New season, same old political tricks

The days of electioneering are here again. Politics has since taken the better part of the polity. It’s all right if the politicians are the ones in the thick of it, never okay for state institutions meant to be independent to get involved in it. That is where the rest of us should get worried. This is where I have a problem with the recent statement of the acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), Suleiman Abba, that his institution will collaborate with other security agencies “to ensure that candidates with criminal records are not allowed to contest the election”.

It is a no brainer that any serious society would not want to see its governance structure, especially the elected positions, populated by criminals. It is equally nothing spectacular for a police chief to state that he would move against criminals. Pray, isn’t that what we pay our police to do anyway? On the face of it, therefore, the police boss should be commended for this position. But then, we know these are unusual times in an unusual clime. So some of us have to see beyond what is stated.

Notice that the police boss did not talk about ‘criminals’, but persons with ‘criminal records’. And both connote different things with different legal meanings. While a criminal is someone involved in criminal activities, someone with ‘criminal records’ could mean a criminal, a convict, an ex-convict and even an accused. Are these the whole array of persons the police boss wants to move against? More importantly, why is this planned investigative collaboration among the security agencies limited to or focused on election only? That, therefore, raises questions of political undertones and could possibly link the police to allegations of partisanship.

To be sure, the only lawful way to stop someone from contesting an election on account of criminality is to show that the person is a convict. It is not enough that the person has a ‘criminal record’. After all, what does it take to create a criminal record apart from an allegation of crime, and bingo, a person becomes one with ‘criminal record’, no matter how unreasonable and unfathomable? So then, in the wisdom of the police, that is enough to make a person liable to be stopped from seeking election.

Even if we have strong reasons to believe that someone has committed a crime, we still need a court conviction to stop them from standing election; otherwise they can stand election, even when they are in lawful police or court custody. And that was what happened to Senator Iyiola Omisore and Governor Theodore Orji in 2007.

The point must be made that the police and all law enforcement agencies ought to be interested in ridding the society of crime or bursting criminal activities through investigation, prevention and prosecution at all times. If the police and other law enforcement agencies have all along failed to prosecute ‘politicians with criminal records’, it is mischievous and dubious to use such information as cheap blackmail just to stop them as candidates. And if our history on this is anything to go by, immediately after the elections, when the law enforcement agents would have effectively stopped certain politicians from advancing their political interests, nothing else happens. The cases are usually abandoned.

Flash back to 2007. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other agencies like the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) were ready tools in the hands of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration to frustrate the political ambitions of some politicians, notably the then Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, on allegations of corruption. EFCC even brandished a notorious list from its supposed black book (white book, it should be actually) of ‘indicted politicians’, from which many politicians had to fight with every drop of their blood to extricate themselves.

It took Atiku several months of ingress and egress in the law courts, up to a couple of days to the presidential election, for the Supreme Court to save him from being disqualified. The Supreme Court held then, rightly so, that anything short of a court conviction did not amount to an ‘indictment’ weighty enough to disqualify a person from standing election. Interestingly, after the elections for which the ‘criminal record’ politicians are harassed, they are hardly ever moved against by way of prosecution for their alleged criminal records. And if they ever are tried, there is lack of diligent prosecution. Which means this whole thing was all politics.

We cannot continue repeating the same atrocious strategy every election season.

Published in The Niche newspaper on Sunday September 28, 2014. - See more at: http://www.thenicheng.com/new-season-old-political-tricks/#sthash.FiTEPja9.dpuf

Lies, blatant lies and statistics

While we were up about doing so many other things, in the first half of this year, more than 500,000 people got new jobs in the country. Yes you read that correctly. More than half a million people in Nigeria got ‘new’ jobs between January and June of this year, and those jobs never existed before now. They were created within our economy, which is now Africa’s largest, in case you’ve forgotten. And that information is coming from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Their exact figure says 500,224 jobs!

Now, if you still know someone who didn’t get a job during that period, you need to find out under what rock the person had been hiding all through that time to have missed out on this windfall from our economy. He or she would be forgiven, however, if he was one of those who were scammed in the name of job opportunities in the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment or even died in the process, for they would be excused for at least trying but failing.

NBS said 334,680 of those jobs were created in the informal sector, 154,773 in the formal sector, and 10,771 in the public sector. But seriously, how did the NBS arrive at these figures? Perhaps, it is possible to count how many new jobs have emerged in the public sector, but the private sector, formal and informal, I have my reservation. What is being defined as jobs anyway? We need some details on those too or we may never comprehend. Just as we get confused to read figures of growth of the economy without a corresponding improvement in the wellbeing of citizens.

And do those jobs include part-time, temporary and under-paid jobs or simply under-employments? But that is what statistics does most times. It gives figures without giving meanings to them. That explains why government can pride itself as having increased funding to a particular sector of the economy through the budget. But by the time one analyses the figures, one finds that much of the increases go to overheads, not to capital projects needed to enhance development.

So in effect, anybody can bandy figures and many others would fall for it. What amazes me, though, is when the media goes to town with such figures without interrogation or an attempt to explain that the figures were claims by those who bandied them. Sometime in 2013, the media in Nigeria were awash with report of an event in Zamfara. Most of them reported that about 8,000 women, comprising widows and divorcees went on a protest march, demanding government to help take care of their needs. Who verified the number and authenticity of those figures, apart from what the event organisers put out? Not the news reporters who were too lazy to even add the description that the organisers ‘claimed’ to have that number among their protesting group.

There is another use of statistics in recent times. The group known as Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) has been feeding us with so much statistics that few care to question. At its Port Harcourt rally, it claimed to have collected 4,150,000 signatories from the six states of the South South, just like it claimed some other huge figures in the South East, South West and North Central. The media, as usual, reported those figures as facts.

This must sure remind many of the one million man march for Sani Abacha which was immediately responded to by the two million man march. It was up then for people to choose what figures to believe. So next time you hear those statistics being bandied, just remember what someone once said: “There are three levels of lies; lies, blatant lies and statistics!”

Published in The Niche newspaper of Sunday September 21, 2014. - See more at: http://www.thenicheng.com/lies-blatant-lies-and-statistics/#sthash.XQa3tq6E.dpuf

From Valencia Hotel to Arsenal House...

Hey, do you remember the names of houses in your alma mater back then? No, I am not talking to people who went to schools with house names like Blue House, Green House and the likes. I am addressing people whose houses had real names, and often with a good sense of history attached to them.

Ever wondered what houses are named in contemporary schools today? I saw one today and was I amazed. All through this afternoon and evening, across much of Gwarinpa area of Abuja, motorists were confronted with fliers of one of those private schools that prides itself as an ‘academy’, in a last ditch effort to woo parents to consider choosing the school for their children and wards.

On the fliers were photos of nice-looking homely environments and children at play. I was just going through it when my ever critical eyes found the names of the houses which were named after...wait for it, English football clubs! So I saw Arsenal House, Liverpool House and Manchester United House. Now if that isn't ludicrous, tell me what is?

Okay, okay, more ridiculous than that is the fact that we have a little too many hotels in Abuja, named after foreign football teams. So there are hotels named Chelsea, Valencia, Barcelona, Bolton (White) and Trafford. Naija na wah! 

Playing yo-yo with schools’ resumption

Following the outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) and our country’s actions to contain it, government did something commendable. It considered how long it might take to contain the danger and reduce the risk of fresh infections, especially of children as one of the most vulnerable. Government then came to the conclusion that it was wise to tread with caution and therefore directed that all schools, public and private, should remain shut, and even those organising holiday coaching should immediately close down until October 13. 

 

Government said then that it would use the period to strengthen its responses, including sharing of appropriate information and mandatory training of at least two staff in each school on how to manage, address and contain the Ebola problem. In the words of the Education Minister, Ibrahim Shekarau: “This is to ensure that adequate preventive measures are put in place before the students report back to school. All state Ministries of Education are to immediately organise and ensure that at least two staff in each school, both public and private, are trained by appropriate health workers on how to handle any suspected case of Ebola and also embark on immediate sensitisation of all teaching and non-teaching staff in all schools on preventive measures. This training of staff must be concluded not later than September 15, 2014.”  

Naturally, there were mixed reactions, expectedly, from a large and diverse country as ours. One question that a few persons asked was: why schools? After all, other gatherings of large number of persons like markets and religious meetings were still happening. Some thought the decision to close only schools reflected our society or government’s attitude towards education, i.e. a low priority. A few parents made fun of how they were going nuts, managing bored children over a period of three months with attendant cost of feeding.

  

By far, the most embarrassing criticism of government was the reminder that while schools were ordered closed, major religious camp meetings and conventions cautioned from being held, the president’s political associates were out campaigning. Those ones have been jumping about from city to city every weekend, organising the rallies to ‘plead’ with President Goodluck Jonathan to run for presidency again in 2015, reminiscent of the Gen. Sani Abacha ‘One Million Man March’ charade.  

One group of persons, however, was already counting other kinds of costs. Some operators of private schools did not in any way find the decision interesting. One of them told a national newspaper that government should have allowed schools like hers that “have the wherewithal to forestall the disease to go ahead and resume”. According to her, there is already a huge campaign on washing of hands, and since the outbreak of the disease, she had instructed that every child’s temperature must be checked at the gate, to ascertain if it is high or low before they can be admitted into the premises. She concluded that theirs is to do their best “while the rest is left for God”. How nice! Apparently taking more precaution does not fall within that range of ‘doing their best’.  

The effect of that August 26 decision of the federal government, difficult as it looked, was that many families had to re-programme their plans, including financial plans. But just a week after, the government again took a turn around, suggesting that it is likely to change that decision. On Wednesday, September 3, the federal government claimed to have done enough to contain the situation and said the resumption date may come sooner than the October 13 date. The government on Friday actually fixed September 22 as the date for resumption of schools.  

What is confusing, however, is what specific thing government has done within one week to warrant the consideration of a change. More importantly, it does not seem as if any training has yet been done for teaching and non-teaching staff of schools as promised by the government. This is even as the risk of infection has increased, with more persons under watch for having had close contact with infected persons.   So who or what is really behind government’s change of position? Have they considered the real risk for children or even the cost, financial, mental etc for the parents as government keeps playing yo-yo with this decision. Having already shifted the resumption date, government’s best action should have been to do all it can to ensure that the October 13 date is realistic, rather than hastily reopening schools.

 - See more at: http://www.thenicheng.com/playing-yo-yo-with-schools-resumption/#sthash.7HjuYLMm.dpuf