Seventh National Assembly: The making of our 7th mega-millionaire politicians’ club?

Today the 7th Session of Nigeria’s National Assembly (NASS) will be inaugurated. The Senate (as upper chamber) made up of 109 members and the House of Representatives (as the lower chamber) made up of 360 members, constitute the apex of our legislature and supposedly a reflection of our aspirations as a nation.

Typically, the polity has been heated with the politicking and horse-trading as to who should be elected presiding officers of the legislative houses and why. But just last night, the speaker of the just ended House of Representatives (Dimeji Bankole) was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), allegedly for a loan collected by the House of Representatives under his watch to the tune of N10bn. The details and purport of the loan had become a source of embarrassment in the twilights of the 6th Session of NASS.

The recent happenings must set the tone for today’s pomp in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja. The members to be sworn in, in both chambers must have a thought as to how to or how not to conduct business as usual, if they want to make a difference. But that may be asking for too much.

It seems, from the reports in the media, that from January 2010, the Reps of the now extinct 6th Session approved/accepted an increase of their quarterly 'allowance' for 'running cost' from N22m to N42m for each 'ordinary' member. This was made to at least close the yawning gap between what they collected and what their principal officers got, which was much more and a source of discontent by majority of the members.

In a manner of speaking, the 'genesis' that led to this 'revelation' was the enhanced allowance approved by the Reps for themselves. Rep Tambuwal reportedly told the House in one of its now notorious 'Executive' Sessions of the “restiveness of members and the possible crisis that may erupt in the House because of the issue of enhanced allowances that members have been clamoring for”. As I said a few weeks ago, it was this effort to sustain ambrosia for our Reps that led to this burst bubble.

That enhanced allowance is still running as new members are sworn in today and will continue to run. I don't see these new members, as beneficiaries' voting to reverse this quarterly windfall. In fact, if they have their way, they would love to sweeten the honey or money pot, as their predecessors did, unless they are a new breed of Nigerians with a different thinking.

I daresay that some of these new members were drawn to the National Assembly in the first place by the evidence of stupendous transformation in the personal circumstances of their predecessors by merely attaining the position of 'honourable' members and 'distinguished' senators. If in doubt, ask those who failed to retain their seats and find out why some of them are so bitter at their losses.

In plain words, are we merely inaugurating the 7^th Session of Nigeria’s National Assembly or this is the making of our 7^th mega-millionaire politicians’ club?

Enter motor forget wetin them write for the bodi

There's a streetwise advice in Nigeria, rendered in as funny a manner as any street grammar can possibly be, urging people to focus on the utility of something, not the packaging. In Nigerian pidgin, it is said, "make you enter motor forget wetin them write for the bodi". It probably comes from the days when owners of (long distance) buses and trucks would write religious and philosophical expressions on the vehicles. Some of those expressions were controversial or likely to be misunderstood, like "man die go", "God punish dem all" or "life is war". I must not forget one of the most popular ones that says, "To be a man is not a day's job". In practice it was written "a day job".

It was possible therefore that some prospective commuters would have, out of courage of conviction, opted not to get on some of those vehicles. But given that there were often too few of the vehicles and the few often had (potentially) controversial words of wisdom, the streetwise person knew it was better to hop on the next available bus than be worried about what message the bus was carrying.

I was recently confronted with that choice here in Brighton as I bought packaged fresh pumpkin leaves to prepare a meal. The product was branded in three languages that I could identify as or suspect to be Efik, Igbo and English (in that order). It was called "okong-bong" (apparently it was "ikong-ubong" in Efik); "ogu" (that must be "ugwu" or "ugu" in Igbo) and wait for this, "ponki leaves" (pumpkin leaves in English).

But hey, I wasn't buying the name was I? I was buying ikong-ubong or ugwu/ugu or pumpkin leaves, by whatever name it was called. Like a rose by whatever name, you would say.

Okay, this is NOT about what I cooked and how, so don't think I am going to talk about that. The proof of the pudding is in the eating right, so invite yourself over.

Primitive persons In Government or (PIG).

In the last one week or so, I have posted on facebook and commented on the report of the alleged wife-battery by Nigeria's High commissioner to Kenya, Dr. Chijioke Wigwe who has recently been recalled and may be investigated at home. Yesterday, a friend asked me 'how' such a 'primitive' man was appointed in the first place. I here attempt to answer that.

This is how it works. The president nominates someone (please read my yesterday's facebook analysis of reasons for nominations/appointments to political offices). Before then, the security folks supposedly conduct a background check (now let's not talk about the quality of that). The name is then sent to the Senate for confirmation. It is a notorious fact how our Senate typically conducts its screening and approval of nominees and boom, you have a misfit like Wigwe as high commissioner/ambassador.

On March 21, I shared on facebook, the report of how the Senate cleared one Mrs. Bristol, described as a career diplomat, to become an ambassador even though she performed abysmally at the Senate screening. I wrote then: "Mrs Bristol was asked to explain the Vienna and Geneva Conventions. All she could say was: “I am confused. I am confused.” Senate President David Mark asked that the Senate should “temper justice with mercy…her case is a case of what we call poor pass.”" I referred to this media report: http://thewillnigeria.com/opinion/7924-THE-AMBASSADOR-WHO-FAILED-ANTHEM-TEST.html. In deed, our Senate had no qualms approving the appointment of a mediocre to represent the country in a foreign land.

I equally shared on facebook, the report in an April 7 newspaper (see http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/03/libya-nigerian-envoy-flees/) that in the height of the crisis in Libya and the attempt to rescue Nigerians there, our ambassador to Libya, Isa Mohammed Aliyu, fled with his family and abandoned the compatriots he was expected to protect. Until now, no sanction has been made and I have heard no official response to that report.

It is now another season of nominations, by the president, of persons for appointment as ministers and ambassadors etc. One prays that all the agencies would live up to their responsibilities. If the security agencies did their jobs well, they would probably have identified Wigwe as a violent husband. But it is also possible that such finding was indeed submitted but the appointing authority still overlooked it. And this happens everywhere with grave consequences, much like the IMF overlooked the known weaknesses of its boss only to find itself in the current international mess.

But by far the most ridiculous process by a state institution in this matter of political appointment in Nigeria is that of Senate screening. Our Senate has since come up with the very insulting practice/convention of asking certain persons who appear before it for confirmation to merely 'take a bow' before it and go. They do this whenever a former federal legislator appears before it for screening. So, if the legislator was a 'legislooter' (now please don't drag me into the controversy of whom among the other, confirming legislators has the audacity to cast the first stone) or even a paedophile (like the one who married a 14-year-old girl) he would be asked to take a bow and be certified good to go.

I hope the above answers the question of how we end up with such Primitive persons In Government or (PIG).

Random thoughts on our 'freest' election in 12 years

Last Friday, I read media reports* that the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) finally found its voice to comment on the outcome of the April 16 Presidential elections. The detailed news report is reproduced at the end of this my opinion.

If we eschew sentiments, we will see the sense in the analysis by ACN. But it is not amusing that they kept quiet until now that it seems the PDP rigging machine is set on being operated too close to its (ACN's) home, Lagos. They must be remembering how they (then as AD) were trumped (outrigged) by the PDP in 2003 in the South West.

How true the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller that: "First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

I believe that Jonathan would still have won the election, but his party, PDP and those who make things happen in his political structure could not leave things to chances. That remains the worry of some of us when others keep telling us "Goodluck is a good man". Yes, he may be, but can we say the same about those who surround, influence and control him? I am beginning to fear that we may be getting to the 1979-1983 era when we had the “good man” Pres. Shehu Shagari, surrounded in the ruling NPN by the kind of crowd we see now in the ruling PDP.

Unfortunately, matters are not helped by the fact that CPC supporters went so violently wild and bestial that even some of us who hitherto had sympathy for Buhari now cringe. Nor can we claim ignorance of the fact that the other parties also cheated. I still recall the scenes of under-aged voters in CPC's strongholds.

I have been 'battling' friends at different levels about the high level of ignorance and divisiveness being propagated on the social media networks and text messages before and after the elections. On one occasion, I told folks that this is what led to post-election violence in Kenya in 2007. That was on Sunday and the violence here erupted soon after.

A few days ago, I again wrote this response to a friend who replied my previous mail:

We live for the NOW in Nigeria...

And living for the NOW means that everyone must run to the winning team to pledge loyalty and be guaranteed a space. If that has not started yet, soon we would be seeing all sorts of idiotic congratulatory messages in the media and various groups struggling to go and congratulate the president for his 'resounding victory', 'God-ordained mandate' and 'pan-Nigerian mandate' etc. And if you sound a note of caution, they will say you are sulking, that you should give the man a chance and all that blah.

Already, old man Gov. Murtala Nyako led a delegation from his state, Adamawa, to the presidential villa as the first of such delegations. Last week also, I watched Channels TV and saw the Nigerians who were in the Presidential Villa with the president when the final result was announced. Solomon Lar reminded Channels TV that he was the very first Nigerian to tell us that Jonathan will win the election in the first ballot. Even our old men cannot rise above sycophancy right?

*What the news report said

2011 Presidential Poll Most Systematically Rigged - ACN

THEWILL. 21/04/2011 16:51:00

ABUJA, April 21, (THEWILL) - The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has described last Saturday's presidential election as the most systematically rigged election in Nigeria's history, and warned against any attempt to repeat such malfeasance in Tuesday's governorship/state assembly poll.

''The PDP has been boasting that it will clinch the governorship election in Lagos and elsewhere on the strength of the result of the presidential election, but we must warn strongly that a repeat of the crooked strategy that spewed out those cooked figures will have consequences that no one has yet imagined,'' the party said in a statement issued in Ilorin on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

It said the plan by the PDP is to massively rig the governorship and state assembly election, especially in areas where President Goodluck Jonathan scored victories, so as to give the world the impression that the result of the presidential election was not a fluke.

''President Jonathan should call his dogs of war at the PDP to order, so that they will not push their luck by attempting to thwart the will of the people any more than they have already done, with the grim consequences that we all can now see,'' the party said.

ACN said the PDP simply stole more than enough for the owner to see during last Saturday's presidential election, forgetting that if anyone thinks he/she knows how to hide things, others also know how to find them.

''What the PDP did last Saturday was simple: They colluded with security agents and INEC officials to cook figures which have now turned out to be their undoing, because the cooking was not intelligently carried out.

''An analysis of the results put out by INEC itself has shown a troubling pattern of clear manipulation. Everywhere the PDP perceived it was strong, it came out with incredibly high numbers of voter in his favour. Conversely, anywhere the opposition was perceived to be strong, the opposition`s margin of victory was unreasonably low.

''A few examples will suffice: In the South-South and South-East, where President Jonathan is believed to have strong support, the average turnout was 67% each of registered voters, compared to 32% for the South-West where he is believed to have a strong opposition. In the North-West and North-East, which is considered a bastion of opposition in the north, the average turnout of registered voters was 54%.

''And whereas high voter turnout was recorded in states perceived to be sympathetic to President Jonathan in the different geopolitical zones (Bayelsa in South-South 85%, Imo in South-East 84%, and Plateau in North-Central (62%), the opposite was the case for areas where the opposition, was believed to be strong. Even in Katsina, Buhari's hometown, the turnout was a paltry 52%! Ditto for Kano (53%); Sokoto (40%) and Zamfara (51%).

''It is also instructive that even though Edo state is in the South-South, the turnout was only 37%, apparently since the state was not believed - by the figure cooks - to be sympathetic to President Jonathan, being controlled by the ACN. The turnout figures for the South-West are also revealing: Lagos (31.8%); Ogun (28%); Osun (39%) and Oyo (33%).

Also, while the margin of victory for the PDP in the South-South is 98% and for the South-East 98.9%, the highest margin of victory for the CPC in the North-West, where Buhari comes from, is 55.8%,'' ACN said

The party said when the ballot papers are subjected to forensic analysis, as they definitely will, the world will realise that what appeared to be free and fair election at the polling units was a mere façade.

It slammed the election observers for rushing to tell the world that the whole election process was free, fair and credible, whereas they were busy playing to the gallery in urban centres while the PDP colluded with INEC and security officials in the hinterland to concoct figures that are only real in their imagination.

''We wonder if those who have been rushing to congratulate President Jonathan would still do so if they are aware of the analysis to which the election figures has been subjected. We hope they are not acting more out of their concern for the continuous flow of the black gold than for the growth of genuine democracy in Nigeria,'' ACN said.

This country sef

(This was first published in 2005. Not much has changed)

“This country sef!”

“What is it again?”

“Everything. Corruption, ethnicity, religious bigotry.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You won’t because you are like them.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Well, if you weren’t you would be concerned with what is going on in this country.”

“Which is?”

“The country is in trouble my friend. If people had not used the occasion of the sack of the education minister…”

“The immediate past education minister you mean?”

“Oh don’t give me that.”

“I only mean to correct the impression by reminding you that Fabian Osuji is no longer the education minister, Liyel Imoke is.”

“Well, as I was saying, but for the disgrace of Osuji, the Senate and the House of Representatives which led to complains about selective persecution, the Tafa issue would have died a natural death.”

“I think the security agencies were still investigating Tafa Balogun all this while, not that they had abandoned the case.”

“Investigation my foot!”

“There you go again sounding like an intolerant leader.”

“The fact remains that since January, when Balogun was sacked as Inspector General of Police on allegation of corruption, he could have been tried by now if the authorities wanted to.”

“I said they were still investigating.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that they had not yet gathered all the facts to take him to court, which is why they have picked him up to get such facts.”

“I don’t trust this people. If not for the complaints last week, they would not have arrested or rearrested the man for further investigation. They are only playing on our intelligence. Even at that, I still think they have been too lenient on the man.”

“You don’t mean that they should deny him his fundamental rights do you? By the way, his lawyer was complaining the other day that both of them were denied access to see each other. He said he would apply to the court for a writ of, what do they call it, habeas…”

“The man should go and sit down.”

“Why?”

“His client was part and later head of the police force that constantly breached the fundamental rights of Nigerians. I think Tafa is lucky to be treated in as humane a manner as he is getting now. Police have been known to kill other persons accused of lesser crimes without the benefit of an arraignment. They call it ‘wasting’”.

“Are you suggesting that a whole retired IGP and lawyer should have been given such degrading treatment?”

“Point of correction, the man is a dismissed IGP, not a retired IGP. These are two different concepts you know.”

“I know, but the record shows that he retired.”

“Okay, I concede, but it doesn’t make much difference to me. The point is that he did not leave office with his integrity intact, if he ever had one.”

“Why don’t we just wait until the court says he is guilty or that the man lacked integrity?”

“My friend, what other confirmation are we waiting for after the discovery of the huge sums of money he had in different bank accounts? He is certainly guilty, no matter what anyone else says.”

“You don’t have to constitute yourself to an accuser, prosecutor, judge and executioner, do you?”

“If that is what we need to sanitise this country of corruption, I don’t mind.”

“Then you shouldn’t really have blamed the president for disgracing Osuji, Wabara and co.”

“Oh, come of it. Can’t you see that it was targeted at a certain ethnic group? It was ethnic cleansing pure and simple.”

“You have a way with words. And you love to reach conclusions on issues without giving adequate information and facts. Remember that the allegations were levelled against the officers, not on account of where they come from, but for what they did. Corruption is corruption, for God’s sake. It does not matter where the perpetrator comes from.”

“So why didn’t we take up all the cases before this one to their logical conclusions? Why didn’t the president broadcast to the country when his police chief was indicted for corruption? Why didn’t he do so after discovering the national identity card contract scam? And besides, why are we not investigating the Pentascope/NITEL deal, and the billions spent on road repair that were never carried out?”

“You seem to have a dossier on scams in government.”

“Thanks for the compliments, but I haven’t yet finished.”

“You mean there are many more?”

“Yes-o! Have they yet investigated the financial report of the All Africa Games and the hosting of CHOGM? How much did we spend in the Abuja National Stadium? Have they reconstructed the collapsed velodrome, and at what cost and to whom?”

“You mean you keep records of all those?”

“Why not? And for your information, Nigerians want to know what has happened to the report of the former acting auditor general of the federation, which indicted virtually everybody?”

“Don’t ask me. I am not in the government.”

“Well, you sounded like a government apologist a while ago?”

“I guess I was only playing the devil’s advocate.”

“Devil’s advocate? By the way which is your religion?”

“What does it matter?”

“A great deal in this country. It would make me know whether I could trust you to think right and make sound and reasonable judgments whenever we discuss national issues.”

“I don’t seem to get what you mean.”

“Aah! I can see you are not abreast of issues in this country. Some people have been making heavy weather of religion of late. They have even threatened to disrupt the national conference in Abuja unless there was equal representation of the two religions at the confab.”

“What do they mean by two religions. Don’t they know Nigeria is multi-religious? There are many more religions in Nigeria than Christianity and Islam. People should know that.”

“It is numbers we are talking about here. How many Nigerians are adherents to those other faiths you are talking about?”

“I don’t know, neither do I care. Even the government itself does not care. That is why they don’t want to ask people about their religion, during the next census.”

“I still think there are basically two religions in this country unless you can prove otherwise.”

“But you know that is not true. Apart from Christianity and Islam, we also have African traditional religion, Buddhism, Grail Movement, Eckankar, Hare Krishna and Judaism etc in this country.”

“So?”

“So, people should not always see this country as property to be shared for and by Christians and Muslims only.”

“But the point has already been made that the country only recognises the two main religions. That is why government spends huge resources in sponsoring pilgrimages by Christians and Muslims each year or assisting them to build their temples.”

“Which is one big irony in a country that claims to be secular.”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“Yes, I do. I cannot understand why government should be bothered about people’s private business, which is what the faith thing is. That is why many of these idle members of the elite class always stoke the embers of religious differences to achieve their private interests.”

“For once, I am tempted to agree with you there.”

“You just have to. An average Nigerian is not bothered about what religion the other subscribes to. Do you worry about the faith of the taxi driver, the security man, the butcher, or the lift operator that attends to you each day, even when for those moments of his attendance, he can literally endanger your life?”

“You know I have never thought of it that way. Even those in the elite class do not worry about the religion of their fellow elite when it comes to stealing the country’s resources together, neither do they care about which part of the country those persons come from. It is only when they disagree on the sharing of their loot that they shout ‘marginalisation’ on the basis of religion or ethnic group.”

“Which is the point I am always making.”

“And to think that nobody ever worries about where our sportsmen and women come from, as far as they keep winning laurels for the country.”

“Exactly!”

“Why should anyone then be bothered about the ethnic or religious background of the chairpersons of the confab subcommittees?”

“It beats me.”

“They should be told the Chinese proverb that ‘it does not matter whether a cat is white or black, provided it catches mice’”.

“You tell them, you are closer to them than me. I belong to the hoi polloi”.

“I hear you!”

*First published in NewAge newspaper on April 4, 2005

The ‘politics’ of political appointment: Focus on ICPC chair

I have read Sahara Reporters’ story on the appointment of Rosemary Abang-Wushishi as acting chair of Nigeria’s Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and wish to comment on the case thus.

Political appointments will always be used to advance political interests (in addition to any other reasons that may be openly expressed). The political class will always take advantage of loopholes in (read manipulate) the law to advance their interests.

If the law actually demands that the chair of the Commission "shall be a person who has held or is qualified to hold office as a judge of a Superior Court of record in Nigeria”, the critical question, as far as the law is concerned, to ask is whether or not Abang-Wushishi is so qualified. For our information a person is qualified to be appointed a judge of the superior court of record (i.e. High Court) on attaining 10 years at the Bar. To that extent, the interim appointee 'qualifies'. And the argument that the AGF should have known that since when Angulu was appointed may be a good one that queries the alertness of the AGF, but it does not stop him from 'acting right' now that he apparently realises that.

Now talking about the 'morality' of such appointment is altogether another issue. There are thousands of us lawyers so qualified to have been appointed, so why Abang-Wushishi and not ME for instance? The truth is that many, if not most political appointments in Nigeria and elsewhere, are still done based on so many inexplicable 'interests', unfortunately. Some may be easily traceable, others are not. And the reasons could be to advance political interests (as alleged in the appointment of Bianca Ojukwu) or to score political point and win the confidence of the 'civil society' (Jega, Sam Amadi, Mike Igini). They could be as a result of 'Old-Boy network' or even to advance/cover up criminal interests. The best way to assail such appointments is to show that the person is not qualified or is incompetent or has otherwise done something that questions his/her integrity for the position etc. The British PM was severely criticised the other time for getting two men who used to work for him personally as photographer and video cameraman during his campaigns to be on government appointment. A good reason for the criticism was that the civil service already had people who were doing that for the office of the PM. I heard he has since dropped them though.

I would really want to know the exact basis of the complaint here. Is it that the appointee is not qualified or that because she was allegedly proposed by the president's wife, she should not be appointed? Do we know how many other decisions of governments have been so influenced by spouses? Didn't they say the creation of Delta State was influenced by then First Lady, Maryam Babangida? Or would we rather that appointments are influenced by a mistress or an uncle or a religious minister?

The much I know about the appointee is that she is a lawyer and retired as an assistant inspector general of the police many years ago and tried her hands in politics and failed. If that makes her unqualified to head the agency that she is currently a member of, I do not know. But since the appointment would eventually require Senate approval, let us hope the 'distinguished' Senators would ask critical questions to verify the competence or otherwise of the appointee.

But we may laugh about the Senate screening being nothing more than 'bow and go', as they recently approved the appointment of a 'career diplomat' as an ambassador even when she showed incompetence at the screening (couldn't tell where Jigawa state was; asked to mention the official channels of diplomatic communication, she said she was confused etc). The Senate President urged his colleagues to approve her appointment even when he admitted that hers was a 'poor pass'. So the Senate just approved the appointment of a mediocre to head Nigeria's foreign mission.

Interestingly though, I recently read of the same Senate rejecting the nomination of a retired justice (I have forgotten the name) as head of this same ICPC because the legislators were convinced during the committee screening that the eminent retired jurist no longer had the mental capability and physical strength they would expect of the head of this agency. Now, those aren't written qualifications but I agree with Senate that it was a sound reason. Let us pray that the Senators put on their thinking caps when considering Abang-Wushishi for this present case.