And Nigeria conquered Ebola

This past week, Nigeria had its moment in the sun as the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared it ‘Ebola-free’. It was a journey that took us three months to complete. It also set us back financially. But more importantly and most painfully, we lost some of our wonderful citizens and health professionals. No need to brood over the fact that the virus was not autochthonous to Nigeria, but came from you-know-where and who. Let’s just allow ebola-gones be ebola-gones.

Let’s look at all the sides of that unfortunate incident and the nearly three-month long stress and fear we collectively went through as a country. It even led to panic measures such as the laughable bitter kola and the salt water therapies which also caused us international embarrassment. Of course, many people also made a tidy treasure of the situation in the sale of personal hygiene products at exorbitant prices.

On a brighter side, though, the situation brought us changed and more hygienic lifestyles. We learned not to take chances about a lot of things. Hand-washing became central to every gathering and hand sanitisers became new-found partners to many people. I observe that those little bottles of hand sanitisers have increasingly pushed out the bottles of ‘anointing oil’ often carried by some people like amulets.

Our victory over Ebola did not come easy. We even shut down our schools until we were properly prepared to handle students. Today in many schools, there are preventive measures taken against Ebola and other infections. And our children, whom we worried about more, are gradually becoming hygiene ambassadors, reminding others to wash their hands and use sanitisers regularly. I even hear there is an Ebola awareness anthem in one of the states. That’s the power of a campaign that targets everyone.

But we must recall the initial panic, where, as usual, we thought the solution necessarily lay outside Nigeria. I remember the desperation with which we went begging the United States for the use of a trial drug it kept close to its chest. And when we were denied, many citizens thought we were on the road to more suffering, while accusing the U.S. of double standards.

Talking about not just the U.S. but the Western world, the outbreak of Ebola also helped to unravel a few things about them. When the Ebola virus broke out in Nigeria, many citizens opined that we should stop flights from countries with high incidence of the virus or even close our borders to them. But a particular advisory supposedly from the Center for Diseases Control (CDC) of the U.S., quoted by some U.S. agencies, said it was unnecessary to do so as infection of co-passengers was very slim.

Fast forward to October (just three months after), with infections recorded in U.S. and a few Western countries, the attitude seems to have changed. Now flights from the ‘country’ they call Africa are held in suspicion. During the week, I had to call attention of online respondents on a U.S. news website that there are 54 countries in Africa and that even if three countries therein had cases of Ebola, it was no reason to stigmatise people from the entire continent. Apparently, the attitude of the West stemmed from more than double standards, but more about ignorance of geography. After all, didn’t the renowned Cable News Network (CNN) publish a West African map designating Nigeria where Niger is?

Well, it’s good to know that Ebola is out of the way now. We all deserve to share in the pride, just as we were together in the fear, panic and even stigmatisation while it lasted. The point must be made again that our sense of hygiene and attention to health issues has been the better for it after the dark cloud.

But we shouldn’t forget the sacrifices of our compatriots who went down with Ebola for the rest of us to stay safe. Neither should we forget the lessons and new lifestyle we imbibed during that sad period. We should sustain the tempo and remain alert. One fact we must acknowledge and work on is that if we came together to defeat Ebola, there are lots of other things we can come together to also fight and conquer. How about corruption? How about terrorism?

http://www.thenicheng.com/nigeria-conquered-ebola/#sthash.J4wnDWQR.dpbs 

Deepening culture of official extortion

With the introduction of access fees for prospective corps members under the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), we can safely say that Nigeria has turned full circle in its culture of official extortion. Under the arrangement, fresh graduates, who are meant to undergo compulsory one year of service to fatherland, are now required to access their letter of mobilisation online; to do so, they are forced to pay N4,000 as access fee.

Before you think someone is just making that up to discredit the NYSC, listen to the ‘justification’ coming from the Director General of NYSC, Brig. Gen. Johnson Olawumi: “Benefits associated with the full computerisation of the mobilisation process are unquantifiable when lives of prospective corps members that would be saved from road accidents are taken into account.”

Wow! That must go down in record as one of the most imaginative official explanations for official extortion. In order words, for NYSC so loved the youth that it forced them to pay N4,000; that whosoever of them has to go for youth service shall not be exposed to road accident but be blessed virtually.

It is totally unacceptable to charge prospective corps members a fee for being called upon to serve their country, more so when the service is specified and made compulsory by law. Even if many see the service as a form of employment and therefore financially beneficial to the participants, it is still unconscionable to extort these youths on their way to working for the country or earning their potentially first income.

This bizarre way of doing things didn’t start with the NYSC though. Seven months ago, it was a shocked nation that found out that the Ministry of Interior was extorting N1,000 from each hapless youth desperate to be recruited into the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS). At the end of the day, the recruitment was so badly bungled, leading to scores of citizens being trampled to death in various locations across the country. And as it has become standard practice here, nobody was reprimanded, let alone punished, for either the extortion or the deaths of citizens. The dead simply died in vain and a certain Abba Moro, under whose watch the disaster happened, still struts on as minister.

It is even more worrisome to know that fees are also charged for applications into the military forces in Nigeria. In May this year, the Nigerian Army put a fee of N2,500 to access its recruitment application portal.

It would be important for NYSC and other fee-for-employment agencies to tell us which consultancy firms are behind these internet extortions on behalf of the organisations and where the proceeds from these are paid into and accounted for. Do these agencies pay these sums to the coffers of government? Do the sums form part of the revenues of government which, by the provisions of the constitution, must go into the consolidated revenue fund?

As straight-forward a fraud as these extortions seem, many citizens would still not get it that it is the responsibility of the person who wishes to hire someone to serve it to foot the bill for such hiring. But in Nigeria, we have perfected the art of working in reverse order, such that the ridiculous becomes the norm.

But even if some citizens do not appreciate the illegality in this or are weak to resist it, one expects the government, especially the legislature, to know better and put a stop to this.

The truth, though, is that the legislature has made very lame efforts in the past to curb this, but failed to ensure compliance. For instance, in October 2013, the House of Representatives joint committee on Public Service Matters, Employment, Labour and Productivity as well as those of Anti-corruption, National Ethics and Values directed the NIS to refund the illegal amount it charged applicants.

Apparently, the directive was ignored. Even when the disaster with the recruitment occurred five months later, nothing still happened to enforce the directive. The question then is: where is that committee in all these?

http://www.thenicheng.com/deepening-culture-extortion/#sthash.9upbHrI7.4WUYitUD.dpbs

Our democracy and representation disaster

An interesting incident during last week’s Sallah – an innocuous social media posting by me and a barrage of comments and queries following that – set me thinking about how much of democracy we have really imbibed in Nigeria after 15 years of, well, democratic rule. One must quickly make the point that at the heart of democracy is the representation of the interests of citizens by a select few, chosen by the majority. 

What triggered everything was the presentation of a greeting card to President Goodluck Jonathan by his Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Olajumoke Akinjide, wherein the media reported that she made the presentation ‘on behalf of residents of Abuja’.

Being a resident of Abuja myself and not being aware of any mandate we gave the minister to make the presentation, I posed a rhetoric question about that and soon enough I got a mixed bag of reactions. While I recognised each person’s entitlement to their views, I was worried, however, when citizens failed to see beyond the ordinary event of a card presentation and claims of representation.

I made the point that because Abuja residents did not discuss, agree, endorse, mandate or otherwise authorise a card issued on our behalf. The actions of the minister failed the test of representation known to democracy. In fact, if the report had said the card was presented by some Abuja residents (privileged, connected to or ‘worshipping’ in the corridors of power), I would not have complained.

And truly, I have no problem with anyone or any group of persons presenting or sending greeting cards to the president. I was simply using the event as a peg to raise issues as to how decisions are purportedly taken on behalf of citizens and mandates wrongly assumed and appropriated, without the knowledge of the supposed constituents. I was looking at issues of mandate, representation, citizens’ right to speak for themselves, public space etc.

I recall how, as a one year resident in the United Kingdom, I regularly received newsletter delivered to my house from the councillor of my constituency, informing me (and other residents) of previous and upcoming debates in the city council and seeking our views. On one occasion, we were informed of the debates for and against the proposed siting of a communications mast in our neighbourhood.

By contrast, in Nigeria, there is proliferation of cabals and caucuses, populated and constituted arbitrarily, and all purporting to speak for the rest of the society. Often, the only whiff of link to the people’s mandate is, as in the instant case, being appointed to a political position. It is specious for such persons to assume mandates that do not exist in a democracy.

I recall an interesting scenario during the attempt to foist ‘third term’ on Nigerians under former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Then many senators kept saying in the chambers and to a live television audience that they had consulted their constituencies and their constituencies mandated them to support ‘third term’. A former state governor dismissed the claim of the senator representing him, saying the man never held any consultation with the people but was merely regurgitating the position of a select group of self-serving and self-preserving politicians that called itself the ‘state forum’. The senator never responded to that allegation.

  

It is in the character of many politicians to claim mandates and powers they know they don’t have. What is worrisome, however, is where the citizens, including the elite class, display ignorance of the illegitimacy of such claim or acquiesce thereto, sometimes for selfish or pecuniary interests. Somebody actually said that by the minister’s appointment, she is working daily on our behalf; so “she has the mandate to make any presentation for whoever is resident in Abuja”. It is this same mentality that makes state governors promise candidates in election that they will deliver all the votes of their states to the candidate, even when the governor has only one valid vote. And the citizens in that state will be celebrating in their ignorance that their ‘leader’ has spoken.

If after 15 years of uninterrupted constitutional governance, citizens are still locked in discussing such pedestrian issues as above, then we are far away from redemption and our democracy is skin deep. As we say around here, we don enter one chance vehicle.

- See more at: http://www.thenicheng.com/democracy-representation-disaster/#sthash.Z2tjvo9p.dpuf

Ngilari: Law, Equity And Justice

While the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was busy in Adamawa State, finalising its preparations for the gubernatorial bye-elections in that state, the Federal High Court in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) ordered INEC to forget about the election. According to the court, in the eyes of the law, the governor of the state is Mr Bala Ngilari, the former deputy governor. That same day, Ngilari was sworn in as governor, on the basis of the court judgment.

Recall that the Adamawa State House of Assembly had earlier in the year commenced impeachment proceedings against the then Governor Murtala Nyako and the then Deputy Governor Bala James Ngilari. As the proceedings progressed, Ngilari submitted a purported letter of resignation to the House. On the basis of the purported resignation, the House stopped the impeachment proceedings against him; not so the proceedings against the governor who was eventually impeached. With the governor and deputy governor out of the way, the speaker of the House had to step in as acting governor, as provided by the Constitution.

Curiously Ngilari turned round to challenge the authenticity of his own purported resignation, saying it did not follow the constitutional provision. No doubt, by Section 306(5) of the Constitution, a deputy governor’s letter of resignation should be addressed to the governor. That said, Ngilari could only have resigned if he had given the letter of resignation to then Governor Nyako. Failure to do so meant that his purported resignation was a nullity. Therefore, at the time Nyako was impeached, Ngilari remained the deputy governor and ought to have stepped in as the new governor. But that is as far as the literal and simple interpretation of the Constitution goes, which is what the Federal High Court decided on Wednesday October 8 and caused Ngilari to be sworn in as the governor of Adamawa State.

Yet, there is another consideration one expected the judge to avert his mind to but did not. And that is the question of equity. Could a person be allowed to take advantage of his wilful abuse of process or failure to follow the due process? The fact remains that Ngilari, like his principal, Nyako, was facing a legitimate, legal and constitutional process of review of their actions while in office. In his attempt to avoid the certainty of impeachment, Ngilari tendered a ‘resignation’ which the House of Assembly relied upon and excused him from being proceeded against to a conclusion of a possible impeachment. Unless Ngilari pleaded ‘non est factum’ by claiming that the said letter purporting to be a resignation was not issued by him or its issuance was a fraud, done undue duress or coercion etc, he must be taken to have issued it. And in that situation, it is further opined that the court ought to have deduced his intendment, which was to enter a valid resignation, even if he addressed it to the wrong party.

That is what happens in equity where it is said that ‘equity looks to the intent not to the form’. Therefore the court is expected to rely more on the substance rather than the form. See Parkin v Thorold (1852) 16 Beav 59, 66 where it was held that if it is found out that ‘by insisting on the form, the substance will be defeated, they hold it to be inequitable to allow a person to insist on such form and thereby defeat the substance’.  In doing so the court, in the Ngilari case ought to have considered that Ngilari being a lawyer knew or ought to know the seriousness attach to an official letter of resignation issued by him, in his name and addressed to a constitutional authority. On that account also, he ought to have been taken seriously as intending to resign at the time he put in the letter, even where he mistakenly, intentionally or mischievously sent it to the wrong organ of government.

Furthermore, the rules of equity do not aid a party at fault. This has been interpreted over the years to mean that the court cannot aid a person where the aid became necessary as a result of his or her own fault or carelessness or where, as in the present case, it was meant to extricate a party from a circumstance he created.

https://blogs.premiumtimesng.com/2014/10/10/ngilari-law-equity-and-justice-by-obo-effanga/

http://www.punchng.com/opinion/letters/ngilari-law-equity-and-justice/

Impunity, exception and controversy

The chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Chidi Odinkalu, raised a key issue at the Independence Day public forum called The Platform. He drew attention to the effect of impunity on Nigeria’s development. He mentioned instances where public officers feel they are superior to all others and insist on being treated preferentially. His views aligned so much with what I have also observed over the years.

My observation includes public officers with over-bloated ego, surrounded by hangers-on and sycophants who have raised sycophancy to an art. These officials find it unacceptable to share public space with the rest of us ‘mere mortals’. That is why they and their aides run other road-users off the road to pass. Odinkalu gave his personal experience of a religious leader with police entourage doing that to him.

I once flew into Abuja on the same aircraft with a deputy governor of a state who travelled with a large number of combat policemen. When we alighted and I got to the taxi rank, I saw the immediate past governor of the state, whose deputy governor I just travelled with. This former governor, who in his days as governor also moved with heavy security, took a regular airport taxi like the rest of us. A few minutes later, while we were on the airport road heading for the city, the convoy of the deputy governor ran everyone (including his former state governor) off the road to allow him an easy ride. I wondered how the former governor felt. The moral of the above incident is that political power is so transient that it is silly for people to use it to bully others.

Still talking about inordinate show of power, I also see in some offices where an elevator could be reserved for the use of just one official – such as the Minister. And where it is open to use by all, whenever the chef executive uses it, nobody else can share it with him/her. In the National Assembly, for instance, some lifts are reserved only for the use of whom they call ‘Honourable’ (sic) and ‘Distinguished’ (sic).

Interestingly, news coming from the United States (U.S.) during the week indicated that President Barack Obama recently rode an elevator with an armed felon who was acting strange. Can you beat that? The president rode an elevator with other ‘regular’ citizens? There’s just no way that could happen here, you know.

But I had a different and more positive experience this past Thursday morning in Abuja. I witnessed an ‘unusual’ scene; unusual within the Nigerian context. On my way to work, I saw this convoy of police vehicles come out of a feeder road to the major one I was on. I was ahead of them at the junction they were negotiating from, so they came behind me. My first suspicion was that the outrider on a motorbike was going to do what they usually do – run everyone else off the road, so that his principal could have a smooth ride to the office or wherever he was headed. But that did not happen.

They just kept a dignified distance and went through the few traffic bottlenecks caused by cars exiting or entering the major road. Even when we got to a point where there was a traffic warden controlling traffic, the convoy didn’t get ahead. We went on all the way until we hit a major roundabout on the way to Gwarinpa Estate and the convoy turned right and headed towards the city centre while I headed for Gwarinpa.

I do not know who it was in the convoy, but the registration number of the main car was ‘NPF-02-9’. I can only say and imagine that the person acted decently, unlike most public officers we see around who go about with bloated ego and self importance. Whoever drives that car deserves commendation and I pray he helps influence his colleagues to act as civil as he displayed that day.

As a sad postscript, though, the police still bungled that same day. Just when I thought the police would maintain a clean slate at least for a day, it turned out that same Thursday, Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of Police, Joseph Mbu, was in the news again for the wrong reason. Daar Communications, owners of Ray Power and Africa Independent Television (AIT), said Mbu had detained her reporter for allegedly referring to the police officer on television as ‘controversial’. Pray, does Mbu’s action not amount to another impunity? And if Mbu’s latest action is not controversial, I need to be taught the new definition of the word.

First published in The Niche on Sunday October 5, 2014. http://www.thenicheng.com/impunity-exception-controversy/#sthash.svfKXwPX.dpbs

Unidentified courteous police convoy (UCPC):

So this morning, I witnessed an 'unusual' scene. Unusual within the Nigerian context. On my way to work I saw this convoy of police vehicles come out of the road beside Citec's Mbora Estate. I was ahead of them at that junction so they came behind me. My first suspicion was that the outrider on a motorbike was going to do what they usually do - run everyone else off the road so that his 'oga at the top' (OATT) could have a smooth ride to the office or wherever he was headed. But he did not.
 
They just kept a dignified distance, going through the few traffic bottlenecks caused by cars exiting or entering the major road. Even when we got to a point where there was a police traffic warden controlling traffic, the convoy didn't get ahead. We went on all the way until we hit the major roundabout going to Gwarinpa Estate and the convoy turned right and headed towards the city centre while I headed to Gwarinpa.

I do not know who the OATT was but the registration number of the car is 'NPF-02-9' All I want to say is that he is a decent public officer and I pray he helps influence his colleagues to act as civil as he just displayed. Oh, well, the officer could as well be a woman. So, he or she deserves commendation.