FACTS DONT LIE (REIGN OF ERROR) By OLISA AKUKWE

In 2006, a song that was part salsa, part hip-hop hit the airwaves with resounding resonance, globally. "Hips don't lie" by Shakira, the Colombian singer went on to sale 16 million copies over the last 10 years.
I borrowed the title of this week's epistle from Shakira's song. Facts, like Hips, are evidence based. They don't lie.

Nigeria has been for far too long a society where opinion trumps facts; quota trumps merit; nepotism trumps justice and many times tribes trump truth. This has to change. It is important for Nigerians to deepen their understanding of economics because it affects us all. Nigerian youths need to ask more penetrating questions in the run-up to the next elections. Indeed they need to start asking those questions today. That is the only change we can achieve.

ON THE ECONOMY: Babatunde Fashola, a super-minister in the APC government and a former, rather competent, governor of Lagos state told pension experts on 22nd Jan 2016, that this Govt is working to diversify the economy. They clapped. He blamed lack of diversification as the main cause of current malaise. The facts does not support Fashola's assertion.

The data collected by National Bureau of Statistics show that Nigeria's economy is already diversified. The almighty oil contributes barely 10% of our GDP. In fact the often maligned Trade contributes more than oil to our GDP.
Let's examine them. At the end of 2014, the year of the so-called peak oil price, crude oil and natural gas contributed about 9.616 trillion Naira to the GDP, 10.67% of the total. Meanwhile at the same period, Agriculture contributed 15.812_trillion Naira (17.5% of GDP) and Trade contributed 15.704 trillion Naira (17.42% of the GDP). The Telecom sector's contribution at 7.424 trillion Naira (8.23%) was very close to the oil contribution. So the constant assertion that the economy is undiversified is hogwash. We may simply be talking of deepening the private sector or expanding the diversification.

One of the greatest mistakes repeated by successive Govts in Nigeria is not understanding the greatest asset within any govt agency. They think it's money. Its not. The greatest government asset is data. From births to deaths, and every other thing in between. Data is the core asset of government agencies and parastatatals. If only they knew.

It is a general belief that the last PDP government ruined Nigeria via corruption. In fact, the last PDP government may have wrecked our public finance because of corruption, but they left the economy vastly better than they met it.

The PDP governments from 1999-2014, have been the only government(s) in Nigeria to consistently increase per-capita income. Data that goes back to 1960 show that our per-capita income in 1960 was 1000 dollars. In 1999 (after 39 years), it was 1200 dollars. In other words it increased by 10 dollars per annum!
From 1999 to 2014, PDP governments tripled per capita income to about 3500_dollars. That is about 143 dollars per annum. Even if we exclude changes from GDP rebasing, it comes to about 2500_dollars by 2013 (before GDP rebasing). Data!!

This brings me to an important differentiation. There is a huge difference between public sector and the economy as a whole. Even though public sector is part of the overall economy and affects it; in Nigeria public sector is less than 8% of GDP. What the NBS data is telling us is that even though past PDP governments enshrined public sector corruption, and the GEJ government may have wrecked public finance, they grew the economy more than ANY government in the history of Nigeria. Facts don't lie!

The fixation of Buhari and APC on chasing Dasuki et al, while shutting down the economy, is fundamentally flawed. The public sector contribution to GDP was 7.36% at the beginning of 2015. It makes no sense to stifle the rest 92% of the economy just to put public finance in order. If the emerging trends are anything to go by, the public finance may even be in worse tatters by end of 2017. If the government had deployed technology to prevent corruption, and astute diplomacy to recoup some stolen wealth; while keeping the economy open without capital and import controls, Nigerians would have already been reaping the democracy dividends promised them.

The much ridiculed GEJ had incredibly successful Agriculture policies. The billionaire middle men in fertiliser distribution, were put out of business by simple but smart deployment of technology by the smooth-talking past Agriculture minister. Our national food import bill dropped from 6.3 billion dollars to 4.3_billion dollars, between 2009 and 2013.

It is also good to remember that the high oil price under the last government also necessitated high subsidy payment. About 10 billion dollars was spent on subsidy. Some people believe about a fifth of that was lost to corruption.
Now that oil price have come down by 2/3, the current government does not spend any money on subsidy. Or rather should not. The landing cost of a litre of PMS today 30 Jan 2016 is N67.69k. The pump price is N86.50k. In fact the cost of landing is increased by N5 due to storage, NPA and Jetty depot levies etc. Otherwise it would have been N62.71k. The extra N5 between freight+cost and landing price is essentially monopoly cost.

From Landing to dispensing at the filling stations, in this current no-subsidy regime, N19 is added to the cost per litre. This is a 22% added to the cost of gasoline between landing and retail sale. About 40 million barrels of PMS is consumed daily. About 10,000 trucks, owned by about 30 individuals control the transportation of PMS. less those moving through pipelines. A N3.05 margin is assured on each litre of PMS moved by this transporters. Plus N4 per litre bridging fund. That can easily come to about N280 million Naira margin daily, for truck owners.

The downstream petroleum sector needs comprehensive liberalisation. From Storage, to transportations, jetties, filling station operating requirements etc. Currently it is oligopolic.

Bridging funds need to be abolished. We can't both eliminate subsidy and have subsidy at the same time. PMS should not sale the same price in Warri and in Tangaza. Beef does not sale same price in Dutse and Enugu. The petroleum ministers should take note. Adding 22% between landing cost in Apapa and dispensing at Ajah or Gwagada is pure baloney! Lagos citizens and residents bear the cost of tankers blocking road, damaging the road, causing accidents and razing houses/shops etc. Yet they are made to buy the gasoline same price as Folks in Damaturu.

Some of these were reforms the past PDP governments failed to tackle. Either due to vested interest or hysterical opposition.

IMPORTS: Contrary to accepted wisdom, Nigeria is not over-dependent on imports. Services constitute more than half of our GDP. We need imports, like any other country. Our imports consume about 12.45% of our GDP, one of the lowest in the world!

World Bank Data shows that import as GDP % in Australia is 21.4%; in Canada 32.5%; in Benin republic 45.1%; in Botswana 43.3%; in China 18.9%; in Ghana 48.9% and UK 30.3%. Just to mention a few countries. Nigeria has one of the least import to GDP ratio of all countries. Data!!

Everybody repeats the mantra of import dependence, including CBN and Presidency, without checking and comparing. No country survives for long without imports. Our imports-to- GDP ratio is less than China's import-to-GDP ratio.
As a matter of fact, imports have helped us moderate inflation over the past 16 years. Without the benefits of disinflationary trends in China, US, India etc our headline inflation would have been much higher. How could Nollywood have boomed without ever falling prices of VCD & DVD players, as well as CD burning machines? How could the music industry generate hundreds of billions of Naira without the massive penetration of cheap music stereo and personal listening devices? Without cheap Chinese feature and smartphone, how would the surging mobile Internet thrive and make fabulous money for the likes of Linda Ikeji, Bella Naija etc? But CBN felt that a policy of import control targeted at small, hapless, traders is proper.

Let's look at the import issue from another perspective. How come the falling commodity prices is not bringing down prices in our local markets? Price of gasoline has fallen 24.18% globally and only 1% in Nigeria. Rice fell about 13% globally, but is up 30% in Nigeria. Beef fell by 27.98% globally, but it is going up in local markets here. The government is always screaming fall in oil price. Why is fall in commodity price not affecting domestic markets, but fall in oil price is?!

The real reason our domestic commodity prices are very high is government policies. Primarily tariff regime. If some of these imports were not clamped down or tariff set very high, we will be able to 'import' the fallen global prices, despite the drop in oil prices, helping to moderate inflation. I am sure that domestic rice producers can produce rice at global competitive prices, if they have access to single digit financing, scale production, motorable access roads, no custom or police extortion on the road, predictable transport price etc. These are all within government responsibility. But the elites rather prefer using tariff to transfer burden to the common man, rather than cut into their potential embezzlement funds.

Mrs Iweala increased domestic rice price by over 50% in her first tenure under Obasanjo, after she embarked on tariff-mandated import-substitution of rice. Likewise Aliko Dangote had a 60% profit margin in his cement venture, under Obasanjo, due to government high cement import tariff. We bore the cost of his becoming a multi-billionaire, with high cement price in those years.
Instead of using high tariff to keep out foreign products, government needs to apply transparent, targeted subsidies, especially in the Agric sector. We are tired of bearing the cost of creating state-sanctioned billionaires.

CAPITAL CONTROL: The current government adopted a policy of capital control, as soon as it came into office. It had the effect of effectively drying up foreign and domestic investment. It drove portfolio investors to flee from the stock market, with consequent loss of near 2 trillion value. It distorted market signal

After the damage has been done, and the Naira had collapsed in the real market, CBN retreated partially. Revenue from Oil may have fallen to about 35 billion dollars, from about 88 billon dollars peak. But if the domestic asset prices have adjusted in real time, foreign and domestic investors would have eagerly bought assets in Nigeria through FDI or portfolio investment. The naira slide would have steadied at a much higher value than now. The markets were factoring in a price of 220-230 to the dollar, as the maximum slide before capital control was imposed. The capital control sent the worst kind of message.

The dollar in dorm accounts were reported to be about 30% of bank assets in 2014. Under Sanusi, dollar accounts were treated as quasi-saving. Nigerian banks exposure to the oil industry in foreign currency is estimated at about 11 billion dollars. Some of those loans are non-performing or in NPL territory. Capital control alarmed the foreign lenders, with further downgrading of our credit rating.

Even as our export prices lost over half its value, foreign transfers from Nigerians in diaspora was on track to surpass the 21 billion dollars reported in 2013. But capital control effectively skewed this trend. UN estimates that 1.2 million Nigerians live in developed economies. With proper economic policies and legal frame work, transfers from Nigeria emigrants can surpass 50 billion dollars; more than what was lost in declining oli price.

Unlike oil money though, those folks won't allow monies earned in the hardest of circumstances to be siphoned by greedy politicians. This may explain part of the reason the government keeps bemoaning the shrinking oil revenue, instead of opening the economy, removing government from the commanding heights of the economy and being transparent.

I simply took time to puncture some reign of error subsisting as conventional wisdom. In the coming days, I will pen a much shorter piece on government revenue.

Olisa Akukwe
Follow me on Twitter: @FrankOlisa.

WHY BIAFRA WILL NOT GO AWAY (PART 2)

By Olisa Akukwe


Major General Aguiyi Ironsi was gruesomely murdered as the head of state in July 1966. His murder was singularly significant for its unprecedented cruelty. It was like the first incarnation of ISIS. The ‘official’ reason attributed to the bloody coup that took his life (the revenge coup) was that he wanted to institute Igbo dominance by making Nigeria a ‘unitary system’.

I have tried to find out the exact actions he took that signified his ‘unitary system’ intentions. Indeed I found them.


On 24th May 1966, he promulgated two fateful Decrees: Decrees 33 and 34 of 1966. Decree 33 was known as the public order Decree and it proscribed political parties, as well as tribal and cultural leaning organisations.

But it was the Decree 34 which abolished the regions, regional governments and civil services and re-introduced the provinces and military administrators for the groups of provinces, that was interpreted rightly as the creation of ‘unitary state’. After this, by 29th and 30th May, all hell was let loose with industrial scale murder of Ndi-igbo in Northern Nigeria.


The rest, as they say, is history. Let us examine the northern government that took over from Aguiyi Ironsi for a moment. Did they reverse the ‘unitary state’? Were we returned to the regional government? Were the federal civil service and judiciary abolished? Were we returned to regional civil service? The answer to all these is a sadly perplexing ‘NO!’


If Aguiyi Ironsi and over 200 mainly Igbo officers were killed for the ‘unitary state’ crime, how come Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, and T.Y Danjuma – the coup leaders, did not revert to the regional system? Rather what happened was that the new northern leaders now took the ‘offensive’ policy and made Nigeria a truly unitary state, after Ironsi was murdered for this 'crime’.

The federal civil service, federal judiciary, federal police force, etc are very much the reality of Nigeria today.

The provinces that Ironsi wanted to re-introduce are now known as states. The long and short of this drama is that Aguiyi Ironsi, Fajuyi, and hundreds of other people killed in the revenge coup were just sacrificed to introduce a northern-led government. It was not based on any ‘fear’ either of a unitary state or of Igbo dominance. It was intended to restore the north to power!


Subsequent policies reinforced this perception. The most essential tool of this new hegemony was the revenue matrix.

Before the government of Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria has had five revenue and fiscal commissions. Starting from Sir Sydney Phillipson commission of 1946; to K.J Binns commission of 1964. All the 5 commissions made derivation principle the prime determinant of revenue to each region. Everyone knows that the legendary Main Market Onitsha was built from funds generated by palm oil. Chief M.I Okpara commissioned the construction firm Messr Brioni and Co, with full funding, to design and build the market in its modern form. It was already the largest market in west Africa, before Murtala Mohammed shelled it during the civil war.


In July 1968, just two years into his government and with a civil war raging, Yakubu Gowon constituted committee of 8 known as Dina Committee (Dina was the Chairman) to look at issues of revenue sharing among the newly created 12 states. It is on record that the Dina Committee was the first revenue and fiscal commission that relegated ‘derivation principle’ to the bottom of the revenue sharing mix. Unsurprisingly, Obafemi Awolowo (who was then the Federal Finance commissioner) and the entire 12 states finance commissioner rejected the Dina committee recommendation. Mysteriously, Gowon implemented the Dina committee report. This was a determined step to fully implement the unitary state agenda, for which they had killed Aguiyi Ironsi.


The first step to accrete revenue to the northern-led federal government was Decree 13 of 1970. The decree introduced the following changes:

1. 100% export duties to states of origin was reduced to 60%. 40% went to the Federal government.

2. 100% duty on fuel consumption that went to the state of consumption was reduced to 50%. 50% went to the Federal government.

3. 50% mining rents and royalties to state of activity was reduced to 45%. 55% went to distributable pool and federal government.

4. All excise duties now went to federal government and distributable pool.

5. The distributable pool sharing formula was made 50% equality of states and 50% population.


Remember that the last census before the civil war was massively rigged to favour the North and it was subsequently rejected by Zik and Awo. But under military rule, Decree was total.

This Decree 13 of 1970 was the provenance of all economic injustice the Biafra ‘region’ (south-east and south-south) has suffered and still suffers.

In 1971, though Decree No. 9, all the rents and royalties of offshore oil were transferred from the states to the federal government. The unitary government initiative was almost total.


It was finally culminated through Decree Nos. 6 and 7 of 1975. Through these Decrees, the North-led federal government took:

1. The remaining 45% of mining rents and royalties previously left for the states.

2. All import duties, while transferring half to the distributable pool

3. Likewise personal income tax


The takeover was now total. The minority ethnic groups (south-south) have paid the most price for these appropriation of resources by North-led federal government. Ndi-igbo lost the most because merit was forever shackled in the dungeon of state mendacity. Effort, endowment and enterprise were no longer directly proportional to reward.


Today, Lagos state pays as heavy a price as the ‘Biafran nation’ that they helped to subdue. I read in the news few days back, that the former head of the Lagos State Board of Internal revenue, William Fowler, has been appointed chairman of FIRS. He was said to have expanded Lagos IGR from N3.6 billion to N20.5 billion in a month. Great. The implication is that he is appointed to do same or similar feat for the federal government. I am worried because, it is a plan to continue the milking and exploitation of Southern Nigeria, in this union. It is no secret that over 80% of current federal government revenue came from the former Biafran region. Almost all federal government revenue comes from the south. Now Fowler is tapped, to further milk resources from the long suffering southerners, in other to keep Nigeria ‘one’.


I implore all citizens of former Biafra to speak up with a common voice and demand monthly publication of the state by state contribution to the federation account. For purposes of clarification, the federation account consists of:

1. Company income tax

2. Import duties

3. Export duties

4. Excise duties

5. Petroleum profit tax

6. NNPC earning from direct sales

7. Pipeline license and other fees

8. Surplus arising from sale of gas

9. VAT

As Fowler is coming to further increase revenue, he must be ready to be totally transparent. State contributions to the federation account must be published monthly.


The greatest calamity to have befallen the former Biafra and the most compelling reason for the persisting Biafran dream is economics. The former Biafran nation is now made up of 9 states. It is however postulated that the current Delta state would have joined a free Biafran nation, if the dream had succeeded. Taking these 10 states together, you can account for almost all the oil and gas resources in Nigeria.


From 1970- 2014, Nigeria has reaped about 30 billion barrels of oil, from the region that ‘Was A Country’. From available data, Nigeria oil production has varied between 1.241 million barrels per day to 2.627 million barrels per day, from 1980 till date. The 70s show similar trend. Oil price has also varied between 10USD to 140USD, in changing dollar value. Taking a conservative 40 dollars value as a benchmark, the Biafran region has ‘lost’ about 1.2 trillion dollars from oil revenue alone, on the minimum.

Add that potential investable funds, to a population that has an incredibly high talent-to-GDP ratio, with an enterprising culture and republican leadership, and you will get the first and only African tiger economy. The infrastrutural investment in Biafra would have surpassed that of Holland and Belgium.


The entrepreneurial and innovative capacity of Ndi-igbo is not in doubt. The confidence of the Niger-Delta nationalities is also indomitable. The technological exploits of Sam Orji and C.D.C Akpudo, amongst many others were legendary during the civil war. If it was not for the policy of benign neglect practiced by past military and civilian governments in Nigeria, the Igbo heartland would have been the driving force of African renaissance.


To put it in current perspective, removing the oil revenue from former Biafra, the Naira today would have been trading at about N550 –N600 to the dollar, except there is a Currency Board in Nigeria. On the contrary, if Biafra had survived and been an independent country, her foreign reserve will be above that of Singapore and her currency can only be kept low by running huge current account surplus; for the purposes of having inevitably export-led economy.


It would not be difficult to visualize that Biafra would have had world-class infrastructure that would spur investment and incredibly high productivity for a historically hardworking and meritorious society.


The reason Ndi-igbo flock to Lagos, Abuja, is because of relatively better infrastructure built by the federal government in those cities. Similar infrastructural investment was never made in the Igbo heartland.

In the era before the first coup and subsequent revenge coup, Ndi-igbo controlled heights of Nigerian economy. An Igbo man, Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, was reputed the richest man in West Africa. He was the chairman or director of Nigeria’s most profitable firms then (including Shell, Guinness, etc}.


He was the founding and first president of the Nigeria Stock Exchange. Indeed he was knighted by the Queen of England for his legendary business acumen.

It was a testament to the economic resilience of Ndi-igbo, from defunct Biafra, that after the civil war physical and financial devastation, they toiled back to the economic heights of Nigeria. Despite the known policy benign neglect of Igbo land. Igbo land got an international airport, 43 years after the civil war. This was decades after Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt had international airports. Despite the fact that Ndi-igbo are arguably the nucleus of international trade in Nigeria.


An appraisal of the list of Nigeria’s richest, published by the reputable Forbes Africa, is revealing. Of the 10 richest, 4 are from the north, 3 from the south-west, two from the Niger-Delta and one is from the Igbo heartland. It is instructive that all the 4 from the north made their wealth from natural resources. We know that natural resources in Nigeria have been appropriated by Federal government. It is only through crony capitalism that you can become rich from ‘natural resources’ in Nigeria.


The list showed that:

Aliko Dangote made his wealth from cement, sugar, flour

T.Y Danjuma – from Oil

Abdulsamad Rabiu – from cement, sugar, flour

Mohammed Indimi – from Oil

These four are from the north.


The three named from south-west made their wealth through natural resources also:

Mike Adenuga – Oil, Telecom

Folorunsho Alakija – Oil

Femi Otedola - Oil


It is only the three from Niger-Delta and Igbo land that are not listed as making their money from natural resources. They are:

Tony Elumelu – Investments

Orji Uzo Kalu – Investments

Jim Ovia – Banking


Note that these classifications were made by Forbes, not me.


However, it is interesting to note that all the people listed as having Oil as the main source of their monumental wealth, none comes from the region that produces oil. This top ten richest Nigerians’ list is food for deep thought.


The idea of Biafra remains attractive, because the ‘Biafran’ people know too well the heavy price they pay for the Nigerian union, with little or no reciprocation. They know that indeed “There was a country”. They dream of what it could have been. They yearn for true, objective merit. They pine for opportunity. They yearn for justice. And they wait and wait and wait and wait for Nigeria to embrace merit, opportunity and justice. While waiting, they remember Biafra with understandable nostalgia.


Until Nigeria realizes her prodigal nature and comes ‘home’ to the truth of restructuring, Biafra will not go away!

WHY BIAFRA WILL NOT GO AWAY (PART 1)
By Olisa Akukwe

On the evening of Saturday 22nd August 2015, the Punch Newspaper Online carried the news that Radio Biafra was back on air. It was announced that the station is transmitting on 104.7FM band, in south-east Nigeria. Punch described the station as a ‘pirate channel’ and they wondered how it could be transmitting after the Federal government claimed to have jammed its signal.
What may be more worrying to the federal mandarins, the media, and the general public, outside the Igboland, is how the rogue station can have such traction and attraction in a supposedly modern Nigeria.

There is a reason or rather reasons why Radio Biafra, and more fundamentally, Biafra will not go away. To understand why, we have to go back.
PRE-INDEPENDENCE: In the pre-independent Nigeria, the colonialist created 3 regions that were anchored by the majority ethnic groups of these regions (Yoruba-western region, Hausa-Fulani – northern region, and Igbo – eastern region)
1951: In the first election for ‘limited self – government’ in 1951, it was only in the eastern region, the Igbo heartland, that a minority became head of government. It was Mr Eyo Ita, an Ibibio who became the first head of government in Eastern region. This was in a region where Igbos are the overwhelming majority.

For perspective, in the west, the NCNC and its allied parties (eg, the Ibadan peoples party, Ondo improvement league, Otu Edo, etc) won a total of 51 seats, while the Action group won 29 seats. But on the floor of the parliament where the government would be formed, several members of the allied parties cross-carpeted to AG, raising the AG majority to 45 and NCNC led by Azikiwe was forced into opposition. This may have happened out of fear that the majority Yoruba would not lead the government in western region, if NCNC formed the government.
In the north, it was the Fulani prince – Ahmadu Bello, who took the reins with implicit backing of Sir Sharwood Smith. So from the onset, unlike the twisted opinions of being paraded, Ndi Igbo were their brother’s keeper and had a liberalised attitude to governance based on merit rather than ethnicity.

To further buttress this fact, in 1952, a Fulani man, Mallam Umaru Altine was elected mayor in Enugu, the capital of Eastern region, the Igbo heartland. He was the first mayor of Enugu, and he held this position till 1958. Imagine an Igbo man being mayor of Kaduna in 2015, talk less of 1952. Ndi igbo believed in the Nigerian project more than any other group, before the advent of industrial-scale killing of Igbos.
1954: A hardly discussed part of Nigerian history is the 1954 election outcome. The NCNC won the majority in Western and Eastern regions, which implies they won the south. By the constitutional provisions of the election, the NCNC was to nominate 6 out of the 9 federal ministers. (Each region was to provide 3 federal ministers, from the winning party).This led the NPC, AG, and the British Colonial government to plot and collude, with a view to prevent the NCNC and NEPU alliance from forming the government at the Center.

According to Yusuf Bala Usman, the acclaimed northern Nigeria historian, a secret correspondence to the Colonial Office No. 26, dated 28th November 1954, outlined the plans and measures used to force NCNC to ‘surrender’ its rightful claim to leading the government, and facilitated the emergence of Abubakar Tafawa Belewa as the Prime Minister.

Equally swept under the proverbial carpet, is the fact that in the 1959 election, which ushered in the independent government, the NCNC won the majority of the votes cast! NCNC got 2,592,629 votes while the NPC got 2,027,194 and AG received 1,980,839 votes. The system had already been rigged by the British Colonialists, with fervent spurring by Sir Sharwood Smith, the Governor of Northern region. The system was designed to give NPC the most seats, to prevent the progressive and ‘radical’ eastern region from gaining power at the Center.
These are some of the well concealed facts of pre-independence politics.

1ST COUP: Nigeria had her first military coup on January 15, 1966. It was led by five Majors, of whom the most popular is Major Nzeogwu. The coup has been maliciously labelled the “Igbo coup”. This was because most of the leaders of that coup came from Eastern region. However, of the 5 Majors, one was Yoruba, and one from Mid-west. In other words, almost half of the coup leaders did not come from Igbo heartland.
The fact that the coup was foiled mainly by Igbo officers is also largely and intentionally obscured. In Lagos, Lt Col. Unegbu, who was then the quarter master general of the Nigerian army and in charge of the ammunition store at Ikeja barracks, was shot dead. His crime was refusing to hand over or provide access to the ammunition. This singular heroic act fundamentally wrecked the coup plan in Lagos, as the plotters could not muster the hardware to complete the take-over in Lagos. Yet it was an ‘Igbo coup’.

Obasanjo, in his book ‘Nzeogwu’, wrote that one Lieutenant Ude was sent to kill Ojukwu in Kano, for not supporting the coup. But his plan was thwarted. Indeed, it was Ojukwu’s refusal to join the coup and his securing of Kano using the 5th battalion that scuttled the coup in Northern region. Yet it is an ‘Igbo coup’.

Another little discussed perspective on the first and second (revenge) coups is the casualty figures. The total casualty of the first coup or ‘Igbo coup’, was 15 people. But in the revenge coup organised by the Northern officers, a total of 214 persons were killed! In other words, it was a cold-blooded retributive massacre.

It is also often mentioned that the January 1966 coup succeeded in Kaduna completely, partially in Lagos and failed completely in Enugu, because it was an ‘igbo coup’. But nobody remembers that it also failed completely in Kano and Benin despite plans to strike in these cosmopolitan cities.

The other important fact that the northern and military establishment concealed was the intention of the Jan ’66 coup plotters. It was their intention to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo from prison and install him as prime minister. So much for the igbo coup theorem. This intention has been revealed by several high profile stake holders in the Nigeria project, intentionally or unintentionally.

Odia Ofeimun, Awolowo’s private secretary of several years and acclaimed poet, wrote on the 21 oct 2012 in a Sahara Reporters article that the Jan ’66 coup plotters planned to hand over political power to Awolowo. This was according to the IFEAJUNA MANUSCRIPT which the fed govt have contrived to keep secret. Likewise a former Federal Commisioner for Youths and Sports under Gowon, Maj. Gen Olufemi Olutoye stated same in his biography of Awolowo.

It is obvious that ndi igbo were intentionally maligned, using the first coup as a faux reason. Mr F. Fani-Kayode pushed this calumnious misinformation to a hysterical decibel in recent memory. Unfortunately, Ndi igbo remembers. And these serial and horrific injustices make Biafra a romantic nirvana to the typical igbo person, wherever she may be.
(Part 2 continues tomorrow)

GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE: THE ELECTORAL PROCESS WE DESERVE.


Four hundred years before Christ was born, Cleon, a famous Athenian Statesman called for a rule “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Wyclif in a 14th century translation of the bible repeated that truism. So did James Monroe in the 18th century, and Daniel Webstar in his famous reply to Hayne in the US Senate in the 19th century. However, Abraham Lincoln tattooed the statement in the marbles of history in his Gettysburg address, with his sheer felicity of expression and flower of sincerity: “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of Freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.
“…shall have a new birth of Freedom…” Today, more than ever, Nigeria is yearning for ‘a new birth of freedom’ founded on ‘government of the people’! In less than two months, the Anambra gubernatorial election will once again re-open the festering sore of Nigeria elections. Unfortunately, we need not be witnesses to these Dracula dramas called elections in Nigeria.
I want to add some humble insights that could help us to midwife ‘a new birth of freedom’ that most Nigerians are yearning for. I would like us to examine electoral accidents from these perspectives: Credibility of Electoral bodies; Ballot boxes/papers misappropriation; Penalties for beneficiaries of rigged elections; logistics; Party-Police collusion; Opaque party primaries and penalty for all that are actively involved in rigging.

ON PENALTY: We may never witness true freedom in Nigeria, until punishment for those who benefit from rigged elections is enshrined in our constitution. It illustrates the truth in Solon’s observation over 500 years before Christ that the “law is like a cobweb, it catches insects, but elephants barely notice it”. Otherwise, how do we explain the fact that those who receive stolen goods are punishable under our law, but those who receive stolen votes are allowed to rule, or at worst, allowed to re-contest an annulled election. What Shame! Recidivists of stolen votes are in power at different levels and arms of government. It should be in our statutes, that any person that wins an election that is confirmed rigged by the law courts should be banned from holding any public position for two decades, of course the person will not qualify for re-contesting. Public position extends not just to government agencies but even to typical community groups.
We have to align the interest of political contestants to that of the electorate. I believe that if the political class understands that anyone that wins a rigged election stands the chance of political death, they will employ their vast leverage to thwart anybody that may want to rig on their behalf. We should make Electoral Recidivism highly ignoble! We should also make participating in electoral abortion that does not involve the law court, punishable with jail term. To achieve this, the Evidence Act must be amended to admit electronic evidence! Making electronic evidence inadmissible in our courts is a Judi-Legal sabotage. Also members of the electoral bodies that are involved in rigged election should also be jailed and banned from holding any public office for the rest of their life.

ON BALLOT PAPERS: We must as a matter of survival embrace the use of ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE. It may need to be said here that it is the entrenched political manipulators and their agents, with their deep pockets, who have been most intransigent in their opposition to this innovation. The electronic voters machines actually start combating rigging, long before election day. Its talisman is biometrics. Its secret lies with the voters’ registration. It captures the thumbprint of every registered voter, with their personal data. I may remind you that no two fingerprints are the same, so multiple registration is amputated. Multiple voting is annulled because the fingerprint is recognized only once. It uses battery, it is portable and leaves digital footprint of every single transaction. It is self-contained, and so no case of reprogramming has been reported in its over one decade of use in some countries. Even defeated candidates never blamed the machine, very unlike politicians. It is also cost-effective at about N30000 per machine. Each machine can actually handle voters that make up 4 polling stations in the current INEC arrangement. Over half a billion people recently voted in India, for over a month without much post-election recrimination in the fractious Indian politics. Much to the merit of electronic voting machines. This is not to say that the electronic voting machine solves all voting problem. But it is a quantum leap better than what we are using now to deceive ourselves.

ON LOGISTICS: it is my opinion that all the logistics involved in moving materials and persons involved directly with elections be outsourced. This activity should be outsourced to private, world class firms. These firms (of which there are several) would have shown a track record of global logistics competence, especially in the rickety terrains of developing countries. It is nauseating when INEC, NEC, FEDDECO, etc tell us that difficult terrains are ‘delaying’ results from some places. Especially, but not limited to, the North-East and South-South during National elections. As if the terrains became ‘difficult’ over-night. These logistics companies, with their bankers and insurers should provide Federal and State authorities with indemnity bonds equal to the value of the contractual obligations. Where their performance is adjudged by pre-agreed objective criteria to be below 80%, they will indemnify the state or the federal government the cost of the election or a pre-agreed indemnity sum. Nigeria will be pioneering in this field of electoral logistics outsourcing in developing countries. Firms that build competence in this area could find an annual $50billion global market that is totally untapped. FEDDECO, NEC, INEC failed in logistics management. Lets challenge the ingenuity of the private sector.

ON INSECURITY AND PARTY-POLICE COLLUSION: this is an almost hopeless situation. Why do police and some parties collude in manipulating votes as has been alleged? Is it obedience to central police command? Is it for immediate financial gratification? Is it because they hate good governance? Is it because they are socio-paths? Most Nigerians may agree that immediate financial benefit may be the primary incentive. This leads to the next questions: Who pays the police officially for electoral duties? How much are they paid? Is it on per day basis? Are they paid for that special duty? The answer to these questions maybe at the bottom of the problem. Tackling these challenges may necessitate some novel approach. What if police personnel on duty are paid daily election allowance of N10,000 per person? What if this payment is based on objective performance like nil violence per duty post; enforcement of electoral rules on voting day; reports of party returning officers and observers per polling station? What if this payment is made directly to the police persons accounts by an NGO providing the support funds? This might actually be an opportunity for the developed countries to assist developing democracies concretely by providing the funding for this payment scheme. I believe that independent pay-for-performance scheme on election day will change the behavior of a major and critical section of police persons and soldiers involved in electoral duties. We can even denominate the payment in dollars! After all, the officers and men of the Nigerian police are always decorated for distinguished service when they go on UN postings. Maybe it’s the dollar effect.

ON PARTY PRIMARIES: We need fundamental re-appraisals of party primaries. We should forever abandon the practice of party conventions being used to elect candidates. The conventions, on election year should be used as platforms for presenting candidates that have won the primaries. During conventions, the financial, emotional, and psychological pressure on the delegates are exponential. They are harangued and hassled with money, job offers, and blackmails. Many of them also come to haggle for vote selling. The Electoral Act should clearly define party primary procedures, from who qualifies to vote in primaries to when primaries can be held. All primaries should be concluded at least five months before the particular election. All card carrying member of a party at ward, local and state levels should be qualified to vote depending on if the election affects them. Hence in local government election, all wards in the local government is affected. In gubernatorial election, all wards in the state are affected, etc. The only provision should be that they would have been card-carrying members of the party for at least 3 months prior to the primaries. Also they can no longer vote in the primaries of another party, if they have voted in one already. Contravening this should be a criminal offence. So also should be multiple party membership that is rampant at the grassroots! Also the law should require all parties to submit a register of their members two months to the date of the primaries, to relevant INEC offices. This register should be open to anyone that wants to scrutinize or reproduce it, with INEC’s permission. Party executives or hierarchies choosing candidates should be outrightly banned, except where there is electoral tie in the particular primaries after 10 successive rounds of voting. We must bring back decency to our party primaries.

ON CREDIBILITY: The prime practical approach to the issue of credibility of electoral bodies is that appointment of Electoral body Chairman and Commissioners should be the responsibility of the judiciary at federal and state levels. Our democratic experience makes this an imperative. It does not in any way bestow the judiciary with the snow robes of innocence. It simply takes the reality of party politics in Nigeria as the locus of action. The judiciary is the only arm of government not involved in electioneering. However, the positions should be thrown open for transparent applications by eminent, qualified and interested Nigerians.

ON AD-HOC STAFF: how do you identify and verify ad-hoc staff of INEC or State electoral commission? Which national identification system will you use? Until we have a comprehensive National Identity Card that is authentic, the idea of ad-hoc staff will continue to be a problem. My major concern is identification, not morality. This makes me think that using officers and men of customs, immigration, civil defense, and armed forces as ad-hoc staff may be ingenious. I believe these military and para-military agencies have superior staff identification system than the typical Nigeria institutions. INEC working with them may be a better proposition as opposed to using generally un-vetted ad-hoc staff from all over the place. Most times, you cannot track down an INEC ad-hoc staff after election, due to systemic failure of our nation’s social security meshwork. This is no fault of the electoral bodies, but a little imagination while working with the military and para-military will minimize this challenge.

There you have it. My little contribution from my tiny corner of Nigeria’s socio-scape. Nigeria is not a hopeless nation. Her citizens are not helpless. The intellectual class is not bankrupt. The working class don’t have change phobia. But we may all need to join hands and hearts to checkmate an apparently fossilized political class. So “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of Freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.
God bless Nigeria!

By Olisaemeka Akukwe
08057622466, 08067239295
olisaemekaakukwe@yahoo.com

Vision 2020 and the New Society.
By Olisaemeka Akukwe

“For lack of vision, my people perish”, so enthused the Christian holy book. ‘In spite of visions, my people perish’ is the Nigeria reality. Or so it seems. We have had litany of visions in Nigeria wearing different robes. Everybody ‘knew’ there will be “housing for all in the year 2000.” Everyone ‘knew’ there will be “health for all in the year 2000.” It’s 2009 now, I think. And the visions have been fast forwarded to 2020, with the typical panel beating. Top 20 economy in 2020!

Arresting vision. Inspiring. Exhilarating. Intoxicating. If you would come with me a while, I would like us to examine the kind of society Nigeria should be in 2020; assuming we achieve a Top 20 status among economies. Probably we may glimpse the changes we may need to do today; and ask ourselves if we are collectively ready for the challenge.

For Nigeria to be in the top 20 economic chart, her GDP will need to expand from about $214 billion to about $600 billion in 2020. Currently, Sweden , Belgium and Poland are ranked 20th, 19th, and 18th respectively. Poland is the new comer in the top 20, displacing Indonesia that was 20th in 2007. Achieving a $600 billion economy is not impossible, but improbable in Nigeria , except an annualized GDP growth of 12% is sustained for the next 11 years. This is the crux of the issue! For Nigeria to attain 12% average annual GDP for the next 11 years, she must become a vastly different society! Do the leaders have the intellectual rigour, moral probity, and honest courage to re-invent the society?

On physical infrastructures, we currently have about 200,000km of roads (tarred and untarred). Only about 30,000km of these roads are tarred, a mere 15%. By 2020 we will need about 386,000kms of roads, with about 270,000 kilometers of them (70% of total) tarred, if the vision is on course. We currently have about 70 airports with about 36 of them having paved runways. We will need about 180 airports, with over 100 of them having paved runways by 2020, if the vision is on course. Domestic oil consumption may likely be above 2.0 million b.p.d as against about 300,000 b.p.d today. At the current production rate of about 1.7 million b.p.d, we may become a net importer of oil. This implies the need for production capacity expansion. From the current 2.5 million b.p.d to about 3.5 million b.p.d, if we are to still be a net exporter of oil. By extension, Niger-Delta must become investor and investment friendly; OPEC quotas may have to be abandoned and government dependence on oil revenue must be inevitably depleted. Oil tyranny, which has been the basis for Nigeria government and mis-governance will slow to a crawl. Joint-venture cash call obligations, government – owned NNPC, revenue sharing formulas, oil and resource control laws, etc will all need re0radical appraisals. Factor in also tripling of Filling stations, Tank farms capacities, and you understand the challenges in this sector alone. The 3000km of rail roads we have now, may need to be expanded to about 10,000 km of modern speed rails. The 4 Seaports cannot handle the volume of exports and imports an over $600 billion economy will require, even after doubling their capacities.

It may be obvious to you that the government resources can never handle these challenges, and therefore Public-Private Partnerships, Private finance initiatives, and concessioning must become the real center-piece of planning.

These changes can only work when founded on a nearly convulsive changes in our current legal and judicial system. From land laws, to court efficiencies, to resource laws, to community rights, to civil service rules, to the archaic and embarrassing evidence acts, etc. Intractable judicial procedures and sometimes putting justice up for auction greatly deters investment capital. Mercurial investment laws are plagues to investment. A judiciary that is biased towards order rather than justice cannot co-habit with a dynamic society that should produce over $600 billion. Remember that a $600 billion economy implies individual, corporate, and public transactions that may be about four times what we have today. Yet, our judicial system cannot handle the present challenges we face. Thus most Nigerians go for extra-judicial conflict resolution. This includes surrender of rights in one extreme, and assassinations at the other extreme, and everything in between. Without Legal-Judicial reforms today, either the judicial systems truncates the 2020 Vision or it implodes with scandals, sleaze and learned indifference.

In Real Estate, about 8.4 trillion feet2  of Residential space will have to be created between today and December 2020. Also about 4.2 trillion feet2 of commercial and industrial space may be needed. To put this in perspective, we have a cumulative shortfall of about 2.8 trillion feet2  of residential space now. And we need to create about 600 million feet2 of residential space annually. If these real estates and infrastructure demands are to be met, over 40 million square meter of arable land will be lost by farming. Now this is not the issue. The issue is the potential for rife land speculation, insider dealing by land officials, militancy of unemployed, under employed, barely educated youths of the communities occupying those lands today that may put a handcuff to these developments. So changes in Community rights and compensation, land use act, land speculation and taxation, etc are even more urgent today than ever. Other reforms in this sector should include Mortgage Finance and Funding; Import regime on some essential but domestically sub-available building materials like cement; dearth of Inter-mediate skills in the housing sector; low capabilities among domestic firms in building technologies for high rise condominiums, etc.

In a modern economy that produces over $600 billion of goods and services, knowledge will be a coveted asset. Creativity, specialized skills will be likely champions in the labour market.  Education therefore becomes the workshop of high income and high status. Today in Nigeria , by default of cultural history and ethnic cosmology, the southern part of the nation invests in her human capital by a factor of about 5:1, compared to the north. WAEC enrollment of Imo state alone is higher than the entire northern states. This is despite the fact that public education spending is grossly inadequate in the southern states. However Private (sometimes cut throat) spending in education compensates for this gap. In the north, this culture is peripheral at best. Now this is a crisis for the South and the North. The conventional wisdom is that it is a northern problem. So wrong! If Vision 2020 is achieved, it may produce lots of high paying, high skill jobs which will be filled mainly by southerners. This is a simple extrapolation of current educational aspirations in the country. There will also be plenty low paying, grunt work. These will be filled by the uneducated or poorly educated. If education explosion does not happen in the north, then majority of people filling these ‘grub’ jobs will be northerners- and impoverished immigrants. We do not need a Nostradamus to tell us that the above scenario is a social gun powder. It will only be natural that a poorly educated, ill clad, ill fed, disenchanted gateman from Katsina may see a well groomed, well educated, software programmer from Ogun state, owner of a bungalow in Kaduna, working for a local affiliate of an international firm; as a totem of his oppression. These potentially uneducated and under-employed millions in the north can easily be recruited into an ‘army of hate’ by charlatans acting under the banner of religion. They can easily be persuaded to unleash mayhem on the perceived oppressors, who to them includes anybody who is ‘doing well’. When you live in generational poverty, life seems like a Zero-Sum game. You think you are losing, because the other person is gaining. This implies that ‘religious’ crisis may begin to take much more gory dimensions, because they are really social crisis under religious flags. To nip these dangers in the bud, it should be the responsibility of the North and South in equal measure to ensure an education revolution in the north. This will create a heritage of opportunity that is national, further aiding the achievement of Vision 2020 and fairly distributing the gains. Any of the typical Nigeria solution of either allowing the gains of over $600 billion economy to accrue to one section because they are better prepared, or of using government fiat to transfer the natural gains of a section to another section a la ‘fair and equitable ‘ distribution will create ricocheting chaos. It is now, that we can institute education, training, and skill acquisition policies that can prevent that acrimony.

Public education spending, as a matter of policy and future stability should flow more to the north. Reforms of the existing education channels must however be achieved, before this policy of asymmetrical education funding can work. Naturally, Southern leaders may never see the point of this much higher public education spending in the north. We should remember that every society, like any chain, is as strong as its weakest point.

At current public spending growth pattern, government spending in all tiers will balloon to about $200 billion by 2020 (about N30 trillion). We are aware of the colossal waste and corruption at the current $50 billion of government spending. At $200 billion, your guess is as good as mine. This implies that without a comprehensive and painful civil service reform and re-invention of governance, we will simply have much, much more of the same. A transparent tax regime with coherent theme and Federal, State, Local harmonization must be developed. Its greatest virtue should simplicity. Its ultimate aim – development. Development of the private sector; development of deprived areas; development of accountability. Derivation must play a role in all aspect of tax revenue distribution. Deprivation should also be an important balancing weight. So we must institutionalize DERIVATION and DEPRIVATION FORMULA. I wish to state categorically here, that before legislators, the inland revenue and various executive levels should start a comprehensive tax regime, the oil tyranny and petroleum bureaucracy must end. The oil revenue that government takes and shares is the biggest and most opaque form of taxation any society can ever witness. It explains our amputated dreams since 1970.

What about the family and private challenges? The demands of life in a top 20 economy, cannot be what it is today. Today many women still spend about 90 minutes a day in the kitchen. The challenges we must overcome to produce per capita income of about $3300 dollars (official exchange rate) in 2020 will definitely encroach on such ‘luxuries’. Time spent in the kitchen by women may decline to about 15 minutes a day, with ramifications beyond the kitchen. Ability to cook well, which is in decline, will further fall alarmingly. Consumption of junk foods by everybody will increase. Obesity as a national dilemma will begin to rear its head. This with its hand maidens of diabetes, arthritis, and heart diseases will further increase the pressure on the creaky health systems. Parents ‘face time’ with children will also decline drastically. Teachers, schools, peers and media will become the major influencers of children and teenagers. These are just to mention some general trends.

We should also ask ourselves, are we ready for the migration and immigration pressures in the urban areas? A thriving economy will be a magnet for citizens of impoverished and war torn African countries, especially in West Africa . So a foreign policy that pro-actively promotes stability in West Africa will be a plain necessity. A comprehensive immigration policy and border control may be necessary. Investment in urban areas, especially in urban slums should be a deliberate policy. We must aim to eliminate slums not by demolition. That is after the fact. But by anticipatory development of  potential corridors for low income earners around cities and mega cities. Where slums already exists, innovative developments that will turn the slums into suburbs can always be worked out with the slum dwellers. That urban areas will attract the poor, the young, and the hungry is natural. Our responsibility is not to be surprised by natural developments, as the planners of Abuja and Lagos woefully realized.

We should also be ready for road tolls in urban areas and highways. Most of the investment on roads, if they will come, will come from private funds. So road pricing will become a common way of life in Nigeria from about 2020, if the Vision is on course. Multi-level parking and parking fees will also become common. Car ownership in Nigeria has been growing close to the economic growth rate because of poor public transport system. We may also expect to spend 20% of our working hours in a car or bus. Commuting time can only get longer and more harrowing, expect if imagination and vigour is applied to urban planning and regeneration. Can we reverse this trend? I do not see how ineffectual leadership can grapple with, much less reverse the trend. The entire nation may have to beg Lagos State for inspiration.

We can go on and on. The purpose is however not a monologue, but to raise posers for all of us. Do we believe in this Vision 2020? With the ossified political and leadership culture, can we or should we embark on such grandeur? Should we not change the political and electoral process as a starting point? Have the political and technocratic leaders weighed the multi-faceted changes that should undergird such vision, as this piece have illuminated? Do you see the current leadership in the center and at the states possessing the insights, understanding, and empathy that can make this Vision people friendly? Have there been robust engagements between the political/technocratic leadership and leaderships in the religious, traditional, professional, business, academic, youth, women, and trade strata? Or is this just another people perishing , ‘macro-economic’ vision? These are the questions that are bugging my mind. I wonder if they bother you too?