Public Affairs Analyst

With public opinion on its side, nothing can fail, with public opinion against it, nothing can succeed – Abraham Lincoln. The outcome of the August 5, 2008 Peoples Democratic Party's National Executive Committee meeting should be commended by all lovers of democracy in Nigeria. It is indeed a step in the right direction. At the meeting, the NEC of the party inter alia resolved that its Board of Trustee should revert to its advisory position; there shall be no more arbitrary nomination of candidates, hence the party will uphold the rule of law and will forthwith monitor the performance of its elected officials while party elders are now to be co-opted into state caucuses. The NEC also reconstituted its disciplinary committee.In taking these far-reaching decisions, PDP is bowing to the pressure from within its fold and the general public who had not spared it on the ignoble role the party has been playing since the return to electoral democracy in 1999. It is on record that the part...

I wish to call the attention of the general public to the act of deliberate misinformation by the presidency particularly the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, on issues relating to Uwais Committee report on Electoral Reform. Adeniyi in a chat with State House Correspondents on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 was quoted in the media that the (Political Party Registration and Regulatory Commission) bill thrown out by the Senate on May 26 was prepared by the Uwais Committee as one of its recommendations and not by the president or his cabinet. That is being economical with the truth. I have read the ERC report and the true position is that though Uwais committee did recommend for the establishment of PPRRC as one of the three new commissions to be created in the process of unbundling of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the committee did not prepare any bill having known that the 1999 Constitution will have to be amended first before thi...

Human Capital Development is crucial and central to any meaningful national growth and development. Recent revelations about the state of education in Nigeria, however, call for concern. They are simply mind-boggling and heart-rending! Nigeria’s Minister of Labour and Productivity, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode (SAN), recently said that a World Bank report on Nigeria put the country’s unemployed at a staggering 40 million, the majority of them being within the age of 18-25. This is not the first time Nigerians are being treated to unemployment statistics. I recall that in 2008, the Minister of Youth Development, Senator Akinlabi Olasunkanmi, said 64 million out of the 80 million youths in Nigeria are unemployed. He stated further that 1.6 million of the employed youth are underemployed and went on to declare that the data made available by the National Manpower Board and Federal Bureau of Statistics indicated that only about 10 per cent of the graduates produced for the labour market a...

Does it bother you? I mean the increasing menace of trafficking in narcotics and psychotropic substances and its concomitant effect on innocent Nigerians who are subjected to humiliating searches in and out of airports around the world. Hardly will a week go by without records of arrest. Each year, the number of arrests snowballed. People of all ages, gender and creed have been caught trafficking hard drugs in and out of Nigeria — from teenagers to octogenarians, students, artisans, graduates, etc. In an interview in the Sunday Vanguard of August 31, 2008, the Chairman of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Alhaji Ahmadu Giade, made some startling revelations about how the drug war is being fought in Nigeria by his organisation. Part of the major breakthrough of the organisation was the seizure of 14.2 tonnes of cocaine at the Island port. This, according to him, was the biggest seizure in Africa and the fifth highest seizure in the world. Earlier, under the leadership o...

Rainbow coalition it was. Fifty-eight people from 17 countries mobilised by The Carter Centre to observe Ghana’s December 28 run-off election. It was a privilege to be among those invited by TCC to participate in the democratic exercise. Prior to being invited, I had followed the 2008 Ghana elections with keen interest. It was soul-lifting that positive news was coming from the former Gold Coast after the December 7, 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections. However, as the saying goes, seeing is believing. Thus, when the invitation came from TCC, I couldn’t resist even as it was going to cost me the ritual of celebrating Christmas with my family in Nigeria. Ghana, a country of 20 million people with 10 administrative regions and 230 electoral constituencies shares a common history with Nigeria. Apart from being a former British colony, the country also had its fair share of military rule. Ghana currently operates 1992 Constitution and the Electoral Commission of Ghana had just co...

The screaming headline in one of the weekend papers of April 18, 2009 reads ‘FG Uncovers Jail Evasion Cartel in NDLEA’. The report said 197 convicted drug barons and couriers had been illegally set free while 14 lawyers, 11 NDLEA officials and 11 prison wardens are involved. However, a news report on April 22 and advertorial on April 27 by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) debunks the involvement of members of the NDLEA. Rather the spokesperson of the agency said “the true position is that sometime in August 2006, acting on information that drug convicts manipulate themselves against serving jail terms with the connivance of some persons, NDLEA Chairman/ Chief Executive, Ahmadu Giade, ordered the Directorate of Inspectorate Services to investigate the allegations. “He also directed that all drug convicts sentenced between 2005 and 2006 be investigated with a view to confirming if they had served their full jail terms”. According to the NDLEA, “the outcome of the internal...

IS there governance in Nigeria? I asked this question against the backdrop of the harvest of industrial actions currently going on in many sectors of the Nigerian economy. At the last count, different unions cutting across the Federal Ministry of Information and Communication, Ministry of Education and Federal Ministry of Health are on strikes. In my own opinion, this is a preventable situation. For instance, if government had planned very well before embarking on the monetisation exercise, it will not owe its workers upward of two years arrears. The fact that National Medical and Health Workers Union and their counterpart in Radio, Television and Theatre Workers Union (RATTAWU) and Nigeria’s Postal Services (NIPOST) are being owed monetisation arrears portrays government as unserious and uncaring. Nigerian government has spent the last two and a half years negotiating its 2001 agreement with Academic Staff Union of Universities! Not even ASUU’s warning strike could make the government...

There is no gain saying the fact that healthcare delivery in Nigeria is in a deplorable condition. From primary to tertiary, health institutions are now shadows of what they are meant to be. Many even regard our hospitals now as mere consulting clinics. Factors responsible for this lamentable state of our healthcare delivery are numerous. One of them is inadequate funding by the tiers of government meant to cater for them. Over the years, subventions released to public health institutions have greatly reduced. These have hampered the purchase and maintenance of hospital equipment as well as lower the morale of health practitioners. Oftentimes, health workers have had to go on strike to press home their demands for better funding of the health sector as well as the prompt payment of their salaries and allowances. The consequence of all these crises in the health sector is brain drain. I learnt that Nigerian doctors practising in United States of America alone are in the neighborhood of ...

In a manner reminiscent of the aborted tenure elongation debate which sounded the death-knell of the 2006 Constitution amendment effort, Nigeria’s Senate on May 26 threw out President Yar’Adua’s bill seeking to set up Political Party Registration and Regulatory Commission. The Senate said the PPRRC Bill, as packaged, violated the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and that it would not pass any bill that entailed the amendment of the 1999 Constitution until the Constitution was amended. When shall this be? Do the President and his legal advisers not know of this truth? It will be recalled that President Yar’Adua on April 30, 2009 sent 6 electoral reform bills to the National Assembly. They are a Bill for an Act to Amend the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Act Cap 15 LFN 2004 and other Matters Connected Thereto; a Bill for an Act to Alter Provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 and for other Matters Connected Thereto (Second Amendment); ...

PRESIDENT Umaru Musa Yar'Adua committed a gaffe in his maiden press briefing at the State House on May 12, 2009. The president was quoted to have said in relation to why the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the Council of State (CoS) rejected the Justice Uwais recommendation that National Judicial Council should be involved in the appointment of INEC Chairperson and Board members that "The recommendation for the National Judicial Council to appoint the chairman and members of INEC is not in line with the fundamental process of the law." Having been privileged to read the Uwais report, I make bold to say that the above assertion by the President is incorrect. What the ERC recommended which is contained on Page 27 of its main report is that the National Judicial Council will advertise all the positions, spelling out all the requisite qualifications; receive applications/nominations from the general public; shortlist three persons for all the positions; and send the nomin...

THE granting of Nigerians in Diaspora right to vote by a recent judgment of Justice Adamu Bello of Federal High Court, Abuja calls for sober reflection. Let me first congratulate Hon. Hakeem Bello, Prof. Bolaji Aluko and Mr. Uzoma Onyemaechi on their hard won victory. Hon. Bello had sometime in March 2008 invited me to observe court proceeding on the case but I couldn't make it. There is no gainsaying that the history of voting franchise has almost always been that of struggle. I recall that voting right was restricted in Nigeria initially to taxpaying adults earning 50-100 Pounds while women were also denied voting franchise for long before the adoption of universal adult suffrage which guarantees Nigerians who are 18 years and above the right to vote at elections. Justice Bello's ruling has once again expanded the scope of voting rights in Nigeria. This is a manifestation of judicial activism which has seen Nigerian judiciary playing active role in Nigeria's electoral pro...

Dr Mohammed Haliru Bello, Deputy National Chairman of PDP earlier in the year promised that the party will give all its political office holders automatic tickets. The party promptly debunked this position saying that the party chieftain was merely expressing personal opinion. On July 1, 2009, Senate President, David Mark made a formal demand for automatic tickets for the 87 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senators to facilitate their return to the red chamber in 2011. Mark made the request at a dinner he organised for the members of the National Working Committee of the PDP in his Apo Legislative Quarter. He decried the high turn over of Senators after each election and rationalised his demand on the basis that the move would ensure that legislative experiences already gathered by the present crop of lawmakers are not wasted. In his view, the serving senators have proved to be reliable, competent and knowledgeable, and therefore merit automatic tickets. PDP had reiterated its ear...

Section 14 (2b) of the Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution says “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”. Unfortunately, the government seems to have abdicated this crucial responsibility going by the high state of insecurity in Nigeria. If there is doubt in anyone’s mind about how insecured Nigerians are, the bombing of Atlas Cove jetty in Lagos on July 12, 2009 by Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) must have erased such. That a handful of militant group can pull a surprise attack on Nigeria’s oil facility far from the core Niger Delta environment shows that we are done for. Since 2006 when the MEND and other militant groups commenced serious act of sabotage: bombing oil facilities, taking oil workers hostage and kidnapping innocent citizens, one would have thought that a serious and responsible government would have nipped the emerging tragedies in the bud but that is expecting too much from a government which is in perpetual sta...

One of the campaign promises of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the last decade was the provision of stable electricity. The issue of electricity has been such a recurring decimal in political campaigns that from councillorship to presidential elections, it always topped the agenda. Yet at every turn, instead of having the promised megawatts of electricity, what Nigerians have been treated to are megawatts of excuses and darkness. Starting with former President Obasanjo’s administration, he got an act of parliament to change NEPA (National Electric Power Authority) to Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN); balkanised the old NEPA into several autonomous companies and established the National Integrated Power Project. An estimated $16 billion was allegedly spent by the Obasanjo administration alone on power projects, while there were high turnovers of PHCN management as they were sacked one after the other for inefficiency. A probe of Obasanjo’s investment in the power sector h...