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The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), a political platform
led by former military head of state, Muhammadu Buhari, who is reputed to be
one of the most incorruptible leaders since Nigeria attained independence in
1960, is one of the newly formed political parties. But it has had a markedly
greater impact than most within its short existence.

Supporters of this promising platform constitute the bulk of
those who left the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) due to the perception that
it has sold out to the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). A reference
point was when the Edwin Ume Ezeoke-led ANPP declined to support the retired
general’s quest to fully challenge the disputed 2007 elections in which the
late Umar Musa Yar’Adua emerged as Nigeria’s president.

Mr Buhari, who enjoys massive support and goodwill from
academics, a section of the elites, and the downtrodden, is poised to take a
shot, for the third time, for the presidency, at the forthcoming 2011 polls and
this has excited his followers in states such as Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa.

His entrance into the political terrain in the build up to the
2003 elections was felt by the ruling PDP. In Kano, for instance, his political
machine, tagged ‘the Buhari hurricane’, ensured the victory of a former
classroom teacher, Ibrahim Shekarau, who lacked the funds to even campaign
vigorously, to become the unexpected governor of the state.

At the 2007 polls, it was the Buhari slogan that primarily
assisted Isa Yuguda, then on the platform of the ANPP (he is now back to the
PDP fold) to upstage the dominance hitherto enjoyed by the PDP under the former
governor, Ahmed Muazu, in Bauchi State.

A former University of Maiduguri lecturer and CPC’s governorship
aspirant in Kano, Auwalu Anwar, postulates that the situation will not be
different this time around, stressing that the hurricane will consume the PDP
beyond the traditional northern states.

Mr Anwar, who dumped the PDP for the CPC, believed that the new
party has what it takes to move Nigeria forward.

“The name PDP became so attractive to people like me in 1999. In
Kano, for instance, the party is no more democratic because it has been reduced
to a sectional club, and I cannot operate in that kind of environment. I dumped
it because I have the constitutional right to do so,” he said.

“The constitution gives me the right of belief and the right of
political participation as at when I feel like doing it, within the context of
the law of the land. My idea of dumping the PDP is appropriate this time
because the PDP has run out of its own goodwill in Kano.

“So, since I want to be with the people of Kano and lead the
people, I should not belong to anything that does not seem to have the approval
of Kano people. So, I dumped the PDP on ideological ground. Before now, I have
been a founding member of the PDP since 1999 and I actually attempted to
contest election then. I was in the PDP to serve, but the environment to serve
people selflessly is not in the PDP anymore.

“The PDP today has lost its soul; it is a ghost of what it used
to be, and the party doesn’t seem to have the ability to take the country to
the Promised Land,” Mr Anwar said.

Mr Anwar’s view is the one shared by many, as CPC’s leaders in
Kano, led by Ahmed Haruna Danzago, had embarked on a grassroots mobilisation
campaign across the 44 councils of the state, during which thousands of the
party’s supporters were duly issued party membership registration card.

NEXT witnessed the exercise in Garko council of the state and
there was evidence that the enthusiasm exhibited by the rural folks was a sign
that the CPC could spring surprises in the days ahead.

Kabiru Gwangwazo, a former chairman of the ANPP and now
governorship aspirant, said besides popular support, the CPC can now boast that
it is an organised party with key stakeholders who can ensure that the votes
count.

He cited the presence in the party of retired military personnel
and the political elites, including former speaker of the house of
representatives, Aminu Bello Masari, Audu Yandoma, M.T Liman, and Rufai Sani
Hanga, all senators; and a retired general, Jafaru Isa, as those who can stand
by the by CPC when it matters most.

Mr Gwangwazo, who played key role in the emergence of Mr Shekarau
as governor of Kano in 2003, admitted that popular support does not translate
to electoral victory at the poll.

“The good news this time around is that the class of the
aforementioned personalities cannot be intimidated as at the time poll results
are to be declared,” he said.

He contended that, unlike previous elections where votes scored
by Buhari were allegedly stolen by the PDP, the CPC will score resounding
victory across the country, particularly in states such as Bauchi, Kano, Borno,
Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Jigawa where Mr Buhari enjoys fanatical support.

Mr. Gwangwazo said he believes Mr Buhari will, for instance, win
his home state of Katsina effortlessly.

“We have always known he has the mass support, but the problem
all this while is that the elites that matter at the nick of time were the ones
sabotaging him. But now, there are changes for the better. Elites like Aminu
Bello Masari, Audu Yandoma, Dikko Radda, Sadiq YarAdua, Mustapha Inuwa, M.T
Liman, and several late Yar’Adua acolytes who have an axe to grind with
Governor Ibrahim Shema are now on the side of Buhari’s CPC,” he said.

The CPC also stands a good chance of winning in Kano State, in
view of the fact that the ANPP’s house is divided against itself due to
squabbles among its leaders on who succeeds Mr Shekarau, whose second term
tenure expires in May 2011. The PDP may not be able to put up much of a fight
because it shares similar fate with ANPP.

But Mr Gwangwazo said to achieve the desired objectives, the CPC
must put its house in order to be able to win at the poll.

“To be able to win elections, our national leaders have to
intervene because, right now, we don’t have competent leaders both at the state
and national level. They have to change these two persons before we can think
of winning election,” he said.

In nearby Jigawa State, where former House of Representatives
member, Farouk Aliyu Adamu, holds sway on behalf of the CPC, it promises to be
a Herculean task for the party that must contend with the overbearing influence
of state governor, Sule Lamido of the PDP. Luckily for CPC, Mr Lamido and his
predecessor, Saminu Turaki, have fallen apart politically. If the fight drags
on, it will not come as a surprise if Mr Turaki, a former ANPP leader, moves
with his supporters to the CPC.

Most importantly, the CPC can reap immensely from the dividends
of the electoral reform embarked upon by the federal government. Its leaders
said they feel emboldened by the promise of free and fair elections in next
year’s polls.

Nigeria’s umbrella body of civil society organizations is
concerned that transparency and accountability are still far from apparent in
the country’s extractive industries. The group is particularly worried that the
country has lost its way and momentum in its progress toward receiving
validation in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)
implementation exercise due to take place next month.

The Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy
Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, told NEXT in Abuja that the way things
are playing out at NEITI’s secretariat in recent times, is a source worry for
most civil society groups in the country. According to him, internal wrangling
between top officers of the secretariat has turned the place into “a notorious
centre for corruption”, pointing out that the crisis has called into doubt the
country’s commitment to implementing the EITI principles.

“The Civil society organizations are incapacitated, because they
are not sufficiently mobilized to effectively engage the NEITI process based on
knowledge. The current leadership in NEITI has not shown sufficient zeal,
commitment and interest to get the EITI principles implemented in the country.
They have not been able to follow up on the progress recorded with the two
industry audits in 1999 and 2004, because of lack of commitment,” Mr.
Rafsanjani said.

The CISLAC boss, who said his organization is planning a
publication, “Gaps between commitment and implementation: Civil Societies’ assessment
of the performance of NEITI”, to show how ineffective NEITI has become, said
“the inability of NEITI management to assert itself and demand accountability
from erring companies has been the main reason why a lot of things have been
swept under the carpet in recent times.”

Corruption in the
Secretariat

Two weeks ago, the media was awash with reports of corruption
charges against some top NEITI officials involving illegal allowances running
into over N15 million.

The former Director of Services, Stan Rerri, who withdrew his
services from the agency last June in controversial circumstances, accused the
erstwhile Executive Secretary, Haruna Sa’eed, of abusing his office by
receiving a “double salary for over 12 months” from the both United Kingdom Department
for International Development (DFID) and the Federal Government.

In a petition No. NEITI/ PETITIONS/DS/01 dated August 10, 2010
to President Goodluck Jonathan, Mr. Rerri alleged that he was victimized by the
NEITI Board, which he said declared his office vacant when his appointment was
yet to be terminated, for blowing the whistle on Mr. Sa’eed’s corrupt
activities.

The Federal Government, through letter No. SGF.19/S.52/C.3/T/75
of August 9, 2010, signed by the Secretary to Government of the Federation
(SGF), Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, ordered the removal of Mr. Sa’eed as Executive
Secretary of NEITI for what they said was “in the public interest”.

The crisis between the two officials, NEXT investigations show,
is rooted in a power tussle, which resulted in the setting up of a five-member
committee to investigate the handling of the 2009 Civil Society training
programme following reports of discrepancies in payment records, abuse of due
process in the disbursement of funds and general administrative lapses in the
secretariat.

The committee, which uncovered procedural breaches in the
procurement processes allegedly supervised by Mr. Rerri, said in its final
report that: “There was a very clear case of over-inflated hotel rates, for as
much as 100 percent on line items.”

“The meeting room rate (in Homegate Resort, Lagos used for the
programme) was N115,000, inclusive of VAT (value added tax), and service charge
on the tariff collected, yet NEITI was invoiced N150,000 for the meeting room,
exclusive of VAT and service charge”, the report said. “There was absolute
leadership failure at the NEITI Secretariat. There are clearly account
management lapses in the NEITI system, which resulted in a loss of over
N500,000 from the transaction,” the report went further to note.

As a result of the committee’s report, the Procurement Officer,
Tony Onyekweli, who handled the bookings for the venue for the workshop, and
the Accountant, Sunkanmi Adeoti, who disbursed the N15million used for the
programme, were discharged from their posts for “collusion, forgery, and
non-adherence to due process standards in policy formulation and implementation
of monetization policy convention.”

But, Mr. Rerri described the committee as a “fraud and a hatchet
body used as a pretence to kick people out,” saying “My petition to the
President was based on facts. Board members collected money. Records bearing
their signatures and the amounts they collected are there for all to see.
NEITI, as an institution that has transparency in its name, should not tell
lies.”

Worries over validation

NEITI Chairman, Assisi Asobie, refused to speak on the matter,
saying providing answers to questions concerning corruption charges against the
sacked officials as well as allegations of general laxity in the management of
the agency would touch on the official explanations on the issue sent to the
Presidency in response to the query issued.

Mr. Asobie was also not ready to grant a formal interview on the
activities of the NEITI in respect of the forthcoming EITI validation exercise,
saying doing so would jeopardize the process and compromise the official
documentation in the final validation report submitted by NEITI on July 1 to
the EITI Board ahead of the review exercise scheduled for Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania next October.

“There is nothing like a deadline for validation. The true
position is that all candidate countries that have not been validated,
including Nigeria, were given July 9, 2010, which has since passed. There is no
new deadline. But, the EITI Board is meeting in October to take a report of the
Validation Committee,” he said.

The Managing Partner of S.S. Afemikhe & Company, the
Nigerian auditing firm that participated in the two previous oil and gas
industry audits conducted so far by NEITI, Sam Afemikhe, told NEXT that since
those exercises, Nigeria has made sufficient progress that would stand it in
good stead for the EITI validation.

According to Mr. Afemikhe, considering the situation before
NEITI, when the oil industry was relatively opaque, the industry is opening up
today, even more rapidly than in developed societies, pointing out; “today,
everything is in the open. One would visit websites and see operational
processes and actual figures and data about oil companies’ operations, which
was not the case before.

“The 2006 and 2008 audits are in progress. All parties,
including the National Stakeholder Working Group (NSWG), are very supportive.
Nothing has changed, in terms of NEITI’s capacity to discharge its functions,
as far as the auditors are concerned. There is good progress in what is going
on. If the validation was supposed to be based on whether the audit is going
well, then there would be no hesitation to say that there is no issue for
Nigerians to fear anything,” he said.

Despite this vote of confidence, the industry is still grappling
with problems of how to get certain institutions like the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to adhere to the basic EITI principles, which are
founded on the ethics of prudent management and use of natural resources, not
only for the benefit of the citizens but also for the promotion of sustainable
national socio-economic growth and development as well as poverty reduction
through a commitment to openness, transparency, and good governance.

Till date, the corporation is still unable to reconcile the
discrepancies uncovered in the 2004 and 2005 audits, and owes the Federal
Government N450 billion .

The National Coordinator, Publish What You Pay (PWUP) Nigeria,
Faith Nwadishi, said recently that it is illegal practices by institutions like
the NNPC that are undermining efforts by Nigeria to entrench transparency and
accountability in its extractive industry. “Why are we still talking on the
reconciliation of discrepancies in the 2005 audit report when we should be
talking about the 2008 report,” Ms. Nwadishi said, adding that it is issues
like this that show how unserious the government is with the commitment to get
EITI validation.

Nigeria in EITI

Nigeria, which signed to commit to EITI in November 2003,
launched the Nigeria EITI (NEITI) in February of the following year, followed
by a Bill to the National Assembly in December of the same year, to provide the
legal backing to the work of NEITI.

To demonstrate its commitment to meeting some of the EITI implementation
indicators, the first set of financial, physical and process audits for the
country’s oil and gas industry covering 1999 and 2004 was undertaken by a
consortium led by the London-based Hart Group in conjunction with a Nigerian
auditing firm, S.S. Afemikhe and Company.

With publication of the audit report, which identified several
weaknesses related to the management of oil revenues as well as poor governance
issues, an Inter-Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) put together a comprehensive
remediation action plan for implementation by the government.

The remediation plan covered five key areas: developing a
revenue-flow interface among government agencies; improving Nigeria’s oil and
gas metering infrastructure; developing a uniform approach to cost determination;
building human and physical capacities of critical government agencies; and
improving overall governance of the oil and gas sector.

With the passage of the NEITI Act on May 28, 2007, Nigeria
became the first EITI-implementing country with a statutory backing, while the
country was accepted as an EITI Candidate country on 27 September 2007, with
its final Validation report sent to the EITI Validation Committee on May 5,
2010, ahead of August 2010 deadline for the submission of its final report. The
deadline for Nigeria’s validation is September 9.

Nigeria is one of 28 EITI Candidate countries that would undergo
validation process to be listed as EITI Compliant country. Other Candidate
countries which have validation deadline ranging variously between September 9
and March 9, 2011, include Afghanistan, Madagascar, Albania, Mali, Burkina
Faso, Mauritania, Cameroon, Mongolia, Central African Republic (CAR),
Mozambique, Chad, Niger, Côte d´Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Norway,
Gabon, Peru, Ghana, Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Tanzania,
Kazakhstan, Yemen, Kyrgyzstan Republic, Yemen and Zambia.

Only three countries – Azerbaijan, Liberia and Timor-Leste – have so far
achieved EITI Compliant status.

Redeployment from Special Duties to the FCT

It happened swiftly. I did
not know about it. The president came into the Federal Executive
Council to swear in three new ministers to complete the gap. He made
the point that there have been a lot of rumour and that we should try
to give only information we have at our disposal, as speculation would
not help. After swearing in the new ministers, he announced our names.
So, to me it was a surprise. I think he stressed the point that it was
redeployment and on my own part, even while in the military, there is
usually a movement of officers from one post to another. I want to
assure you that if the president makes me his PA tomorrow, I will
smartly go there.

High level of youth unemployment

Unemployment has been there for quite
a while and I am particularly alarmed, considering the number of
graduates that we are turning out from our universities. When I was in
Special Duties, I had the task of monitoring all federal government
projects and carrying out the evaluation of the same. I was building a
team in each zone to carry out monitoring with a central coordinating
unit to do the same in Abuja. While doing that, I was monitoring
projects and I was also insisting that the contractors who got
contracts running into billions should employ our graduates. In my
handing over notes to my successor, I urged him to continue in that
crusade. It would be senseless for us to bring foreigners for a job
Nigerians can do. I strongly believe I would do so in the FCT, to
employ more Nigerians and enforce all those contractors who got jobs
from the Federal Government to take them. Luckily there is an enabling
law that would assist us in achieving that. What has happened in the
past is that nobody had cared or bothers to enforce it.

Controversies in PDP ahead of 2011

The coast is clear for all parties
to put their houses in order ahead the 2011 election, so they are all
mapping out strategies to do that. What is of great importance to us is
that we must, irrespective of parties, try what we can to ensure that
we have a free and fair election in Nigeria. That is of paramount
importance to the president and we would drive it to its logical
conclusion irrespective of parties. If you want to know specifically
what my party is doing, we have a plan in place and we would unveil it
as time progresses. But, by and large, what is of greatest concern to
the president is that we should have a free and fair election, devoid
of violence. It is a collective effort and I buy into that.

Controversies about national honours list

All I want to say regarding
national honours is that there is no how you nominate people that there
would not be complaints. If the responsibility is given to you to
handle, some of us here would still complain. It is always like that,
but whatever happened in the last national honours, I want to
specifically say here that the name of the nominees had already been
compiled before I got to the ministry. It was meant to be released in
2009 when the late President took ill, so that ceremony could not hold.
The only part we played was just to pass it on, either to be combined
with the one of 2010. In fact, that was our position. But the president
decided to do it separately and I played no role as far as names were
concerned. I want to say that it is an inherited complaints or problem,
as far as the ministry is concerned. There is a board set up for
national honours. That board is comprised of notable citizens who are,
in their own right, men of honour. It is a standing board. They would
take application and inputs from all over the states and see whether
they are credible people. But you know, only God is the best judge.

His
action plan

Well, I am the Minister of State. I still have a Minister
there, so I would look at the Minister’s plan and see what I can infuse
into it, so that we would have good governance in FCT, and we would do
that by
showing good leadership ourselves. Any idea I have, I would always put
it before him for consideration because I believe that in a ship, there
would always be a Captain. I would not want to play the role of that
Captain because I’m not the Minister of FCT. That is the way I would
want to go along, so that we can closely work together without rancour.
I would rather behave like an Ekiti man who is decent and easy going
and, I’m sure with that, we would be able to do a lot.

Relationship
with Ekiti State government

Segun Oni and I are best of friends. I opted to serve in his
administration as the Chairman, Project Monitoring Committee. There are
many former governors who had passed through the state but I did not
opt to serve.
That I opted to serve him is because I believe it would help my state
and I am happy that Mr Oni saw it as such. When I left, we have always
been relating well. Anytime I am in the state, I make sure that I spend
some time with him. I will never have a quarrel with any political
leader in the state, no matter his party. I will always share
experience and give any advice that would make our state a better one.

Challenges of administering the FCT

I know that Nigerians would complain at different times. It is their
right to complain. My own land was taken by El Rufai. He said I did not
develop it. I wrote him a personal letter that the land was given to me
when I was in Bayelsa State as the military administrator and that I
did not have money to develop it. I told him he should not penalize me
because I did not build it. In fact I told him that if I had stolen
money in Bayelsa, I would probably have built many houses and that he
should leave that single land for me because I don’t have two. I said
if he found out that I had two, he could take the two but he should
leave that one for me. I don’t know if the letter got to him, but up
till last week the land is still there. The man whom they gave it to
could not build it. And now I’m in FCT! I was a military administrator.
I administered a state which had nothing. Bayelsa was worse than Ekiti
when I got there. The terrain was difficult and yet we built something.
We would do what is possible to make middle class and low-income
earners to own a home. That would be my personal focus and I would beg
the minister of FCT to see it in the same light.

The failure rate of students in Nigeria gets worse
by the day. Last week, the West African Examination Council (WAEC),
released the results of the 2010 West African Senior Secondary Schools
Examination and only 24 percent of the students passed, “with credits
in Maths, English and three other subjects.” The rest cannot be
admitted in any university.

In Lagos, a volunteer corps decided to organise an
ingenious forum for some of the students, to find out why they failed
so badly. They blamed their teachers, the government, and the sheer
lack of facilities that forced them to do “alternative to practical” in
school leaving examinations. Many of them have never heard of a Bunsen
Burner. All of it sounded like excuses and more excuses.

But then Chidera Ota, a 16 year old Nigerian girl
born in London led the entire United Kingdom with 15A* in the General
Certificate for Secondary School (GCSE) released about the same time as
the Nigerian results. She got the grades in English literature and
language, Mathematics, Statistics, French, German, Latin, History,
Sociology, Chemistry, Biology, Physics and an IT qualification.

Now, Miss Ota is going to King’s School,
Canterbury, on a scholarship to study Chemistry, Physics, Biology,
Maths and Further Maths A-levels.

Yet there is another story even more remarkable: A
five year old Nigerian girl, little Dee Alli, also sat for the same
examinations.

And she passed – becoming the youngest person ever
to do so. And suddenly it didn’t look like the students at the Lagos
youth forum were just sounding off. Surely, if Alli and Ota were living
here, attending dilapidated schools, they couldn’t have achieved those
feats?.

The UK authorities have recently introduced the A*
as the highest grade in the GCSE examinations when too many students
were getting As.

In Nigeria, the decline continues unabated. Last
year, 98 per cent of the 234,682 who sat for the NECO examinations
failed to get the requisite five credits. The Registrar of NECO,
Promise Okpalla, said although there was a 1.2 percent pass, Kogi,
Bauchi and Ondo excelled in another field, leading other states in
examination malpractices.

Chidera and Dee show what could be if our educational system is better managed.