Being prepared for terrorism

Last week, our National Security Adviser (NSA), Owoye Azazi said that the reason why we seem so incapable in dealing with terrorism is because we had not been prepared for terrorism. This statement is odd considering the length of time Nigerians have been dealing with the terrorism of the Niger Delta, the kidnapping enterprise, Jos & Kaduna ethno-religious crisis, the Maitastine and now Boko Haram. It is especially strange considering we have an anti-terrorism bill passed months ago in response to the Nigerian underwear bomber and the frequency of bombs going off across parts of the country over the last year. In fact, in November 2010, a new brigade was created within the Army specifically to treat the rising insecurity…yet we are still not prepared?

When does a country become prepared for terrorism and can we ever be ready to deal with the type of terrorism we have?

The issues

The reasons for terrorism are clear and well known and range from lack of transparency and accountability in governance, extreme social and economic inequality, dearth of prospects, loss of hope, desperation, illiteracy to the inability to read and interpret religious scripts/texts for ourselves. This type of terrorism is of the ‘I-have-nothing-to-loose’ strain mainly found in resource rich corruption riddled underdeveloped nations such as Nigeria.

Solutions

In the last couple of months we have seen all sorts of changes to the way we live- the bomb detecting devices which look like golf clubs to check underneath our cars, the requirement that drivers come out of their cars to open their car trunks and lately since the escalation of violence in Jos and the UN bombing on 8/26, a shoot on sight order to our already more-than-sufficiently trigger happy security forces.

We are looking for solutions and clean surfaces to paste blame in all the wrong places. Even the nature of our buildings and public facilities, according to Azazi, are cause to blame for the success of terrorism in Nigeria...could the World Trade Center buildings ever have been prepared for the terrorism they faced on 9/11?

There will be no easy solutions to the problem and it is logical to be sympathetic to any government which has to deal with terrorism but there are some things which need to start changing today in order for us to start getting a firmer grip on the wave of terrorism which threatens to drown us.

Education and literacy

An educated population will be easier to sensitise and enlighten about managing terrorism and knowing what to look for and report- especially with border control and migrant issues. Literacy helps with communicating about what to do about strange or abandoned objects and helps raise the level of discourse about the value in supporting the security agencies in protecting lives and property. The woeful state of education and literacy in Nigeria can compete for tears with any of the greatest tragedies in the world.

Improved economic & social welfare

If the lives of the average Nigerian were better, we would be more interested in the viability of our nation and thus vested in the security of property and life. When the hardships of life give existence little meaning, then we will treat life with levity. It is no secret that we have no regard for human beings – hit and run drivers are standard with pedestrians often as much to blame for accidents as drivers, dead bodies lie unreported and with the slightest provocation the machetes and matches are out. Now the importance of a national identity system is glaringly vital, but billions in resources and trillions in time have been wasted over the years from short sighted self serving governments.

Security forces

Our security forces need better education, training and increased salaries and allowances. If policemen can be enticed for as little as N100, then the terrorists will take advantage of this like everyone does. Security agencies act like Nigerians are their number one enemy – they bark, snarl at and abuse us and the daily news is filled with atrocities carried out by the men (and women) in uniform. How much more difficult could they make their work of intelligence gather? Whenever there is a report that suspects in the custody of security agents have confessed to a crime…there is always the thought which cannot be kept away no matter how hard, that the confession was extorted somehow. Today, intelligence gathering must be a lot harder than it should be considering that no sane Nigerian will willingly call the Police or venture into the police station to report a crime or suspicion because the reporter will inevitably become the prime suspect. This has to change and it needs to change immediately because as long as we distrust the security forces, managing terrorism will be that much harder.

Strengthening democracy with credible leadership

Unless we get credible leaders whose primary interest is the sustained development of Nigeriathen we will continue to be at the mercy of our biggest ills: corruption, unaccountability and oppression. If our election processes continue to be undemocratic with the support and collaboration of the last refuge of the wronged, the judiciary, then we will not be able to deal with terrorism. It is ironic and indicative of how unyielding we are in our devotion to doing things the crooked way that ex president Obasanjo would be part of a national meeting on terrorism just as Wikileaks disclosures have him fingered by former Chief Justice Uwais for meddling in the judgement of the 2003 election tribunal.

The fact that those in power never want to leave and do not want to work means that our elections will always be manipulated. If people cannot get rid of unproductive elected officials at least once every four years, then what other means are available for them to take control of their destinies? Any government which wants to deal with terrorism has to put in place the right structures to protect democracy and democracy support institutions like the judiciary and the Independent National Electoral Commission.

In conclusion, so much of what the security agencies need from Nigerians to manage terrorism is lacking. The Nigerian security agencies can continue to meet, proliferate and expand budgets, we can get bomb sniffing dogs and use road blocks to make a 20 minute journey 20 hours and import all sorts of special gadgets but we will continue to be tragically unprepared. Until the social issues are dealt with, the type of terrorism which we have become exposed too – the type most difficult to fight, where the people bringing death and destruction are prepared to die as well, we will continue to struggle to contain terrorism in Nigeria.

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The stagnation of the Nigerian Character A somewhat response to The Metamorphosis of Boko Haram

If we really want to understand where we are as a country today, we only need to look dispassionately at the state of our written and living laws and our discourteous attitude towards law and order. This abusive relationship we have with law has recently and publicly shoved into our faces by the actions of the Nigerian Judicial Council and all who have been involved in the sordid affair. And whether we like it or not – just as the Americans had to self reflect in the aftermath of 9/11, we too have to look inwards about the reasons for our disregard for law and order and why Nigeria, the mighty dwarf of Africa, is now leading the continent in terrorism.

Right after the bombing of the United Nations Building in Abuja on 8/26, Simon Kolawole wrote a thoughtful essay on the Metamorphosis of Boko Haram. The first thought the article provoked was of a sense of comedy – the juxtaposition of Boko Haram’s evolutionary journey against the sad stagnation of the Nigerian character and our manner of dealing with issues. The blithe tone of the article about the underlying social and economic reasons behind terrorism – whether of the Boko Haram tenet/philosophy or the Niger Delta extraction sparked a disquiet about our usual focus on the symptoms and not the cause.

In 1926, in The Dual Mandates, Lord Lugard described the type of African he had observed in the West Africa – it was not flattering. Amongst other things he says the this race-type is “full of personal vanity with little sense of veracity, excitable, lacking in self-control, discipline and foresight, his thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future or grief for the past”. He could be describing us today – from the degree laden professional in a pin stripe suit and a bow tie to the greased stained Ankara clad fried yam seller at the side of the road- we all carry these traits and have refused to develop our minds and our societies beyond the shallow materialism and vanity Lord Lugard noted. For those who balk at the harsh description by a foreigner and a colonialist to boot, maybe the descriptions of Anthony Enahoro in the 1966 satire “How to be a Nigerian’ will resonate better. A read through this thoroughly enjoyable and well-written book will have you crying tears of laughter and alarm about traits we like to think are ‘new’. Apparently, there is nothing new about who we are and how we behave right down to the moronic love of titles (vanity again) which has everyone appending ‘Barrister’ and ‘Engineer’ before their names.

What has this got to do with terrorism and law and order? Everything.

When a society is as unjust and unequal as ours is (Nigeria has one of the highest Gini indices in the world – a measure for inequality in society) where nothing, not even justice is without an ever escalating price tag, then terrorism is not out of place. Where people have two sets of rules, one for the rich and/or powerful and one for the poor and/or weak, then terrorism should eventually be expected.

Borno – the home of peace and the home of Boko haram is the 2^nd largest state in Nigeria in terms of land size and the 12^th in terms of population. It is also allegedly one of the easiest places to do business in Nigeria. However, Borno is in the North East, the region acknowledged by human development experts and maybe even the Federal Government as the poorest and least developed in Nigeria. This is where the rating of access to health, education, skills development, infrastructure, employment, gender development are amongst the lowest in the country and where despite billions, we are still far from achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Since it was formed in 1976, trillions of Naira have been poured into Borno and its indigenes have taken part in steering the direction of the Federal Government in line with federal character. Since then it, it has and Yobe carved out if it – which is technically supposed to mean that development would happen faster but no…Yobe and Borno are still some of the most backward places in Nigeria, with more alarming social data than much poorer countries. So what, do the people of Borno have to show for years of government and is this question not what is really at the crux of Boko Haram’s grouse?

What have years of ‘leadership’ styled on our version of democracy earned the people of Borno? Is there no iota of truth in people saying ‘if this has not worked, maybe we should try something else’? Is rigging elections over and over again and designing a quota system for leadership so that Nigerians never get good and sincere people in leadership not a recipe for disaster? Is it right that in states so impoverished by their government’s lack of financial responsibility, grand and lavish weeklong weddings/parties/celebrations can take place and even make the news? And is it really unreasonable to think that if a debtor does not open the door to the sound of knocking, then his creditor might be justified in breaking the door down?

Our disrespect for law and order – where everyone is above the law and no one can be called to account for their actions stems from our character – the traits that make us unable to visualize the future with any sense of wonder or fear – where like mindless locusts we eat up 50 years worth of harvest in advance and wonder why we suffer.

As much as we might regret President Jonathan’s choice of words when he tried to comfort us on the bombing of the UN office he is right: Nigeria is not unique. All around the world, it is natural that if people live with social and economic injustice and cannot change their circumstances peacefully, they will resort to violence. There will always be external forces which will play a role in our internal affairs - the Al-Qaeda, Libya, Somali, Sudan, CIA, Kissinger connections with our home grown terrorists and governments is scary and should be considered carefully by our security agents and all who really care about Nigeria. But we must ask ourselves too, what it is about us that makes Nigeria such a warm and fertile place to recruit and train terrorists and practice terrorism. Until we identify those issues and start changing the system so that life is fair, the situation with terrorism and all the evils that come with it is not going to get better.

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Laws of success (in Nigerian Government)

It’s been seventy nine days since May 29 – it does not seem like much is happening but much has happened. We have somewhat new federal and state cabinets and loads of new special advisers, special assistants and technical advisers to the president, vice president, ministers, state governors, commissioners etc. Without a doubt, government is the biggest employer in Nigeria and it means everything to get into government and stay there.

Over the years, the most inattentive observer would have noticed some things about the way people in government behave; the special traits they exhibit and the strange, unexplainable things connected to government work. There is an explanation: as diverse and disparate as we are in Nigeria, some behaviours, actions and utterances have become sacrosanct for a successful career in government - whether in appointive or elective position. As the officers of the new administration settle in here are some of the laws of success – norms so distilled and perfected from decades of practice that they have become laws – to guide the new officers on their way.

Law One – praise God for what He has done for you (not Nigeria) with a string of celebratory parties. This is really important and no matter how hard a government official tries to avoid this particular law of arriving - there is just no way out. Friends and family will host a few on your behalf and the sheer number of people who will come to your house or office to congratulate you for this new position will make it look like there is a week long party at your house – so you might as well give in and let the champagne flow.

The partying and celebrating is not to be looked upon as anything improper; indeed it sets the tone for the type of inclusive and expansive office which you will operate once you start work. It provides people with the opportunity to come close to you at least once or twice before the doors of access are firmly shut and tell you what they expect from your leadership.

Depending on how lucrative, scratch that, strategic your new position is, there will also be full-page ads congratulating you. Do not be distracted by the fact that you do not remember the names claiming to be your classmates from the set of 1970 or recognise the names of the mothers of your village who each carried you on their backs at one time or the other. Be gracious. Take out a couple of full-page ads yourself, listing each and every person who congratulated you in person, by email, SMS or Facebook and make sure you use a picture of yourself with a finger pressed into your cheek and your eyes looking into the sky for guidance – this will help those who have no clue who you are and what you look like.

Law Two – Hire as many people as you can from your clan/village or ethnic group. Your life depends on this one because there is no way you can trust anyone who does not speak the same language as you do, or who understands your culture or even likes the same foods as you do. And if they do speak the same language, sometimes that is not enough; they must be from your local government area, especially if your predecessor was from a different local government. All sorts of policy issues will become impossible to execute the minute you let other ethnic groups or outsiders into your inner circle.

It is unfortunate that the civil service rules does not allow political appointees such as ministers or commissioners to fire at will. But there are ways around that. You can transfer ‘outsiders’ to other ministries and agencies where their kind are in charge or to quiet places where they can tap their fingers on bare tables in obscurity until a change in government.

Law Three – renovate the office or start looking for alternative office space if you can. The reason why this is critical is because without moving or renovating i.e., lifting wall units and breaking down adjoining walls you will not be able to find all the hidden talismans which have been arranged for you by your predecessor or those who are resentful about the fact that yet again, there is another ‘know-nothing-about –the-way-things-work-here’ whose hand they have to hold.

Law Four – pepper the walls of your domain with pictures of the President of Nigeria and the appropriate Minister. And if you are the Minister, make sure your public relations officer gets a befitting picture of you taken for this purpose. Has anyone landed at Heathrow or JFK airports and seen a picture of David Cameron smiling into their face as they leave the steaming arrival hall two hours after they landed or the Secretary of State for Transport smirking at them over a rickety baggage conveyor belt? No? Then it is because these countries have not yet tapped into the secret industry that is official portrait manufacturing, mounting and maintenance.

Law Five – thou shall not act like you know anything. Nothing will guarantee that you will be kicked out of government faster than you can say ‘I.T.K’ than exhibiting that you know something about the sector you are supposed to be in charge of. Ask basic questions; defer to whomever you report to; and if possible, sleep at meetings and your job will be safe. A legendary career civil servant in one of the agencies charged with getting rid of government property would come in first thing in the morning, drop his jacket and briefcase in his office and go to the library where he would sleep until about noon. Then he would stroll around the offices of his seniors to remind them how loyal he was, go for lunch, then back to the library for a nap and then it was quitting time. Perfect – he threatened no one and retired only when even his adjusted birth certificate indicated that he was 5 years past retirement. Fly under the radar – let this be your motto.

Law Six – be fawning and obsequious. There are many ways you can achieve this and you have a variety of options to choose from. You may be the type who likes to cook – take food to your boss’s house everyday. Be the first to sign up for aso ebi whenever any of his children are getting married and if possible, you should be in charge of forcing the over priced aso ebi down the throats of all employees. There are also opportunities when your boss is away to prove your loyalty: meet her at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja when British Airways lands at 4.30am. And if you are still not sure if you are brown-nosing enough - find Charles Dicken’s Uriah Heep in David Copperfield, he’ll teach you a few more tricks.

And last but not the least, Law Seven – make sure you are always happy and smiling whenever your picture is taken. For instance, Ministers always look extremely happy and content at the end of their weekly federal executive council meetings. We are never sure if the merriment is because (a) they are happy they were not fired during the meeting or (b) there is nothing about Nigeria and the work they are faced with that is daunting or sobering or (c) they just cannot believe their luck at finally making it to Nirvana. Whatever the case is, make sure you have a happy grin plastered all over your face.

We the public will only know how well you did in adhering to these laws when the next round of elections or appointments are done. Until then- best of luck and we cannot wait to be you.

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A lemon by any other name is still a lemon

Once upon a time there was a woman with 6 sons with different gifts and natural talents (in the beginning there were 2, then somehow they morphed into 3, then 19, 30, 36 but that’s another story). She coaches them about the way of the world – the natural selection of life which weeds out the weak and rewards the hardworking, the adaptable and the ever evolving. “Your special gifts are to help you manage the trials you will face and only the best of you will lead and it matters not whether you are the youngest or the oldest (think of the dreams of Joseph/Yusuf’s father in the Bible and Quran).

The sons analyse their gifts against the tests of life which have been revealed to them and decide that the easiest way to deal with the headache of leadership is to rotate the leadership between them and give everyone a single shot at a time at being leader. This meant that regardless of how lazy or unproductive the men where, it did not matter; they would still get a shot at being leader. Soon, the few who laboured to develop their talents decided it was not worth it because no matter how hard they worked, their lazy brothers – against the laws of nature still thrived and continued to demolish whatever they tried to build.

This in a nutshell sums up federal character and the single tenure proposal – one of the most asinine, half-witted, sophomoric and fatuous ideas to befall Nigeria.

Forget Nigeria’s dismal social and economic statistics on health, education, power, infrastructure, corruption, security, MDGs, poverty, unemployment and whatever indices are used globally to track development. Right now we are allegedly at crisis point, caught between Aso rock and a boulder. The fuel subsidies are rumored to be costing us between 10-13 billion dollars annually and now that money meant for the excess crude account will start going into the sovereign wealth fund…there is no money to keep up the subsidies. Hard place One. The state governors are sweating champagne bullets because they cannot pay the new minimum wage of N18,000. Most states just don’t make enough between internally generated revenue and their monthly allocations from Federal to pay up - so states are potentially bankrupt. Hard place Two. Between our three levels of government we spend 75% of our annual budget on recurrent expenses i.e., the salaries and benefits of our politicians, civil servants and their sirens and fleet of exotic cars. Let’s put this in perspective. You get N100 every year and spend N75 on food, diesel and transport and have only N25 left to invest, educate, save and conduct repairs such as fixing a leaking roof. Hard place Three. As if that is not enough, Nigeria perpetually runs a deficit budget. So although you only earn N100 and spend N75 on everyday costs, you somehow spend N200 every year because you borrow against the future and that extra N100 is spent on throwing annual birthday parties for your family. Hard place Four.

Apparently we are going to have to ease the pressure building up in all these hard places and try and reverse the trend and if people think we are suffering now…we have not seen anything yet.

Now a discussion about tenure elongation while all this is going on is so absurd and puerile that rational minds are tempted to think: “Forget it. It is such a foolish idea it must be a smokescreen for something else”; the way the Roman Emperors used man-eating lions to distract the plebs from their hunger. But the story won’t go away. The President’s spokesperson, Ruben Abati, has confirmed that a bill will be making its way to the National Assembly and newspapers have reported that President Jonathan has recruited 6 members of the National Assembly to ‘manage’ the bill within their geo political zones.

There are many reasons to oppose the bill but two especially difficult to rationalize arguments are that nothing stops the Constitution from being changed again and there are different ways to peel an orange. If the Bill is passed to provide for a single 6 year term to be rotated amongst a pre selected number of zones and after all the stress and distraction from the real work at the center which we need our government focused on…someone will hopefully just come along and change it again…then what?

If the real reasons behind President Jonathan’s proposal are in his words because he “is concerned about the acrimony which the issue of re-election, every four years, generates both at the Federal and State levels…the unrest, the desperation for power and the overheating of the polity that has attended each general election…with the concomitant unending inter and intra-party squabbles which have affected the growth of party democracy in the country, and have further undermined the country’s developmental aspirations”, then there are other ways to deal with these issues.

One, we can find a way to manage the governors powers and undo the unholy pact they apparently have that the President of Nigeria must be a former governor. Immunity for all elected officials should be removed from the Constitution with a caveat that they cannot be prosecuted while in the office where the alleged criminal activity took place. We can make it an eligibility criteria for any elective office that if you have spent two terms in any office, you are not eligible for any election until the expiration of at least eight years - this means ex Governors like Saraki and Yerima can come down to earth and live with mortals. A ceiling on how many times Nigerians can sacrifice themselves by serving the country in elective or appointive position would be something to also consider. And, abolishing the “State Joint Local Government Account” under Section 162(6) of the 1999 Constitution would free our Local Governments from the heavy boots of the governors and let the practice of true federalism take root.

Two – independent candidature during elections would deal with the intra and inter party squabbles because politicians who believe that their constituents will support their candidature will be able to throw off the umbrella of party patronage and stand for election independently. This will further reduce the power of the parties, the governors and the President.

Three, strengthen the Independent National Election Commission and do more to plug the holes which support election rigging. There is no reason why we should have party symbols and not names of candidates on our ballots. If Nigerians are smart enough to memorise the names of our national football team as well as European league footballers, we can remember the names of those we want to elect.

Four, if elective and appointive positions become less lucrative only those who really care will make the sacrifice. Slash the salaries and benefits across the legislature and executive and close the gaps which allow for extortion and corruption across the civil service and within government. If the legislators cannot secretly borrow money and inflate their allowances or give themselves ‘sitting allowances’ for committee meetings that they are bound to attend then we will reduce the number who are there to get rich quick.

Five, if the President really cares about managing the polity, he can use the Freedom of Information Act to publish line by line information on where the revenue, security votes and discretionary spend goes and use the ire of the public to drive accountability in public office and push those responsible for ‘overheating the polity’ out.

All these options and more are available and thankfully Nigerians have had the experience of battling unsavory Constitutional changes. However, 2006 and the Obansajo third term bid was five years ago and since then our moral anemia has increased, our social capital tank is almost at zero and we are a lot more religiously and ethnically divided. Perfect mental and physical condition for this type of coup.

We need to be vigilant and tireless in opposing even the thought of this distraction unless we want to stay on this path of laziness and mediocrity which will allow a bunch of men to continue mindlessly passing us around like a cob of corn. Let’s take the road a lot less travelled in Nigeria and complain loudly and persistently in public until those in positions of power know that things have to change for the better, for everyone.

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The guide to a successful government career

It’s been seventy nine days since May 29 – it does not seem like much is happening but much has happened. We have somewhat new federal and state cabinets and loads of new special advisers, special assistants and technical advisers to the president, vice president, ministers, state governors, commissioners etc. Without a doubt, government is the biggest employer in Nigeria and it means everything to get into government and stay there.

Over the years, the most inattentive observer would have noticed some things about the way people in government behave; the special traits they exhibit and the strange, unexplainable things connected to government work. There is an explanation: as diverse and disparate as we are in Nigeria, some behaviours, actions and utterances have become sacrosanct for a successful career in government - whether in appointive or elective position. As the officers of the new administration settle in here are some of the laws of success – norms so distilled and perfected from decades of practice that they have become laws – to guide the new officers on their way.

Law One – praise God for what He has done for you (not Nigeria) with a string of celebratory parties. This is really important and no matter how hard a government official tries to avoid this particular law of arriving - there is just no way out. Friends and family will host a few on your behalf and the sheer number of people who will come to your house or office to congratulate you for this new position will make it look like there is a week long party at your house – so you might as well give in and let the champagne flow.

The partying and celebrating is not to be looked upon as anything improper; indeed it sets the tone for the type of inclusive and expansive office which you will operate once you start work. It provides people with the opportunity to come close to you at least once or twice before the doors of access are firmly shut and tell you what they expect from your leadership.

Depending on how lucrative, scratch that, strategic your new position is, there will also be full-page ads congratulating you. Do not be distracted by the fact that you do not remember the names claiming to be your classmates from the set of 1970 or recognise the names of the mothers of your village who each carried you on their backs at one time or the other. Be gracious. Take out a couple of full-page ads yourself, listing each and every person who congratulated you in person, by email, SMS or Facebook and make sure you use a picture of yourself with a finger pressed into your cheek and your eyes looking into the sky for guidance – this will help those who have no clue who you are and what you look like.

Law Two – Hire as many people as you can from your clan/village or ethnic group. Your life depends on this one because there is no way you can trust anyone who does not speak the same language as you do, or who understands your culture or even likes the same foods as you do. And if they do speak the same language, sometimes that is not enough; they must be from your local government area, especially if your predecessor was from a different local government. All sorts of policy issues will become impossible to execute the minute you let other ethnic groups or outsiders into your inner circle.

It is unfortunate that the civil service rules does not allow political appointees such as ministers or commissioners to fire at will. But there are ways around that. You can transfer ‘outsiders’ to other ministries and agencies where their kind are in charge or to quiet places where they can tap their fingers on bare tables in obscurity until a change in government.

Law Three – renovate the office or start looking for alternative office space if you can. The reason why this is critical is because without moving or renovating i.e., lifting wall units and breaking down adjoining walls you will not be able to find all the hidden talismans which have been arranged for you by your predecessor or those who are resentful about the fact that yet again, there is another ‘know-nothing-about –the-way-things-work-here’ whose hand they have to hold.

Law Four – pepper the walls of your domain with pictures of the President of Nigeria and the appropriate Minister. And if you are the Minister, make sure your public relations officer gets a befitting picture of you taken for this purpose. Has anyone landed at Heathrow or JFK airports and seen a picture of David Cameron smiling into their face as they leave the steaming arrival hall two hours after they landed or the Secretary of State for Transport smirking at them over a rickety baggage conveyor belt? No? Then it is because these countries have not yet tapped into the secret industry that is official portrait manufacturing, mounting and maintenance.

Law Five – thou shall not act like you know anything. Nothing will guarantee that you will be kicked out of government faster than you can say ‘I.T.K’ than exhibiting that you know something about the sector you are supposed to be in charge of. Ask basic questions; defer to whomever you report to; and if possible, sleep at meetings and your job will be safe. A legendary career civil servant in one of the agencies charged with getting rid of government property would come in first thing in the morning, drop his jacket and briefcase in his office and go to the library where he would sleep until about noon. Then he would stroll around the offices of his seniors to remind them how loyal he was, go for lunch, then back to the library for a nap and then it was quitting time. Perfect – he threatened no one and retired only when even his adjusted birth certificate indicated that he was 5 years past retirement. Fly under the radar – let this be your motto.

Law Six – be fawning and obsequious. There are many ways you can achieve this and you have a variety of options to choose from. You may be the type who likes to cook – take food to your boss’s house everyday. Be the first to sign up for aso ebi whenever any of his children are getting married and if possible, you should be in charge of forcing the over priced aso ebi down the throats of all employees. There are also opportunities when your boss is away to prove your loyalty: meet her at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja when British Airways lands at 4.30am. And if you are still not sure if you are brown-nosing enough - find Charles Dicken’s Uriah Heep in David Copperfield, he’ll teach you a few more tricks.

And last but not the least, Law Seven – make sure you are always happy and smiling whenever your picture is taken. For instance, Ministers always look extremely happy and content at the end of their weekly federal executive council meetings. We are never sure if the merriment is because (a) they are happy they were not fired during the meeting or (b) there is nothing about Nigeria and the work they are faced with that is daunting or sobering or (c) they just cannot believe their luck at finally making it to Nirvana. Whatever the case is, make sure you have a happy grin plastered all over your face.

We the public will only know how well you did in adhering to these laws when the next round of elections or appointments are done. Until then- best of luck and we cannot wait to be you.

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And then there were none (for change)

Change is one of the most popular or overused words in any political campaign and Nigeria’s 2011 elections were no different. The airwaves, paper-waves and Internet-waves made it seem like the mere deafening strength of the clamour for change would be enough to force the universe to shift in our favour. It seemed like we all wanted a change: of those who represent us in government, our electoral process and the ruling party.

The inaugurations are done, the last rounds of elections and coronations in the legislature have been discharged with and the victory party planners have hopefully collected their fees. As the haze of election fever and winner euphoria is lifting and we are beginning to see a little more clearly; where is the change?

The presidency has remained pretty much the same– a PDP president who made lots of compromises and promises to win, surrounded by purely motive based advisors and a soon to be constituted cabinet which is rumoured to be more old than new.

The judiciary of course remains untouched by elections. Apart from the whispers of personal financial gain from election petitions, something which sadly not even our latest super hero the FOI Law will be able to do anything about, there is no discernable change for the benefit of the public.

That leaves the legislature; the only arm of government that seems to have undergone serious change with over 70% of the members being new to the National Assembly. In the Senate, 73 out of 109 are brand new and in the House of Representatives 266 out of 360 have never been in the House before. There is something about new people in government that infuses the public with hope especially when we are so aware of the antecedents of the old. For the Senate though, the change seems to end there – they are firmly in the hand of the old guard and their buzz word is neither change nor the ‘transformation’ ofPresident Jonathan, it is ‘continuity’.

This leaves within the legislature, the House of Representatives, where the recent coup against PDP interference in the selection of a Speaker bolsters our hope for change. (We’ll worry about the motives of the financiers of the coup later – for now we are just pleased that ‘zoning’ is taking a beating.) And for now, the tune from the House is pleasing: that it will not be business as usual. But it is too soon to say whether the unusual business that our Representatives will be about, will be the business which is good for us or the business which will be good for them and the few they serve.

Despite the picture of self service which a ‘welfare committee’ evokes, the creation of five new committees by the House is encouraging especially since there is a Media and Public Relations committee to hopefully manage all the bad press the House has gotten recently with Dimeji Bankole and the missing billions. However, it is this story of corruption in the House that tells us more clearly than anything else, that nothing has really changed beneath the thin cover of ‘new members’ and the sudden and convenient independence from PDP.

Bankole, the former Speaker who has been a guest of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, while singing for his freedom implicated the new Speaker – Aminu Tambuwal as one of the architects who designed the need for the 10 billion Naira loan in the first place and who is a key beneficiary of the loan (Tambuwal’s allowance allegedly increased by N14 million a quarter). It turns out Tambuwal is not so new after all and it remains to be seen how much change he is going to bring to the House in the execution of its duties.

Ironically, as Bankole completed his term with the corruption charges hanging over his head, Patricia Etteh who he replaced after her impeachment for corruption was cleared of all wrong doing.

It looks like the change we can expect from our legislatures, is not iron clad and so we need to support them by being loud and clear about some of the things we expect from them. For starters, that welfare committee of the House should have a twin in the Senate and they should focus their attention on the welfare of Nigerians with a review their benefits, allowances, compensation, salary, constituency mobilisation fees – whatever names they want to call what they get - we cannot afford them. The Governor of the Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido called them out publicly on their cost to the nation and they have no defence – they need to cut their benefits now. Then they should kill, quarter, burn and bury all thoughts of creating more states – we cannot afford those either. Instead the National Assembly needs to sit with the Constitution and make changes which will empower the local governments and reduce the powers of the state governors over local government revenue. The ‘development’ we sorely need is not the development of new Governors Lodges in glorified villages, we need to give the local governments, those closest to the people, the resources to carry out their duties.

And finally, we need our representatives to portray the dignity and humility of those who are there to labour on our behalf and not flash their ostentatious and rags to riches lives in front of us. At one of the many swearing-in parties held for members of the National Assembly last week, guests at a party carelessly stepped on and broke the glass plates which were used to serve them. No one paid any mind. Those broken plates, so carelessly stepped on signify the waste and carelessness with which our elected and appointed representatives treat Nigeria’s resources and the indifference with which we, the public, encourage the waste. All in all, not a good harbinger of the change we desperately need – let us hope those nonchalantly broken plates are not a sign of what to expect from the 7^th National Assembly.

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FOI Act, not just another ‘bail is free’ signpost?

In the midst of the cartwheels and congratulations about the long
awaited birth of a freedom of information (FOI) Act for Nigerians, I
am wary. The hesitation comes not because the FOI law has been
allegedly watered down or because I do not believe that the FOI could
herald wonderful things; I am tempted to pull the plug on the party
because I think…so what? So what if Nigerians have access to a lot
more information than they had in the past? The real issue is; what
will change?

Today, thanks to the reach, space anonymity of the Internet we have
access to a lot more information than we did a few years ago. Granted,
it is a little harder to sift through the sheer volume of what we have
access to in order to scoop the nuggets of quality information but it
is there. We know that Dimeji Bankole and the leadership of the 6th
House of Representatives borrowed and spent 10 billion Naira that the
House did not have. What have we done with that information? Years
ago, in the early days of the Obasanjo administration, someone thought
it was a good idea to publish the allocation of electricity for each
State in the newspapers. Then it stopped because someone else was
worried that the public might notice that the states considered as
‘opposition’ where getting the least amount of electricity even when
they had the greatest industrial activity. There was a tense period
while they waited to see if anyone had picked up on it…silence. No one
noticed. Even when the information is all around, pasting itself
desperately to our eyelids and morphing into a gas which seeps into
our skin, but still we feel and do nothing.

This means that while we will technically have more access to public
information, it is doubtful if this access will magically transform
our society. There are many other things which have to co-exist with
the FOI in order for it to work effectively and unfortunately we
cannot merely legislate these things into being.

We the people have to realise that while corruption has become a way
of life for us, there is a cost and that cost is captured in all the
things we complain about – the lack of basic amenities, the absence of
accountability amongst politicians and public officers and the slow
pace of development. With the realisation, then comes the desire to do
something about it, to take the effort, individually or collectively
to challenge those who are responsible. Challenges to the injustices
and inconsistencies which float to the surface do not always have to
be made through the courts – the favoured route of lawyers and
activists such as Fawehinmi and Falana. We can protest by boycotting
those responsible by refusing to be associated with them. Already this
is happening. Recently, a former Minister of Petroleum from the north
who went to a wedding fatiha and as is custom, took of his shoes
before entering the house. However while he did his part by taking off
his shoes, none of the people participating from the outside did
theirs; apparently, someone should have offered to hold his shoes for
him. So he looks round for a minute and then tries to hand his shoes
to a man standing closest to him. The man declines to extend his hand
and instead says loudly and clearly – “what did you do for us?” The
former Governor of Nassarrawa State, Doma got a taste of what is to
come when he attempted to slink out of Doma, his village to return to
Lafia, after the results of the gubernatorial election which he lost
were announced. His people created a barricade to prevent his
departure and invited him to ‘stay and enjoy’ the haven he had helped
create during his four year tenure. The rejection of corrupt, weak,
ineffectual, lazy, selfish public officers is slowly happening but we
need to ramp up the pressure. Complete social excommunication is a
good way to challenge the people in government who misuse their
mandate. We might not be able to create our own Tarhir Square to
insist on good governance, but if we shun their weddings, parties,
dinners, talks, book launches and refuse to invite them to ours, I
promise they will wither up and die as surely as the harmattan winds
dry up plants.

We need more than lip service from the government about
transformation. Real transformation in government is going to mean a
break from the norm and the norm is corruption and impunity.
Unfortunately, there is little indication that we are serious about
doing anything about all the major obstacles to our development: a
civil service bloated with conniving and devious people who take pride
in ensuring that nothing changes and the institutionalised corruption
which has resulted in the crater in our physical and mental
development, which billions of dollars should have filled. The United
Kingdom is preparing for the launch of the UK Bribery Act on July 1
2011, a law which they are marketing as ‘tougher’ than the United
States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The UK wants to use transparency
and zero tolerance to corruption as a competitive advantage for
attracting business and investments to their country. We on the other
hand have had the Corrupt Practices Act since 2003 and as far as we
know, no one has been successfully prosecuted under this law. A few
cases have been prosecuted by the Independent Corrupt Practices
Commission but nothing has stuck…and the message remains the same –
Nigerians are not serious about reducing corruption.

The problem is familiar. Walk into a Nigerian police station and there
is a sign somewhere saying ‘BAIL IS FREE’ supposedly there to inform
the public that we do not have to bribe in order to bail anyone out.
But what happens in practice? I think this is what the FOI will end up
as – a sign post saying ‘look at us we know what we are supposed to
do’. It is not enough to just know; we need to act. As we celebrate
the passage of the FOI law, for the development in our awareness which
the law signifies, the law needs good followers to be the teeth in the
bite of the law to it does not end up as a ‘bail is free’ sign –
meaningless.

Published in Thisday Lawyer June 7 2011

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