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Unrest across North Africa and the Middle East has
afforded Nigeria an outstanding opportunity to re-invigorate the
country’s oil sector and refresh its depleted currency reserve funds.

In May 2008, Nigeria’s foreign currency reserves
stood at US$62 billion but had dwindled to $40 billion by March 2010.
The rate of depletion has since slowed but has not yet shown a
sustained return to growth. But the current global situation combined
with a sustained reduced level of conflict in the Niger Delta plays
into Nigeria’s favour in terms of increased oil revenue. Libyan oil
production has halved from 1.6 million barrels per day (mbd) to as
little as 850,000 barrels per day as a direct result of the current
conflict. Libya’s 1.6mbd represents about 2.3 per cent of global crude
oil production, which rates the country as the fourth largest oil
producer in Africa.

Libya’s oil production can quickly be ramped back
up to 1.6mbd if conflict subsides and oil production and transport
facilities are not significantly damaged. However, with Muammar Gaddafi
ordering the sabotage of the country’s oil facilities, resumption of
production may be severely limited.

The anticipated reduction in production due to
political tensions in North Africa and the Middle East will mean that
available spare capacity may have to be brought online. The bulk of
that spare capacity lies with OPEC countries which have increased spare
capacity from 1.4mbd in 2008 to the current level of 5.2mbd. The
majority of that spare capacity or 3.5mbd is in Saudi Arabia which
could not be said to be immune to the current political instability
sweeping the Middle East. With an estimated 37 billion barrels of oil
reserves, Nigeria could continue production at the present level of
2.4mbd for around 42 years. Coupled with around 183 trillion cubic feet
of gas reserves (at January 2010) Nigeria has an impressive
resource-based potential but a reasonably near term horizon. In fact,
at the present rate of production and without any further major oil
discoveries, Nigeria would have less years of oil production ahead of
it than it has had of production since the first commercial production
of oil in 1956 at Oloibiri in present day Bayelsa State. At the current
rate of depletion and without major replacement through discovery, most
of the current population of Nigeria could live long enough to see the
end of oil as the country’s main income stream. If Nigeria’s oil
production reached the projected target of 4mbpd within the next couple
of years, then its current known reserves could be depleted within 25
years.

These sobering figures start one thinking and
inevitably asking, “So what’s the plan?” The long term question is:
“What are we doing to ensure Nigeria has a solid economic base when oil
reserves are finally run down?” The short term question is: “What are
we going to do with the additional revenue from increased production
and higher than budgeted oil prices?”

The amnesty in the Niger Delta has facilitated a
dramatic rise in oil production that was languishing around 1.35mbd in
the first quarter of 2010 to 2.35mbd in the first quarter of 2011.
Production has continued to rise by around 100,000 barrels per day each
month in 2011.

According to Minister of Petroleum Resources,
Diezani Alison-Madueke, with current oil production at 2.4mbd, Nigeria
now earns around N43.7 billion (US$282 million) per day from crude oil
sales based on the combined daily production figure of crude and
condensate.

These recent production figures all sound very
encouraging and a possible cause for celebration. However, one must
recall earlier years and soon realise Nigeria’s relatively recent
growth in oil production has not reached new heights but merely
returned to levels of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of the
intervening years saw much lower levels of production. Nigeria’s oil
production was 2.2mbd 10 years ago and briefly touched current levels
in 2004. In the euphoria of Shell achieving daily production of one
million barrels, the optimistic oil sector development strategy set a
target of 4 mbd to be achieved by 2010. The government bought into the
dream. The reality saw production reach only half the target level.

Nigeria is presented with a second chance. With
oil currently trading at over $100 a barrel on the back of North
African and Middle East unrest compared with the $65 anticipated in the
country’s 2011 budget, there is a clear opportunity to significantly
increase Nigeria’s revenue from crude oil. With the indications of
global economic recovery comes the prospect that demand for oil may
sustain higher oil prices. Many industry analysts expect oil to remain
above $100 a barrel for several months despite Barack Obama probably
opening access to US strategic reserves.

With this revenue windfall comes an opportunity to kick-start a
sovereign wealth fund in some form, whether it be the Nigeria
Infrastructure Fund, the Future Generations Fund and the Stabilization
Fund or something similar. Most importantly, the construction of a
sovereign wealth fund must ensure it can’t be tapped at the whim of
government to finance the government’s running costs or cover budget
mismanagement.

Last week, Christians across the world
commemorated Ash Wednesday, thus kicking off the season known as Lent,
which culminates in Easter, the celebration of the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Lent consists of 40 days meant to be dedicated to
self-denial (fasting), prayer, a heightened sense of submission to God,
self-reflection, benevolence, and repentance.

Socrates it was who said, centuries ago, that “the
unexamined life is not worth living.” In this harried age of ours, it
seems easier than ever before, to succumb to the lure of the unexamined
life. We have periods like this, to be found in most religions, to
thank for seeking to provide an oasis of calm amidst the maddening
bustle of contemporary life.

There’s no reason why non-adherents cannot
identify with the reflective impulse behind such commemorations.
Whether it is Ramadan, or Lent, or any other similar period in other
religions, we believe all Nigerians, irrespective of religious
persuasion, ought to see it as a time to pursue the admirable ideals of
the season. The earlier Nigerians start to understand that religion
should never be a basis or excuse for exclusionary attitudes, the
better for us all as citizens of a secular nation.

In one of our previous editorials to mark the
commencement of the Ramadan season, we said: “Perhaps one of the
biggest feelings of the post-Ramadan period is one of rebirth. A period
when – as Christian theologians would say – old things pass away. It
would be fitting if Nigeria’s leaders, a large percentage of whom are
fasting Muslims, would also draw a line under their past inadequacies.”

That message still stands. This Lenten season
demands something from all Nigerians, leaders and followers. The
concepts of contemplation and self-sacrifice are endangered species in
this land. The insistence on prayer during Lent is meant to symbolise
the importance of quietude, contemplation and submission; while the
fasting ought to stand as a manifestation of the need for suppression
of physical desire; the quelling of the often wayward impulses that
drive the human body. As a symbol of sacrifice and selflessness, the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – which form the cornerstone of
Christianity and the inspiration for the celebration of Lent – stand
high up there.

Sadly, Nigerian leaders show little desire
whatsoever to demonstrate self-restraint in their actions in office. If
there is one overriding theme in all of the diplomatic cables in our
possession, courtesy of the whistle-blowing site, WikiLeaks, (and from
which we’ve run a series of stories all week), it is that there are too
many greedy persons in the corridors of power; driven by unbridled
hunger to amass as much of our commonwealth as they can, for themselves
alone.

This greed, coupled with an inability to be sober,
reflective, to ask common-sense questions – for example, in James
Ibori’s case: how are the ordinary people of Delta State expected to
live decent lives when all of these billions meant to be spent on their
welfare are ending up in my foreign accounts? – has kept Nigeria
underdeveloped for all of 50 years

But the leaders are not alone. Followers, averse
to the idea of sacrificing immediate and transient pleasure for the
purpose of overwhelming future gain, must also share in the blame. This
inability to think in sacrificial terms is partly why politicians find
it so easy to purchase the loyalties of the electorate with meagre cash
sums and bags of rice. Citizens that sell their electoral birthright
for a mess of badly-cooked pottage are as disgraceful as the
politicians who make the proposition in the first place.

The coming general elections will take place
during Lent. We expect all our politicians, and their supporters, to
take that into consideration, and strive to comport themselves in a
responsible manner; a manner that demonstrates respect for the ideals
that the season represents. This should happen irrespective of
religious persuasion. On the campaign grounds, we hope to see
politicians humbly attuned to the yearnings of the electorate;
campaigners who understand that true leadership is actually
servant-hood, self-sacrifice and submission.

It would be a tragedy for Nigeria if the message of Lent was lost on
us, especially at this crucial time in our existence as a democratic
nation.

With the 2011
elections now entering end game phase, the debating season is upon us.
I had the opportunity of participating in a slightly different forum
for candidates: the one organised by the Murtala Muhammed Foundation as
a policy dialogue for some of the leading contenders for the office of
President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Of the five invited
candidates, only three made it. There will be other platforms for
presidential candidates to be assessed, culminating in the presidential
debates at the end of the month. This is being organised by a coalition
of media and civil society organisations, headed by the Broadcasting
Organisation of Nigeria and the Newspaper Proprietors Association of
Nigeria. But if it happens that, of the many independent fora
available, we reach voting day on April 9 without having seen anything
more of the candidates than at venues and presentations arranged and
packaged by the candidates themselves or their political parties, rest
assured that my vote won’t be going to any of those who are ‘too big’
to stoop to conquer.

Rest assured? The
automatic response of most politickers and candidates is that,
actually, they weren’t all that worried about my vote; that all the
grammar and stuff about issues is not where the votes are to be had.
Even the thinking candidates will confess that if they don’t do all
those things that the thinking voter finds irrelevant, irritating or
downright infuriating (read ‘mass’ rallies, pasting posters and the
continuous — interminable — broadcast of the aforementioned ‘mass’
rallies on terrestrial television stations) then it’s as good as saying
that they are not seriously ‘on ground’.

It’s partly
because of turf wars: this is my territory. That is why some governors,
particularly in the ruling People’s Democratic Party, are determined to
prevent the opposition from holding any rally or meeting in their
states, with a variety of excuses that are as lame and insulting to the
intelligence as they are specious and immoral. The sad thing is that
the security agencies, who ought to be neutral in these matters,
willingly connive at the claims that ‘security couldn’t be guaranteed’.
The amusing thing is that such measures, designed to convey strength
and confidence, carry the whiff of desperation and fear.

The opposition, no
less determined to mark out their own turf, can hardly prevent Mr.
President from arriving in a cloud of heat, dust and traffic jams to
visit traditional rulers and hold rallies. So they have to be a bit
more creative: witness the Action Congress of Nigeria’s four
counter-rallies that coincided with Goodluck Jonathan’s descent on
Lagos on March 1. There’s also the less creative low-tech approach of
defacing or tearing down the other side’s posters.

With so much time
and money devoted to this brouhaha, it is not surprising that some
candidates are reluctant to expose themselves to the (relatively mild)
rigours of public debate, especially with people who aren’t begging
them for one favour or other. In the past, those who stood aloof did so
to convey the message that they were too big and too important to stand
on the same level as other supplicants for the peoples’ votes. Victory
is already ‘in the bag’, went the thinking, and all we need is some
shows of strength so that we can justify the landslide victory that we
intend to write for ourselves.

And since the fear
of the ‘wasted vote’ and anxiety to be on the ‘winning side’
(irrespective of a voter’s actual preferences and invisibility to the
subsequent victor) is still well-entrenched in our political culture,
it is inevitable that much of the campaign will consist of: I am
wonderful, I have done wonderful things, We Go WIN. So you might as
well vote for me.

But as the culture
of candidate debates grows, a refusal to take part on the same terms as
other contestants conveys a different message to the intended one. When
even some state governors are ready to engage in informative debate,
doubts arise about those who claim to be ‘too busy’. Suspicions
crystallise that they are afraid to participate either because scrutiny
of their record by other contestants might reveal that they lack even
any policies, let alone achievements; or because, shielded by the
soothing flattery of hangers-on and supplicants, they have forgotten
that they are mere mortals and now risk exposing themselves as
incoherent, empty and vain. Or worse.

I make no apology for belonging to the class of voters who want
something more than ‘We Go WIN’, even if only for reassurance that
candidates aren’t complete duds. It’s true that debates are a
performance, but I want to see how they perform. I want to see how
people who want to be president stand up to scrutiny and a bit of
pressure. There are more voters like me in this election than there
were in the last. And there will be more in the next. So election
debates — giving us something with which to make an informed choice —
that’s a culture candidates had better get used to.

The manifesto of
presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, and his running mate, Tunde
Bakare, encapsulates the belief that the country’s missing ingredient
for the greatness so passionately sought by many Nigerians, is a few
good people. It is not surprising, I suppose, from a man who justified
his self-invitation to lead a country on the grounds that its leaders
were hopelessly corrupt, waged a war against indiscipline only to be
defeated by other military officers who expected the rhetoric of
incorruptibility to remain rhetoric. That his running mate is a former
barrister clothed in theological garb reinforces the image of
incorruptibility projected by this presidential team of the Congress
for Progressive Change. Major-General Buhari’s manifesto is the most
concrete of the Nigerian ones I have studied, about how to reduce
corruption, and one of the vaguest about how precisely to improve the
lot of the ordinary person.

It starts with
linguistic flourish: “Every country has its ‘lost generation’. Some
were stolen away by war, some by economic downturns, and some by
visionless governments. Nigeria is perhaps the only one stolen by too
much power, money, leisure and privilege.” I must confess that I have
never associated life in Nigeria with a surfeit of leisure. Life seems
to be a perpetual grind for too many people. Then, it proceeds to its
diagnosis and prescriptions. Mr. Buhari intends to reform politics and
governance by amending Nigeria’s “Constitution to remove immunity from
prosecution for elected officers in criminal cases.” He plans also to
restructure government into a lean organism. To stimulate transparency,
all governmental contracts exceeding N100 million are to be published
in all media, a freedom of information bill granting individuals the
right to state data is to be enacted, and all minutes of local
government meetings are to be published.

A Conflict
Resolution Commission is to be established to “help prevent, mitigate
and resolve civil conflicts within the polity” and permanent peace is
to be brought to the Niger Delta, Plateau and other troubled zones. Mr.
Buhari offers no explanation whatsoever about how such a desirable
outcome is to be accomplished. His explanation-devoid style of promises
extends into the economic arena. Nigeria’s gross domestic product is
set to grow at 10 per cent per annum. How? With what inflation target?
Or national savings rate? I was impressed by the promise of
implementing a national identification scheme to enable the informal
economy to be merged into the formal economy. Without answers to those
questions, this wish is a mere dream. I was impressed by the promise of
implementing a national identification scheme to enable the informal
economy to be merged into the formal economy. India is in the midst of
issuing universal identity numbers to each of its 1.2 billion
residents, based on unique biometrics markers such as fingerprints.
Nigeria should be able to emulate India.

Another proposal
that would have substantial benefits for Nigerians is that of creating
a national electronic land title register. The inability of farmers to
specify precisely the contours of their holdings inhibits their ability
to raise capital from formal financial institutions. It is no
coincidence that the most productive farmers on earth — American
farmers — have mortgages covering most of their farmland. If only the
same could be said of Nigeria’s farmers! Mr. Buhari did not disappoint
by failing to pledge to triple Nigeria’s power supply. All Presidential
candidates must throw out a huge number in the electricity generation
industry. The balance of his manifesto is full of the usual
developmental bromides populating Nigerian presidential manifestos:
pass swiftly the Petroleum Industry Bill; raise the federal budgetary
allocation for education or open six new grand health or educational
facilities. Mr. Buhari intends to open six new science and technology
universities. Nollywood will receive some sort of assistance. The
environment seems to be dear to his heart. He plans to encourage the
planting of lots of new trees to arrest the spread of the Sahara desert.

There is little doubt of Mr. Buhari’s patriotism. Yet, some
omissions left me unhappy. The promise of N30 billion for the farming
sector reveals little ambition for that sector. There is tremendous
growth of income and employment there. For example, by designing a
system of combining road, rail, and sea transport and technical farming
expertise, landlocked and arid Mali was able to increase its mango
exports by 1,042 per cent between 1993 and 2008 and boost rural income.
What Mali has done, Nigeria can surpass! There were no proposals to
simplify the conduct of formal business in Nigeria. Corruption withers
in a slimming state. In sum, this is not the manifesto for a vibrant
Nigeria.

Nigeria’s 63
registered political parties turned up at an event organised by INEC
and the International Republican Institute on March 8. The objective
was for all the political parties in the country to sign the Code of
Conduct they had jointly developed with the electoral commission. This
Code was a considerable improvement over the one which political
parties signed in 2007, which unfortunately was obeyed more in the
breach than in practice.

The Code obliges
parties to eschew violence, abusive and hate language in their
interactions. It constrains them to abide strictly by the Electoral Act
in ensuring internal party democracy in their operations. By signing
the Code, parties would undertake to adhere to outcomes of primaries
they have conducted, and not substitute names of winners with people
who had not contested or won.

The Code also has
clear stipulations that parties who enjoy incumbency should not abuse
their powers by preventing opposition parties from freely campaigning
in their states, displaying their posters and signboards and having
access to radio and television. Indeed, the Code is clear that there
must be a distinct separation between party and government, so parties
that control governments must not use such powers to oppress their
political opponents. All governments must serve all members of their
communities, whatever their political affiliations.

These are great
principles which I admire enormously. Indeed, in my goodwill message to
the meeting, I congratulated INEC and the parties for developing such
noble principles. I pointed out, however, that the results of the party
primaries demonstrated clearly that the parties operated in flagrant
disobedience of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended, and that if they
would not obey a law that has clear sanctions, they were unlikely to
take the Code and its injunctions seriously.

My argument was
that there is a missing link. Political parties do not respect voters
and party members for the simple reason that they know that citizens
either do not, or more likely, cannot sanction them for their
transgressions. It is only when the votes count and voters can sanction
parties for their acts of commission and omission that things will
begin to change. It is interesting that only 46 out of the 63
registered political parties agreed to sign the Code of Conduct. Some
of them complained that the Code is focused only on the behaviour of
political parties without corresponding undertakings by INEC that it
would change its ways and stop rigging elections. In their complaints,
they drew attention to the fact that we now have it on judicial
evidence that INEC was an active participant in the organisation of
electoral fraud.

This is true. Be
that as it may, the demand by some of the party leaders that INEC
should meet with them regularly, without the mediation of international
organisations to discuss problems, is completely legitimate. I urge
Attahiru Jega to take this request seriously and devote more time to
conversations and negotiations with the parties.

On the substance,
however, the law has already provided sufficient rules to govern the
conduct of INEC, and what remains is for the leadership of INEC under
Professor Jega and the law enforcement mechanism to monitor and report
transgressions by INEC officials. In other words, the 17 parties that
refused to sign were misguided in their actions. The idea of the code
of conduct is for them to voluntarily adhere to the highest standards
of electoral conduct so that Nigerians can see that they are opting for
appropriate standards of political behaviour.

The day after the Code of Conduct launching, the Murtala Mohammed
Foundation organised a policy dialogue for presidential candidates in
Abuja. In his session, Pat Utomi alleged that the Jonathan/Sambo
campaign organisation spends N100 million every day from public
resources, for their campaign. He castigated those of us in civil
society for not monitoring and challenging this insidious form of
corruption. He was a bit unfair to us. We all suspect a lot of the
campaign money is from public coffers. It is, however, difficult to
prove it and many of us are afraid of making allegations we cannot
substantiate. Nuhu Ribadu was also impressive at the Murtala Mohammed
Forum. In his usual fiery language, he assured the audience that if he
wins the elections, even his friends in the Action Congress of Nigeria
who are proven to have been corrupt, will go to jail. There will be no
sacred cows, he assured Nigerians.

The upheaval that is sweeping across North Africa does not have a predictable outcome.

US Secretary of State Clinton was recently
praising Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a loyal friend. In 2009
Clinton said, “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be
friends of my family.” But it seems 30 years of Mubarak was enough for
the people of Egypt.

Secretary Clinton holds a similar view of Gabon’s
President Ali Bongo Ondimba, a “valued partner.” The US supported Ali’s
father Omar who led the country for 43 years before handing over to
Ali. A US Senate report released in February 2010 noted that both
President Omar Bongo and his son Ali have amassed “substantial wealth
while in office, amid the extreme poverty of its citizens.”

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi must be wondering
what has gone wrong this last week. Widespread uprisings have seen
Gaddafi retreat from the Libyan capital amid brutal repression of
protesters. He too has recently been hailed as a “friend of the West”
with visits from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
It seems the Libyan people have decided that 40 years of Gaddafi is
enough and they are not interested in continuing the reign through
Gaddafi’s son.

Even Saddam Hussein was greeted warmly by Donald
Rumsfeld in the 1980s at a time when Saddam was known to have abused
the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical
weapons on Iranians and his own people. Directives signed by President
Reagan reveal the specific U.S. priorities for the region: preserving
access to oil, expanding U.S. ability to project military power in the
region, and protecting local allies from internal and external threats.
Not much has changed.

Closer to home Liberia was saddled with Charles
Taylor whose close connections with the US ensured he would assume
power and amass considerable wealth. Unfortunately but not
unexpectedly, Charles Taylor’s presidency came at the expense of the
citizens of Liberia who suffered unspeakable human rights abuses at
Taylor’s hands.

Saddam Hussein’s close association with the US was
much like the association between Charles Taylor and the US. Both men
assumed power with the assistance of the US. But, like other US
“friends”, priorities change and friendships soured.

It is little wonder that the citizens of these
countries who have lived under repressive regimes for 30 or 40 years
rise up to throw out such dictatorial, self serving rulers who amass
staggering wealth at the expense of the citizens who often suffered
human rights abuses.

This is the global context to Nigeria’s evolution
as a democratic nation. We hear of many complaints about Nigeria but
there is an abundance of evidence that Nigeria continues to make
progress towards a robust democratic nation. To declare a nation a
democracy can be done in a moment but to demonstrate deeply rooted
democratic instruments of government such as free and fair elections,
transparency in revenue streams from the Federal Government to State
and Local Governments and a judiciary above corruption takes many years
and in many cases a generation. A strong democracy does not come easily
or quickly.

Nigeria is making its own way in the world. It is
not captive of western power brokers seeking oil or a base from which
to project military power. In part this is because Nigeria is as much
Muslim as it is Christian. In part this is also because no one tribe,
political or religious faction has been allowed to dominate. The
jostling of political parties and candidates for the presidency which
often attracts condemnation and can be mistaken for instability is a
dynamic that ensures for every check there is a counter check. This is
a self-correcting mechanism, which nations such as Libya, Egypt, Iraq,
Iran, Bahrain and Tunisia have lacked.

All levels of Nigerian society are engaged in the
politics of their state and nation. The poorest people have opinions on
political parties and candidates every bit as strong and informed as
those of the wealthy and well positioned. This is a robust polity that
will not easily surrender to outsiders.

Nigeria belongs to Nigerians and this is the way it should remain.