Nigeria Content Online

A
very interesting drama is being played out in the US state of Arizona
as we speak, and the causes and effects of this drama will reverberate
on a global scale, especially in the coming decades as populations
grow, and resources become scarcer.

You see, Arizona’s
budget deficit for 2009 was $1.7 billion which was one of the largest
in the US. As of June of this year, the unemployment rate is 9.6% and
rising. Governor Jan Brewer’s administration is also the largest
employer by far in the state, the second largest employer in the state
happens to be Wal-Mart with 17,343 employees as at 2008 from a
population of almost 7 million. This paints a pretty bleak picture for
Arizona’s prospects, and the state government has chosen to go down the
well worn path of xenophobia.

Immigration has
always been an issue of contention wherever it rears its head. Indeed,
history is full of cases of a failing government blaming the easiest
targets for its failure, and appealing to the innate xenophobic
sentiments in all human beings to explain away its failures.

After the First
World War, Germany was hit by a major depression. Part of the cause of
this depression were the murderous penalties imposed by the
‘victorious’ allies at the end of the Great War. In Germany of the
time, saving for the future was an exercise in stupidity as the price
of bread for example topped a million marks in soaring rate of
inflation never before or since. People needed someone to turn to, and
only one person appeared to make sense of all the rubbish that was
happening. He said, “blame the Jews, blame the foreign powers, blame
everyone else but us,” and the people listened. In 1933 the man swept
to power, and by the time he was bundled out by a combined effort of
world powers twelve years later, close to 60 million souls had been
shuffled screaming and kicking off the mortal coil.

Throughout
history, leaders have conveniently used the scapegoat of the foreigner
to explain away their inadequacies. The Russian Tsars did it, Napoleon
did it, American leaders were fond of doing it (1891 comes to mind),
Nigerians have done it (within our little ethnic enclaves, and who can
forget the Ghana-must-go fiasco?), and now the Arizonans are toeing the
same line.

However, what
concerns me is the line about Nigerian enclaves. You see, for too long
in this country, we have let the dangerous part of immigration in our
relatively new nation (internal immigration) fester for a long time
with no attempt whatsoever to contain it. I as an example, having been
born and spent a greater part of my life in Edo state, cannot claim to
be a citizen of that state. I have to go a few miles east in order to
exercise one of my major democratic rights, the right to stand for
office and be voted for.

Nigeria would have been a much better country if people we allowed to indigenise in whatever state they chose to settle in.

It is that
indigene-settler dichotomy that has brought us to this precarious
position on which we stand, and we have already seen the manifestations
of this madness in Jos. People who have lived in Jos for close to a
century are still not thought of as coming from there, with the result
being that periodic fights break out over the control of resources
which are getting scarcer and scarcer.

This problem is
only going to get worse in Nigeria over the next decade or two, and we
are already seeing the signs of what will happen in the furthest
regions of northern Nigeria. Look around you in Lagos, and indeed all
over the south of the country. The Fulani herdsmen who used to come
down South only in the dry season are here almost all year round
nowadays. They are not seen by the locals as being one and the same (we
are all from Nigeria), but as foreigners, so periodically, fights break
out and people die.

You see, as a
result of a triple whammy of bad policies by inept politicians and
desertification, the north of Nigeria is gradually shutting down. The
Sahara desert is inexorably moving south in the core northern states.
As is usual, we have no policy in place to check it. Where there might
be a policy, it exists only on paper. Northern Nigeria if this
situation continues will be unable to feed itself in another decade or
two as land is eroded away. Populations will move southward in search
of more habitable climes. That would bring more of them in contact with
those people who they are already fighting in the Jos area, and some
from both sets of people will move even further south to escape the
fighting that must break out.

On going further south, they would meet even more conflict.

Think this is an apocalyptic scenario? Consider that in another
decade we should be knocking on the 300 million population mark…

What
shall it profit a country if its musicians amass a dozen KORAs and
Grammys, or its banks overrun West Africa and Wall Street, or its
soccer teams monopolise FIFA’s trophies – while its citizens continue
to import light-bulbs and toothpicks from China?

How truly great is
a land whose roads are devoid of locally-made automobiles, because,
like the ghost workers in its civil service and the invisible power
plants that dot its territory, the made-at-home automobile remains a
ghost invention; a sheaf of mildewed sketches filed away in
long-forgotten frustration.

At least twice
since its inception, the NLNG-funded Nigeria Prize for Science has gone
un-awarded because of the low quality of entries. One year the judges
found homemade bottles of wine among the entries.

Yet, every year
thousands of people bag basic and advanced degrees in the technological
sciences in our universities; their diplomas certified by professors
who own two sets of notes – yellowed, dog-eared notes for their
longsuffering students; and PowerPoint 2010 files for their foreign
fellowships and lecture circuits.

We talk
confidently of Vision 20/2020 – taking our place in the world’s top 20
economies by the year 2020 (as a replacement for the ill-fated visions
of the past), and go on to make noise about owning the world’s
second-largest movie industry; failing to realise that India’s status
as an emerging global power depends far less on Bollywood than on
Bangalore. For while culture and the arts certainly have a role to play
in positioning a country in an increasingly contested global economic
space, depending solely on them without making any effort to exploit
our technological capacity will be akin to seeking to win a soccer game
without leaving your own goal area.

Somehow we miss
the fact that what will count the most for our reputation and our
economy will be what we can contribute to the global(ised) production
pool – in brain drain-free human talent, and in tangible, useful,
technological resource.

Philip Emeagwali
explains it in his “Africa must produce or perish” speech: “A $100 bar
of raw iron is worth $200 when forged into drinking cups in Africa,
$65,000 when forged into needles in Asia, $5 million when forged into
watch springs in Europe. How can this be? European intellectual capital
– the collective knowledge of its people – allows a $100 raw iron bar
to command a 50,000-fold increase!”

The Asians are
competing head-to-head with the West in the area of innovative
technology. China is busy creating and exporting new technology. We
depend on them for our power generators, our standing fans, and our
affordable brand-new cars. The Indians have made history with the
cheapest car in the world, the “Nano”built by Tata Motors, an Indian
company that in 2008 acquired from Ford two British icons: the Jaguar
and Land Rover brands. Someday, very soon, the Nano will swarm our
streets and, in the hands of Nigeria’s
‘let-us-buy-now-for-tomorrow-we-may-be-gone’ masses, become the mobile equivalents of ‘I better pass my neighbor’ generators.

The same Indians
are busy establishing their country as the outsourcing capital of the
world, unsettling the Western IT establishment. Brazil is leading the
ethanol revolution and becoming a biofuel superpower – more than half
of its cars now run on ethanol. Iran, Pakistan, Korea -and even Libya –
are (even though controversially) trying their hands at nuclear
technology. Every country that wishes to be taken seriously is busy –
creating, producing, fine-tuning.

We are also busy, but waiting; for the rest to produce so we can consume.

“Relax o
compatriots; Importers’ call obey!” might well be the new opening line
of the Nigerian national anthem. In the long wait for the ports to
discharge their treasures we remember to entertain ourselves: speeches,
slogans, schemes and strategies a-plenty.

Unfortunately we
will not wake up in 2020 to find that we have become a superpower. We
will realise too late that superpowers jettison faith in the false
comforts of rhetoric, and instead stay awake and at work. We will also
realise that superpowers need super-leaders, visionaries who can see
beyond Abuja’s next ‘allocation’.

On May 25, 1961,
John F. Kennedy shared, before a joint session of the United States
Congress, his vision of having the United States put a man on the moon
before the end of the decade. “I believe that this nation should commit
itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a
man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth,” he said.

Two and half years
later Kennedy was dead. But not his dream. Because, depending on the
country, dreams don’t have to die when dreamers do. Ask Martin Luther
King.

But not Obafemi Awolowo.

Sacked
Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke
ought to have thrown in the towel long before the events of last week.
In August 2008 President Yar’Adua set up a Presidential Advisory
Committee to review the activities of the capital market, and make
recommendations for reform. One of the committee’s recommendations was
that a change in leadership was required at the highest echelons of
both the Stock Exchange and its regulator, the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC). Tragically, only a few of the reforms were
implemented. The Director-General of the SEC, Musa Al-Faki, was eased
out, but Okereke-Onyiuke held on to her job, and declared that she
would not resign until late 2010, when she would be 60.

Okereke-Onyiuke
will go down in history as one of the most visible and controversial
personalities on the Nigerian business scene in the last decade.

She made history
as the first woman to head the Exchange. To her credit she brought the
Exchange to local and international prominence, spearheading a string
of reforms that modernised what had been an anachronistic organisation.
She introduced the All Nigeria Share Index (ANSI), and the Central
Securities Clearing System (CSCS) among other major innovations. Under
her the stock market grew rapidly.

But these
successes only helped to mask grave abuses, and deflect attention from
massive indiscretions. The Transcorp saga is a prominent one.

Okereke-Onyiuke
chaired the board of the controversial Transcorp, which was quoted on
the Exchange, which she ran. None of the conflict-of-interest noises
that Nigerians made seemed to faze her. Under her supervision the
company lurched from disaster to disaster, culminating in a massive
debt load, and investigations by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission. Okereke-Onyiuke was quizzed, while a number of senior
management staff were arrested.

In spite of the huge outcry against her continued chairmanship of Transcorp,

Okereke-Onyiuke
stubbornly held on to her position. During Barack Obama’s election
campaign she spearheaded a controversial fundraising drive that raised
millions of naira from companies quoted on the exchange. The
fundraising turned out to be illegal, according to US laws, and again
the EFCC had to step in.

All of these
questionable acts only succeeded in dragging the Exchange into
disrepute. Okereke-Onyiuke trudged on, unmoved by all the justifiable
criticism that trailed her.

Under her watch
the Exchange was also implicated in cases of manipulation of shares.
The most prominent was the one involving billionaires Aliko Dangote and
Femi Otedola, the only two Nigerians to ever occupy the Forbes List.

The shares in
question belonged to African Petroleum, a company in which Otedola had
significant shareholding. Otedola accused Dangote of influencing a
massive devaluation of AP’s stock price.

Shockingly, Mr.
Dangote, vice president of the Exchange at the time of the crisis, went
on months later to be elected as the president. By this time of course,
the ball had begun to unravel.

The stock market
crashed with the same ferocity with which it had boomed years earlier.
Much of this should rightly be credited to the global meltdown. But it
would be disingenuous to claim that the meltdown is solely responsible
for the mess that is the stock market. A significant part of the
problem lies in the way that the stock exchange has been managed over
the years. It didn’t help that the regulatory agency, the Securities
and Exchange Commission, simply forgot its job.

Now, it is time
to take stock of Okereke-Onyiuke’s legacy at the NSE. It is not enough
to relieve her of her job; it should also be ensured that thorough
investigations are carried out to cover the activities of the last
decade. Many questions remain unanswered; from Transcorp, to the
dubious IPOs that proliferated during the bank consolidation exercise.

Just before she
was relieved of her post, Okereke-Onyiuke was accused by Mr. Dangote
(who was also sacked alongside her), of mismanaging the affairs of the
Exchange, to the point of bankruptcy. But even Mr. Dangote has got
questions to answer.

The rot in the
Exchange is probably deeper than we think. We call on all concerned
agencies of government, from the Securities and Exchange Commission,

to the relevant law enforcement agencies, to ensure that no lead is left unexamined, and no culprit allowed to go unpunished.

As
President Barack Obama and Congress search for ways to jump-start job
creation in our stalled economy, their best strategy may be right under
their noses – in the voluminous backlogged files of the United States
Patent and Trademark Office.

This is the agency,
after all, that issues the patents that technology start-ups and other
small businesses need to attract venture capital to pay salaries.

Three-fourths of
executives at venture-capital-backed start-ups say that patents are
vital to getting financing, according to the 2008 Berkeley Patent
Survey, a national study of patents and entrepreneurship. And start-ups
are responsible for almost all the new jobs created in the United
States since 1977, according to a study by the Kauffman Foundation.

Unfortunately,
since 1992 Congress has diverted more than $750 million in patent fees
to other purposes. That has left the patent office itself underfinanced
and burdened with a backlog of 1.2 million applications awaiting
examination, more than half of which have not had even a first review.

To revitalize
America’s engine of entrepreneurship, and to create as many as 2.5
million jobs in the next three years, Congress should, first, give the
patent office a $1 billion surge to restore it to proper functioning.
This would enable the agency to upgrade its outmoded computer systems
and hire and train additional examiners to deal with the threefold
increase in patent applications in the past 20 years. Congress should
also pass pending legislation that would prohibit any more diverting of
patent fees and give the office the authority to set its own fees.

Once the patent
office is back to operating effectively, the backlog of 1.2 million
applications should yield, judging from history, roughly 780,000 issued
patents, about 137,000 of which would go to small businesses. Then,
going forward, the agency could grant an additional 88,000 patents
within three years. By 2013 small businesses would have received some
225,000 patents that they could then use to secure financing to build
their businesses and hire more workers.

To be sure, not
every patent creates a job or generates economic value. Some, however,
are worth thousands of jobs – Jack Kilby’s 1959 patent for a
semiconductor, for example, or Steve Wozniak’s 1979 patent for a
personal computer. It’s impossible to predict how many new jobs or even
new industries may lie buried within the patent office’s backlog.
However, according to our analysis of the data in the Berkeley Patent
Survey, each issued patent is associated with 3 to 10 new jobs.

So our guess is
that restoring the patent office to full functionality would create,
during the next three years, at least 675,000 and as many as 2.25
million jobs. Assuming a mid-range figure of 1.5 million, the price
would be roughly $660 per job – and that would be 525 times more cost
effective than the 2.5 million jobs created by the government’s $787
billion stimulus plan.

To encourage still
more entrepreneurship, Congress should also offer small businesses a
tax credit of as much as $19,000 for every patent they receive,
enabling them to recoup half of the average $38,000 in patent-office
and lawyers’ fees spent to obtain a patent; cost, after all, is the No.
1 deterrent to patent-seeking, the patent survey found.

For the average
30,000 patents issued to small businesses each year, a $19,000
innovation tax credit would mean a loss of about $570 million in tax
revenue in a year. But if it led to the issuance of even one additional
patent per small business, it would create 90,000 to 300,000 jobs.

Taken together,
fully financing the patent office and creating an innovation tax credit
could mean as many as 2.5 million new jobs over three years, and add as
many as 600,000 more jobs every year thereafter.

It only makes sense
to help innovative small businesses make their way to the patent office
and, once there, find it ready to issue the patents that lead to new
jobs.

(Paul R. Michel is
a former chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit, which handles patent appeals. Henry R. Nothhaft, the
chief executive of a technology-miniaturization firm, is a co-author of
the upcoming “Great Again.”)

© 2010 The New York Times

I regularly get questions from readers who believe I can solve
their marital problems. Below are questions I got from a deeply troubled soul
named Truck Pusher.

“Help! I got married because I thought I would be getting sex
every day! Now I don’t get any! My wife thinks I am an idiot! What should I
do?” Also, my wife loves trying on new dresses and asking me what I think. I am
a fashion illiterate. My wife calls me olodo idiot! What should I do?”

Response: Your wife is right. You are an idiot. Listen, married
men don’t have sex. Once you get married, forget sex. Repeat after me: Your
wife is right. You are an olodo. You are a fashion illiterate and she knows it.
Women are geniuses, men are idiots; they don’t call us cave men simply because
we like to scratch our buttocks and belch. Women understand that men are
biologically incapable of distinguishing between a dress and a table napkin
because all men think about is food and sex. Your wife doesn’t need your stupid
opinion. She was simply testing your IQ and your ability to pay attention to
her. Say your wife puts on a new dress and, as you are doing something serious,
like reading my great columns, she coos: “Enh, honey, what do you think?” A
typical man would say something stupid without looking up to see if she is
naked, like: “Honey, it is very nice! Are you near the fridge? A Heineken
please!” In America, that is spouse abuse and it will earn you a hot slap and
several days in the doghouse.

This is what you do: Once you hear your wife’s voice, look up
from whatever you are doing. This is a trick question. Women do that to men
regularly. I believe they call it “checking in”, because if you fail the “pay
attention” test, you are “checking in” to the doghouse. Women have been known
to stand in front of their spouses gloriously naked, asking the sexy question:
“Honey, do you like my dress?” And of course, the idiots have brayed
absentmindedly: “I like it, honey, I really do! The blue compliments your
shoes!” Please do not try that foolishness at home. You may have just blown
your yearly chance at sex. Yes, in marriage, sex doesn’t come often. Always be
alert for sex and take it whenever it is offered.

So, what you do is look up in case there is some sex in your
future. Well, if indeed she is naked, stop reading right here and enjoy your
marriage, you lucky devil. If however she is in a new dress, then you have a
problem. Stop whatever you are doing and become a fashion critic. Stand up
slowly from my column (it’s okay; really, there are more gullible readers where
you came from. I shall not starve). Purse your lips pensively, put your finger
to your lips while you study the beauty before you and then say, “Nice… let’s
see… em, turn around!” They like that, “very attentive husband!” After one
minute of looking pensive and intelligent, start laying on the charm: “Nice… I
like the way the dress enhances your natural beauty!” Women like that. She will
eat it up. You might even get some (sex!). Follow this up with another volley:
“The blue dots accentuate your sexy eyes and they go nicely with your blue
shoes in an understated way.” Oh man, you are really going to get it (sex!).
Then ask her to turn around again. If you are lucky and she has other clothes
that she wants to try on, she will take off the dress and try on the next one.
You might get some (sex!) before she tries on the other one.

This purchase may have set back your children’s college tuition fund. You
may need to apply for emergency shelter from the government, or your relatives
if you live in a civilized place like Nigeria where the President is busy gleefully
typing “LOL” on women’s Facebook statuses while the country burns. Ask nicely:
“I bet you spent a pretty penny on this gorgeous dress!” She will say: “Honey,
you are really great in bed! [a big lie of course!] You will not believe how
cheap this dress was.” She will get the price tag from her Gucci purse ($1,500
on sale in Dubai; she bought it from Dame Dr. Mrs. Chief Patience Goodluck
Jonathan who had bought it at a bend down boutique in Dubai for $2.00 plus
shipping and handling) Wow! It was originally $1,500. Half off special! Now it
only cost her $750! You weep with relief. You are tempted to give your wife
half of what she just saved. Except that she charged it to the credit card.
Don’t worry; she will take off the dress. What you do next is up to you. Please
note: None of this ever happens in my house. My wife never asks my opinion of
her new dresses. She knows: I am an idiot.

The ancient city of
Benin has experienced its share of ruin and I am not talking about the
British sacking, destruction and looting of the arts and sacred
artifacts in 1897.

We can point to the
British expeditionary attack and say the white man came and stole from
us and destroyed our heritage and sent our king into exile in an
inhuman manner, where he was to die and be buried like a pauper. And we
can also say the white men that carried out the actual raiding of the
Oba’s palace in Benin did so because they did not really care about a
monarchy that was not theirs. Let’s even come to recent history and say
during various military administrations, non-indigenes were sent by
dictators to rule the state and they did not care if there was
development or not. But what do you say of some elected citizens of the
Edo State who have done worse than anything the British colonialists or
military regimes did to the state in general and the capital city in
particular?

The most terrible
and degrading years for Benin as the capital city of Edo State were the
eight years Lucky Igbinedion was the governor. The ruin that befell the
city was worse than any it has ever experienced in its long history of
existence. His mismanagement of state funds is not a secret and it is a
common joke that even after his failed his first term as a governor,
his father Gabriel Igbinedion asked that his son should be allowed to
go for second term, because if a “student fails a class he repeats it”.

Well Lucky did
repeat the “class” for another four years which enabled him to loot
some more and clean out the state coffers properly.

Those were the
locust years of Edo State, because money that came to the state was
“eaten” by the voracious pot bellied dullard. While infrastructure and
roads were in the worst state they could possibly be, workers were owed
months of arrears in salary, touts took over the city and harassed
innocent citizens to pay illegal fees – the governor was building
mansions round the world and throwing lavish parties in Caribbean
countries. Millions of naira worth of state funds was allegedly used in
buying houses in London and other foreign cities while erosion took
over the state capital.

One cannot put the
entire blame of the backward years of Edo State on Lucky’s head,
because other politicians’ directly and indirectly pillaged funds for
their personal use.

State Assembly
members made phony trips to foreign countries with funds meant to
develop Edo and Igbinedion as the steward did not see anything wrong
with this, because his own elaborate foreign trips financed in the same
way, were legendary.

In 2008 the EFFC
finally arraigned Igbinedion in a court sitting in Enugu accusing him
of laundering funds totaling about N4 billion during his eight-year
stint as governor.

The 147-count
charge count that was brought against him listed embezzlement,
stealing, conspiracy to defraud and use of several phony companies to
maneuver billions of naira from the state. The fact that there is not
development to show for all the money allocated to Edo, as an oil
producing state should have been enough to nail him but today Lucky
Igbinedion is a free man, enjoying his stolen billions.

One cannot really
say what his successor, Oseriemen Osunbor, would have done better
because his administration was ridden with crises and he eventually
lost the office. But barely four years after the wasteful years of
Igbinedion in Edo State, certain photographs surfaced in our newsroom
in Lagos recently. They were images of multiple water fountains
beautifully lit with iridescent colours in what looked like a public
park. The images were taken at night, which helped accentuate the
changing lighting of the fountains. Our arts and culture editor, Molara
Wood, who showed me the images asked jokingly if I knew where they were
taken, I told her no. “So you don’t know your city anymore…they were
taken in Benin City na!” I couldn’t believe her at first but it was
true. It was part of the new face-lift and renovation of the King
Square. Adams Oshiomole the governor of Edo State has caught the
Fashola beautification bug. The photographs I saw led me to visit Benin
City last weekend and I was shocked beyond words at what the city has
become. The fountain I saw was just a tiny bit of what Governor
Oshiomole’s administration has turned the city into. I took time to
drive round (Edo has also cured it’s kidnapping sickness, would you
know) and realised it was not just the King Square, but the entire city
had been rebuilt. I learnt the governor had vowed in 2009 to restore
the ancient city to its past glory. The comrade has definitely borrowed
a welcome leaf from Governor Fashola of Lagos because at the rate the
man is going the city will soon recover fully from the years of ruin.

Each time Lucky
Igbinedion drives through the beautiful city, he couldn’t do anything
about in eight years; he should cover his face in shame.