It is with thanksgiving to God whose generosity to man at creation endowed him to serve and be a co-creator, moving nature towards its perfection that I feel privileged, as part of the process institutionalizing healthy opposition, in governance in Nigeria to present to you the other sides review of 100 days since a change of administration in Nigeria.
I want to, desire and indeed longed to present you a very positive assessment. But our citizenship duty is to speak truth to power. The state of our Union is unsound. It is a state of crisis of immense proportion, very frankly, the moral equivalence of a state of war. There are, undoubtedly, redeeming features, some basis for relief of extant conditions over a more challenging season of our national life which has just passed into history. Our reality is, unfortunately, rather well-summed up in recent media report of a resident representative of UNICEF who was near despair as she lamented the evaluation that suggests Nigerians were getting much poorer even as revenues are surging forward and the economy apparently expanding.
All you have to do is read the stories of creeping anarchy in some states, a fact I have been warning was coming fro the last five years, the insecurity from armed robbery across the land, the collapse of ready power, water and other infrastructure across the country; and an educational system that is not responding to our developmental challenges. There also remains a crisis of legitimacy arising from the fact that we really had no elections in 2007 as the detailed EU report and many of the local and international monitors suggest; the absence of a grand vision rally Nigerians to build enthusiastically so they can crawl out of the hole of under development in a globalizing world rapidly producing gains for the human material condition from Dubai to China to the Caribbean and elsewhere; and the appalling misery index of the Nigerian condition which is so alarming if you move out to the abandoned rural half of our country.
Let us begin with the good news.
DETOXIFICATION OF THE POLITY
The state of relief across the land derives primarily from the lifting of the yoke of governance by bullying, abuse of the rule of law and megalomaniacal dismissal of rigor in decision making which characterized our recent past, can rightly be seen as one of the gains of the last one hundred days.
Any fair-minded person will acknowledge that the biggest gain to Nigeria of the Yar’adua season is the beginnings of demythification of the awful views that you have to be brutish and of low morality to lead Nigeria. This may pave the way for decent competent people to seek to enter the political process. This is truly an invaluable contribution to nation building.
The polity has also profited from what looks like early signs of a shift from the politics of which the tyranny of hypocrisy. In our recent history, the pervasive culture of hypocrisy that marked leadership in the last six years, in which very many of those celebrated preached on thing and did the opposite outside the public glare cost this economy much, and poisoned culture so much more. The effect is that people in public office tended to put themselves first and the Common Good or Society back there. The crisis of perquisites in the National Assembly and abuse of the contract process for provision of these perquisites. Provides a clear example of this ‘me first’ orientation. Umaru Yar’adua disposition of personal contentment should hopefully provide an example that can be explored to achieved culture change.
Liberating the Nigerian people from the tyranny of hypocrisy is no mean accomplishment. Its practical fruits in reduction of expensive protocol and the burden of the welfare of the ‘big men’ of a democracy out of touch with the people on the national treasury.
While the foregoing is commendable it is far from adequate for a people set back by many years of poor leadership, a mismanaged economy, social challenges, failure of the rule of law, health care in a state of collapse, and decaying infrastructure.
The challenge of the last 100 days has been the failure to lay down a grand vision and anchor that vision on the needs of a vast majority of our peoples so they can become material, take ownership of this image of a new Nigeria, then passionately and sacrificially give of themselves to achieve that projected Nigeria for their own good and the Common Good which is the best guarantee of the individual’s well being.
In the last 100 days initiatives to address the crisis of security have been absent even as armed robber, have taken over many cities and insurgents, called ‘cultist’ for some reason, have challenged the country’s military might in some states, particularly in the Niger Delta region. The challenge of Public Accountability and Value for money use of public resources also persists even as poverty takes deeper root, industry continues to be comatose, roads continue to be immotorable and threat to the lives of citizens and gate way cities like Lagos and Port Harcourt are less able to sustain quality living. Even when modest progress in the provision to long-suffering people. A power is observed, it is hard to be sure if it is not a gift of the rainy season rather than the outcome of a sinking of billons of tax payers Naira into what seems like a black hole. While we have had talk of reforming the still on-going reforms of the Education sector, we have not seen a bold initiative to halt the exodus of those we have educated at great cost, to other economics, compounding the story of the ‘defeated middle’, Nigeria’s disappearing middle class, who constitute the pillar of any modern development. We shall address this issue and the crying need for a legislative agenda from the National Assembly and State Assemblies. Let us begin with one of the most troubling elements of the Nigerian conditions.
THE UNEMPLOYMENT TIME BOMB
Rampant armed robbery, violence in the Niger Delta and high level of miscreant conduct may be attributable to so many reasons, including politicians in and out of government arming young people to aid election rigging High levels of unemployment has to be significantly contributed to the state of insecurity tending towards anarchy in many parts of the country.
Mouthing platitudes cannot be enough for this real emergency. We need concrete pronouncements on initiatives that will stimulate entrepreneurship at the Bottom of the Pyramid; (BOP) massive public works projects in the areas of highway development and other infrastructure that will immediately put people to work; responsive youth development and empowerment programmes that will create the right values and work ethic that will support the BOP ideas; and legislation that will spur the private sector into initiatives that will get everybody working to build a nation whose potential and promise has been on lips for so long, waiting for the tongue to push it forth.
We believe economic growth depends very much on a very close collaboration between business, government and civil society to make human capital out of the youth of society and provide them the opportunities to create wealth and improve man’s material condition. We are persuaded that the appropriate laws will for example make banks realize that they can bank the unbanked but not in their current structure and culture and that they can do it not as corporate social responsibility but because it can be very profitable.
If we are to use public works programmes to create needed infrastructure, provide jobs and work experience for the youth who will become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs we need to investigate why Asians build thousands of miles of world class highways using public-private cooperation schemes BOT and BOO but the Lagos State governments desire to implement some of its infrastructure needs through such approaches has been challenged. To quickly pursue a legislative agenda to ease such bottlenecks, educate people to change attitudes in the public service, and re-orient institutions to better manage disputes such as the judiciary should be issues on the front burner.
I have also previously prescribed adapting the NYSC to provide the bulk of an entrepreneurship extension service programme to directly support BOP entrepreneurs. I am convinced that prescription or a competing initiative is critical to get underway if the right level of venturing, beyond the current pervasive rent-seeking behaviour that is in the way of true wealth creation, is to be achieved.
THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY
The ongoing investigations in the Federal House of Representatives regarding allegations that the leadership spent sums of money (whether it be N628 million alleged by some members or about N579 million as National Assembly Officials assert) puts the issue back on the front burner. I am willing to speculate that nothing has set Nigeria so far back, been responsible for deaths of so many innocents in this country the extent of graft in the country. So endemic has it became that the book I quote often on corruption in Africa notes that while it is rare in Botswana, and widespread in Ghana, it is systemic in Nigeria. It is now so pervasive that even though we tend to focus on the public sector, private sector corruption is now so widespread that it will be the doom of many enterprises unless major remedial action is begun now.
The problem with public accountability is not only that so much hypocrisy surrounded its elevation to a public issue, because it seemed those who shouted the most against the practice were the more corrupt, but the issue has come to be limited to just whether your hands were caught in the till, whereas the more pertinent question is whether resources were optimally deployed to advance the best interest of a majority of the people. For example, if N600million or even N100 million was used for the welfare of the House leadership, is that the wise deployment of such resources in a country in which up to 70 percent live below the poverty line. For me the litmus test is even if the offices in question were of above average means, would they ordinarily apply such resources in the manner they have deployed the common- wealth? This is the key question for both the deepening of our democracy and the war against corruption. IF SERVICOM and DUE PROCESS have not produced an internalization of this value, a radical rethink of their implementation should be in order.
THE GATEWAY CITIES
Great civilizations and prosperous countries are often remembered by certain cities which symbolize their effective use of talent. To my mind, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Kano, are gateway cities that are not just the commercial and administrative archways to enter Nigeria. Lagos and Port Harcourt are open sores. This has direct impact on the health of commerce in the country. From foreign businesses being repelled by their living conditions (security, infrastructure, health and cleanliness, transportation and housing situations) to possibilities of crime from the unemployed underclass shutting down whole parts of the economy such as the night economy, the gateway cities are crying out for special attention. Even though Alhaji Umaru Yar’adua has indicated he will seek a special status for Lagos it is pertinent to suggest legislation that will designate gateway cities with direct Federal allocation and a joint commission for infrastructure and security. This is one of numerous issues on our legislative agenda.
POLICING
We spoke so many times during the recently concluded campaign season on police reform that it is unnecessary to raise those ideas again. But as security continues to deteriorate and policing remains challenged it is important to raise the issue again for consideration as the budget season approaches.
Allocations to the State Security Service and the Nigeria Police Force are embarrassingly low. They most be reviewed upwards dramatically. For example, there is no reason a police constable should take home less than N50,000. In addition those services should institute value for money committees, ombudsman positions and budget monitoring to ensure that every Naira so allocated goes a long way to rid our streets of crime and improves the work life of the men in service.
I want here to commend Lagos State Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola for his efforts to creatively draw in private sector support. This process needs to be institutionalized to give voice to all stakeholders, draw on their material and ideas generosity and keep the collaboration accountable to all stakeholders. I would urge a neighbour-hood adoption-plan for the corporates, and citizens in the neighbour-hood giving of their time and ideas to make the system fail-proof. Working groups including representatives of the neighbour-hood groups, the state government, the police and the adopting corporate citizens should be the basis for ensuring the involvement of all.
I am also very specifically concerned with the state of War in the Niger Delta. I would like to urge more political effort. The situation deteriorated so badly because the governors of the ancien regime did not do enough and the legitimacy crisis from the April polls weakens the hands of those now at the helms in those states.
INFRASTRUCTURE
We note with interest indications by Alhaji Umaru Yar’adua that infrastructure will require more than a trillion Naira per annum. It is important here to think capacity building, public private partnership and maintenance culture afterwards before we get into our ‘recursive economy’ mode
Our Infrastructure emergency cannot be handled as business as usual. It must be executed in the manner of post war reconstruction like the Marshall Plan. Intentions on graft in this zone have to be treated with Chinese type revenge of the state, even though capital punishment must to be avoided.
EDUCATION
Revamping education requires finding extremely passionate champions, funding the process and getting a representative group of stakeholders, in addition to the traditional oversight structures, to hold them accountable. We must begin with rebuilding primary education and vocational or artisan education. Only then can we turn to salvaging the scandal of Nigerian academics being scattered all over Africa and the world at large like the Jewish Dispersal when our children are going to enroll in universities in Ghana because of perceptions of declining standard and conditions in the Nigerian University
LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
The key to advancing these ideas includes how well a legislative agenda is articulated at the centre and in the states. Among the issues we consider urgent and critical for enactment which have been in the pipeline for a while and is mentioned from time to time by officials are the Freedom of Information Bill, and the Fiscal Responsibility Bill. They deserve immediate passage. We would also recommend for the effective functioning of government that the National Assembly deliberate on a series of Land democratizing and representational systems conferring title and ease of transactions with land to stimulate economic activity.
Surely we can learn from the experience of land reform in the United States in the 19th Century which the Peruvian economist Hernando Do So to so wisely reminds us is the source of the mystery of capital and how the West grew rich. Some wise legislators should commit their careers and their place in history to a series of laws that boost property rights and reduce uncertainty in economic transaction
I would like also to work with legislators on private members bills to reduce the dramatic gap in the quality of life between rural and urban Nigeria. An integrated rural development policy needs to be on the agenda of both the federal and state governments. We must remember that the directive principles of state policy did not designate rural Nigerians as the burden bearer or country cousins. They are all Gods children, all Nigerian citizens and needs of all can be addressed to some extent if the greed of a few can abate.
THE ADC/RESTORATION MOVEMENT INITIATIVE
Going forward from these reflections on the last 100 days, I wish to propose that the short-term commitment for us is to build elite consensus for progress in Nigeria.
The Restoration Movement for a New Nigerian will draw Nigeria talent from all over the world and membership from Nigerians everywhere to develop our country, shape the ideas of society for progress and deliver services to the weak, inform and needs of our society. Our early focus will be in rural areas with medical extension services, micro-credit schemes, agricultural extension services and Bottom of the Pyramid BOP business support. We are still in early days of organizing but we will draw on experiences with NGOs like the Centre for Values in Leadership and the Widows Support Centre which we have run for many years to coordinate new Private Development Agencies like Brothers Keepers Beyond Boundaries to attain transformational effect on the lives of average Nigerians.
We stand at a cross roads in Nigerian history. How we make choices will determine whether history holds us in contempt or smiles at our memory. As for me and my colleagues we have seen the future of Nigeria and it is people with honest, hardworking people with a prosperous quality of life, living in peace with one another. If your vision is not that clear, you may stay in today’s Nigeria but we are determined to restore old values and cross over to a new Nigeria.
We hope soon to announce a shadow group of with designated spokes persons for areas of government work to offer competing visions of society and alternatives to policies put forward by government.
Thank you for your kind attention and may God lead us on.
Pat Okedinachi Utomi
Friday, September 7, 2007
