GUNMEN struck again early yesterday, kidnapping two pupils on their way to school on Odili Road, along Abuloma, an outskirt of Port Harcourt.

The kids, both of the same parents are Chinoso and Uchechi Ajanaku. Their father is an employee of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

According to eyewitnesses, the armed men came with a black Sports Utility Van (SUV), abducted Chinonso 11 and Uchechi, nine.

The witnesses could not, however, confirm the number of the kidnappers. A source said some of the kidnappers stayed in the car.

Rivers State police spokes woman Rita Abbey, who confirmed the abductions, said the kids were taken to an unknown location.

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction, the latest in recent months.

But the Police spokesperson told the Nigerian Compass that the command had sent out its men to work on some tips and ensure that the children are released.

She said: “As usual, they will be released. I can assure you of their release because the Police will not rest until they are taken to their parents. Our men are everywhere, working to be on top of the situation”.

Abbey, however, urged the public with useful information to come forward with it, stressing that policing is a collective responsibility.

Last week, three pupils of ABEC, an elite private secondary school, owned by the wife of the former deputy governor of the state, Mrs Christy Toby, were released by kidnappers after two weeks in captivity. Their parents were reported to have paid N7 million ransom to have their children back.

The three pupils had been kidnapped in their school in Woji, near Port Harcourt. One of the victims is the son of the President-General of the Isoko Development Union (IDU), Peter Erebi. The pupils, it was gathered, were kidnapped at about 9p.m while they were retiring to their hostel after the day’s work.

The Nigerian Compass learnt that the IDU President-General might have parted with the money to secure the release of his son and his classmates.

Security operatives, including police and the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) battled to get the pupils freed. When contacted, Erebi declined comments on how he secured the release of the kids.

“I give all the glory to God that our children are back home in one piece. God answered our prayers. The episode strengthened my belief in the efficacy of prayers and faith in God”, he told the Nigerian Compass.

Erebi, however, called on militants and kidnappers in the troubled region to desist from the criminal act and help in building a more peaceful and business-friendly Niger Delta.

Besides, he said that the pupils were released with the support of the River State Police Command, the JTF, the Rivers State Government as well as federal and state lawmakers.

He equally commended the former Federal Commissioner of Information and Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark and others in ensuring the freedom of the pupils.

Erebi described the ordeal of the pupils as “traumatic”.

Stakeholders Brainstorm on NEPAD Way-Forward
Participants at the workshop on the implementation of the NEPAD-APRM National Programme of Action (NPOA) have reaffirmed the need for concerted efforts by the three tiers of government in order to actualize the vision in Rivers State.

The event, which was held in Port Harcourt, according to the organizers was part of the review of the programme in Rivers State to reappraise the implementation process and make inputs where necessary to realizing the objectives set by African heads of state and government.

According to the Special Assistant to the Rivers State governor / State Coordintor of NEPAD - APRM, Dr. Tex Wariboko, the office of NEPAD in the state is currently carrying out campaigns to sensitizing the people about the programme while also collaborating with development agencies in order to enthrone good governance. Dr. Wariboko informed that NEPAD and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) have agreed to collaborate on youth development programmes, saying that office of NEPAD in Rivers State has further engaged in the training of trainers of the programme.

The state coordinator in his report on the level of NEPAD domestication in Rivers State further said that NEPAD business group has been established in the state to strengthen business development capacity of the people just as he noted that a rural agricultural development programme is in the offing to help boost agricultural produce as well as economic development of the rural areas.

The Commissioner for Urban Development and Chairman of the event, Osina Ginah, in his speech noted that "one of the factors that sustain democracy is good governance" remarking that APRM is the hallmark for Africa's good governance and sustainable development.

Hon. Ginah charged the commissioners, Permanent Secretaries and heads of departments in charge of budgeting to seek ways they could review the programme and understand the processes involved toward actualizing the vision of the APRM in their various establishments. On his part, the secretary to the Rivers State Government (SSG), Hon. Magnus Abbe, in his keynote address observed that "good governance is the most copious aspect of the APRM," remarking that the state government was conscious of that hence, the establishment of the due process office in Rivers State.

Hon. Abbe, who was represented by Rev. Gladman Amadi urged desk officers of the programme at various levels to take the responsibilities seriously in order to actualize the vision. The event had a plenary session where participants were urged to make inputs in areas where it affects and or relates to them in a bid to ensuring effectiveness. It would be recalled that the NEPAD - APRM was launched in Rivers State last February 18, with a view to enthroning good governance and development.

Kingsley Amajiri

GMT Capital Limited Offer for Sale 6 Million Ordinary Shares
GMT Capital Limited has offered for sale a private placement of 6 million ordinary shares of 50k each at N2 per share to the South- South Zone in Port Harcourt, Mr. Ebi Odeigah, Chief Executive Officer of the company, while presenting the offer to selected investors in Port Harcourt, said the company was an amalgamation of individuals with industrial competence which cut across the various sectors of the economy.

In his words: "The company's key members of staff have amongst them a wealth of requisite industry experience to embrace the company's various business operations," adding that the company has a strategic interest in various other businesses having opportunity for growth and high return on investment."

Mr. Odeigah further stressed that the company was executing the private placement to raise the sum of N12 billion to finance strategic business expansion initiatives, financial capital expenditure, working capital requirements and acquisition programme, adding that the companies are GMT Securities and Asset Management, GMT Property Development Company Limited, GMT Agro-Allied Multi Ventures Limited, GMT Media Services Limited and GMT Guard Limited." He noted that the company was incorporated in February, 2008 as a holding company to provide strategic direction and consolidate the operation of its various business interests.

Speaking earlier, Mrs. Ijeoma Rita Odelga of Clement Ashley Consulting Company, called on the would-be investors to put their money in the company as there was every tendency of growth. "Invest wisely in a company of growth, where you are sure of reaping more than you have invested." In her presentation titled, "Strategies and Systems of Managing Investment Risks," she said that investment involves a lot of risks on the part of the investors and risk managers, saying that anyone who wants to invest should have a heart to manage risk, but that GMT Securities are in the right corners to reduce such risks.

Jolly Adjevwe

Ateke Can't Overrun My Village -Amaechi
Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State has declared unequivocally that leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Forces, Ateke Tom is incapable of overrunning his village against the backdrop of threats credited to the latter that the group will cause mayhem in Port Harcourt. The Rivers State governor made the statement at the commencement of the Garden City Literary Festival holding at the University of Port Harcourt.

The governor particularly plucked courage in the presence of the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka and a host of other literary giants at the event. Amaechi, who humorously described Prof. Wole Soyinka as the 'costliest hostage' that can be taken, stated that the arrival of great minds at the maiden literary festival in Port Harcourt was an indication of a peaceful atmosphere in the state.

Amaechi, who spoke before a large audience and numerous students of English Studies at the event, charged the undergraduates to emulate the lifestyles of the literary icons who dominated the literary festival. He condemned cultism on campuses of Nigerian universities advising rather that Nigerian undergraduates embrace dialogue in their approach to problem solving and advance their cause genuinely.

According to him, no problem can be solved through mayhem, as he called on them to use students' unionism to good effect to address national issues. Also, the governor lashed out at those behind the recent kidnap of the vice-chancellor of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Professor Barineme Fakae. He stated that the act was at variance with what the Niger Delta struggle stood for. On the need to reverse the downward trend of reading culture, mostly among students population, the governor stressed that the Garden City Literary Festival was apt at awakening the consciousness of the people to reading.

He called on the undergraduates to shun reading for the sake of examination. His words: "when you read for the sake of exam, you are not acquiring knowledge. You are acquiring certificates only to be employed. I plead with you that there is the need to study." Governor Amaechi stated that the event witnessed an array of literary stars like Professor Wole Soyinka, Amb. Koffi Awonoor, Capt. Elechi Amadi, Okey Ndibe, Kame Agari, Patrina Crockford, among others from the academia.

Highlight of the festival include performance by undergraduate students of the Drama Department of UNIPORT and book exhibition by publishers and other stakeholders. The 2008 Garden City Literary Festival (still ongoing) is first of its kind in Rivers State.

Oba tasks RSSDA on rural poverty
• Friday, Sep 12, 2008
The Chairman of Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers (RSCTR) and the Oba of Ogbaland, Sir Chukumela Nnam Obi II has tasked the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA) to urgently formulate and implement a comprehensive plan of action to tackle rural poverty and boost local economy of the state.

Sir Nnam Obi gave the charge in Port Harcourt, Wednesday when the management of the agency paid him a courtesy visit in his office.

Admitting that the task of eradicating rural poverty was an onerous one, especially against the backdrop of the alarming increase in the country’s poverty index, the council chairman urged the agency’s management to visit oil producing communities to fully ascertain the frightening degree of poverty, squalor, misery and devastation occasioned by exploratory activities of oil companies operating in the communities.

He insisted that unless this was done, every efforts at tackling rural poverty and entrenching sustainable development would fail.

Sir Nnam Obi listed planlessness, poor policy implementation, corruption and poor execution of jobs as the bane of development in Nigeria, and urged the agency to emulate the Asian tigers, whom he said, worked very hard to obliterate impediments to their country’s development.

The monarch assured the agency of the preparedness of the traditional rulers to partner with it to realise its set goals and objectives.

The Director of the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA), Mr Bolaji Ogunseye had earlier briefed the traditional rulers council chairman on the activities of the agency, explaining that the agency was a strategic initiative of Rivers State Government aimed at tackling rural poverty and building effective community institution and viable local economies across the rural areas of the state.

UK exports to Nigeria hit N444bn
• Friday, Sep 12, 2008
The British High Commission said yesterday that exports from the United Kingdom to Nigeria was nearly £2 billion (about N444 billion) between 2006 and 2007.

A statement from the Trade Development Section of the commission, made available to The Tide correspondent yesterday in Abuja, credited this information to Mr Peter Stephenson, the director, U.K. Trade and Investment (UKTI) Department in Nigeria.

“Nigeria is U.K.’s second largest market in Africa, with exports of goods worth £1.013 million (about N224.9 million) in 2007, and exports of services valued at £913 million (about N202.7 billion) in 2006,” the statement said.

It noted that Nigerians first looked to the U.K. for goods and services because of the strong historical, language and constitutional ties between the two countries.

It explained that the UKTI, London, was keen to build on the established relationship between the two countries and to help companies take advantage of the opportunities for trade in Nigeria.

The business areas identified included oil and gas, agriculture, mining and mineral processing, power, and communications.

“Nigeria is the most lucrative telecommunications market in Africa, growing at twice the African average; a wide range of products and services are being promoted”, the statement said.

It said that in order to further build on the strong business ties between both countries, representatives of 18 companies would be participating in the annual trade mission to Lagos.

Organised by the London Chamber of Commerce, the mission is scheduled to hold between September 15 and September 18, it added.

Julius Berger resumes work on Eleme Junction fly-over soon
• Friday, Sep 12, 2008
Work on the abandoned fly-over project at Eleme junction, along the Port Harcourt-Aba Expressway will soon commence, as the contracting firm handling the project has given assurance that it would return to site.

This indication emerged yesterday after a closed door meeting between officials of Julius Berger and Rivers State Governor, Rt Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in Government House, Port Harcourt.

An official, who spoke on condition of anonymity said discussion with the governor was fruitful, and that the company was concluding arrangements to return to site soon.

He said it was not true that Julius Berger was subletting any of its contracts in the state to a sub-contractor as recently reported in the media, and assured that as a responsible company with a high delivery reputation, the company would return to site to conclude her contractual obligation.

Accordingly, motorists using the Eleme junction axis of the Port Harcourt-Aba Express Road, have been enjoined to be patient as work on the project would soon be completed, and the traffic jam currently experienced, a thing of the past.

The acting Press Secretary to the Governor, Blessing Wikina said Governor Amaechi has demonstrated his willingness to complete work on the project, as well as other projects in the state, by promptly releasing money to the contractors, noting that as responsible corporate citizens, the contracting firm does its job diligently.

“We apologise for the current traffic situation around the Eleme Junction fly-over, but we will all be happier in a few months time when the project is completed” he said.

Mbeki's Graceful Exit
By Olisemeka Obeche, Reporter, Lagos

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki, the second democratically elected president of the Republic of South Africa, did the unbelievable in African politics last week Sunday when he accepted to relinquish his position, in obeisance to his party, with barely one year left to the end of his tenure.

Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela on the platform of the African National Congress (ANC), bowed to his party's decision to axe him following his perceived interference in a corruption case against his greatest rival and the current ANC leader, Jacob Zuma.

Mbeki, who joined the ANC at the age of 14 as a member of its youth wing and rose through the ranks to the leadership of the party, became a victim and victor of his own political plot when he literally threw in the towel after his party asked him to resign.

The decision to evict him from Pretoria was taken at the ANC National Executive Council (NEC) for what it termed the need to sustain stability and peaceful and a prosperous South Africa. ANC, which comprises the Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU), the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), and the political cadres that waged the country's liberation struggle; throughout Friday and into the wee hours, the 86 NEC members debated the political future of Mbeki and at the end, decided to sacrifice him for the sake of the nation.

The ex-South African leader, whose loyalty to the ANC has spanned over 50 years told his countrymen during his resignation speech that he has taken the decision of the ANC leadership with good faith and will as well remain a member of the party for life.

"It is for this reason that I have taken the decision to resign as president of the Republic, following the decision of the National Executive Committee of the ANC."

Not only that he accepted to cut short his stay in the exalted position, Mbeki, in a rare demonstration of spirit of sportsmanship and selflessness, thanked South Africans and the ANC for the opportunity.

Hear him: "I would like sincerely to thank the nation and the ANC for having given me the opportunity to serve in public office during the last 14 years as the deputy president and president of South Africa," he said in an emotion laden voice.

Despite the pain of defeat in his chest, Mbeki out of sheer patriotism and love for his country, not only offered his support for his successor but gave South Africans a parting shot.

"Among other things," he said, "we need to sustain the vision, principles and values of the ANC teach the cadres of this movement life-long lessons that inform us that wherever we are and whatever we do we should ensure that our actions contribute to the attainment of a free and just society, the upliftment of all our people, and the development of a South Africa that belongs to all who live in it.

"Indeed, the work we have done in pursuit of the vision and principles of our liberation movement has at all times been based on the age-old values of Ubuntu, of selflessness, sacrifice and service in a manner that ensures that the interests of the people take precedence over our desires as individuals.

"This is the vision of a South Africa that is democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous; a country in which all the people enjoy a better life," he professed.

On the allegation of influencing decision of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), which played key role to his rejection by his party, Mbeki did not only deny the charge but affirmed his continued desire to uphold the sanctity of the South African judiciary.

"Since the attainment of our freedom in 1994, we have acted consistently to respect and defend the independence of the judiciary. For this reason our successive governments have honoured all judicial decisions, including those that went against the executive.

"This did not mean that the executive did not at times have strong views which we would have publicly pronounced upon. The central approach we adopted has always been to defend the judiciary rather than act in a manner that would have had a negative impact on its work.

"I would like to state this categorically that we have never done this, and therefore never compromised the right of the National Prosecuting Authority to decide whom it wished to prosecute or not to prosecute. This applies equally to the painful matter relating to the court proceedings against the President of the ANC, Comrade Jacob Zuma.

"More generally, I would like to assure the nation that our successive governments since 1994 have never acted in any manner intended willfully to violate the Constitution and the law. We have always sought to respect the solemn Oath of Office each one of us made in front of the Chief Justice and other judges, and have always been conscious of the fact that the legal order that governs our country was achieved through the sacrifices made by countless numbers of our people, which included death.

However, the story of Mbeki's exit from South Africa's most powerful position after nine years of service is one that every Nigerian political player, both young and old must be acquainted with and derive lesson from.

Through Mbeki's ouster, many have come to terms with the hard fact that the major strength of successful workings of democracy is the consolidation of consensus and natural respect by political players for the rule of law and inviolability of a country's constitution.

Perhaps, the greater realisation that democracy is not always about agreement; but agreeing to resolve all disagreements based on a fundamental body of agreements called a constitution even when they don't agree with personal whims is more glaring now more than any known political theory. This major ingredient of civilised political conduct, which Mbeki demonstrated last weekend is largely absent in the Nigerian politician system.

Nigeria's political system is rather of the 'do-or-die' variety and key players must realise how crude their political philosophy is when placed side by side with that exhibited by their South African counterparts.

It was in South Africa where Nelson Mandela took it upon himself to surrender leadership to younger South Africans after one term despite spending his entire life fighting for the very thing he was giving up. But Nigerian leaders usually refuse to let go, except when they are forced out.

Many Nigerians believe that had the events that culminated in Mbeki's resignation taken place in Nigeria strong worded statements would have been issued through the media from several groups condemning such 'unpatriotic plot to unseat a duly elected president'.

Certain political forces loyal to the embattled president would have overrun the streets in readiness to unleash terror should their political benefactor be toppled.

The clamour for the ANC to axe Mbeki was seen by many watchers as far from the praise the country's leader once enjoyed as the crown prince who became the philosopher king and was hailed as 'Mr. Delivery.'

Mbeki, the son of the revered veteran ANC leader Govan, served under Nelson Mandela as one of two deputy presidents after the 1994 elections and later became the sole deputy president.

He increasingly assumed responsibility for the day-to-day management of government while Mandela focused on reconciliation. The next election saw the ANC just miss a two-thirds majority and marked the start of the Mbeki era. In 2004, Mbeki led the ANC to a clear landslide victory.

As the then new president stepped into Mandela's "big shoes" he was welcomed by many, even outside his informal "kitchen cabinet" circle, as a moderniser, the man who would go beyond "feel good" and do, the engineer who would get the rainbow nation's engine oiled and ticking over in a new millennium.

Under him, the South African economy grew in leaps and bounds. That feat earned him the sobriquet "the hard worker and a task master who gets things done." He was touted as the architect of a modern South Africa, having engineered the reformation of government operation in his country.

Business Day of South Africa editor, Peter Bruce, said thus of Mbeki: "He made policies and he found the people to implement them; and genuinely believes that good governance and fiscal propriety are essential conditions for development."

Aside remodelling governance, Mbeki has also been credited for his emphasis on economic stability and the years of economic growth and even boom. His time in office saw the introduction of black economic empowerment measures.

Critically, unemployment, when the statistics were disentangled, remained a massive problem. Development nodes, expanded public works programmes and other pet projects did not do enough to change the terrible poverty sweeping through the country. That was perhaps the negative side of Mbeki's presidency, which was very different from that of the rational technocrat with a taste for economics and poetry.

That was the reason why when he became entangled in power play with his ex-deputy, Jacob Zuma whom he fired in 2005 after his financial adviser was found guilty of soliciting a bribe on his behalf, he knew that his fate was sealed. Of course, the same Zuma whose exit from office he plotted, bounced back to pay him in his own coin and as a good sportsman, he accepted it in good faith.

Certainly, he chose the honourable way out by offering to resign to pave way, not only for impartial investigation but also to avoid heating up the polity. That is the hallmark of selfless, civilised leadership which Nigerian leaders need most.

In response to the contrasting trend between the South African brand of democracy and that of Nigeria, a South Africa-based Nigerian literary icon Professor Kola Omotosho, said the resignation of the South African president was "an example of how matured democracy anywhere in the world should be."

According to him, Mbeki's ouster would have elicited street protests and civil disorder in many countries in Africa, especially Nigeria where loyalists of the two political forces in contention would have overrun each other and let hell loose.

Afenifere, the Pan Yoruba Socio-Cultural Organisation, also described the flawless manner in which the ANC eased out Mbeki as a lesson for the whole of Africa that democracy can work in our continent if we have statesmen in charge rather than political charlatans.

"In a continent where it usually takes a civil war or military coup to remove a sitting president with loss of countless lives, the South African experience with Mbeki is a model worthy of emulation by the rest of Africa."

Afenifere National Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin stated that it was a big lesson for the Robert Mugabes, the Kibakis "and the ones we don't have to mention for fear of being charged with 'treason' to know that any nation is greater than any president and no nation should be held down for personal interests.

"For our country Nigeria, the import of Mbeki's resignation is so great at a time that we are still grappling with whether we should even count our votes or just swear into office whoever is in charge of the do or die machinery," Odumakin said.

Democracy agitators also viewed it as a boost to African democracy and party supremacy, which they noted are lacking in Nigeria's politics.

Pouring encomiums on the ANC, the South Africa's ruling coalition for demonstrating that it is "truly a people-based party, capable of taking independent position, without minding whose ox is gored."

The activists said the event in South Africa has challenged Nigeria's political parties, especially the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) known for kowtowing to the whims and caprices of Aso Rock.

"What has happened in South Africa is a wonderful development for democracy in Africa. No nation of Africa can ignore the lesson of his resignation; just the same way coup plotting became popular that is the same way party supremacy and democracy will become popular and spread in Nigeria. Obviously, this would not have happened in Nigeria. It is a lesson for the PDP that prides itself as the biggest party in Africa," according to Emma Ezeazu of the Alliance for Credible Election (ACE-Nigeria).

"In Nigeria, all the structures of the PDP look up to President for contracts, or for accommodations in hotels, or for trips abroad, and all sorts of things. So, they cannot exercise party democracy and autonomy."

For the Convener of the United Action for Democracy (UAD), Abiodun Aremu, "Mbeki's resignation is a testimony to the strength of the political forces in the ANC, and that the party is disciplined, ideologically sound and well-focused."

According to him, the lesson is more to the activist community, and not to the Nigerian ruling cabal. It is for us to take a cue from the robust debate and critical engagement in the ANC, in the reactivation of our alternative party here.

The Action Congress, on its part, stated that the developments in South Africa mocked Nigeria's political experience because worse things happened in Nigeria in 2007, but that it rather led to a direct reward of the perpetrators, unlike what is happening in South Africa.

The party's Lagos state spokesman, Joe Igbokwe, argued that what brought down Mbeki's government was a mere rehash of the same elaborate political intrigues former president Olusegun Obasanjo employed against former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in the process leading to last year's elections.

"It is easy to imagine what would have happened were Mbeki a Nigerian president and the ANC, the PDP. Nigerians would have been snubbed and told to go to hell while some mandarins would have organised solidarity rallies to urge the president on; a typical scenario was what happened÷when Obasanjo, driven by the lust for power, indulged in a desperate political move that made Mbeki's adventure a child's play."

Arthur Mbanefo, Nigeria's former Permanent Representative at the United Nations, said this "can happen in Nigeria if we have the right political party. You can see what is happening to Gordon Brown in England. It is the party that determines and the rules are respected and obeyed.

"If the political setting or structure is there where the people obey the rules to its letter, it is possible. But for now, I doubt because we do not seem to have the right structure."

But Balarabe Musa, Conference of Nigeria's Political Parties (CNPP), chairman, said an (African) president can only bow to party interest only where enabling institutions have been established, as in South Africa. He believes Nigeria is many poles apart from getting it right.

"Obviously, it can't happen in Nigeria, at least not now. This is because there is no semblance of democracy in Nigeria. We have to make sure there is free and fair election to establish a legitimate government as well as the right political party that overrides the individual interest," Musa said.

Even Richard Akinjide, former federal attorney general and justice minister as well as a PDP stalwart, doubts his party is democratic enough to achieve such feat. He said: "It can't happen in Nigeria. President Mbeki's exit from office shows that democracy and the rule of law are working in South Africa. In that respect I will put South Africa on the same level with India, which is the greatest democracy that we have.

"South Africa has shown that it is not on the same league of violators of democratic norms in Africa, South of the Sahara; and I hope that election riggers in Nigeria and those who don't believe in the rule of law will take note."

Fred Agwu, a fellow of the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), believes the reverse would have been the case in Nigeria.

"Think of Obasanjo forcing Audu Ogbeh, a PDP stalwart, to resign allegedly at gunpoint, just because he wouldn't play ball."

According to him, Nigeria has not got to that level of political maturity.

"If it were in Nigeria the president would have forced the party chairman to resign at gunpoint and would have thereafter sent thugs to beat him up. Even the judge would not have had the audacity to rule against the president.

"In any case, if it were in Nigeria the president would have been the leader of the party and it would be difficult for anybody to move against him. South Africa is demonstrating leadership and unprecedented political maturity that have never been seen in Africa until now," he said.

Though, Nigerians may find it difficult to lift their cap for the South African political leaders, it is easily agreeable that they have stolen the show. Even some European nations and other continents know that there will be a forceful reiteration of principles of democracy in the continent. And that South Africa will likely become a more powerful voice in the promotion of democracy in Africa.

Certainly, Nigerian past, present and future leaders need to imbibe the South African political tenets, especially the rare courage displayed by Mbeki and his party, the ANC to sacrifice their selfish dreams and interests for the sake of the collective dreams of South Africa. Mbeki may have lost his political post in South Africa but purchased himself an exulted seat in the hearts of young South Africans and Africa in general, who have been looking for leaders like him.

Mbeki, a great thinker and mediator, was born in Idutywa, Transkei, on June 18, 1942.

Though people like to identify him as a policy shaper and a gentle leader, Mbeki was born into the struggle.

Both his parents were teachers and activists. Govan Mbeki, his father was a leading figure in ANC activities in the Eastern Cape, who was arrested at Rivonia and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Fearing that they would later be arrested, Mbeki's parents sent him and his wards to family and friends for upkeep, where he spent long periods of his childhood away from home.

He joined the Youth League of the ANC at 14 and quickly became active in student politics and passed through various tribulations, transformation and triumphs before moving up the ranks of the party's pecking order.

During the 1980s Mbeki rose to head the Department of Information and Publicity and coordinated diplomatic campaigns to involve more white South Africans in anti-apartheid activities.

From 1989 Mbeki headed the ANC Department of International Affairs, and was a key figure in the ANC negotiations with the former government.

Mbeki was hand-picked by Nelson Mandela after the April 1994 general election to be the first deputy president of the new Government of National Unity. After the National Party withdrew from that government in June 1996, Thabo Mbeki became the sole deputy president.

At the African National Congress 50th National Conference in Mafikeng in December 1997, Mbeki became the new president of the ANC. And on Sunday, September 21, he resigned his position as the president of South Africa.

Edo Guber Election: Appeal Court begins hearing
By THOMPSON ERHOMONSELE/AUGUSTINA OMORUYI


BENIN CITY –– Six months after the Edo State election Petition Tribunal nullified the election of Governor Oserhiemen Osunbor, the Appeal subsequently filed by the state government, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday commenced at the Federal Court of Appeal sitting in Benin City.


At the maiden sitting of the Appeal which was attended by the state Governor, Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor, counsel to the Governor, Chief Efe Akpofure (SAN) prayed the court to grant him leave to adopt a fresh application dated April 26, 2008 and withdraw an earlier filed application dated May 12, 2008 but filed on May 14, 2008.


Sequel to the application made by Chief Akpofure (SAN), the Court of Appeal Panel led by Justice Saka Ibiyeye, struck out the first application having regard to the existence of a second application which is identical in terms of the prayers.


The court also granted leave to the appellants to file and argue additional grounds of appeal, amend their notice of appeal as well as their brief of argument.


Appellants brief of argument and amended notice of appeal already filed were deemed duly filed and served.


Justice Ibiyeye further granted leave for the substantive appeal (CA/B/EPT/91/08 to be consolidated with the interlocutory appeal CA/B/EPT/179/07.


Counsel to Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and the Action Congress (AC), Chief Adeniyi Akintola (SAN) and Mr. Adekunji Oyeyiupo (SAN) were granted eight days within which to file their consequential amended respondents brief of argument if they so desire.


In another application filed by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and another, through its counsel, Kanu Agabi (SAN), the court granted leave to the appellants/applicants to consolidate the Interlocutory appeal (CA/B/EPT/193/08 with the substantive appeal CA/B/EPT/179/07.
Similarly, another application was brought by PDP against Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Action Congress (AC) but no application was filed in the appeal. It was however noted that all briefs in the appeal were ripe for hearing.


At the close of the day’s proceedings, Justice Ibiyeye Adjourned the appeals but disclosed that dates for hearing would be communicated to counsel and parties in the matter.


Meanwhile the environs of the Court of Appeal witnessed a large turnout of party faithfuls and the consequent human and vehicular traffic.


Despite the announcement by the state Commissioner of Police that only 30 party faithful would be allowed into the court room, the court room witnessed an over flow of people who were eager to be part of the proceedings. Following the tight situation, the court ordered that apart from parties in the matters, every other person should vacate the court hall for lawyers to sit. Journalists who were there for coverage we almost sent out of the court hall.


The Chairman of PDP, Edo State, Edward Sado (Esq), Head of Service, Dr. Simon Imuekemhe, Chief of Staff, Edo State Government, Hon. Isaiah Osifo, Commissioners, Special advisers, Comrade Adams Oshiomole and other faithfuls of both parties were among dignitaries in attendance at the court with a large number of security agents in the vicinity.


Meanwhile, Governor Osunbor has advised Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders and members to remain in high spirit, be vigilant and let their morale be high.


He gave the advice while addressing them shortly after returning from the Appeal Court
Prof. Osunbor observed that the party members had not entertained any fear and that they remained unshaken, a disposition he encouraged them to maintain.


On their carnival-like movement from the premises of the Appeal Court at Aduwawa to Government Houses, Benin City, the governor thanked them profoundly for their show of solidarity, loyalty and support to him and the party.


While asserting that PDP was the party ruling Edo State Prof. Osunbor expressed optimism that the party would still remain in power.

CANDIDATES awaiting their 2008 May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results to process their admission into universities can now do so. Results of the examination conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) were released yesterday.

Announcing this at the Yaba,Lagos headquarters of thecouncil, the Head of NigeriaOffice (HNO), Dr IyiUwadiae, said 1,369,142 candidateswrote the examinationacross the country. Of this,1,136,387, representing 83per cent, had their full resultsreleased, while 232,755 candidates,representing 17 percent, whose few of their subjectsare still being processeddue to various errors, had theirresults partially released.“The candidates committedsome errors at the registrationstage, while somewere committed during theconduct of the examination,”he said.Of the results released, Uwadiae noted that 188,442,representing 13.76 per cent,obtained credits and above inEnglish Language, Mathematicsand three other subjects.Giving the break down of thecandidates, he said 100,338 ofthem, representing 7.32 percent were male while 88,104(6.43 per cent) were femalecandidates.According to the HNO, theresults of 74,956, representing5.47 candidates, being investigatedbased on various reportsof their alleged involvement inmalpractices during the examination,were withheld.Said Uwadiae: “The report ofthe malpractices and their exhibitshave been compiled forpresentation to the Nigeria ExaminationsCommittee of theCouncil. The Committees decisionswill be communicatedto the affected candidatesthrough the schools that presentedthem for the examinationin due course.”Analysing the results further,he said 91,609 (6.69 percent) candidates were scienceoriented, 28,898(2.11 per cent)are Social Science orientedwhile 67,935, representing 4.96candidates are Arts biased.Uwadiae recalled that despitethe challenges faced bythe Council during the conductof the examination, coupledwith the teachers’s nationwidestrike, the Council was able torelease the results according toschedule.Noting that the Council putin more efforts to reduce thenumber of failure this year, hesaid the council had zero tolerancefor examination malpractices.

How to solve Odinga Raila.gif and Kibaki Tosha Tena Virus?
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Online update

Date: August 06, 2008

Threats: 380 642


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Thursday, September 4, 2008


More Stories on This Section

A three-year-old girl, Miss Nonso Sharon Ijeoma, was abducted on Tuesday night from her home in Port Harcourt.
The latest victim of ransom-thirsty gunmen is the daughter of a staff of Agip Oil Company (NAOC) in the Rivers State capital.

She was kidnapped by unknown armed men who forced their way into her No 7 Odoka Close, Off Ada George Road residence. No group has claimed responsibility for the incident as at press time.
Confirming the abduction, the spokesman for the military Joint Task Force (JTF), Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, said security agents have been put on the alert to hunt down the gunmen and rescue the girl.
He confirmed that, “contact has not been made and no ransom demanded.” Col. Musa appealed to members of the public to assist the police and other security agencies with, ‘credible information’ that could help secure the girl’s release and apprehend the culprits.

Meanwhile, Niger Delta militants and men of the JTF were locked in a four-hour battle on Tuesday night till early hours of Wednesday heightening tension in the creeks and riverine communities of Bayelsa State.

According to investigations, the battle was triggered by attempts of militants to invade military formations in the state and frustrate the visit of the new Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Paul Dike and the Senate Committee on Defence.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) had some days ago claimed that it killed 29 soldiers attached to the JTF in a attacked carried out in Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa states but the Army headquarters had refuted the claim describing it as unfounded.

Checks indicated that militia youths operating around Nembe had at about 8 pm on Tuesday stormed the Nembe waterways and were shooting as they advanced towards the military formation in the area.
The soldiers on duty responded and they battle for about four hours before the militants decided to leave.

No causality has been confirmed as of the time of filling this report but sources in the area said some militants were being treated for bullet wounds.
The Commander of the 73 Battalion in Bayelsa, Lt. Col. Chris Musa, who confirmed the story said the shooting lasted till the early hours of this morning.

“We were not surprised as intelligence report available showed they might come. But we were also ready for them. They are only trying to create a sense of insecurity for those visiting to shy away,” he added.

Government sees private schools as money spinners – Okutade

Will it be right to say that private schools are taking the place of public schools in the country?

To say that private schools are taking the place of public schools in the country is an over-statement. Private schools should go hand in hand with public schools, like those days when they were there to help the government. In those days, private schools were given subventions.>>More


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Don wants moral base curriculum

A don at University of Lagos (UNILAG) Prof. Muritala Aderemi Bidmus has advocated for the redesigning of Nigeria philosophy of education to emphasize on the spirit of doing it right. >>More


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Education as a social determinant of health (SDH)

Isaac N. Obasi


One of the first things I learnt from Prof. Layi Erinosho (one of Nigeria’s foremost and internationally distinguished Health Sociologists) during my years of close interaction with him is that health is not the absence of disease (ill-health) but a state of complete well-being. >>More


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CADI brings succour to indigent students

Determined to put similes on faces of the poor, Mrs. Njideka Eze through her pet project Community Arts Development Initiatives (CADI) has distributed school materials to indigent students in Ijora community of Lagos State. >>More


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UNILAG Mass Comm dept clocks 42

Stories by TITUS ELEWEKE

It was a moment of celebration and stock taking last week Thursday when staff and students of department of mass communication University of Lagos (UNILAG), re-launched the department for greater challenges ahead as a leading institute for the training of journalists, >>More

Factors of regional/national success in Information Society developments: Information Society strategies for candidate countries by Marc Bogdanowicz, Jean-Claude Burgelman, Clara Centeno, Elisaveta Gourova, and Gérard Carat

Bread or Broadband? The thirteen candidate countries (CCs) for entry into the European Union in 2004 (or beyond) confront difficult choices between "Bread or Broadband" priorities. The question raised in this article is how to put Information Society (IS) policy strategies at the service of social welfare development in these countries, while optimizing their resources and economic output.

The article summarises a dozen original research studies, conducted at the European Commission’s Institute for Prospective Technology Studies (IPTS). It identifies ICT infrastructures, infostructures and capabilities in the CCs, the economic opportunities these may offer their ICT domestic industry, and the lessons from previous IS development experience in the European Union that could possibly be transferable.

The paper concludes that only those trajectories that offer a compromise in the Bread or Broadband dilemma, taking into account both welfare and growth issues, will be politically sustainable.


Contents
1. Introduction
2. The specific context of candidate countries
3. Building an IS: Lessons to be learnt from some EU15 experiences
4. Potentials for a candidate countries’ ICT industry-led IS development
5. Future "Tigers" in the candidate countries
6. Conclusions: Shifting the focus




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1. Introduction
Immediately after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the European Union (EU) entered a process of "Enlargement". The aim was to negotiate the addition of thirteen countries to the existing fifteen EU Member States (EU15). The thirteen candidate countries (CCs) are the Baltic republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia; the Mediterranean countries of Turkey, Malta and Cyprus; and, the Central European countries of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia.

Ten years later in 2000, the Council of European Ministers meeting in Lisbon formulated ambitious targets for the EU society to reach by 2010, the so-called "Lisbon Strategy":


"Europe has today set itself a new strategic goal for the next decade: to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. Achieving this goal requires an overall strategy aimed at:

preparing the transition to a knowledge-based economy and society by better policies for the information society and R&, as well as by stepping up the process of structural reform for competitiveness and innovation and by completing the internal market;
modernising the European social model, investing in people and combating social exclusion;
sustaining the healthy economic outlook and favourable growth prospects by applying an appropriate macro-economic policy mix.
(, ) The shift to a digital, knowledge-based economy, prompted by new goods and services, will be a powerful engine for growth, competitiveness and jobs. In addition, it will be capable of improving citizens’ quality of life and the environment".


Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) were expected to play a key role in this, and all thirteen CCs, while still striving to achieve the conditions of the Enlargement process [1], have signed up to the Lisbon strategy, which contains an ICT-related Action Plan. This gives rise to the question of which IS strategy the CCs should follow, given their overall social, political and economic problems.

To breakdown the problem, we put forward the following questions that are answered in subsequent sections:

What characteristics of the CCs are relevant to the successful development of an Information Society? Are there specific economic, social, political or technological prospects (or threats) in candidate countries, which should be taken into account? (See section 2. The specific context of candidate countries)
Did we learn anything from EU15 experiences that is transferable to the CCs? To what extent is IS development local and context-specific or is it dependent on the global market? What are the possible trajectories for developing an IS in the CCs? (See section 3. Building an IS: Lessons to be learnt from some EU15 experiences)
How can ICT production, diffusion and use support growth opportunities? Is the development of the ICT industrial sector a major opportunity for the CCs? And to what extent would such development meet the challenges of the emerging Knowledge-based Society? (See sections 4. Potentials for a candidate countries ICT industry-led IS development and 5. Future "Tigers" in the candidate countries)
Finally, in order to meet the Lisbon objective "to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world", which examples of best policy practice could CCs follow and where do the policy paradigms need to be re-thought? (See section 6. Conclusions: Shifting the focus)




2. The specific context of candidate countries
Future opportunities [2] and possible barriers for IS development in the CCs can be clustered around three enabling areas or necessary components for building an Information Society: networks (infrastructure), services and applications (info-structure) and skills (capabilities) [3].

Infrastructures
The rate at which an Information Society can be constructed is strongly dependent on the availability and affordability of ICT to individuals, organisations and the society as a whole. Most data confirms that there is no purely technical reason why technological leapfrogging would not be possible in the CCs. The CCs have demonstrated their ability to deploy and adopt mobile telephony quicker than the EU15. Mobile phone penetration per 100 inhabitants has, in a relatively short period of time, overtaken fixed line penetration in Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Turkey (Table 1).



Table 1: Fixed and mobile penetration in candidate countries, 2001.
Source: ITU, 2002.

Year 2001 Mobile subscribers Fixed lines
candidate countries per 100 inhabitants CAGR (%) 1995-2001 per 100 inhabitants CAGR (%) 1995-2001
Bulgaria 19 106 36 2.8
Cyprus 46 37 63 2.6
Czech Republic 66 128 37 8
Estonia 46 68 35 4.1
Hungary 50 64 37 10.1
Latvia 28 90 31 1.7
Lithuania 25 100 31 3.6
Malta 35 52 53 2.4
Poland 26 127 30 12.1
Romania 17 175 18 5.7
Slovak Republic 40 136 29 5.5
Slovenia 76 95 40 4.4
Turkey 30 87 29 4.9

Average CC 39 97 36 5




Some CCs, for example Estonia, Malta, Cyprus and Slovakia, are performing very well on infrastructure deployment, and already have a higher Internet access penetration rate than some EU Member States. Similarly, Estonia and Slovenia have reached EU15 levels in terms of mobile usage and personal computer penetration. It should be noted also that cable television (CATV) is quite well developed in most CCs. More than 50 percent of all households with televisions in Slovakia, Romania and Malta, for example, have CATV connections. CATV may thus be considered an essential future opportunity for the CCs (more than for the EU 15) for the provision of low cost information and communication services to end-users.

This high adoption rate of technology and the introduction of changes to the telecommunications market may have raised excessive expectations as to the ability of CCs to catch up quickly in technological terms. However, as progress in ICT is correlated to a large extent to the level of economic development and the purchasing power of the population, countries with low per capita GDP are not capable of sustaining a high rate of ICT penetration growth. Generally, the CCs continue to lag behind EU Member States in most, if not all, measures of ICT access and usage. Furthermore, the overall economic situation in the CCs — and the resulting uneven revenue distribution — is widening the gap between people and organisations who can access the market of advanced technologies and services and those for whom they are a luxury.


At the moment there are large differences in technology diffusion based on geographic location, economic and social status, and age. In Turkey nearly 77 percent of all computers are owned by 40 percent of all households. These belong to the highest socio-economic groups, while the low economic groups, around 40 percent of households, own only 10 percent of all computers (Tubitak-Bilten, 2001). In Latvia and Bulgaria, less than 15 percent of households have computers (Eurostat, 2001). Consequently, the CCs had, for example, an average of 6.3 PCs per 100 inhabitants in 2000, compared to an average of 35 PCs in EU15 (ITU, 2001a). The gap exists and may be growing. Internet usage has mainly developed in educational institutions (44 percent), followed by corporate and government users (29 percent) and finally users at home and in small offices (27 percent) (ITU, 2001b). In Estonia 58 percent of Internet users are between 19-29 years old, while only seven percent of the users are between 50-74 years old [4]. The high usage price is a serious barrier for the spread of new communication technologies. Hungary and Poland, for example, have the highest Internet access charges during off-peak times among OECD countries [5]. The low teledensity and long waiting lists in some of the CCs — e.g. more than three percent of the population in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey — also hamper Internet penetration and increase the risk of growing regional disparities in the provision of access to new communication networks and services.

However, this growing digital divide in the CCs is much more complex than it is in EU15:


rural/urban distribution: An estimated one third of the CCs population lives in rural areas, particularly in the largest countries such as Turkey, Poland and Romania. Some 22 percent of total population make their living from agricultural activities (sometimes at subsistence level).


regional disparities: Two-thirds of all regions [6] in CCs show significantly low figures [7] in relation to labour and revenue indicators, with extremes often reached in border regions, small provincial towns and former peripheral industrial conglomerates.


demographic trends: The aging of the population is driving the demographic outlook for CCs [8]. The transition years have seen a fall in fertility rates and strong outward migration. As a result populations have decreased in many countries. Today, demographic projections, particularly those for just after 2010, show that this trend is even more pronounced than it is in EU15.

The impact of such disparities can be seen, for example, in the distribution of fixed line penetration between rural and urban areas in some countries. This can go from extremes of 0-100 percent, with no telecommunication services at all in small peripheral towns and rural villages and almost 100 percent penetration on new digital exchanges in capital cities. Also, though national telephone penetration rates may have increased — for example, 77 percent of households have fixed lines (European Commission, DG INFSO, 2002) — 50 percent of calls in some regions are affected by the lack of quality and reliability of these lines. This significantly limits the use of these lines for Internet access.

In addition, average national revenue disparities (observable determinants of divide) are expected to increase with Enlargement. It is estimated that the income gap between countries in EU28 will double as compared to the existing EU15 level (European Commission, DG REGIO, 2000). The impact and complexity of the potential digital divide will therefore be such that it may endanger market growth, social cohesion and democratic participation.

The ICT industry profile of these countries is as complex. The economic transformations in the last decade, the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the ability of companies in the CCs to absorb new technologies and integrate large international production chains have contributed to the emergence of new patterns of local industry specialisation. Many domestic IT companies in the CCs, without financial resources to modernise their production, were not able to compete with multinationals and have shrunk, particularly during the privatisation period, into small producers in limited niche markets. Many hardware companies have been integrated into the product life cycle of western companies through subcontracting or outsourcing, assembly, distribution, reverse engineering, etc. Consequently, in many CCs, ICT sector manufacturing industries are increasing exports to the EU15 (Havlik et al., 2001). Hungary is in a very strong position, as it has significant specialisation in office machinery and computers and electronic components, while in Poland the TV, radio and recording equipment industry has been a top exporter since 1995. The Czech Republic also plays a growing role in these market segments, while Estonia has been selected as a manufacturing and assembly centre by high-tech western companies. Malta has a comparative advantage in electronic products, which accounted for about half its exports in 1999 (Eurostat, Statistics in focus, 2000), though these, of course, remained comparatively small. Finally, the Turkish electronics industry is in a strong position with its exports of consumer electronics and telecommunications equipment. The potential role of the ICT industry (including the software segment) in CCs will be explored in a further section of this report.

The Information Technology (IT) hardware market in the CCs has grown remarkably over the past few years, mainly due to government procurement projects and foreign investments. It should be noted that as a percentage of GDP, ICT expenditure in Hungary (6.42 percent), Slovakia (5.98 percent) and the Czech Republic (8.49 percent) is higher than in Germany (5.27 percent) and Finland (5.88 percent), while it is still comparatively low in Romania (1.78 percent), Bulgaria (1.76 percent) and Turkey (2.47 percent) [9]. However, the total size of the IT hardware market in 2000 in all CCs was still very small, about five billion Euro (Poland and Turkey taking more than 60 percent of the whole market), compared to 235 billion Euro for the EU15 (Eurostat, 2001).

Finally, the presence of dominant foreign operators in the telecommunications market in CCs exposes this market to the fluctuations in the global telecom market.

Infostructures
In CCs, the rapid growth in numbers of domestic Web sites and Web portals in local languages and the provision of governmental interactive services and online content have been stimulated to a large extent by the strong demand from businesses and civil society on the one hand, and government commitments to EU policies on the other.

The advent of Internet and digital broadcasting platforms raises several new issues for the CCs related to the protection of consumers and citizens’ rights, such as access to quality content in an overall context of low per-capita revenues, and protection of intellectual property. The challenges of how to prevent infringement of ethnic, religious and minority rights, and to preserve human dignity, are a global prerequisite.

However, in these new democracies, it is more of a challenge to find the right balance between regulatory and self-regulatory rules, and to ensure both freedom of information and expression and protection from illegal or harmful content and disclosure or misuse of private information.


In order to maximise the potential for the content industry in CCs, it is important that critical mass in investment and usage is built up, and that an awareness of the profitability and potential benefits of public and private partnerships is created.

Simultaneously, governments should be a driving force towards an 'Information Society for all'. The private sector also plays a vital role in this endeavour. While incumbent media companies further develop the re-purposing and cross-promoting of content across multiple distribution channels, Net-native companies offer targeted content or delivery options in niche markets. The key to a competitive industry in the CCs is for them to become producer, as opposed to consumer, countries.

Despite the fact that business players have undertaken different initiatives providing consumers with online services, creating virtual shops or taking the first steps towards setting up systems for e-banking and e-business, the business-to-consumer market is still very limited. The few customers that use the Internet do so predominantly to receive information and to order products or services, paying on delivery. Business-to-business commerce is also in its infancy — companies use electronic networks mainly to access market news/analysis and new business offers, and to communicate with suppliers — while contracts and business deals are carried out by direct contacts and traditional means.

As in most EU15 countries, the spread of ICTs among businesses in the CCs is a market-driven phenomenon rather than a real strategic choice to go online. As already stated, investment capacity, especially domestic investment, is still relatively weak, and in such circumstances risky options are usually left to one side. Internal organizational factors may well be the biggest obstacle to taking the right decisions and overcoming organizational inertia. Additionally, most customers’ conservative attitudes, their lack of trust in the security of technologies and their fear of misuse of personal and business information further influence company investment in, and adoption of, ICT-based strategic options. Under developed logistics systems, lack of professional home delivery services, and the predominance of English language materials on the Web are also obstacles in this respect. Surveys have shown that the limited diffusion of ICTs, banking products and security enhancing technologies are additional obstacles (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2000).

It seems, therefore, overly optimistic to state that many CC companies will soon be in a position to adopt and apply e-commerce technologies in order to leapfrog economic development and join the EU on a more competitive basis. Only countries such as Estonia, and possibly Slovenia, may be in a position to successfully meet this ambitious challenge.

Capabilities and skills
The CCs face greater challenges than the EU15 in providing the kind of education needed for the digital age, due to the massive economic and social changes they are undergoing [10]. Economic decline in these countries has caused serious problems for their educational systems as regards offering a common high standard and tackling new challenges.

Despite this, the introduction of ICT is seen as educationally important and is firmly on the CCs’ national policy agenda. Making computers with Internet connection available is seen as essential for ICT-based learning processes and this has dominated the first phase of the introduction of ICTs into education. However, even where technologies and skills are now available, the integration of ICTs into the learning process is hampered by the lack of appropriate electronic books, multimedia contents and tools in the local language. This problem could be resolved by the efforts of candidate country governments and the collaboration of all actors — teaching staff, software developers, content producers and learning content distributors — to facilitate the development of educational materials meeting e-learning requirements.

Though the availability of technologies and tools is a necessary condition, the key factor for success in the e-learning field is the human factor. A policy of connecting schools to the Internet is important, but not enough in itself. The ability of teachers to adapt effectively to new technologies in the learning environment is problematic despite many training programmes to re-train and prepare them for the changing learning environment.

The restructuring of the economy in the transitional period has seriously affected both vocational education and traditions of on-the-job training. Existing links with enterprises have been broken, and the support system for learning cut back. Insufficient financial resources have also limited the ability of enterprises to provide on-the-job training and qualification courses to their employees.

Initiatives have been set up in all the CCs to respond to the labour force’s increased ICT training needs. Many of these focus on building an open, flexible and transparent life-long learning system (European Training Foundation, 2000). Schemes aiming at encouraging company-training activities have been launched in Cyprus, Malta and Hungary. In Slovenia, existing company-based training facilities have been transformed into inter-company or regional practical training centres. As well as providing traditional training, CCs are seizing the opportunities that distance education offers them, mainly through the financial support of international institutions, such as the EU, UNDP and World Bank.

Training in management and leadership is another essential issue. While the Mediterranean countries have longer market-economy experience, the transition decade has faced the ten Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) with the challenge of preparing managers able to raise their companies’ competitiveness and adapt them to the rapidly changing technological and market conditions. There are some indications that individual entrepreneurship is driving the take-up of economic activity in CCs, particularly in the service sector, nonetheless lack of initiative and aversion to risk are still claimed to be business weaknesses. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) pointed out in its 2000 Transition Report that foreign investors have experienced more difficulties in finding good managers than IT or financial staff.

Despite the downturn in the "new economy" and the cutting of many IT jobs in western countries, the ICT sector in CCs is still buoyant, attracting many young and qualified people. Some countries (such as Latvia and Bulgaria), though they worry about future shortages, consider the present availability of highly-qualified IT specialists to be an important strength for sector growth. In particular, the expansion of software applications in many CEEC has been facilitated by the existing human capital accumulated previously in the sector (Kubielas et al.,2000).

Larger companies have established their own programmes in order to retrain employees, as a result of the problems faced by the educational system and the speed with which ICT skills become outdated. In Bulgaria, Cisco has its own academy, in the Baltic States Microsoft runs authorized training programmes, and IBM computer classes are part of the University of Latvia. This tendency to private certification is particularly important for enterprises involved in ICT development and maintenance, and major users and providers of knowledge-intensive services. Specialized training and re-training courses are also offered to bank and telecommunications employees and computer specialists.

The impact of the immigration policies of western countries aimed at attracting workers with IT skills from other countries is disputable. Talented people from Poland and the Czech Republic would rather remain in their country, whereas the probability of a brain drain is estimated to be much higher in Bulgaria and Slovakia [11]. In Latvia, some hopes are expressed that talented people working abroad will return (brain circulation) and that the best IT specialists are unlikely to emigrate due to the high living standards they enjoy at home [12]. On the other hand, around 50 percent of all Turkish post-graduates studying in the U.S. would be potential emigrants to that country (OECD, 2001).

Assessment of the present IS in the candidate countries
Taken together, these trends illustrate the capacity of CCs:

to catch up in technological terms;
to integrate existing global companies;
to develop competitive niches for local industry, mainly in software and content services; and,
to use local knowledge and geographic situation as competitive assets.
However, the domestic industry’s low investment capability and the population’s low purchasing power hinder balanced economic and social development and the building of a critical mass of usage. This and the associated risk of a marked digital divide could weaken the economy, social cohesion and the development of democracy in these countries.

The formation of human capital is also a key issue. Candidate countries are focusing on meeting human resource needs in the ICT sector and generally building excellence in some areas of science and technology, while doing too little about their largely ICT-illiterate population. The strong correlation between income level, education and ICT know-how points to the need for a more holistic policy approach for all levels of society and all categories of the population.

These difficulties and opportunities have to be seen against the backdrop of the overall challenges these still newly democratic societies face in the transition to market economies. Their policy makers are under huge pressure to respond to both the legitimate short-term needs and current problems and the long-term issues of development of an inclusive and competitive Information Society. Striking a balance between these two sets of policy objectives — acute societal day-to-day needs and IS development-related needs — is probably the most difficult policy challenge.

It is clear that choices made today will drive their economies and societies to alternative scenarios:


If present development imbalances are not addressed, the CCs will build a society which has islands of ICT development. However, large disparities between countries, regions and groups of people, as regards ICT and other areas, will remain. There is a risk that the social and economic benefits of the Information Society will not be reaped. CCs may even find themselves limited to low wage, low quality and lower added-value production and consumption patterns.


If the CCs wish to establish themselves in a stronger position, a policy push and sufficient financial support are needed, to achieve a more balanced Information Society development. In times of limited public resources, striking a balance between competitive objectives (the social/the economic, the short term/the long term), targeting the major relevant factors of sustainable development and acting cooperatively with the private sector could become the guidelines of a sort of "Marshall plan" for the Information Society in CCs. Only this kind of multi-layered policy push will ensure that the CCs build up their own socially inclusive and competitive Information Society.

What lessons from past experiences would help in setting this up?





3. Building an IS: Lessons to be learnt from some EU15 experiences
The last decade of ICT-related development in EU15 Member States provides evidence of national successes and failures, set against the particular economic, industrial, historical, social and geographical context of the country or region concerned [13]. It is worthwhile considering how relevant initiatives in given EU15 national/regional contexts have set out conditions favourable for achieving ICT-related regional and national development, and what this development has meant in each case.

We labelled this the "Tigers approach" [14], "Tigers" being regions or countries with fast economic growth at high rates, rapid reduction of unemployment rates and strong growth of employment rates, reduction of outward migration or even reverse migration, etc.

Six cases were selected and are briefly described below [15]:


Austria: Austria was the fastest-growing European economy from 1950-1960, only surpassed by the German "Wirtschaftswunder". The catching-up done in the 1950s and 1960s and above-average growth rates in the 1970s and 1980s make Austria one of the richest countries in Europe today. However, Austria’s current favourable economic position cannot hide structural problems that will affect economic performance. If we assess Austria’s route to the Information Society, we see structural change in a mature, developed economy. Hence, this is more the story of an "old" Tiger, which has to keep up with, or even shape, development, rather than simply catching up. Austria’s story is also a story of old virtues, some of which are turning into burdens. Austria’s institutional set-up with its strong corporativist elements and its consensus-orientated policy did well in the times of catching up, but did not achieve as much structural change as Finland or other countries. Therefore, Austria should be seen as an illustration of a country in the post-"Tiger" period.


Dresden (Germany): Saxony was the most industrialized area in Germany before World War II. During GDR times, Dresden was the largest research centre for semiconductor production (producing, for example, Europe’s first Megabit memory chip in 1988). In the course of German re-unification, employment shrank considerably. After an initial boom, growth rates later dropped to the relatively low West-German levels. For West Germany, the decision by Siemens in 1993 to invest the equivalent of EUR1.38 billion in a semiconductor plant was essential. It was followed by AMD in December 1995 and by other players. In May 2002, AMD, Infineon and DuPont Photomasks founded the Advanced Mask Technology Centre (AMTC) — a global research centre. This major investment made it economic for about 30 international equipment producers to open permanent offices themselves. New producers started business such as DAS or Wacker Siltronic (in near-by Freiberg). About 10,000 semiconductor-related jobs were created in the region, more than initially expected. Government subsidies of about EUR1.2 billion will probably be much smaller than the expected social insurance and tax payments, which will be about EUR5.9 billion by 2010. The economic sustainability of these initiatives will largely depend on whether the investors will be able to make enough profit in the future, while continuing production during downturns at revenues below average costs. The timing, size and duration of the next boom will therefore be crucial.


Flanders (Belgium): Flanders general profile has many "Tiger" characteristics. It is a very wealthy region within a complex institutional structure, yet it has a large degree of autonomy. It has a high population density and degree of urbanisation and hosts an important manufacturing industry. The economy is remarkably open in terms of trade and FDI; showing very high levels of productivity, though salary costs are also remarkably high. The population is highly educated.

Overall, the analysis shows that Flanders reaches at least the average European level for many aspects of the "Digital Society" but these achievements are not evenly distributed through the society:

Flanders is strong in ICT infrastructure developments
It hosts a reasonably important ICT sector
This strong position is not matched with similar rates of ICT use
There are signs of a digital divide, as a comparatively large share of the population is not yet accustomed to ICT applications.
Thus, the potential for ISTs in Flanders is stronger than their actual effective and widespread use. The full development potential of ISTs has not been realised in the society as a whole and ISTs are under-exploited.


Greece: Here, IS development started later than in most other EU Member States. The first and second CSF (Community Support Frameworks) made a major contribution to building the telecommunications infrastructure, computerising public services and developing mobile telephony in the country. However, the success could have been much greater if these efforts had not been hindered by internal organizational matters like limited experience of the public sector in administration and implementation, lack of co-ordination, delays, fragmentation in programme design and implementation, etc.

Today, the Information Society initiative in Greece is taking place within an economic environment marked by high growth rates, low inflation and interest rates, and the elimination of public sector deficits. Since 1995, the GDP growth rate has been higher than the EU average. In 2002, Greece’s economy was considered to be the fastest growing economy in the European Union. High development rates led to an increase of employment and unemployment has decreased during the last couple of years (however, as a percentage, it remains one of the highest in the EU zone). Although real salaries were increased, labour costs per unit have been steadily decreasing, with labour productivity growing fast, approaching the absolute levels of other developed economies. This fact is undoubtedly related to the major increase of investment over recent years. Overall expenditure on ICT is the most widely used indicator of IS development. In the past few years, significant efforts have been made and ICT expenditure as a percentage of the GDP almost reaches the EU average. Consequently, the current situation, comparable to Portugal and Spain is characterised by some of the lowest figures in IS-related indicators. It is, however, supported by some of the highest growth rates.


Ireland: Important early foundations for the Information Society in Ireland can be traced back to a number of events such as the early consideration given to FDI, the decision to expand the national education system, initially at secondary level and then at tertiary level, and accession to the EU. More recently, it was against a backdrop of emigration, unemployment and national indebtedness in the 1980’s that led to the first of a series of National Partnership Agreements in 1987. These laid the foundations for the economic turnaround of the early 1990’s. Due to a combination of factors from the mid-1990s, the country was in the fortunate position of having a young educated workforce, a strong presence of FDI companies — particularly in IS relevant industries (e.g. IT, software) — and the fiscal resources to make strategic investment. In effect, these factors, which caused the "Celtic Tiger" period from the mid 1990’s, also provided fertile ground for an Information Society initiative. In Ireland, this commenced with a report to the Government in 1996, which defined an IS vision for the country. The Government quickly recognised the potential of the IS in its own right, and as a result, the IS agenda became an integral part of government policy.

Several recent international benchmark studies suggest that, notwithstanding the significant momentum behind the Ireland’s Information Society, not enough has been done to propel the country to becoming an IS leader. Moreover, two recent benchmark studies show that Ireland’s relative standing deteriorated between 2001 and 2002, suggesting that there is reduced momentum behind its Information Society.

The analysis of these six cases (and additionally, Finland) brought up the following seven factors which, taken together, help our understanding of the birth (and death) of a "Tiger". The assessment was done without taking into account these factors’ potential transferability to the CCs.

A committed and adaptive (smart) public policy
ICT-related developments do not develop spontaneously, even less in an socially inclusive way. Each strong ICT-related development was guided, in EU15 national or regional cases, by a strong pro-active public policy push. Strong does not mean centralised or top-down. Rather, the examples show the need for adaptive and committed policies, allowing risk-taking and long-term objectives, and for public authorities to play a coordinating role. Also, those policies were often seen as holistic — or multi-layered — showing a strong interest in the overall (economic) development of the country, rather than being focused strictly on ICT. They also rely on a broad set of interdepartmental co-operative means. IS policies are seen as being part of the broader category of development policies, covering a variety of domains such as economic development, industrial policy, science and technology, employment, regional policy, innovation policy, education and media. This type of holistic policy seems to have been more possible in countries which had acknowledged domestic crises or which were seeking strong identity building. Pro-activity is another typical feature in these policies, though the risk was high for individual actors because of the level of uncertainty and the apparent necessity for visible individual "champions". Government played a key role in coordinating an on-going learning process and creating predictability for most partners. This was done, for example, by establishing innovative partnerships among actors and by creating clear policy goals and roadmaps.

Co-opetition frameworks
Co-opetition refers to the search for the right and creative mix of co-operation and competition, through, for example, the co-ordinated meeting of diverse — possibly competing — actors in a goal-focused and time-determined taskforce. This mix aims at creating mutually beneficial situations where providing diversity and generating synergies may help to create common goals and trajectories for all. This concept calls first for innovative institutional arrangements in public policy management, which includes the delegation of decision making and implementation capacity, as well as a citizen/entrepreneur-oriented mindset. Co-opetition frameworks have been used in areas such as infrastructure development for the benefit of the public, a safe digital environment, standards and interoperability, and also education, societal assessments, and democratic and environmental initiatives. Such arrangements also appear to be crucial in cluster development [16]. They based on the idea that reciprocal responsibilities pay better than "Winner takes all" games. They may nevertheless translate into privileged arrangements, which escape democratic control (nepotism) particularly because they seek consensus among a set of contradictory interests.


The scale and scope of co-opetition matters. The geographical scale or the technological scope may be too large for a given set of actors to ensure commitment and pursue a common goal. International, national, regional partnerships are necessary and successful when they imply adoption and adaptation as concomitant processes. Smaller co-opetition frameworks seem to be easier to handle, and thus more obviously successful (as in the example of smaller countries).

Co-opetition demands that government plays an important role as coordinator of a diversity of actors of varying sizes. This role encompasses the difficult challenge of 'policy learning'. The environment for policy makers and partner-actors becomes highly complex and constraining.

From ICT manufacturing industry to the adaptive use of the industrial profile
During the second half of the 1990’s, several national economies benefited from the contribution of ICT industries to added-value, GDP and employment. Countries such as Ireland, Finland, Sweden can easily be identified as "Tigers", when trends across a broad range of their socio-economic indicators are taken into account. In these cases, the presence of foreign and indigenous ICT manufacturing multinationals and/or a dynamic SME-sector successfully developing international niche-markets were essential ingredients.

It is evident, however, that national/regional industrial structure also matters. Countries and regions, which have a tradition in industrial manufacturing, may succeed in modernising that industry through ICT use. Relevant software production and the adaptive use of ICTs are at the core of these IS strategies. Specific national or regional assets — including in services — can help generate ICT-intensive industries and are referred to as 'sweet spots', which are either 'given', historical, or strategically created.

Mature industrial products, no longer susceptible to large productivity improvements, tend to end up in low cost locations. Traditional industries are product or supply oriented, and cannot escape simple cost-based competition; modern industries, however, can compete on quality and be much more marketing, or demand-oriented. In order to develop — as a country or a region — there is a need to seize the right opportunities, by innovating on new products or becoming more productive in almost mature ones. In these cases, pre-existing industrial structure and its interaction with ICTs plays a major role, the effects of which may trickle down to the rest of the economy.

A variety of financing tools
Foreign Direct Investment is a major tool, particularly for funding and developing an ICT (manufacturing) sector. However, venture capital, seed capital, public subsidies and the protection of revenues through adequate regulation (for example, intellectual property rights) are also essential tools to promote domestic development. ICT-related development is an uncertain path that needs considerable trial and error, and also a range of financial tools appropriate to very diverse scales of initiative and risk. This flexibility is important where innovative products and services may start from very different points and involve a wide range of actors.

A major challenge is to transform funding into knowledge transfers, incentives into committed involvement in the domestic economy and society, and isolated bets into spillovers that generate more sustainable and embedded benefits.

Financing tools should be integrated into a broader framework encouraging an entrepreneurial mindset. If this framework is absent, there is a risk that financing is entirely devolved to possibly fragile mono-industrial aims and/or high volatility.

Education, info-culture, awareness: The intangible facet
National intangible assets play a major role in fostering ICT potential. Some are demand-side oriented, such as the general educational level of the population and explicit support to creativity and self-learning — in both technical aspects of ICT and also general literacy and infoculture [17]. Others assets lie in facets of the supply chain: R& capacities, fundamental research and curiosity-oriented research, technology transfer mechanisms, patent regulation and innovation policies.

Education always plays a major role in successful ICT-related development, and has to be viewed in the long-term. The upgrading of each generation’s educational level is a central ingredient to development. It could also be argued that our education systems should be supply-side oriented and directly support the necessary professional ICT skills, even at the risk of being too "answer-oriented" [18]. It is also true, however, that our modern societies seem to need "question-oriented" education where a general ability for "learning to learn" and creativity is fostered. The same argument goes for infoculture.

While the political decisions concerning the supply-side — particularly if translated into hard investments in visible initiatives such as industry or science parks — seem to be more obvious, governments have an essential role to play in the development of a solid demand side, by the relevant co-ordination of education, or policies supporting knowledge seeking behaviours. These intangible assets rely strongly on the level of awareness of the public and private decision-makers themselves. The managerial capacity of the decision-makers and their sensitivity to the issues raised by the IS, are themselves an essential facet of a country’s intangible assets.

Creative use of specific contexts: Alliances by position, language, identity
Geographical position or size may confer on a country a specific role in geopolitics or international trade. Traditional migration flows may reveal unexplored networking capacities as well as access to foreign resources. Language specificity may translate into market access or the affirmation of national identity. Traditional skills may be a hidden attraction. Such features can be embedded in international alliances or in ICT products and services, in marketing behaviour and mobilising visions or in the distribution of managerial responsibilities. Strategic creativity matters more than the hurdles. Addressing these apparent hurdles to ICT-development at national or regional level may reveal opportunities for creating competitive advantages. Not addressing them often turns them into real weaknesses.

EU policies
EU policies have an important impact on ICT-related development. In most cases, they have supported development both by mandatory regulation frameworks and by awareness raising, direct subsidies or benchmarking initiatives.

Reciprocally, EU policies may also generate reverse effects. The focus on the EMU and the stability pact, and on the Enlargement process and its conditions, may have distracted some governments from other priorities.





4. Potentials for a candidate countries’ ICT industry-led IS development
The "European Tigers" — Ireland, Finland, and Sweden — have features in common and their position contrasts with the rest of Europe, and even the world in some cases [19]. These three countries stand out with very strong ICT manufacturing profiles. ICT manufacturing mobilizes 40 to 70 percent of their ICT workforce. Around four percent of their total employment and eight percent of their total business employment is concentrated in the ICT sector. In Ireland and Finland, this has had a very positive impact on employment rates during the last decade. These countries generate a comparatively major share of their national ICT turnover and added value through ICT manufacturing, putting them far above EU15 averages. They also show above average turnover and added value in ICT manufacturing per person employed. Finally, their trade balance on ICT goods is positive which, compared to the rest of Europe, is remarkable. These financial results in turn have had a positive impact on the overall national economy.

Closer observation of these cases shows that they do not share a common model of development and that the various strategies may lead to positions which may be differently appreciated regarding their longer term sustainability.

Ireland specializes in the manufacturing of office machinery and computers, and foreign, mainly American, firms have a very strong presence as a result of a long-term development strategy. Attracting foreign business firms is a strategy shared by Ireland and the U.K., both of which have developed information technology-oriented specialization in close cooperation with U.S. companies.

Finland has specialized strongly in the manufacture of television and radio transmitters and apparatus for line telephony. It is EU15’s second largest telecommunication equipment producer after France (2001). This success is usually attributed to the history and activity of one large company, Nokia, and its suppliers.

Sweden has also specialized successfully in the manufacture of television and radio transmitters and apparatus for line telephone. This success is also attributed to the activity of one large company, Ericsson, and its suppliers. Developing strictly domestic companies, particularly those specializing in communications technology, has been a Nordic strategy.

The case of the Dresden microelectronics cluster development, coming a little later historically, again shows some similarities with the "Anglo-Saxon" model of development described above, in that it is embedded in microelectronics manufacturing, and is FDI and U.S. oriented. The case of Flanders, possibly because it has resulted in few effective and domestic manufacturing industries, follows a different path. In these two cases, whatever their industrial ambitions, one hesitates to speak (so soon?) of "Tigers" and today’s downturn of the ICT sector and the economy as a whole, brings into question the fragility of the initiatives taken.

These examples of European "successful" Information Societies often give rise to the view that there is a need for a competitive ICT sector in Europe and possibly in each country of Europe. It is then argued that ICT industries have strongly demonstrated during the last decade that they account directly for an important share of Europe’s economy and growth and at the same time, have been an essential enabler for competitiveness in other sectors of the economy.

In a report on the competitiveness of Europe’s ICT markets, Booz-Allen and Hamilton argue that it is the stated goal of most governments to encourage vibrant indigenous ICT industries as a source of economic growth, quality employment and broader innovation. Market positioning, efficiency of production, quality of skills and a context for innovation are important for the European ICT industry irrespective of who owns the ICT companies based in Europe. The authors claim that unless Europe addresses these issues, jobs and other benefits of the ICT industry are inexorably doomed to move out of Europe. The report concludes: "the competitiveness of Europe’s ICT industry and markets will determine the future competitiveness of Europe" [20].

However, if this statement is true, it may well be related to the specific sector-related growth trend of the 1995-2000 period. While the trajectory of the European "Tigers" cannot be reduced to a mere "industrial" story — a view that would dramatically oversimplify their effective development — the long-term sustainability of their winning positions should be assessed from two perspectives:


they occupy the positions of "first served" countries in an important — even if provisionally stagnating — sector of the economy. "Followers" should therefore assess the difficulty of challenging these positions when they consider their strategy.


they may have developed a vibrant innovation capacity in ICT and other branches, reinvesting the benefits in a new cycle of value creation which makes them less dependent on the potential downturns of the ICT manufacturing industry.

In the 1990s, several factors combined to accelerate ICT diffusion and growth. Technological change, coupled with large price reductions, led to a surge in the use of digital technologies. With firms ready to exploit the opportunities offered by ICT, the liberalization of telecommunications and the growth of the Internet economy — allowing for economies of scale and network effects — brought new vigour and eagerness to investment in new technologies. In the U.S., business investment in computers and peripheral equipment, measured in real terms, jumped more than fourfold between 1995 and 1999. A rapid increase is also detectable in the EU, though not at the same pace as in the U.S.

Consequently, the assessment of IS successes — and their transferability in time and space — has to be put under the microscope. The burst of the "new economy" and the global economic downturn have strongly reduced the vigour of ICT markets and leave less space for new challengers. It is thus quite possible that times have changed for national Information Society projects relying strongly on the building block of ICT manufacturing industries growth. This question has a direct bearing on the transferability of the observed success and failure factors to the context of the CCs and, more specifically, to the support given to their ICT manufacturing industries.





5. Future "Tigers" in the candidate countries
To what degree are "Tiger" scenarios possible for CCs? Do their ICT industries show signs of a potential "Tiger" renaissance or not?

Identifying potential "Tigers"
The ICT manufacturing production value generated by the CCs is proportionally small as compared to world or EU15 production. Considering the dramatic effects of the transition period — generally in the early 1990’s — and the consequent collapse of most of their ICT industries, this cannot be seen as a surprise. Since then, strong FDI flows and the arrival of most, if not all, major ICT multinationals in these countries have given local industry a second chance and increased competencies. Nevertheless, candidate country production today does appears to have little effect on the position of Europe, as an Enlarged Europe, in the global ICT production market. Production by the candidate countries only accounts for 1.2 percent of the global market. EU25+ expands the EU15 production value by only 5.9 percent. The scale of the change is thus of little significance.

A look at the country shares (Table 2) is more interesting. Hungary leads with nearly half the total production value in ICT manufacturing in the CCs. It generates 73 percent of the total electronic data processing (EDP) equipment production value. It also leads in consumer electronics (CE) and in components, with 39 percent and 32 percent respectively of total candidate country production value. Poland ranks second with around one fifth of the total ICT manufacturing production value in CCs. Turkey is third with a slightly smaller share than Poland. The Czech Republic comes fourth with a share of about one tenth of the total candidate country production value.



Table 2: Candidate country domestic production in each ICT segment as share of total candidate country production in ICT manufacturing 1998 [21].

EDP Office equip. Control and Instr. Med and Ind Radio com, mobiles, radars Telecommunications Consumers electronics Components Total
Bulgaria 0.1% 6.8% 1.0% 0.6% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% 1.2% 0.7%
Romania 1.5% 10% 11% 12% 3.2% 9.1% 1.7% 2.2% 3.9%
Slovenia 1.3% 6.8% 10% 4% 4.1% 7.9% 2% 5.2% 3.9%
Slovakia 3.3% 12% 4.4% 17% 11% 6.1% 2% 3.7% 4.6%
Czech Republic 4.4% 29% 21% 22% 18% 8.5% 3.2% 18% 10%
Turkey 7.3% 21% 3.3% 15% 21% 26% 32% 12% 18%
Poland 9.1% 13% 32% 10% 27% 35% 19% 25% 21%
Hungary 73% 0.9% 16% 19% 16% 8% 39% 32% 38%
Candidate countries 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
CC/World 1.0% 0.6% 1.6% 1.4% 0.7% 3.9% 4.2% 0.7% 1.2%




Poland and Turkey’s high ranking can be attributed to the fact that they are larger than most of the CCs [22]. Hungary and the Czech Republic’s ranking, however, can be attributed to a form of ICT specialization, which echoes that of some EU15 Member States such as Ireland, Sweden and Finland. Further data should show whether these similarities are more than superficial.

Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Turkey contribute 80 percent of the total candidate country production value in ICT manufacturing. In each of three major segments — consumer electronics, EDP and components — they generate as a group 93.2 percent, 93.8 percent and 87 percent respectively of total production value. Each of these countries specializes in particular areas:

Hungary in EDP and secondly, in consumer electronics;
Poland and Turkey in consumer electronics and secondly, in telecoms equipment; and,
the Czech Republic in components, and secondly in control and instrumentation equipment.
Assessing the potential "Tigers"
These countries — particularly Hungary and the Czech Republic — show high growth rates, and declining unemployment and emigration. They usually score high on FDI flows, but rather weakly on R& spending [23]. As regards these indicators, these countries can be assessed as fairly classic examples of "Tigers".

Hungary is performing particularly well, and its ICT industry is quite exclusively export-oriented. It is the only country showing an overall positive trade balance on ICT goods.

Nevertheless, a closer look at the ICT manufacturing industry in these countries shows specific weaknesses which may affect the health of their development in the mid-term.

Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Turkey have the following problems in common:


Dependency: The development of a local ICT manufacturing capacity, over the last few years has been highly dependent on external factors such as fluctuating FDI flows and their relation to incentive policies. In addition, foreign firms design their strategies in an ultra-competitive environment where relocation of activity may not be seen as an obstacle. Strong competition from other European and non-European countries, access-to-market based competition for plant and R& centres, and the strong dependency of export-oriented industries on overall economic health, all contribute to this problem.


There is an observable shift in production specialization towards lower-value ICT manufacturing such as consumer electronics (which represent today less than 10 percent of total world production value) or even components. This goes with a general shift towards assembling activities with low added value and little accompanying knowledge intensive activity (R& for example). This is partly due to a focus on cost-based competition strategies rather than knowledge-based ones.


In all these countries — with the exception of Hungary — the overall trade balance on ICT goods is negative. Even though these countries have a stronger ICT manufacturing industry than other CCs, their economy has to absorb the effects of a much larger demand. Poland and the Czech Republic show negative annual trade balances of approximately two billion Euro and one billion Euro respectively.


Last but not least, it may well be that these ICT manufacturing strategies will be sensitive to the impact of accession itself. While the single market rules will boost export capabilities as doing business becomes logistically easier, it may well be that some facets of today’s policies will be subject to scrutiny under the rules of fair competition. Excessively generous incentive policies, for example, may be cut back.

When considering these factors and observing recent company decisions [24] in such countries, it seems fair to conclude that developing "classical" tiger strategies by encouraging foreign or domestic companies to invest in ICT manufacturing and grow, may be a mistake today. While the 1990’s were rewarding years for such strategies, the position today of western European "Tigers" — Ireland, Finland, Sweden — is weakened by the market downturn and the difficulties in the telecom sector. The timing may thus play against new candidates repeating such scenarios.

Additionally, CCs may still lack some of the essential ingredients that have made some west European countries’ ICT industries so successful. These ingredients are a committed and strongly supportive policy focus, institutional creativity allowing the necessary consensus (about targets) and decision building (about actions to be taken) across a broad range of partners, and a wide diversity of solid financing tools able to support the creation (and possible failure) of a multiplicity of initiatives and players of various sizes.

There is nevertheless room for an ICT industry in CCs. As already stressed in Section 2. The specific context of candidate countries, some parts of the ICT industry, like software supply, can clearly be competitive on a global scale. Such activity depends more on skills and human resources than on hard core plants and machines that can be moved from one country to another. The development towards a market economy has inspired individual entrepreneurship which has driven economic activity, as a result of which many successful businesses have developed in an environment of uncertainty and risk, unattractive for foreign investment. Domestic software firms in many countries have shown themselves to be highly competent and many of them provide successful services to U.S. and EU companies in ICT design, testing, maintenance or support. For example, software firms in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania have specialised in the development of fully integrated systems, database applications, CAD/CAM software and expert systems. Some of the CCs are already strong players and have started supplying on a global scale. As the software industry is mainly 'brain' driven, the future looks promising. First, their historical ICT R& potential, and their highly qualified researchers have encouraged multinational companies (IBM, Nokia, Xerox, Ericsson) to establish R& centres. In addition, international benchmarking indicators [25] give some of the CCs, such as Hungary, Estonia, Czech Republic and Slovak Republic, a good ranking compared to EU countries, and show a good stock of ICT labour in Rumania, Bulgaria and the Baltic countries.

In order to benefit from that local expertise, many foreign companies have invested in software houses (e.g. in Estonia, Bulgaria and Hungary) or have outsourced their work, taking advantage of the high quality and low prices in computer software markets in the CEEC. Estonian IT companies, for example, are becoming more and more integrated into the supply chains of their Nordic counterparts — thus getting leading edge know-how and project management expertise. Estonia, with its well-educated population and government emphasis on ICT development, is considered to be an 'excellent test market' for new technologies [26]. In Latvia, however, despite the availability of good specialists, insufficient government support and access to venture capital limit the competitiveness of IT companies. Other drawbacks are the lack of marketing skills in many companies and the mismatch between university training and practice [27].


Software services represent one of the fastest growing sectors of the IT market in the CCs. There has been particularly strong growth in the market for packaged software, such as PC applications software, enterprise resource planning applications and application tools for database development and management. Most growth in the software and services sector derives from large-scale projects in banking, financial services, government administration, telecommunications and industry. Many domestic software companies have exploited their local knowledge of customers and the local language as a competitive asset. Local firms play an essential role as system integrators, value-added service providers, software developers and training centres, and thus dominate the segment for computer-connected services such as installation, implementation and customer training [28]. They are often ahead of foreign companies in the local market in areas like company management, financial accounting software, banking software and software for SMEs.

The ICT manufacturing industry could also come up with local solutions to specific domest

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Question: What Is Chemical Engineering? What Do Chemical Engineers Do?

Answer: What Is Chemical Engineering?

Chemical engineering basically is applied chemistry. It is the branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction, and operation of machines and plants that perform chemical reactions to solve practical problems or make useful products.

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in the formation of U.S. foreign policy. The brief article
“Alienation and Militancy in Nigeria’s Niger Delta” by
Esther Cesarz, Steve Morrison, and Jennifer Cooke will
command attention and this merits a serious response.
As the authors properly say, the recent oil crisis highlights
“more profound national challenges” now facing the
reelected President Obasanjo and his government. In their
view, the recent conflicts in the Niger Delta mark a watershed,
distinguished in particular by the prospects of “an
upward spiral of violence.” The new levels of weaponry
and criminal activity on the part of a “frustrated and
angry youth” suggest “new ambitions and capacities”
among the Ijaw, who have taken on the characteristics of
an armed militia. The authors see the specter of Colombia
now haunting Nigeria. U.S. companies, they believe, will
become targets of terrorist activity, and Nigeria’s national
stability and cohesion will be threatened.
We believe that this account is wrong-headed on a number
of accounts. It misdiagnoses the nature of the political
crisis in the Niger Delta, fails to understand the political
dynamics of the Ijaw and minority politics in general, and
makes unsubstantiated comparisons with the likes of Aceh
and Colombia. Rather astonishingly, it also ignores the
role of some key actors, the oil companies foremost
among them. And it downplays a number of fundamental
political problems that need to be faced.
The article does mention several of the key issues in
passing, including federalism, resource allocation, and
minority rights. But it gives these issues short shrift, while
inflating the threat of a new terrorist menace. It thereby
potentially helps to set the stage for an excessive military
response or even a new round of ethnic cleansing. An adequate
response to Nigeria’s problems requires a serious
analysis of the country’s historical and political context,
which we will try to provide below.
The Niger Delta
and U.S. National Security
A year before the events of September 11, 2001, the
U.S. Department of State in its annual encyclopedia of
global terrorism identified the Niger Delta—the geographical
heart of oil production in Nigeria—as a breeding
ground for militant and “impoverished ethnic groups”
involved in numerous terrorist acts (abduction, hostage
taking, kidnapping, and extrajudicial killings).1 A CIA
report published in 2000 warned that “environmental
stresses” in the oil-rich southern delta could deepen “political
tensions” at a time when Nigeria—currently the
world’s sixth largest producer of petroleum—was supplying
almost 14% of U.S. petroleum needs.2 Throughout
the last decade or so, Nigeria has supplied an average of 8-
10% of U.S. oil imports. During the next decade, as its
deep-water fields are exploited (and as new reserves are
discovered), Nigeria’s annual production could exceed that
of Venezuela or Kuwait. Nigeria had, of course, become
an archetypal oil nation by the 1970s. Oil revenues currently
provide 80% of government income, 95% of export
receipts, and 90% of foreign exchange earnings.
African Oil and U.S. National Security
The geopolitical significance of Nigerian oil to the U.S.,
particularly against the global backdrop of rising prices,
tight markets, and political instability in the Persian Gulf,
Indonesia, and parts of Latin America, is widely understood.
Even before the September 11th attacks, the
FPIF Special Report
Alienation and Militancy in the Niger Delta: A Response
to CSIS on Petroleum, Politics, and Democracy in Nigeria
By Oronto Douglas, Von Kemedi, Ike Okonta, and Michael Watts | July 2003
In the wake of the September 11th attack and the Iraq war, Nigeria’s geopolitical significance to the U.S. has come
into sharper relief. In March and April 2003, militancy across the Niger Delta radically disrupted oil production in
this major oil supplier nation. News of these actions, following conflict-ridden national elections, has reinforced
the notion that Nigeria and the new West African “gulf states” in general are matters of U.S. national security.
Petroleum Finance Company (PFC), testifying in
Congress before the International Relations Subcommittee
on Africa, reported on the strategic and growing security
significance of West African oil. In the view of the PFC,
West Africa’s high-quality reserves and low-cost output,
coupled with massive new deep-water discoveries, required
serious attention and substantial foreign investment. In
the wake of the Al-Qaeda attacks and the Gulf War,
Nigeria and West African producers have emerged as “the
new Gulf oil states.”3 By January 2002 the Institute for
Advanced Strategic and Political Studies provided a forum
for the Bush administration to declare that African oil is
“a priority for U.S. national security.”4 In the last year, the
ugly footprint of Africa’s black gold in Gabon, São Tomé,
Angola, and Equatorial Guinea has rarely been off the
front pages. It is also haunted by the specter of terror; the
“nightmare” as the New York Times noted of “sympathizers
of Osama bin Laden sink[ing] three oil tankers in the
Straits of Hormuz.”5
Oil Corruption High;
Living Standards Low
The mythos of oil wealth has been central to the history
of modern industrial capitalism. But in Nigeria, as elsewhere,
the discovery of oil, and annual oil revenues of $40
billion currently, has ushered in a miserable, undisciplined,
decrepit, and corrupt form of “petro-capitalism.”
After a half century of oil production, almost $300 billion
in oil revenues has flowed directly into the federal exchequer
(and perhaps $50 billion promptly flowed out, only to
disappear overseas). Yet Nigerian per capita income stands
at $290 per year. For the majority of Nigerians, living
standards are no better now than at independence in
1960. A repugnant culture of excessive venality and profiteering
among the political class—the Department of
State has an entire website devoted to fraud cases—has
won for Nigeria the dubious honor of #1 in Transparency
International’s ranking of most corrupt states.
Paradoxically, the oil-producing states within federated
Nigeria have benefited the least from oil wealth.
Devastated by the ecological costs of oil spillage and the
highest gas flaring rates in the world, the Niger Delta is a
political tinderbox. A generation of militant restive youth,
deep political frustrations among oil-producing communities,
and pre-electoral thuggery all prosper in the rich soil
of political marginalization. Massive election rigging across
the Niger Delta in the April 2003 elections simply confirmed
the worst for the millions of Nigerians who have
suffered from decades of neglect. It was the great Polish
journalist, Kapucinski, who noted in his meditation on
oil-rich Iran: “Oil creates the illusion of a completely
changed life, life without work, life for free, The concept
of oil expresses perfectly the eternal human dream of
wealth achieved through lucky accident, In this sense oil
is a fairy tale and, like every fairy tale, a bit of a lie.”6 It is
this lie that currently confronts West African oil producers
and the Niger Delta in particular.
Oil Violence
Since March 12, 2003, mounting communal violence
has resulted in at least 50 deaths and the leveling of eight
communities in and around the Warri petroleum complex.
Seven oil company employees have also been killed,
prompting all the major oil companies to withdraw staff,
to close down operations, and to reduce output by over
750,000 barrels per day (almost half of national output).
President Obasanjo has dispatched large troop deployments
to the oil-producing creeks. Ijaw militants, incensed
over illegal oil bunkering (in which the security forces
were implicated) and indiscriminate military action, have
threatened to detonate 11 captured oil installations.
The strikes on the offshore oil platforms—a long-festering
sore that is rarely mentioned in the media—were quickly
resolved. Nobody seriously expects, however, that the deeper
problems within the oil sector will go away. Relatively new
to delta politics, however, is a series of assassinations, most
notably that of Chief Marshall Harry, a senior member of
the main opposition party and a leading campaigner for
greater resource allocation to the oil-producing Niger
Delta. Fallout from the Harry assassination has already
become a source of tension in his native oil-producing
state of Rivers. Supporters of the main opposition party,
the ANPP, and another opposition grouping of activists
and politicians, the Rivers Democratic Movement, have
linked the ruling party to the assassination.
The Niger Delta stands at the crossroads of contemporary
Nigerian politics. Despite the 13% growth of oil revenues
to the delta states, the region remains desperately
poor. The resultant deepening material and political grievances
place the Niger Delta at the confluence of four
pressing national issues in the wake of the April 2003 elections:
1) the efforts led by a number of delta states for
resource control, which in effect means expanded local
access to oil revenues, 2) the struggle for self-determination
of minority people and the clamor for a sovereign
national conference to rewrite the federal Constitution, 3)
a crisis of rule in the region, as a number of state and local
governments are rendered helpless by militant youth
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movements, growing insecurity, and intracommunity,
interethnic, and state violence, and 4) the emergence of
what is called a South-South Alliance linking Nigeria’s
hitherto-excluded oil-producing states in a bulwark against
the ethnic majorities.
A Threshold Crossed?
The CSIS article suggests that the current crisis in the
Niger Delta represents a threshold increase in violence
that threatens Nigeria’s national government. This contention
must be placed in the larger context of recent history,
especially since the end of military rule. Obasanjo’s
presidential victory in 1999, in the wake of the darkest
period of military dictatorship in Nigeria’s 40-year, postindependence
history, held much promise. An internationally
recognized statesman and diplomat imprisoned
during the brutal Abacha years,
Obasanjo inherited the mantle
of a massively corrupt state
apparatus, an economy in shambles,
and a federation crippled
by longstanding ethnic enmity.
Entrusted with reforming the
corrupt, undisciplined, and
largest military in Africa and
committed to deepening the
process of democratization,
Obasanjo was confronted within
months of his inauguration by militant ethnic groups
speaking the language of self-determination, local autonomy,
and resource control (meaning a greater share of federally
allocated oil revenues). In an incident widely condemned
by the human rights community, some 2,000
persons were slaughtered at Odi in the state of Bayelsa,
after federal troops were dispatched in response to clashes
between local militants and the police. Obasanjo has consistently
refused to apologize for the murders, and there
has been no full inquiry. Last year the military was
involved in yet another massacre, this time in the Middle
Belt in the states of Benue and Taraba intervening in the
most serious communal conflict since the clashes that preceded
the outbreak of the Biafran civil war in 1967. Thus,
under President Obasanjo’s watch, over 10,000 people
have perished in ethnic violence, and he has failed miserably
to address the human rights violations committed by
the notoriously corrupt Nigerian security forces.
In Nigeria several glaring deficits compromise the institutions
of democratic rule. A broad consensus believes
that the 1999 Constitution is deeply flawed. Crafted by
the departing soldiers, the Constitution provides no
opportunity for ordinary Nigerians to debate what they
consider to be the central conundrum of the national crisis:
the terms of association in a multiethnic polity. Ethnic
militias arose and communal vigilante politics flourished
during the Abacha years (1993-98), when Nigerians experienced
the most severe political repression and economic
hardship in the country’s history. The O’odua Peoples
Congress (OPC) for example was established in the
Yoruba speaking Southwest in 1994 largely to protest the
annulment of the 1993 elections, in which Moshood
Abiola, a Yoruba Muslim, had seemingly won the presidency.
Led by disenchanted and impoverished youth, the
OPC claimed that a “Northern cabal” in the Army had
denied Abiola victory, and the organization aggressively
pressed for Yoruba political autonomy. Two vigilante
groups, the Bakassi Boys and the Movement for the
Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB),
emerged in the Igbo speaking
Southeast two years later. MASSOB
claimed that the Nigerian
state and its functionaries had
systematically oppressed the Igbo
since the end of the civil war.
This movement sought to secure
self-determination by resuscitating
the Republic of Biafra,
whose bid to secede from the
federation was crushed by
Nigerian troops in 1970. Then the Arewa Peoples
Congress (APC) emerged in the North in 1999 as a reaction
to the killing of Northern elements in Lagos and
other Yoruba cities and towns by OPC cadres and as a foil
to the new Obasanjo government, which many
Northerners viewed as a “Yoruba regime.” The APC
claimed that the harassment of Northerners in the
Southwest was part of a Yoruba plan to secede and establish
an O’odua Republic. It further alleged that President
Obasanjo was sympathetic to the OPC’s goals and that the
North would go to war if necessary to prevent national
dismemberment. These and other ethnic forces have come
to play a transformative role in political life largely as
party thugs, enforcers, and champions of local interests.
The current crisis in Warri, where 3,000 Nigerian troops
have been deployed to “restore law and order,” cannot be
grasped without understanding these powerful ethnic tensions
and political deficits. The profile of a militant faction
of Ijaw youth has been unjustly amplified to justify
the size of the military deployment. Reports from refugees
fleeing the creeks indicate that the military is engaged in
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Nobody seriously expects, however,
that the deeper problems
within the oil sector will go away.
scorched-earth violence designed, like the Odi massacre,
“to teach the Ijaws a lesson.” There have been conflicting
accounts of the immediate cause of the violence. One account
is linked to a disagreement between elements of the Nigerian
military and an oil baron over the proceeds of illegal oil bunkering.
Central to the Warri crisis, however, is poverty amidst
unimaginable oil wealth. The oil-producing communities
do seek to control “their oil.” But this legitimate claim is
refracted through the lens of ethnic difference, as Urhobo,
Ijaw, and Itsekiri people struggle
over the delineation of electoral
wards (as a precondition to claim
state oil revenues) and overlapping
claims on oil-rich land.
Warring factions and the Army
have thus been responsible for
many deaths and the destruction
of scores of communities.
It would be naïve to deny the growing violence in the
Niger Delta and the extent to which democratization has
deepened the ethnic spoils politics that have been central
to the political landscape of post-colonial Nigeria. But it is
far too apocalyptic to read into these troubling trends
some sort of historical precipice over which Nigeria is
about to tumble.
Bigger Ambitions, Better Capacities?
Even as Ijaw leaders have worked to address pressing
problems in their immediate locality—the Niger Delta—
their focus has always been national. In 1958, on the eve
of formal independence, the British set up the Willink
Commission to inquire into the fears of Nigeria’s ethnic
minority groups. The Ijaw leaders’ submission to the commission
called for a more inclusive federal state in which
they would enjoy the fruits and obligations of full citizenship.
Thus they framed their grievances in terms of the
national arena as the audience and site of struggle. Such
issues as flaws in the electoral process, resentment of
Nigeria’s national Army, and inequities in the allocation of
oil receipts have engaged the attention of Ijaw leaders
since the late 1950s. The politics of the Eastern region
were then dominated by a single political party (the NCNC).
It not only had centralizing ambitions but also excluded
significant ethnic minorities, including the Ijaw, from the
regional government, which was the source and distributor
of patronage and strategic resources. Indeed, questions
concerning Nigeria’s fundamentally flawed political process,
whether in the guise of military rule or electoral politics,
have topped the agenda in the Niger Delta ever since oil
became a significant player in the country’s political economy.
These grievances now appear to be new because the terrain
of struggle has, since May 1999, shifted from a vicious
military dictatorship that sought to stifle all legitimate dissent
by clamping down on civil society to an elected civilian
government still dominated by a single political party.
The latter does, however, offer some room for mobilized
communities and interest groups, including Ijaw leaders
and militants, to press their demands on the state.
There is no reliable evidence to
support the claim that Ijaw militants
have displayed new lethal
capacities and a willingness to use
them. The events of March 2003
in the Warri area were merely an
escalation of a longstanding
grievance over the delineation of
electoral wards, which Ijaw leaders
consider deliberately skewed in favor of the Itsekiri.
Clashes between Ijaw and Itsekiri militants have been
ongoing since the late 1990s as a result of this perceived
injustice. The explosion of violence on the eve of the April
2003 elections was fundamentally the handiwork of rival
local politicos desperate for success in the polls and mobilizing
all available resources, including festering grievances
like the electoral ward issue, to achieve their objectives.
The parochial objectives of self-serving politicians
inflame the wider strategic self-determination goals of Ijaw
leaders and militias alike when funds are disbursed to the
militias. Yet, there is nothing to suggest that these developments
represent a fundamental departure from the previous
trajectory of political agitation in the area. Machine
guns, satellite phones, and speedboats are standard items
in the arsenal of military troops deployed by the Nigerian
state to pacify the oil-producing communities. Royal
Dutch/Shell and the other oil companies also supply
weapons, through a variety of sophisticated fronts, to
security operatives and mercenaries (including local youth)
that they retain in the Niger Delta. The Nigerian state and
the oil companies have thus been colluding to contain the
legitimate demands of the Ijaw by militarizing the Niger
Delta. The glut of arms in the delta, warrants urgent concern,
but one must first appreciate the problem’s origins
and dynamic links to state and corporate actors.
Recent media reports drawing attention to a
“weaponized” Ijaw and to vengeful and bloodthirsty militants
are a classic case of giving the dog a bad name in
order to hang it. The claim that Ijaw militants are now
deliberately targeting and killing oil workers is precarious.
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In Nigeria several glaring deficits
compromise the institutions of democratic rule.
Some oil workers were caught in the crossfire, as Ijaw and
Itsekiri insurgents battled for supremacy in Warri last
March. It is, however, significant that the deceased were
killed, not in the oil fields, but in the Warri urban area
itself. Though kidnapping of oil workers for ransom is a
favored tactic of the militants, abuse and killing are rare.
Working in isolated flow stations in the dense delta
swamps, poorly guarded oil company personnel are very
vulnerable and would be easy targets for these militias,
were it a new policy to target and kill them. However,
there are, as yet, no independent and credible media
reports of mass killings of these oil workers in the Niger
Delta. Indeed, history suggests that these sorts of rumors
and insinuations—with oil corporations taking out fullpage
advertisements in the Nigerian dailies suggesting a
descent into terrorism—serve to portray a fully armed and
dangerous Ijaw militia out for blood and set the stage for
yet another cycle of ethnic cleansing reminiscent of Odi.
Oil Companies Getting a Pass
What is most strikingly missing from current discussions
(including the CSIS brief ) of the security problems in the
Niger Delta is the role of Shell and other powerful corporate
international actors in deepening and sustaining the crisis.
Several independent human rights organizations, most notably
Human Rights Watch, have linked the oil company to the
spate of killings, rapes, and intercommunal feuds that have
crippled social and economic life in the Niger Delta since
1993. These human rights groups have also detailed the
company’s links to powerful and corrupt Nigerian state officials.
Moreover, environmental groups have documented the company’s
unrelenting attack on the human ecosystem on which
the local communities rely for sustenance. The fact that a
case against Chevron was recently heard in San Francisco
Federal Court speaks powerfully to these issues of corporate
practice. Indeed, detailed local community studies in
Nembe, Peremabiri, and Ke/Bille have documented the
need for new forms of corporate accountability.7 Yet, not a
single industrialized country consuming Shell’s oil has
called for sanctions to be imposed on the oil companies
operating in the Niger Delta. Any serious attempt to
address the problem of alienation and militancy in Nigeria
must focus globally, not just on the Niger Delta.
A New Colombia?
Amidst the political corruption, the deepening crisis of
governance, and the escalating violence related to resource
control, does it make sense, as the CSIS brief suggests, to
draw a parallel between a “better-positioned Ijaw” and the
revolutionary violence associated with FARC and the ELN
in Colombia? There are parallels between the two countries
regarding the political economy of extraction.
Colombia has emerged since the mid-1980s as a significant
oil producer (oil revenues now account for 35% of
legal exports) and a significant supplier to the U.S. oil
market. Conflicts between indigenous communities—
notably the U’wa—and the state and multinational oil
companies are legion. And the links between the military,
corporate security, and resource extraction—what can best
be understood as a militarized oil complex—are structurally
analogous to the situation in Nigeria. But both
Colombia and Nigeria have to be grasped regionally
(Colombia within the Andean oil region, and Nigeria
within the West African petro-zone).
It is one thing to say that the Ijaw and the U’wa have
“raised the stakes” and can “embarrass government,” but it
is quite another matter to see “Delta ethnic militants” as
Maoist insurgents or terrorists. First, the Colombian situation
is a longstanding civil war compounded by both narcotraffic
and oil. Political violence of many sorts is legendary
in Colombia and long predates the emergence of
oil as a strategic national resource. Second, the fundamental
role of the armed forces in Colombia cannot be
grasped outside of the catalytic role played by the drug
economy and by the massive military assistance provided
by the United States. During the 1990s Colombia became
a major recipient of U.S. foreign military aid, and in July
2000 Washington’s “Plan Colombia” committed $1.3 billion
toward an antinarcotics counterinsurgency strategy.
The role of the military in Nigeria (and its relation to
the oil industry in particular) is obviously key, but there is
(thus far) no parallel to the external militarization found
in Colombia. President Clinton did commit foreign assistance
to “reprofessionalize” the Nigerian Army in 1999,
including the equipping and training of seven battalions at
a cost of over $1 billion. During the Bush imperium, the
presence of 200 Special Forces in Nigeria, including onsite
training grounds in some of the most sensitive areas of
the Muslim North, has generated enormous suspicion and
now vocal opposition. Not unexpectedly, a number of
powerful Nigerian constituencies see a beleaguered and
corrupt Obasanjo regime as simply another miserable U.S.
oil colony. However, this is in no way comparable to the
Colombian case, where the U.S. was directly backing a
war with financial support that was to be used for combat.
Third, the extreme violence of the Colombian case stems
from the fact that Washington, in conjunction with the
Colombian military, has provided direct support to prop.
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A Think Tank Without Walls
tect oil installations (most recently $98 million in
February 2002 by the Bush administration to protect the
Canon Limon pipeline). This protection is only part of a
combination of armed insurgents, right-wing paramilitaries,
and so-called legal mercenaries (known as contractors)
who operate symbiotically with the likes of Occidental Oil
and Ecopetrol. Although certain elements of this mix are
present in the Nigerian situation, there is a qualitative difference
between their roles in the two countries.
And finally, to see in the variety of Ijaw (or other ethnic)
movements the seeds of leftist revolution is quite preposterous.
Disenfranchised youth groups have acted in violent
ways, especially in conflicted oil-producing communities like
Nembe and Peremabiri, and the presence of a secondary
arms market has transformed the nature of the violence
itself. But to suggest that Ijaw ethnic militancy is secessionist,
either as a leftist insurgency or as a provocation
portending massive civil war, is misguided. These Ijaw
activists, like the Ogoni political movement (MOSOP)
and the Chicoco movement, are actively engaged in
debates about access to and control over resources within
the federation. They seek to modify the Nigerian
Constitution, and they wrangle over what it means to be a
full citizen. The fact that massive poverty, disenfranchisement,
and a long, dark history of military violence should
produce forms of politics that are neither civil nor democratic
should surprise no one. But to see in the seeds of
Ijaw mobilization a “New Terror” is a radical misreading
of the current political moment in the Niger Delta.
The Way Out
The strategic significance of Nigeria is incontestable. One
of every five Africans is a Nigerian. Nigeria is also the world’s
seventh-largest exporter of petroleum and a key player in
African regional security, most recently in Sierra Leone. And
Nigeria is home to a vast Muslim community. Since the
oil boom of the 1970s, political power has shifted from the
conservative Sufi brotherhoods to well-organized modern
Islamist groups like the Yan Izala, founded in 1978. Shari’a
law, of a dogmatic and literalist sort, has been adopted
and implemented in 12 of the populous Northern states,
amidst considerable political acrimony and international
censure. At least 350 people were killed in four days of
rioting in northern Nigeria triggered by protests against
U.S. military action in Afghanistan. There were particularly
bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians in
Kano, Kaduna, and Jos. The September 2002 debacle surrounding
the Miss World pageant, in which religious controversy
and political violence resulted in the competition
being moved from Abuja to London, signaled the extent
to which religion has entered the political arena.
The Obasanjo government, torn between championing a
united Nigeria and accommodating powerful pro-federal and
ethnic autonomy sentiments among key constituencies, has
been unable to articulate a coherent policy to contain the
conflict raging in the Niger Delta. The advent of electoral
politics has even deepened the appeal of various mouthpieces
for popular grievances, including the ethnic militias,
in the face of the central government’s dismal failure to tackle
pressing economic and social problems. Ethnic militias,
intercommunal violence, and the resurgent cries for a sovereign
national conference, true federalism, and resource
control all speak to a sort of tectonic fissure now separating
state and society. Above all there is a profound sense that
the democratic space in Nigeria is neither large nor deep
enough to accommodate the clamor for regional and local
autonomy or any new political entitlements. Nigerians
remain, despite the democratic dispensation, subjects
rather than citizens. Any way out must, in our view,
address the citizenship question at a number of levels.
Oil Is Key
The first issue to be addressed is how the pursuit of oil
wealth underlies persistent national policy failures in
Nigeria. Since 1970, the country’s political, economic, and
policy elites have established an authoritarian power structure
to enable them to centralize control of strategic
resources, including the country’s substantial oil deposits.
Such avarice has not only banished the great majority of
ordinary Nigerians from the policymaking process, but it
has also led the power elites to pursue social and economic
strategies that are shortsighted, self-serving, and not driven
by the needs of the people. The consequences have been
material scarcity, deepening frustration, and social unrest
in the Niger Delta and elsewhere.
The government focus should instead be on achieving a
just and sustainable political order, giving due weight to
the fears, needs, and aspirations of the various social and
interest groups in the country. There is a growing consensus
that a completely unitary system of government is not
suited to a socially diverse country like Nigeria. A federal
democracy, turning on a measured dose of fiscal autonomy
for the federating units, not unlike the provisions of
the country’s independence Constitution, is recommended.
This would help diversify Nigeria’s revenue base by
enhancing domestic taxation, as non-oil-producing areas
are forced to find alternative ways to boost the exchequer.
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A Path to Democracy
An economically diversified polity would also tend to
introduce into the policymaking process, non-oil players
whose interests would serve as a check on the political
elites and their cronies, curbing the powerful drive toward
political authoritarianism. Political federalism would
spawn new social forces throughout Nigeria that could
serve as a countervailing force as they press their own
demands on the state. Democracy would be enhanced, as
these different sets of actors with diverse social and economic
bases competed on a level playing field. And
because no one group would be
powerful enough to dominate
the state and use its organs to
pursue its narrow interests, the
need for the institutionalization
of a disinterested and efficient
public service, corruption-free
public agencies, due process, and
the rule of law would be more
compelling. Those running for
office in Nigeria’s elected government
would need to be willing
to tackle the structural causes of
endemic violence and mass poverty in a political economy
in which oil currently contaminates virtually everything.
In the absence of robust democratic institutions and a
meaningful sense of citizenship, another oil boom—
secured perhaps with the heavy artillery of American
empire—will only further tear Nigeria apart.
The second issue involves Nigeria’s social contract. In
order for a federal democracy to be meaningful to ordinary
Nigerians and to address their social and economic needs, a
new compact between state and society will have to be worked
out. The civic, political, and social rights of the people will
need to be not only clearly spelled out but also made legally
enforceable. A socially and economically empowered body
politic would eagerly participate in public affairs, and such
broad and active participation by an enlightened citizenry
is the secret of good government policy.
More than 40 years ago, the Willink Commission noted
that the Niger Delta was “poor, backward and neglected.”
In the wake of several insurrections, including a devastating
civil war and nine military coups, all linked to the scramble
for the oil resources of the Niger Delta, the communities
and the people are no better off than they were in 1958.
To the people of the Niger Delta, who over the years have
clamored for a space in the Nigerian sun, resources are not
limited to oil and gas, despite the corporate and governmental
scramble for control over those riches. To the
indigenous people, resources mean primarily land for agriculture,
waters for fishing, forests for harvesting, and air
for breathing, as well as other physical and spiritual biota.
Resource control is the term used to describe decisionmaking
power over a people’s source of livelihood. In the
case of the Niger Delta, these sources of survival have been
taken away violently, undemocratically, and unjustly. The
term denotes the need to regain ownership, control, use, and
management of resources primarily for the benefit of the
communities and people on whose land the resources originate
and secondarily for the good
governance and development of
the entire country. The refusal of
successive Nigerian governments
to protect the land and people of
the Niger Delta from the hazards
of hydrocarbon extraction—such
as oil spillages and seepages,
human rights violations, and
poverty—seems to have convinced
the people that the oilmilitary-
governmental troika is
not good for them or the country.
Ironically it is the Willink
Commission report—a colonial period document that
remains ignored even as Nigeria’s communities clamor for
true federalism—that could give local authorities significant
leverage in holding government and corporations
accountable for malfeasances that affect present and future
survival.
The solution to the resource conflict in the Niger Delta
does not lie with the government alone. The government is
an interested party. Avowedly entrenched in resource extraction
and revenue politics, the present Nigerian government, like
others before it, sees no other solution but military pacification
and legalism. However, the problem is political and
stems from Olusegun Obasanjo’s first appearance as the head
of a military junta that seized control of land in Nigeria
between 1976 and 1979. That military junta granted
multinational oil companies access to the Niger Delta and
helped bury true federalism in multiethnic, multireligious
Nigeria. In modern-day Nigeria, issues of environmental
security, resource control and management, corporate liability
for environmental damage and human rights violations,
and livelihood erosion are in danger of being buried
beneath the global search for “international networks of
criminality and violence.” The grave danger, then, at this
moment in history, is that such a misreading of the politics
of the Niger Delta and of the struggle for environp.
7 www.fpif.org
A Think Tank Without Walls
Since 1970, the country’s
political, economic, and policy elites
have established an authoritarian power
structure to enable them
to centralize control of strategic resources.
mental and social justice will stigmatize Africa’s major oilproducing
region as simply another site in which terrorism
must be eradicated by any means possible.
The third festering issue in the need for effective mediation
at the community level to address the variety of intraand
intercommunity violence. Mediation, de-escalation,
and intercession are indeed very central to addressing not
only the Warri crisis but also the many other community
conflicts in the Niger Delta. Any effective effort in this
direction must be facilitated by an impartial party with no
vested interest. Because the oil companies and the federal
government are the most important factors driving
interethnic and intercommunity conflicts, these entities
must also be willing to submit to a mediation process.
Urging their good-faith participation in the process and in
efforts to restore federalism and resource control should
take precedence over admonitions that the federal government
“will need to take swift and meaningful steps to
enhance the region’s security.”8 Emphasizing the latter
risks playing into the hands of hawks within the Nigerian
federal government and military who seek to continue the
rape, looting, mass destruction, and genocide that they
started in Umuchem, Ogoni, Kaima, Yenagoa, Odi, and
numerous other communities.
The final issue to be addressed is the impact of international
players. Even though the current situation in the
Niger Delta does not resemble Colombia, there is no reason
to believe that it never could. A militarization of the
West African oil region under the aegis of an American
Empire intent on rooting out terrorism, as outlined in
Washington’s September 2002 National Security Strategy,
would contribute directly to a “Colombianization” of the
Niger Delta. Unless there is serious pressure from both
U.S. and European governments to ensure accountability
and responsibility from the oil companies—many of
whom are now anxious to get out of the business of community
development in Nigeria—the sense of historical
grievance that is widespread across the Niger Delta will
continue to fester.
The annals of oil extraction are an uninterrupted chronicle
of naked aggression, exploitation, and the violent mores of
the corporate frontier. Iraq was born from this vile trinity.
The current spectacle of oil men parading through the corridors
of the White House, the rise of militant Islam across
the Q’uran belt, and the carnage on the road to Baghdad
all bear the continuing dreadful dialectics of blood and
oil. Nigeria suffers all the hallmarks of such petro-violence.
Breaking with this bloody history will require a
major political commitment on both sides of the Atlantic.
Oronto Douglas is associated with Environmental Rights
Action in Port Harcourt, Nigeria; Ike Okonta and Michael
Watts <mwatts@socrates.berkeley.edu> are respectively a
Ciriacy-Wantrup fellow and the director of the Institute of
International Studies, University of California, Berkeley; Von
Kemedt is the director of the community group Our Niger
Delta in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Notes
1 Available at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/.
2 Available at http://www.eia.gov/emeu/cabs/nigeria.html.
3 Jean-Christophe Servant, Le Monde Diplomatique, January 13, 2003.
4 Available at:http://www.iasps.org/.
5 Neela Banerjee, “Fears, Again, of Oil Supplies at Risk,” New York Times,
October 14th, 2001. Business Section III, p.1.
6 R. Kapucinski, Shah of Shahs. (New York: Harcourt. 1982). p.34.
7 V. Kemedi, “Oil on troubled waters,” in Environmental Politics Working
Papers (Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley,
2002). Available at http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/.
Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) and the
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). ©2003. All rights reserved.
Foreign Policy In Focus
“A Think Tank Without Walls”
Recommended citation:
Oronto Douglas, Von Kemedi, Ike Okonta, and Michael Watts, “Alienation and Militancy in the Niger Delta: A Response to CSIS on Petroleum,
Politics, and Democracy in Nigeria,” (Silver City, NM & Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, July 2003).
Web location:
http://www.fpif.org/papers/nigeria2003.html
Production Information:
Writer: Oronto Douglas, Von Kemedi, Ike Okonta, and Michael Watts
Editor: Miriam Pemberton, IPS
Layout: Tonya Cannariato, IRC
p. 8
www. f p i f . o r g
A Think Tank Without Walls

NIGER DELTA
ECONOMIES OF VIOLENCE
WORKING PAPERS
Working Paper No. 4
OIL AND MILITANCY IN THE NIGER DELTA
Terrorist Threat or Another Colombia?
Oronto Douglas
Deputy Director, Environmental Rights Action (ERA), Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Ike Okonta
Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and
Environmental Rights Action (ERA), Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Dimieari Von Kemedi
Environmental Politics Fellow, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and
Our Niger Delta (OND), Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Michael Watts
Director, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA
2004
Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA
The United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC, USA
Our Niger Delta, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
OIL AND MILITANCY IN THE NIGER DELTA: TERRORIST THREAT
OR ANOTHER COLOMBIA?1
By Oronto Douglas, Von Kemedi, Ike Okonta, and Michael Watts2
In the wake of September 11th and the Iraq war, the geo-political significance of Nigeria
to the United States has sharpened. As a major supplier of oil, the conflicts surrounding
the April 2003 elections, and the militancy across the Niger Delta that radically
disrupted oil production in March and April 2003, has reinforced the notion that
Nigeria, and the new West African “Gulf States” in general, are matters of US national
security. Against this backdrop, the recent Centre for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington DC Policy brief (CSIS Africa Notes “Alienation and Militancy in
Nigeria’s Niger Delta” ) by Esther Cesarz, Steve Morrison and Jennifer Cooke is of signal
importance. As they properly say, the recent oil crisis highlights “more profound
national challenges” that are now facing the re-elected President Obasanjo and his
government. In their view, the recent conflicts in the Delta mark a watershed,
distinguished in particular by the prospects of “an upward spiral of violence”. The new
levels of weaponry and criminal activity of a “frustrated and angry youth”, suggest “new
ambitions and capacities” among the Ijaw who are nothing less than an armed militia.
The specter of Colombia is now haunting Nigeria says the CSIS brief. US companies,
they note, will become targets of terrorist activity, and Nigeria’s national stability and
cohesion threatened. We believe that this account is wrong-headed on a number of
accounts. It misdiagnoses the nature of the political crisis in the Delta, fails to
understand the political dynamics of the Ijaw and minority politics in general, makes
unsubstantiated comparisons with the likes of Aceh and Colombia, and rather
astonishingly ignores some of the key actors (the oil companies being a case in point)
and downplay a number of fundamental political problems to be faced. None of this is
to suggest that the issues the CSIS brief mentions in passing – federalism, resource
allocation, minority rights and so on – are not of immediate and unequivocal concern,
but their analysis of how such issues relate to the Niger Delta and the Ijaw in particular
seem to us to be radically wanting.
The Niger Delta and National Security
A year before the events of September 11th 2001, the US Department of State in its
annual encyclopaedia of ‘global terrorism’ identified the Niger Delta – the geographical
heart of oil production in Nigeria – as a breeding ground for militant and “impoverished
1 This brief is in part a response to, and a continuing dialogue with, the CSIS Africa Notes #16 May 2003,
“Alienation and Militancy in Nigeria’s Niger Delta”, The Africa Program, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, Washington DC.
2 Oronto Douglas is associated with Environmental Rights Action in Port Harcourt; Ike Okonta and
Michael Watts respectively Ciriacy-Wantrup Fellow and Director of the Institute of International Studies,
University of California, Berkeley; Von Kemedi is the Director of Our Niger Delta in Port Harcourt.
ethnic groups” for whom terrorist acts (abduction, hostage taking, kidnapping and extrajudicial
killings) were legion (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000). A CIA report
published a year earlier (2000), warned of the catalytic effects of “environmental
stresses” in the oil-rich southern Delta on deepening “political tensions” at a time when
Nigeria – currently the 6th largest producer of petroleum - was providing almost 14% of
US American petroleum consumption (http://www.eia.gov/emeu/cabs/nigeria.html).
Throughout the last decade or so Nigeria has supplied around 8-10% on average of US
oil imports and within a decade, as the deep-water fields are exploited (and as new
reserves are discovered), Nigeria could be producing annually far in excess of Venezuela
or Kuwait. Nigeria had, of course, become an archetypal “oil nation:” by the 1970’s.
Oil revenues currently provides for 80% of government revenues, 95% of export
receipts, and 90% of foreign exchange earnings. The geo-political significance of
Nigerian oil to the US, particularly against the backdrop of rising prices, tight markets
and political instability in the Gulf, Indonesia and parts of Latin America, is widely
understood. Even before September 11th, the Petroleum Finance Company (PFC)
presented to the US Congressional International Relations Committee Sub-Committee
on Africa a report of the strategic and growing security significance of West African oil
whose high quality reserves and low cost output – coupled with massive new deepwater
discoveries – required, in the view of PFC, serious attention, and substantial foreign
investment. In the wake of the Al-Quaeda attacks and the Guldf War, Nigeria and West
African producers have emerged as “the new Gulf oil states” (Servant, Le Monde
diplomatique, January 13th 2003). By January 2002 the Institute for Advanced Strategic
and Political Studies provided a forum for the Bush administration to declare that
African oil is “a priority for US national security” (http://www.iasps.org). In the last
year, the ugly footprint of Africa’s black gold – in Gabon, Sao Tome, Angola, Equatorial
Guinee – are rarely off the front pages. Oil and blood, as Jon Anderson (2000) put it in
the New Yorker, And all this haunted by the spectre of terror; the “nightmare” as the
New York Times noted (October 14th 2001: III, p.1) of “sympathizers of Osama Bin Laden
sink[ing] three oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz”.
The mythos of oil and oil-wealth has been of course central to the history of modern
industrial capitalism. But in Nigeria, as elsewhere in, the discovery of oil, and annual oil
revenues of $40 billion currently, has ushered in a miserable, undisciplined, decrepit, and
corrupt form of ‘petro-capitalism’. After a half century of oil production from which
almost $300 billion in oil revenues have flowed directly into the Federal exchequer (and
perhaps fifty billion promptly flowed out only to ‘disappear’ overseas), Nigerian per
capita income stands at $290 per year. For the majority of Nigerians, living standards
are no better now than at independence in 1960. A repugnant culture of excessive
venality and profiteering among the political class - the Department of State has an
entire website devoted to so-called 419 fraud cases - confers upon Nigeria the dubious
honor of sitting atop Transparency International’s ranking of most corrupt states.
Paradoxically, oil-producing states in the federation have benefited the least from oilwealth.
Devastated by the ecological costs of oil spillage and the highest gas flaring rates
in the world, the Niger Delta is a political tinderbox. A generation of militant ‘restive’
youth, deep political frustrations among oil producing communities, and pre-electoral
thuggery all combine to prosper in the rich soil of political marginalization. The massive
election rigging across the Delta in the April 2003 elections simply confirmed the worst
for the millions of Nigerians who have suffered from decades of neglect. It was the great
Polish journalist, Kapucinksi, who noted in his meditation on oil-rich Iran: “Oil creates
the illusion of a completely changed life, life without work, life for free, The concept of
oil expresses perfectly the eternal human dream of wealth achieved through lucky
accident, In this sense oil is a fairy tale and like every fairy tale a bit of a lie” (1982: 35).
It is this lie that currently confronts West African oil producers, and the Nigerian Niger
Delta in particular.
It is, then, perhaps no accident that the Middle East historian Robert Vitalis (2001) has
recently suggested that the rapid, complete and irreversible rise of American dominance
in Saudi Arabia can shed much light on why “the Niger Delta is currently in crisis”. And
indeed it is. Since March 12th 2003, mounting communal violence accounting for at least
fifty deaths, and the leveling of eight communities in and around the Warri petroleum
complex , has prompted all the major oil companies to withdraw staff, to close down
operations and reduce output by over 750,000 barrels per day (almost half of national
output). President Obasanjo has dispatched large troop deployments to the oilproducing
creeks prompting Ijaw militants, incensed over illegal oil bunkering in which
the security forces were implicated and indiscriminate military action, to threaten the
detonation of eleven captured oil installations. The strikes on the off-shore oil platforms
– a long festering sore that rarely reaches the media – were quickly resolved but
nobody seriously expects that the deeper problems within the oil sector will go away.
Relatively new to delta politics, however, are a series of assassinations, the most
shocking being the killing of Chief Marshall Harry, a senior member of the main
opposition party and leading campaigner for greater resource allocation to the oil
producing Niger Delta. Fallout from the Harry assassination has already become a
source of tension in his native oil producing state of Rivers were supporters of the main
opposition party, the ANPP and another opposition grouping of activists and politicians,
the Rivers Democratic Movement, have linked the ruling party to the assassination.
With good reason, the business–as-usual character of the gubernatorial election
victories across the oil-producing states, has led some to believe that the rubicon has
been crossed.
Certainly, the Niger Delta stands at the crossroads of contemporary Nigerian politics.
Even with the growth of oil-revenues to the delta states – now standing at 13% - the
region remains desperately poor, and it is the deepening material and political grievances
that stem from the region’s exclusion that place the Niger delta at the confluence of the
four most pressing political issues in the federation in the wake of the April 2003
elections. First, the efforts led by a number of Delta states for “resource control,”
which in effect means expanded local access to oil and oil revenues. Second, the
struggle for self-determination of minority people and the clamor for a sovereign
national conference to rewrite the federal constitution. Third, a crisis of rule in the
region as a number of state and local governments are rendered helpless by militant
youth movements, growing insecurity and intra-community, inter-ethnic and state
violence. And not least, the emergence of what is called a South-South Alliance linking
the hitherto excluded oil producing states in a bulwark against the ethnic majorities.
A Threshold Crossed?
Does the current crisis in the Niger Delta represent a watershed, some sort of
“threshold crossed” which “departs fundamentally from prior patterns” (of conflict) as
the CSIS brief suggests? Do recent events mark, as they say, “a new point of crisis”?
We think not. This question must be placed on the larger canvas of recent, and
especially post-military, history. Obasanjo’s presidential victory in 1999, in the wake of
the darkest period of military rule in Nigeria’s forty year post-Independence history,
held much promise. An internationally recognized statesman and diplomat imprisoned
during the brutal Abacha years, he inherited the mantle of a massively corrupt state
apparatus, an economy in shambles, and a federation crippled by the longstanding ethnic
enmity. Committed to reforming a corrupt and undisciplined military - the largest in
Africa - and to deepening the process of democratization, Obasanjo was confronted
within months of his inauguration by militant ethnic groups speaking the language of selfdetermination,
local autonomy and resource control (meaning a greater share of the
federally allocated oil revenues). In an incident widely condemned by the human rights
community, some 2000 persons were slaughtered in Odi, Bayelsa State after federal
troops were dispatched in response to clashes between local militants and the police.
Obasanjo has consistently refused to apologize for the murders and there has been no
full inquiry. Last year the military was involved in yet another massacre, this time in the
Middle Belt, in Benue and Taraba States, in what was the most serious communal
conflict since the clashes which preceded the outbreak of the Biafran civil war in 1967.
On President Obasanjo’s watch, over 10,000 have perished in ethnic violence. He has
failed miserably to address the human rights violations by the notoriously corrupt
Nigerian security forces.
In reality a number of glaring democratic deficits compromise the institutions of
democratic rule that are being painstakingly constructed. A broad consensus believes
that the 1999 constitution is deeply flawed. Crafted by the departing soldiers, the
constitution provided no opportunity for ordinary Nigerians to debate what they
consider the central conundrum of the national crisis: the terms of association in a
multi-ethnic polity. The rise of ethnic militias and communal vigilante politics flourished
during the Abacha years (1993-1998) when Nigerians experienced the most severe
political repression and economic hardship in the country’s history. The O’odua
Peoples Congress (OPC) for example was established in the Yoruba-speaking southwest
in 1994 largely to protest the annulment of the 1993 elections in which Moshood
Abiola, a Yoruba Muslim, hasd seemingly won the presidency. Led by disenchanted and
impoverished youth, the organization claimed that a ‘northern cabal’ in the Army had
denied Abiola victory and aggressively pressed for Yoruba political autonomy. Two
vigilante groups, the Bakassi Boys and Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign
State of Biafra (MASSOB), emerged in the Igbo-speaking southeast two years later.
MASSOB claimed that the Nigerian state and its functionaries had systematically
oppressed the Igbo since the end of the civil war and sought to secure selfdetermination
by resuscitating the Republic of Biafra, whose bid to secede from the
Federation was crushed by Nigerian troops in 1970. Arewa Peoples Congress (APC)
emerged in the north in 1999 as a reaction to the killing of northern elements in Lagos
and other Yoruba cities and towns by OPC cadres, and as a foil to the new Obasanjo
government which many northerners viewed as a ‘Yoruba regime.’ APC claimed that
the harassment of northerners in the southwest was part of a Yoruba plan to secede
and establish an O’oduwa Republic,’ that President Obasanjo was sympathetic to OPC’s
goals, and that the North would go to war if necessary to prevent national
dismemberment. These and other ethnic forces have come to play a transformative role
in political life largely as party thugs, enforcers, and champions of local interests.
The current crisis in Warri, in which three thousand Nigerian troops have been
deployed to ‘restore law and order’, cannot be grasped outside of these powerful
political forces. The profile of a militant faction of Ijaw youth has been unjustly amplified
to justify the size of deployment. Reports from refugees fleeing the creeks indicate the
military are engaged in scorch earth violence designed, like the Odi massacre, ‘to teach
the Ijaws a lesson’. There have been conflicting accounts of the immediate cause of the
violence one of which is linked to a disagreement between elements of the Nigerian
military and an oil baron over the proceeds of illegal oil bunkering. Central to the
Warri crisis however is poverty amidst unfathomable oil wealth. The oil producing
communities seek to control ‘their oil’ but this legitimate claim is refracted through the
lens of ethnic difference as Urhobo, Ijaw and Itsekiri people struggle over the
delineation of electoral wards (as a precondition to claim state oil revenues) and overlapping
claims on oil-rich land. Warring factions and the army have so far been
responsible for many deaths and the destruction of scores of communities.
In sum, it would be naïve to deny the growing violence in the Delta and the extent to
which democratization has deepened the ethnic spoils politics that has been central to
the political landscape of post-colonial Nigeria. But it is far too apocaltyptic to read into
these troubling trends some sort of historical precipice over which Nigeria is about to
tumble.
Bigger Ambitions, Better Capacities?
What marks the current political moment in the Niger Delta, according to the CSIS
brief, is the enhanced political ambitions and capacities of the Ijaw marked by violence
and criminal leanings, With their eyes firmly on the national prize says CSIS, they are
armed and willing to use them, and transformed from a “loosely organized
…movement” into an “armed ethnic militia”. Is this a plausible argument? In fact, the
focus of Ijaw leaders has always been national even as they work to address pressing
problems in their immediate locality: the Niger Delta. Their 1958 submission to the
Willink Commission, - set up by the British on the eve of formal independence to
enquire into the fears of Nigeria’s ethnic minority groups, for a more inclusive federal
state in which they would enjoy the fruits and also the obligations of full citizenship to
the present - framed their grievances in ways in which the national arena was an
audience and site of struggle.
Such issues as flaws in the electoral process, resentment of Nigeria’s national army and
inequities in the allocation of oil receipts have engaged the attention of Ijaw leaders
since the late 1950s when the politics of the Eastern region was dominated by a single
political party, (the NCNC) which not only had centralizing ambitions but also excluded
significant ethnic
minorities, including the Ijaw, from the regional government which was the source and
distributor of patronage and strategic resources. Indeed, questions concerning Nigeria’s
fundamentally flawed political process, whether in the guise of military rule or electoral
politics, has always been top of the agenda in the Delta since oil became a significant
player in the country’s political economy. These grievances now appear to be ‘new’
because the terrain of struggle has, since May 1999, shifted from a vicious military
dictatorship that sought to stifle all legitimate dissent by clamping down on civil society,
to an elected civilian government still dominated by a single political party but which
offers some room for mobilized communities and interest groups, including Ijaw leaders
and militants, to press their demands on the state.
There is no factual evidence to support the claim that Ijaw militants have displayed
“lethal new capacities” as the CSIS brief states, and a willingness and skill in using them.
The events of March 2003 in the Warri area was merely an escalation of a long-running
grievance, turning on the delineation of electoral wards which Ijaw leaders see as
deliberately skewed in favour of the Itsekiri. Clashes between Ijaw and Itsekiri militants
has been regular since the late 1990s as a result of this perceived injustice The
explosion of violence on the eve of the April 2003 elections was fundamentally, the
handiwork of rival local politicos desperate for success in the polls and mobilising all
available resources, including festering grievances like the electoral ward issue, to
achieve this objective.
While it is true that the parochial objectives of self-serving politicians feeds the wider
strategic goals of Ijaw leaders and militias alike for self-determination by dispensing funds
to the latter, there is nothing to suggest that these developments represent a
fundamental departure from the normal trajectory of political agitation in the area.
Machine guns, satellite phones, and speedboats are standards in the arsenal of military
troops deployed by the Nigerian state to pacify the oil-producing communities. Royal
Dutch/Shell and the other oil companies also supply these weapons, through a variety of
sophisticated fronts, to security operatives and mercenaries they retain in the Niger
delta, including local youth, fallout of the effort of the Nigerian state and the oil
companies to contain the legitimate demands of the Ijaw by militarizing the Niger delta.
There is a widespread presence of arms in the Delta – and this is a subject of much
concern – but at the very least one must appreciate its origins and dynamic links to state
and corporate actors.
Recent media reports drawing attention to a ‘weaponised’ Ijaw‚ and vengeful and
bloodthirsty militants‚ is a classic case of giving the dog a bad name in order to hang it.
The claim that Ijaw militants are now deliberately targeting and killing oil workers is
controversial, to say the least. Some oil workers were caught in the crossfire as Ijaw and
Itsekiri insurgents battled for supremacy in Warri last March. It is, however, significant
that the deceased were killed, not in the oil fields, but within Warri metropolis, a large
urban conurbation. While kidnapping of oil workers for ransom is a favored tactic of the
militants, abuse and killing is rare. Working in isolated flow stations in the dense swamps
which in most cases are poorly guarded, oil company personnel are very vulnerable, and
indeed easy target for these militias were it a new policy to target and kill them. That
there is, as yet, no independent and credible media reports of mass killings of these oil
workers in the Niger delta. Indeed history suggests that these sorts of rumors and
insinuations – oil corporations taking full-page advertisements in the Nigerian dailies
suggesting a descent into terrorism - work to paint to paint picture of a fully armed and
dangerous Ijaw militia out for blood sets the stage for yet another cycle of ethnic
cleansing reminiscent of Odi.
What is most striking, however, is current discussions (including CSIS) of the security
problems in the Niger Delta is the total invisibility of Shell and other powerful corporate
international actors in deepening and sustaining the crisis in the Niger Delta. Several
independent human rights organizations, most notably Human Rights Watch, have linked
the oil company to the spate of killings, rapes, and inter-communal feuds that have
crippled social and economic life in the Niger delta since 1993. Shell’s links to powerful
and corrupt Nigerian state officials is also well-known. The company‚s unrelenting attack
on the human ecosystem on which the local communities rely for sustenance has been
copiously documented by environmental groups. The fact that a case against Chevron
was recently heard in San Francisco Federal Court speaks powerfully to these issues of
corporate practice. Indeed detailed local community studies in Nembe, Peremabiri and
Ke/Bille by the authors (Kemedi 2003) have documented the need for new forms of
corporate accountability. Not a single one of the industrialized countries that makes
use of Shell’s oil has called for sanctions to be imposed on the oil companies operating
in the Niger delta. Any serious attempt to address the problem of alienation and
militancy in the area must focus on the global, not just the local.
A New Colombia?
Amidst the political corruption, the deepening crisis of governance, and the escalating
violence in and around ‘resource control’, does it make sense, as the CSIS brief
suggests, to draw a parallel between a ‘better positioned Ijaw’ and the revolutionary
violence in Colombia. Do the Ijaw “resemble “in an unsettling way the FARC and ELN”
as the CSIS brief states? There are obvious correspondences operating at the level of
what one might call the political economy of extraction. Colombia has emerged since
the mid-1980s as a significant oil producer (oil revenues now account for 35% of legal
exports) and a significant supplier to the US market. Conflicts between indigenous
communities – the U’wa most famously – and the state and multinational oil companies
are legion. And the links between the military, security and resource extraction – what
can best be understood as a militarized oil complex – are structurally analogous to
anyone familiar with Nigeria. Indeed both Colombia and Nigeria have to be grasped
regionally (the Andean oil region, and the West Africa petro-zone) in which, to use the
language of Michael Klare (2001), an “economization of international security affairs” is
at work.
But it is one thing to say that the Ijaw and the U’wa have “raised the stakes” and can
“embarrass government” but quite another to see “Delta ethnic militants” as Maoist
insurgents or terrorists tout court. First, the Colombian situation is a civil war of
longstanding that has been compounded by narcotraffic and by oil. Political violence of
many sorts is legendary in Colombia and long predates the emergence of oil as a
strategic national resource. Second the fundamental role of the Armed Forces in
Colombia cannot be grasped outside of the catalytic role played by the drug economy
and by the massive military assistance provided by the US. During the 1990s Colombia
moved near the top of the list of US foreign military aid, and in July 2000 “Plan
Colombia” committed $1.3 billion as an anti-narcotics counterinsurgency strategy. The
role of the military in Nigeria (and its relation to the oil industry in particular) is
obviously key, but there is no parallel to the external militarization fund in Colombia.
President Clinton did commit foreign assistance to ‘reprofessionalise’ the Nigerian army
in 1999, including the equipping and training of seven battalions at a cost of over
$1billion. During the Bush’s imperium, the presence of 200 special forces in Nigeria,
including on-site training grounds in some of the most sensitive areas of the Muslim
north, has generated enormous suspicion and now vocal opposition. Not unexpectedly,
a number of powerful Nigerian constituencies see a beleaguered and corrupt Obasanjo
regime as simply another miserable US oil colony, but this is in no way comparable to
the Colombian case. Third, the extreme violence of the Colombian case emerges from
the fact that the US in conjunction with the Colombian military has provided direct
support to protect oil installations (most recently $98 million in February 2002 by the
Bush Administration to protect the Canon Limon pipeline), is only part of a complex of
armed insurgencies, right-wing paramilitaries, and so-called legal mercenaries (or
‘contractors’) who operate symbiotically with the likes of Occidental and Ecopetrol.
While certain elements of this mix are present in the Nigerian situation there is a
qualitative difference between them. And finally, to see in the variety of Ijaw (or other
ethnic) movements the seeds of revolutionary Leftism is quite preposterous. To take
the Ijaw case, a number of political organization including the Ijaw Youth Council have
emerged in the last decade, though the histories of these so-called ethnic minorities in
the Delta can be traced back to the post-1945 period and before. The fact that
disenfranchised youth groups have acted in violent ways (especially in conflicted oil
producing communities like Nembe and Peremabiri) is incontestable; the presence of a
secondary arms market has also unequivocally transformed the nature of the violence
itself. To suggest that what passes as Ijaw ethnic militancy as secessionist, or as Left
insurgency, or as a provocation or prelude to massive civil war, is to fail to see that
these and other movements (some ethnic like the Ogoni political movement (MOSOP),
some pan-ethnic like the Kaiama Declaration) are actively engaged in a debate about
access to and control over resources within the federation, and by extension an
engagement with the Nigerian Constitution and what it means to be a full citizen. The
fact that massive poverty, disenfranchisement and a long dark history of military violence
should produce forms of politics that are neither civil nor democratic should surprise no
one. But to see in the seeds of Ijaw mobilization a ‘New Terror’ is a radical misreading
of the current political moment in the Niger Delta.
The Way Out
The strategic significance of Nigeria is incontestable. One of every five Africans is a
Nigerian, Nigeria is the world’s seventh largest exporter of petroleum and a key player
in African regional security, most recently in Sierra Leone. It is also home to a vast
Muslim community. Since the oil boom of the 1970s, political power has shifted from
the conservative Sufi brotherhoods to well-organized modern Islamist groups like the
‘Yan Izala founded in 1978. Sharia’a law, of a dogmatic and literalist sort, has been
adopted and implemented in twelve of the populous northern states, amidst
considerable political acrimony and international censure. At least 350 people were
killed in four days of terrible rioting in northern Nigeria triggered by protests against US
military action in Afghanistan, including particularly bloody clashes between Muslims and
Christians in Kano, Kaduna and Jos. The September 2003 debacle surrounding Miss
World, in which religious controversy and political violence resulted in the competition
being moved from Abuja to London, signaled the extent to which religion has entered
the political arena.
The Obasanjo government, torn between its championing of a strong and united
Nigeria and powerful pro-federal and ethnic autonomy sentiments among key
constituencies, has been unable to articulate a coherent policy to contain the sorts of
claims emerging from the Niger Delta. Even the advent of electoral politics has
deepened the appeal of popular grievances, including the ethnic militia, in the face of
government’s dismal failure to tackle their pressing economic and social problems.
Ethnic militias, inter-communal violence, and the resurgent cries for a sovereign national
conference, true federalism and resource control‚ all speak to a sort of tectonic fissure
now separating state and society. Above all there is a profound sense that the
democratic space of Nigeria is neither large enough nor deep enough to accommodate
the clamor for regional and local autonomy, and new political entitlements. Nigerians
remain, despite the democratic dispensation, subjects not citizens.
CSIS rightly says that “intensive mediation” and “de-escalation” is required, and that the
federal government must “engage in good faith on jurisdictional boundaries, corruption,
allocation of resources, economic revitalization, electoral administration” and so on.
But any “path out”, as they put it, must, in our view, address the citizenship question at
a number of levels.
First, at the national level oil is at the heart of persistent policy failure in Nigeria. From
1970 onwards, the country’s political, economic, and policy elites have put in place an
authoritarian and commandist power structure to enable them centralize control of
strategic resources, including the not insubstantial oil receipts. This rent-seeking
behaviour has not only banished the great majority of ordinary Nigerians from the
policy-making process, it has also led the power elites to pursue social and economic
strategies that are shortsighted and self-serving, strategies that are not driven by the
needs of the people. The consequence has been material scarcity, deepening frustration,
and social unrest, in the Niger Delta as elsewhere.
Focus should now be on a just and sustainable political order and ways in which this can
be brought about, giving due weight to the fears, needs, and aspirations of the various
social and interest groups in the country. There is growing consensus that a unitary
system of government is not suited to a socially diverse country like Nigeria. A federal
democracy, turning on a measured dose of fiscal autonomy for the federating units, not
unlike the provisions of the country’s independence constitution, is recommended. This
will help diversify the revenue base of the country by enhancing domestic taxation as
non-oil producing areas would be forced to find alternative ways to boost the
exchequer.
An economically diversified polity also tends to introduce new non-oil players into the
policy-making process whose interests would serve as a check on the political class‚ and
their rent-seeking, curbing the powerful drive towards political authoritarianism.
Political federalism also throws up new social forces in the regions thus serving as a
countervailing force as they press their own demands on the state. Further, democracy
is more likely to be
enhanced where different sets of actors with diverse social and economic bases are
competing in a level playing field. And because no one group would be powerful enough
to dominate the state and use its organs to pursue its narrow interests, the need of all
for the institutionalization of a disinterested and efficient public service, relatively
corrupt-free public agencies, due process and the rule of law, would be compelling.
Most of all, those running for office, and Nigeria’s government elect, must be willing to
tackle the structural causes of endemic violence and mass poverty in a political economy
in which oil contaminates virtually everything. In the absence of robust democratic
institutions and a meaningful sense of citizenship, another oil boom - secured perhaps
with the heavy artillery of American empire - will only tear Nigeria apart.
Second, in order for Nigeria’s federal democracy to be meaningful to ordinary people
and their social and economic needs, a new compact between state and society, in
which the civic, political and social rights of the people are not only clearly spelled out
but are made justiceable, will have to be worked out. A socially and economicallyempowered
body politic will encourage active citizens, eager to participate in public
affairs. And broad and active participation in public affairs by an enlightened citizenry is
the secret of good policy.
More than forty years after the Willink Commission noted that the Niger Delta is “poor
backward and neglected, and in the wake of several insurrections including a devastating
civil war and nine military coups all linked to the scramble for the oil resource of the
Niger Delta, the communities and the people are no better off than they were in 1958.
To the people of the Niger Delta who have over the years clamored for a space in the
Nigerian sun, resources does not exclusively mean only oil and gas as much of the
clamor for corporate and governmental control tends to suggest. Resources means
primarily land for agriculture, waters for fishing, forests for collecting and air for living
and the other physical and spiritual biota. Resource control is the term used to describe
the desire and determination of the communities and people whose resources and or
sources of survival have been taken away violently and undemocratically and therefore
unjustly. It denotes the need to regain ownership, control, use and management of
resources for the primary benefit of the communities and people on whose land the
resources originate and for good governance and development of the entire country.
The refusal of successive Nigerian governments to protect the land and people of the
Niger Delta from the hazards of hydrocarbon activities such as oil spillages and
seepages, human rights violations and poverty seemed to have convinced the people
that the oil-military-governmental troika is not good for them and the Country.
Ironically it is a return to the Willink, a colonial report that remains ignored even as the
communities clamor for true federalism, which should give local authorities significant
leverage in holding government and corporations accountable for malfeasances that
affects present and future survival.
The solution to the resource conflict in the Niger Delta does not lie with the
government alone, as the CSIS paper seems to suggest. The government is an interested
party. Avowedly entrenched in the extraction and revenue politics, this present
government and others before it see no other solution but military pacification and
legalism. But the problem is political and it goes as deep as the first coming of Olusegun
Obasanjo as the head of a military junta between 1976 –1979 when he decreed the
seizure and control of land in Nigeria. That decree gave military access to the oil
companies in the Niger Delta and helped to bury true federalism in a multi ethnic and
multi religious country like Nigeria. The issues of environmental security, resource
control and management, corporate liability for environmental damage and human rights
violations, livelihood considerations are matters now about to be buried in the bowels
of alleged “international networks of criminality and violence”. The grave danger, at this
moment in history, is that such a misreading of the politics of the Niger Delta and the
struggle for environmental and social justice will stigmatize Africa’s major oil-producing
region as simply another site in which “terrorism” must be eradicated by any means
possible.
Third, there must be effective mediation at the community level to address the variety
of intra- and inter-community violence. Mediation, de-escalation and intercession are
indeed very central to addressing not only the Warri crisis but also to many other inter
and intra- community conflicts in the Niger Delta. Any effort in this direction however
will obviously have to be facilitated by an impartial party without a vested interest.
Nobody should be under any illusion that the oil companies and the federal government
are not the most important factors in inter-ethnic and inter-community conflicts. The
federal government and the oil companies must be willing to submit to such a process.
If the federal government participates in good faith in the suggested mediation process
and works towards restoring federalism and resource control, it will be superfluous to
suggest further that the federal government “will need to take swift and meaningful
steps to enhance the region’s security”. To make such an inference runs the risk of
wittingly or unwittingly play into the hands of hawks within the federal administration
and the military who seek to continue the rape, looting, mass destruction and genocide
that they started in Umuchem, Ogoni, Kaima, Yenagoa, Odi, and numerous other
communities.
And finally there is the level of the international system. If the current situation in the
Delta does not resemble Colombia, there is no reason to believe, nevertheless, that it
could become such a quagmire. A militarization of the West Africa oil region under the
sign of an American Empire intent on rooting out “terrorism” as outlined in the
September 2002 National Security Strategy, would contribute directly to a
‘Colombianization’ of the Niger Delta. Equally, unless there is serious pressure from
the US and European governments to ensure accountability and responsibility from the
oil companies – many of whom are now anxious to get out of the business of
‘community development’ in Nigeria – the sense of historical grievance that is so
widespread across the Delta will continue to fester.
The annals of oil are an uninterrupted chronicle of naked aggression, exploitation and
the violent laws of the corporate frontier. Iraq was born from this vile trinity. The
current spectacle of oil-men parading through the corridors of the White House, the
rise of militant Islamism across the Q’uran belt, and the carnage on the road to Baghdad,
all bear out the continuing dreadful dialectics of blood and oil. Nigeria bears all the
hallmarks of such petrolic violence. To break with this bloody history will require a
major political commitment on both sides of the Atlantic.
References:
Anderson, J. ‘Blood and Oil’. The New Yorker August 14th 2001, pp.46-59.
V. Kemedi, ‘Oil on troubled waters’, Berkeley: Environmental Politics Working Papers,
Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley (http//:globetrotter.berkeley.edu),
(2002).
M. Klare, Resource wars (Boston: Beacon Press 2001).
R. Vitalis, Black Gold, White Crude. Diplomatic History, 26/2 pp.185-213 (2002).

POST UME SCREENING EXERCISE HOLDS 28 - 30 JULY, 2008
Posted On 14, Jul 2008 back to news home
The University of Lagos hereby announces the details of its 2008 Post-UME Screening Exercise for Admission into ALL Courses/Programmes for the 2008/2009 Academic Year.


ELIGIBLE CANDIDATES:



All candidates(Also Awaiting Results) who scored 200 and above and have made UNILAG their FIRST CHOICE Institution, in the Joint Admission University Matriculation Examinations.



NOTE:



(i) Candidates must have 5 credit passes in relevant O’level papers including Mathematics and English Language at ONE sitting.



(ii) GSM and electronic calculators are not allowed.



(iii) Parents, Guardians and uninvited law enforcement agencies will not be allowed on the Campuses during the Post-UME Screening Exercise.



B.DATE AND TIME:



The Screening Exercise will take place according to the schedule below between Monday, 28th July and Wednesday, 30th July, 2008 from 9.00a.m each day



C. PROCEDURE:

Candidates are advised to visit the University of Lagos Website i.e http://www.unilag.edu.ng/, and follow the steps below to print out the examination slip.



(i) Candidate clicks on Post-UME on the Unilag Home Page

(ii) Enters his/her UME Registration Number

(iii) Prints the Unilag Post-UME Examination Admission Slip



D. SCREENING:



What to bring for the Screening:

(a) Relevant O’Level results obtained at One Sitting only (notarised)

(b) University of Lagos Screening slip (down loaded from UNILAG web site) in duplicate.

(c) H.B pencil.

E. SCHEDULE OF SCREENING VENUES, DATES AND COURSES



DAY ONE
MONDAY, 28TH JULY, 2008

Faculty
Course
Location

Social Sciences
Psychology
Julius Berger (Engineering)

Social Sciences
Sociology
Faculty of Business Admin. and Faculty of Law Complex

Social Sciences
Political Science
Science Complex

Social Sciences
Geography
Science Complex

Business Administration
IRPM
Social Sciences Block

Business Administration
Bus Admin
Arts Block and Main Auditorium

Business Administration
Actuarial Science
Faculty of Engineering, Rooms 106 and 206

Business Administration
Banking & Finance
Faculty of Environmental Sciences

Business Administration
Accounting
Multi-purpose Halls and Faculty of Education

Business Administration
Insurance
Afe Babalola Auditorium and Mass Communication Dept.

Arts
All Courses
College of Medicine






DAY TWO
TUESDAY, 29TH JULY, 2008

Faculty
Course
Location

Science
Biochemistry
Faculty of Business Administration


Computer Science
Arts Block


Cell Biology & Genetics
Mass Communication Department


Botany
Engineering Lecture Theatre


Zoology
Engineering Lecture Theatre


Chemistry
Julius Berger (Engineering)


Microbiology
Faculty of Law Complex


Mathematics
Afe Babalola Auditorium


Physics
Science Lecture Theatre


Marine Biology & Fisheries
Science Lecture Theatre

Education
All Courses
College of Medicine

Medicine
All Courses
Multi-purpose Halls and Faculty of Environmental Sciences

Pharmacy
Pharmacy
Faculty of Education

Environmental Sciences
All Courses
Social Sciences Block






DAY THREE
WEDNESDAY, 30TH JULY, 2008

Faculty
Course
Location

Engineering
All Courses
Arts Block, Main Auditorium and Faculty of Law Complex

Social Sciences
Economics
Multi-purpose Hall and Faculty of Environmental Sciences

Social Sciences
Mass Communication
Science Complex

Law
Law
College of Medicine






F. PROCEDURE FOR CHECKING RESULTS FROM UNILAG WEBSITE:



(I) Candidate Obtains cash card of N2,000.00 from any of the following Banks: FIRST BANK , UNION BANK, WEMA BANK, INTERCONTINENTAL BANK, UBA AND ZENITH BANK.

(ii) Clicks on Post-UME Results; this links candidate to another interface.

(iii) Enters Card Number.

(iv) Enters Expiry Date.

(v) Enters Pin Number



When Transaction is confirmed, then “Confirmation Number” is displayed.

(vi) Clicks on the return button to return to UNILAG’S results page.

(vii) Enters UME Registration Number and Confirmation Number.

(viii) Result is displayed immediately.

(ix) Print out your result.



THE RESULTS WILL BE READY FROM 14TH AUGUST, 2008.

SITE WILL BE CLOSED AT 12 MIDNIGHT, 28TH AUGUST, 2008.

Nigerian Student Cults
Discuss Nigerian student cults

News Reports

Focus On the Menace of Student Cults

Killers On Campus Mass acquisition of dangerous weapons by students is gradually turning our university campuses into theatres of war and bizarre killings

Students Burnt Alive

Students Burn Rivals to Death

Campus Cults And Curtailment

Tackling Student Secret Cults Once again the ugly incidence of secret cults in Nigerian higher institutions of higher learning has re-appeared with the reported killing last week of 15 students at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Since the mid 1980's when cultism became a source of violence and carnage on our campuses, more than one hundred young lives have been lost and more than thrice that number of young people have been ,

Red Card for 800 Students Self-cleansing exercise results in petrol bomb war from crooks and cultists

Delsu Authorities Raise Alarm On Cult Groups THE authorities of Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka, yesterday raised an alarm that some secret cult groups were regrouping in the institution to unleash terror on the students and asked the law enforcement agents to quickly come to its aid.

90 Students Face Expulsion From Lasu No fewer than 90 students may soon be expelled by the authorities of Lagos State University, (LASU), Ojo for running foul of the institution's rules and regulations, including membership of cults and for anti-social behaviour.

Government Created Campus Cultism

Students Union Leader Urges Stiff Penalty for Cult Membership The Students Union president of Benue State University (BSU) Makurdi, Mr. Titus Yeke has called on the National Assembly to enact a law prescribing stringent punishment for students involved in cultism in tertiary institutions in the country.

Let's Stop This Terror On Our Campuses All quarters that have a thing to do with the well-being of the Nigerian nation have expressed genuine concerns about the unabating spate of cult killings in our institutions of higher learning. Sermons have been preached in both the Churches and Mosques on this issue. In fact, many churches hold special deliverance sessions to cast out demons of cultism from students of higher institution.

Cultists Kill Two Students At Ibadan Poly

Two Feared Dead in Ibadan Poly Cult Clash A bloody cult clash at the Polytechnic, Ibadan Oyo State, yesterday left two suspected cultists dead while six others were seriously injured.

Ritual Killings in Ekpoma 300-Level Ambrose Alli Varsity medical student beheaded, another's private part, breast removed

Police Hunt Lasu Cultists Despite the arrest made by the police following the brutal killing of former president of the Lagos State University Student Union Government, Mr. Tunde Salau, the police have intensified its intelligence dragnet to nab cultists in the school.

Two Students Die As Secret Cults Clash in Ibadan Poly TWO students suspected to be members of secret cults have lost their lives in a fresh clash between rival cult groups at The Polytechnic, Ibadan.

Cults, Evil With No Redeeming Features -Don Regrets being part of the formation of the Pyrates Confraternity

Cult Clash in Kwara Poly, One Student Injured A tudent of Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin, was wounded yesterday in a bloody clash involving members of two secret cults - Eiye and Bucanners - on the campus.

Benin University Warns Against Cultism The Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), Prof. Abhulimen R. Anao, has issued a stern warning to newly admitted students of the institution to avoid falling into the temptation of joining secret cults or any undesirable groups on the campuses to have a truly fulfilling academic sojourn in the university.

Campus Goons To them, guns and axes are more important than pen and books. Swoting is for those not man enough. They are the kings of the campus cult groups who run the nation's campuses.

59 Students Renounce Secret Cults Fifty-nine students of Auchi Polytechnic in Edo State have renounced their membership of secret cults and vowed not to go back.

Edo State Governor Signs Anti-cult Bill Into Law Governor Lucky Igbinedion of Edo state on Wednesday warned all students in educational institutions of learning in the state to expend their energies towards their academic pursuit, instead of dissipating such on unprofitable, anti-social activities of secret cults.

Ige, Cults and Misconceptions For many years now, the civilised consciousness of humanity has been battling to stop capital punishment.

Gruesome Killing of Igwe Law Student

Cultists Have Regrouped, Says Abia Poly Rector There are indications that former student cultists who renounced their membership in the wake of the federal government's directive to heads of tertiary institutions in the country to eliminate cultism in their institutions have re-joined the dreaded groups.

Interview: 'The Game Is Up' Ben Oguntuase, the Capn of the National Association of Seadogs otherwise called Pyrates Confraternity has lately been in the forefront of the campaign against gangsterism and cult violence in institutions of higher learning in Nigeria.

Save Universities From Cults And Dictators (Editorial) The Nigerian university system has finally hit the bottom of a long ditch where its pieces seem to be held together only by the monster described as cults.

Seadogs Condemn Cultism The National Association of Seadogs (NAS) has stood up in fierce condemnation of the spate of lawlessness in the country's institutions of higher learning through the activities of campus cults.

Campus Terrorism: Time To Act The National Association of Seadogs is alarmed at the spate of lawlessness in our institutions of higher learning. These acts of lawlessness have been blamed on misguided students who for want of better ways of employing their apparently excessive energy, have gone on a maiming, burning and killing spree.

Guns For Roses The Pyrates Confraternity's annual converge confronts campus gangsterism and offers the way out Seadogs from "Zanas", "Ben Bow", "Olympus Marino", 'Umaluko', "Samba Matanga", "Jokaina", "Zuma", and a host of other zones in Nigeria sayled to Gateway Hotel Abeokuta for the 23 Annual Converge of the National Association of Seadogs (NAS) on 21 August.

Soyinka Wants Nigerian Universities Closed Nigerian Nobel literature laureate, Wole Soyinka has called for the closure of Nigerian universities for between one and two years to enable the authorities to address the many problems facing tertiary institutions in the country.

Routing Cultism It would have been a miracle of sorts if the secret cult phenomenon had not reared its head in our various tertiary institutions, given the various desperate developments in the larger society these past 15 years.

Campus Terrorism: Time To Act The National Association of Seadogs is alarmed at the spate of lawlessness in our institutions of higher learning. These acts of lawlessness have been blamed on misguided students who for want of better ways of employing their apparently excessive energy, have gone on a maiming, burning and killing spree.

Cultists Threaten Ago-Iwoye Barely two weeks after the breathtaking school killing at Columbine High School in the United States of America, a scenario close to that was replayed at the Ogun State University when some students suspected to be members of Supreme 'Eye' confraternity (the Airlords) marched into one of the venues of the institution's harmattan semester examination in a frantic search for members of a rival ,

Nigerian Student Cults
Discuss Nigerian student cults

News Reports

Focus On the Menace of Student Cults

Killers On Campus Mass acquisition of dangerous weapons by students is gradually turning our university campuses into theatres of war and bizarre killings

Students Burnt Alive

Students Burn Rivals to Death

Campus Cults And Curtailment

Tackling Student Secret Cults Once again the ugly incidence of secret cults in Nigerian higher institutions of higher learning has re-appeared with the reported killing last week of 15 students at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Since the mid 1980's when cultism became a source of violence and carnage on our campuses, more than one hundred young lives have been lost and more than thrice that number of young people have been ,

Red Card for 800 Students Self-cleansing exercise results in petrol bomb war from crooks and cultists

Delsu Authorities Raise Alarm On Cult Groups THE authorities of Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka, yesterday raised an alarm that some secret cult groups were regrouping in the institution to unleash terror on the students and asked the law enforcement agents to quickly come to its aid.

90 Students Face Expulsion From Lasu No fewer than 90 students may soon be expelled by the authorities of Lagos State University, (LASU), Ojo for running foul of the institution's rules and regulations, including membership of cults and for anti-social behaviour.

Government Created Campus Cultism

Students Union Leader Urges Stiff Penalty for Cult Membership The Students Union president of Benue State University (BSU) Makurdi, Mr. Titus Yeke has called on the National Assembly to enact a law prescribing stringent punishment for students involved in cultism in tertiary institutions in the country.

Let's Stop This Terror On Our Campuses All quarters that have a thing to do with the well-being of the Nigerian nation have expressed genuine concerns about the unabating spate of cult killings in our institutions of higher learning. Sermons have been preached in both the Churches and Mosques on this issue. In fact, many churches hold special deliverance sessions to cast out demons of cultism from students of higher institution.

Cultists Kill Two Students At Ibadan Poly

Two Feared Dead in Ibadan Poly Cult Clash A bloody cult clash at the Polytechnic, Ibadan Oyo State, yesterday left two suspected cultists dead while six others were seriously injured.

Ritual Killings in Ekpoma 300-Level Ambrose Alli Varsity medical student beheaded, another's private part, breast removed

Police Hunt Lasu Cultists Despite the arrest made by the police following the brutal killing of former president of the Lagos State University Student Union Government, Mr. Tunde Salau, the police have intensified its intelligence dragnet to nab cultists in the school.

Two Students Die As Secret Cults Clash in Ibadan Poly TWO students suspected to be members of secret cults have lost their lives in a fresh clash between rival cult groups at The Polytechnic, Ibadan.

Cults, Evil With No Redeeming Features -Don Regrets being part of the formation of the Pyrates Confraternity

Cult Clash in Kwara Poly, One Student Injured A tudent of Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin, was wounded yesterday in a bloody clash involving members of two secret cults - Eiye and Bucanners - on the campus.

Benin University Warns Against Cultism The Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), Prof. Abhulimen R. Anao, has issued a stern warning to newly admitted students of the institution to avoid falling into the temptation of joining secret cults or any undesirable groups on the campuses to have a truly fulfilling academic sojourn in the university.

Campus Goons To them, guns and axes are more important than pen and books. Swoting is for those not man enough. They are the kings of the campus cult groups who run the nation's campuses.

59 Students Renounce Secret Cults Fifty-nine students of Auchi Polytechnic in Edo State have renounced their membership of secret cults and vowed not to go back.

Edo State Governor Signs Anti-cult Bill Into Law Governor Lucky Igbinedion of Edo state on Wednesday warned all students in educational institutions of learning in the state to expend their energies towards their academic pursuit, instead of dissipating such on unprofitable, anti-social activities of secret cults.

Ige, Cults and Misconceptions For many years now, the civilised consciousness of humanity has been battling to stop capital punishment.

Gruesome Killing of Igwe Law Student

Cultists Have Regrouped, Says Abia Poly Rector There are indications that former student cultists who renounced their membership in the wake of the federal government's directive to heads of tertiary institutions in the country to eliminate cultism in their institutions have re-joined the dreaded groups.

Interview: 'The Game Is Up' Ben Oguntuase, the Capn of the National Association of Seadogs otherwise called Pyrates Confraternity has lately been in the forefront of the campaign against gangsterism and cult violence in institutions of higher learning in Nigeria.

Save Universities From Cults And Dictators (Editorial) The Nigerian university system has finally hit the bottom of a long ditch where its pieces seem to be held together only by the monster described as cults.

Seadogs Condemn Cultism The National Association of Seadogs (NAS) has stood up in fierce condemnation of the spate of lawlessness in the country's institutions of higher learning through the activities of campus cults.

Campus Terrorism: Time To Act The National Association of Seadogs is alarmed at the spate of lawlessness in our institutions of higher learning. These acts of lawlessness have been blamed on misguided students who for want of better ways of employing their apparently excessive energy, have gone on a maiming, burning and killing spree.

Guns For Roses The Pyrates Confraternity's annual converge confronts campus gangsterism and offers the way out Seadogs from "Zanas", "Ben Bow", "Olympus Marino", 'Umaluko', "Samba Matanga", "Jokaina", "Zuma", and a host of other zones in Nigeria sayled to Gateway Hotel Abeokuta for the 23 Annual Converge of the National Association of Seadogs (NAS) on 21 August.

Soyinka Wants Nigerian Universities Closed Nigerian Nobel literature laureate, Wole Soyinka has called for the closure of Nigerian universities for between one and two years to enable the authorities to address the many problems facing tertiary institutions in the country.

Routing Cultism It would have been a miracle of sorts if the secret cult phenomenon had not reared its head in our various tertiary institutions, given the various desperate developments in the larger society these past 15 years.

Campus Terrorism: Time To Act The National Association of Seadogs is alarmed at the spate of lawlessness in our institutions of higher learning. These acts of lawlessness have been blamed on misguided students who for want of better ways of employing their apparently excessive energy, have gone on a maiming, burning and killing spree.

Cultists Threaten Ago-Iwoye Barely two weeks after the breathtaking school killing at Columbine High School in the United States of America, a scenario close to that was replayed at the Ogun State University when some students suspected to be members of Supreme 'Eye' confraternity (the Airlords) marched into one of the venues of the institution's harmattan semester examination in a frantic search for members of a rival ,


Governors, Democracy and the Rule of Law
His Excellency the Honourable Sir Guy S Green AC KBE
Former Governor of Tasmania
29 October 1999 Menzies Oration on Higher Education
Constitutional reform is a serious matter. Unlike ordinary law reform whose effects are confined to specific areas and which may be modified or repealed if it turns out to have been ill-advised, constitutional reform impacts upon the entire system of law and government and is virtually irreversible. It follows that we have an obligation not only to ourselves but to our descendants to consider any proposals to change the constitution of the Commonwealth or a State rationally, deliberately and with a complete understanding of the nature of that which is being changed and of what the consequences of the change will be.
There is currently before the Australian people a proposal to sever the remaining links between the Crown and the Commonwealth of Australia and in due course some or all of the States may consider taking a similar step. Merely severing the links between the Crown and the Commonwealth or the States although a very significant step in other respects would not entail great constitutional change. As a result of a succession of constitutional developments culminating in the Australia Acts 1986 it can now be said that virtually all the powers and functions of Governors-General and Governors are derived from the constitutions and laws of the Commonwealth and the States not from the fact that Vice-Regal officers nominally represent the Crown. So severing our links with the Crown would mean that the present holders of Vice-Regal office would no longer be appointed by or represent the Crown but would not of itself require any other change to their functions.
But a heady mixture of millenarianism and the romantic connotations which the word republic has for some people has generated a climate in which more extensive proposals for the adoption of what is called a republican form of government in Australia are being promoted. Those proposals include reviewing the nature of the functions performed by Governors-General and Governors and even questioning the continued existence of those offices. Such proposals appear to be founded upon a belief that the word republic describes a particular form of government. That is a misconception. There is no one constitutional system which answers the description of a republic. Over the years the word has been used in many confused ways to describe all sorts of different systems. Sometimes the word is merely used in a negative sense to refer to a system which does not have a monarch as its head of state and sometimes it is used to describe a group of concepts, the most prominent of which are the essential equality of all citizens and that supreme power rests with the people and their representatives. In that broad sense we have had a republic in Australia since federation - the very name Commonwealth conveying that idea. Indeed as long ago as 1867 the English political and constitutional writer Walter Bagehot observed that even the England of Queen Victoria was in substance a republic. As the Republic Advisory Committee reported:
(Republican) concepts are more philosophical than constitutional and need not entail specific constitutional consequences or structures. Indeed, advocates of wider 'republican' principles are often hard pressed to cite concrete constitutional change which ought to result from 'republicanism'.
In particular it cannot be said that there is any one prescription which defines what constitutional powers or functions the head of state in a republic should have. There are republics which have a President who is both head of state and head of government, others which have a President and a Prime Minister and yet others where the President has little constitutional power at all. But misconceived as the reasons for doing so might be it is the case that the powers and functions of Vice-Regal officers - or their successors if the links with the Crown are severed - are under review. In order to responsibly consider whether any changes should be made to those powers and functions it is necessary to understand that which is being changed and what the consequences of such changes will be.
I propose addressing in particular one important but largely neglected aspect of the powers and functions which Vice-Regal officers currently exercise. For convenience I shall confine my remarks to State Governors but for the purposes of this discussion their powers and functions are in essential respects the same as those of the Governor-General.
Governors exercise two main sets of constitutional functions. First, they are responsible for taking the steps necessary for the dissolution of the parliament or a house of parliament, the holding of elections and the appointment of a Premier and Ministers. By convention those powers are exercised on the advice of the Premier. But in exceptional situations the Governor may have to exercise what are called the reserve powers and dissolve the Parliament or a House of Parliament or refuse to do so or dismiss or appoint someone as Premier without advice or even contrary to advice. The existence of those powers is essential in order to resolve deadlocks and ensure the continuity of government when ordinary constitutional processes and conventions break down and to enable a Governor to take appropriate action in the event of a government acting unlawfully. When constitutional and political writers discuss the powers of Governors to act without or contrary to advice they concentrate almost exclusively on those reserve powers. But those powers are exercised very rarely. The other main constitutional functions of Governors comprise the exercise of a great variety of mainly statutory powers through which the day to day business of government is conducted. A former Governor of Victoria records that a few years ago a count of those powers in Victoria was commenced and reached 4,000 when it was discontinued. That side of the role of Governors receives little public or academic attention but it is in fact the most significant part of their constitutional function and it is about that function that I would like to speak today.
The powers of a Governor in relation to the day to day business of government are in the main exercisable on the advice of the Executive Council which in practical terms means the Premier and Ministers of the government of the day.
Although Executive Councils as we know them have been a part of our constitutional system since the advent of responsible government in the Australian colonies there are remarkable differences of opinion about the nature of the relationship between the Executive Council and the Governor.
Three distinct models of the Governor's role can be identified: the interventionist, the benign mentor and the mechanical idiot.
The interventionist model is represented by the view taken by a former Governor-General Sir Paul Hasluck that as well as ensuring the legality and regularity of any action which Governors are advised by the Executive Council to take, they have a responsibility to go behind that advice and have regard to substantive aspects as well. Thus Sir Paul regarded himself as having the "responsibility to make sure that decisions are consistent with what is known of government policy". On what he described as controversial matters he felt that he should go even further. In respect of such matters "I would seek" he said "to satisfy myself that there was no conflict between the action recommended and any agreements, commitments or decisions of the government" and that "if the subject matter obviously was of interest to several Ministers and departments I required an assurance that there had been interdepartmental consultation and that the recommendation was supported by all those directly concerned in that area of administration. I was also watchful for possible conflicts in policy."
The strongest support for the benign mentor model comes from the decision of the High court in FAI Insurances Ltd v Winneke. In that case an insurance company instituted proceedings against the Governor of Victoria and others seeking a declaration that the refusal of its application for approval to carry on the business of workers compensation insurance was void on the ground inter alia that in breach of what were then called the rules of natural justice the Governor in Council had not given it a reasonable opportunity to be heard. The Court held that the Governor in Council was subject to the rules of natural justice and that therefore the refusal of the application was void. In order to arrive at that conclusion the Court had to consider the nature of the role of Governors when they are exercising a power or function on the advice of the Executive Council. With varying degrees of emphasis four of the Justices accepted that the Governor has the right to call in question the advice which has been tendered, suggest modifications to it and ask the government to reconsider it. But the court also held that if in the end the Council persisted in tendering its advice notwithstanding the Governor's questions, suggestions or reservations the Governor was bound to accept and act upon that advice. The view taken by the majority of the Justices in the FAI case also represents the views expressed by the great majority of constitutional and political writers who have discussed the matter.
Under the mechanical idiot model the Governor in Council does not appear to be a living being at all, he she or it being variously described as a figurehead, rubber stamp, cypher or automaton. That model was espoused by Justice Murphy in the FAI case. In his view the Governor's function in the Executive Council was purely formal, the Governor being bound to accept the advice being tendered and whilst he recognised that a Governor "is sometimes given the courtesy of explanations" Justice Murphy asserted that "he is not entitled to them." Justice Murphy's view receives support from the position taken by Professor Geoffrey Sawer and others who emphasise the "formal" or "ceremonial" role of Governors. Professor Sawer drew a parallel between the development of the Privy Council in England and the subsequent development of the Executive Councils in the Australian colonies in the 19th century and concluded that "There may be some good reason why Australians should continue to imitate an historical eccentricity of the British constitution, but this writer has not been able to discover it." In essence, Professor Sawer would do away with the Executive Council because it is an anachronism and because its functions merely duplicate those of the Cabinet with which he thought it should be merged.
I turn to consider those three models. Although others have expressed support for the general tenor of Sir Paul Hasluck's approach I am not aware of any authority which would support such an intrusion by a Governor-General into the policy considerations and political processes which eventually produce the advice tendered by the Executive Council. It is not supported by precedent, the law or the principles of responsible government.
The mechanical idiot model can also be rejected fairly summarily. Justice Murphy's opinion was based upon a political theory which he advanced in his reasons for judgment that the Cabinet is the highest political organ of the State and upon conclusions he drew from his view of how Cabinets operate or should operate. However his views are unsupported by any legal analysis or citation of authority. In any event it would not be easy to accept a view of the role of Governors which not only denied them the right to question the advice which was being tendered to them but by denying them the right to an explanation of that advice even denied them the right to know the nature of what it was that they were being asked to do.
Professor Sawer's view that the Executive Council is an anachronism is based upon a false premise. The modern Executive Council bears no resemblance to the English Privy Council of earlier centuries. Interestingly Professor Sawer does seem to accept that under present arrangements the Executive Council and the Governor do help to guarantee the legality and propriety of government decisions. Presumably by proposing that the Executive Council should be merged with the Cabinet Professor Sawer is indicating either that he believes that cabinets could always be relied upon to monitor the regularity of their actions with detachment and uninfluenced by political considerations, which some might find unconvincing, or that the urgency of disposing of what he sees as an imperial relic is more important than retaining a system which helps to ensure the legality and regularity of government actions.
Let us now turn to what I have called the benign mentor model of the Governor in Council. This can be regarded as the standard model of the Governor's role and is the most widely accepted.
One of the most frequently cited authorities in support of this model is the opinion of Walter Bagehot that under a constitutional monarchy the Sovereign has "three rights - the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn."
That aphorism has been cited with approval again and again by political scientists, constitutional writers, vice-regal officers and even by the High Court in the FAI case. It has received such a high level of recognition and been accepted without question by so many authorities that it has virtually been elevated to the status of an axiom of our system of government. It is therefore with some diffidence that I suggest that we look at the basis of that opinion.
The aphorism is contained in a chapter on the Monarch in Bagehot's work The English Constitution. It is introduced by a reference to differences which had arisen between Queen Victoria and her Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, as a result of her complaints that he was failing to consult her or keep her informed about foreign affairs. She eventually sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, in which inter alia the Queen indicated that she required: "(1) That he will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what she has given her Royal sanction; (2) Having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister; , " and that "She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the Foreign Ministers before important decisions are taken, based upon that intercourse;" Having referred to that memorandum Bagehot then expresses his understanding that the First Minister also keeps the Queen informed about important decisions and "takes care that she knows everything which there is to know as to the "passing politics of the nation" and that by "rigid usage" she has a right to complain if she is not given advance notice of actions which her Ministry proposes taking. To "state the matter shortly" Bagehot concludes "The Sovereign has , the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn."
In other words this opinion which has been cited so often as authority for the existence of a fundamental constitutional principle of the relationship between Governors and the Executive Council is not based upon reasoned analysis and gains its only support from a direction given by Queen Victoria relating to a particular branch of government and Bagehot's very general understanding of some of the practices governing Queen Victoria's relationship with her Ministers in other areas of government.
Despite its insubstantial foundations Bagehot's opinion is in a limited sense correct. The Sovereign and Governors certainly have the rights to which he refers. The real objection to Bagehot's aphorism is that he advanced it as a complete statement of the Sovereign's rights. In his opinion "A King of great sense and sagacity would want no other (rights)". But the pragmatic considerations Bagehot then advances in support of that opinion are unconvincing and certainly not sufficient to establish any general constitutional principle applicable to Governors.
The most substantial support for the standard model of the role of the Governor in Council including in particular the principle that in the end a Governor must always accept the advice tendered by the Executive Council, is that it is a corollary of the principles of responsible government. The argument supporting the derivation of that obligation from those principles was encapsulated by Professor George Winterton in these terms:
"One of the fundamental principles of Australian constitutionalism is parliamentary supremacy, which is enforced politically through ministerial responsibility to Parliament or, more accurately, ministerial responsibility to the lower House and answerability to both Houses. The corollary of responsible government for intra-executive relations between the Governor and the government is that, except when exercising the few remaining "reserve powers", the Governor, like the Queen, acts only on, and must ultimately follow, ministerial advice, for which the government is responsible to the lower House. This has been acknowledged by virtually every commentator, including the High Court."
The requirement that a particular power may only be exercised if the Governor has been advised by the Executive Council to exercise it is certainly a corollary of the principles of responsible government and is also a condition which is sometimes expressly imposed by law. But to say that Governors may not take a certain action unless they have been advised to do so is by no means the equivalent of saying that they must always take that action when they are advised to do so. The tendency to gloss over the distinction between saying that a Governor may not act without advice and saying that a Governor must always accept advice has been productive of much confusion in discussions about this issue. However, subject to that qualification statements such as that by Professor Winterton do correctly reflect a fundamental principle of our system of government. But such statements are incomplete because they fail to recognise that the principle of responsible government is not the sole or even the main principle upon which our system is founded. An even more important principle is the rule of law.
The rule of law is not merely a political or legal theory. It is an integral part of the substantive law which governs our system. For present purposes it is not necessary to explore all the ramifications of the concept of the rule of law. It is sufficient to refer to two elements which it embodies: that everyone including in particular the executive arm of government is subject to the law and that in contrast to private citizens who may do anything which is not prohibited by law or which does not infringe the rights of others, organs of the executive government may not do anything save that which the law has authorised them to do.
It is certainly the case that if one has regard to the principles of responsible government alone it can be persuasively argued that a Governor must always follow the advice of the Ministry. But the application of the principles of the rule of law leads to a different conclusion. The rule of law also imposes an obligation upon a Governor to see that the processes of the Executive Council and the action being taken are lawful and to refuse to act when they are not. That duty is not confined to refusing to be a party to an action which is unlawful in the sense of being contrary to say the criminal law but includes acts which are beyond power or acts which are within power but are being exercised irregularly as was the case for example in FAI v. Winneke.
It has been argued that Governors should not concern themselves with the legality or regularity of Executive Council processes, that being a matter for the courts. That reflects a failure to recognise that the ubiquity of the law throughout our society and all its institutions is a key element of the rule of law. It follows that the law is not some specialised field which is mainly the province of judges and lawyers and to which others only need to have regard when they are compelled to do so. Certainly it is the judiciary which has the ultimate responsibility for determining the lawfulness of any action but as the Solicitor-General of South Australia recently observed "It is an essential aspect of the rule of law that the Executive ascertain for itself what the law is and that the Executive comply with it."
However the responsibility of the Governor in Council does not extend to undertaking a full legal analysis of any proposed action or making a final determination of the lawfulness of such action in the sense in which a court does. The Governor's duty is to see that the processes of the Executive Council and the form of the advice which is given are such as to demonstrate that the question of legality has been addressed and satisfactorily answered. The simplest way of ensuring compliance with those obligations is to require that the advice in respect of each item on the agenda of a meeting of an Executive Council always includes:
• A clear statement of precisely what it is that the Governor is being asked to do
• A reference to the source of the power to take that action.
• Particulars of any conditions which need to be satisfied before that power can be exercised.
• Explicit assertions by a Minister stating how those conditions have been satisfied.
In the event of any of those requirements not being satisfied a Governor could not be satisfied about the legality or propriety of the proposed action and would have a duty to postpone the item or even to refuse to accept the advice. But a Governor would not refuse to accept advice unless the proposed action was clearly unlawful or there had been a failure by a Minister or the Council to provide information about an aspect of the advice which was crucial to the determination of whether it was unlawful.
What I have outlined above is not merely a theoretical description of how Executive Councils should operate. A recent survey revealed that Governors or the Secretariats of Executive Councils in Australia do in practice exercise an effective monitoring function by raising significant queries with the Ministers or departments presenting items to the Council. In some jurisdictions this occurs "very frequently".
In practice there is rarely any conflict between the application of the principles of responsible government and the duty of a Governor to see that the executive government is subject to the law. However the blunt fact of the matter is that the standard model of the role of the Governor means that in the end a Governor would be obliged to accept the advice of the Executive Council even if the action to be taken was unlawful. And that would involve a breach of the principles of the rule of law.
So the crucial question arises: which takes priority - the principles of responsible government or the principles of the rule of law? Before answering that question, two preliminary observations may be made.
First, it is generally accepted that one of the reserve powers of a Governor is to dismiss a government or a Premier who is acting unlawfully. Such a power was exercised by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Philip Game, in 1932 when he dismissed the Premier, J.T. Lang, for instructing State public servants to transfer moneys in breach of the Financial Agreement Enforcement Act 1932. It would be a strange anomaly to accept that a Governor is entitled to take the very serious step of dismissing a Premier for illegal conduct but deny him or her the right to take the less serious step of declining to accept advice from the Executive Council to do something which is unlawful.
Secondly let us imagine ourselves at a meeting of the Executive Council of Victoria held the day after the High court had handed down its decision in FAI v. Winneke. At the meeting the Council tenders advice to Sir Henry Winneke that he should refuse a fresh application by FAI for approval to conduct workers compensation insurance. In response to a question from the Governor the relevant Minister indicates that once again the rules of natural justice have not been complied with. Could anyone be comfortable with a rule which obliged the Governor to act on the advice of the Executive Council in those circumstances? But that is what the standard model dictates.
In my view there can be no doubt that where there is conflict the principles of the rule of law must prevail over the principles of democracy and responsible government. "The rule of law" Professor Geoffrey Walker observed "is the one essential component of the common law constitutional system and legal order. "It is" he went on "the unifying concept of our whole system of judicial review and government under law. Without some theoretical foundation of this nature, our constitutional doctrine would lack an organizing principle and a basis for action." The rule of law antedates the emergence of democratic institutions and the principles of responsible government and is a condition of their effective operation. A fully representative parliament, free elections, universal suffrage and bills of rights mean nothing unless the rule of law prevails and the executive government is itself subject to the law. And the constitutional organ which has the primary responsibility for seeing that the executive government is subject to the law is the Executive Council.
In the Southey Memorial Lecture delivered at this university in 1981 Sir Ninian Stephen observed that "Governments of the present day necessarily pose a greater threat to individual liberties than did those of last century. Modern governments are expected to intervene in areas previously little regulated and the result is a greater intrusion into the private lives of those they govern." One of the conditions of our liberties is the existence of the rule of law and a system which ensures that power is not unduly concentrated in one place but is distributed amongst a number of individuals and institutions, each exercising a restraining influence on the others. In Australia today that system of mutual constraints is being eroded by amongst other things an increase in the power and influence of the executive arm of government and a corresponding reduction in the power and influence of Parliament as a distinct institution, a diminution in the strength of the conventions governing ministerial accountability and responsibility to Parliament and the politicisation of some sections of the public service. I make no judgment or comment about those developments but simply note their impact upon the traditional system of checks and balances.
I am not suggesting that the Governor in Council is one of the great champions of our liberties. But at little cost and without impeding the proper operation of government it performs an important supervisory function which makes a significant contribution to the system of checks and balances and the maintenance of the rule of law. In those circumstances irrespective of whether our links with the Crown are severed good reason would have to be advanced to justify any changes to the functions of the Executive Council or the office of Governor.

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Uche Chimere,
will never forget his Primary 5 Class Teacher, Mrs. C. N. MMaju.

She made a great impact in his life.

Thanks for your Care, Ma.