Stella Oduah And 2015 By Michael Egbejumi-David

I have to confess that I have always had a soft spot for Stella Oduah, the currently embattled Aviation Minister.  The way I heard it, through abundant doggedness and feminist wiles, she forged a successful little business empire for herself in our dog-eat-dog business environment.  In a place like Nigeria, you’ve got to admire that. But as these things often work, once a person starts down a particular path or habituates that path for too long, they often don’t know how to stop or how to behave in a different (public) milieu.  And I think that is partly what has happened to our Stella.  That, and the way government works in Nigeria. When the story first broke that the Aviation Ministry paid a whopping $1.6million for just two cars, I immediately saw the imprint of the Federal government and Jonathan’s re-election run all over it.  My suspicion was confirmed with the stony silence emanating from the Federal government.  This was further reinforced when the major concern of the National Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) was in looking to track down the whistleblower.  Their only interest seems to lie in wanting to prosecute somebody for spoiling their scam.  They want to charge the person with every criminal statute under the sun.  The Director General of the NCAA, Mr Fola Akinkuotu even compared the whistleblower to the American fugitive du jour, Edward Snowden. Naija! This is how it works:  A major election looms on the horizon.  Winning elections in Nigeria is super expensive.  Stakeholders have got to be settled.  Godfathers have got to be fathered.  Kings, high and low Chiefs have got to be buttered-up.  Community leaders, women leaders, youth leaders, student leaders, NURTW leaders, agbero leaders, all have got to receive their own dividend.  Parties have got to stock up on GMGs (Ghana Must Go), and Party delegates have got to be bought off with at least $5,000 each. And so, Parties and office holders begin to look for funds.  The first place office holders in Nigeria look is in the direction of the public purse.  In Nigeria, over the years, various ingenious ways have been devised to raid the treasury to fund elections.  One way is to task States under their control, Ministries and other government Parastatals to contribute specified amount of money to the Party.  This was what caught out the UPN Party of old with the Buhari/Idiagbon un-smiling junta. During the period leading to major elections, plenty of contracts are awarded but none is ever executed.  Strange taxes and levies begin to get introduced in schools and other areas.  Government houses and offices suddenly need to be refurbished.  Legislative quarters all of a sudden require a facelift.  Government begins to replace its fleet of vehicles.  Another aircraft or two is purchased.  Managing Directors and Directors General begin to lean on government contractors to cough-up more roja or their returns get hiked-up another 5 percentage point or so.  ‘Warehousing’ of Ministries budgets take on more urgency than hitherto.  And if all of that proves insufficient, Ministers have to come up with other means of putting together their own allocated election fund contribution.  A Minister who is unable to deliver in full knows that he or she will not make the next cabinet; and so the pressure is really on. Stella has done what is expected of her.  Unfortunately for her, one busybody soul decided to sing to Saharareporters and all hell has broken lose.  Ms. Oduah was caught with her bloomers in the penny jar. But because this is a Federal Government ‘project,’ government functionaries and other lackeys will try to focus on acne rather than call out the dermatologist for a chronic case of leprosy.  And because this is Nigeria, before you know it, the whole matter will devolve into an ethnic one.  It might even degenerate into a gender one. We have a real problem here.  Our elections are too expensive.  People that run for elective offices and most of our appointed officials have to mortgage almost everything to get into office.  Once in office, their primary focus understandably becomes recouping their money and making a nice little profit in the process as well.  And if you want to be returned to office, then the cost is even more prohibitive.  Methinks Ms. Oduah, other Ministers, Directors General, and Managing Directors of Federal organs are all at it at the moment on behalf of their administration.  Same thing is going on at the State level. Typically, the Federal government would hunker down and try to protect one of its own rather than do what is right.  Because in abandoning Ms. Oduah, the government risks exposing itself and almost certainly revealing its own complicity in the whole thieving mess.  Saharareporters, as usual, has done exceedingly well in helping to expose a long-standing malaise, in my view, and Ms. Oduah must be held firmly accountable in this particular case.   demdem@hotmail.co.uk Tweeter: demdemdem1

Dele Giwa And the Dilemma Of A Journalist By Dele Momodu

Fellow Nigerians, today is not one of my happiest days. I’m sorry to start on such a depressing note. But that is the way I usually feel on every October 19, since 1986, when one of Nigeria’s finest journalists of all time, Dele Giwa, was blasted into smithereens, by God-knows-who. Dele Giwa and I were brothers who never met, but had our paths steeped in similar upbringing. We were both born in the ancient city of Ile-Ife. Our parents migrated from the old Mid-Western region, now Edo State and settled in Ile-Ife to engage in odd jobs. Though we never met one on one Dele loomed larger than life and we all knew him like the man next door. I studied his life like a textbook, followed his world trajectory, and fantasised regularly about meeting him some day. The other man who had such magnificent effect on me is the one and only Sonala Olumhense who I was privileged to meet and who later gave me the honour of contributing to the birth of Ovation International in London in our exile days. My God, those gentlemen had such rare gift of the pen. While Dele Giwa was very bubbly and swashbuckling, Sonala was ostensibly reserved and unquestionably cherubic. Dele Giwa was always going to stand out in the crowd. He gave journalism in Nigeria a lease and its practitioners a life. He challenged the stereotype that journalists were poor and scruffy by appearing most of his life like your High Street Banker.  Just as Dele was loved by those who idolised him, he was feared by men of power for his ability to expose their foibles and egocentricities in his indomitable style. It was an influential position that made him susceptible to love and hate in almost equal measure.  The life of a successful journalist is usually a delicate balance of standing between friends and enemies. And only a thin line separates the two. One negative article is just enough to obliterate 99 positive ones. No one ever remembers to thank you when you write that beautiful story but everyone remember to curse you and your family when you write that one that seems unpalatable. That is what I call the dilemma of a journalist. My guess is as good as yours. Dele Giwa must have stepped on very powerful but sore toes who felt uncomfortable about his temerity to take on a system that made him who he was. The nation had not attained such level of tolerance to understand the job of a journalist was to write about friends and foes alike. There was always a channel of communication available to the aggrieved. The law courts are essentially there to serve as arbiter and secure rectitude for the victim of yellow journalism in any event. The problem was not just that Dele died it was the manner of his death. For years, I carried the gory spectre of that bizarre murder in my memory. According to reports at the time, a parcel bomb was delivered at his Ikeja, Lagos home, somewhere off Adeniyi-Jones, in the presence of another accomplished journalist, Kayode Soyinka, now the Publisher of Africa Today. He was luckier to escape with not more than his damaged ear-drums as well as an indefinite sojourn in exile. Dele wasn’t that fortunate. He bled to death and his family comprising of an aged mother, relations, wife and children were thrown into perpetual mourning. The whole country was engulfed in utter shock while the outside world marvelled at our ability to settle scores in the most deadly manner under the flimsiest provocation. At the time of his death, Dele Giwa was the Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch magazine and easily the most celebrated journalist of that period. His former wife, Florence Ita-Giwa, recently told me she fell in love with Dele because of his effervescent style of writing. By the time they met there was no protocol because she was already head-over-heels in love with awesome diction and rhapsodies. They became inseparable from that moment on. Dele was such a debonair writer who brought a lot of razzmatazz into the media industry. He was young, dashing and daring. He was a power-dresser, a fashion icon but above all an intelligent, inspiring writer and analyst. Dele Giwa’s column, Parallax Snaps, was a must read for guys of my generation. It was impossible not to be attracted to the writings of Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed, the powerful quartet that founded Newswatch magazine around 1984, shortly after their dramatic exit from Concord newspapers. These were the authentic superstars who titillated us with beautiful prose that dripped with poetic and colourful words. And they lived up to their billing. Newswatch was an instant success and the hottest cake out of the oven. Every issue was a collector’s item.  It is hoped that under the new management, that glory would be restored no matter how daunting. I had followed Dele Giwa in particular like a true devotee. He was a pen-god who was worshipped at the altar of investigative journalism, and admired irreverently by the high and mighty and the low and meek. His pen was mighty; in fact, mightier than the sword. He was considered a proponent of fairness and justice in governance.  Newswatch was a reader’s delight any day. Every week, the magazine went behind the scene to bring us hidden stories that were buried beyond our prying eyes. Newswatch did not just tell stories, its daredevil reporters told it in elegant style. The team was simply awesome: Nosa Igiebor, Dele Omotunde, Onome Osifo-Whiskey, Dare Babarinsa, Dele Olojede, Kola Ilori, May Ellen-Ezekiel and other journalism greats. Kayode Soyinka reported majestically from London. I will never forget his amazing scoops on the Umaru Dikko saga during the Buhari-Idiagbon military era. Everything was going well for Newswatch, or so it seemed. The dream of the founding fathers of the magazine evaporated one hot afternoon as the powerhouse of the organisation was inflicted with the most iniquitous brutishness ever experienced in our vengeful society. Neither the exact motives nor the particular identity of the perpetrators has ever come to light. At the very best, all we got were conspiracy theories and circumstantial evidence but there was nothing conclusive till this day. A private prosecutor, Gani Fawehinmi, who took it upon himself to unravel the mystery and jigsaw, met brick-walls at every turn. The labyrinth of esoteric cases he filed at different junctures died with Gani without recording any major success or victory. One could easily have concluded that such a dastardly act occurred because we were living at that time under the jackboots of the military who knew no other way to persuade its critics than shutting up their mouths through cold blooded murder. Its microphone was the gun-nose and the loudspeaker was the barrel. The military knew no other way to offer superior logic and simply did not bother. And we all prayed and hoped that the evil cup would pass over us. Unfortunately, not much has changed. Even in the democratic dispensation that we have supposedly enjoyed these past 15 years or so the curse of unsolved extra-judicial cold-blooded murders of our critics and activists continues unabated. More journalists have lost their lives in the line of duty under the civilian dispensation in our strange country.  The list is painfully long enough. The politicians and their cronies are getting more and more intolerant. Power has become a matter of life and death. I doubt if that was the purpose of fighting for democracy. What I find sadder is that there is a new crop of young people who are being brainwashed and indoctrinated by desperate politicians to cause mayhem and confusion all over the place. It has become almost impossible to have decent conversation and cerebral debates without resorting to vulgarities and vitriolic attacks. This trend can’t continue. If it does, it will certainly portend great dangers for the future of our nation and has the likelihood and potential of descending us all into anarchy.  As we remember Dele Giwa today, let’s try to have sober reflections and reach the decision that all disagreements of whatever ilk can be resolved through peaceful, gentlemanly means. Of Tony Uranta And His Tricksters I stumbled on an interesting post on Facebook the other day. It was a link to an outburst that was credited to a Niger Delta activist and ally of our dear President, Tony Ipriye Uranta. I was shocked to read his unequivocal indictment of President Goodluck Jonathan who he accused of surrounding himself with a kitchen cabinet that was incapable of helping him to deliver on his promises to the good people of Nigeria. He described those cabinet members as nothing but rogues and tricksters. We must thank God for bountiful mercies. I don’t know what sparked Tony’s anger but it must have been a result of acute frustration about the way the ship of State was floundering aimlessly with the country almost bleeding to death. The manner public officers are splashing scarce resources on luxury items as if all there is to being in power is to indulge in reckless fun should be a cause for concern. There is nothing new in what Tony said. The only surprise is that he spoke in the way he did.  He merely gave fillip to what we’ve always known and written about. It is reassuring that someone close to the seat of power could be that bold as to tell it as it is. If an outsider had uttered those words, the world won’t hear the last of it. Accusations and allegations about the writer’s motive rather than a robust critique of the substance and the presentation of a veritable defence on behalf of the Presidency would have been the order of the day from the President’s stalwarts. Fortunately, this is coming from a close friend of theirs. They can’t in good conscience accuse Tony of working for some disgruntled Governors or opposition parties.  Although, in retrospect, I won’t be surprised if they do, especially if there has been a parting of ways. I know it will not go down well with some of Tony’s friends who continue to behave as if there is no tomorrow. I pray the President would heed Tony’s candid advice and appreciate the fact that it is only those who love him genuinely that would tell him what others are shying away from saying. The sum total of the rising cries of patriots is that our nation is in a bad shape and the President’s policies are now working or even helping.  It is about time that the President reviews not only the positions of those he has entrusted with assisting him in managing the affairs of state but also the principles and policies that his government is implementing.  The groans, pain and anger of our people has become incessant and is fast rising tom a crescendo.  Something must be done before something gives.  The President must understand that when the chips are down, the soldiers of fortune will move on effortlessly to other suitors.  He will be left stranded in the sea and will be left to drown like a lonely sailor whose ship has sunk without any life rafts or vests. We have seen it all before. We pray not to see it again for President Jonathan’s sake.

Corruption and Nigeria’s #Ourperson Syndrome By Oluwakayode Aluko

Nigerians have overtime being generally used to the concept of “its our own, its our person, let him/her be there” at political gatherings or places where representative are to be nominated or elected regardless of how well vast, fitted or good the individual in question is. This is what i termed “our person syndrome” and i modestly which to state that Nigeria as a country (not a nation) has found it difficult to achieve her potentials because of this malady. This syndrome has long lived with us as far as we can remember from the days of nepotism to a more legalized federal character which prioritizes tribal interests more than anything else in our governance system till this present day. This syndrome is likened to an Iroko tree which can be curtailed why growing up but with our collective refusal it continues till it now seemed impossible curtail. (Hoping the National conference can look at issues of this nature). Friends, Nigeria has never had so badly in her quest for the fight against this menace like is currently being witnessed. Sadly enough, Mr president had severally reiterated his resolve to fight corruption but no feasible results has been displayed by those gestures and it has affected Nigerians commitment to the government of the day towards this fight. My observation lately has shown that the government have coerced or regularly coercing Nigerians to deal with it going by the level of administrative recklessness we are made to witness each and every passing day in virtually every notable sectors of our national life from education,sports,aviation, health to name but a few. One pertinent question critical readers of this piece need to ponder on is this: 1. Why has the EFCC suddenly not as effective to her responsibilities? 2. Why has none of all the high profile government officials been jailed for corrupt or related offences? Of course some will confidently come out to defend the indefensible saying the Maladministration, corruption and what have you did not start with this dispensation, yes they are right, but why are they giving Nigerians the attitude of (deal with, you caused it, its every where in the world) impression? My answer to the above is simple, the best antidote to corruption and bad governance is for the government to without further delays optimize on her performance and stop corruption.(Using the Chinese model if possible). At least you have the best opportunity to lay good precedence for any future government in the country. The level of recklessness witnessed in the days of the military were not extremely shown to Nigerians because of access to the information media then but with the height of what we see daily my imaginations continues to beat as a young man. My advice for this administration is simple, though it is clearly revealing that 2015 ambitions at various levels either through the usual body language of politicians, tribesmen or by their vocal-ism is suspecting, the antics of the people working for the president is not helping his case in anyway and making him more unpopular within the voting populace on a weekly basis. Corruption are never to be trivialized on the table of “our person syndrome”. Written by: @justkayode

Dear Nigerian student, it is time For Battle By Abdulrahman Abdulraheem

A background is required, and one short sentence will do: you have been at home for more than three months. Why do you think this is the case? I will tell you why; it is because you are not a variable anyone has considered seriously in this stalemate; because you have gone to sleep. There is no question that the federal government is not treating this ASUU(Academic staff Union of Universities) strike matter with urgency, at least not the same urgency with which it seems to be attempting to solve the crisis in the ruling Peoples’ Democratic party. On the flip side of the coin, ASUU seems to have begun to enjoy the strike as we are confronted with statements of ASUU officials to the effect that ASUU is ‘not interested’ in dialogue. Now that the problem has been laid out, what is the solution? I am afraid I am not a purveyor of silver bullets, but I believe that the solution to this ugly situation is to inject a fresh dose of urgency into this ASUU strike matter. And how does one do that? By making the lives of both parties hell. By taking to the streets. By attempting a shutdown of government. By making so much noise that it will be impossible for anyone  to ignore you. I am positive that well meaning friends and mentors have advised you to keep your hands busy during the strike so as not to waste the time. That is good advice, but it is time to disregard it. It is time to make it crystal clear, especially to the federal government, that you are mad as hell at the current state of things. It is time to show character and resolve as you fight tooth and nail to return to school. It of course comes as no surprise that NANS by which I mean to refer to the association of Nigerian Students has done nothing concrete. It is not exactly news that that body is so bereft of ideology and people of quality that it cannot be trusted to speak or fight for the Nigerian Student. No, put your hope not in NANS but in yourself. There is so many of you that if you rise to the occasion, you cannot be ignored. Your destiny is in your hands. Will you fold your arms in dejection? Or will you choose to fight? For education, for dear life, for hope. Abdulrahman Akintoye Abdulraheem is the immediate past General Secretary of the University of Ilorin Students’ Union. He is @dbestsmiles on twitter

Download: ASUU-Federal Government 2009 Agreement

PREMIUM TIMES makes the much talked-about agreement public On the first day of July this year, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, began an indefinite strike that has lasted till date and may run deep into the future. According to the union, the strike followed government’s inability to keep to an October 2009 agreement reached by both parties. The agreement was reached after two years of negotiation between the lecturers and a government team appointed by the then Education Minister, Obiageli Ezekwesili. The Government team was led by the then Pro-chancellor, University of Ibadan, Gamaliel Onosode while ASUU’s team was led by its then president, Abdullahi Sule-Kano. The agreement reached at the negotiations included conditions of service for university lecturers, funding of universities, university autonomy and academic freedom, and issues that required legislation to implement. Details of that agreement were held as confidential by both ASUU and the government, leaving the public to feed on crumbs of information thrown out at negotiation meetings between the two parties. PREMIUM TIMES has now obtained a copy of the agreement and is now making it available for public viewing. [Download a copy here.] The agreement The agreement included details such as the breakdown of lecturers’ salary structure, staff loans, pension, overtime, and moderation of examinations. Part of the agreement dwelt on funding of universities where both parties agreed that each federal university should get at least N1.5 trillion between 2009 and 2011 while state universities, within the same period, should receive N3.6 million per student. The agreement also had parts that asked the re-negotiation committee to ensure that at least 26 percent of Nigeria’s annual budget was allocated to education, and half of that allocation to universities. The agreement also asked that the 2004 Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Act, and the National University Commission Act 2004, be amended. Text of the suggested amendment bills – including suggestion for amendment of the Education (National Minimum Standards and Establishment of Institutions) Act 2004 – were provided in the agreements. The agreement was signed by Bolanle Babalakin, the then chairman of Committee of Pro-Chancellors of Federal Universities; Gamaliel Onosode, chairman of the re-negotiation committee; and Ukachukwu Awuzei, the then president of ASUU. The agreement demanded a heavy financial commitment from the government and was an adaptation of an earlier agreement reached in 2001. It is unclear how much of the agreement have been implemented by the government. However, the secretary to the federation, Pius Anyim, after one of the recent failed negotiations, said that most of the issues contained in the 2009 agreement, had been fully met except for the earned allowances estimated at N92 billion. “Some of the issues which bothered on amendment of pensionable retirement age of academics in the professorial cadre, consolidated peculiar allowances (CONPUAA)- exclusively for university teaching staff, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), setting up of budget monitoring committee in all public universities have been fully implemented,” he disclosed. ASUU Chairman, Nasir Fagge, could not be reached to confirm how much of the agreement have been implemented.

download the ASUU agrement here

http://premiumtimesng.com/dev/wp-content/files/2013/10/FGN.ASUU-INITIALED-AGREEMENT-JAN.-2009.pdf

ASUU and the Nigerian Dilemma By Olusegun Adeniyi

After all is said and done, Nigerians do love their country. And there is no better way to to ascertain that than when Nigeria is involved in sporting competitions or Nigerians are in contests that pitch them against nationals of other countries. That is when you see patriotism in action. But it is also true that Nigerians are disappointed with their country. The problem though is that rather than accept responsibility for our failings, we tend to put the blame on an abstraction–forgetting that the country is the sum total of what we all make of it. That is why you hear phrases like “Nigeria is useless” or “Nigeria is hopeless” or the extreme version “this country is cursed”. What is often lost in such moments is that despite what the country has given to most of us, we have been unable (perhaps unwilling) to reciprocate by harnessing the resources (human and material) for the good of all. I spent four years at Ife as a university student in the eighties without any sponsor because my parents were too poor to help, and at a relatively young age, working as a farm hand (never mind that they called me manager) during the holidays. But even at that, if it were tuition-paying, there was no way I would have been able to cope. That is a debt I owe Nigeria and I am aware there are many people like me. I am not here making excuses for our failings as a nation. Far from it. What I deplore is the hypocritical posturing by those who speak ill of our country without accepting the fact that the Nigeria of today is the product of our collective (ir)responsibility. These days, it is common to hear people who benefit from the patronage system that we run make all manner of claims, on the pretext that they had never been in government. Yet what I have come to learn about our country is that you do not have to be in government to be part of the rot and if anybody doubts me, they should go and get the list of the private jet owners after which they should also check their daytime jobs, how much tax they pay, the number of people they employ etc. But we will come back to this issue someday. Ever since the idea of the national conference started, I have taken time to pay attention to what many people are saying and I still fail to understand why anybody believes a conference, as desirable as the idea may sound, would just transform our country, without addressing the rentier economic philosophy that is based on some FAAC allocations being shared in Abuja every month-end rather than on the productive capacity of our people. For sure, fiscal federalism which ordinarily is implicit in our democracy but is being practised in the breach is a critical issue worthy of our collective interrogation; so also is devolution of power between the federal government and the states and local governments. But I worry that at a time almost all the critical institutions have collapsed, and we are seriously challenged on all fronts, the national attention is focused on some distributive politics.¨For those who still care, it is exactly 110 days today that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) went on strike and the students have been left to their own devices. The lecturers are on strike due to the inability of the federal government to honour completely the 2009 Agreement with ASUU. The essence of the agreement was to: reverse the decay in the university system, in order to reposition it for greater responsibilities in national development; enhance the remuneration of academic staff by disengaging them from the encumbrances of a unified civil service wage structure; restore the universities through immediate, massive and sustained financial intervention; and ensure genuine university autonomy and academic freedom. On paper, these are laudable objectives but the real problem arose basically because neither ASUU nor the government bothered to examine the practicalities of what they were committing themselves into. It is noteworthy that incessant strikes by ASUU in the last three decades have done incalculable damage to the country and its future. In the last ten years, beginning from 2003 when the universities were closed for six months to 2007 when the students were forced home for three months, ASUU strike has in fact become an annual “festival” in the university calendar. It is now running to almost four months that the campuses have been closed yet that does not seem abnormal because we have learnt to find a way around every problem. Since we have long conspired to kill public education at both primary and secondary levels, everybody sends his/her children to “private” schools. It is such a lucrative business that even some hairdressers now own such schools. But wait for this: almost every tout with some ill-gotten oil money is also now building a university! You don’t run a country like that and expect nothing but a failing state, even if you hold a hundred conferences!
According to official figure, there are 129 universities in Nigeria today. 50 of them are private universities of all sorts; 39 belong to state governments while the remaining 40 are federal universities–six of them established two years ago by President Jonathan. It is the lecturers in these 40 universities that are on strike though I hear their counterparts in states universities are also not working for some ill-defined reasons which go to the contradictions within ASUU some of which were aptly captured by egbon Jibo (Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim) in his Monday piece (http://premiumtimesng.com/opinion/146584-conversation-asuu-comrades-lets-get-real-jibrin-ibrahim.html). While conceding that our governments at virtually all levels have not shown enough commitment to education, the fact also is that the lecturers hardly care beyond their personal interests. I understand that four years ago, ASUU forbade its members from filling a form distributed by the National University Commission (NUC) for a staff and student audit in the university system. How lecturers would oppose planning with data beats me but the argument of ASUU was that the federal government could not be trusted with what it wanted to use the statistics for. Yet the exercise would have revealed all those teaching “full time” in two or more universities as well as those doing little or no academic work but are demanding uniform earned allowances etc. Let us also not forget those who are teaching courses in which they lack even the basic knowledge! After decades of crisis in our public education system, I believe we have come to a critical juncture in which we need to hold honest conversations about so many issues, including the state of infrastructure, alternative sources of funding, curriculum models, instructional methods, staffing policies as well as available educational resources in terms of libraries, laboratories, computers etc. and whether the current regime of free tuition can realistically be sustained. Such intervention is very important for the future of our country because even if we resolve the current ASUU strike, we may soon be back to square one. The foregoing therefore explains why the current excitement about the political “National Conversation” just reminds me of the Yoruba analogy of the village eunuch who gleefully tells his relations that he could insert thread into a needle hole a hundred times without missing–even in his dream. However commendable that may be, his hapless family members would rather wish he could deploy such expertise at insertion into a more productive enterprise! Re: A Multiple Funeral By Yinka Oyinlola Dear Segun, I imagine that you know of my status as a fan of The Verdict – I rarely miss it. I have also provided you feedback in the past but none in personal capacity. I can’t help it this time around, though, especially after reading your latest piece, “A Multiple Funeral”. Why? The Associated Airlines plane crash came as a personal tragedy for my family: the co-pilot, First Officer Kola Oyinlola, was my brother! You did well by putting the emphasis where it belongs: governance as it relates to how much the Nigerian political and policy leaders care about its citizens and their welfare. I commend you for raising a red flag on waterways safety. Unfortunately, I have been reading all sorts of analysis on the preliminary accident report released by the Accident Investigation Bureau [AIB] as to the cause of the Associated Airlines crash. As you can imagine, it is hard not be incensed about reports of the “condition” of the aircraft. Why incensed? Implicit in this theory is the assumption that the pilots who fly airplanes in such “condition” are on a suicide mission and willing to die if the “condition” of the airplane could not make them to ‘pull over’ in the sky when the airplane becomes faulty. You see, some people fail to recognize that members of the flight crew are also rational human beings with wives, husbands, children, parents and friends. I hope that the Nigerian public can be sensitized that there is no luxury of time for decision-making in the cockpit as the difference between life and death is reduced to a fraction of seconds to make a judgment call. None of the crew could be indicted on a series of unfortunate events in about 30 – 40 seconds to make such a life-and-death decision; even the most experienced pilot would barely be able to come with definitive response other than gut instinct. It is quite sad that the plane crash resulted in the death of 15 people and I commiserate with all the grieving families. But I am convinced that the commanding pilot would not have wished to risk his life much less those of others. It is even more unfortunate that whatever is being imputed is to people who are no longer alive to defend why they took certain decisions given the series of events leading to the take-off of the ill-fated flight. The foregoing notwithstanding, it is important to state that despite the way Nigeria treats her citizens, some of us are still prepared to die for this country. Nigerians just need to keep faith and work for an improved society through active engagement – no matter how small – to make this country better. Oyinlola is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Leadership Initiative (NLI)

ASUU, FG At 100: The Pretender Against The Deceiver By ‘Fisayo Soyombo

Tuesday 8th October 2013 marked 100 days that public university education in the country has been at a standstill. It has been popularly dubbed a strike — or more elegantly, an industrial action. But the reality is that what is ongoing is a feud between two groups of people — one, dominated by a greedy lot feigning sanctimony and posturing as genuine advocates of education revamp; the other, by a grossly irresponsible clique of people whose only business in governance is siphoning public funds. There is little to prove when I say the Nigerian government is dominated by an irresponsible lot, one so crassly and rapaciously corrupt that virtually no sector of the economy is working at half the capacity commensurate with supposedly invested funds, be it health or power or education. In the oil industry, the scale of corruption is in life-and-death proportions, far beyond the millions and billions of naira always being bandied about in the media; and the most worrisome matter for me is: where or who will begin the clean-up? Only three months ago, I was served the most chilling warning of my entire life when an industry expert told me: “Stay out of corruption in the oil sector... Are you married? Do you have kids? You will die if you try it...” There is little to write on matters of corruption in public places and how well the country would be functioning if we incorruptibly deployed our resources into tackling some of our most pressing socioeconomic challenges, including the sliding standard of education. Added to that is the damning tragedy of having a president who has a narrow idea of how to run the country, and is consequently prone to being misled by the hordes of sycophants massing around him and masquerading as his loyalists and the country’s patriots.  More than three years into the Presidency of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, I am still unconvinced that he is the man. At his last media chat, for example, his responses on the state of tertiary education and the whereabouts of wanted terrorist Abubakar Shekau betrayed his underwhelming understanding of a country he ought to be governing. Add corruption to government ineptitude and confusion, and you can tell the country won’t be free from doom anytime soon. Clearly, education has had its share of the resultant rot, beginning from student populations far above universities’ carrying capacities and culminating in utterly unbelievable learning conditions, such as the staging of lectures under trees or in sports pavilions. In 2004 as a student at the nevertheless prestigious University of Ibadan when students had to take courses across departments, many of us were Olympic sprinters in the making. We ran from one lecture theatre to another because we knew they could not accommodate all of us. Too many times, I received lectures without seeing or hearing a single word of everything the lecturer wrote or said. Tens of students shared laboratory equipment both during practical lessons and exams. In my final year, I wrote an exam that required students to identify certain leaves; but since about five or six of us shared a leaf, we all knew the answers! Any recent graduate of a public university has his/her share of such nightmarish experiences.  So we all know the problem. But what we all do not know is that a certain body, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), deceptively claims to be fighting for all of us. Very unfortunate. ASUU has downed tools these past four months due to its insistence on full government implementation of the 2009 agreement both parties signed. Sadly, very few students have read the contentious agreement, which at once explains why so many student unions and groups have been blindly staging protests in support of ASUU. Is ASUU wholly fighting the cause of saving the Nigerian education system from collapse? Who or what has the right answer? Well, it isn’t President of ASUU, Dr. Nasir Isa Faggae. And of course, were we to ask President Jonathan, expect him to say, like he did during last month’s media chat: “I don’t know ... you journalists know more than us...” The right answer lies in the underlying reasoning behind all the sections of that 2009 agreement. In January 2007 when the Federal Government team led by Deacon Gamaliel Onosode and that of ASUU led by then President, Dr Abdullahi Sule-Kano began meeting to renegotiate the 2001 agreement, the terms of reference for the resultant committee were to: (i) to reverse the decay in the university system, in order to reposition it for greater responsibilities in national development; (ii) to reverse the brain drain, not only by enhancing the remuneration of academic staff, but also by disengaging them from the encumbrances of a unified civil service wage structure; (iii) to restore Nigerian universities, through immediate, massive and sustained financial intervention; and (iv) to ensure genuine university autonomy and academic freedom. However, when the issues for negotiation were listed, they were: (i) conditions of service, (ii) funding, (iii) university autonomy and academic freedom, and (iv) other matters. First observation, how exactly does “condition of service” — candidly put, “salary upgrade” — constitute the most important step in “reversing the decay in the university system”? Why was condition of service ASUU’s most cherished matter for renegotiation, at the expense of infrastructure upgrade or funding? ASUU and the Federal Government agreed to have a “separate salary structure for university academic staff” to be known as Consolidated University Academic Salary.   Structure II (CONUASS II), comprising the Consolidated Salary Structure for Academic Staff (CONUASS) approved by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) effective 1st January 2007, the Consolidated Peculiar University Academic Allowances (CONPUAA) exclusively for university teaching staff and derived from allowances not adequately reflected or not consolidated in CONUASS, and the “rent” as approved by the FGN effective 1st January 2007. Under these circumstances, a lecturer cN earn as much as N7.5m per annum. ASUU and FG also reached an agreement on earned academic allowances that will see an assistant lecturer receive N15,000 per student per annum, senior lecturer N20,000, and reader and professor N25,000 as postgraduate supervision allowance; and the lecturers can receive the payments for up to five students. Added with other allowances — for teaching practice/industrial supervision/field trip, honoraria for internal/external examiner (postgraduate thesis), and honoraria for external moderation of undergraduate and postgraduate examinations — a lecturer can earn up to N580,000 per annum in earned allowances. There is a sum of N200,000 for external assessors of candidates for the position of Reader or Professor; plus a Responsibility Allowance that sees Hall Wardens receive N150,000 per annum and Vice Chancellors/Deputy Vice Chancellors/Librarians receive N750,000. A list of other non-salary benefits includes improved proposals for vehicle loan/car refurbishing loan, housing loan, research leave, sabbatical leave, annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave and injury pension. To be clear, I am unfavourably disposed to arguments in some quarters that ASUU’s remunerative demands are unreasonable. No. In my opinion, ASUU — and indeed any other labour union — reserves the rights to propose whatever conditions it considers most effective for motivating its members for optimum job performance. What I find unacceptable is ASUU’s less-than-impressive approach; and there are at least four manifestations of this trait in the 2009 agreement. One, in pushing for CONUAS II, ASUU conceitedly argues that Nigerian university academics represent the critical mass of scholars in the society, with the potential for transforming it. They, therefore, deserve unique conditions of service that would motivate them, like the intellectuals in other parts of the world, to attain greater efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery with regard to teaching, research and community service, and thereby stem the brain drain. However, if doctors, teachers, oil marketers and transporters, civil servants, engineers all downed tools as often as ASUU does, I am wondering what is left of the society that ASUU so piously claims to be desperate to “transform.” Two, while ASUU agrees to be disengaged from the encumbrances of a unified civil service wage structure, it goes on to demand that whenever there is a general increase in public sector salaries and allowances, the remuneration of academic staff shall be correspondingly increased. Simply put, ASUU wants to have the best of both worlds. Three, in the agreement, ASUU ensures that the renegotiation team agrees to its salary demands but as soon as discussion shifts to other matters, the team only recommends. And so, on matters involving the Education Tax Fund, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), amendment of the National Universities Commission Act (2004), and funding of universities, which are major institutional channels for reforming education, what ASUU does is to recommend, agree to recommend or project. Finally, ASUU has been going about its latest industrial action like a social crusader when the crux of it all is increased wage. On its website, President Faggae wrote: Dear Comrades, as the struggle to save Nigerian University system is being pursued, I'll like to salute all our members for their resoluteness in ensuring that the 2009 ASUU/Government Agreement is implemented in accordance with the Roadmap defined by the 2012 MoU. We believe very strongly that the rot and decay in the University System is not only arrestable but also reversible. We believe even more strongly that, the key to turning round the University System lies in the sincere implementation of the Agreement... We will continue to carry the banner of this struggle to its logical conclusion.... By sanctimoniously claiming to be fighting to reverse the rot in education when it is in fact chiefly motivated by its own pecuniary benefits, ASUU is equally guilty of the deception and mischief its president oft-accuses the government of. Between Jonathan’s Federal Government and ASUU, I cannot find the saint; and I find them jointly culpable for the current standstill in the country’s tertiary education. My prediction is that the ongoing industrial action will be hard to halt. Whatever his understandable grouse with the 2009 agreement or the negotiators on behalf of the government, President Goodluck Jonathan fulfil its dictates. That is the moral thing to do. An agreement was signed; it must be honoured until such a time when it is due for another review. And surely, ASUU or no ASUU, a government in which a federal lawmaker willing to play ball receives N4m as soon as a breakaway faction surfaces at the National Assembly has the financial resource to embark on an infrastructural overhaul of education. But with Jonathan suggesting on 29th September that the academic union has been hijacked by the opposition, this strike will not be over anytime soon. In case you haven’t seen a Nollywood movie in a while, well, “this is just the beginning!” Lagos-based journalist, ‘Fisayo, available on Twitter (@fisayosoyombo) sent this piece via fisayo.soyombo@flairng.com  

Conversation With My ASUU Comrades: Let’s Get Real, By Jibrin Ibrahim

This is a difficult conversation for me given my history of active engagement in ASUU, especially during its formative years. My comments might be dismissed as the words of an ASUU renegade. To attempt to prevent this this type of response, let me start with my CV. As a young lecturer in Ahmadu Bello University in 1980, I was already in the progressive caucus when Biodun Jeyifo, (BJ everybody calls him), and Uzodinma Nwala, newly elected pioneer President and Secretary of ASUU, stormed our Samaru campus to bring the good news. The transformation has occurred they proclaimed, by the law of 1978, the Nigerian Association of University Teachers, then existing in the five pioneer universities was dead and from its grave has emerged the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), a trade union. We were in exquisite excitement as BJ explained to us that intellectuals can now join the working class struggle as trade unionists and bring our intellectual support to the larger struggle to improve the educational system, but even more important, make our contribution to creating a progressive Nigeria. I was in the team that dashed off to the Department of Electrical Engineering to inform Buba Bajoga, the last head of the association that a new regime has arrived. We organised elections and George Kwanashie and Raufu Mustapha emerged as the first leadership of ASUU in ABU, the bedrock of campus radicalism in Nigeria. We immediately engaged in organising the first ASUU strike and in 1982, I spent months in the Ibadan headquarters providing support for the ASUU negotiating team. In 1983, I became the secretary of ASUU in ABU with Yahaya Abdullahi as Chairman and the struggle continued. That was the year I defended my masters thesis. My examiner, the late Claude Ake commended me on a good thesis but told me off for spending five years writing a mere masters thesis. I was upset with him and mumbled that I had been spending all my time with the ASUU struggle and had little time for the thesis and as a comrade; he should understand the urgency of the ASUU struggle. He offered me an advice, get your PhD he told me, and you will be surprised that the struggle will still be there waiting, and you will be better equipped for it. My Head of Department, Ibrahim Gambari, looked at me and smiled. Shortly thereafter, Gambari called me and gave me a scholarship letter to pack my bags and go to France for postgraduate studies. I told him bluntly that I was not going because the ASUU struggle had reached a critical stage and ABU was its cerebral base so I had to stay and continue my coordination role. Secretly in my mind, I was afraid of going to France because Mrs Waldron, my French teacher in Barewa College had sent me out of her class on the basis that I was incapable of learning French. God bless Gambari, he just told me I must go or he will sack me, I succumbed to the threat. The Caucus was of course very upset with me for jumping ship at a time in which we believed we were successfully cornering President Shagari to grant all our demands and finally create a university system with full autonomy and sufficient resources. My response was that the reason we operated in a caucus was not to depend on an individual. I went to France, successfully learnt French and started the postgraduate programme but came back two years later to find out we were exactly where we were before my departure. A year later, I went back to France to finish the doctoral programme and returned to find the ASUU struggles was still where I had left it. The lesson for me is that our history teaches us that there is no formula for a final resolution of the ASUU struggle. Through the 1990s, I continued with the ASUU struggles but with a more realistic vision that we need to have a more incremental approach to the struggle until I was forced out of the university system. Subsequently, as Country Director of Global Rights, an organisation engaged in facilitating legislative advocacy, I contacted the ASUU caucus both during the three-month old 2001 and six-months old 2003 ASUU strike that they should focus on the National Assembly and lobby them for sufficient funding rather than focus on President Obasanjo. They dismissed me as a renegade trying to dissipate their energies. We will force Obasanjo to deliver and eventually, the deal was signed, AND OF COURSE NOT IMPLEMENTED. We are still there today. ASUU is strong. It has the capacity to carry out long strikes, keep students at home and get them to pressurise their parents to pressurise the President to sign a deal. Presidents through the ages have all been forced to sign, but signing is the simple issue, implementation has always been the bane of policies in Nigeria. ASUU is weak because its too focused on grandiose victory that often yields little in real results. The fact of the matter is that the Nigerian Government is irresponsible and never fully implements deals it signs. The struggle for a responsive and accountable government is a much larger one and goes far beyond the ASUU struggle. ASUU must go into introspection and learn what every trade unionist knows, gains in the struggle are never total, they are always incremental. The key question in the faceoff is finance and financial matters are addressed in budgets. The President proposes budget estimates but our Constitution gives power to the National Assembly to make the budget. Let’s reflect on Nigeria’s budgets. Budgets are laws, which our Constitution says must be fully implemented by all governmental agencies. We know however that since 1999, no budget of any government ministry, department or agency (MDA) has ever been fully implemented. The Federal Universities are government agencies and their expectations that the agreement they have, which is not even a law, must be fully implemented, is correct in principle but does not reflect current practices. It is despicable that Government signs without any intention of full implementation but we need to start asking ourselves whether strikes will change the course of Government business. In 2004, President Obasanjo introduced a new fiscal policy based on what is called the “oil price rule”. Each year, the government sets a pre-determined price for petroleum at a level that would be certainly lower than the market price. The government then saves the difference between the pre-determined price and the actual price to build foreign reserves and create confidence in the economy. Based on this criterion of fiscal prudence, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) authorised its Policy Support Instrument (PSI) for Nigeria in October 2005. The agreement with the IMF on fiscal policy was done surreptitiously and Parliament was not consulted. The Obasanjo regime therefore made commitments on significant cuts to public expenditure without the accord of the Nigerian people. This treacherous act of the regime in cutting funds for social expenditure is celebrated in many IMF and World Bank reports. It is the on-going policy that no appropriation shall be fully disbursed and implemented. President Goodluck Jonathan brought back a certain Ngozi Okonjo Iweala to continue this policy. The fact of the matter is that the macro-economic policy framework of the Presidency is to continue to curb investment in the social sector, in particular, on education and health. Progressives must engage this struggle with zeal and on a wider front but its resolution cannot be the basis of re-opening our universities. The prognosis of the ASUU struggle is clear, Government will eventually be forced to commit to full implementation, ASUU will go back to work and receive arrears for the months of work not done and Government will once again renege at the level of full implementation. It will take ASUU two more years of massive mobilisation to get lecturers back on strike and the cycle continues. ASUU must start a conversation about a profound change in tactics. More minimalist and attainable targets must be set and advocacy must be broadened to address the National Assembly and other institutions. My ASUU comrades, the struggle is our life but this does not mean that we cannot get real. Did BJ not tell us in 1980 that there are two struggles, one for the university system and another for a progressive Nigeria? Source premium times

Extra Judicial Killings In Nigeria: Nigerian Police Allegedly Killed 7195 People In 4 Years

The Nigeria Police Force was yesterday alleged to have been responsible for the extra judicial killing of 7,195 persons in four years. The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Mr Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) revealed this while delivering a keynote address yesterday at the national dialogue on torture, extra-judicial killings and national security organised by the national human rights commission (NHRC) in Abuja. The AGF said that the Federal Government has noted with concern that the police has through the years relied on ‘’Police Force Order 237’’ to commit extra-judicial killings. He said the order which allows the police to shoot any suspect or detainees trying to escape or avoid arrest has led to extra-judicial killings of 7,195 people in four years, out of which 2,500 were detainees. ‘’Although these figures have been stoutly disputed by the police, even the most charitable defenders of the force cannot deny that some dishonourable officers indeed have taken the law into their hands in the most barbaric fashion by killing suspects and innocent citizens’’, Adoke added. Adoke SAN who further revealed that plans are afoot for his office to take over from the police the power to prosecute any criminal suspect in the courts said the force is peopled by laymen who cannot tackle counsel of defendants in the court. He said henceforth, the Police would only concern themselves with investigations of criminal acts of suspects, on the grounds that the inability to diligently prosecute offenders and the general state of helplessness for the victims of crime to get justice has led to cultures of self-help. He also stated that here is no doubt that the rule of law has taken flight in the society which condones a situation where citizens take the law into their hands and summarily try and execute suspected felons. Adoke also agree that tha apparent slow pace of the criminal justice system particularly the corruption that permeates the system has been identified as the main reason why citizens take laws into their hands. “I have on numerous occasions listened to or read how disenchanted victims and complainants of an offence are with corruption in the police, how the police can no longer be trusted to conduct a dispassionate enquiry into a complaint, how many complainants suddenly find themselves behind bars in a curious travesty, and how prosecution and trials are slowed by tardiness and ceaseless adjournments. There is no doubt that a holistic reform of our criminal justice system is long over due. In my humble view the issue transcends the police, ministry of justice and the courts are also complicit.” ‘But, the managing partner of  the ‘’Legal Resources Consortium’’, Olawale Fapohunda disagreed in part with the federal government over its comment on the ills in the police system, saying the approach of the government to police reform has made the police an endanger species. Fapohunda however dismissed the idea of state police on the grounds that the solution to the problems of crime, insecurity and terrorism in Nigeria is not one federal or state police but achieving a police service which is efficient, honest and professional to the core. (Source:Daily Times)