about Obasanjo at an international forum, that would be a great personal tragedy indeed. The suicide represented by an extension of his tenure should be undesirable. Our attention has been drawn to a number of signs which we are told is enough proof that the President does not want to go. The first is that the National Conference was conceived to achieve only one objective: namely the extension of Obasanjo's tenure, and that the Governors will also benefit from this. But of course, this was strongly opposed at that Conference, and those who participated in the exercise have said that what they recommend is a maximum of two terms of four years as in the 1999 Constitution. There are persons who are purportedly close to the President who are working on the 2007 project, and who have been telling him to remain in office. Such persons are fortune-hunters; they are interested in themselves not Obasanjo. They want to remain close to the corridors of power and enjoy the privileges of authority. After 2007, and Obasanjo is out of office, he may never see many of them again; they would have moved on to a new master. The other argument in favour of whatever it is that Obasanjo is said to be planning is that as at this moment, there is no successor yet. And that the Obasanjo beyond 2007 consultants are deliberately trying to contrive a situation whereby the absence of a successor will compel Nigerians to ask Obasanjo to continue in office. I agree that the office of President is not the kind of office that a man can just wake up one morning and walk into. This almost happened in 1993 when one man called Bashir Tofa tried to become Nigeria's President. But to suggest that there is a short-supply of Presidential materials in this country would be unfair. Besides, the Presidency is not anyone's birthright. After Obasanjo, there will still be Nigeria. The view that Obasanjo has to groom his successor since he obviously does not want his Vice President to succeed him is discourteous. Obasanjo's mandate under the Constitution does not include helping Nigerians to groom the next President. Only Nigerians can decide for themselves who should be their President. When Obasanjo's term is up, we would be glad to see him leave. There is also the role of the National Assembly which has now been asked to look at the reports of the National Conference and amend the constitution accordingly. The truth is that the national assembly is not under any compulsion to look at those reports. It can decide in its own wisdom to set those reports aside. If that happens, so what would anybody who may have an Obasanjo-must-stay agenda do? Those lawmakers also ought to know that if they allow themselves to be used for any anti-democratic purpose, many of them will not be able to return to their constituencies. If they must amend the constitution and introduce a single six-year term, that would be for a future government elected under that new constitution. The Constitution cannot be changed to keep Obasanjo in office by all means. And why would the National Assembly help to extend Obasanjo's tenure when nobody has said anything about their own part of the deal? The passion with which we discuss Obasanjo's alleged third term, simply shows the fragile nature of our democracy and the problematic nature of the power equation in Nigeria. But I remain optimistic: Obasanjo will go in 2007. He must know that in or out of office, he will remain relevant in Nigerian politics, and to strengthen that relevance, a bigger stake is for him to organise a successful transition in 2007. So, why would he destroy the achievement of a lifetime, to make the political jobbers who surround him, whose loyalty he cannot be sure of, happy? Why would he take a step that would him push him down to the same level as Babangida, Abacha, Eyadema, Kamuzu Banda, Mugabe and the rest of that class? Is it not even possible that we are all being manipulated? The 2007 Consultants may be playing mind games with the Nigerian public, such that when Obasanjo then leaves in 2007, we would be expected to praise him for refusing to be tempted, when in fact the whole debate is being contrived for image-laundering purposes in the future. The only thing Obasanjo may be worried about is the verdict of the historians when he is gone. But he must wait to read what will be written when that time comes. For now, we are still taking notes. Print this article Print this article Friday, June 24, 2005 Revolt of the South-South No one should be surprised if President Olusegun Obasanjo suddenly decides to suspend the now problematic National Political Reforms Conference, beat a retreat as it were, and throw the entire process into the dust-bin of history. This would be the easiest, cheapest way to avoid the dangerous stalemate, the keg of gunpowder situation that the Conference has now confronted the Obasanjo government with.

The only problem though is that this would be a cowardly and treacherous option to take. Cowardly in the sense that it would amount to a postponement of the evil day. For over 40 years, the Nigerian state has refused to address the key question of nationhood, and transform itself properly into a nation-state with a shared consensus on its identity and future. An invidious kind of conspiracy has sustained Nigeria as a country of many nations, surrounded by the explosives of political, economic and social differences.

I speak of treachery in the sense that the refusal once more, of the Obasanjo government to seize this opportunity to assuage the fears of the people of the South-South would amount to nothing but an invitation to disaster. In 1999 and 2003 President Obasanjo's political ambition was enthusiastically supported by the people of the Niger Delta, and indeed in 2003, so overwhelming was this support that in at least Rivers State, President Obasanjo got close to 100 per cent of the total votes cast.

During his campaigns in that region, President Obasanjo was on record as having promised the people of the Niger Delta, the best of both Heaven and Earth, and a sympathetic resolution of the issues of justice, equity, and power-sharing that the people have continually thrown up for national consideration. The reality however, is that the Obasanjo government has not kept faith on this score with the people of the Niger Delta. It took a National Assembly veto for the NNDC Act to be passed into law. In the last six years, the Federal Government has stationed more soldiers in the Niger Delta than at any other time in recent history.

And again, in 2001, rather than address the defects in the 1999 Constitution, inherited from the military, the Obasanjo government had tried to re-invent the Petroleum Decree of 1969, which the Babangida administration had abrogated, by re-introducing the onshore-offshore dichotomy in determining the allocation of oil and gas revenue. Before then, Governors of the South-South geo-political zone had fought bitterly to get the Federal Government to pay the 13 per cent derivation enshrined in Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution with effect from May 29, 1999. These Governors held several meetings in Asaba, and later Benin, where they insisted on resource control, an issue that was further dramatised in a Supreme Court case that was determined in April 2001.

To all intents and purposes, President Obasanjo was not looking forward to a controversial National Conference. If he wanted a talk shop, considering in any case that the Conference was set up on principles borrowed from the Olubadan monarchical structure which ritualises gerontocracy, President Obasanjo did not bargain for what has now happened: the radicalisation of the Conference by the South-South. The first lesson to be extracted from this- the walk-out by South-South delegates, the refusal of Northern delegates to give the South-South free scope for its demands, and the adjournment of the Conference - is that there is no way Nigeria can run away from its own national questions. Even if the Conference is aborted, the issue would come up another day, for it is about POWER and RESOURCES and ultimately the survival of the Nigerian state.

A detailed historical review of the beginnings of the crisis in the South-South may detain us unnecessarily in the present exercise but there are certain key points that need to be established. The first is that oil is the curse of Nigeria. If the politics of oil continues to be mismanaged; it would be the end of Nigeria. Before 1960, the minorities in the Nigerian Federation had complained loudly about their marginalisation in the colonial arrangement which recognised and promoted only the interests of the majority groups. In 1957, the Willink Commission had established this concern to be true and genuine but these were left unaddressed with the hope that under a Federal Constitution, the fears of the minorities would be taken care of.

The tragedy of Nigerian history is that this has not happened, thus creating an endless rivalry with threats to national unity between majority and minority groups. The struggle for power and resources became worse with the discovery of oil, and the regression of the national economy into a mono-cultural trap. The present struggle is about the control of resources or derivation, with the oil-rich South-South states insisting on a minimum of 25 per cent derivation, to be increased eventually to 50 per cent derivation, or as the South-South Governors had declared in 2000-2001, 100 per cent control with only royalties and taxes to be paid to the Federal Government.

It is curious that there is so much furore over derivation; for before 1969, this was not the case. Section 34 (I) of the 1960 Constitution as well as Section 140 (I) of the 1963 Republican Constitution provided 50 per cent derivation. The civil war changed this, and by 1969 with the Petroleum Decree of that year introduced by the Gowon government, the Federal Government discarded the revenue formula that had been agreed by the regions and the federal government in 1954. The Gowon government introduced this decree to establish full federal control over the oil resources; it was the prize that the Nigerian government awarded itself for winning the civil war.

Successive governments found it convenient to hold on to this power over resources, and the unitary state that had emerged. As the sale of crude oil brought enormous resources, and easy money, with our excess crude earnings now about N1.15 trillion, the country became indolent. Government officials looted the oil money, and awarded oil blocks and other facilities to themselves, their agents and friends. States and regions which were established as centres of economic activity prior to 1969 became rent-collection units. The Federal Government collected oil revenue, and states went to Abuja to collect their share.

The bitter, second lesson, is that this easy money did not translate into development, rather it encouraged greed, and a desperation for the control of the Federal Government, and its increasing powers. In practical terms, every other economic resource in the country was abandoned: the Western region which had been sustained by cocoa, and other resources and 50 per cent derivation suddenly stopped being creative; the North abandoned its groundnut pyramids, its hides and skin, the Middle Belt closed down its tin mines, ignored its reserves of uranium, and in the East, the coal mines, home of about the finest grade of coal in the world, were left to grow into bushes. Farmers across the country deserted the villages, everyone wanted to be in the city to share out of oil money. Oil had become gold, and it was proudly referred to as the national cake.

If the oil resources had been distributed on a just and equitable basis, perhaps there would have been no problem. But while the rest of the country lived in open affluence, spending the proceeds of oil exploration, the people of the Niger Delta whose soil and waters produce the oil wealth which accounts for 95 per cent of Nigeria's contemporary resource base, wallowed in abject poverty. The Niger Delta is not just an endangered region, since the days of the Royal Niger Company, its people have grown from poverty to poverty; and throughout this history, they have resisted this marginalisation, this injustice: it is the refusal to listen to them that has now radicalised the entire region fully and irretrievably.

The people have turned their anger on oil companies, and the Nigerian state, and they have produced heroes of their own struggle in the process. Every Nigerian government tries to resolve the issue through legalism or the introduction of development projects that are in the real sense anti-development in orientation and execution, or at best no more than mere tokenisms. But the solution is political. It is so to the extent that it is about federalism; and the creation of a Nigerian state in which every Nigerian can be a shareholder, and a contributor, not a parasite, or rent-collector.

The only solution is for Nigeria to return to its pre-1969 position on revenue allocation, whereby every state shall be entitled to 50 per cent derivation. The victorious argument cannot be that of the lazy parasite, or the venal rent-collector such as is being articulated by the political North, or as previously disingenuously argued in Bala Usman's pamphlet, The Misrepresentation of Nigeria in which he argues that the North should be entitled to 60 per cent of oil revenue because the oil and gas resources in the Niger Delta were formed by deposits that flowed from the North. Nothing can be more simple-minded, and it is clear that the people of the South-South would never be persuaded by this brand of unscientific politics, which sadly has many adherents in the North.

The principle of resource control is not for the South-South alone; it is in fact meant to benefit the whole of Nigeria. Which is why it needs not become a South-South vs North affair, although the truth is that it is the present status quo that has sustained Northern feudalism. If states control their resources, then the Federal Government would become weaker, Abuja would become less attractive and there would be a greater emphasis on productivity and development as each state would have to start thinking more creatively about how to manage its own resources. The impasse is also not about oil alone: other related issues that would need to be re-examined and resolved include the nature and future of the Nigerian state, the collection and management of the Value Added Tax, the Land Use Act and Constitutional Review.

Whatever happens, we can only either address these problems once and for all, in keeping with the democratic spirit, or risk the infernal danger of eternal repetitiveness or postpone the evil day. Resource control is both the way to the past, and the way forward for Nigeria: we can only ignore it, over-politicise it, or force the wrong issues, at our own peril. The radical youths of the Niger Delta, those "children of Ken Saro-Wiwa" in the creeks and the oil producing communities are the ones who hold the key to that evil day not the politicians and their dubious rhetoric. In November 2001, this newspaper, The Guardian had conducted an opinion poll of 450 people from the oil-producing states who were asked whether they favoured an increase or a decrease in the 13 per cent derivation fund.

About 70 per cent of the respondents favoured an increment noting that Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution does not prescribe a ceiling on derivation, as it speaks of a minimum of "not less than 13 per cent". If a similar poll were to be conducted across Nigeria today, it is almost certain that the exercise will produce telling data about the character and nature of the Nigerian state in relation to the people's expectations. The South-South must be congratulated for successfully hijacking Obasanjo's National Conference, and for granting it the gravitas and relevance that it originally lacked. Ultimately, it is President Obasanjo who is being taught a simple lesson about power-politics.

Print this article Print this article Saturday, June 11, 2005 June 12: 12 years after By Reuben Abati

On Sunday, concerned Nigerians will celebrate the 12th anniversary of June 12, 1993: the landmark date that reminds us immediately of the unique personal and collective sacrifice that had to be made to ensure the exit of the Nigerian military from the corridors of power; to give Nigerians a fresh cause for hope, and to make today possible as a kind of triumph over the past that we all shared. It is therefore just as well that a number of groups are planning to celebrate the occasion as they have always done for both immediate and historic reasons.

The Lagos State Government has already disclosed that it considers June 12, not May 29, to be the authentic anniversary of Nigeria's return to democracy. A group that goes by the name: "June 12 Stakeholders" co-ordinated by the Oodua Peoples Congress leader, Ganiyu Adams is organising a symposium on the theme: "June 12 and the Imperatives of National Restructuring" at the Excellence Hotel, Ogba on Sunday June 12. Another group known as the "June 12 Coalition" led by Dr Beko Ransome Kuti and Wale Okunniyi, under the auspices of PRONACO, Action Group and UAD, is also planing another symposium on "June 12 and the National Question."

In addition, the coalition plans to have a rally at the Tai Solarin Square, Yaba. Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti has been quoted repeating a concern that is articulated at every turn by June Twelvers, namely that "the date June 12 should be given prominence because it is the genuine democracy day. It was the day Nigerians voted for democracy although it was annulled by the military."

The conflict that Ransome-Kuti draws attention to here needs further exploration for it is an ideological point that he makes. Since 1999, the Obasanjo government, at the Federal level, has chosen to ignore the June 12 process and its symbolism, and instead promotes May 29 as democracy day. True, it was on May 29, 1999 that Nigerians secured a clear victory, albeit in retrospect the extent of that clarity remains doubtful, over the military which had kept the country under its boots for nearly three decades. When May 29 is celebrated, Nigerians are reminded of that significant moment of their second liberation. In specific terms, the first liberation was liberation from colonial rule in 1960; the second is the liberation from military rule in 1999. And this is where the difference lies.

Those who use June 12 as benchmark are making the radical point that May 29, 1999 is the culmination of the process that began on June 12, 1993, and which dragged on for six years as a struggle between the forces of light and darkness. In the course of that struggle, many Nigerians lost their lives: children became orphans, women became widows, businesses collapsed, the country itself was on the brink of collapse; the average Nigerian suffered the loss of esteem and dignity. But the people were undaunted. Civil society rose against the evil that the military had become with their unprincipled frustration of the will of the people as expressed through the ballot box.

The celebration of June 12 is a proper recognition of the heroism of all those persons and families who suffered to make democracy possible. It is a necessary reminder of those dark days under the military, a re-invention of that moment when Nigerians of voting age were required to make a choice about their country: to join the progressives at the barricades, or team up with the renegades of power. The emphasis on May 29 seeks to discount the value of this process. It celebrates the beneficiaries of the struggle of the June Twelvers, many of whom have been shown by their own acts, in the last six years, to be thoroughly undeserving.

The construction of May 29 as the day of our second liberation was perhaps hasty, for six years later, what we have seen, what we have experienced is the fact that the exit of the military does not constitute a transition in real terms. The transition that the people seek remains elusive. The new rulers in civilian clothing have proven to be just as venal as the soldiers. And in any case, the system remains in the hands of soldiers who are pretending to behave as citizens. Unless and until there is a radical reconstruction of the ethos and purpose of power in Nigeria, the country is bound to remain a failed state. This is sad because on June 12, 1993, the people of Nigeria had made a loud statement about power across religious and ethnic divides; by casting a vote for change and progress.

Thirteen years later, there has been so much motion, but little movement. The scope of human freedoms may have been expanded but the state remains disconnected from the people. In this regard, the June Twelvers who insist on the power of the people as the main foundation of democracy are the owners of the argument. Contained in their insistence is a protest about May 29 and its aftermath, and a clarion call to civil society that the battle for the soul of Nigeria has not been won and lost. Hence, the two groups referred to earlier are focussing on "national question" and "national restructuring": both themes are relevant.

There is as well a personal angle to their protest. The focus on June 12 is in addition to everything else, meant to celebrate and honour on an annual basis, Chief MKO Abiola, the late businessman and industrialist, who was the alleged winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. He was denied victory simply because some powerful persons did not like his face. Abiola became the symbol and the hero of the June 12 struggle and he paid for it with nearly all that he had. He lost a wife to the struggle (Kudirat Abiola who was murdered in cold blood by General Abacha's gun-men). His businesses collapsed because the military made it impossible for those businesses to operate. Many of his associates were jailed, killed, brutalised or forced into exile. Abiola himself suffered humiliation and eventually died in prison custody.

His heroism and symbolism have been politicised (religion, ethnicity, geography etc) but nothing has been more scandalous than the sustained pretension by the Obasanjo government that Abiola does not matter. Against wiser counsel, President Obasanjo (now the man they could not kill with a rumour) has consistently denied MKO Abiola his due. In the heat of the June 12 politics, he had gone to South Africa to announce that "Abiola is not the messiah we seek". He is also often fingered as the architect of the Interim National Government, and the recommendation of another kinsman, Ernest Shonekan as the head of that ill-fated contraption. In six years, the Obasanjo government has refused to either honour Abiola or speak kindly about the sacrifice that he made, and to make this certain, they would rather talk about May 29, the anniversary of their own emergence.

In the Abiola matter, President Obasanjo opens himself to ready attack and blackmail. It is widely said for example, that he, Obasanjo is the chief beneficiary of Abiola's heroism, having returned from prison to harvest the fruits of Abiola's labours. In 1999, the operative consensus for the sake of peace, and to make proper amends, was that it was more advisable to allow the President to emerge from the South-West. Hence, the two Presidential candidates (Obasanjo and Falae) were both Yoruba. Those who took charge of that election even went a step further to ensure that the President also came from Abeokuta, the home-town of the late Abiola. On all counts, Obasanjo became the lucky man of history, as the rest of Nigeria willingly conceded the Presidency to the South-West. When June 12 is thrown in Obasanjo's face therefore, those who do so are more or less reminding him of his indebtedness and of the need to be humble. They go a step further to say that on the basis of the evidence of the past six years, and the subsisting crisis of democracy, he too is not the messiah that Nigeria seeks.

President Obasanjo carries a special moral burden where late Chief MKO Abiola is concerned. It is a burden that he must discharge before 2007. If he refuses to do so, a future government would have been handed an easy opportunity to play politics with the Abiola heritage, which given the determination of certain forces in civil society would be kept alive whether President Obasanjo wants that or not. He may insist that this does not matter to him one way or the other, but the truth is that it may well happen in his lifetime, and if he is acting out of any animus, he would no longer be in a position to make amends. It is remarkable for example, that when he attended a recent ceremony at the Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta (the secondary school which he and MKO Abiola attended), one of the speakers had made an issue out of Obasanjo's denigration of the memory of not just a major historical figure, but also an old schoolmate!

These June Twelvers may have strong ideological reasons for making their kind of statements, but equally useful are the lessons indicated by the Abiola family as its members try to cope with the loss of their breadwinner who died so that Nigeria could live. At a recent function in memory of Mrs Kudirat Abiola, her daughter Hafsat was reported as having lamented that old friends of the Abiola family, those who used to hang around MKO have abandoned the family and embraced other causes. Should she be surprised? The engine of Nigerian life and society runs on the oil of betrayal. The dead are so easily forgotten especially in this present-minded society. In Chief MKO Abiola's case, the battle over his Will has not been resolved. Many of his wives have found new husbands (that is life). The premises of the Concord Newspapers (the jewel of the Abiola business empire) remain under lock and key; that newspaper house where truth was constantly spoken to power has been taken over by rodents and cobwebs, the windows are falling off, the machines are silent.

Heroism is a dangerous enterprise in Nigeria; it is only those who have lost their loved ones who can tell the fuller story of how this country betrays its own. But all that perhaps would not matter, if Abiola were accorded the honour that he deserves. Beko Ransome-Kuti has offered a suggestion. He says "institutions in the country like the Abuja National Stadium, one of the airports or something ingenious should be named after him." One thing is sure though: Abiola's sacrifice will always be remembered as a pivotal symbol of Nigeria's democracy. Everyone knows this, including those who deny that this is one truth that is so self-evident. Perhaps, someday in the future, a progressive National Assembly would pass a law making June 12, a national holiday. Print this article Print this article Friday, March 04, 2005 The 'now, now' syndrome WHOEVER invented the word and the idea known as "investment" must have been a visionary humanist. Contained in this ten - letter word is the suggestion, and the understanding, and the practical advice that life should not be lived on the go. It is wiser to delay certain privileges and opportunities. It is infinitely more advisable, to save, as they say, "for the rainy day". Investment connotes the values of self-denial, discipline, patience and modesty. It is about the extension of possibilities, and a spiritual awareness of the simple truism that life does not always obey the rules of arithmetic. When a man invests, he puts a fence around himself, he links his present to the future. This sense of the future, borne out of careful planning is at the core of human civilisation. It is, essentially, what differentiates us from animals.

Of all the creatures on earth, man is set apart, by his capacity to think and debate. But unfortunately, our society is distanced progressively from the high culture, and moral values, represented by the concept of civilisation by the preponderance of a Now, Now, syndrome in the way our lives are organised. We are a society in dire need, of a sense of the future. Everybody is tied to Now and Now alone. This is dangerous for our society, because it affects everything else that ought to provide a strong foundation for our lives.

Nothing illustrates this better than the facts of everyday living. One of Pat Utomi's pet phrases is what he defines as "delayed gratification", and the benefits that accrue to a society that is patient enough to build, accumulate, wait, and then harvest. This is in contradistinction to the concept of "instant gratification", a situation in which everything is in such a state of constant motion, leaving little, or no time for thinking and planning. The difference is about values, and indeed, when we complain about the crisis of values in our land, we are dealing invariably with the culture of haste that has replaced everything else.

When I was growing up, for example, we were told not to eat anyhow, not to eat in-between meals, and not to eat while talking, or otherwise engaged. We all eat because we are hungry, and in many cultures, this very act itself is a ritual, with established rules of etiquette. But these days, all that has been abandoned. Nigerians have developed a culture of eating that is governed by the principle of haste. It is a consumerist, capitalist world, and we seem in this environment to be interested in literal consumption. We are practically, and metaphorically, in a hurry to stuff our months with food. Everywhere you turn in this country, at any moment, somebody is always eating something. People do not want to get to a table, and sit down properly before eating. No, they eat as soon as the first pangs of hunger touch their stomachs.

Their gluttony is made easy by the presence, of fast-food joints in every corner of Nigerian streets. The more modern fast food joints have been growing in a numbers in the last few years (Tantalizers, Mr. Biggs, Sweet Sensation etc), and they are in good business. In addition to them, are the pepper soup joints, Mama Put centres, "short-time" hideouts, (masquerading as hotels) and guest houses etc. When you drive on the highways, someone is always dropping a banana peel on the road, a biscuit wrapping, or a can of coke. The streets of Lagos are littered with pure water sachets because someone is always drinking water. We give the impression that we are the only hungry set of people in the world, because our stomachs simply cannot wait. It is a god that has to be worshipped as soon as it sends out a signal for propitiation. The culture of eating may seem ordinarily biological, but it is sociological as well in the sense in which it reflects our temperament as a people. Because we are a people in a hurry, we eat even in the traffic, every major road in Nigeria, is a quasi-mobile restaurant.

Our eating habits present, however, only a side of the picture. I am reliably informed, by those in the know, that even women in romance these days are motivated by the "now, now syndrome". In the past, romance used to be the highest level of high culture. Romance was then a process, in the course of which a woman was properly wooed, and sexual consummation was the climax of a drawn-out process of interaction. These days, I am told that every girl expects a relationship to begin with a sexual climax. Even the men do not want to wait. They want whatever they want "Now, Now". If a man happens to be a product of the old school, and he insists on getting to know his partner, I am informed that he is likely to be called names: "Slow Coach", Bobo Nice". And before his very eyes, the same woman goes off with a more ambitious and adventurous male. The more cultured male in Nigeria is thus a victim of the "Now, Now" syndrome. In this season of GSM telephony, nobody is allowed to wait. There is little or no room for contemplation of any form. Everything, including sex, is just a phone call away. Life is made easy by the absence of rigour.

When we think of this we should not be surprised either by the growing ordinariness of religion, as evidenced by the cynical re-interpretation of doctrine in religious places. The churches of old used to preach about after-life, and the need for the congregation to think about the eternal salvation of Heaven. The Mallams in the Mosques talked about the supremacy of the will of God. Man was expected to be satisfied with this. But in the presence of a "Now, Now" phenomenon, religion has been converted into a present-minded ritual. In today's churches, the doctrine has been brought to the level of the average Nigerian. Heaven or its opposite Hell, is no longer a distant, after-life concept, but a here and now event. The Congregation is enjoined to go to Heaven, on earth. Every pastor is a tax officer, collecting tithes from a Congregation that is anxious to embrace Heaven. Heaven is an earthly world of riches in which the Holy Ghosts have been replaced by exotic cars and palaces. Even the Mosques no longer preach too eloquently about contentment. To compete with the churches, they have also moved their worship days from Friday to Sunday. With every Nigerian seeking to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, in practical terms, here and now, "kiakia" in fact, without any delay, we are faced with a society where prosperity by any means has become a singular objective. People steal, tell lies and they go to church, or elsewhere, to give God his own share of their loot. They do so in good Conscience, because the ideas of Purgatory, Heaven and Hell, have since been revised.

This danger is more felt in public life. Every employee in an establishment, or an officer in public office is a short distance runner. Fresh employees in an organisation do not intend to build careers, they are interested in using the company as a ladder. The result is that the typical curriculum vitae of a young Nigerian is a mini-history of the Nigerian corporate sector. There are young men and women who have worked in five companies in four years. They are permanently on the move, and in the process, they give the lie to the notion that a rolling stone gathers no moss. In Nigeria, a rolling stone gathers everything. Opportunism is the name of the game. "Time waits for no one", "a stitch in time saves nine", "seize the day" - there are the de-contextualised cliches that guide the corporate climber in Nigeria.

Few companies these days have long- service workers; usually, the workers that remain are either in the junior category, or those who have grown old on the job, and are merely waiting for retirement or the majority who are in positions where they can use the company to make enough money for their own purposes. The honest employee is in short supply. The average worker is looking out for a job that will offer opportunities for instant gratification. This problem is so serious, it is a marvel how companies in Nigeria still manage to make profit. The culture of work in any context, is deepened by long-term commitment. In Nigeria, the culture of work is diminished by the greed of employees.

This is the explanation, also, for the problem of corruption in public service. Nobody can get anything out of a government department without having to gratify the "Now, Now" instinct of the civil servant. The idea of the common good is dead, as we now have in positions of authority, persons who have no vision of the future. What has happened in the school system is particularly sad. Teachers used to be the most contented members of our society. They trained other people's children enthusiastically, without any thought of immediate reward. The old teacher was happy to help build society and he drew strength from the relevance of his contributions to other people's lives. "A teacher's reward is in Heaven" was a popular slogan. But nobody uses that expression any more. Today, the new breed teacher is distracted. He also wants to be rich like everyone else. And he is willing to achieve this target at the expense of the core values of his profession. Teachers have become traders and contractors. Their students too, have learnt to be impatient. They are willing to buy good grades, and pay their way through school. They have neither the time nor the mind, for hard work. Like everyone else, they are short-distance runners, tied to "the here and now".

The principal explanation for this cultural negation is in part the destruction of the Nigerian ideal and dream by the leadership crisis of post-colonial Nigeria. Part of the responsibility of government is to give people hope, about the present and the future. For as long as anyone can remember, this country has been organised in an adversarial fashion, with the ordinary Nigerian as a victim. In those countries where people work hard, add value, and are willing to invest in their environment, they do so because doing so does not place the individual at risk. In Nigeria, nobody wants to invest in the community because our reward system is skewed, something bad has happened to our sense of priorities. This cultural question, or crisis of values, is linked to the distortions in our system. It is worth examining by the National Conference, holding in Abuja, to re-evaluate the ordinariness of our lives, the short distance between us and animals, and our remote location from the high values of human civilisation.

It probably sounds so easy writing about this, but it is sad that it is true.

Print this article Print this article Tuesday, February 15, 2005 Senators Want Pay-For-Life: Na wa O! Something new always comes out of Nigeria's National Assembly. This is not in terms of the quality service that the lawmakers render. It is not in terms of the quality of their thoughts, style or debate either. It is in terms of the surprises that they continually invent and the needless attention that they draw to their moral depravity. Our National Assembly now and in the past usually seizes public imagination rather dramatically only when the lawmakers are seeking to make laws that would promote their personal interests. They do this without either remorse or gumption, confirming the widely held view that what we are running is an alimentary form of democracy: that is the democracy, not of the people but of hungry stomachs and pockets waiting to be filled.

The latest display of this shameless conduct can be found in a bill debated by the Senate a few days ago namely: "A bill for an act to provide remuneration for former Presidents, Heads of Federal Legislative Houses and Chief Justices of the Federation". This turned out to be a controversial bill on the floor of the Senate dividing their Distinguished Right Honourables as they like to be addressed (!) into two camps. In the end, the majority had their way, although the bill was sent to the Senate Committee on National Planning for further consideration. This is a bill that should attract public interest, for it advertises nothing but the flight of values in the corridors of power, the arrogance and immodesty of public officials, the misconception of the purposes of politics, and the low quality of that assembly.

There are two issues at stake that have warranted this post-mortem, and our dismissive tone. At the heart of this bill sponsored by the Senate leader, Senator Dalhatu Tafida, is a proposal by the Senators that the emoluments of members of the National Assembly should be paid for life. Already, members of the National Assembly receive a handsome severance package when they lose their seats; they are also allowed to go about for the rest of their lives using the title "Senator". But the Adolphus Wabara-led Senate is saying that this is not enough. The members want to be treated as pensioners, drawing personal maintenance fees from the Nigerian state for the rest of their lives. And they want to amend the Constitution to this effect relying it seems on the powers granted the National Assembly in Section 80 of the 1999 Constitution, that is "Powers and control over public funds".

This is not the first time that this bill will be debated and passed into law by the National Assembly. Now, the bill has been dug up with the National Assembly adding its own members to the pension roll. Only a few Senators opposed this bill on moral grounds, and their names ought to be recorded for posterity: Messrs John Mbata (PDP, Rivers), Julius Ucha (PDP, Ebonyi), Ike Ekweremadu (PDP, Enugu), Ugochukwu Uba (PDP, Anambra) and Uche Chukwumerije (PDP, Abia). When these gentlemen wanted to articulate their objections to the bill, however, they were shouted down by their colleagues including Senate President Adolphus Wabara. But they deserve praise in this matter for their courage and common sense. Their position deserves further amplification. Nigerians must take up the matter from where they left it off and protest the greed and selfishness of the National Assembly.

While presenting the bill Senator Tafida was quoted as having drawn attention to the poor circumstances of some former Senators who did not return to the Senate in 2003, big men who have now become paupers. "I have seen some of my former colleagues who are now shadows of themselves, former Senators who come looking for N2, 000, N5,000", Senator Tafida said. Is this why a law should be passed to pay lawmakers for life? With due respect, this excuse is stupid. Members of the National Assembly should realise that they are in Abuja to serve not to turn themselves into a burden.

Since 1999, we have been having in the National Assembly, a selection of men and women whose understanding of their own place in the scheme of things has been largely warped. The National Assembly has become a place where hungry persons make money and acquire unmerited relevance. Our lawmakers are discussing how to live off the state as parasites for the rest of their lives; and we have heard them loudly and clearly. But we have not heard what they are saying or what laws they are passing about the state of public infrastructure, about education, health and national security; about Nigeria's response to the international situation; about unemployment and inflation. These issues do not concern them, rather they are always loud and ambitious in promoting their own pecuniary interests even when their own rules of conduct prevent them from doing so. Our lawmakers break laws. This is the biggest conundrum of our lives. What is worse is their low sense of values.

What kind of work have they done to make them merit "pay-for-life?" A lazy, generally unproductive assembly? And even if they can dig up any justification, no Nigerian would feel that these lawmakers should constitute themselves into such parasites. To make laws to serve personal interests is reprehensible. It amounts to an abuse of privilege. Members of the National Assembly are seeking to constitute themselves into "area boys" and "omo oniles". Anyone who has had any encounter with these two categories of Nigerians would immediately recall how unreasonable they often are. They think of nothing but their own ill-digested motives. Where does the National assembly expect Nigeria to find the money from? And what is our business with former Senators begging for N2,000 or N5, 000? Such Senators should look for work. If they are humble enough they can always find something to do.

What we are dealing with is the warped nature of our value system. Are we going to allow a law like this just to protect former Senators from begging for N2, 000? Every fool who makes it to a public office in Nigeria suddenly begins to believe that he is an eternal ward of the state. After stealing the state blind, he wants to remain in the power loop one way or the other. He or she does not care because after all, Nigeria is an oil-rich country, and we are told everyday that oil prices are rising in the international market, and the country's external reserve is rising too. So, why do any productive work when you are already part of the system? The opportunity to serve in public office should be seen as high honour that is enough in itself.

It should be noted that indeed the kind of law that the National Assembly is seeking to make had also previously been considered by the Edo and Delta states of Assembly. In these two states, the lawmakers debated bills in which they sought to impose the welfare of former Governors, Deputy governors and legislators on the state. The proposals were similarly indecent. Nigerians must be worried about the kind of persons that they elect into public offices. You may well ask whether we actually elect our representatives in the light of recent revelations. Well, we should. Whatever makes it difficult for us to do so, must be removed if we hope to enjoy the benefits of democracy. One Senator reportedly stood up and argued that legislators in other parts of the world receive remuneration for the rest of their lives! This is not true. Besides, it amounts to a comparison of apples and oranges.

What the Senate Committee on National Planning should find out is whether the legislators in other countries receive money from the state as former legislators or as beneficiaries of a functioning social security system. A Senator tried to draw attention to this distinction, he too was shouted down. What exactly do these Senators want? Their conduct is a reflection of the larger Nigerian society. Rent-collection at all levels has become a way of life and it is worse in public service. Everybody is seeking to collect rent from the Nigerian state. Very few persons are interested in service and sacrifice. The average public official is interested in himself or herself, not Nigeria. It is sad because Nigeria needs people who will defend her interests.

The second point on which the Senators were divided had to do with whether or not former military rulers should be entitled or not to pay-for-life, or whether they should remain members of the Council of state. The position of the Senators may sound populist but it is impracticable. Senator Tafida who sponsored the contentious bill and a few other Senators had argued that Section 84(5) of the 1999 Constitution excludes former military Heads of Government from pension for life. They are wrong. The aforementioned section of the constitution states as follows: "Any person who has held office as President or Vice-President shall be entitled to pension for life at a rate equivalent to the annual salary of the incumbent President or Vice-President: Provided that such a person was not removed from office by the process of impeachment or for breach of any provisions of this constitution"

The lawmakers seem to be suggesting that the Constitution needs to mention Heads of State expressly or that former military leaders had violated the Constitution and hence should be denied pension for life for that reason. Would Babangida qualify for pension for life because he used the title, President? And if Tafawa Balewa were alive, would he be denied pension because the constitution does not use the word Prime Minister? The confusion that the Senators seem to be entertaining here is compounded by the declaration in The Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution, Section 5 (c) thereof which states that the membership of the Council of State shall include "all former Presidents of the Federation and all former Heads of the Government of the Federation". Section 84(5) of the Constitution is clear enough about the categories of public officials who are entitled to pension for life. The National Assembly should not waste its time on this any further lest it creates difficulties for incumbent Heads of Government. The exclusion of former military Heads of Government from Section 84(5) and the Council of State could for example, attract both ethnic and religious protest with foreseeable implications. Their inclusion of Chief Justices of the Federation in their proposal is also curious because in any case, Chief Justices are usually civil servants who are entitled to pension anyway.

There are more important issues to which the National Assembly should devote its attention. Squabbling over pension-for-life and proposing laws that are bound to cause tension in the polity is counter-productive. And it ought not to trigger a copy-cat mentality in the State Houses of Assembly on the question of pension-for-life. The Nigerian people can use the money that the lawmakers are seeking for themselves to serve better purposes. Print this article Print this article Sunday, December 26, 2004 The Foreigner In Nigeria Nigeria has its own fair share of population of foreigners resident in the country. I guess this is the case with every nation of the world, considering the fact that human beings by their nature, are wont to distribute themselves across boundaries on account of the considerations of work, geography, and family relationships or plain curiousity or eccentricity. And I have often wondered about how the expatriate community in Nigeria feels. What do they think of us and our wondrous ways, the twists and turns of our social and political life, the endless drift towards nothing that is at the heart of the Nigerian experience? Ordinarily when you meet a foreigner in Nigeria, except he is a West African, he is likely to tell you what he thinks you want to hear. He would tell you that he is enjoying the country and that he finds the environment challenging. This is what those embassy types are likely to say. They would not add a word more. And they may remind you that they have spent a year or more in Nigeria. They are birds of passage. In another year or so, they would be posted to another country. Diplomats represent only one category of foreigners in Nigeria. They are here to work, observe and report to their home countries. As much as possible, diplomats are insulated from the crudity of life in Nigeria. Many of them living in Lagos, have never visited Agege, Alakuko, Ajegunle, Okokomaiko, Ipaja, all those funny sounding neighbourhoods which have been painted as dens of criminality. They are in fact advised never to go into the hinterland. They are restricted to Ikoyi, Victoria Island, and Abuja. When they have to travel within the country, they avoid the local airlines. The travel advice from the home country is that a Nigerian airline is a disaster waiting to happen. So they put their jeeps on the road, no matter how far the distance may be. The real danger is that the knowledge of the diplomat in Nigeria is often restricted to what he reads in the pages of newspapers, and the ones among them who read local newspapers are the ones who have either stayed beyond two years or whose schedule of duty requires them to do so. I doubt if there is any diplomat in Nigeria who watches Nigerian television except for the purpose of gathering useful intelligence. I doubt if they drink made-in-Nigeria water. What they know about us is restricted therefore to contacts with select members of the elite group: an unreliable representation of the Nigerian community which is likely to be more interested in whatever opportunities such contacts may be bring; persons who are ready to sell their country with their mouths, if this would satisfy the psychological feeling of being recognised as an important person! In other parts of the world, diplomacy requires a close integration with the community, understanding the ways and mores of the people, getting into the groove of the environment. But in Nigeria, the unspoken impression is that the diplomat in Nigeria thinks that he is on a punishment posting. He doesn't know why he is here, what he is doing here, and why he should have been given this punishment in the first place. I admit nonetheless, that in the course of my work in the public arena in the last few years, I have met quite a few exceptions to what I am describing: diplomats and development workers who truly fell in love with Nigeria, men and women who related with every Nigerian that came their way as a brother and sister. I have had friends whom we even gave local names: Oloye, Bature etc, and who with their warmth, and deep knowledge of Nigerian affairs, or their ability to speak Nigerian languages or their closeness to Nigerian families, or their readiness to help and encourage, remind you effortlessly that all men are members of the same family, irrespective of geography or colour or tongue. I pay tribute to these free spirits. Each time anyone of them had to leave Nigeria, the parting was always painfully made. A part of each and every one of them always remained behind. But they constitute the minority. The true face of the diplomat in Nigeria is that of the visa officer at the various embassies. Nigerians have many tales of woe to tell about the visa officer. It is just as well that many of the embassies are adopting visa application methods which reduce contact with frowning, racist visa officers who with one look and statement convey the embassy's impressions about Nigeria. There is yet a second category of foreigners: The Asians who are mostly otherwise categorised as Indians even if they are from Sri Lanka, Or Malaysia or Pakistan or Myanmar. But the more distinct group is the Chinese. They are all over Nigeria. They are in charge of many of the businesses in the land, and in the last few years, particularly under President Obasanjo, Asians have been spreading across the land, in virtually every area of our lives, like cancer. They must be given a special credit for bringing a special dynamism to the entrepreneurial culture in Nigeria, for creating jobs and opportunities, for teaching Nigerians a few lessons about service delivery and the psychology of the consumer. However, Nigerians like to criticise the Asians in their midst. They claim that they are slave drivers as employers of labour; they insist that they pay poor wages, or that they are not committed to Nigeria's development. But what no one can take from the Asian in Nigeria: be he India, Sri Lankan or Chinese, is that he or she feels truly at home. There is no part of the city or the country that they do not go to. They have no psychological hang-ups like the Caucasians; they may feel superior, but they do not wear that feeling as a defence mechanism; they live among the people and identify with them to the extent that cultural differences can permit. It would be hard for example to see a Chinese girl with a Nigerian boyfriend! Or a group of Chinese having a meal with Nigerians in a Chinese restaurant. They tend to maintain a certain distance. Invariably every cultural group in a foreign land, bonds together and seeks to maintain its own independent identity. The third group is the Lebanese community. For some reason, Nigerians seem to hate the Lebanese in Nigeria, and I guess this is partly for historical and cultural reasons. The Lebanese are a gregarious, go and get the results type of community. They have been in Nigeria for so long that many of them in fact insist that they are Nigerians. They speak any local language that you can think of. They are not afraid of anybody. They know Nigeria inside out. They compete with Nigerians in beating the system and taking advantage of it. They are perhaps the only group of foreigners with a different colour who have resolved that they are in Nigeria to stay. Whereas the diplomat or the Asian is here to work and hopes to return home someday, the Lebanese insists that he is a stakeholder in Nigeria. Indeed, they are the only ones who speak of Lebanese-Nigerians. If care is not taken, a Lebanese may one day aspire to a political office in Nigeria. In spite of this cultural integration however, the average Nigerian thinks that the Lebanese feels unduly superior whereas he lacks the moral basis for his haughtiness. Besides, the Lebanese keep their women away from adventurous Nigerian men. The men mix, but the women are just not available; they maintain an invisible presence. The fourth category of foreigners is the parachuters: these are either tourists, visiting government officials, portfolio investors, media correspondents, development consultants or conference participants. These ones know nothing about Nigeria other than the prejudicial information in their heads, but still they pretend to be experts about the Nigerian condition. Some of the media correspondents may know a lot from what they pick up on the internet, but the danger with parachuters generally is that they do a lot damage because of the influence that they wield. The majority of Nigerians are not even aware of their existence. They come in and go as their schedules demand. The fifth category comprises the West Africans and Africans. Due to cultural and racial affinity, these ones do not particularly stand out. They find it easier to integrate themselves into the Nigerian community. Many of them are actually Nigerians. They carry Nigerian passports and may have lived here all their lives since the time of their grandfathers. They know Nigeria as well as everyone else. They vote during elections. They join in the political debate. They are in the armed forces, corporate Nigeria, and they have held political offices. Many of them no longer publicly indicate that they are from another country, and the ones that do so are careful not to overstate the fact in public. They have houses and other property in Nigeria, in fact, there are Ghanaians who sell land in Nigeria! Nigerians are indifferent to the presence of their ECOWAS brothers and sisters in particular, tension is reserved almost exclusively for those rare moments when an ECOWAS or African tries to put down Nigeria. Then, the Nigerian feels compelled to act superior. He may be intimidated by other foreigners but the average Nigerian thinks that he is the most important person on the African continent!

The foregoing categories are by no means exhaustive, since I have not talked about the odd businessman from a foreign country, with a small population in Nigeria (may be not even up to ten) who then chooses to stay in Nigeria, marry one of our women and produce Nigerian children for the future. But if we may attempt a reading of the mind of the foreigner in Nigeria, we would discover that, across the various categories, the impressions and attitudes are similar. Nigeria never ceases to amaze the outsider. They are all aware that every country has its own problems but they are amazed how Nigerians manage to survive from one year to another, one government to another, under so much chaos. The foreigners in our midst do not take us seriously. They think this is a lawless country where anything can be done, where there are no rules and the leadership is infernally corrupt. So, every foreigner tries to do in Nigeria what they would never attempt in their own countries. Embassy officials use racist language, Asians pay their workers slave wages, foreign-owned businesses in general abuse the expatriate quota. They do not allow Nigerians in strategic positions such as the cash office, or the leadership of sensitive departments because they believe that the Nigerian is a potential thief waiting for an opportunity to steal. They do not respect Nigerian institutions because they know that as a foreigner if you are willing to pay the right price or offer incentives, the Nigerian in a position of authority will treat you more kindly than his own compatriot. Multinational companies doing business in Nigeria do not observe their own international standards. They do not have to, once they bribe the men in authority. Generally, every outsider sees how powerless Nigerians are, how they are treated shabbily by their own leaders, and so, they take advantage of the situation. We cannot blame the outsider. We lack the moral right to do so. Why should we complain about the Asian entrepreneur who pays poor wages when many Nigerian employers do not even pay their workers at all? Why should we grumble about visa officials when it is so difficult to get a Nigerian passport from a Nigerian office? Why should we complain about the Lebanese when Nigerians are among the most corrupt in the world? Why do we want others to treat us with respect when we treat one another so badly. If I were a foreigner living in Nigeria, I would find it difficult to respect Nigerians too.

Robot  # 1 | 13.11.2005 03:53

By Reuben Abati"...take a census of the whole Israelites community by their class and their families everyone by name..." (Numbers 1: 1-4)The proposed Population Census 2005 scheduled to take place in November was one of the issues that engaged our attentio...Read the full article.