Nigeria Content Online

The recently
released election timetable by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) shows that nationwide elections will kick off on
January 15 with that of the National Assembly, while the contest for
president is to hold on January 22. The election of State Assembly
members and governors is slated for January 29.

So far we think
the Commission has been able to win the confidence of the majority of
Nigerians most especially because many see the chairman Attahiru Jega,
a former university teacher and activist, as a credible person who can
conduct a process the nation can be proud of. The step to achieving
this started last week with the release of the election schedule.

Now the critical
stage is what we are entering into. It is one that is going to be
trying and will test the patience of many – political parties,
politicians, the electorate and even the international community which
is watching with keen interest. It is important that the dates have
taken into cognisance the need to have time after the elections and
between the swearing in date so as to give time to deal decisively with
matters that may arise from election disputes.

We think it is
wise and important to put a stop to the practise where a candidate is
declared elected and sworn in, but after spending more than a year in
office he/she is declared unelected and another candidate is sworn in,
thus creating a situation where a usurper is allowed to preside over
political affairs in the country. We hope in the time between when
elections are conducted from January 15 and 29 and when winners are
expected to be sworn in on May 29, 2011, a clear period of about four
months that all petitions would have been cleared in the courts for the
rightful winner to be sworn in. This would save the country the long
rigmarole of incumbents using government resources and time to defend
their election, thus denying the electorate the benefit of enjoying the
dividends of democracy.

The electoral
commission’s timetable also gave all registered political parties from
September 11 to October 30 to hold their primaries and choose their
candidates for the various offices. Of course the conducting of these
would involve the Commission, which has to certify them free and fair.
This is where it has to draw the line so as not to find itself immersed
in the murky partisan squabbles that political parties are wont to
engage in. INEC has to ensure that its officials who go a monitoring
will, like Caesar’s wife, be above board.

This process is
like a minefield which if not well managed by those with integrity will
mar the reputation of the Commission, and this would not be good. The
nation has invested too much time and faith in this election to allow
it to go the way of that of 2007.

However, the one
issue that gives us much concern is the period given for the
registration of voters. The timetable says this should hold between
November1-14. This means the Commission, by its own admission is hoping
to register 70 million voters across the country in 14 days! This will
surely constitute the eighth wonder of the world were it to be
accomplished and a feat that we fear may be the first great hitch in
this journey. We are at a loss as to how the Commission which at the
time of writing this has not got delivery of a single set of the
computers it hopes to use in the exercise, thinks it will be able to
meet this deadline.

This optimism is amazing in a country with an infrastructure that
leaves much to be desired. How the Commission hopes to compile a
comprehensive and credible voter list in 14 days is a question we would
welcome more enlightenment on so that we too can fully share in the
happy sentiment.

A major problem
with the Nigerian oil industry can be traced to its regulatory
mechanisms. While we should assume that such mechanisms could actually
help secure efficient operations of the sector, they have led the
sector into more murky waters.

For a number of
years, the Nigerian president doubled as the minister of petroleum.
Busy on many fronts, a number of issues must have gone without strict
oversight. Because the president was also the minister, the office had
more powers assigned to it. Some experts believe that because of this
setting, the minister of petroleum was allowed wide scope for
discretion and decision-making powers, without commensurate systems of
review and accountability.

The sector is
disparately regulated, mainly from the Ministry of Environment and that
of Petroleum. How coherent these two perform and how their powers
overlap or synergise are issues for another day. But there are many
areas we ought to worry about. One area of concern is that the oil
sector has created some of the most critical environmental and health
problems for the Niger Delta and the entire nation.

Who is the
governmental watchdog for the Nigerian environment? The answer to that
question may seem obvious. Do you say it is the ministry of
environment? You would be right. But that would be only to a point.

When we had a
Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) as a subset of the
Federal Ministry of Environment, the answer would have been right to a
larger extent than it is now. After the demise of FEPA, another agency
with a suspiciously long name emerged in 2007. We are talking of the
National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency
(NESREA).

Let me confess that
I had to visit their website to be sure I got that name right! The
duties of NESREA, as stated in the Act by which it was set up, are
lofty and should build confidence in the agency. However, there are two
key areas that raise serious concern. And they are related.

First area of
concern is the composition of the governing council of the agency.
Article 3 (viii) of the NESREA Act of 2007 specifies a membership slot
in the council for a representative of the oil exploratory and
production companies in Nigeria.

Why, we ask, is
this space created for the oil companies to regulate our Nigerian
environment? We note that apart from a slot allowed for the
Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), there is a provision for
the Minister of Environment to appoint “three other persons to
represent public interest.” There is no clue in the Act as to who these
three would be and on what basis the minister would select them. Would
there be representatives of fishers, farmers, or pastoralists? Would
there be youth whose future we are already squandering?

We have picked on
the objectionable inclusion of the oil corporations in the regulation
of our environment because these entities, while baking the petrodollar
pie, are also guilty of causing severe damage to the environment and to
the psyche of our peoples.

The submission of
this writer is that the oil companies should be in the dock and not on
the bench in hallowed chambers of environmental and sundry justice.
What they have done in the oil communities is nothing short of criminal.

The second issue,
which, as already mentioned, relates to the first objection above, is
the stipulation of Article 7 (d) of the NESREA Act. This section states
that the agency shall “enforce compliance with regulations on the
importation, exportation, production, distribution, storage, sale, use,
handling and disposal of hazardous chemicals and waste other than in
the oil and gas sector.”

It is clear from
the above that a factor has been inserted here to confer a certain
status on the oil companies that keeps them away from being regulated
by an agency that sets environmental standards in Nigeria and which is
supposed to enforce regulations in the land.

With the biggest
environmental abuser excluded from the purview of NESREA, the agency
must be truly and fully handicapped to play the role it ought to play
in regulating the environment. Consider what it would mean if the
United States FEPA had no say about how oil companies handle and
dispose of chemicals and wastes in the oil and gas sector.

This exclusion from
regulation of the oil companies is shocking and scandalous. However,
what makes it more objectionable is the fact that these companies,
which continue to commit heinous environmental and human rights abuses
in the oil fields and communities, are also elevated to the seat of
judgement over other lesser polluters of the Nigerian environment.

This is a sad
commentary on environmental regulation in Nigeria. It is unacceptable
and needs urgent re-examination and correction. A very basic tenet of
justice holds that an offender cannot be a judge in his own case. The
unholy wedlock between regulatory agencies and the oil and gas
companies is ripe for a divorce.

Perhaps, you will
tell us that there are other agencies that regulate the oil and gas
companies. You could list the Directorate of Petroleum Resources as
one. That would make a good joke if you were on a comedy train. The DPR
that is unable to tell us how much oil is extracted from the wells and
keeps a blind eye or raises hands controlled by political levers cannot
take the place of a central environmental regulatory agency.

NESREA needs urgent attention to help close the dangerous gaps created by her blind spots.

I have already
anticipated the disdain with which the word “liver” will register in
the reader’s mind. Liver indeed! Of all the choice parts of meat that
one can eat and enjoy, why would anyone choose liver! Because it has
potential that’s why; potential for hot satisfying moorishness if
cooked just right.

For a few moments,
banish all the associations that your mind makes when it encounters the
word, like cod liver or food prescribed for geriatrics; cubes of
leather in party fried rice; meat in “poverty stew”; dejected looking
airline pate that tastes like plastic.

Think instead of
new yam, out of the ground for a few weeks and not so very bitter
anymore, just a little hint of bitterness in the back of the tongue,
not as flavourful as old yam, but texturally nice; falling away when
overcooked or cooked with a little salt.

Some people think a cube of sugar in the water for boiling the yam improves its taste. I disagree.

Now think of my
liver stew to go with new yam on a Saturday morning. This is one of the
only meals that I think back to my childhood and am totally,
completely, unabashedly nostalgic about.

On Saturday
mornings, my mother would cut up plenty of onions. This is the secret
of good liver stew; heaps of onions. The way the onions are cut matters
immensely; not chopped but cut in slivers, thin slivers, moderate
slivers, fat slivers because textures matter. Thin slivers will merge,
moderate slivers will curl appealingly in the stew, fat slivers will be
highlights, translucent with a slight bite.

The type of onion
also matters; not white but purple. One also needs some julienned green
pepper, one or two hot peppers chopped and some grated garlic and
ginger.

I tweaked my
mother’s recipe a little by first quartering half of my onion, and
putting it in the oven with half a leek, sprinkled with olive oil for
about thirty minutes. Waste of gas you might say, but this gives the
stew a fuller charred sweet onion flavour since roasted onions are
sweet and mellowed.

From the oven, I
transfer the roasted onions to a thick-bottomed frying pan with more
olive oil and some butter, along with my slivers of raw onion, my
peppers, garlic, ginger and salt and stir everything over moderate heat
for about twelve minutes. The frying mixture has to be moved around so
that the onions don’t burn or go brown.

My liver goes in the stew with more stirring and some salt.

One can’t dare to
leave it and go in the other room! It first greys on the outside
firming up, but the inside remains blood red. With more stirring (about
five minutes) and the gradual addition of small amounts of water, a
stew is formed. I add two bay leaves and some thyme. One needs to keep
watch over it to make sure that there is no sign of blood in the meat,
that the stew doesn’t dry up, and that it cooks to the texture of well
cooked red meat.

This does not
equate to endless cooking but to a point where the liver is both well
cooked and still soft. The stage after this is hard, leather like
texture. The only way to do it right is just to be vigilant. One good
marker; if one’s sense of smell is acute is that the liver will be
perfectly cooked when there is no smell of blood.

Some people are put
off not only by liver but also by onions, so that the very thought of
combining the two is torture. But I guarantee that even the avid hater
will change his mind once he tastes the liver, cooked, rested in the
umber coloured stew.

The other way to accompany my stew apart from freshly boiled slabs of yam is thickly cut bread dipped with fingers.

We are told that successful people and successful nations play to their strengths.

They analyse what
they are good at, what resources they have, where they can add value
and direct their efforts and energy in that direction.

When they make
careers out of what they are good at and what they enjoy, they are
likely to be successful and happy doing that. They are likely to
relocate to the most suitable place to run that business or offer that
service; and by their cumulative or combined efforts, the industry
thrives.

I was conversing
with an architect friend just last week, enquiring about how profitable
it is to make a living from architecture; and remarking on how
fortunate I believe architects are to make a living from their passion,
very much like artists, musicians and so on. The conversation turned to
ways of starting a second or parallel career to supplement one’s
income. I suggested playing to one’s strengths and building an income
stream around it. I asked him what his strengths were and how they had
already assisted him in making a success of his occupation. To my
surprise, even though he was passionate about design and architecture,
he said he did not really know what his strengths are.

He said that most
of his peers don’t know what they are good at, or what their strengths
are. They just find work to earn money and put food on the table and
that is why there is so much job frustration and, basically, no job
satisfaction at all. What a revelation! How many of us know what our
strengths are, as they relate to our work and our occupation? For those
of us who do, how did we discover what our strengths are? Let’s take
this to the national level. I am quite sure that eight out of any 10
people I ask will know what Indians are good at, or what the strengths
of the Chinese are.

Ask what Nigerians
are good at; what our strengths are; and what we are known for. Other
than the immediate negative responses such as 419 scams and corruption,
people would have to take a moment to think about it. On reflection,
they would say that Nigerians are enterprising, but how has that
translated into a national strength?

Our traders and
markets are largely in the informal economy; and Dangote alone cannot
represent the spirit of enterprise in the nation. They would say that
we are excellent at problem-solving and coping, but has this talent
been directed by our policy makers to solving our national challenges?
They would say that we are known for our creativity. Yes, through
individual effort, writers such as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka,
musicians like Fela, Asa, TuFace and so on have become internationally
acclaimed. How are other creative spirits nurtured and encouraged,
other than through private avenues such Terra Kulture and Nike’s
Gallery. Our unappreciated museums full of valuable artefacts have been
left to deteriorate.

Diversity as strength

A wonderful trend is that you can study almost any subject you can imagine.

Throughout your
education, starting in primary school, the teaching staff are
talent-spotting, busy identifying latent or developing skills, talents,
passions, or potential. It is rare for a child to reach age 16 and not
know what they are good at, both academically and vocationally and what
kinds of careers they can pursue.

Here, the majority
graduate from school having passed their exams, and that is all. The
fortunate minority would have engaged in formal music, arts, or sports
programmes in private schools. Even those who were award-winners in
extra-curricular activities never imagined making a career out of them
and are actively discouraged from playing to their strengths by their
advisers.

We are known for
being very intelligent and good at cramming facts to pass exams. So,
for many children, the subjects they get good grades in are not
subjects they have any interest in. What kind of career guidance do
school children get about how the subjects they take for SSCE will
affect their A’levels/JAMB and how their choice will affect their
careers?

How can we know
what our real strengths are? Without identifying them, how can we, as a
nation, harness our strengths? Natural resources are just that,
resources. Without people and functional systems to exploit and benefit
from them, they will not do us any good. To the contrary, we will be
left to live with all the disadvantages of extractive industries
without enjoying the beneficial effect they can have on a people, as we
have seen in the Middle East.

Let’s start at the beginning, with education and with the children.

Help those around
you in the workplace, who are square pegs in round holes, to find
square holes to thrive in. Employers should use personality profiling
to allocate their human capital where they can perform the best on
their own and as part of teams.

Oh yes, one of our strengths is our diversity. We haven’t yet
figured out how to play to it yet. All I have seen is pandering to
different groups instead of pulling the strengths of our diverse
ethnicities to propel us into G20 status and achieve our Millenium
Development Goals.

If you suddenly had
all the money you wanted to spend on anything you liked, would you take
it in your stride, calmly fulfilling all your material desires in a
businesslike manner or would the prospect drive you into a tizzy of
panic and indecision?

You might think
that this is a problem any one would give their eyeteeth to have, but
think carefully about it. Few human beings can handle the pressure of
spending responsibly and reasoning clearly when the sums involved
defeat the very powers of their own imaginations to count or to
conceive.

Of course we read
more stories about people coming into sudden wealth ending up even
poorer than they were before because they made such rash and
irresponsible decisions. They had no concept of the money running out
and went on a spending spree; there was so much they forgot to count
and so on and so forth. Since the boring stories about those who
buckled down and planned before they spent don’t make the same kind of
headlines, one might be forgiven for believing that they are truly in
the minority.

Faced with the
prospect of a material solution to all your problems what would be your
first priority, knowing that there is no end to wanting, (because even
if you did not know you will certainly find that out, since even the
very rich find the need to keep making more money)?

Do you think your
first task would be answering to your immediate needs? That sounds
obvious enough, but when the money at your disposal means that
absolutely everything you might want can be instantly available, the
concept of immediate starts getting really blurry. Everything is
possible, so where do you start?

Okay so you want a
state of the art, custom built, silent, clean,
environmentally-everything generator to make you completely independent
of PHCN’s foibles. You also want to be immune to any hiccups that might
occur on a so-called road map to power, the blueprint of which you have
not even bothered to peruse closely. In fact you might just consider
making the road map redundant and solving the issue of 150 million
neighbouring stone age generators disturbing your peace.

Mind you, you would
be really certifiable if you considered that act of philanthropy
because the wahala would be mind boggling, one that even your
gazillions would not be able to solve given that the country you would
be seeking to help, admittedly in a round about way, is called Nigeria.

Consider the red
tape: importation, registration and explaining why you want to be a
Samaritan to befuddled officials! Imagine fighting off politicians
determined to dabaru your game, whatever that is, since to them, it is
so patently counterintuitive for anyone desirous of wielding power,
political not electrical, to want to create anything even mildly
democratic as providing the greatest number with anything as basic as
light or water. The epitome of power in their minds is holding one
particular political office, to what end, no one has ever really been
able to fathom given the problems of development that still plague
Nigeria.

Given that then…
you would probably not even have the time to begin to reflect on what
you might do with your money before your street would be closed off by
hundreds of immediate family members, extended family members and their
friends and close and extended family members, with the friends of
those friends’ extended family members.

Different
townspeople groups, domestic staff, drivers, security guards and their
close and extended family members would flank all of these groups. I
don’t know why anybody needs ‘friends’ on Facebook in Nigeria. We have
absolutely no issues with social networking, if anything we define it
for the rest of the world, virally and otherwise, even without Internet
connectivity and generous broadband availability. On our shores your
brother is your only keeper. Your president? Don’t count on it.

At this point it
can truly be said that your problem would have bought itself a hat and
a walking stick. You would certainly have to set your house in order,
develop administrative capacity, sort out priorities, rules of
engagement, certification and accountability and get your self some
money managers to invest and keep resources going to settle that
endless chaos outside your front door. In all you would have an
effective cabinet to provide responsible governance of your gazillions.

A final word of advice, all hypothetical of course: don’t call
yourself a politician; don’t even think of running for president. That
one is a completely different ball game, with everything to do with
taking and bamboozling and nothing to do with service and creating.

Plagued by endless
corruption accusations, vast overspending claims and huge construction
delays, you would be forgiven for thinking none of Delhi’s inhabitants
were overjoyed about the city’s upcoming Commonwealth Games.

But you’d be mistaken, at least according to India’s health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

A few weeks ago he
said that the construction sites for the Games, which kick off in just
over 24 days, were providing perfect conditions for the city’s
mosquitoes, and laying the blame for the city’s record-breaking dengue
outbreak squarely with the organising committee.

“Dengue and water
is strongly related. Delhi is already dug up because of the Games and
it is also raining heavily. Since water remains accumulated in many
places, it becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which are
contributing to diseases,” Azad told reporters.

Throwing salt in
the organisers’ wounds was his thinly veiled accusation that had the
work been completed on schedule, and the construction completed before
the monsoon weather arrived, this year’s outbreak of the deadly virus
could have been avoided.

The embarrassing issue for the much-maligned organising committee is that he may well have a point.

Across the city,
pits and troughs scattered around uncompleted Games venues have filled
with rainwater during the recent monsoon downpours, providing the
dengue-spreading Aedes mosquito with perfect breeding grounds.

This year’s count
of dengue victims in the city – currently totalling 434 – represents a
huge rise from 3 last year and 55 in 2008. But do two swallows make a
summer?

Indeed, a
spiralling dengue victim count needs a scapegoat, and what better
culprit than the Games, which is already disliked by many of the city’s
residents.

But Azad’s timing
is intriguing. Recently, his government has slowly become engulfed in
the Games’ bad publicity, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appearing
to step in, in an attempt to provide relief to Suresh Kalmadi, the
Chairman of the Organising Committee.

Whether or not his
comments are true, or indeed supported by his party, Delhi is anxious
to be rid of the outbreak before the high-profile event begins in
October.

City
administrators, who are hard at work with fogging machines to prevent
mosquito breeding in danger areas, said that week that none of their
employees would get time off until the monsoon season concludes, while
mobile vans have been laid on to rush victims to 24-hour dedicated
hospitals.

According to an
advertisement published by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, 6,125
people have been prosecuted this season for allowing water stagnation
to occur on their property.

Following Azad’s comments, perhaps prosecutors will make a visit to
Kalmadi’s office in the coming weeks. Until then, Delhi’s love-hate
relationship with the Commonwealth Games rumbles on.

Like a recurring
bad dream, one of the violence prone fault lines running across the
country erupted again on Tuesday, sending residents of Bauchi running
helter skelter and causing the death of some officers of the Nigerian
security apparatus and some civilians.

The people behind
this latest outrage, members of the so-called Boko Haram (literally:
western education is a sin) are well known to Nigerians. Last year, the
group embarked on an orgy of violence and destruction that affected
several states in Northeastern Nigeria and led to the deaths of
hundreds of people as security forces reacted with violence to curb
violence. Incidentally, one of the outcomes of that incident, and the
ham-fisted way in which security agencies responded was encapsulated by
the cold blooded murder of the then leader of the group – which a
member of the police force, most likely, helpfully leaked on the
Internet.

There is little
doubt that this group has reorganised under a new leader and its
members are now doubly embittered against the state. Last year’s bloody
crackdown must have added to their social antipathy on top of the
existing conditions that had fed their protest in the first place.
Going by Tuesday’s attack on the prison – reminiscent of their attack
on police stations last year, it appears this group is still wedded to
its beliefs in violence and has learnt nothing from the killing of its
members last year.

More surprising is
the reality that our security forces have also not learnt much from the
other time. Despite lengthy investigation and an even lengthier report
– some 17 reports to the Presidency by some counts – the group was
still able to plan and launch a major attack in a cosmopolitan state
capital such as Bauchi, and was able to shut the town down for hours.

The presidency has
acted robustly by firing the head of the police and that of the State
Security Services and new men put in their place. But this is hardly
the solution to the issue, as one of those reports must have pointed
out.

One place to look
is the criminal justice system. Hundreds of people arrested over last
year’s violence are still being processed without any likelihood that
they will receive justice anytime soon. Matter of fact, there is some
sense to the attack launched on the prison, as the Boko Haram were able
to forceful free all prisoners – including some of their own members
detained within the facility.

It is easy to see
how the disgust with ‘westernisation’ spreads, especially if this is
represented by an unresponsive federal judicial and security system and
clueless state political leadership. It is likely another bout of
arrests will be carried out after Tuesday’s rampage and the suspects
will simply disappear into the maws of the judicial system. They will
be an addition to hundreds of thousands of suspects from various other
disturbances in the country.

The Ministry of
Justice would do well to hasten the trials of these detainees and
release those found innocent. This would serve to strengthen the
people’s confidence in the system and reduce their default reaction to
take the law into their own hands.

Government should
also use this opportunity to reorganise the intelligence gathering and
civil law enforcement agencies. It is apt to punish the head of such
agencies, but the rot surely goes beyond the two men. Their
replacements would do well to look into this.

But beyond this is the now tiresome call for our political leaders
to do the job for which they were actually elected. Groups such as Boko
Haram thrive on the misery and poverty of the people and a functional
society should reduce their allure. All arms of government need to
rebuild Nigeria’s infrastructure and nurse the economy back on track.
Failure to do that will ensure that the fault lines continue to erupt
into violence – and at a growing cost to society.