Traffickers In Human Misery 

 Ikechukwu Amaechi 

My colleague and friend, Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye’s article, The Magnificent Poison House published on November 1, made an interesting reading as usual. Ever passionate, he brought his indubitable perspicuity to bear on an issue that should be of paramount concern to all.I am joining the debate today not necessary because of his open invitation to all of us to join him in waging his self-appointed moral crusade against the “unrepentant merchants of death,” meaning (tobacco companies) but to present certain facts at my disposal to enable the Nigerian government do the right thing. And the right thing to my mind is not to call for the total abolition of tobacco companies and their products, which in any case is not plausible since cigarette has not been classified as an illegal product or hard drug like cocaine. But the need for government to stringently control the activities of tobacco companies through legislation as it is the case in the West cannot be overemphasised.As part of my assessment in one of the first semester courses (Information Gathering and Analysis-1), I am expected to write an analytical feature on one of the
UK companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange. And guess what? My company is the British American Tobacco (BAT); the same company with the “magnificent poison house” along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, which Ugochukwu wrote about.In the course of my extensive research on the company for the purpose of writing the article, I have stumbled on certain facts which to my mind will not only help in contextualising the debate but also help government to act appropriately. Here, I won’t bore you with the history of BAT. Suffice it to say that the company’s birth was the consequence of a 1902 joint venture agreement between the
United Kingdom’s Imperial Tobacco Company and the American Tobacco Company. The parent companies agreed not to trade in each other’s domestic territory and to assign trademarks, export businesses and overseas subsidiaries to the venture.BAT’s history ever since has been one of mergers, acquisition and de-mergers. Today, BAT with about 11 percent of the global market is the world’s second largest tobacco company, after Philip Morris which has 18 percent. Its international brands include Dunhill, Kent, State Express 555, Pall Mall, Rothmans, Peter Stuyvesant, Benson and Hedges, Winfield, John Player, Lucky Strike, Kool, and Viceroy, though BAT does not necessarily own the rights to all these brands in every nation they are marketed.At the same time, it owns local brands like Jockey Club in Argentina, Wills in India,
North
State in Finland, Courtleigh in South Africa, Xon in Uzbekistan, Yava Gold in
Russia, etc. Though BAT is based, and manufactures cigarettes in the
UK, it sells most of them abroad. In effect, it controls only six percent of the
UK market. Therefore, out of the 853 billion cigarettes which BAT reportedly sold worldwide in 2004 for instance, only a fraction was sold in the
UK.This fact explains the paradox of tobacco companies in recent times, which is also the challenge of third world countries including
Nigeria. In the last five years, BAT has increased its share price by 143 percent, despite increasing global restrictions on tobacco advertising. In January 2002, BAT shares were trading at £6.00 each. In five years, they have made a quantum leap, and are currently selling at £14.59. This is in spite of the fact that volume of its products continues to decline. In the 2006 third-quarter financial report which the company presented to the public on Thursday, October 26, operating profit rose eight percent to £2.1 billion. But at the same time, revenue slipped 1.7 percent to £2.44 billion. The slip in revenue was as a result of the decrease in the volume sold by its subsidiaries which fell 1.1 percent to 173.4 billion.Writing on the performance of BAT in the Daily Telegraph of Friday, October 27, 2006, Harry Wallop noted: “For a wheezing declining industry, cigarette manufacturing certainly has a knack of turning out decent figures.” And the question is; how could a company with diminishing volumes in the market be maximising shareholders’ value at the same time?BAT is doing well because the decrease in volume is not a global trend. While they are steadily losing their traditionally developed world markets in Europe due to increasing restrictions on tobacco advertising and anti-tobacco legislation, the tobacco companies are concentrating their energies in the third world market including
Nigeria where as usual, anything goes in the name of privatisation.In his third quarter report, Jan du Plessis, BAT chairman admitted that sales in
Western Europe fell because of higher taxes, prohibitions on advertising and smoking bans. The company sold 1.8 percent fewer cigarettes in
Europe in the first nine months of the year compared with the same quarter in 2005. The Lucky Strike brand suffered a four percent fall in volume for the quarter after poor sales in Germany and
Japan.On the contrary, sales and profit in
Africa’s tobacco market was on the upward swing. Let me crave your indulgence to quote du Plessis. “In
South Africa, despite the weaker average rand exchange rate, good profit growth was achieved as a result of higher margins. There was an improved product mix, as both Dunhill and Rothmans continued their strong growth, although market share was slightly down.“In
Nigeria, despite excise driven increases, market share grew. Higher prices, together with mix improvements and productivity gains, helped to deliver a higher profit.“In
Iran, volumes continued to grow and overall market share increased, resulting in higher profit. Profit in the Arabian Gulf markets rose as volumes increased, mainly driven by good results from Dunhill in
Saudi Arabia.”The paradox of increasing profit and share price in the face of shrinking volume is the outcome of strategic planning by BAT. Faced with a very hostile European market, the company has shifted attention to African countries where there are no laws to curtail their impunity and immoral market practices. Even where there are laws, they are observed more in the breach. European countries are daily tightening the noose on these merchants of death. But even at that, BAT had for so long found many imaginative ways to keep its brands in the public eye. It has particularly promoted its brands through the glamour of sports. In 1996, the company secured the sponsorship of the Cricket World Cup which was branded the “Wills World Cup”, thereby achieving a high level of brand recognition for the Wills cigarette brand in
India where young cricket fans were a key target market. Until recently, it had also used the glamour of motor sport – Formular 1 – to promote its Lucky Strike brand. In the
US, state governments are battling the tobacco companies with stringent legislation that are biting hard, while at the same time raising taxes on tobacco products. Recently, the state of California which accounts for about seven percent of total cigarette consumption in the
US initiated a legislation –Proposition 86 – which aims at quadrupling the excise tax on a pack of cigarettes to $3.47 from 87 cents. Three other states –Missouri, South Dakota and
Arizona – also had tobacco taxes on the ballot. These stringent legislations are aimed at promoting anti-smoking culture in countries that appreciate the dangers of cigarette to their citizenry. But besides governments, individuals whose lives have been ruined are also taking the battle to the tobacco companies globally. BAT for instance has been the subject of thousands of product liability cases for a number of years. Of course, these are countries where governments protect their citizens and individuals also know their rights and are always prepared to protect them using the law courts. In
Nigeria, these two cultures are lacking. As long as BAT pays huge taxes annually, which in any case are stolen by those in government, they could as well pour petrol on all Nigerians in the style of the general overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly, Rev. Dr. King and set them ablaze for all anybody cares. The government has nothing but absolute contempt for the welfare of the people and would always take sides with the multinationals against its own citizens as they are doing with the oil companies against the people of Niger Delta. It is not enough to ban outdoor advertising of tobacco products in
Nigeria, a ban which BAT ingeniously circumvents at will, there must be clear-cut legislation aimed at putting a leash on the activities of this company if our youth must be rescued from their evil clutches and saved from imminent catastrophe. If Europeans with all their advancement in medicine and well-equipped hospitals are still wary of the very harmful effects of tobacco consumption, what more Nigeria where available medical facilities are hardly adequate for the treatment of the most common of ailments.Again, anybody who has been lured into smoking with disastrous consequences can successfully sue BAT. These cases are won daily in Europe and America, why not
Nigeria? BAT should and could be held accountable for the death it is consciously hawking on the streets of
Nigeria, decimating our most productive population. Unless this will to hold them accountable is manifested, the company would continue with its nefarious trade – trafficking in human misery.

At Last, Nzeribe Is Complaining  

Ikechukwu Amaechi 

Sometime in 2003, shortly after the general elections, Chief Francis Arthur Nzeribe, the man who had represented Orlu Senatorial zone since 1983, met with some journalists at the Airport Hotel Lagos. I was one of them. He had been re-elected for the fifth time as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

I can’t quite remember now why he invited us but he won the election despite his suspension from the Senate prior to the polls by the Chief Pius Anyim-lead leadership and he probably wanted to impress on us that he was the axiomatic political cat with nine lives. Nzeribe was at his hubristic best. He took a swipe at Pius Anyim, asking where those that rudely shut the Senate doors in his face were. Reminded that many people, including international observers who monitored the polls had decried the conduct, saying they woefully failed the test of credibility, he chuckled. “That is the antics of losers. To them elections will never be free and fair. But the fact that somebody is complaining that he was rigged out of an election is an admittance of failure. Have you ever heard me complain that I was rigged out? No! Because, I go out there and win my elections. That is how to measure success. I don’t come out of any electoral contest to lament that I was rigged out,” he boasted.

He told us many stories, including his sojourn in Ghana and relationship with the late Dr Kwame Nkrumah. But the story I found most telling was how on the night the military struck on December 31, 2003, he left his fellow senators whom he had invited to an all-night party in his hotel room at Federal Palace Hotel and headed for the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, on his way out of the country. The senators were still frolicking when the soldiers rounded them up and herded them into various detention camps and the man who invited them and who most likely had a hint of the coup was safely outside Nigerian shores. That was quintessential Nzeribe.  After the parley, Nzeribe left immediately for the airport on his way to Abuja and I drove him in my car. I had told him at the parley how much I hated his politics and I had expected him to flare up. Surprisingly, he didn’t. Instead, he took my comment calmly, saying he was comfortable with my position. But he wanted to know my reasons. That informed his decision to ride with me to the airport. I used the very short time the journey lasted to see if I could understand Nzeribe better but I couldn’t. The man was simply inscrutable.  

True to his boast, since 1982 when he took Nigeria’s political centre-stage by storm, he had always “won” every election he contested. To him, all there was to politics was victory at the polls. How such victories come about is none of his worries. He believes in the Machiavellian doctrine of the end justifying the means. He had so much dominated the political landscape of Imo State that not a few have come to believe that the Orlu Senatorial seat was his for keeps.

All that changed dramatically on Sunday, December 3, 2006, when his 24-year political stranglehold on the hapless people of Orlu came to an end. And Nzeribe, the man who always goes out to win his elections no-matter the odds and does not wait to complain that he was out-rigged now holds the wrong end of the political stick. He lost.

And suddenly unmasked and striped of his hubris, the man is not only complaining to all who care to listen that he had been outsmarted, but has indeed petitioned the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) apparatchik in Abuja. For once in 24 years, he has been politically outsmarted. Perhaps, the only other time he had found himself in this unenviable political winter was when Anyim threw him out in the cold after he had assured Aso Rock that he was going to orchestrate the Senate President’s ouster like he did to Dr. Chuba Okadigbo.  

But if only he would pause and listen to the din of celebrations reverberating in the whole of Imo State, if not Nigeria, over his defeat by Hon. Osita Izunaso, member of the House of Representatives, a man young enough to be his son, he would appreciate the fact that in 24 years, he had become a political nuisance who the people would give anything to get off their back. And that is the tragedy of Nzeribe. Izunaso did not defeat him; rather the Ogbuagu Damanze of Oguta had defeated himself politically a long time ago and the people were waiting for the most opportune time to serve him his just desert. Therefore, even a dog would have conveniently handed him a resounding defeat without much ado. And for a man who held out some hope when he happened on the political scene in 1983 and won the senatorial election on the platform of the defunct Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP), that is catastrophic.  Many non-Igbo have always wondered how a man like Nzeribe would be voted by any people to represent them in government. But truth be told, nobody elects Nzeribe, he elects himself on behalf of the people. Perhaps, the first and only time he campaigned, contested and won election in Nigeria was in 1983 when he teamed up with the likes of the legendary Sam Mbakwe of blessed memory to ensure that the “landslide” victory of the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which had already dislodged NPP in Anambra was given a short shrift in Imo. All the other victories he appropriated right from the ill-fated Babangida era till the 2003 election were by hook or crook.  

Nzeribe represents the ugliest face of Nigeria’s politics. His is not only a classic study in the arrogance of power; it is a study in the gross misuse of authority. You only need to look at his politics and appreciate why Nigeria is not making any progress democratically. Politics should be about the people. Power ought to be about service. Power that is acquired for its own sake, as an end in itself can never advance the cause of humanity. Unfortunately, for Nzeribe, power is an end, rather than a means to some ennobling goals in the service of humanity. For the 24 years, he had bestridden the political landscape; his people have been the worse for it. Never in the over two decades did Nzeribe draw the attention of the nation to any problems his people had. And to imagine that the problems of his people are legion. Many parts of the senatorial zone are ravaged by erosion. If they had a representative who cared a hoot about them, those places would have long been declared disaster areas.

In his 8,760 days as a senator, he neither added value to the lives of his people or the community itself. But if his 24 years was a disservice to Orlu people, it was a disaster for the Igbo race whose cause he had always betrayed and whose collective hopes and aspirations he had always sacrificed on the alter of his reactionary politics. It is difficult to fathom what drives Nzeribe and what informed the political decisions he took all these years. Perhaps, only himself would answer that question. If he were not reputed to be fabulously rich, one would have concluded that he was driven solely by the lure of filthy lucre. But one thing was certain. The ennobling values of altruism, self-sacrifice, philanthropy, compassion and benevolence, which are the hallmark of leadership, were anathema to him. 

If Nzeribe is a man given to introspection, as he enters his season of political winter, he would have had time to reflect on life generally and its essence. Unfortunately, his type are not given to soul-searching. But his ignominious fall will be an eternal lesson to all men of power.

No-matter how long it takes, a day of reckoning must come when every man shall give account of his stewardship. Nzeribe’s day came on December 3 and he was found grossly wanting. It is sad that what promised to be a brilliant political career has ended on such a terrible note with nothing good to be remembered for. But it is also consoling that while Nzeribe wasted everybody’s time for such a long period, he was also doing a great disservice to himself. A disservice for which he will for long be loathed and despised. Poetic justice you would say.

   Late Godwin Agbroko 

Who Killed Godwin Agbroko?   Ikechukwu Amaechi 

As you are reading this article, it will be four days since the brutal murder of Mr. Godwin Agbroko, veteran journalist and chairman, ThisDay Editorial Board. Having worked so hard for the day, Agbroko reportedly left his Apapa office for home on Friday, December 22 at about 10pm, to spend what remains of the day with his family. Christmas was just three days away and New Year, less than two weeks. Like most people, he had his plans for the remaining part of the year and 2007. But he never made it home. He was felled by assassins’ bullets at the Daleko fly-over, Iyana-Isolo. Within an hour after leaving office, the wife whom he must have called to tell he was on his way home became a widow and his five children, fatherless. The dinner that waited for him on the table would never be eaten. Too early in the day, you would say, to answer the all-important question; who committed this dastardly crime. But I dare make a prediction: Agbroko’s death would be reduced to an argument. In the weeks and months and years to come, the argument would come in different hues – he was killed by armed robbers; no, it was the fatal consequence of a private business relationship gone awry; no, the crime was committed by detractors from his village; no, it was committed by those who had a score to settle with his chairman, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena, and trying so had to get at him without any luck, they went after Agbroko knowing that his death would hurt his organisation; no, his colleagues in the office who coveted his position organised the killing; no, he was the unfortunate victim of miscreants (Area Boys) that are lords of the Mushin-Isolo manor, etc, etc.  

Perhaps, by the time you are reading this article, police would have arrested some of his colleagues in the office. So much noise would be made at

Panti Street

office of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The Commissioner of Police in
Lagos would personally take over the matter. At some point, the Inspector General of Police Sunday Ehindero would abandon the Funsho Williams’ case to take charge of the investigation. In the coming days, there will be a flurry of activities in police circles which will all amount to nothing. Just like the title of the column which one of Agbroko’s children, Rounah maintained in ThisDay while she was still in the university; that is the way the cookie crumbles in
Nigeria.  

At the end of the day, Agbroko would become another footnote in
Nigeria’s criminal history just like Bola Ige, Marshal Harry, A.K Dikibo, Agbeyegbe, Funsho Williams, Ayodeji Daramola, Abubakar Rimi’s wife and a host of others before him and the many more that are sure to come after him. That is the tragedy of our time. The expectation of many on May 29, 1999 when General Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn in as the second executive president of
Nigeria was a future of political stability, economic prosperity and security of lives and property after the days of the locusts.  In answer to our prayers, God in His infinite mercy showered his economic blessings on the nation, providing the leadership the wherewithal with which to translate the expectation of the people into reality.  In eight years,
Nigeria earned more money from crude oil than it had earned at any other time in its 46-year history. Ironically, rather than having “life in abundance,” poverty, misery, wretchedness, gloom and death stalk the land, walking on all fours. 

According to ThisDay report which was quite sketchy on Saturday, a police source that pleaded anonymity insinuated that Agbroko was a victim of armed robbery. According to the “officer,” three policemen and two bystanders were also killed in the area at about the same time Agbroko was killed. The implication of this bit of information is that the same hoodlums who killed him also killed five other people and therefore, his could not have been a premeditated murder. I have a hunch that somebody is deliberately trying to sell a dummy to Nigerians. What is the motive of this “mass murderer” who would kill six people in a row including three policemen? Or was Agbroko a victim of armed robbery which has spiked in recent times? If he was, why didn’t they remove anything from his car? God’s greatest gift to mankind is the gift of life and the most fundamental of all rights is the right to life. That is why the primary responsibility of every government is to ensure that the lives and property of the citizenry are given maximum protection. Life is the fulcrum around which every other thing resolves. Without life, nothing else maters! In other words, the bitter pill that is the gross failure of the Obasanjo government would have been a lot easier to swallow if in spite of the abject poverty and misery that have become the lot of Nigerians in the past eight years, they were sure that baring any extra-ordinary circumstance, a man who leaves his house in the morning would return safely whenever he finishes with the business of the day. A situation where everyone has been forced by the incompetence of the government to believe that each day would be his last, and may in fact be, is the greatest harm Obasanjo has done to this country. 

Except during the 30-month fratricidal war, at no other time in
Nigeria’s history has life been this cheap. Time was when armed robbers would carry out their nefarious trade in the dead of the night, ensuring that their operation never lasted more than 30 minutes. Not anymore. These days, they would lay siege on a neighbourhood for hours on end, daring the police and even the army. The next day, police authorities would praise their men, painting a glowing picture of gallant officers who succeeded in chasing the hoodlums away after several hours of their successful operation without making any arrests. In the month of December alone, armed gangs wreaked havoc in different parts of Lagos and
Ibadan leaving in their trail sorrow, blood and death. Whenever a Nigerian is gruesomely murdered, the police would disingenuously weave in the theory of armed robbery into the plot. Last week, one of the personal aides of Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Umar Pariya, was almost murdered in his
Abuja home. The
Abuja police, even without carrying out a preliminary investigation concluded shamelessly that it was a case of armed robbery as if that makes the crime less grievous and the mind-boggling irresponsibility of the Nigerian state less galling. 

Whether Agbroko was a victim of armed robbery or premeditated murder, the state remains culpable. There is every reason why a vicious and fascist state such as ours would want an influential voice such as Agbroko’s permanently silenced at a time like this. His searing criticism of the folly and shenanigans of the government through his column, This Nation, is enough incentive, given the temperament of this reactionary state. But it is even a bigger indictment if Agbroko was killed by armed robbers because whoever killed him and for whatever reason(s), it is a supreme irony that a man who survived the brutality of the Abacha junta would be so wantonly wasted in a democracy he helped fight the junta to enthrone. Some Nigerians who have embedded themselves in the cocoon of infantile patriotism would raise the point that violent crimes are not the exclusive preserve of
Nigeria and Nigerians. But that argument begs the issue because while it may be true that violent crimes are higher in Europe and
America, no crime goes unpunished in those climes. No matter how long it takes, the long arm of the law will catch up with the real culprits, not hapless people framed up over crimes committed by hoodlums under the protection of the state. 

The case of Chief Bola Ige, former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice remains instructive. Five years after his gruesome murder in his bedroom while he was the country’s chief law officer, the IG said last week as reported in the Punch newspaper that the case was permanently closed, never to be reopened. Yet, the eight people charged with the murder are today walking the streets free men. In fact, one of them Chief Iyiola Omisore “won” election into the Senate while he was still in detention, charged with the murder. So, why would the police close the murder case when the killers of Ige have not been found? Or have the police found out that the former governor of old Oyo
State committed suicide, or in fact died peacefully in his sleep?   The murder of Agbroko hurts because at the end of the day, it will be reduced to infantile argument just like Bola Ige’s case by those whose duty it is to protect us. While the game of obfuscation is going on, the merchants of death would be plotting how to eliminate their next victim. And to imagine that Agbroko devoted his entire adult life rendering service to his fatherland with his pen, striving to create a more humane, just and prosperous society where every man would be able to realise his potentials and actualise himself. See how he has been rewarded.

Q & A

Interview with Mr Chris Owens, Head of Communications, NHS,
Wales

I understand there is shortage of flu vaccine this year?  

No, that is not true. There is no shortage of flu vaccine at all. We did our normal deliveries and this year’s “keep warm, keep well” campaign, which will end soon, is running smoothly.

How come there was a shortage of the vaccine in the clinics most of October and even November?

That is news to me. I am not aware of that. We have not had any complaints here and like I told you, the programme has not had any hitch so far.

The programme is supposed to end this December. How many people have been vaccinated so far?

While it is true that the programme ends officially in December, it is not for us per se to choose a precise date. It is left for the GPs to decide that. There is nothing in the books that says nobody should have his or her flu jab in January. Again, I can’t say precisely how many people have been vaccinated so far because we don’t have the records yet. Of course, you know the programme is still ongoing.

But would you say the programme this year is a success?

Again, it is premature to say it is or that it is not until we get the statistics. But there is nothing so far to suggest that it will be anything less than a success.

What is the vaccine all about and who should be in need of it?

A flu jab’s main purpose is to protect those who are most at risk of developing complications that can result from flu. Those aged 65 or above, should have the vaccination. Again, it is advisable for those with a serious heart problem, asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, long-term kidney or liver disease and even diabetes to have a flu jab. It is also essential for people with weakened immune system and those undergoing certain treatment such as chemotherapy.

Thank you very much for your time.

NHS forestalls flu jab crisis

                For the aged and infirm in
Cardiff, a chilling winter is averted

Mr Gerald Duncan, 67, sat dejectedly in the lobby of The City Surgery on

City Road, Cardiff

, wearing a forlorn look. That was in the afternoon of Thursday, November 23, 2006. He had just missed his flu jab by minutes. “This is the second time I am missing this vaccination and it is very frustrating. I have been coming here since October without any luck,”
Duncan lamented.

 

His experience was not peculiar. Most clinics in
Cardiff had no supply of the flu vaccine in October and some had notices informing patients in need of the vaccination to come back mid-November. When the supplies finally came, they were inadequate, thereby precipitating a rush.  On the day
Duncan missed the vaccination, The City Surgery had a supply of 50 vaccines in the morning, which were used within an hour.

 

In preparation for the winter season, the National Health Service (NHS) flagged off a “keep warm, keep well,” campaign in October, with flu vaccination as an essential element. But the campaign ran into a hitch almost immediately, with a shortage of the vaccine, and for the aged and infirm, the most vulnerable to the influenza, a chilling winter loomed.

 

Pulse magazine, a medical journal, claimed in its November edition that about 15.2 million vaccines should have been in place in October but only nine million had been delivered by the end of that month. Fears of a looming epidemic were exacerbated by the fact that it takes about two weeks after vaccination for the antibodies that provide protection against influenza virus infection to develop in the body.

 

But the looming health crisis seems to have been averted. A visit to some clinics in
Cardiff this week confirmed that most of them now have adequate supply of the vaccine. Hospital sources confirmed that supplies increased exponentially last week of November as a result of complaints to the NHS.

 

However, Mr Chris Owens, spokesperson of the NHS in
Wales debunked the story of flu vaccine shortage. Speaking in a telephone interview, Owens said: “The story that there was shortage of the vaccine in October and November is not true. We had our normal deliveries and I can confirm to you that this year’s ‘keep warm, keep well’ campaign is running smoothly.” But he could neither confirm how many vaccines have so far been supplied, the exact month they were supplied nor the number of people that have so far been vaccinated. “I don’t have the records yet, so I cannot confirm the figures,” he said.

 

Flu is a viral infection that strikes mainly during the winter months. According to Dr Pius Ekemiri, a Nigerian GP resident in
London, the early signs are headache, sore throat, runny nose, aching muscles, fever and shivering. “Flu makes you feel completely exhausted and the extreme fatigue may last for two or three weeks. It can affect people of all ages and the best time to have a flu jab is in the autumn, between late September and early November.”

                                                                                            (500 words)

 

Links

http://www.thecitysurgery.co.uk

http://www.nhsdirect.wales.nhs.uk

http://www.immunisation.nhs.uk

http://www.ombudsman-wales.org.uk

http://www.patienthelp.wales.nhs.uk

Click here for the full interview

History of NHS

Set up on July 5, 1948

1948 to 1957 – Period of teething problems and building of community health centres.

1958 to 1967 – A period when the polio vaccine came in, dialysis for chronic renal failure and chemotherapy for certain cancers were developed.

1968 to 1977 – This was the decade of the GP’s charter which was encouraging the formation of primary health care teams, new group practice premises and a rapid increase in the number of health centres.

1988 to 1997 – The NHS experienced the most significant cultural shift since its inception with the introduction of the so-called internal market, outlined in the 1989 White Paper, Working for Patients, and which passed into law as the NHS and Community Act 1990.

1998 to the present – For the NHS, golden jubilee rightly meant a celebration, a national recognition of 50 years of healthcare for all, regardless of ability to pay.

 

The Future Belongs To Asia (3)

The Future Belongs To Asia (3)

31st October, 2006

Ikechukwu Amaechi, ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com

But like I noted two weeks ago, I don’t blame Mr. President for most of these failings. The fact remains that what it takes to run a 21st century globalised economy with intellectual capital as the cutting edge is well beyond him. So he could as well be a good man, but he lacks the skills and competence to drive this process.

But a much more forward looking leader, in spite of whatever handicaps ought to have realized by now that education holds the key to a prosperous future. Unfortunately, it is the least of the worries of our leaders. All that matter to them is how to maximise power for very selfish ends or to use the words of General Ibrahim Babangida how to prove to all of us that they are not only in government, but also in power.And this is why what I described last week as the dance of shame in Aso Rock is as nauseating as it rankles.

It rankles because I insist for the umpteenth time that it has nothing to do with the welfare of the masses who have never had it so bad. It is the crude supremacy battle of men who see power as an end in itself rather than a means of translating their ennobling vision of improving the lot of the people into reality. What we have witnessed since 1999 is the reckless abuse of power in the promotion of self-centred interests. Whether it was in the unconscionable rigging of the 2003 elections, the political crisis in Anambra and Oyo states, the ongoing political brigandage in Plateau and Ekiti states, the flagrant disregard for rule of law particularly the disobedience of court rulings, contempt for the National Assembly, etc, the whole idea is to convince every Nigerian that we now have a supreme leader who is omnipotent and omniscient.

Even at the risk of being called names or being branded an Atiku apologist, I insist that Obasanjo’s war of attrition against Atiku has nothing to do with war against graft. Could the president have moved against his deputy if the latter had not courageously worked against his life presidency ambition? I doubt! But nothing convinces me that this is a war of vendetta more than the reaction of the President and his minders to the avalanche of evidence being churned out on a daily basis by the Atiku camp to prove that the president’s fingers are also in the corruption pie. As conventional wisdom has it, every bully is a coward at heart.

I am convinced beyond any iota of doubt that if the president knew that Atiku would fight back as ferociously as he has done in the past couple of months or if he knew that Atiku had amassed the tons of incriminating evidence which he is flaunting today to the detriment of the credibility of his traducers, they wouldn’t have moved against him. But it is rather too late because the genie is already out of the bottle. For too long, the president had perfected the art of making his personal wars of supremacy, buoyed by his king-size ego, against real and perceived enemies look like battles fought altruistically for the sake of people.

And for too long the media have bought into this fraud, thinking that by so doing, they were helping to build a wall of defence round the country’s democratic edifice. By so doing, the president has skillfully projected himself as the personification of the country’s democratic ethos and the moral avatar of our time and any attempt to rein in his autocratic tendencies from any quarters was construed as an attempt to scuttle democracy. The result was that in the past seven years, men such as Dr. Chuba Okadigbo were demonised and hounded to their untimely death with the active connivance of the media because they dared to resist the anti-democratic tendencies of Obasanjo. Men of goodwill and impeccable democratic credentials have been sacrificed on the altar of Obasanjo’s invidious politics.

Knowing how indignant Nigerians are on the issue of corruption, the game has always been to label a perceived enemy corrupt and the media would take up the battle from there.In the case of the vice president, that strategy seems to be failing at least for now, hence the resort to intimidation by the president.Let me state once again that I am not defending Atiku on the charges of corruption leveled against him by his principal. If anything, I had believed before now just like so many other Nigerians that Atiku was the most corrupt Nigerian public office holder after General Sani Abacha.

I had believed that he abused his privileged position as chairman of the National Council on Privatisation by converting our national patrimony to his personal estate all in the name of privatisation and I had looked forward to the day he would reap his comeuppance. So when Obasanjo finally showed his hands, I had thought that for Atiku, the game was up, that finally he would be buried in the grave of corruption which he personally dug. I had expected the president to bring to the public domain such damning evidence that would automatically nail the vice president’s coffin. But most ironically, what we have seen so far is an Atiku, the supposed epicetre of corruption effectively taking the battle to the court of ‘Saint’ Obasanjo who surprisingly is hedging and resorting to arm-twisting and intimidation to cow Atiku into silence.Or how else can one explain the arraignment on Tuesday, October 10 before Justice Binta Murtala Nyako of the Federal High Court, Abuja of Mallam Garba Shehu, Atiku’s media consultant on three counts of offences against the Official Secrets Act?

The charges said that Garba, a 46-year old Nigerian “between January 2001 and September 2006, in Abuja and other places in Nigeria within the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court did obtain…reproduce…retain classified matter” which he was not authorised on behalf of the Federal Government so to do and “thereby committed an offence contrary to Section (1)(b) of the Official Secrets Acts, Cap 335, LFN 1990, and punishable under Section 7(1)of the said Official Secrets Act.” Of course, what the government is doing here is the height of political cum judicial subterfuge. Because for somebody’s action to infract on the Official Secrets Act, the information so made public must be “classified matter.” The same Act went on to define what a classified matter in this context means as an “information or thing which, under any system of security classification, from time to time, in use by any branch of the government, is not to be disclosed to the public and of which the disclosure to the public would be prejudicial to the security of Nigeria.”So, how would the disclosures made by the Atiku Campaign Organisation headed by Garba that the president may not after all be above board on the issue of corruption prejudice national security?

For instance, how could the disclosure that our president dips his hand into our common till to buy state-of-the-art cars for lady friends who may be rich enough to buy such cars themselves rather than giving scholarship to indigent but gifted students constitute a threat to national security? Rather than trying to silence Garba by waving the judicial banner, shouldn’t the president use the opportunity provided by the National Assembly to prove that Atiku is not only congenitally corrupt but also a pathological liar? Why is the president having goose pimples at the prospects of appearing before the National Assembly to give account of his stewardship particularly in the oil sector where he has been the sole supervisory authority in the past seven and half years? What did the president expect when he moved against Atiku? That the latter would keep quiet and be led to the slaughter house without fighting back? That is the height of hallucination.

The facts in the public domain since this dog fight reached its denouement have proved beyond reasonable doubt that those who are ruling us have no iota of respect for us. They are not there to promote public good. All that matters to them is power and the narrow interests it serves. To them what matters is today. While leaders of other forward looking nations think of tomorrow and by so doing invest on their citizens so as to reap the intellectual capital that Emeagwali is talking about, an investment that guarantees a rosier tomorrow for their people, our own leaders with their tunnel vision think of self, how acquire power, consolidate it and sustain themselves in power, how to ward off opposition and how to loot the economy. While other nations are investing in the education of their citizenry, our own leaders are busy ensuring that our people remain stagnated so as not to rise up and question the atrocities they are committing all in the name of power. What a pity!And that is why I insist that 2007 belongs to the people. Come next year, Nigerians must be able to decide who governs them. Part of the reason for the level of impunity and contempt exhibited by our so-called leaders towards us since 1999 is the fact that many of them occupy their lofty positions without our mandate.

To them therefore, they owe us no obligation. There must be a paradigm shift in 2007. That is the only way we can retrieve the soul of this nation from this army of occupation. As Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okojie, the Catholic Archbishop of Lagos noted on Friday, October 13, 2006 at the seventh annual Samuel Odunaike memorial lecture, it was the sheer determination of Nigerians that terminated the third term agenda. Such grit should be demonstrated in the quest for a successful transition in 2007. Nigerians must ensure that the president’s plot to foist a successor on us must be resisted. Obasanjo must be told in unmistaken terms that no man, no matter how powerful ever triumphs over the collective will of the people. He cannot be any different.

My Take On The Anambra Impeachment Saga

My Take On The Anambra Impeachment Saga

24th October, 2006

Ikechukwu Amaechi, ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com

On Saturday September 30, 2006, at about 9 am, I received a telephone call from one of my most reliable sources in all my years as a journalist. I privately call him my own Deep Throat. And what did he say? Anambra State House of Assembly had concluded plans to impeach Peter Obi.

 

I never had any cause to doubt him in the past but I was quite sceptical about this particular story because it didn’t add up. In the first place, Obi was barely six months in office and the 2007 elections are less than seven months away. So, why would anybody want to precipitate another round of political crisis in Anambra? Again, members of the House have had a cordial working relationship with Obi or so it seemed, so what had gone wrong?

 

Again, given the dynamics of what I will call impeachment politics in this era, allegations of corruption against a public office holder particularly a governor and their proof? (real or manufactured) by the EFCC are two of the three legs on which any impeachment move must stand. Of course, the last leg which is actually the first and most important is that the man to be sent to the impeachment guillotine must be in the bad book of President Olusegun Obasanjo who must stamp his seal of approval on the impeachment plot for it to see the light of the day.

Peter Obi has not broken any of these rules, so why impeach him? When Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria’s anti-corruption czar presented his rather hyperbolic evidence of corruption against state governors in the Senate, Obi was one of the few he gave a clean bill of health. In fact, neither his wife, children, father, mother nor siblings are presently under probe.

Again, the governor has gone out of his way to ensure that there is a good working relationship between him and the god of Aso Rock, even at great political cost back home. Most of those who dismiss him as being weak believe and I would say rightly so that the President was part of the numerous problems that had wreaked havoc on the state since 1999.

Dr. Chris Ngige became a folk hero not necessarily because of his spectacular achievements in office but because he was able to withstand the forces of darkness many believed were unleashed on Anambra by Obasanjo to ensure that the state perpetually plumbed the depths of retrogression. So they had expected Obi to continue the battle against these forces from where Ngige stopped. Obi thought otherwise. He wormed up to Obasanjo instead, leaving no one in doubt that he was in no mood for a fight with Abuja. It was because of that that the president had agreed to pay a state visit to Anambra, the second time he would do so in seven and half years.

He visited once in the four years when Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju held sway and avoided the state like a plague during Ngige’s tenure. For this visit, Obi had made all preparations, pleading with very reluctant Anambrarians to come out en masse and give him a resounding welcome.So, why would the House impeach a governor who has not breached any of the impeachment laws (written and unwritten)? Deep Throat told me that Obi would be impeached not because of any infraction of the constitution or any crime he has committed against his people but because both Obasanjo and the PDP apparatchik were behind the plot.

Obasanjo had made a promise to his special assistant on domestic matters, Dr. Andy Ubah to hand Anambra over to him as a parting gift in 2007 for being a faithful and trusted aide. But there is the fear that if Obi was allowed to remain in office till the time of the elections, he may maximise the incumbency factor to win a re-election. In order not to risk that, he must be impeached by the PDP dominated House.

In his stead, the deputy governor, Dame Virgy Etiaba, in her sixties who had already given her word not to re-contest would become governor. The Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mike Balonwu was promised the deputy governorship position under Andy Uba and most members of the House were promised tickets to the House of Representatives. Besides, to start with huge sums of money exchanged hands between those behind the plot and those they intend to use to execute the plot.After he finished his narration, I immediately called another reliable PDP source who confirmed the story wondering how I got the information since it was a top PDP secret which was intended to remain so until the House which was then on break resumed sitting. In their calculation, surprise would be the linchpin that would pull off the coup.

He confirmed that both Obasanjo and the PDP leadership hatched the obnoxious plot and that there was nothing anybody could do about it. To emphasise how far they have gone with the plot, he said that Ubah would be paying a courtesy call on Dr. Alex Ekwueme that day in Okoh and that the only All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) female member of the House would declare for the PDP at the event.I called Remi Oyo, Obasanjo’s media aide with the intent of confronting her with the story but her line was switched off.

I didn’t have Mike Balonwu’s phone number but I called one of our correspondents in Awka, Chukwujekwu Ilozue to follow the story up. I had barely finished debriefing him when he shouted, that explains it. He was actually in Okoh at Ekwueme’s residence waiting for the arrival of Ubah at the time I called. He had actually exchanged pleasantries with the APGA female member of the House about ten minutes before my call. He noticed that the woman was rather visible and upbeat about Ubah’s visit and he was wondering what an APGA member would be doing in a PDP event. The information I gave him solved the riddle. I told him to go after the woman. Thirty minutes later he called me to say the story was true. The woman admitted that she was there to declare for the PDP, claiming that APGA was crisis-ridden. Not only that, Ilozue said Okey Maduforo, our other correspondent in Awka whom he had told I called confronted a prominent PDP member of the House with the story and he admitted that they had concluded plans to impeach Obi and were only waiting for their resumption to swing into action. He ,however, said that the House moved against the governor because the latter wrote a petition against them to the EFCC, a crime which he said was unpardonable.

I called Peter Obi repeatedly but his line was busy. I called his Chief Press Secretary, Mike Mdah who was surprised that the House could be contemplating impeaching the governor but added that it was not true that Obi wrote any petition against them.Having tied up all the angles to the story, I broke the news on the front page of Sunday Independent of October 1 (second edition). A worried Governor Obi confronted Obasanjo with the story in Abuja and expectedly he denied it.

How did I know? Obasanjo himself told the world at the reception in his honour during his two-day visit that a newspaper had carried the story of his plot to impeach Obi and that when Obi came to Abuja to see him over the story, he assured him that he was not in the business of impeaching governors and that Obi should go back and do his work assuring that as long as he provided good leadership, nothing would happen to his seat.This is inspite of the fact that the House raised a rather curious motion during his visit urging him to release Ubah to them so that he would contest for the governorship.

Barely one week after Obasanjo made this public declaration, the House did exactly that which Obasanjo assured they would not do. They moved an impeachment motion against Peter Obi and relocated to Asaba. PDP leadership and of course Obasanjo had since dissociated themselves from the plot. Col. Ahmadu Ali, the party’s chairman and Commodore Bode George started their shuttle diplomacy, first visiting the lawmakers in their hideout in Asaba and Obi in Awka, according to them, to broker peace. The lawmakers were reportedly intransigent, vowing that nothing would halt the impeachment move.

PDP had set up a committee headed by Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu to reconcile the lawmakers to Obi and the waiting game continues. But anybody who is conversant with the operations of the new PDP and in fact the new Nigeria where Obasanjo, to use the words of his state governor, Gbenga Daniel is next to God will agree that what the president and PDP leadership are telling us are the axiomatic cock and bull stories.

The House could not have summoned the courage to go ahead with the impeachment and are still remaining adamant if Obasanjo was not behind it.What is happening now is that having watched the Ekiti drama go awry when rather than impeach Fayose and hand over power to his deputy Biodun Olujimi as directed by the president, the Speaker upstaged the applecart by impeaching both and declaring himself governor, the powers that be in Abuja panicked that the Anambra saga may be going the same way when the House rather than moving for the impeachment of only Obi as directed included the deputy, clearing the coast for Balonwu.

So the PDP intervention was not to save Obi but to ensure that when and not if he is impeached, the desired outcome would be achieved.I have told this rather long story to underscore a point I have consistently made here. Obasanjo has never and can never be a man to be trusted, so also the Ahmadu Ali-led PDP which he has moulded in his own image. Peter Obi, Anambrarians and indeed the entire Igbo race to whom this impeachment if it is allowed to sail through would be the final humiliation would believe otherwise at the own peril.

Corruption: Obsanjo Is Also In The Dock

Corruption: Obasanjo Is Also In The Dock

26th September, 2006

Ikechukwu Amaechi, Ikechukwu amaechi@yahoo.com

I am surprised that some Nigerians seem to be aghast and horror-struck at the revelations that have been made in recent weeks since the smouldering feud between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar reached its denouement.

The question I have heard not a few people ask in the past three weeks is if indeed it is true that President Obasanjo to whom the so-called fight against corruption has become an official mantra could also have both his hands and feet in the corruption pie as Atiku is alleging.My answer to this all-important question is; read the lips of government.

It is instructive that Obasanjo’s aides are not denying the allegations. Of course, this is because there is nothing to deny. The evidences are rather too overwhelming. Instead, they are trying to be clever by half by insisting that it is the vice president that is in the dock. That could as well be true. But does that fact mitigate the president’s culpability? Does the fact that the Mallam Nuhu Ribadu-led Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) decided to play the ostrich by ignoring the documented evidence of graft amassed against the president exonerate him?

One would have thought that for a regime as sanctimonious as Obasanjo’s, evidence would have been readily provided that the damaging allegations from Atiku are nothing other than a smear campaign embarked upon by a drowning man who would want other people to go down with him. But are they? I have a hunch they are not. That is why President Obasanjo is making no attempt at defending himself because there is nothing to defend. The first and last attempt made by Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, the president’s media aide to defend her boss over his role in the controversial N100 million donated by Joshua Dariye, Plateau State governor to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) only exposed the huge fraud that Obasanjo’s fight against corruption is.

Oyo’s inane defence only succeeded in exposing the president for what he is, a hypocrite.What this fight in the presidency which has nothing to do with improving the lot of long suffering Nigerians has done is to bring to the fore the sickening duplicity and two-facedness of the man who superintends over the affairs of this beleaguered nation.

If we take the Governor Joshua Dariye ill-advised N100 million donation to the PDP for instance, why on earth would a president who has reaped so much undeserved political capital from his deceitful fight against corruption connive with a vice president on whose trail the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was to cover up a crime committed against the state? Because by agreeing to clandestinely, as Mrs. Oyo admitted, help Atiku to cover up a fraudulent act which Ribadu, the “anti-corruption czar” is already investigating to the knowledge of the same president, then Obasanjo is as guilty, if not guiltier than Atiku if nothing else for deliberately obstructing and perverting the cause of justice.

But anybody who knows Mr. President well will attest to the fact that he is not one to suffer fools gladly particularly when those fools are his enemies (real or imagined). It is not in Obasanjo’s character to be so magnanimous even to friends, not to talk of an enemy whose back was already on the wall. The natural instinct would have been to finish off Atiku once and for all.

Did the president lie to the nation? Time will tell.The question that many have also asked in recent times is; if Obasanjo knew that he is as guilty as Atiku, why embark on this tortoise-like adventure from which it has become obvious that he cannot return until he is thoroughly disgraced? Put differently, if Mr. President knew that his cupboard was bristling with putrid smelling skeletons, why did he in the manner of the proverbial Nza bird challenge his god to a wrestling contest? Why would he cut his nose in order to spite his face?I can hazard two guesses.

First, Obasanjo has been taken hostage by a bunch of self-seeking ego massagers who have made him to believe that in a presidential system of government, the chief executive has such awesome powers that he is not only the state writ large, he is law unto himself. He was goaded by these rabble-rousers into waging this war that has eroded whatever is left of his credibility after the third term debacle.But beyond that, I see the mighty hand of God intervening again most decisively in the life of this nation. Like I wrote in this same column on August 15, 2006, this fight between Obasanjo, Atiku and to some extent Babangida is heavenly inspired. For too long, we have all been taken for a ride in this country by men of power who have no scruples and this is why Nigerians must insist that whoever is indicted in this matter must face the wrath of the law.

Here, the National Assembly rather than the EFCC, which has not hidden its bias, must thoroughly investigate this dance of shame, which has completely ridiculed
Nigeria in the comity of nations.It is sad that even at this crossroads of perfidy, some people are trying to burnish the president’s image. As far as I am concerned, Obasanjo has lost the moral high ground and is in no position to pontificate. To therefore insinuate as some public commentators are doing that Atiku should be dealt with now while the next government will deal with Obasanjo is the height of dishonesty. Such subterfuge can never be in the interest of this country.As far as I am concerned, Obasanjo rather than Atiku is the main issue in this graft probe and no one should make the mistake of thinking otherwise.

Dealing with Atiku and leaving Obasanjo to go scot-free in this matter will tantamount to pouring petrol on a pick pocket and setting him ablaze while giving an armed robber a slap on the wrist. Why do I say so? For seven years, Atiku has been portrayed as the most corrupt public official that Nigeria ever had. Nigerians have come to accept the story that as chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, the vice president abused his privileged position by converting the people’s patrimony to his personal wealth. Till date, there is no evidence to incriminate Atiku on that score. Instead, it has been proved that it is Obasanjo that partly owns Transcorp, a company that is buying up Nigeria.In any case, why would anybody who means well for Nigeria insist that Atiku must be prosecuted because his ABTI University received money from the slush Marine Float Account fund while Obasanjo whose Bells University also benefited from same be overlooked?

To be so infected with the Atiku-must-be-nailed virus, which seems to have become an epidemic in certain quarters is to completely miss the point. The issue is that both Obasanjo and Atiku have betrayed the public trust and must be sanctioned according to the laws of the land. If this were to be a society where leaders have qualms and value their integrity, the president in the face of these sordid revelations that increasingly question his credibility would have tendered his resignation after apologising profusely to bewildered Nigerians for gross betrayal of public trust.

If he does that today, he will automatically put Atiku on the spot and the vice president would not have any excuse but to also tender his resignation or be impeached. But of course, Mr. President does not harbour such thoughts because the war is about self and has absolutely nothing to do with the promotion of public good.Another issue, which this crisis particularly the disbursement of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund has brought to the fore is the fact that
Nigeria is a country of rent seekers, a country peopled by idle men and women who live solely on government patronage.It is interesting to note that Dr. Ahmadu Ali, chairman of the PDP received a N5 million donation from the PTDF. It goes without saying that that donation violated public funds expenditure guidelines. But it will be naÔve to assume that he is the only one. Which is why the challenge by Atiku that EFCC should publish the transactions in the Marine Float Account for Nigerians to see must be supported by all well-meaning citizens.

Beyond that, Nigerians must insist in knowing who and who got donations from the PTDF and for what reason(s). Was the Fund set up to finance private causes? How many of our big men got donations from the Fund to marry new wives and take new chieftaincy titles?If the EFCC wants to be seen as a credible organisation that is indeed waging war against corruption, it should take up that challenge. Perhaps Ribadu does not know but the fact remains that he is squandering the goodwill he has built in the past three years at such an alarming rate. Which is indeed sad because deep down, I think he still means well. He cannot afford to sacrifice his hard won reputation on the alter of political expediency.

The Ayo Fayose Mistake

The “Ayo Fayose Mistake”

Many Nigerians continue to lament what they call the deficiencies of the 1999 Constitution, which to them have made the document a recipe for disaster. Correct as such perception might be, it is, to my mind disingenuous for anyone to blame solely the constitution for the many problems bedevilling Nigeria today. Yes, Nigeria as a country could do with a less deficient constitution. But then, however deficient it is, our problems since the inception of this failing (if not already failed) attempt at democratic rule has more to do with the managers, if you like, operators of the constitution than with the document itself.

No constitution anywhere in the world is a perfect document. Not even the US constitution that has been in existence since its adoption in 1789 with its original seven articles and 26 amendments since then. That is why every constitution makes room for its own amendment. But even if we agree for the sake of argument that some countries have constitutions handed down to them from heaven, such constitutions would still produce disastrous results like the ones confronting us now if they are managed by the same kind of people, with the same mindset.

Constitutions could be written or unwritten. Whichever is the case, the fundamental underpinning of every constitution is that it outlines the basic laws or principles by which a country is governed. Every constitution essentially is the document or statute setting out the fundamental laws or bylaws of a country. And the difference between lawless and lawful societies is the extent to which those saddled with the responsibility of implementing the constitution do so faithfully in spite of what their self- interests are. In fact, what has happened in Nigeria since 1999 is that a cabal has thrown overboard the country’s grundnorm and are ruling with a set of rules which only they can understand and interpret.

When the Attorney General and Minister of Justice of a country begins to interpret the constitution not from the point of view of law but political exigency, then there is trouble. When the state starts treating the pronouncements of the courts (the only arm of government mandated to interpret the constitution) with contempt, then danger is lurking. When individuals not only swear that court judgements would only be implemented over their dead bodies but go out of their way to instigate crisis, killing and maiming innocent citizens in the process as Chief Lamidi Adedibu is doing in Ibadan, with the state playing the ostrich, it is a danger signal.

I have argued consistently on this page that we are not building a lawful society. If anything, we have worked so hard in the past seven and half years to erect the building blocks of
Nigeria’s democratic edifice on the foundation of fraud and deceit. It is hypocritical for anyone to expect that such a structure will stand.  

Sadly, even if President Olusegun Obasanjo manages as long as he remains in power to sustain the system which he has erected outside the laws of the country, it will still unravel sooner or later. It happened in Mobutu Sese Seko’s Congo, in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Houiphet Boigny’s
Ivory Coast, etc. And nobody should make any mistake about it; Obasanjo will one day, even if he succeeds in transmuting into the country’s first life president next year, cease being
Nigeria’s head of state.

Nigeria remains mired in this morass it has found itself since independence because we have refused to learn from the mistakes of other countries or even from our own mistakes. We are too arrogant to acknowledge our own failures and retrace our steps foe fear of being considered weak even when we know we are mere mortals that are fallible. The same hubris that has left George Bush’s America stuck in Iraq is holding our country hostage.

President Obasanjo was quoted as saying in  Ekiti State recently that his party, the PDP made a mistake in former Governor Ayo Fayose. “Bringing the governor in the first instance was a mistake but when we allow the mistakes to be repeated is the danger.” It may well be true that Fayose was a mistake but is the president and his party of garrison commanders doing anything to avert such mistakes in the future? The answer is a categorical no. And as the president acknowledged, that is the danger staring us in the face not only in 2007 but even beyond. But the president knows the truth which is that he is solely culpable for the so-called “Ayo Fayose mistake.” He knows that the mistake stemmed from the fact that Fayose’s emergence as a governor was the decision of a cabal, solely answerable to him; a cabal that took it upon itself to foist Fayose on Ekiti State rather than allow the people who should have made the ultimate choice in a democracy to do so. Fayose was not alone. I have argued severally on this page that many of those we are spending scarce government resources probing for one official misdemeanour or another today are men and women who would not have won election if the people were allowed to make the choice in 2003. We could have saved ourselves the inconveniences. Majority of those in positions of authority today were imposed on the people on whose behalf they claim to be exercising power.

Having acknowledged the dangers inherent in the very negative attitude of a cabal arrogating to itself the powers of choosing for the people their leaders instead of allowing them to exercise their right of franchise, one would have expected that the president would give democracy a shot in the arm by loosening his grip on the process that throws up leaders. But to so believe would amount to a gross misreading of the real meaning of Obasanjo’s Ekiti sermon because there is nothing he has done in recent times that should give anybody the confidence that he has realised his mistakes and is prepared to make amends.

Instead, as the president was grandstanding in Ado Ekiti, he was at the same time busy entrenching the Ayo Fayose mistake from Oyo State to Anambra. The same 2003 scenario that threw up the characters who Obasanjo is today bemoaning is playing itself out. Rather than convince the people on why they should elect them as their representatives next year, almost everybody from councillorship aspirants to the so-called presidential aspirants are looking up to Aso Rock for victory. Rather than signing their social contract with the people, whose mandate they need in a normal situation to win elections, they would rather sign it with the president. Why won’t we continue to make the Ayo Fayose mistake? 

Democracy is touted as the best form of government because it gives the people the opportunity to choose their leaders and provides for checks and balances. On these two fundamental elements, Nigeria’s home grown democracy is very deficient. Nigerians have been completely shut out of the decision making process in terms of who represents them at all levels of government. In the same vein, we have only one arm of government (the executive) now in
Nigeria instead of three. The other two (legislature and judiciary) have effectively become mere appendages to the executive.

Concentrating such powers in the hands of only one man, even if he is an Angel is very unhealthy for any polity. Unfortunately for us, Angels are known to live in heaven, not among men and certainly not in Nigeria.    

Corruption: Head Or Tail, Governors Lose

Corruption: Head Or Tail, Governors Lose 

Let me state from the onset what this article is not about. It is not a defence of our hapless state governors who are becoming increasingly embattled as a result of the Federal Government’s “war” on corruption. This caveat is necessary because I believe that some of them have actually committed economic and political crimes, which in saner societies should attract life imprisonment.  So, one could easily understand the sentiment in certain quarters that the gale of impeachments sweeping across the land now is a well-deserved albeit long overdue comeuppance. But to treat the impunity and corruption at the state level in isolation to what obtains at the federal level, which is what the Nuhu Ribadu-led Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is currently doing smacks of hypocrisy. But this is a topic for another day. 

This article was informed by the concluding comments of Dr. Edwin Madunagu, the iconic activist in his article in The Guardian of November 9, 2006, titled “Perspectives and projections.” Hear him: “We must not mistake an extremely exploitative and enslaving economic and socio-political system for the massive corruption within it. To put the matter strongly: Corruption is the lubricant of this system. Without corruption, the elaborate system we are now running will make no sense, without corruption, the engine of the system will “knock.”What Dr. Madunagu is saying, simply put is that corruption in
Nigeria is systemic and runs deep not only at the state and local levels but also at the federal level. 

And from this, I make two personal submissions. The fact that the anti-corruption agencies, especially the EFCC do not have the political will to do at the centre what they are doing at the level of the federating units does not mean that governors are more corrupt than those who make authoritative allocation of values at the centre.  Secondly, this war against corruption, desirable as it may be is not waged so that the wretched lot of the masses could be improved. It is all part of the vicious struggle for power come 2007. Granted, some have argued that if in the process of decimating themselves, the ghost of corruption is exorcised from the body-politic, so be it. No well-meaning
Nigeria would argue with this sentiment because it goes without saying that corruption is at the root of most, if not all our problems. But I am afraid Nigeria will not be a better country come 2007 in spite of this so-called anti-corruption war because there is no war in the first place; it is all about vendetta and struggle for power. And by remaining passive on-lookers, Nigerians are not helping matters. 

In fact, it is this passivity that enamours corruption. How do I mean? Look at it this way.
Nigeria is a country where people believe that the wealth of the state belongs not to them but to those in government. Thus, our patrimony belongs to President Obasanjo while the resources of the states belong to the governors. It is this warped reasoning that informs the unbearable pressure that is often times mounted on these officials by rent seekers. This pressure comes from, but is not limited to political godfathers, party officials and legislators and refusal to oblige them in some cases could have serious political implications.  At the federal level, the president has been able to curtail this pressure particularly since his second term primarily because he now has total control of the state’s coercive instruments. Rather than being blackmailed by rent seekers, he is now the one that is using the resources of the state to blackmail, intimidate, coerce and corrupt both political friends and foes depending on the particular goal he aims to achieve. The governors do not have such leverage.  

Many of the so-called big men in Nigeria are indeed idlers who live only on government patronage. Any governor who does not want his government disrupted must not only “settle” members of the state House of Assembly but pay monthly stipend to both the state’s “political timbers and calibres” (apologies to Dr K.0 Mbadiwe) and party officials (state and national). This is beside the fact that every state governor automatically becomes the major financier of his political party. Or is anybody still under the illusion that it was only Joshua Dariye that “donated” N100m to PDP for the 2003 elections? If he is not, then, why is nobody talking about the other donations? When Chief Chekwas Okorie takes umbrage at Mr. Peter Obi for not representing the interest of APGA while in government, he is saying nothing other than the fact that Obi didn’t give him and the party a blank cheque to cash from the Anambra State treasury. And that brings me to the core of this article, which is Madunagu’s assertion that corruption is the lubricant of the Nigerian system. The five impeachments we have witnessed so far have all been linked to corruption one way or the other. Ironically, even those who have resisted its snares have also been sent to the impeachment guillotine. Rasheed Ladoja was impeached despite the fact that he refused to sign out the state’s patrimony to Lamidu Adedibu and his cohorts. Obi suffered the same fate because he refused to deploy the state resources in buying off the political hounds baying for his blood. Both were labelled penny pinchers. On the other hand, Alao-Akala has even been promised a return ticket as “governor” of  Oyo State because he has effectively handed over the state treasury to Adedibu. I laugh whenever Nigerians label the governors corrupt people who deserve to be strung on the pole while at the same time criticising the likes of Ladoja and Obi as deserving of the fate that befell them because they don’t know what it takes to be politicians in Nigeria. The implication is that head or tail, the governors are bound to lose because this war has nothing to do with corruption. If a governor is evidently corrupt but aligns himself with what Madunagu calls the “current ruling block in
Nigeria,” his sins remain covered and EFCC looks the other way. If on the other hand a governor is corrupt but at the same time aligns himself with tendencies opposed to the ruling block, his sins are exposed, and EFCC is unleashed on him, not because of corruption but because he is on the wrong side of the political divide. This is what has happened to Dariye, Fayose and Alamieyeseigha. 

To make matters worse, even if a governor is above board but is perceived as somebody who may not easily lend himself to helping in the accomplishment of the questionable goals of the ruling block, he is impeached all the same. And how is this accomplished? The ruling power block uses the same corruptive instruments which the governor repudiated and for which he ought to be given a gold medal to induce the state lawmakers and the local godfathers like Adedibu to effect the impeachment. That is what happened to Ladoja and Obi. In a sense therefore, nobody is fighting corruption. What is going on is vicious power struggle among factions of the ruling elite with governors as fall guys. 

Using My Name To Fleece Nigerians Ikechukwu, I guess you are enjoying your stay at
Cardiff. I don’t know if you still remember me but I once wrote to commend your article on an issue related to the kind of ruler
Nigeria needs, a feedback which you published the following week with my telephone number.  

However, that has got me into trouble. Someone has been calling me for more than one month now claiming to be you! Surprised? It didn’t end there. The guy told me to buy credit cards for him. I fell for it the first time because I was so embarrassed to hear that the great writer Ikechukwu would request as a matter of urgency recharge cards because of a peculiar situation he found himself. My response was immediate that day. However, I got curious when he kept demanding for more credit cards. At that point, I refused picking his calls despite numerous flashes. 

Luck ran out on him when I read an article of yours which suggested that you are now in
Cardiff for a course. A week later, the fake Ikechukwu flashed again and this time, I called back and asked after his work and whereabouts. He told me he was in Lagos and working pretty hard. As I write, he doesn’t know that I am already onto his game. I will warn him off but I fear he might have damaged your reputation with several people by demanding credit cards, thereby making you look cheap. I still have his number and should you decide to contact the police to track him down, I can hold back from calling and abusing him. But like I said, it is your name and reputation that need cleaning up.-pius.a.isume@exxonmobil.com 

I got this e-mail from a fan, Pius Isume who works with Exxon-Mobil. I remember speaking with him once. He sent a rejoinder to a piece I wrote on leadership, which was so well-informed that I not only published it but had about ten minutes discussion with him on phone. But that was the first and last time we spoke until I got his mail last Tuesday. The GSM line with which this fellow is fleecing people in my name is 08063610652. I wish the police could track him down and punish him deservedly. 

I thanked Pius for alerting me and apologised for the sad experience since the guy got his telephone number through my column. I just hope his e-mail address which I have used here won’t open for him a floodgate of 419 letters such as I receive everyday.   But while I sympathise with all those who may have fallen for this scam, innocently thinking that they were indeed bailing me out of a precarious financial position, let me state unequivocally that it is not in my character to be so beggarly and the calls are definitely not from me. Anyone who gets such calls should alert the police immediately so as to get the criminals behind this scam arrested.