One of the continuing challenges posed by unprecedented urbanization in developing countries, including Nigeria, is the provision of adequate and affordable housing. Over the last three decades, Nigeria, like several developing countries, has emphasised public housing schemes, but with little success (Ogu and Ogbuozobe, 2001)
According to the 2006 Census, (please note that this particular population census efforts are very challenging due to several social cultural problems) Nigeria has a population of over 140 million people, and working with this figure, providing adequate and affordable housing in Nigeria is definitely an issue of dire national importance. The housing-for-all program initiated during previous military regimes fell far short of target, but at least ignited the current awareness and modern mortgage industry in Nigeria.
Going by the estimates of the Federal Housing Authority, new housing construction in Nigeria is about 10,000 units a year. To meet ever-growing demand, the country needs ten times more or at least 100,000 new housing units annually. Existing housing stock in Nigeria is so dismal, yet studies show a direct correlation between affordable housing and better living standard. Recent pronouncement by the Institute of Architects that Nigeria could achieve a housing target of 40,000 units annually is quite realistic, but actualisation of this goal is another matter, (Peterside, 2005) what with a seeming lack of willingness by the government agencies in charge of housing to tackle this problem as well as politicisation of housing.
Nigeria’s housing needs have been high as a result of population growth, which has averaged 3.0 per cent per annum, rapid urbanisation due to rural-urban migration, the high cost of building materials, ineffective and insincere housing policies, etc.
Nigeria’s drive toward “housing for all”, as contained in the National Housing Policy, which aims at providing affordable housing for all, has so far been what it is – all on paper and no serious effort, deliberately or otherwise, at implementation and continues to be an illusion and a frustration to the larger population. Successive efforts to meet every set target have failed as housing deficit now stands at over 16 million units in Nigeria. (Peterside, 2003) The target date for accomplishing the “housing for all” goal was 2000 – almost nine years ago, and while the objective has not changed, a new deadline for accomplishing this national objective has not been set, despite its inclusion in President Yar A’dua’s 7-point agenda.
As with almost every other developmental sector in Nigeria, the outlay on housing has been rather low, and does not seem to warrant the priority it demands. Most urban dwellers in Nigeria today live in dilapidated houses lacking basic amenities, unsanitary conditions or running water. In fact, most urban areas are the worse for wear as far as infrastructure and housing are concerned, and this mostly due to our notorious maintenance culture or lack of it. Estimates show that Nigeria needs an average of 1 million housing units per year not only to replenish decaying housing stock, but also to meet rising demand. (Peterside, 2005)
The problem of affordable housing in Nigeria is further exacerbated by the constraints imposed by the Land Use Act, a moribund and repressive Act that hinders mortgage financing and creates enormous obstacles to private sector involvement in the housing industry and which has constrained the transfer of titles and made mortgage finance extremely difficult. As a result of the Land Use Act, obtaining a Certificate of Occupancy (popularly known as C of O) has become a big time avenue for large scale corruption. Ask anybody in Nigeria today, and they will tell you that it is impossible to attempt to legally obtain a C of O for a land you have just bought, without bribing several officials in the states’ ministries of Lands and Housing, often with very large amounts of money.
Also the present “dinosauric" land registration system in Nigeria was instituted by the British well before the nation attained independence, and may well have been in place since the late 1800, thus literally restricting land title registration and other allied processes to the prehistoric era. This was actually recognized by a former Minister of housing, Olusegun Mimiko, during the Obasanjo Administration.
With a population estimated at over 140 million and rising, it is practically impossible to provide affordable housing for middle and low income Nigerians who constitute the bulk of the population, without a viable long-term mortgage lending scheme and a review of the Land Use Act. Long-term financing - mortgage financing and mortgage-backed securities - do not exist in Nigeria at the moment or exist in the rudimentary state at best. At present, a typical home buyer will have to make a down payment that range between 20% to 50% of the purchase price and then pay off the loan balance within 5 years.
Traditionally, both federal and state governments, and even parastatals have dabbled into providing low cost housing for citizens with limited success, and this is largely because of the half-hearted, politicised approach to doing things. In fact, most schemes to build low-cost houses for Nigerians were initiated during military regimes. During our several democratic experiments, politicians have often played politics with housing delivery, and hence all had been doomed to failure on a large scale.
Every Nigerian deserves a decent and affordable housing, what with the vast wealth of the country and unprecedented pace of urbanization in the last three decades. Urban population today stands at 60-70%. With such an alarming growth rate, major cities like Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Onitsha, Aba, Ibadan, etc, are groaning under the weight of unfettered agglomeration. (Peterside, 2003). The consequences of this are apparent, and without affordable housing, the provision of other amenities is greatly at risk.
However, while the phrase “affordable housing” has been bandied about in recent times, it is instructive to point out that we seem to have rather missed the point. Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to a group of people within a specified income range. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the concept is applicable to both renters and purchasers in all income ranges. In the United States and Canada, a commonly accepted guideline for housing affordability is a housing cost that does not exceed 30% of a household's gross income. Housing costs considered in this guideline generally include taxes and insurance for owners, and usually include utility costs. When the monthly carrying costs of a home exceed 30–35% of household income, then the housing is considered unaffordable for that household.
The United Kingdom has a long tradition of promoting affordable social rented housing. (Please note the inclusion of the phrase “social rented housing”, as this is a different term from “affordable, but are often used interchangeably in housing management) This may be owned by local councils or housing associations. There are also a range of affordable home ownership options, including shared ownership (where a tenant rents part share in the property from a social landlord, and owns the remainder). The UK government has also attempted to promote the supply of owner occupied affordable stock for purchase, principally by using the land-use planning system to require that housing developers provide a proportion of lower cost housing within new developments. This approach is commonly known as inclusionary zoning.
A high proportion of homes in the UK were previously council-owned, but the numbers have been reduced since the early 1980s due to initiatives of the Thatcher government that restricted council housing construction and provided financial and policy support to other forms social housing. In 1980, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher introduced the “Right to Buy” scheme, offering council tenants the opportunity to purchase their housing at a discount of up to 60% (70% on leasehold homes such as flats). Alongside “Right to Buy”, council-owned stock was further diminished as properties were transferred to housing associations.
In the UK, housing associations are not-for-profit organisations with a history that goes back before the start of the 20th century. The number of homes under their ownership grew significantly from the 1980s as successive governments sought to make them the principal form of social housing, in preference to local authorities. Many of the homes previously under the ownership of local authorities have been transferred newly established housing associations, including some of the largest in the country. Despite being not-for-profit organisations, housing association rents are typically higher than for council housing. Renting a home through a housing association can in some circumstances prove costlier than purchasing a similar property through a mortgage.
All major housing associations are registered with the Housing Corporation, which regulates them and provides grants for development. Housing associations that are registered with the Corporation are also known as Registered Social Landlords. More recently the government refers to both as 'Social Housing'. The Department for Communities and Local Government has responsibility for housing in England. In January 2007 it announced a planned merger between the Housing Corporation and regeneration body English Partnerships to create the Homes and Communities Agency (initially announced as "Communities England"). This has now taken effect in November 2008. This new body is likely to have access to more than £4 billion in resources.
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by not-for-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing. The common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing. In the United Kingdom public housing is often referred to by the British public as "council housing" and "council estate", based on the historical role of district and borough councils in running public housing. Additionally, local planning departments may require private-sector developers to offer "affordable housing" as a condition of planning permission. This accounts for another £700m of Government funding each year for tenants in part of the United Kingdom.
I have decided to give the above background and terminologies in order for us in Nigeria to define properly what we mean by affordable and/or social housing in Nigeria. I am of the contention that there is nothing like “affordable housing” in Nigeria, as the system stands today. If we want to say houses built with mud, or built in the rural areas are affordable, this is perhaps true, but then we are straying away from the Government’s National Housing Policy, as well as ignoring base decent homes standards and quality of living. As such, mud houses in rural areas, and even inside urban areas, must not count as “affordable housing”.
I have noted that, with the advent of our current democratic experiment in 1999, there now seem to be a spate of private developers (my suspicion is that because our corrupt leaders are increasingly finding it difficult to take their stolen wealth overseas, they are now investing this in property – lands and houses) buying lands all over the country and, with the financial support of several financial institutions, are building large serviced estates in all parts of the country, especially in the bigger cities. However, their houses are hardly what we can refer to as “affordable”. In all cases, the houses are not for rent, but for sale, because these developers have taken large loans from the banks to finance their building projects, their objective is necessarily to get a quick return on their money; hence they prefer to sell these houses, usually at high prices, to ensure that they have a minimum of 50% profit. After completion of the sale, they usually have 100% profit, if not more. If this is not exploitation, I wonder what it is. If this is “affordable” to many Nigerians, then I need not be writing this article. But there we are.
Therefore, affordable housing is still a long way and an illusion to lower and middle class Nigerians, if this trend continues and the federal, state and local governments are not prepared to really provide affordable housing to Nigerians either by increasing the number of units built, or facilitating/creation of an enabling environment for easy and low-cost mortgage facilities for the ordinary Nigerian; including support of housing initiatives and investments by householders, small-scale providers, and entrepreneurial private firms. We also need to consider the implications of enabling strategy for housing finance, political interference, access to land, residential infrastructure and maintenance, institutional regulations and quality and cost of building materials and related industry particularly in the light of the need for the private sector to play greater roles in housing, in conjunction with those already being played by the government though such agencies as the Federal Ministry of Housing, Federal Housing Authority, etc.
We must not confuse “affordable housing” with “public housing”. As defined above, public housing seems to be a remit of the governments (federal, state or local), and as such, since they have taken the moral and constitutional responsibility to provide housing for their citizens, such housing should be low-cost and affordable. On the other hand, affordable housing could be provided by both the governments and private house builders or developers, but with the latter, affordability is discarded. As these housing providers are in it for the profit, houses provided by them are inevitably not affordable to the majority of Nigerians, and this is the case at present. Also the governments do not regulate this sub-sector of the industry and therefore, they are quite free to set their own high prices and there is no regulation of the quality of their houses.
Again, social housing deals with rental houses, and not bought properties. Even when governments build houses ostensibly for their citizens, they do not make it easy for the majority of Nigerian citizens by selling them outright. Social housing is all about renting houses or flats out to people who could not otherwise afford to buy these properties. This makes life easier for them and on the long run, may in future be given a “right to buy” these properties, at discounted prices, when their income improves. This is empowerment of the citizenry, as well as creating wealth and improving standard of living. Again we have to consider the per capita income of most Nigerians, which is one of the lowest in the world, before we can start talking of affordable housing.
The good news is that it appears that the present administration is now conscious to the realization that the housing industry needs a turn-around, and many policy statements have been issued to this effect, reiterating the Government’s commitment to providing housing, whether affordable or not, for the people of Nigeria. In September 2008, the then Federal Capital Territory Minister announced that the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) is in a public private partnership (PPP) with Houses for Africa (HFA), and will build 10,000 housing units for low and medium income earners at a total cost of $300 million in Abuja.
As reported on 12 July 2008 in the New Nigerian newspaper, the Federal Government plans to formulate a policy on affordable housing for Nigerians. Alhaji Garba Matazu, the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Housing and Urban Development, announced this in Abuja, saying that the policy would focus on a public/ private arrangement, to solve Nigeria’s housing need. He said part of the recommendations included an overhaul of the Federal Mortgage Bank, to make it responsive to the yearning of the people. Matazu assured Nigerians that the National Assembly would play its role in actualising government’s dream to provide affordable housing to Nigerians everywhere in the country. This is good news, but we wait with bated breath.
Felix Koyenikan, an engineer and the immediate past Acting Managing Director of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) announced in November 2008 of a planned additional 3000 housing units in parts of Abuja; infrastructure upgrade of FESTAC Town in Lagos, and the proposed development of FESTAC Phase 2. This is more or less the regeneration of the FESTAC Town built in 1977 by the FHA and which has since degenerated into a massive ghetto. However, while all the properties in FESTAC Town have been bought, this should not count as additional provision of affordable housing. It is not social housing either.
More recently, according to ThisDay Newspaper of 7 December 2008, Jube Jemide, FHA’s new Acting MD promised a recapitalisation that would list the Authority on Nigeria's Stock Exchange within 12 months. He had promised a week earlier to also tackle mass and affordable housing. Stock Exchange quotations and affordable housing provision in the same breath are new directions in the housing industry and profession.
We also have to commend moves made by the Nigerian Government, through the former Minister for Housing to elicit the help of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Housing, CIH, (a foremost, internationally respected professional housing body for people working in housing and communities) in establishing a similar professional housing body in Nigeria (Nigerian Institute of Housing), to serve the Nigerian housing sector. This will not only lead to recognised and accredited housing courses and training being established in Nigeria, but it points the way to a housing revolution in the country, since such a body will be at par with other professional bodies such as Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN); Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA); Nigerian Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) and the likes (Adejumo, 2008). This is likely to pave way to social housing in Nigeria and may well lead to real life provision of affordable homes to the majority of Nigerians.
Governments’ plans for a major house-building programme must be based on the premise that increasing the volume of accommodation in the country is the most important way to tackle the crisis of unaffordable housing in Nigeria. Also, promoting home-ownership should be an underlying objective of any government’s programme. Home ownership offers unparalleled opportunities for people to accumulate wealth, but for many citizens, it is not an option, and the provision of social housing for rent should be given equal priority.
And with hundreds of Nigerians working in the housing industry, especially in housing management and related sub-sectors in the UK alone, the time is ripe for Nigeria to start providing affordable and social housing to her citizens, managed by these housing professionals, in association with their counterparts in related industries e.g. surveyors, civil engineers, estate agents, valuers, mortgage bankers, etc.
Finally, since Housing is a Concurrent Item in the Nigerian Constitution, thus ensuring that we have 36 Housing Ministries and 36 Housing Corporations; it would be worthwhile for the Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria (AHCN) to put some of these points at the top of their agenda at their next meeting.
References:
Adejumo, A A., 2008 “Social Housing in Nigeria – An Imminent Mass Housing Revolution?” Available online at www.nigeriavillagesquare.com 31 October 2008
Ogu, V I and Ogbuozobe, J E, 2001 “Housing policy in Nigeria: towards enablement of private housing development” Habitat International, Vol. 25, Issue 4, Dec. 2001, pp 473-492
Peterside, C S, 2005. “Ameliorating Housing Deficit in Nigeria ...The Role of Primary and Secondary Mortgage Institutions and the Capital Market”. Available online at www.nigeriaworld.com 20 July 2005.
Peterside, C S, 2003. “Policy Foundation for Affordable Housing in Nigeria ...Role of the Secondary Mortgage Market” Available online at www.nigeriaworld.com 14 October 2003
Akintokunbo Adejumo, M Sc., ACIH, MCMI, a social and political commentator on Nigerian issues, lives and works in London, UK as a housing professional. He is a graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1979) and University of Manitoba, Canada (1985); Associate Member, Chartered Institute of Housing and Member, Chartered Management Institute.
He is also the Coordinator of CHAMPIONS FOR NIGERIA, an organisation devoted to celebrating genuine progress, excellence, commitment, selfless and unalloyed service to Nigeria and the people of Nigeria.
Sunday, 28 December 2008
The EFCC - Why We Should Support Our Local Sheriff
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in very recent times, is getting a lot of flack and negative press from Nigerians, most of them, as it has turned out, and from personal observation, unnecessary, unwarranted and unfair. Nigerians are very angry about the news they are hearing about the anti-graft organisation, and there have been one or two extreme calls for the head of the organisation to resign or be removed. This is very understandable, as Nigerians have invested a lot of hope in the organisation and look up to it as a way of getting redress and vengeance on the people who have made their lives that of poverty, hopelessness, underdevelopment and misery.
However, such unfounded rumours and misinformation are not only distracting, but is very discouraging and debilitating to the Commission, and may negatively affect their performance. Most importantly and instructively, all these biased and negative perception of the Commission as blared out by the Media is a victory for the very set of people that the Commission was formed to fight – the corrupt politicians and government officials. I could picture these people gloating and congratulating themselves for a job well done to discredit the EFCC and its officials, especially putting the credibility of its top officials in doubt, and fanning the embers of dissatisfaction with the Commission’s performance among the general Nigerian public, who are very keen to see their corrupt ex-Governors and other public officials brought to face justice.
On the issue of the ex-Governors, as far as I could learn, the EFCC under the current Chairmanship of Mrs. Farida Waziri inherited some dodgy ex-Governor investigations from Nuhu Ribadu. (Let me remind readers here that I was, and indeed, still remain, one of the staunch supporters of Nuhu Ribadu and his EFCC during Obasanjo’s Administration, and I am not going to take anything away from his success as the EFCC Czar and his pioneering feat)
When, towards the twilight of the Obasanjo Administration, Nuhu Ribadu was invited by the then Senate President, Ken Nnamani (despite my respect for Ken Nnamani, he was trying to use the EFCC to wage a war against his namesake and now, ex-Governor of Enugu State, Chimaroke Nnamani) to do a presentation in the Senate, Ribadu, either not sensing he was being used, not only by Obasanjo himself, but also by some other politicians for their own selfish ends or merely being naïve and power-drunk, declared that 31 Governors are being investigated. Before he was removed as EFCC Chairman, eight of these evil men were arraigned before the courts. What about the rest 23?
The fact is, Mallam Ribadu had already proclaimed these ex-Governors guilty, without any evidence or even proper investigation. Meanwhile, all these devious thieves, (execu-thieves, as I like to call them) have had ample time to destroy evidence, bribe judges, employ the best lawyers, even make witnesses to disappear, etc in order to evade justice, hence you see them all over Abuja, swaggering around, and boasting to their friends and whoever will listen, that they are untouchable. Why, some of them are even now having the guts to threaten to sue the EFCC. Some of them are also in the Senate, and the most powerful and corrupt of these ex-governors are also pulling a lot of strings in the ruling party and perhaps in the Government itself.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Waziri was misquoted or deliberately misrepresented by the Nigerian media recently and what was reported in the press was that she said files on the ex-governors have disappeared and that there was no petition against ex-President Obasanjo. She never said that. I do not think she’s that daft to say such a thing in public, even if that was true. What she said was that there were either no files in the first place or that existing files were grossly incomplete or distorted, lacking in substance and evidence and cannot be used to prosecute these high placed criminals.
The EFCC has a very difficult and unenviable job from most agencies involved in the governance of Nigeria. They have a thankless and definitely, very dangerous job. And believe me, anybody that wishes or is paid to take on the monster that is institutionalised corruption in Nigeria must be a brave person who, despite pressures from all sides, is determined to succeed and put his or life at risk at all times. The majority of Nigerians, understandably sick and frustrated by the excesses of their political and military leaders want fast prosecution and justice, while others, highly placed people in government, are doing their best to subvert the course of justice, including character assassination of EFCC officials, lobbying, murder attempts of both witnesses and investigators, bribery, even “juju”, you name it. These ex-Governors are very powerful people; they have corruptly enriched themselves, so they have vast amount of money to use to subvert the course of justice; they are devious; they are clever; and a lot of them are still within the government or party system or hierarchy; they also have a lot of thugs ready to kill for them.
And the EFCC? It is always going to be a Herculean task and struggle for them, I am afraid, as long as they are not totally independent and autonomous of the Nigerian Government; under-funding ( if external organizations such as UN, Transparency International, EU, etc solely funds the EFCC, they might perform better); gross under-staffing; government and political interference. However, I am very confident that the current officials are of the utmost good intentions, integrity, capabilities and abilities; highly focused, committed to fighting and reducing corruption by any means in Nigeria, despite all the efforts by their detractors to destabilize and ridicule them.
Since her appointment just over five months ago, there has been renewed vigour in investigating several corrupt former governors and Mrs. Waziri has arraigned at least three ex-Governors before the courts, charged with unlawful enrichment of themselves whilst in office, money laundering and corruption: Michael Botmang, who hardly spent 6 months as Governor of Plateau State (that means as soon as he was sworn in to temporarily replace Dariye, he just went straight to the state coffers and started dipping his dirty finger in; what a bastard?); Boni Haruna of Adamawa State; and Rasheed Ladoja of my state of Oyo, a very silly idiot, who could have been a hero, but decided not to tread on the path of righteousness at the very last minute, thereby ruining his name forever).
The Chairman is vigorously pursing the Asset Forfeiture law to be passed by the Senate (But since the Senators are themselves highly compromised and corrupt, they are using delayed tactics not to pass the bill) which will enable the EFCC to seize assets suspected to be the proceeds of corruption, even if they cannot prove such asset belong to the suspect. However, the plan here is to make the asset unavailable to the suspect, and also to draw them out. If an asset is seized, the EFCC simply asks the owner to come forward and prove ownership and source of funds used to acquire the asset. If anybody comes forward and is a front-person for the corrupt government official, such person has to prove his source of income or face jail. This, I think, is an excellent bill put forward by the current Chairman to deny access to the proceeds of corruption. She is also vigorously pursuing the enactment of a law which will allow setting up of special courts to take on cases of economic and financial crimes. This clearly shows that Mrs. Waziri is very much worried about the slowness of the Nigerian judicial system in dispensing justice and meting out punishment to the corrupt.
We should therefore be calling on the legislative arms of government to expedite the passing of these laws, in order to make the EFCC more powerful and effective.
Also don’t forget that Mrs. Waziri had also since she was appointed, been calling for the removal of the immunity clause from the constitution. This writer has always been advocating for the removal of this clause, via www.championsfornigeria.org and other means as I see that this singular issue of immunity from prosecution for executive office holders in Nigeria is a great impediment to the fight against corruption. It seems as if Mrs. Waziri supports our views and position on the issue of immunity clause, as well as the hundreds of Nigerians who have signed, and continue to sign, our petition to the National Assembly to remove it, in order to encourage and promote the war against corruption, on our website above.
And just recently, in fact while I was in Abuja, was the announcement by the EFCC of ANCOR (Anti-Corruption Revolution) campaign, dubbed “See Something, Say Something” aimed at making all Nigerians take ownership of the anti-graft campaign, hence the message here is that the EFCC cannot fight this battle alone, otherwise the fight against corruption will never be won. ANCOR, supported by many organisations such as Champions For Nigeria (CFN), Transition Monitoring Group (TMG, led by Moshood Erubami), the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Association of Local Government Officers of Nigeria (ALGON), National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS); Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL, led by that indefatigable man, Comrade Debo Adeniran), Movement Against Corruption (MAC), Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) and with resources contribution and input by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is going to be initially launched in Abuja on 9th December 2008, and then rolled out across the 36 states later in the new year. An Anti-Corruption Volunteer Corps will also be formed and will constitute the nucleus and drivers of the Anti-Corruption Revolution. The Anti-Corruption Volunteer Corps will be constituted of Nigerians of integrity from all walks of live who subscribe and adhere to the Revolutionary Principles. It is open to all, provided you are committed to fighting and eradicating corruption in the Nigerian n society
And perhaps the most audacious and revolutionary of her moves is her call for the EFCC Act to be amended, which will allow the Commission to investigate and prosecute persons suspected to be living above their means. This will be the greatest threat to the fortress of our evil and corrupt leaders and their ilk that thrive on corruption. This is supposed to put a fear in the corrupt elite, so that they know that it is not possible for them to flaunt their ill-gotten wealth and not be asked how they got it.
To my mind, I think this woman called Farida Waziri has started very well indeed and what she deserves is greater support and encouragement from the grassroots of Nigerians; greater support from the ordinary citizenry and well-meaning people, who must take the comments from some sponsored media with a grain of salt every time and seek to sift the lies from the truth, in order to best judge the EFCC’s performance, and not ill-founded accusations and propaganda that will cause her to be distracted from the difficult task she already has.
At the same time, let us constructively criticize Mrs. Waziri and her officials when they err, or if they should seem to be detracting from their work, or if we see them being partisan and colluding with the people they are supposed to bring to justice. I personally will be the first to do this.
The fight against corruption is not an easy fight, as I have observed and noted during my travel to Nigeria and interaction with the main players of the fight. The officials charged with this task are forever wary of threats to their lives and the threat of removal if the corrupt persons have their way through lobbying. I personally do not see a scenario where Mrs. Waziri will be having night sessions and cavorting with the very people she is supposed to be investigating and bring to justice, and I honestly hope she does not descend into this, as we will be watching her.
Of course, having written this article, I do not expect all Nigerians to agree with my thoughts, observations and support for the EFCC, but like I always say, I shall always remain standing when the dust settles.
I say, let the truth be said always.
Akintokunbo Adejumo, a social and political commentator on Nigerian issues, lives and works in London, UK. He is a graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1979) and University of Manitoba, Canada (1985). He also writes on topical issues for newspapers and internet media including Nigeriaworld.com, Nigeria Today Online, Chatafrikarticles.com, Codewit.info, NigerianMuse.com, Nigeriansinamerica.com, Nigerianvillagesquare.com, Gamji.com, NewNigerianPolitics.com, etc
He is also the Coordinator of CHAMPIONS FOR NIGERIA, an organisation devoted to celebrating genuine progress, excellence, commitment, selfless and unalloyed service to Nigeria and the people of Nigeria.
However, such unfounded rumours and misinformation are not only distracting, but is very discouraging and debilitating to the Commission, and may negatively affect their performance. Most importantly and instructively, all these biased and negative perception of the Commission as blared out by the Media is a victory for the very set of people that the Commission was formed to fight – the corrupt politicians and government officials. I could picture these people gloating and congratulating themselves for a job well done to discredit the EFCC and its officials, especially putting the credibility of its top officials in doubt, and fanning the embers of dissatisfaction with the Commission’s performance among the general Nigerian public, who are very keen to see their corrupt ex-Governors and other public officials brought to face justice.
On the issue of the ex-Governors, as far as I could learn, the EFCC under the current Chairmanship of Mrs. Farida Waziri inherited some dodgy ex-Governor investigations from Nuhu Ribadu. (Let me remind readers here that I was, and indeed, still remain, one of the staunch supporters of Nuhu Ribadu and his EFCC during Obasanjo’s Administration, and I am not going to take anything away from his success as the EFCC Czar and his pioneering feat)
When, towards the twilight of the Obasanjo Administration, Nuhu Ribadu was invited by the then Senate President, Ken Nnamani (despite my respect for Ken Nnamani, he was trying to use the EFCC to wage a war against his namesake and now, ex-Governor of Enugu State, Chimaroke Nnamani) to do a presentation in the Senate, Ribadu, either not sensing he was being used, not only by Obasanjo himself, but also by some other politicians for their own selfish ends or merely being naïve and power-drunk, declared that 31 Governors are being investigated. Before he was removed as EFCC Chairman, eight of these evil men were arraigned before the courts. What about the rest 23?
The fact is, Mallam Ribadu had already proclaimed these ex-Governors guilty, without any evidence or even proper investigation. Meanwhile, all these devious thieves, (execu-thieves, as I like to call them) have had ample time to destroy evidence, bribe judges, employ the best lawyers, even make witnesses to disappear, etc in order to evade justice, hence you see them all over Abuja, swaggering around, and boasting to their friends and whoever will listen, that they are untouchable. Why, some of them are even now having the guts to threaten to sue the EFCC. Some of them are also in the Senate, and the most powerful and corrupt of these ex-governors are also pulling a lot of strings in the ruling party and perhaps in the Government itself.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Waziri was misquoted or deliberately misrepresented by the Nigerian media recently and what was reported in the press was that she said files on the ex-governors have disappeared and that there was no petition against ex-President Obasanjo. She never said that. I do not think she’s that daft to say such a thing in public, even if that was true. What she said was that there were either no files in the first place or that existing files were grossly incomplete or distorted, lacking in substance and evidence and cannot be used to prosecute these high placed criminals.
The EFCC has a very difficult and unenviable job from most agencies involved in the governance of Nigeria. They have a thankless and definitely, very dangerous job. And believe me, anybody that wishes or is paid to take on the monster that is institutionalised corruption in Nigeria must be a brave person who, despite pressures from all sides, is determined to succeed and put his or life at risk at all times. The majority of Nigerians, understandably sick and frustrated by the excesses of their political and military leaders want fast prosecution and justice, while others, highly placed people in government, are doing their best to subvert the course of justice, including character assassination of EFCC officials, lobbying, murder attempts of both witnesses and investigators, bribery, even “juju”, you name it. These ex-Governors are very powerful people; they have corruptly enriched themselves, so they have vast amount of money to use to subvert the course of justice; they are devious; they are clever; and a lot of them are still within the government or party system or hierarchy; they also have a lot of thugs ready to kill for them.
And the EFCC? It is always going to be a Herculean task and struggle for them, I am afraid, as long as they are not totally independent and autonomous of the Nigerian Government; under-funding ( if external organizations such as UN, Transparency International, EU, etc solely funds the EFCC, they might perform better); gross under-staffing; government and political interference. However, I am very confident that the current officials are of the utmost good intentions, integrity, capabilities and abilities; highly focused, committed to fighting and reducing corruption by any means in Nigeria, despite all the efforts by their detractors to destabilize and ridicule them.
Since her appointment just over five months ago, there has been renewed vigour in investigating several corrupt former governors and Mrs. Waziri has arraigned at least three ex-Governors before the courts, charged with unlawful enrichment of themselves whilst in office, money laundering and corruption: Michael Botmang, who hardly spent 6 months as Governor of Plateau State (that means as soon as he was sworn in to temporarily replace Dariye, he just went straight to the state coffers and started dipping his dirty finger in; what a bastard?); Boni Haruna of Adamawa State; and Rasheed Ladoja of my state of Oyo, a very silly idiot, who could have been a hero, but decided not to tread on the path of righteousness at the very last minute, thereby ruining his name forever).
The Chairman is vigorously pursing the Asset Forfeiture law to be passed by the Senate (But since the Senators are themselves highly compromised and corrupt, they are using delayed tactics not to pass the bill) which will enable the EFCC to seize assets suspected to be the proceeds of corruption, even if they cannot prove such asset belong to the suspect. However, the plan here is to make the asset unavailable to the suspect, and also to draw them out. If an asset is seized, the EFCC simply asks the owner to come forward and prove ownership and source of funds used to acquire the asset. If anybody comes forward and is a front-person for the corrupt government official, such person has to prove his source of income or face jail. This, I think, is an excellent bill put forward by the current Chairman to deny access to the proceeds of corruption. She is also vigorously pursuing the enactment of a law which will allow setting up of special courts to take on cases of economic and financial crimes. This clearly shows that Mrs. Waziri is very much worried about the slowness of the Nigerian judicial system in dispensing justice and meting out punishment to the corrupt.
We should therefore be calling on the legislative arms of government to expedite the passing of these laws, in order to make the EFCC more powerful and effective.
Also don’t forget that Mrs. Waziri had also since she was appointed, been calling for the removal of the immunity clause from the constitution. This writer has always been advocating for the removal of this clause, via www.championsfornigeria.org and other means as I see that this singular issue of immunity from prosecution for executive office holders in Nigeria is a great impediment to the fight against corruption. It seems as if Mrs. Waziri supports our views and position on the issue of immunity clause, as well as the hundreds of Nigerians who have signed, and continue to sign, our petition to the National Assembly to remove it, in order to encourage and promote the war against corruption, on our website above.
And just recently, in fact while I was in Abuja, was the announcement by the EFCC of ANCOR (Anti-Corruption Revolution) campaign, dubbed “See Something, Say Something” aimed at making all Nigerians take ownership of the anti-graft campaign, hence the message here is that the EFCC cannot fight this battle alone, otherwise the fight against corruption will never be won. ANCOR, supported by many organisations such as Champions For Nigeria (CFN), Transition Monitoring Group (TMG, led by Moshood Erubami), the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Association of Local Government Officers of Nigeria (ALGON), National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS); Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL, led by that indefatigable man, Comrade Debo Adeniran), Movement Against Corruption (MAC), Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) and with resources contribution and input by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is going to be initially launched in Abuja on 9th December 2008, and then rolled out across the 36 states later in the new year. An Anti-Corruption Volunteer Corps will also be formed and will constitute the nucleus and drivers of the Anti-Corruption Revolution. The Anti-Corruption Volunteer Corps will be constituted of Nigerians of integrity from all walks of live who subscribe and adhere to the Revolutionary Principles. It is open to all, provided you are committed to fighting and eradicating corruption in the Nigerian n society
And perhaps the most audacious and revolutionary of her moves is her call for the EFCC Act to be amended, which will allow the Commission to investigate and prosecute persons suspected to be living above their means. This will be the greatest threat to the fortress of our evil and corrupt leaders and their ilk that thrive on corruption. This is supposed to put a fear in the corrupt elite, so that they know that it is not possible for them to flaunt their ill-gotten wealth and not be asked how they got it.
To my mind, I think this woman called Farida Waziri has started very well indeed and what she deserves is greater support and encouragement from the grassroots of Nigerians; greater support from the ordinary citizenry and well-meaning people, who must take the comments from some sponsored media with a grain of salt every time and seek to sift the lies from the truth, in order to best judge the EFCC’s performance, and not ill-founded accusations and propaganda that will cause her to be distracted from the difficult task she already has.
At the same time, let us constructively criticize Mrs. Waziri and her officials when they err, or if they should seem to be detracting from their work, or if we see them being partisan and colluding with the people they are supposed to bring to justice. I personally will be the first to do this.
The fight against corruption is not an easy fight, as I have observed and noted during my travel to Nigeria and interaction with the main players of the fight. The officials charged with this task are forever wary of threats to their lives and the threat of removal if the corrupt persons have their way through lobbying. I personally do not see a scenario where Mrs. Waziri will be having night sessions and cavorting with the very people she is supposed to be investigating and bring to justice, and I honestly hope she does not descend into this, as we will be watching her.
Of course, having written this article, I do not expect all Nigerians to agree with my thoughts, observations and support for the EFCC, but like I always say, I shall always remain standing when the dust settles.
I say, let the truth be said always.
Akintokunbo Adejumo, a social and political commentator on Nigerian issues, lives and works in London, UK. He is a graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1979) and University of Manitoba, Canada (1985). He also writes on topical issues for newspapers and internet media including Nigeriaworld.com, Nigeria Today Online, Chatafrikarticles.com, Codewit.info, NigerianMuse.com, Nigeriansinamerica.com, Nigerianvillagesquare.com, Gamji.com, NewNigerianPolitics.com, etc
He is also the Coordinator of CHAMPIONS FOR NIGERIA, an organisation devoted to celebrating genuine progress, excellence, commitment, selfless and unalloyed service to Nigeria and the people of Nigeria.
Social Housing In Nigeria - An Imminent Mass Housing Revolution
Shelter or housing is one of the most basic of human needs. In most developed countries of the world, the governments spend a very large proportion of their budget on provision of housing to their people, either directly or through public-private financing. In most Third World countries, the responsibility for housing is supposed to lie with the various governments, due to the very nature of the mode of governance, socio-economic considerations and in part, the tradition of the people themselves.
In most African societies, long before colonialism, the provision of housing or shelter was an individual responsibility, and this trend obtains to the present day. Post-colonial days, it has always been assumed that since we are now practicing a foreign system of government and administration, the governments should now be responsible for providing all basic needs for their people.
Unfortunately, this has not been so for various reasons. One reason is the fact that most African governments tend to abandon their responsibilities to their people in so many ways. Lack of capital investment is another problem, and we should not even talk of corruption, insincerity, lack of concern, etc.
In a report published by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) in the early days of the Obasanjo Administration, the Government of Nigeria was accused of being consistently one of the worst violators of housing rights in the world, with over two million people forcibly evicted from their homes in different parts of the country since 2000. The then Minister for the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai was implicated, especially for the forced evictions in Abuja. But such violations have been going on for decades in Nigeria. Maroko, a slum near Lagos, is a special case under the military regime in the early 1980s. More recently, Lagos State Government rendered over 3000 people homeless in the slum community of Makoko in 2005, without prior notice given or compensation or offer of suitable alternative. The Rivers State Government demolished homes in the Agip Waterside Community in February 2005 leaving 5 to 10,000 people homeless and without compensation. The State Government also moved in the bulldozers on 1.2 million people living in the Rainbow Town area of Port Harcourt since the 1960s, in 2000.
In these cases, the Land Use Act of 1978 was used to evict them. Considering the 140 million population of the country, a vast housing market exist in Nigeria given the massive home deficit estimated at about 14 million by the Federal Mortgage Bank, according to report in 2005. However, many factors contribute to the abysmal under-performance of the housing sector in Nigeria, such as absence of long term financing, legal restrictions, a “dinosauric” land registration system, and a lack of a social housing system couple with haphazard housing policy on the part of the governments. Along with this, we can also mention the lack of continuity from various successive governments.
While virtually all governments in Nigeria since independence have highlighted housing as a major priority, Nigeria is yet to develop a vibrant housing and mortgage market, social and affordable housing policies, and housing continues to be provided through tortuous traditional methods of buying land and building over some years, which could be an individual’s entire lifetime (Akeju, 2007)
In 1979, the Shehu Shagari Administration initiated a Policy on Affordable Housing. The policy, though laudable and very bold in its effort, was unable to meet the nation’s housing needs because it was based on the unsustainable tenet that houses will be provided by government, and this remains an anomaly that we must resolve (Akeju, 2007).
In a news report on the Nigerian Housing Sector aired on African Independent Television (AIT) in 2007, it was stated that between 1973 and 2006, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) built only 30,000 housing units nationwide, and then, there was a deficit of 12 million homes. I will not bother with statistics now, but to those who are professionals in the housing industry in and out of Nigeria, one could see that there are tremendous opportunities in the Nigerian housing sector waiting to be tapped, and it should be noted that the Governments alone cannot fill this gap.
However, what the various government, Federal, State and Local should be seeing to be actively and sincerely doing is to provide such resources as encouraging foreign investment, (as Akeju 2007, posited, Government has no business building houses), and focus on providing a favourable investment climate, infrastructure and mortgage insurance to first-time buyers and low-to-middle income families.
Currently, and fortuitously, Housing seems to be a priority for the Federal Government of Nigeria, and this is captured in President Yar’Adua’s 2020 Agenda, where the president attaches the highest priority to affordable housing for the masses.
The purpose of this article, however, is to look at another factor which should be considered in facilitating a vibrant housing sector in Nigeria – Social Housing and to call attention to the human resources side of this sector. Social or Public housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by not-for-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, definitions of poverty and other criteria for allocation vary.
In the United Kingdom public housing is often referred to by the British public as "council housing" and "council estate", based on the historical role of district and borough councils in running public housing. Local semi-independent non-profit housing associations have begun to operate some of the older council housing estates in the United Kingdom. Despite being non-profit based, they charge generally higher rents than council properties. More recently the government refers to both as 'Social Housing', and Housing Associations are now referred to as 'Registered Social Landlords' (RSLs). Additionally local planning departments may require private-sector developers to offer "affordable housing" as a condition of planning permission. This accounts for another £700m of Government funding each year for tenants in parts of the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom has a long tradition of promoting affordable social rented housing. This may be owned by local councils or housing associations. There are also a range of affordable home ownership options, including shared ownership (where a tenant rents part share in the property from a social landlord, and owns the remainder). The government has also attempted to promote the supply of owner occupied affordable stock for purchase, principally by using the land-use planning system to require that housing developers provide a proportion of lower cost housing within new developments. This approach is commonly known as inclusionary zoning.
The social housing sector in the United Kingdom is regulated by The Housing Corporation and the Audit Commission who carry out regular inspections to ensure compliance with the government regulations, good practice and value for money, amongst other criteria. The Housing Corporation is the government agency that funds new affordable homes and regulates housing associations in England, while the Audit Commission is an independent watchdog, driving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in local public services to deliver better outcomes for everyone, including local government, health, housing, community safety and fire and rescue to promote value for money for taxpayers.
Furthermore, the education and training of housing professionals in the UK is overseen by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). The CIH is a professional body for people working in housing and communities, helped develop the Construction and the Built Environment Diploma and ensure that housing practitioners are appropriately trained in order to ensure effective performance in their roles. The point here is that there is a resource implication by utilising the CIH’s world famous professional housing management training, as the President seems to be keen for highly qualified Nigerians to return home to help the country and housing provision and management are crucial elements for success.
Recently, there have been moves made by the Nigerian Government, through the Minister for Housing to elicit the help of the CIH in establishing a professional housing body in Nigeria, to serve in the Nigerian housing sector. This will not only lead to recognised and accredited housing courses and training being established in Nigeria, but it points the way to a housing revolution in the country, since such a body will be at par with other professional institutes such as Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN); Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA); Nigerian Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) and the likes.
The fact is for such Institute for housing practitioners to be successfully established in Nigeria, there must be a Housing management training programme which will be accredited and authorised by a well known and recognised foreign body such as the CIH. This should not be new or objectionable to us, as basically, all of our professional bodies had their roots from such foreign bodies and even after 48 years of independence, are still very much aligned or affiliated with such bodies.
However, the main concern is with the training of such personnel and housing practitioners to run the housing sector in Nigeria. To take this forward, it is proposed that:
A conference of Federal and State Governments, Universities and other stakeholders needs to be held at Abuja to introduce Professional Housing Management to Nigeria. It should be co-hosted by the Federal Housing Ministry and the CIH. The British Government’s Department for International Development and the British Council should be invited.
The Federal Housing Minister and the Federal Housing Authority should hold a press conference well before the event and fully brief the public about the need for a professional body such as the CIH to play a major part in Housing Management in Nigeria.
Plans are required to get the housing profession recognised through legislation so that it would be at par with ICAN, the NSE, the Nigerian Institute of Architects etc. The ICAN Act of 1965 would be a useful guide. Furthermore, the gap created by the absence of the CIH in Nigeria is being usurped by other professions who pretend to be “experts” in housing development and management. The UK as the best model where there are clear professional demarcations in the duties of architects, estate managers, chartered and quantity surveyors, builders etc. The CIH has a Royal Charter and its functions cannot be performed by other groups. This is what is needed in Nigeria whereby a Nigerian Chartered Institute of Housing Act should be enacted as soon as possible. UK's CIH has over 21,000 members with branches in many countries. South Africa and Botswana are currently the only African countries that have signed MOUs with the CIH, but given the enormity of Nigeria's housing problems, there is a need to move quickly.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) needs to be drawn up and signed as soon as possible and the possibility of encouraging the CIH to open an office in Nigeria as they have done in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Financial and logistical support should be given by the Federal and State Governments. The British Council could be asked to play a role in this arrangement. The British Dept for International Development (DFID) is keen to improve professional expertise in Africa and they could also make a contribution.
Hundreds of Nigerian graduates and senior housing managers are anxious to qualify through the CIH. There are definitely a large number of routes for qualifying for membership. For example, a fast track system has just been set up between CIH China and CIH UK for university-based and distance learning protocols. 2 or 3 Nigerian universities could be selected for post-graduate programmes leading to CIH qualifications in Housing Management and they could network with some of the dozens of universities and colleges in the UK that provide undergraduate and post-graduate course in Housing. The CIH UK remains a highly respected body, with world-wide affiliations and can only be of benefit to Nigeria.
The CIH has excellent distance learning facilities so, students can remain in their jobs in Nigeria during their training for membership. Supervisors can make short trips from the UK for higher level students who are aiming for Corporate Membership (MCIH). Alternatively, such students could come to the UK for short-term attachments to approved housing organisations (6-12 weeks).
At present, the Housing Sector in the UK has a very significant presence of Nigerians, currently working to provide housing and Housing management training to the United Kingdom population. This has been going on since the early 1970s. I do not see any reason, why this abilities, skills and experience could not be tapped for the benefit of Nigeria as a whole.
Reference:
Akeju, A.A., “Challenges to Providing Affordable Housing in Nigeria”, Paper presented at the 2nd Emerging Urban Africa International Conference on Housing Finance in Nigeria, Abuja, Oct. 17-19, 2007
Shehu, M., “Nigeria: FCTA to build 10,000 houses” in THIS DAT Newspapers, 26 September 2008.
Yusuf, M. H. “Funding, handicap to Nigeria’s housing policy” DAILY TRUST Newspapers, 01 September 2008
Akintokunbo Adejumo, M Sc., ACIH, MCMI, a social and political commentator on Nigerian issues, lives and works in London, UK. He is a graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1979) and University of Manitoba, Canada (1985). He also writes on topical issues for newspapers and internet media including Nigeriaworld.com, Nigeria Today Online, Nigeriansinamerica.com, Nigerianvillagesquare.com, Gamji.com, etc
He is also the Coordinator of CHAMPIONS FOR NIGERIA, an organisation devoted to celebrating genuine progress, excellence, commitment, selfless and unalloyed service to Nigeria and the people of Nigeria.
In most African societies, long before colonialism, the provision of housing or shelter was an individual responsibility, and this trend obtains to the present day. Post-colonial days, it has always been assumed that since we are now practicing a foreign system of government and administration, the governments should now be responsible for providing all basic needs for their people.
Unfortunately, this has not been so for various reasons. One reason is the fact that most African governments tend to abandon their responsibilities to their people in so many ways. Lack of capital investment is another problem, and we should not even talk of corruption, insincerity, lack of concern, etc.
In a report published by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) in the early days of the Obasanjo Administration, the Government of Nigeria was accused of being consistently one of the worst violators of housing rights in the world, with over two million people forcibly evicted from their homes in different parts of the country since 2000. The then Minister for the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai was implicated, especially for the forced evictions in Abuja. But such violations have been going on for decades in Nigeria. Maroko, a slum near Lagos, is a special case under the military regime in the early 1980s. More recently, Lagos State Government rendered over 3000 people homeless in the slum community of Makoko in 2005, without prior notice given or compensation or offer of suitable alternative. The Rivers State Government demolished homes in the Agip Waterside Community in February 2005 leaving 5 to 10,000 people homeless and without compensation. The State Government also moved in the bulldozers on 1.2 million people living in the Rainbow Town area of Port Harcourt since the 1960s, in 2000.
In these cases, the Land Use Act of 1978 was used to evict them. Considering the 140 million population of the country, a vast housing market exist in Nigeria given the massive home deficit estimated at about 14 million by the Federal Mortgage Bank, according to report in 2005. However, many factors contribute to the abysmal under-performance of the housing sector in Nigeria, such as absence of long term financing, legal restrictions, a “dinosauric” land registration system, and a lack of a social housing system couple with haphazard housing policy on the part of the governments. Along with this, we can also mention the lack of continuity from various successive governments.
While virtually all governments in Nigeria since independence have highlighted housing as a major priority, Nigeria is yet to develop a vibrant housing and mortgage market, social and affordable housing policies, and housing continues to be provided through tortuous traditional methods of buying land and building over some years, which could be an individual’s entire lifetime (Akeju, 2007)
In 1979, the Shehu Shagari Administration initiated a Policy on Affordable Housing. The policy, though laudable and very bold in its effort, was unable to meet the nation’s housing needs because it was based on the unsustainable tenet that houses will be provided by government, and this remains an anomaly that we must resolve (Akeju, 2007).
In a news report on the Nigerian Housing Sector aired on African Independent Television (AIT) in 2007, it was stated that between 1973 and 2006, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) built only 30,000 housing units nationwide, and then, there was a deficit of 12 million homes. I will not bother with statistics now, but to those who are professionals in the housing industry in and out of Nigeria, one could see that there are tremendous opportunities in the Nigerian housing sector waiting to be tapped, and it should be noted that the Governments alone cannot fill this gap.
However, what the various government, Federal, State and Local should be seeing to be actively and sincerely doing is to provide such resources as encouraging foreign investment, (as Akeju 2007, posited, Government has no business building houses), and focus on providing a favourable investment climate, infrastructure and mortgage insurance to first-time buyers and low-to-middle income families.
Currently, and fortuitously, Housing seems to be a priority for the Federal Government of Nigeria, and this is captured in President Yar’Adua’s 2020 Agenda, where the president attaches the highest priority to affordable housing for the masses.
The purpose of this article, however, is to look at another factor which should be considered in facilitating a vibrant housing sector in Nigeria – Social Housing and to call attention to the human resources side of this sector. Social or Public housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by not-for-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, definitions of poverty and other criteria for allocation vary.
In the United Kingdom public housing is often referred to by the British public as "council housing" and "council estate", based on the historical role of district and borough councils in running public housing. Local semi-independent non-profit housing associations have begun to operate some of the older council housing estates in the United Kingdom. Despite being non-profit based, they charge generally higher rents than council properties. More recently the government refers to both as 'Social Housing', and Housing Associations are now referred to as 'Registered Social Landlords' (RSLs). Additionally local planning departments may require private-sector developers to offer "affordable housing" as a condition of planning permission. This accounts for another £700m of Government funding each year for tenants in parts of the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom has a long tradition of promoting affordable social rented housing. This may be owned by local councils or housing associations. There are also a range of affordable home ownership options, including shared ownership (where a tenant rents part share in the property from a social landlord, and owns the remainder). The government has also attempted to promote the supply of owner occupied affordable stock for purchase, principally by using the land-use planning system to require that housing developers provide a proportion of lower cost housing within new developments. This approach is commonly known as inclusionary zoning.
The social housing sector in the United Kingdom is regulated by The Housing Corporation and the Audit Commission who carry out regular inspections to ensure compliance with the government regulations, good practice and value for money, amongst other criteria. The Housing Corporation is the government agency that funds new affordable homes and regulates housing associations in England, while the Audit Commission is an independent watchdog, driving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in local public services to deliver better outcomes for everyone, including local government, health, housing, community safety and fire and rescue to promote value for money for taxpayers.
Furthermore, the education and training of housing professionals in the UK is overseen by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). The CIH is a professional body for people working in housing and communities, helped develop the Construction and the Built Environment Diploma and ensure that housing practitioners are appropriately trained in order to ensure effective performance in their roles. The point here is that there is a resource implication by utilising the CIH’s world famous professional housing management training, as the President seems to be keen for highly qualified Nigerians to return home to help the country and housing provision and management are crucial elements for success.
Recently, there have been moves made by the Nigerian Government, through the Minister for Housing to elicit the help of the CIH in establishing a professional housing body in Nigeria, to serve in the Nigerian housing sector. This will not only lead to recognised and accredited housing courses and training being established in Nigeria, but it points the way to a housing revolution in the country, since such a body will be at par with other professional institutes such as Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN); Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA); Nigerian Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) and the likes.
The fact is for such Institute for housing practitioners to be successfully established in Nigeria, there must be a Housing management training programme which will be accredited and authorised by a well known and recognised foreign body such as the CIH. This should not be new or objectionable to us, as basically, all of our professional bodies had their roots from such foreign bodies and even after 48 years of independence, are still very much aligned or affiliated with such bodies.
However, the main concern is with the training of such personnel and housing practitioners to run the housing sector in Nigeria. To take this forward, it is proposed that:
A conference of Federal and State Governments, Universities and other stakeholders needs to be held at Abuja to introduce Professional Housing Management to Nigeria. It should be co-hosted by the Federal Housing Ministry and the CIH. The British Government’s Department for International Development and the British Council should be invited.
The Federal Housing Minister and the Federal Housing Authority should hold a press conference well before the event and fully brief the public about the need for a professional body such as the CIH to play a major part in Housing Management in Nigeria.
Plans are required to get the housing profession recognised through legislation so that it would be at par with ICAN, the NSE, the Nigerian Institute of Architects etc. The ICAN Act of 1965 would be a useful guide. Furthermore, the gap created by the absence of the CIH in Nigeria is being usurped by other professions who pretend to be “experts” in housing development and management. The UK as the best model where there are clear professional demarcations in the duties of architects, estate managers, chartered and quantity surveyors, builders etc. The CIH has a Royal Charter and its functions cannot be performed by other groups. This is what is needed in Nigeria whereby a Nigerian Chartered Institute of Housing Act should be enacted as soon as possible. UK's CIH has over 21,000 members with branches in many countries. South Africa and Botswana are currently the only African countries that have signed MOUs with the CIH, but given the enormity of Nigeria's housing problems, there is a need to move quickly.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) needs to be drawn up and signed as soon as possible and the possibility of encouraging the CIH to open an office in Nigeria as they have done in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Financial and logistical support should be given by the Federal and State Governments. The British Council could be asked to play a role in this arrangement. The British Dept for International Development (DFID) is keen to improve professional expertise in Africa and they could also make a contribution.
Hundreds of Nigerian graduates and senior housing managers are anxious to qualify through the CIH. There are definitely a large number of routes for qualifying for membership. For example, a fast track system has just been set up between CIH China and CIH UK for university-based and distance learning protocols. 2 or 3 Nigerian universities could be selected for post-graduate programmes leading to CIH qualifications in Housing Management and they could network with some of the dozens of universities and colleges in the UK that provide undergraduate and post-graduate course in Housing. The CIH UK remains a highly respected body, with world-wide affiliations and can only be of benefit to Nigeria.
The CIH has excellent distance learning facilities so, students can remain in their jobs in Nigeria during their training for membership. Supervisors can make short trips from the UK for higher level students who are aiming for Corporate Membership (MCIH). Alternatively, such students could come to the UK for short-term attachments to approved housing organisations (6-12 weeks).
At present, the Housing Sector in the UK has a very significant presence of Nigerians, currently working to provide housing and Housing management training to the United Kingdom population. This has been going on since the early 1970s. I do not see any reason, why this abilities, skills and experience could not be tapped for the benefit of Nigeria as a whole.
Reference:
Akeju, A.A., “Challenges to Providing Affordable Housing in Nigeria”, Paper presented at the 2nd Emerging Urban Africa International Conference on Housing Finance in Nigeria, Abuja, Oct. 17-19, 2007
Shehu, M., “Nigeria: FCTA to build 10,000 houses” in THIS DAT Newspapers, 26 September 2008.
Yusuf, M. H. “Funding, handicap to Nigeria’s housing policy” DAILY TRUST Newspapers, 01 September 2008
Akintokunbo Adejumo, M Sc., ACIH, MCMI, a social and political commentator on Nigerian issues, lives and works in London, UK. He is a graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1979) and University of Manitoba, Canada (1985). He also writes on topical issues for newspapers and internet media including Nigeriaworld.com, Nigeria Today Online, Nigeriansinamerica.com, Nigerianvillagesquare.com, Gamji.com, etc
He is also the Coordinator of CHAMPIONS FOR NIGERIA, an organisation devoted to celebrating genuine progress, excellence, commitment, selfless and unalloyed service to Nigeria and the people of Nigeria.
Sleepless And Speechless In Abuja And Other Cities
I have just returned from Nigeria, which in itself is not news to anybody, and I also visited our capital city, Abuja. Abuja is arguably one of the most beautiful cities in sub-Saharan Africa. If we don’t want to go that far, then it is the only beautiful city in Nigeria. It has got much about everything that a modern city should have – imposing beautiful public and government buildings; private abodes with exquisite out-of-this-world architecture (most of these are actually castles or villas, and not just houses, as only the Nigerian rich can build); the roads are neat, wide and motorable; well-planned lay-outs; relatively good security; centre of Nigeria’s government, etc. But alas, somebody forgot to include an effective, cheap public transportation system for the common man - rail, buses or any other. As a Nigerian, I am always awed and proud of it, but with mixed feelings and reservations. I am always at a loss why no Nigerian government has ever considered replicating Abuja in other state capitals around the country. They would not, would they?
Abuja is a “planned city”, as it was mainly built in the 1980s and officially became Nigeria's capital on 12 December 1991, replacing the role of the previous capital Lagos. As of the 2006 census, the Federal Capital Territory has a population of 778,567. Abuja is known for being the best purpose-built city in Africa as well as being one of the wealthiest and most expensive. The logic used for conceiving Abuja, by the Murtala Mohammed-Obasanjo military regime of the late 70s, was similar to Brazil building its capital Brasilia.
It is of course not my first or second time in this city built with the wealth Nigeria has gained from oil, and the sufferings of the people of the Niger Delta (Sorry to put a dampener on your sensitivities). Indeed the residents of the real Abuja are not ordinary Nigerians. Whenever I visit Abuja, I could not but help being overcome with mixed feelings. One, and the positive thing, is that Abuja is a testimony to Nigeria’s effort to be a modern state, and one that a Nigerian should be proud of. The second, and definitely negative of disheartening, is that Abuja represents man’s inhumanity to man, in all its ramifications. It is a testimony or evidence to the monstrous, contagious and murderous corruption of Nigeria. A testimony to the debilitating effect that corruption has had on us since the military took over governance of this country. It is the evidence of greed, insincerity, mismanagement and bad governance of our country. It embodies the desire and effort of the corrupt ruling class that have enslaved their people for decades. Look at it beyond the issue of beauty and modernity.
Every time I visit this city, and talk to people, it is always the same sense of futility and pessimism, and incidentally, these are expressed by both the ordinary Nigeria on the street as well as those in various levels of the society – civil servants, politicians, private and business people. All of them believe that the deliverance of this country is only by praying to God. They all believe, and these include those in Lagos, Ibadan, Ortukpo, Kano, Kaduna, Benin, Minna, Yola, Jalingo. Ogbomosho, Calabar, Sokoto, Ife, Ado-Ekiti, Warri, etc, that only God can save Nigeria.
Mind you, I am a fairly religious person. At least I believe in God, even if I don’t attend church regularly as my mother would have liked me to do, but I have a problem reconciling this “given-up” attitude of my countrymen that only God can deliver them from the evil cabal that is ruling them. They do not believe that they, as a people, can and have to do it themselves. And I am talking about even the people who should not be saying such things. I am talking about people, whose remit is to ensure the smooth running of Nigeria, either as civil servants, politician, military personnel, police, business people and the likes. One thing that comes to mind is that these same people are either being deliberately insincere with me and their countrymen and women, or they really do not know what to do. Either way, we all know it does not bode well for the country, and explains, almost graphically, why the country is in such a mess as we find ourselves in today, and in the future too.
On the other hand, such sentiments shows us to be pessimists and a people, at least those ordinary Nigerians, who have no other choice than to live and struggle it out in Nigeria, who have given up on the country itself and are convinced that Nigeria’s salvation can only come from God. Well, I agree that God can indeed save us, but I always ask them; have you heard of the saying that “heaven only helps those who help themselves”?
Abuja, being our capital city, is supposed to be an embodiment of Nigeria, and Nigeria, in all ramifications – culture, politics, socio-political development, a testimony to a country rousing itself out of the ashes of civil war, religious riots and ethnic rivalries, on its way to being a modern and developed country. But no, you cannot see all these and many features of political and democratic emancipation in Abuja. What we see is a vagrant display of stolen wealth, outright oppression, arrogance of power, unchecked political, governmental and moral corruption, neglect of fellow Nigerians and all the vices that have virtually destroyed our nation, and turned the majority of Nigerians into paupers and/or crooks.
Well. People tell me that the success of Abuja lays solely on ex-President Babangida, since it was him, more than any previous Head of State, who accelerated the building of Abuja and forced the civil service, the diplomatic corps, etc, to move into the partly-completed city in the 80s. I might begrudgingly accept that, but then it is no wonder that the city is decadent like its “accelerator”. What do we know? A lot of Nigerians made their money out of the building of Abuja, and are still making money, because the city is actually not complete and is still growing. All these to the grief of the Niger Delta people; no wonder they are aggrieved. Can you blame them?
However, it was for selfish reasons that IBB accelerated the building of Abuja. He made that decision shortly after the Orkah coup, in which he was nearly bushwhacked and killed. He surmised that Lagos, as the capital of Nigeria, was not safe for him, especially since he did not have plans to relinquish power for a long time, and made haste to retreat to the relative safety and proximity of Abuja to his Minna hometown as well as to the Nigerian Army facilities in the northern part of the country. Also he could exercise better control of the armed forces from Abuja, instead of the coup-hardened soldiers based in Lagos.
Abuja typifies some of the failings in our society which, according to Tunji Lardner, has enough for everybody’s need but not enough for everybody’s greed; a society where the greed (of the elite) most often surpasses the need (of the populace). You cannot be an ordinary citizen of Nigeria and live successfully in Abuja. The city is for rich, mostly corrupt Nigerians. All other people live on the outskirts of the city, called “satellite towns”, and come into the city to satisfy the whim and services of the rich. The ostentatiousness and pretentiousness of the city are overwhelming. The rotten smell and evil face of corruption are overpowering, nauseating and cannot be ignored, if you are not “one of them”. But Nigerians seem to love it that way.
Mind you, I am not against being rich. I would like, and work hard, to be rich too. Why not? I am just against corrupt enrichment. And that is what we have in Abuja. Babangida, and subsequent leaders of Nigeria to date, ensured that living in Abuja is beyond the reach of the majority of Nigerians; not that I want 140 million Nigerians to crowd into Abuja, but you know what I mean. If a plot of land costs between 30 and 40 million naira, what would you build on it, for example? You had better build a castle. The corrupt rich have cornered the real estate market. They have all the houses and the estates. Most of these are politicians and ex-military leaders and civil servants. Even the commercial properties are owned by them. In fact, anything that is not government property is probably owned by these individuals.
I cannot know or list them all, but here’s an example. There is a large expanse of building called Sigma Apartments (I forgot which street it lies) and I was told it is owned by an ex-Minister for Sports. See? That tells you why our football and other sports are spiraling downwards every day. Several high quality hotels, guest houses, shopping complexes and plazas are owned by ex-military officers and serving politicians. And these people do not own one, but several each. In most of the “big men’s” castles, you can count up to six exotic vehicles, while Abuja itself has no public transportation worth its name for the masses to travel in to and from work. Babangida forgot to include a mass transit or urban rail system in his master plan.
This rapacious land-grabbing and property-acquisition frenzy reminds me of Leo Tolstoy’s short story “How much land does a man need?” This was the story of a man, Pakhom who already had some land but went in search of more land, this time, freehold land, until he got to the land of the Bashkirs, where he was told he could take as much land as he could walk around in a day at the rate of a thousand roubles a day, but he must be back at his starting point everyday, by sunset. But Pakhom got greedy. He set out at dawn, grabbing long stretches of land, by the time he decided he had had enough land, and he embarked on the journey back, he had travelled so far and he was very exhausted, and ran back as fast as he could, but he couldn’t make it. He slumped and died. The Bashkirs were only sympathetic to his plight. Pakhom’s workman picked up a spade and dug a grave for his master - six feet from head to heel, which was exactly the right length - and buried him.
Tolstoy’s metaphor is a remarkable observation on the futility of human strivings, on the emptiness of avariciousness. In seeking to acquire more and more land, Pakhom ended up not having anything, including his life. (Obasanjo, you who are acquiring land left, right and centre, to expand Obasanjo Farms, take heed of this story, if you have not read it already)
Let the “owners and acquisitors” of Abuja grab as much of Abuja, and indeed, Nigeria, as they could. But what is the point? How many billions of naira do they need to steal? How many rooms can sleep all at once or how many cars can they ride at once. As the Holy Bible said, “what profits a man, who gains the entire world, but loses his life?”
It was while I was in Abuja that several Ministers were sacked from President Yar’Adua’s cabinet. One of them, the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Moddibo, who has done virtually nothing since he was appointed in 2007, was said to be crying upon hearing of his sack. He replaced El-Rufai, who was actually his mentor, but whom he (Moddibo) later turned around to stab in the back. In the meantime, several of the sacked Ministers are already rich beyond their own imagination, just for being in government for less than 2 years. Meanwhile, the lobby to become a Minister is already on, but you can bet that our very own “Mr. Go-Slow” will take another few months before replacing the ministers.
Ah! The best news I have heard in a long time happened on Friday 7th November, when a source called me and told me that the so-called invincible, most powerful man in Nigeria sport for the past 17 years has been unceremoniously removed as the Director General of the Nigerian Sports Commission. Yes, Dr Amos Adamu; that most corrupt of civil servants in Nigeria finally met his Waterloo. He over-climbed the tree when he and others in the Local Organizing Committee for the2009 FIFA U17 World Cup embarrassed the country by inflating the cost of the games from N9 billion to N37 Billion. Can you imagine that? Goddamn thieves! They should be shot. But anyway, Amos Adamu, that Ogbomosho man who pretends that he’s a Northerner to further his career, was told to report to the Head of Service, for re-deployment. This is effectively the end of his civil service career. He should be happy; he is a billionaire civil servant; he is still in FIFA, CAF and he’s currently the President of WAFU. A few months ago, he publicly stated that he was conducting an investigation into corruption in Nigerian sports, and gave the committee he inaugurated 28 days to carry out their investigation and submit it to him. After over 6 months, we are still waiting for that report. He said a few years ago, that when he retires, he will become a priest. I wonder what he will preach to his congregation about corruption. Good riddance.
And another Ogbomosho man (please I don’t have anything Ogbomosho people, my mother was born and bred in that noble town) is riding rough-shod over Oyo State, basking in the glory of being the state’s chief executive officer, but actually doing nothing. He’s hardly spent a year in office, after one of the most rigged elections in the history of the state, nay, Nigeria, and he’s already planning for a second term (God forbid bad thing). The man, who many people are wont to say, is charming and friendly and a good man personally, if you get to meet him, recently spent a hundred million Naira on his daughter’s wedding. Don’t ask me where the money came from; your guess is as good as mine. The rumour is that all the 33 local governments and all ministries and parastatals were asked or coerced into donating this money. And meanwhile, go to Ibadan, the state capital, and you will be sorry you ever entered the ancient city which should have been one of the foremost industrialized, progressive, beautiful and most developed cities in Nigeria today. I am from the city, and every time I go there, there is really nothing that shows that this was a city that was the capital of the old Western Region during the premiership of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the old Western State of Fajuyi and Adeyinka Adebayo, the old Oyo State of Jemibewon, Bola Ige, etc, and now the capital of the new Oyo State. Every other state capital carved out of the old Western Region have moved on and are seeing some kind of development or the other; but not my city of Ibadan, that used to be the military backbone of the Oyo Empire.
Forget about that former school teacher of mine, Lamidi Adesina and the naïve Rasheed Ladoja. The two were major disappointments, and after those two, what do you expect? Adebayo Alao-Akala, sacked policeman, who never expected to be more than a local government chairman, but became first, the deputy governor, and backed by the late godfather, Lamidi Adedibu, became the “execu-thieve” Governor of Oyo State. Such is the state of Nigeria today. With ex-convicts like James Ibori as governor of Delta State for eight disastrous years, state governorship has become a free-for-all. But then what about governors who are well educated and well-read like Agagu of Ondo State and Odili of Rivers State? Any difference between these people? No!!
Nigeria was not all that of gloom. The news of Barack Obama’s victory in the US met me in Jos. I was glued to my hotel room’s television all night. I need not say anything further on this. All I wanted to say have been said, and more, by thousands of writers and commentators, but the frenzy in Nigeria was probably unsurpassed by even the Americans themselves. Even Nigerian politicians were ecstatic, and it makes one wonder whether there is hope for us in that part of the world. A comparison between Nigeria and America’s versions of politics and democracy is certainly food for thought for many years to come. The way Nigerians reacted to Obama’s victory is a vocal yearning for real democracy and progress in our country. We can only hope this will be replicated in 2011. Dare we hope?
In Lagos and Lagos State, only the blind will not see what Governor Babatunde Fashola is doing. The man has been a revelation, despite many people’s initial misgivings about the support he received from his predecessor, Ashiwaju Tinubu. People say Tinubu is still calling the shots, but the evidence is there that Fashola is showing the pace for all other states to follow. Again, I should not recount his achievements so far, but only to pray that God gives him the wisdom, the long life and good health to continue as he started.
All that said, I was in Benin City, Edo State to witness Governor Oshiomole’s inauguration and swearing-in. It was a victory for democracy and again a sign that our judiciary is not all that bad. Let’s leave it at that. In other states where elections results were put into question, such as Osun, Bayelsa, Cross River, Adamawa, Oyo, etc, there were indications that the Electoral Tribunals were greatly compromised and thereby delivered slanted judgments in face of overwhelming evidence of political rigging and corruption. Edo State and Oshiomole should give us another reason to hope that Nigeria is changing politically, and that while our political and democratic process might appear slow, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Well done to the Electoral and Appeals tribunal that oversaw this case. I wish the new Governor the best.
There are so many things I would have liked to bring out about my visit to Nigeria this time, but space precludes my doing so. Suffice it to say that my people are still suffering, corrupt ex-governors and other politicians are still roaming the streets and still dictating the tunes, current politicians are still embroiled in the mesh of corruption (the car scandal of the House of Representatives, etc). I even heard that a former Secretary-General of the Nigerian Football Association, NFA, has a hotel in South Africa; the Chief of Staff to the Rivers State Governor embezzled five billion naira (how he can do that without his boss’s knowledge beats my imagination) and the politicians and leaders are still pulling the wool over our eyes and trying to convince us that a dog is a monkey.
Finally, on the sacking of ministers, appointing new ones, and reshuffling President Yar’Adua’s cabinet, the sum total is Work Done Equals Zero. Nothing has changed or will change. If Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa does not go, Nigeria’s fight against corruption is doomed to failure. The man is holding us up, let’s get rid of him. Times are no longer desperate for the corrupt; they are indeed basking and glorying in it in the glare of everybody. Even new Governors have devised new ways of corrupt enrichment, as was confided to me by a staff of the EFCC.
I say, let the truth be said always.
Akintokunbo Adejumo lives and works in London, UK. A graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1979) and University of Manitoba, Canada (1985), he also writes on topical issues for newspapers and internet media including Nigeriaworld.com, Nigeria Today Online, Nigerians In America, Nigeria Village Square, Champions Newspaper, ChatAfrik.com, African News Switzerland, New Nigerian Politics, Gamji.com, Codewit.com, etc.
He is also the Coordinator of CHAMPIONS FOR NIGERIA, (www.championsfornigeria.org) an organisation devoted to celebrating genuine progress, excellence, commitment, selfless and unalloyed service to Nigeria and Nigerians
Abuja is a “planned city”, as it was mainly built in the 1980s and officially became Nigeria's capital on 12 December 1991, replacing the role of the previous capital Lagos. As of the 2006 census, the Federal Capital Territory has a population of 778,567. Abuja is known for being the best purpose-built city in Africa as well as being one of the wealthiest and most expensive. The logic used for conceiving Abuja, by the Murtala Mohammed-Obasanjo military regime of the late 70s, was similar to Brazil building its capital Brasilia.
It is of course not my first or second time in this city built with the wealth Nigeria has gained from oil, and the sufferings of the people of the Niger Delta (Sorry to put a dampener on your sensitivities). Indeed the residents of the real Abuja are not ordinary Nigerians. Whenever I visit Abuja, I could not but help being overcome with mixed feelings. One, and the positive thing, is that Abuja is a testimony to Nigeria’s effort to be a modern state, and one that a Nigerian should be proud of. The second, and definitely negative of disheartening, is that Abuja represents man’s inhumanity to man, in all its ramifications. It is a testimony or evidence to the monstrous, contagious and murderous corruption of Nigeria. A testimony to the debilitating effect that corruption has had on us since the military took over governance of this country. It is the evidence of greed, insincerity, mismanagement and bad governance of our country. It embodies the desire and effort of the corrupt ruling class that have enslaved their people for decades. Look at it beyond the issue of beauty and modernity.
Every time I visit this city, and talk to people, it is always the same sense of futility and pessimism, and incidentally, these are expressed by both the ordinary Nigeria on the street as well as those in various levels of the society – civil servants, politicians, private and business people. All of them believe that the deliverance of this country is only by praying to God. They all believe, and these include those in Lagos, Ibadan, Ortukpo, Kano, Kaduna, Benin, Minna, Yola, Jalingo. Ogbomosho, Calabar, Sokoto, Ife, Ado-Ekiti, Warri, etc, that only God can save Nigeria.
Mind you, I am a fairly religious person. At least I believe in God, even if I don’t attend church regularly as my mother would have liked me to do, but I have a problem reconciling this “given-up” attitude of my countrymen that only God can deliver them from the evil cabal that is ruling them. They do not believe that they, as a people, can and have to do it themselves. And I am talking about even the people who should not be saying such things. I am talking about people, whose remit is to ensure the smooth running of Nigeria, either as civil servants, politician, military personnel, police, business people and the likes. One thing that comes to mind is that these same people are either being deliberately insincere with me and their countrymen and women, or they really do not know what to do. Either way, we all know it does not bode well for the country, and explains, almost graphically, why the country is in such a mess as we find ourselves in today, and in the future too.
On the other hand, such sentiments shows us to be pessimists and a people, at least those ordinary Nigerians, who have no other choice than to live and struggle it out in Nigeria, who have given up on the country itself and are convinced that Nigeria’s salvation can only come from God. Well, I agree that God can indeed save us, but I always ask them; have you heard of the saying that “heaven only helps those who help themselves”?
Abuja, being our capital city, is supposed to be an embodiment of Nigeria, and Nigeria, in all ramifications – culture, politics, socio-political development, a testimony to a country rousing itself out of the ashes of civil war, religious riots and ethnic rivalries, on its way to being a modern and developed country. But no, you cannot see all these and many features of political and democratic emancipation in Abuja. What we see is a vagrant display of stolen wealth, outright oppression, arrogance of power, unchecked political, governmental and moral corruption, neglect of fellow Nigerians and all the vices that have virtually destroyed our nation, and turned the majority of Nigerians into paupers and/or crooks.
Well. People tell me that the success of Abuja lays solely on ex-President Babangida, since it was him, more than any previous Head of State, who accelerated the building of Abuja and forced the civil service, the diplomatic corps, etc, to move into the partly-completed city in the 80s. I might begrudgingly accept that, but then it is no wonder that the city is decadent like its “accelerator”. What do we know? A lot of Nigerians made their money out of the building of Abuja, and are still making money, because the city is actually not complete and is still growing. All these to the grief of the Niger Delta people; no wonder they are aggrieved. Can you blame them?
However, it was for selfish reasons that IBB accelerated the building of Abuja. He made that decision shortly after the Orkah coup, in which he was nearly bushwhacked and killed. He surmised that Lagos, as the capital of Nigeria, was not safe for him, especially since he did not have plans to relinquish power for a long time, and made haste to retreat to the relative safety and proximity of Abuja to his Minna hometown as well as to the Nigerian Army facilities in the northern part of the country. Also he could exercise better control of the armed forces from Abuja, instead of the coup-hardened soldiers based in Lagos.
Abuja typifies some of the failings in our society which, according to Tunji Lardner, has enough for everybody’s need but not enough for everybody’s greed; a society where the greed (of the elite) most often surpasses the need (of the populace). You cannot be an ordinary citizen of Nigeria and live successfully in Abuja. The city is for rich, mostly corrupt Nigerians. All other people live on the outskirts of the city, called “satellite towns”, and come into the city to satisfy the whim and services of the rich. The ostentatiousness and pretentiousness of the city are overwhelming. The rotten smell and evil face of corruption are overpowering, nauseating and cannot be ignored, if you are not “one of them”. But Nigerians seem to love it that way.
Mind you, I am not against being rich. I would like, and work hard, to be rich too. Why not? I am just against corrupt enrichment. And that is what we have in Abuja. Babangida, and subsequent leaders of Nigeria to date, ensured that living in Abuja is beyond the reach of the majority of Nigerians; not that I want 140 million Nigerians to crowd into Abuja, but you know what I mean. If a plot of land costs between 30 and 40 million naira, what would you build on it, for example? You had better build a castle. The corrupt rich have cornered the real estate market. They have all the houses and the estates. Most of these are politicians and ex-military leaders and civil servants. Even the commercial properties are owned by them. In fact, anything that is not government property is probably owned by these individuals.
I cannot know or list them all, but here’s an example. There is a large expanse of building called Sigma Apartments (I forgot which street it lies) and I was told it is owned by an ex-Minister for Sports. See? That tells you why our football and other sports are spiraling downwards every day. Several high quality hotels, guest houses, shopping complexes and plazas are owned by ex-military officers and serving politicians. And these people do not own one, but several each. In most of the “big men’s” castles, you can count up to six exotic vehicles, while Abuja itself has no public transportation worth its name for the masses to travel in to and from work. Babangida forgot to include a mass transit or urban rail system in his master plan.
This rapacious land-grabbing and property-acquisition frenzy reminds me of Leo Tolstoy’s short story “How much land does a man need?” This was the story of a man, Pakhom who already had some land but went in search of more land, this time, freehold land, until he got to the land of the Bashkirs, where he was told he could take as much land as he could walk around in a day at the rate of a thousand roubles a day, but he must be back at his starting point everyday, by sunset. But Pakhom got greedy. He set out at dawn, grabbing long stretches of land, by the time he decided he had had enough land, and he embarked on the journey back, he had travelled so far and he was very exhausted, and ran back as fast as he could, but he couldn’t make it. He slumped and died. The Bashkirs were only sympathetic to his plight. Pakhom’s workman picked up a spade and dug a grave for his master - six feet from head to heel, which was exactly the right length - and buried him.
Tolstoy’s metaphor is a remarkable observation on the futility of human strivings, on the emptiness of avariciousness. In seeking to acquire more and more land, Pakhom ended up not having anything, including his life. (Obasanjo, you who are acquiring land left, right and centre, to expand Obasanjo Farms, take heed of this story, if you have not read it already)
Let the “owners and acquisitors” of Abuja grab as much of Abuja, and indeed, Nigeria, as they could. But what is the point? How many billions of naira do they need to steal? How many rooms can sleep all at once or how many cars can they ride at once. As the Holy Bible said, “what profits a man, who gains the entire world, but loses his life?”
It was while I was in Abuja that several Ministers were sacked from President Yar’Adua’s cabinet. One of them, the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Moddibo, who has done virtually nothing since he was appointed in 2007, was said to be crying upon hearing of his sack. He replaced El-Rufai, who was actually his mentor, but whom he (Moddibo) later turned around to stab in the back. In the meantime, several of the sacked Ministers are already rich beyond their own imagination, just for being in government for less than 2 years. Meanwhile, the lobby to become a Minister is already on, but you can bet that our very own “Mr. Go-Slow” will take another few months before replacing the ministers.
Ah! The best news I have heard in a long time happened on Friday 7th November, when a source called me and told me that the so-called invincible, most powerful man in Nigeria sport for the past 17 years has been unceremoniously removed as the Director General of the Nigerian Sports Commission. Yes, Dr Amos Adamu; that most corrupt of civil servants in Nigeria finally met his Waterloo. He over-climbed the tree when he and others in the Local Organizing Committee for the2009 FIFA U17 World Cup embarrassed the country by inflating the cost of the games from N9 billion to N37 Billion. Can you imagine that? Goddamn thieves! They should be shot. But anyway, Amos Adamu, that Ogbomosho man who pretends that he’s a Northerner to further his career, was told to report to the Head of Service, for re-deployment. This is effectively the end of his civil service career. He should be happy; he is a billionaire civil servant; he is still in FIFA, CAF and he’s currently the President of WAFU. A few months ago, he publicly stated that he was conducting an investigation into corruption in Nigerian sports, and gave the committee he inaugurated 28 days to carry out their investigation and submit it to him. After over 6 months, we are still waiting for that report. He said a few years ago, that when he retires, he will become a priest. I wonder what he will preach to his congregation about corruption. Good riddance.
And another Ogbomosho man (please I don’t have anything Ogbomosho people, my mother was born and bred in that noble town) is riding rough-shod over Oyo State, basking in the glory of being the state’s chief executive officer, but actually doing nothing. He’s hardly spent a year in office, after one of the most rigged elections in the history of the state, nay, Nigeria, and he’s already planning for a second term (God forbid bad thing). The man, who many people are wont to say, is charming and friendly and a good man personally, if you get to meet him, recently spent a hundred million Naira on his daughter’s wedding. Don’t ask me where the money came from; your guess is as good as mine. The rumour is that all the 33 local governments and all ministries and parastatals were asked or coerced into donating this money. And meanwhile, go to Ibadan, the state capital, and you will be sorry you ever entered the ancient city which should have been one of the foremost industrialized, progressive, beautiful and most developed cities in Nigeria today. I am from the city, and every time I go there, there is really nothing that shows that this was a city that was the capital of the old Western Region during the premiership of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the old Western State of Fajuyi and Adeyinka Adebayo, the old Oyo State of Jemibewon, Bola Ige, etc, and now the capital of the new Oyo State. Every other state capital carved out of the old Western Region have moved on and are seeing some kind of development or the other; but not my city of Ibadan, that used to be the military backbone of the Oyo Empire.
Forget about that former school teacher of mine, Lamidi Adesina and the naïve Rasheed Ladoja. The two were major disappointments, and after those two, what do you expect? Adebayo Alao-Akala, sacked policeman, who never expected to be more than a local government chairman, but became first, the deputy governor, and backed by the late godfather, Lamidi Adedibu, became the “execu-thieve” Governor of Oyo State. Such is the state of Nigeria today. With ex-convicts like James Ibori as governor of Delta State for eight disastrous years, state governorship has become a free-for-all. But then what about governors who are well educated and well-read like Agagu of Ondo State and Odili of Rivers State? Any difference between these people? No!!
Nigeria was not all that of gloom. The news of Barack Obama’s victory in the US met me in Jos. I was glued to my hotel room’s television all night. I need not say anything further on this. All I wanted to say have been said, and more, by thousands of writers and commentators, but the frenzy in Nigeria was probably unsurpassed by even the Americans themselves. Even Nigerian politicians were ecstatic, and it makes one wonder whether there is hope for us in that part of the world. A comparison between Nigeria and America’s versions of politics and democracy is certainly food for thought for many years to come. The way Nigerians reacted to Obama’s victory is a vocal yearning for real democracy and progress in our country. We can only hope this will be replicated in 2011. Dare we hope?
In Lagos and Lagos State, only the blind will not see what Governor Babatunde Fashola is doing. The man has been a revelation, despite many people’s initial misgivings about the support he received from his predecessor, Ashiwaju Tinubu. People say Tinubu is still calling the shots, but the evidence is there that Fashola is showing the pace for all other states to follow. Again, I should not recount his achievements so far, but only to pray that God gives him the wisdom, the long life and good health to continue as he started.
All that said, I was in Benin City, Edo State to witness Governor Oshiomole’s inauguration and swearing-in. It was a victory for democracy and again a sign that our judiciary is not all that bad. Let’s leave it at that. In other states where elections results were put into question, such as Osun, Bayelsa, Cross River, Adamawa, Oyo, etc, there were indications that the Electoral Tribunals were greatly compromised and thereby delivered slanted judgments in face of overwhelming evidence of political rigging and corruption. Edo State and Oshiomole should give us another reason to hope that Nigeria is changing politically, and that while our political and democratic process might appear slow, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Well done to the Electoral and Appeals tribunal that oversaw this case. I wish the new Governor the best.
There are so many things I would have liked to bring out about my visit to Nigeria this time, but space precludes my doing so. Suffice it to say that my people are still suffering, corrupt ex-governors and other politicians are still roaming the streets and still dictating the tunes, current politicians are still embroiled in the mesh of corruption (the car scandal of the House of Representatives, etc). I even heard that a former Secretary-General of the Nigerian Football Association, NFA, has a hotel in South Africa; the Chief of Staff to the Rivers State Governor embezzled five billion naira (how he can do that without his boss’s knowledge beats my imagination) and the politicians and leaders are still pulling the wool over our eyes and trying to convince us that a dog is a monkey.
Finally, on the sacking of ministers, appointing new ones, and reshuffling President Yar’Adua’s cabinet, the sum total is Work Done Equals Zero. Nothing has changed or will change. If Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa does not go, Nigeria’s fight against corruption is doomed to failure. The man is holding us up, let’s get rid of him. Times are no longer desperate for the corrupt; they are indeed basking and glorying in it in the glare of everybody. Even new Governors have devised new ways of corrupt enrichment, as was confided to me by a staff of the EFCC.
I say, let the truth be said always.
Akintokunbo Adejumo lives and works in London, UK. A graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1979) and University of Manitoba, Canada (1985), he also writes on topical issues for newspapers and internet media including Nigeriaworld.com, Nigeria Today Online, Nigerians In America, Nigeria Village Square, Champions Newspaper, ChatAfrik.com, African News Switzerland, New Nigerian Politics, Gamji.com, Codewit.com, etc.
He is also the Coordinator of CHAMPIONS FOR NIGERIA, (www.championsfornigeria.org) an organisation devoted to celebrating genuine progress, excellence, commitment, selfless and unalloyed service to Nigeria and Nigerians
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello Is Not Guilty, We Are.
Now that the title of this article has grabbed your attention, please read on. Thank you.
Virtue, they say, is the moral excellence of a person. A virtue is a trait valued as being good. The conceptual opposite of virtue is vice. Unselfishness, truthfulness or honesty, morality, honesty, compassion, moderation, commitment, modesty, acceptance, etc are all virtues recognised by major religious faiths, and indeed by many cultures all over the world. Vice is a practice or habit that is considered immoral, depraved, and/or degrading in the associated society. It includes, among others, corruption, insincerity, diffidence, greed, selfishness, favoritism, callousness, excesses, irresponsibility, denial, vanity, indifference, stupidity, etc.
One thing that is very certain in Nigerian politics today is that our politicians never disappoint you with their total lack of virtues, antics or utterances. In most cases, the antics are absurd and devoid of any integrity, while their utterances are inane and devoid of any sense of responsibility or knowledge. They are completely mired in vice, some of which, of course include corruption and lack of morals. Hence, the unfortunate situation we find ourselves today in Nigeria.
It is common these days to find a politician or civil servant who goes to church or the mosque everyday to pray to God or Allah, yet when they get to the office on Monday morning, all that is in their heads is how to misappropriate or embezzle money that they are supposed to expend to improve the lot of their people. But they want the money for themselves only. They therefore contravene not only the laws of Man, but that of the Creator too.
Anyway, the comedy and the farce are over. Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, the over-promoted, under-qualified ex-first daughter, who should never have been within a million miles of the Nigerian Senate, is back in the “hallowed” chambers, and all is forgiven. The truth is that the Senate, as a democratic body has damaged its credibility and sincerity of purpose by welcoming her back without so much as a slap on the wrist.
So, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo, who after several months in hiding and playing hide and seek game with the EFCC, appeared before the courts and was granted bail. She then went to her Abeokuta city, her constituency as she now acknowledges, and was given a rousing welcome by some association or the other. The newspapers termed them “her kinsmen and women”. It was during this reception that she declared that she was not guilty of the allegations of her involvement in the Ministry of Finance’s 300 million Naira scandal, and where she herself had admitted receiving 10 million, purportedly for her Senate Committee on Health, of which she is the Chairperson.
She would say that, wouldn’t she? They all do say that, don’t they? Alamieyeseigha said that, Atiku is saying that, Ibori is saying that, and ALL the other corrupt ex-Governors, indicted former ministers, senators, etc involved in numerous scandals being exposed on a daily basis in Nigeria other etc. All of them are not guilty, yet we can’t find all the money entrusted to them or to be used for specific projects to develop the country. All the billions just up and disappeared into thin air.
For this woman to have the gut and insult all Nigerians is very galling. But then, there is a lot of precedent. They all insult us, these crooked and shameless politicians. Here is a woman, the ex-first daughter of Nigeria, as she liked to be called, whose father was very broke before he became the President of Nigeria in 1999 and is now a multi-billionaire. Then her fortunes changed for the better. She was first appointed a Commissioner in her home state of Ogun State (we all know why Gbenga Daniel did this); she then became a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and then steering herself to become the Chairperson of an important and influential Senate Committee.
Controversy has been following her since. She used a fake name (impersonation) to get some contracts, and she got away with it – only in Nigeria can that happen – without even a slap on the wrist. She became a fugitive as a result of this most recent scandal. Despite this misdemeanour, unbecoming of a person who calls herself a Senator, the Senate itself failed to sanction her, and this include her not attending any session for over two months, while she was still getting paid her salary as a Senator as well as other allowances. In fact, the Senate stuck their neck out for her and immediately absolved her of any crime or involvement in a crime, as if they are a court of law.
I understand that on her first day back in the Senate, after her hiding, she was given a standing ovation in the chambers. Shame on them all. But then, they would do that, wouldn’t they? They are all the same – they spend the better part of their time not carrying out what they are elected for, but busy chasing contracts all over Abuja, sharing money in “Ghana Must Go” bags, engaging in shady deals, lobbying for position, money and power. They do this with so much enthusiasm that if they had applied the same enthusiasm to the job at hand of moving the country forward, we probably will not be where we are today - stagnation, moribund governance, poverty, corruption, etc.
I was intrigued by the gall of this lady, who will never qualify for a beauty contest, not to talk of win it. Her father’s girlfriend in the House of Representatives tried the same ruse, but failed. Iyabo is also thinking she will get away with it, (and she may well get away with it for now) but eventually, even if all her cohorts and fellow travellers in corruption hang on and cover each other up as much as they like, one day will be one day.
At the reception held for her by her “kinsmen and women”, she further went on to say she has never stolen any money from the people of Nigeria. The impudence of that woman! May the Lord forgive her, because that is barefaced lying. But then, it proves that if you are liar, you will be corrupt, you will steal. This is a woman who has just recently completed and opened a big hotel in Ibadan, where they charge 35,000 Naira per night – not for an ordinary Nigerian, and is said to have similar hotels in Abeokuta, Lagos and Abuja.
But you see, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello is not a thief, or rather, not an ordinary thief. She took loans to do all these. She did business to do all these. Not a single kobo came from the people of Nigeria. Or maybe her father gave her the money now that he is a multi-billionaire as they said.
Yes, she could say that, and we have to agree too, after all, the case is still in court and she has not been pronounced guilty as charged. The Lord have mercy on her. She had better not seek to run for another time as a senator. The people of her constituency, Abeokuta, should do the right thing and reject her outright. In fact she should never be allowed near a ballot box. I hope I am right, or else the next position she will be gunning for is that of the Governor of Ogun State, and knowing the greedy and murderous party she belongs to, who want to rule Nigeria for the next sixty years, and she might well get it.
This woman has not learnt anything because nobody – the Senate, the Nigerian government, her father, her people – has taught her anything. She has not been made to face any music. She has not been severely reprimanded for her many indiscretions and misdemeanours. She has not been taught how to be ashamed and embarrassed for wrong-doing. She has not been taught a lesson in civility, servitude and remorse. She is not aware of the damage she has done to the name of Nigeria, the reputation of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the damage to her own and family’s name and reputation (if indeed there are any left). She is a very shameless individual, lacks conscience and does not know what it is to be a Senator representing millions of people in a democracy, and what she owes to her people. With a Senator of her type overseeing the provision of healthcare services to our people, we can now see the reason why patients have to bring their own cotton wool, medicine and sterilised water to hospital wards in UCH, LUTH and the rest of our miserable excuses for hospitals across Nigeria.
This is true of all our leaders, past and present, to the cost of their long-suffering, helpless and downtrodden people. They just take us for granted, and they have been doing so since our independence. They do not have any sense of responsibility either for their actions or towards their people. All they have is arrogance and corruption on their mind. They believe that the people will do nothing and will continue to do nothing despite their gross misbehaviour. (It is not longer a simple matter of misbehaviour; it has become criminal genocide, because a lot of Nigerians are losing their lives, directly or indirectly, as a result of their actions or inactions).
I am not sure those jokers and idiots who call themselves Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria are aware of the implication or significance of Iyabo’s farce. It is a direct indictment of the Nigerian Senate. Iyabo has brought the Nigerian Senate into disrepute. She has demonstrated that the whole chamber is nothing but a huge, expensive joke on Nigerian. The Nigerian Senate is a laughing stock of the democratic world, but they do not realise it nor do they care.
We must no longer tolerate them or their behaviour. And if you ask me, one way of doing this is to ensure we do not re-elect those of them seeking further terms in 2011 or whenever. We have to continue making them realise that Nigeria is not for them only, but for all of us. We have to apply pressure on them and let them get into their thick heads that we do not like them because they are ruining and killing us, they are not doing what we want; they are inconsiderate, selfish and corrupt. We have to make them know that they must pay for all the pains and agony they have been inflicting on us for so many decades.
This is not only for Iyabo, but so many other politicians of her ilk. We often delude ourselves by saying that only a few people are holding Nigeria hostage from development and progress, but compatriots, that is far from the truth; that list is growing alarmingly everyday. If we don’t believe this, then their “juju” is working on us. It is no longer a few; it is a lot of calculating nonentities and thieves who are bent on enriching themselves at the expense of the people of Nigeria. In fact as one thief drops out, or even stays in this list, five more are inside. Everybody is fighting for a share of the national cake, if indeed there is a cake, and they are prepared to do anything, anything, to achieve their dubious aims.
Let the truth be said always
Virtue, they say, is the moral excellence of a person. A virtue is a trait valued as being good. The conceptual opposite of virtue is vice. Unselfishness, truthfulness or honesty, morality, honesty, compassion, moderation, commitment, modesty, acceptance, etc are all virtues recognised by major religious faiths, and indeed by many cultures all over the world. Vice is a practice or habit that is considered immoral, depraved, and/or degrading in the associated society. It includes, among others, corruption, insincerity, diffidence, greed, selfishness, favoritism, callousness, excesses, irresponsibility, denial, vanity, indifference, stupidity, etc.
One thing that is very certain in Nigerian politics today is that our politicians never disappoint you with their total lack of virtues, antics or utterances. In most cases, the antics are absurd and devoid of any integrity, while their utterances are inane and devoid of any sense of responsibility or knowledge. They are completely mired in vice, some of which, of course include corruption and lack of morals. Hence, the unfortunate situation we find ourselves today in Nigeria.
It is common these days to find a politician or civil servant who goes to church or the mosque everyday to pray to God or Allah, yet when they get to the office on Monday morning, all that is in their heads is how to misappropriate or embezzle money that they are supposed to expend to improve the lot of their people. But they want the money for themselves only. They therefore contravene not only the laws of Man, but that of the Creator too.
Anyway, the comedy and the farce are over. Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, the over-promoted, under-qualified ex-first daughter, who should never have been within a million miles of the Nigerian Senate, is back in the “hallowed” chambers, and all is forgiven. The truth is that the Senate, as a democratic body has damaged its credibility and sincerity of purpose by welcoming her back without so much as a slap on the wrist.
So, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo, who after several months in hiding and playing hide and seek game with the EFCC, appeared before the courts and was granted bail. She then went to her Abeokuta city, her constituency as she now acknowledges, and was given a rousing welcome by some association or the other. The newspapers termed them “her kinsmen and women”. It was during this reception that she declared that she was not guilty of the allegations of her involvement in the Ministry of Finance’s 300 million Naira scandal, and where she herself had admitted receiving 10 million, purportedly for her Senate Committee on Health, of which she is the Chairperson.
She would say that, wouldn’t she? They all do say that, don’t they? Alamieyeseigha said that, Atiku is saying that, Ibori is saying that, and ALL the other corrupt ex-Governors, indicted former ministers, senators, etc involved in numerous scandals being exposed on a daily basis in Nigeria other etc. All of them are not guilty, yet we can’t find all the money entrusted to them or to be used for specific projects to develop the country. All the billions just up and disappeared into thin air.
For this woman to have the gut and insult all Nigerians is very galling. But then, there is a lot of precedent. They all insult us, these crooked and shameless politicians. Here is a woman, the ex-first daughter of Nigeria, as she liked to be called, whose father was very broke before he became the President of Nigeria in 1999 and is now a multi-billionaire. Then her fortunes changed for the better. She was first appointed a Commissioner in her home state of Ogun State (we all know why Gbenga Daniel did this); she then became a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and then steering herself to become the Chairperson of an important and influential Senate Committee.
Controversy has been following her since. She used a fake name (impersonation) to get some contracts, and she got away with it – only in Nigeria can that happen – without even a slap on the wrist. She became a fugitive as a result of this most recent scandal. Despite this misdemeanour, unbecoming of a person who calls herself a Senator, the Senate itself failed to sanction her, and this include her not attending any session for over two months, while she was still getting paid her salary as a Senator as well as other allowances. In fact, the Senate stuck their neck out for her and immediately absolved her of any crime or involvement in a crime, as if they are a court of law.
I understand that on her first day back in the Senate, after her hiding, she was given a standing ovation in the chambers. Shame on them all. But then, they would do that, wouldn’t they? They are all the same – they spend the better part of their time not carrying out what they are elected for, but busy chasing contracts all over Abuja, sharing money in “Ghana Must Go” bags, engaging in shady deals, lobbying for position, money and power. They do this with so much enthusiasm that if they had applied the same enthusiasm to the job at hand of moving the country forward, we probably will not be where we are today - stagnation, moribund governance, poverty, corruption, etc.
I was intrigued by the gall of this lady, who will never qualify for a beauty contest, not to talk of win it. Her father’s girlfriend in the House of Representatives tried the same ruse, but failed. Iyabo is also thinking she will get away with it, (and she may well get away with it for now) but eventually, even if all her cohorts and fellow travellers in corruption hang on and cover each other up as much as they like, one day will be one day.
At the reception held for her by her “kinsmen and women”, she further went on to say she has never stolen any money from the people of Nigeria. The impudence of that woman! May the Lord forgive her, because that is barefaced lying. But then, it proves that if you are liar, you will be corrupt, you will steal. This is a woman who has just recently completed and opened a big hotel in Ibadan, where they charge 35,000 Naira per night – not for an ordinary Nigerian, and is said to have similar hotels in Abeokuta, Lagos and Abuja.
But you see, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello is not a thief, or rather, not an ordinary thief. She took loans to do all these. She did business to do all these. Not a single kobo came from the people of Nigeria. Or maybe her father gave her the money now that he is a multi-billionaire as they said.
Yes, she could say that, and we have to agree too, after all, the case is still in court and she has not been pronounced guilty as charged. The Lord have mercy on her. She had better not seek to run for another time as a senator. The people of her constituency, Abeokuta, should do the right thing and reject her outright. In fact she should never be allowed near a ballot box. I hope I am right, or else the next position she will be gunning for is that of the Governor of Ogun State, and knowing the greedy and murderous party she belongs to, who want to rule Nigeria for the next sixty years, and she might well get it.
This woman has not learnt anything because nobody – the Senate, the Nigerian government, her father, her people – has taught her anything. She has not been made to face any music. She has not been severely reprimanded for her many indiscretions and misdemeanours. She has not been taught how to be ashamed and embarrassed for wrong-doing. She has not been taught a lesson in civility, servitude and remorse. She is not aware of the damage she has done to the name of Nigeria, the reputation of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the damage to her own and family’s name and reputation (if indeed there are any left). She is a very shameless individual, lacks conscience and does not know what it is to be a Senator representing millions of people in a democracy, and what she owes to her people. With a Senator of her type overseeing the provision of healthcare services to our people, we can now see the reason why patients have to bring their own cotton wool, medicine and sterilised water to hospital wards in UCH, LUTH and the rest of our miserable excuses for hospitals across Nigeria.
This is true of all our leaders, past and present, to the cost of their long-suffering, helpless and downtrodden people. They just take us for granted, and they have been doing so since our independence. They do not have any sense of responsibility either for their actions or towards their people. All they have is arrogance and corruption on their mind. They believe that the people will do nothing and will continue to do nothing despite their gross misbehaviour. (It is not longer a simple matter of misbehaviour; it has become criminal genocide, because a lot of Nigerians are losing their lives, directly or indirectly, as a result of their actions or inactions).
I am not sure those jokers and idiots who call themselves Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria are aware of the implication or significance of Iyabo’s farce. It is a direct indictment of the Nigerian Senate. Iyabo has brought the Nigerian Senate into disrepute. She has demonstrated that the whole chamber is nothing but a huge, expensive joke on Nigerian. The Nigerian Senate is a laughing stock of the democratic world, but they do not realise it nor do they care.
We must no longer tolerate them or their behaviour. And if you ask me, one way of doing this is to ensure we do not re-elect those of them seeking further terms in 2011 or whenever. We have to continue making them realise that Nigeria is not for them only, but for all of us. We have to apply pressure on them and let them get into their thick heads that we do not like them because they are ruining and killing us, they are not doing what we want; they are inconsiderate, selfish and corrupt. We have to make them know that they must pay for all the pains and agony they have been inflicting on us for so many decades.
This is not only for Iyabo, but so many other politicians of her ilk. We often delude ourselves by saying that only a few people are holding Nigeria hostage from development and progress, but compatriots, that is far from the truth; that list is growing alarmingly everyday. If we don’t believe this, then their “juju” is working on us. It is no longer a few; it is a lot of calculating nonentities and thieves who are bent on enriching themselves at the expense of the people of Nigeria. In fact as one thief drops out, or even stays in this list, five more are inside. Everybody is fighting for a share of the national cake, if indeed there is a cake, and they are prepared to do anything, anything, to achieve their dubious aims.
Let the truth be said always
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Nigeria: Power Belongs To The Looters
“A true picture of our dear country Nigeria, where power belongs to the Looters. I hope Nigerians will be able to stand up one day to these looters and demand for their rights and good Governance. It’s high time they stopped the carnival of dancing and the Aso-ebi syndromes for commissioning of bore holes, generators and power plants, repair of roads and so on and so forth. Its a shame on the Looters, if in this twenty-first century and Nigeria being No 6 in OPEC cannot boast of constant electricity supply for its citizens”.
The above was a feed back by a reader to one of my recent articles. The statement was so apt that I decided to adopt one of the phrases as the title of this article. We all know there are looters in government in our country. It is no longer news. I have tried many times to delve into their minds and psyche, and I have always come up with a blank, because I just could not figure out why a man, or woman for that matter, by virtue of his or her luck, power and position, would want to deny millions of his/her people their right to a good quality life, their right to peaceful enjoyment of the dividends of democracy, their right to good education, their right to good medical and health care; their right to food, their right to basic amenities of life, when, from all indications, the wealth of the country can go round, without causing damage or discomfort to anybody else, and will enable progress and development which on the long run, will be beneficial to all.
Why, I continue to ask, is a person so greedy as to be stealing billions of money from the state treasuries, when it is obvious that you can not spend it all? Why do you have to loot the treasury just to cart the money away and deposit it in foreign banks, or buy properties which you don’t even have time to live in most of the time, or buy airplanes when your people are struggling just to get from Point A to Point B? And all these with the money entrusted to you to alleviate their sufferings.
How many houses do you want to have before people can say you are very rich? And how many rooms can you sleep in at a particular point in time, or how many cars can you drive at the same time? Or do you need a convoy of vehicles to show you have arrived?
I was in Ibadan recently and made it a point to go and see what was happening at the Molete area of the “Godfather of Ibadan politics”. I was told that the Godfather illegally grabbed land belonging to NITEL, evicting the staff and saying it was Obasanjo who gave it to him. On the land, he has built a palace (anticipating when he would be Olubadan of Ibadanland in the nearest future, “God forbid bad thing”), a very big private mosque, and a fleet of cars numbering up to 30 parked on the same land. I was told these cars were donated to him by all the local governments and parastatals in Oyo State as a show of loyalty to him. (That is how they waste our money) What he intended to do with these cars, I do not know. One thing for sure, he is not distributing it to his political associates, and he is not riding all of them at the same time. And when he dies - that is if he dies at all - they are not going to bury the land, the properties, the cars and the money with him like Egyptian Pharaohs.
That a systematic looting of this country has been going on for decades cannot be over-emphasised. What is surprising is the rate at which it is going and the fact that politicians, military, civil servants and the likes are getting better and bolder at it. And more surprisingly, the people of Nigeria seem to be accepting their fate “what can we do” attitude. Apathy, short-sightedness, pessimism, helplessness. “Nobody will fight because what can we fight with?”, “Only God can punish them” syndrome. “Let them eat, one day they will leave us alone” or “there is enough wealth, so we won’t miss it”.
Well, I am missing something, if you are not. I am not concerned only for myself, I am concerned for my people – my family, my friends, my neighbours, my future, my very existence, my well-being, my people on the street.
On Thursday 1st June 2000, The Vanguard newspaper reported that the then President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo was to be paid a monthly salary of $2155 (about 215,500 Naira) working out to $26,000 or 2.6 million Naira a year. It was considered a very meagre salary then, considering that Thambo Mbeki of South Africa was earning $10,000 per month and South African MPs were getting about $3,333 monthly.
In January 2008, the basic salary of the President of Nigeria went up to 3.5 million Naira per year, besides other allowances and remunerations including hardship allowance, bringing the total to 10.9 million Naira per year. Many Nigerians, I am sure, do not have any problem with this. But, the Secretary to the Federal Government, Head of service and the Ministers are going to be earning 15.9 million Naira a year. Still no problem, if that is all they take home without dipping their hands into the treasury, or sharing 300 million Naira from budget surpluses in their various ministries.
When I was in Nigeria in April 2008, it was announced that the total remuneration for each Senator of the Federal Republic was going to be 45 million Naira (£191,489.00) and for the Members of the House of Representative, 35 million Naira (£149000.00) each. This is where I have a problem. If I am sure that these politicians are doing enough to alleviate the many plights of our people, I would be the first person to defend their remunerations, after all, Nigeria can afford it. Unfortunately, this more than handsome salary is not commensurate to the services they are elected to, or promised to provide to their people.
What the heck are these spongers doing that make them worth such salaries? Is it by organising retreats to Ghana, or spending all their time chasing contracts in Abuja? Most of them do not even have constituency offices in their home states to upkeep. See what I mean by looters in power? And they are doing it almost legitimately.
In the United States, the current salary of a rank-and-file member of the House of Representatives (Congressman) and Senate is $169,300 per year. This works out to about £84,650 or 19.89 million Naira, and you know what? Members are free to turn down pay increases and many choose to do so. But we know what these US politicians do to develop their country, protect their people and ensure they remain the most powerful country in the world. The leaders of the houses get slightly more.
In the United Kingdom, a Member of Parliament’s basic salary is £61,820 per year, and the Prime Minister, being also an MP, gets a total of £189,994 per year, including his salary for being an MP. (This means, theoretically at least, that our Senators in Nigeria work as hard or even harder as the Prime Minister of Britain, to bring development and progress to their people, the poor down-trodden people of Nigeria).
Unfortunately, for the purpose of this article, I could not lay my hands on the remuneration packages of our other really big Looters – State Governors and Deputy Governors, Members of the states’ House of Assemblies, Local Government Chairmen and Councillors. I believe the States set their own remuneration packages for their elected officials, but you can be sure they will look after their various pockets first before anything else.
We are not saying here that high salaries should not be paid to elected or appointed public officials, as a matter of fact, it is recognised that being highly paid in certain areas of work, and this include, public service, deters corruption. What we fail to see is how commensurate the salary paid to Nigerian political office holders is with their performance, their effectiveness, their commitment and the service they provide. Why, for example, should a Senator being paid N45 million a year to be making laws and attending the Senate still be chasing contracts in Abuja? Who else earns that amount of money in Nigeria? According to the data above, not even the President earns that much in total remuneration. It is only a very greedy person who will earn that salary and still continue to indulge in corrupt practices.
Please forgive me for repeating this anecdote; it is one of my favourites when writing articles about the corruption festering in Nigeria. Once upon a time in America, a man named Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks. He replied: “`Cos that’s where the money is”. It was an uncomplicated philosophy which served him well until he was caught and marched off to prison. Today, Mr Sutton would not have risked incarceration. Today, were Mr Sutton to be a Nigerian, he would have had the choice of being a Nigerian Politician, a Nigerian civil servant or a Nigerian contractor. Better still, he could have been a Nigerian Policeman, although he would have been severely limited as to making loads of money, but at least he could be in official authorised uniform and waylay people on the highway and collect money from them without facing any charges of armed robbery. Of course, as one who operated outside the law, Mr Sutton might have experienced problems in working with this brotherhood of political and civil uprightness and patriotism. But the vast mountains of easy Naira and foreign currency on offer would surely have stifled his reservations.
That about sums it up. In Nigeria, politics and government are like banks where money is kept, and thus it will continue to attract very smart, unsavoury and dishonest vagabonds, whose main aim in life is to steal the money. Hence, what the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti sang “VIP – Vagabonds In Power”. And this is why politics and government in Nigeria have become matters of life and death for the players. Hardly do you ever see someone going into politics or government because of selfless service to the people; it is almost always to serve their own pockets. And the money is there for the taking. Absolutely no accountability; no responsibility; no commitment; no sense of sympathy for the people.
Our current system of government and governance is unique in the world in that it leaves plenty of room for fraud and corrupt practices, due process or no due process. In fact, the system actively promotes and encourages corruption and fraud in high places. It is not that there are loopholes to be exploited in the system; rather, it is that the room for fraud is inbuilt into the system by our leaders and lawmakers, and they also make laws to protect themselves. Take for example the Constitution’s Section 308: Immunity Clause that protects State Executives, President and Vice-President from prosecution for any crime or misdemeanour whilst in office. If our leaders should have their way, this immunity clause would have been extended to cover our Ministers and legislators. As it is, I am not even sure the clause has not been surreptitiously extended, going by the Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello/EFCC farcical display.
Yesterday, it was the Ministry of Health’s 300 million Naira scandal that has resulted in the character damage of a respected Professor of Medicine; today it is the scandalous Integrated Power Project probe where unregistered contractors were awarded contracts without the celebrated Due Process of the Obasanjo Presidency; today it is the Abuja property land allocation probe; tomorrow it will be the 300 billion Naira roads scandal of Ogunlewe and Anenih or the unbelievable fraud in the NNPC, the managers of our oil wealth, and many like that. And we are not even talking about the ex-Governors. You don’t read anything in the newspapers these days without coming across one corruption scandal or the other. A lot of them have been pushed under the carpets, and will never see the light of day.
That there is a global food crisis is acknowledged now. The Federal Government of Nigeria, as usual, has found an easy and corrupt way out of the crisis. It is going to import rice worth 80 Billion Naira. Of course we can afford that, what with the price of oil now rising to an unprecedented US$125 per barrel and still rising. What will inevitably happen is that some people in the Ministry of Agriculture, Customs, etc are going to be making a lot of money out of the crisis. I remember that Shagari’s government set up a Presidential Task Force on Rice in 1980 to tackle a similar problem, causing problems to local rice farming in the process, from which we have not been able to recover from till today. And so was Obasanjo’s Presidential Initiative on Rice in 2002 whose objective was to “attain self-sufficiency in local rice production in the short-term by year 2005 and to produce for export in the medium term by year 2007”. It has been a very successful initiative as we can see, isn’t it?
Exactly what they do in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the States’ equivalent is beyond the understanding of sane Nigerians. If they are not importing rice, they will be importing fertilisers. Do we have an effective, sustainable and workable Agriculture policy? What happened to all the River Basins Authorities of the 70’s and so many Bank’s agricultural initiatives and loan schemes? What help are the various governments offering to local farmers and how sustainable are these help, if any? Do not be surprised at the end of the year when you hear that Ministers of the Agriculture Ministry and other officials are sharing surplus millions, and have gone on a fact-finding mission to Thailand or Malaysia to see how rice is grown over there.
Should Obasanjo Be Probed?
Well, that is a difficult one for me, really. There has never been the probe of a previous government in Nigeria, so if Obasanjo must be probed, then Babangida and Abdulsalam must be probed too. They are still alive and their tenures were also recent, and in fact, a lot of their misdeeds spilled over into the Obasanjo administration. If Nigerians are now baying for Obasanjo’s blood, it serves him right, because when we were calling on him to undertake an investigation of Babangida’s eight-year corruption-riddled and institutionalised tenure, Obasanjo himself prevented the probe and kept saying Nigerians should bring evidence before he can probe Babangida. Now IBB is even now bold to come out and say that Obasanjo’s administration was worse that his own. Them what has, gets. However, we are already probing Obasanjo anyway by way of all these Senate probes on power, roads and other areas.
Amos Adamu and Nigerian Sports
Dr Amos Adamu, and the current Director of Sports in the Federal Ministry of Sports is not a mere mortal, believe me. He is the Alpha and Omega of Nigerian Sports. He came in as Director of Sports Development over 20 years ago on the back of having a doctorate degree in Physical Education. And he has waxed ever stronger since then. He is a FIFA member, a member of CAF and now, after a brief hiccup, he is the President of the West African Football Union (WAFU), that body whose first President was the indomitable, incorruptible and excellent late Mr J K Tandoh. Dr Adamu is a far cry from the success, reputation, uprightness and commitment of such people as J K Tandoh and late Isaac Akioye. Adamu’s over twenty years at the helm of Nigerian sports has been a disaster. He has overseen the ruinous decline of sports in the country in the past two decades, yet some people up there still think he is the best and only man to run Nigerian sports. In fact he retired after COJA (the All African Games held in Abuja between 5th and 17th October 2003), and they practically had to go and beg him to come back again, because apparently to them only, he is the only man who can save Nigerian sports, and this after years of terrible decline supervised by the same man. I am not surprised, because he has managed to compromise a lot of them. All the Sports Ministers he has served under – or rather, all the Sports Ministers that have served under him – were no more than puppets. I heard that the moment a new Minister is appointed for sports; usually his first visitor will be our Amos, with “Ghana Must Go” bags to enable the Honourable Minister to “settle down in his new job”. We are not even sure if our Director of Sports does not have a hand in the appointment ensuring that a man he can manipulate is appointed in the first place.
When he organised All African Games, COJA in 2003, the aftermath was littered with corruption and mismanagement. It was this massive evidence of corruption that made Obasanjo, never a great sports fan himself, decide to back out of Nigeria’s bid to host the first ever Soccer World Cup in Africa, and resulted in South Africa getting that honour. Obasanjo also quickly foresaw that the evidence of corruption will also implicate some members of his family. The EFCC, then under Nuhu Ribadu, wanted to pick him up, but there was so much pressure from high up, that he had to succumb. The reason is that if Dr Adamu was ever picked up, he would start singing and the songs will not be melodious to the ears of some very top politicians and officials who had been compromised in the award of bogus or highly inflated contracts for the Games. They therefore had to use a lot of muscle on Ribadu to drop the investigations. It was a mess, and they must not let the shit hit the fan.
He has a very good team of loyal acolytes who report to him. For the past ten or fifteen years, these loyalists are always appointed into one important sports committee or the other. An example is the Nigeria Football Association, with Sani Lulu and Ojo-Oba as Chairman and Secretary respectively. The Board is also packed full of his loyalists. (Please note that the Nigeria Football Association still does not have an official website) These two goons have been Adamu’s men for years. They do his bidding and ensure that no other outsider ever gets in. More importantly, they report back to him. Their continued stay will always ensure that Nigerian football never progresses. He also has his goons in other sports areas. The first objective of the loyalists is to serve their master, and not Nigerian sports. Of course, these loyalists also serve their own pockets. They do not contribute, and never will contribute, anything towards resuscitating Nigerian comatose and moribund sports. They lack the knowledge and the ability, the focus and the ideas, the commitment and sincerity of purpose, to meaningfully contribute anything towards developing our sports. They are simply “yes-men”, sycophants, and corrupt charlatans parading themselves as sports officials. They are men of straw, doomed to serve a lesser god and doomed to failure, to be consigned to the dustbin of history. They are looters in power, like their godfather.
Well done, Adamu. You will leave us one day and go and finish your days as a “pastor” as you have said you desire. Maybe God will make you confess all your sins, and probably make you return all our money in your possession. It is not too late to repent.
Their time will come – these looters in power, however, para-phrasing Noam Chomsky's thesis, the only opposition now to these perpetrations of crimes and sins on Nigerians should be a continuous PUBLIC OPINION/OUTCRY at every whiff of scandalous corruption. And perhaps the civil societies and labour must help too.
Let the truth be said always.
The above was a feed back by a reader to one of my recent articles. The statement was so apt that I decided to adopt one of the phrases as the title of this article. We all know there are looters in government in our country. It is no longer news. I have tried many times to delve into their minds and psyche, and I have always come up with a blank, because I just could not figure out why a man, or woman for that matter, by virtue of his or her luck, power and position, would want to deny millions of his/her people their right to a good quality life, their right to peaceful enjoyment of the dividends of democracy, their right to good education, their right to good medical and health care; their right to food, their right to basic amenities of life, when, from all indications, the wealth of the country can go round, without causing damage or discomfort to anybody else, and will enable progress and development which on the long run, will be beneficial to all.
Why, I continue to ask, is a person so greedy as to be stealing billions of money from the state treasuries, when it is obvious that you can not spend it all? Why do you have to loot the treasury just to cart the money away and deposit it in foreign banks, or buy properties which you don’t even have time to live in most of the time, or buy airplanes when your people are struggling just to get from Point A to Point B? And all these with the money entrusted to you to alleviate their sufferings.
How many houses do you want to have before people can say you are very rich? And how many rooms can you sleep in at a particular point in time, or how many cars can you drive at the same time? Or do you need a convoy of vehicles to show you have arrived?
I was in Ibadan recently and made it a point to go and see what was happening at the Molete area of the “Godfather of Ibadan politics”. I was told that the Godfather illegally grabbed land belonging to NITEL, evicting the staff and saying it was Obasanjo who gave it to him. On the land, he has built a palace (anticipating when he would be Olubadan of Ibadanland in the nearest future, “God forbid bad thing”), a very big private mosque, and a fleet of cars numbering up to 30 parked on the same land. I was told these cars were donated to him by all the local governments and parastatals in Oyo State as a show of loyalty to him. (That is how they waste our money) What he intended to do with these cars, I do not know. One thing for sure, he is not distributing it to his political associates, and he is not riding all of them at the same time. And when he dies - that is if he dies at all - they are not going to bury the land, the properties, the cars and the money with him like Egyptian Pharaohs.
That a systematic looting of this country has been going on for decades cannot be over-emphasised. What is surprising is the rate at which it is going and the fact that politicians, military, civil servants and the likes are getting better and bolder at it. And more surprisingly, the people of Nigeria seem to be accepting their fate “what can we do” attitude. Apathy, short-sightedness, pessimism, helplessness. “Nobody will fight because what can we fight with?”, “Only God can punish them” syndrome. “Let them eat, one day they will leave us alone” or “there is enough wealth, so we won’t miss it”.
Well, I am missing something, if you are not. I am not concerned only for myself, I am concerned for my people – my family, my friends, my neighbours, my future, my very existence, my well-being, my people on the street.
On Thursday 1st June 2000, The Vanguard newspaper reported that the then President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo was to be paid a monthly salary of $2155 (about 215,500 Naira) working out to $26,000 or 2.6 million Naira a year. It was considered a very meagre salary then, considering that Thambo Mbeki of South Africa was earning $10,000 per month and South African MPs were getting about $3,333 monthly.
In January 2008, the basic salary of the President of Nigeria went up to 3.5 million Naira per year, besides other allowances and remunerations including hardship allowance, bringing the total to 10.9 million Naira per year. Many Nigerians, I am sure, do not have any problem with this. But, the Secretary to the Federal Government, Head of service and the Ministers are going to be earning 15.9 million Naira a year. Still no problem, if that is all they take home without dipping their hands into the treasury, or sharing 300 million Naira from budget surpluses in their various ministries.
When I was in Nigeria in April 2008, it was announced that the total remuneration for each Senator of the Federal Republic was going to be 45 million Naira (£191,489.00) and for the Members of the House of Representative, 35 million Naira (£149000.00) each. This is where I have a problem. If I am sure that these politicians are doing enough to alleviate the many plights of our people, I would be the first person to defend their remunerations, after all, Nigeria can afford it. Unfortunately, this more than handsome salary is not commensurate to the services they are elected to, or promised to provide to their people.
What the heck are these spongers doing that make them worth such salaries? Is it by organising retreats to Ghana, or spending all their time chasing contracts in Abuja? Most of them do not even have constituency offices in their home states to upkeep. See what I mean by looters in power? And they are doing it almost legitimately.
In the United States, the current salary of a rank-and-file member of the House of Representatives (Congressman) and Senate is $169,300 per year. This works out to about £84,650 or 19.89 million Naira, and you know what? Members are free to turn down pay increases and many choose to do so. But we know what these US politicians do to develop their country, protect their people and ensure they remain the most powerful country in the world. The leaders of the houses get slightly more.
In the United Kingdom, a Member of Parliament’s basic salary is £61,820 per year, and the Prime Minister, being also an MP, gets a total of £189,994 per year, including his salary for being an MP. (This means, theoretically at least, that our Senators in Nigeria work as hard or even harder as the Prime Minister of Britain, to bring development and progress to their people, the poor down-trodden people of Nigeria).
Unfortunately, for the purpose of this article, I could not lay my hands on the remuneration packages of our other really big Looters – State Governors and Deputy Governors, Members of the states’ House of Assemblies, Local Government Chairmen and Councillors. I believe the States set their own remuneration packages for their elected officials, but you can be sure they will look after their various pockets first before anything else.
We are not saying here that high salaries should not be paid to elected or appointed public officials, as a matter of fact, it is recognised that being highly paid in certain areas of work, and this include, public service, deters corruption. What we fail to see is how commensurate the salary paid to Nigerian political office holders is with their performance, their effectiveness, their commitment and the service they provide. Why, for example, should a Senator being paid N45 million a year to be making laws and attending the Senate still be chasing contracts in Abuja? Who else earns that amount of money in Nigeria? According to the data above, not even the President earns that much in total remuneration. It is only a very greedy person who will earn that salary and still continue to indulge in corrupt practices.
Please forgive me for repeating this anecdote; it is one of my favourites when writing articles about the corruption festering in Nigeria. Once upon a time in America, a man named Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks. He replied: “`Cos that’s where the money is”. It was an uncomplicated philosophy which served him well until he was caught and marched off to prison. Today, Mr Sutton would not have risked incarceration. Today, were Mr Sutton to be a Nigerian, he would have had the choice of being a Nigerian Politician, a Nigerian civil servant or a Nigerian contractor. Better still, he could have been a Nigerian Policeman, although he would have been severely limited as to making loads of money, but at least he could be in official authorised uniform and waylay people on the highway and collect money from them without facing any charges of armed robbery. Of course, as one who operated outside the law, Mr Sutton might have experienced problems in working with this brotherhood of political and civil uprightness and patriotism. But the vast mountains of easy Naira and foreign currency on offer would surely have stifled his reservations.
That about sums it up. In Nigeria, politics and government are like banks where money is kept, and thus it will continue to attract very smart, unsavoury and dishonest vagabonds, whose main aim in life is to steal the money. Hence, what the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti sang “VIP – Vagabonds In Power”. And this is why politics and government in Nigeria have become matters of life and death for the players. Hardly do you ever see someone going into politics or government because of selfless service to the people; it is almost always to serve their own pockets. And the money is there for the taking. Absolutely no accountability; no responsibility; no commitment; no sense of sympathy for the people.
Our current system of government and governance is unique in the world in that it leaves plenty of room for fraud and corrupt practices, due process or no due process. In fact, the system actively promotes and encourages corruption and fraud in high places. It is not that there are loopholes to be exploited in the system; rather, it is that the room for fraud is inbuilt into the system by our leaders and lawmakers, and they also make laws to protect themselves. Take for example the Constitution’s Section 308: Immunity Clause that protects State Executives, President and Vice-President from prosecution for any crime or misdemeanour whilst in office. If our leaders should have their way, this immunity clause would have been extended to cover our Ministers and legislators. As it is, I am not even sure the clause has not been surreptitiously extended, going by the Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello/EFCC farcical display.
Yesterday, it was the Ministry of Health’s 300 million Naira scandal that has resulted in the character damage of a respected Professor of Medicine; today it is the scandalous Integrated Power Project probe where unregistered contractors were awarded contracts without the celebrated Due Process of the Obasanjo Presidency; today it is the Abuja property land allocation probe; tomorrow it will be the 300 billion Naira roads scandal of Ogunlewe and Anenih or the unbelievable fraud in the NNPC, the managers of our oil wealth, and many like that. And we are not even talking about the ex-Governors. You don’t read anything in the newspapers these days without coming across one corruption scandal or the other. A lot of them have been pushed under the carpets, and will never see the light of day.
That there is a global food crisis is acknowledged now. The Federal Government of Nigeria, as usual, has found an easy and corrupt way out of the crisis. It is going to import rice worth 80 Billion Naira. Of course we can afford that, what with the price of oil now rising to an unprecedented US$125 per barrel and still rising. What will inevitably happen is that some people in the Ministry of Agriculture, Customs, etc are going to be making a lot of money out of the crisis. I remember that Shagari’s government set up a Presidential Task Force on Rice in 1980 to tackle a similar problem, causing problems to local rice farming in the process, from which we have not been able to recover from till today. And so was Obasanjo’s Presidential Initiative on Rice in 2002 whose objective was to “attain self-sufficiency in local rice production in the short-term by year 2005 and to produce for export in the medium term by year 2007”. It has been a very successful initiative as we can see, isn’t it?
Exactly what they do in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the States’ equivalent is beyond the understanding of sane Nigerians. If they are not importing rice, they will be importing fertilisers. Do we have an effective, sustainable and workable Agriculture policy? What happened to all the River Basins Authorities of the 70’s and so many Bank’s agricultural initiatives and loan schemes? What help are the various governments offering to local farmers and how sustainable are these help, if any? Do not be surprised at the end of the year when you hear that Ministers of the Agriculture Ministry and other officials are sharing surplus millions, and have gone on a fact-finding mission to Thailand or Malaysia to see how rice is grown over there.
Should Obasanjo Be Probed?
Well, that is a difficult one for me, really. There has never been the probe of a previous government in Nigeria, so if Obasanjo must be probed, then Babangida and Abdulsalam must be probed too. They are still alive and their tenures were also recent, and in fact, a lot of their misdeeds spilled over into the Obasanjo administration. If Nigerians are now baying for Obasanjo’s blood, it serves him right, because when we were calling on him to undertake an investigation of Babangida’s eight-year corruption-riddled and institutionalised tenure, Obasanjo himself prevented the probe and kept saying Nigerians should bring evidence before he can probe Babangida. Now IBB is even now bold to come out and say that Obasanjo’s administration was worse that his own. Them what has, gets. However, we are already probing Obasanjo anyway by way of all these Senate probes on power, roads and other areas.
Amos Adamu and Nigerian Sports
Dr Amos Adamu, and the current Director of Sports in the Federal Ministry of Sports is not a mere mortal, believe me. He is the Alpha and Omega of Nigerian Sports. He came in as Director of Sports Development over 20 years ago on the back of having a doctorate degree in Physical Education. And he has waxed ever stronger since then. He is a FIFA member, a member of CAF and now, after a brief hiccup, he is the President of the West African Football Union (WAFU), that body whose first President was the indomitable, incorruptible and excellent late Mr J K Tandoh. Dr Adamu is a far cry from the success, reputation, uprightness and commitment of such people as J K Tandoh and late Isaac Akioye. Adamu’s over twenty years at the helm of Nigerian sports has been a disaster. He has overseen the ruinous decline of sports in the country in the past two decades, yet some people up there still think he is the best and only man to run Nigerian sports. In fact he retired after COJA (the All African Games held in Abuja between 5th and 17th October 2003), and they practically had to go and beg him to come back again, because apparently to them only, he is the only man who can save Nigerian sports, and this after years of terrible decline supervised by the same man. I am not surprised, because he has managed to compromise a lot of them. All the Sports Ministers he has served under – or rather, all the Sports Ministers that have served under him – were no more than puppets. I heard that the moment a new Minister is appointed for sports; usually his first visitor will be our Amos, with “Ghana Must Go” bags to enable the Honourable Minister to “settle down in his new job”. We are not even sure if our Director of Sports does not have a hand in the appointment ensuring that a man he can manipulate is appointed in the first place.
When he organised All African Games, COJA in 2003, the aftermath was littered with corruption and mismanagement. It was this massive evidence of corruption that made Obasanjo, never a great sports fan himself, decide to back out of Nigeria’s bid to host the first ever Soccer World Cup in Africa, and resulted in South Africa getting that honour. Obasanjo also quickly foresaw that the evidence of corruption will also implicate some members of his family. The EFCC, then under Nuhu Ribadu, wanted to pick him up, but there was so much pressure from high up, that he had to succumb. The reason is that if Dr Adamu was ever picked up, he would start singing and the songs will not be melodious to the ears of some very top politicians and officials who had been compromised in the award of bogus or highly inflated contracts for the Games. They therefore had to use a lot of muscle on Ribadu to drop the investigations. It was a mess, and they must not let the shit hit the fan.
He has a very good team of loyal acolytes who report to him. For the past ten or fifteen years, these loyalists are always appointed into one important sports committee or the other. An example is the Nigeria Football Association, with Sani Lulu and Ojo-Oba as Chairman and Secretary respectively. The Board is also packed full of his loyalists. (Please note that the Nigeria Football Association still does not have an official website) These two goons have been Adamu’s men for years. They do his bidding and ensure that no other outsider ever gets in. More importantly, they report back to him. Their continued stay will always ensure that Nigerian football never progresses. He also has his goons in other sports areas. The first objective of the loyalists is to serve their master, and not Nigerian sports. Of course, these loyalists also serve their own pockets. They do not contribute, and never will contribute, anything towards resuscitating Nigerian comatose and moribund sports. They lack the knowledge and the ability, the focus and the ideas, the commitment and sincerity of purpose, to meaningfully contribute anything towards developing our sports. They are simply “yes-men”, sycophants, and corrupt charlatans parading themselves as sports officials. They are men of straw, doomed to serve a lesser god and doomed to failure, to be consigned to the dustbin of history. They are looters in power, like their godfather.
Well done, Adamu. You will leave us one day and go and finish your days as a “pastor” as you have said you desire. Maybe God will make you confess all your sins, and probably make you return all our money in your possession. It is not too late to repent.
Their time will come – these looters in power, however, para-phrasing Noam Chomsky's thesis, the only opposition now to these perpetrations of crimes and sins on Nigerians should be a continuous PUBLIC OPINION/OUTCRY at every whiff of scandalous corruption. And perhaps the civil societies and labour must help too.
Let the truth be said always.
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