Nigeria Content Online

Nigeria’s
preparation for the FIFA World Cup has never been anything to rave
about. From beginning to end it was characterised by lapses, which for
the most part were avoidable.

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), the
country’s football governing body, which normally ought to drive the
process to ensure that Nigeria puts up a decent showing at the global
tournament, somehow manages to make simple things like appointing a
coach for the squad and organising friendly matches to enable the
technical crew assess the form and fitness of players, look incredibly
difficult.

While the build-up to our three previous
appearances in 1994, 1998 and 2002 were chaotic to say the least, they
appear hi-tech and extremely organised compared to what we are
witnessing now with regard to our preparations for this year’s World
Cup in South Africa, which begins in exactly one month’s time.

The 2002 edition of the Mundial, which is on
record as being the shoddiest in terms of organisation, has come out
smelling like roses. When then Eagles coach Amodu Shuaibu was fired
with five months to the tournament and Adegboye Onigbinde was handed
the reins and Nigerians despaired, the leadership of the NFF (then NFA)
managed to arrange a number of friendly matches before the squad
departed for the tournament, which was held in Korea/Japan.

A similar scenario plays out today. By a quirk of
fate Amodu, who returned as coach of the squad in 2008 following the
exit of German Bert Vogts, was relieved of his appointment after
guiding the team to qualify for the World Cup. Former Sweden coach,
Lars Lagerback was appointed in his stead.

The process that threw up the Swede was
exasperatingly convoluting to the football faithful who wanted the
process speeded up to afford the new coach time to shake up the squad,
which many Nigerians agree appeared listless during both the qualifiers
for the World Cup and the 2010 Nation Cup in Angola in January.

As it turns out, we are paying for that delay. The
time wasted in naming the new coach and the seeming inability of the
leadership of the football federation to arrange even one quality
friendly match for the Eagles mean that with thirty days to the World
Cup, Nigerians do not believe that their national team can square up to
their opponents.

And they can hardly be blamed. While Nigeria’s
group opponents, Argentina, Greece and South Korea, named their
provisional squads weeks ago, Nigeria’s tentative squad for the
tournament was released only last night.

How Lagerback arrived at the list will continue to
exercise the imagination of football fans who know that unlike other
coaches going to the World Cup, the Swede has not had any personal or
professional interaction with the players since he took on the job in
late February.

Now, that this list is out and the major football
leagues where our players ply their trade in Europe have either ended
or will end this weekend, Lagerback needs to force the issue of
friendly matches with the NFF. He must extract a commitment from them
to keep faith with already proposed friendly games with Saudi Arabia,
North Korea and Colombia to enable him get a feel of his squad or watch
them get battered in South Africa.

When last week I was confronted with a litany of deaths – the
death of a brother-in-law, the death of a friend 12 days after his wedding, the
death of a poet-friend Esiaba Irobi, and then the death of a president – I
thought of the myth of how death entered the world and became “homeless.” Amos
Tutuola’s version of the myth in The Palm-wine Drinkard tells us that the
palm-wine drinkard went to Death’s house, captured and brought him to the
world, an assignment he had to carry out in order to get information from an
old man (also identified as a “god”) concerning the whereabouts of his dead
tapster.

If one were as adventurous as Tutuola’s palm-wine drinkard, one
would have set out for “Dead’s town” in search of these dead Nigerians,
especially the poet, Esiaba Irobi, whose friendship and professional
interaction one had enjoyed over many years. Searching for a dead poet in
“Dead’s town” may appear the craziest of all expeditions but perhaps it would
help one to be cured of the fear of being called upon suddenly to remove the
garment of flesh and move into another realm of intelligence.

Searching for the dead, one must acknowledge, is indeed part of
the traditional Igbo performance at funerals. Usually, it is the peers of the
deceased, or more specifically members of the deceased’s age-group, that lead
the search team to locations such as the marketplace, the village square, or
the stream. These are considered the most likely places where the spirits of
the dead also visit to conduct their business.

The ritual performance of looking for the dead relative or
friend is merely a way of demonstrating to the dead how much they are missed.
Certainly those looking for their deceased relatives in the market place,
chanting “Iwe, Iwe di anyi n’obi,” would break into a run if they should catch
a glimpse of the spiritual or physical forms of those they are searching for
buying and selling.

I should think that it is in our hearts that we have to search
for and talk with our dead relatives and friends, to deal with the
“homelessness” of death, instead of running away from “him” like the old man
who set the palm-wine drunkard on the difficult task of binding and bringing
death to him.

Culturally, not many people would want to discuss their own
impending deaths, or their desire to interact with the dead. We normally
postpone such thoughts, or banish them from our minds entirely. Many of us
believe that it is better for our death to just happen. There is no need to
think about it or prepare for it.

Tell members of your family that you will die next year and some
break into tears, others filled with rage scold you and warn you to stop
thinking such an “evil” thought. Some may also try to exorcise the devil that
is making such “evil” suggestions to you, introducing the power of logos: “I
reject it in Jesus’ name!” Such expressions of anger and fear are perfectly in
line with the discovery by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (in her On Death and Dying)
that individuals facing death (their relatives inclusive) normally exhibit five
phases of reconciliation with their circumstances, in the following order:

(1) The stage of DENIAL and ISOLATION, as demonstrated in the
expression “No, it cannot be true,” or “it cannot be me!” (2) The stage of
ANGER, as manifested in “Why me?” responses; (3) The stage of BARGAINING, in
which we try to see if death could be postponed, at least on the basis of good
behaviour, or for some unfinished business; (4) The stage of DEPRESSION, for
instance for impending losses; and (5) The stage of ACCEPTANCE, the stage of
resignation, often expressed in “I cannot fight it any longer” or when the
dying person calls a friend or relative to whisper, “This body is no longer
mine; I have to go.” The search for a dead friend or peer, as performed in
traditional Igbo funerals, is perhaps a manifestation of that human resistance
to the reality of death and dying. We, as searchers, are angry that such a
death should occur, angry that we should be the ones affected and not other
people.

Along with John Donne the poet we proclaim, “Death, thou shall
die,” as part of the expression of anger and depression. It appears we find it
difficult to reconcile with our reality that we must move on. I suspect that if
I should meet the deceased that I am searching for, he would likely laugh and
point out to me that he is free now, and that the real tragedy is that of my
forgetting that I would, one day, and at any time, continue the journey out of
the flesh.

Death, indeed, is a lonely business. One dies alone, even in the
midst of a multitude.

One goes with nothing, not even one’s skin. One does not even
remember one’s name, I guess. So, that means that one does not even go with
one’s name. Esiaba has just beaten me to it. Someday, it will be my turn and I
will go alone.

Recently
I travelled through a state capital and found in the middle of the
city, a huge wide billboard, which towered high above with the image of
one person sprawled across it. It was the picture of the state governor
so thickly decked in traditional attire, complete with a walking stick.
He looked more like a character out of a Nollywood movie, smiling down
at onlookers in that I have arrived manner of Nigerian big men, with a
bold inscription “Imagine another four years” taking up the remaining
space on the board.

Four years of what I asked myself?

I took a look
around me, at the people who daily walked past this giant billboard,
who without options look up at the smiling face on the billboard as
they walk past, the people whose imaginations the governor is so bent
on tickling.

The people didn’t
seem to be smiling back. Not the little girl of school age with a bowl
of pure water on her head who was timing the flow of traffic in order
to cross over to the other side of the road in good time to appeal to
the people getting off the bus:

Not the young lady
holding out a long strip of yellow, green and blue cards from under an
umbrella few yards away beckoning me to recharge my phone. All I could
see was a struggling young girl trying to pinch out a living, her
beauty concealed by years of sitting out at the mercy of the elements:

Not the lady
traffic warden who was having a tough time directing the traffic. Her
face showed tiredness, her shoes too. Her yellow uniform was now
tending towards pale. She was cursing and showing her five fingers to
the bus drivers who showed her theirs too as they sped away, coughing
out thick black smoke, like chimneys:

Not the two boys,
no more than thirteen who were exchanging punches right under the
billboard of the smiling governor. All that clawing and bickering meant
some issue of survival had led to the fight.

I looked back at the huge billboard and I asked my self again, another four years of what?

Perhaps if the
governor had spent the last four years doing his best to translate the
billions accruing to the state into schools to take the children off
the streets; into jobs that ensured their parents wouldn’t have to send
them out to the streets; into traffic lights to ease the work of the
lady warden; into well tarred roads that wouldn’t create such herd of
noisy smoky cars and impatient uncultured drivers. Perhaps if the
governor had done all this already, the next four years wouldn’t have
been so difficult to imagine.

But he didn’t. He
spends more time in Abuja than in the state capital. He goes off to the
ends of the earth, flying first class with a large delegation, which
includes his girlfriends, chasing what he calls foreign investment.
When he is around, he speeds past in his noisy convoy. When the workers
ask for more pay, he complains about dwindling fortunes and the global
economic melt down.

And while we
seemingly recline and resign to fate, with the opposition joining him
in Government House to drink sparkling wine in fine glasses, he doesn’t
leave us alone in peace. He follows us around, right to the streets to
rob pepper into the festering injury, to mock us and tickle our
imagination, requesting of us the use for his own benefit the very last
article we own, our thought.

“Imagine another four years!” I refuse to imagine sir.

These are the kind
of billboards, such damning symbols of government, erected from our
common wealth that I believe Wole Soyinka once called on us to throw
food morsels at every morning religiously before going out to find a
living. Perhaps it is apt to resound that call today. A call to act out
our denouncement of non performing governments, to voice out our
frustrations which we’ve held up for too long in our hearts, to reject
the perpetuation of our misery, to say no to another four years: to say
enough is enough.

We have today, a
window of opportunity to decide what happens in the next four years.
Maurice Iwu who superintended the last electoral hoax that gave us the
likes of the governor on the billboard has been removed. The electoral
reforms or at least some of what is left of the Uwais panel report
seems to be heading into our law books and most importantly the new
President Goodluck Jonathan has promised on more than one occasion to
organise an election in which votes will count and will be counted. Its
now up to us to take the right decisions the very first of which is to
ensure we are registered to vote. INEC says it’s an ongoing process at
every Local Government office nationwide.

Let’s equip ourselves to rephrase the line on the billboard. Let’s
ask the governor and his like across the country “Imagine life outside
Government House”. Yes we can.

Let me be candid. As much as I admire you, Mr.
President, for your good fortune, and statesmanlike mien, and as much
as I am intrigued by the remarkable nature of your rise to the
Presidency, I am sometimes tempted to think the worst – that you don’t
have much to offer Nigeria. That nagging voice of doubt tells me that
you are only more of the same.

Struggling to be heard amidst the din of that
negative voice is another; a smaller, but more reasonable voice,
insisting that you can make a huge difference; that you can be to
Nigerians what Barack Obama was (and I daresay still is) to millions of
Americans: one more reason to believe in our country, at a time when
cynicism is the new enthusiasm.

I have made a decision to listen to the smaller voice, and am therefore more than willing to give you the benefit of doubt.

Tied to that ‘benefit’, however, are words of
advice, obviously unsolicited, but wholeheartedly and genuinely offered
– a ‘7-point agenda’ for you to aspire to live by:

1. Vacancy: Radical reformers! – One thing former
President Obasanjo will always be credited for is the vibrancy of
government agencies under his watch – NAFDAC, EFCC, NCC, BPE, CBN, etc.
Baba sought the finest talent, wherever they existed, employed them,
empowered them, and allowed them to shine. That’s how we came to know
of Dora Akunyili and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Oby Ezekwesili and Nuhu
Ribadu.

Stick to that winning formula. It paid off handsomely for Obasanjo; sadly,Yar’Adua somehow never quite managed to pull it off.

2. Surprise, surprise. The greatest failing of our
leaders is that they have lost the capacity to surprise us. They are so
damn predictable – throwing sirens and pot-bellies around, closing down
airports because they are VIPs, generally acting like they are doing
the electorate a favour, spending all their time fighting real and
imagined opponents, Surprise us Mr. Prez. Don’t take yourself too
seriously. Life is short. Power is transient. Transparency and
accessibility are key. How about a weekly unscripted 30-minute
television and radio address to Nigerians,to establish a visceral
connection between the governer and the governed. Every week tell us in
unambiguous, cliché-free English what concrete steps you have taken
over previous week to make Nigeria a better place. For our self-esteem
and our morale Nigerians need a President who’s not only performing,
but also seen to be performing.

3. Tame the Dame. Let your wife know that it’ll no
longer be business as usual. We don’t need another Turai or Maryam (or
‘Mariam’,for that matter!) in this country. Tell Patience not to bother
calling any meetings of Nigerian, or African, first ladies. Tell her to
jettison any plans to launch a pet project. We’ve had enough. Let her
use her clout to support already existing projects, especially private
sector ones. There are orphanages and women shelters and cancer
foundations all over the country. Let the first lady support them
wholeheartedly, not compete with them for attention!

4. And those gallivanting Governors. Politely but
very firmly put them in their place. It’s very annoying to see a bunch
of governors – emblems of unadulterated mediocrity – strutting the land
in the name of a ‘Governors’ Forum’ and portraying themselves as ‘power
brokers’. Let them know that their constitutional and moral
responsibility is to provide good governance in their states, not run a
purposeless Governors Forum or turn Abuja into a holiday resort. And
while you’re at it kindly put an end to those jamborees a.k.a ‘state
visits’ on which those same governors squander public funds to take you
on painstakingly packaged ‘sightseeing’ trips around their capitals,
and make you commission white elephant projects. Step away from the
sanitised, festooned paths. Pay unscheduled visits. Allow yourself to
come face to face with the poverty and want that have blighted the land.

5. Click ‘n flip. Obasanjo boasted that he never
did it (which is probably why he had not the slightest idea how much
his 3rd term agenda riled Nigerians). Yar’Adua may have had no energy
to do it (and Turai evidently didn’t). But you must. It is imperative
that you pay attention to what Nigerians are saying – online and in the
newspapers. We are a garrulous lot, in love with the sound of our own
voices, but you can’t afford to not listen to us. Never depend on aides
to feed you second-hand. (Need I ask you to make www.234next.com the
default homepage on the presidential Blackberry’s browser?)

6. Show us your friends…: the legacies of
Obasanjo and Yar’Adua will forever be tainted by the transparently
shady characters they surrounded themselves with – the Andy Ubas and
James Iboris and Michael Aondoakaas to name a few. Keeping those kind
of people around you is the fastest and surest way to self-destruct.

7. Tune the talk. I listened to your inaugural address as President, and was disappointed by the surfeit of platitudes therein.

I desperately hoped to see you break free from the prepared speech
and speak to Nigerians, ‘man to man and woman’. I want you to look us
in the face as a nation and tell us something inspiring. True, you are
no Obama,and will never be, but I think you can learn a lot from paying
attention to the American. Tired speeches are a hallmark of tired
thinking. Hire new speechwriters, try out a teleprompter; and endeavour
to speak more from the heart.

And so in a space
of 40 minutes, the 54th parliament of the United Kingdom was dissolved
and in came a new government; which in many ways has proved a
remarkable turn of events. The just concluded UK general elections
provided a great number of firsts, with a wide ranging impact on the
political landscape of the United Kingdom.

For the first time
in a British election and perhaps taking a leaf out of the American
book, a televised debate amongst the leaders of the main three parties
was held. It was also the first time since 1979 that none of the three
main party leaders had headed a previous general election campaign. In
addition, it was the first time since 1974 and only the second time
since the Second World War that a British general election returned a
hung parliament.

The reasons for
this are wide-ranging and varied. Central, was the effect of the recent
expenses scandal which showed the UK parliament to not be above the
trade mark characteristic of self interest that dogs politicians. The
scandal which exposed the MPs who abused the parliamentary expenses
system in turn resulted in a decline in voter confidence and party
support. Similarly, a series of problems for the incumbent including
the recent global economic downturn, the ongoing wars and in house
political scandals, helped seal his fate and arguably; increase the
indecisiveness of the electorate. The big faux pas committed by Gordon
Brown when he was overhead referring to voter as a bigot for her views
on migration, didn’t help either.

The list goes on as
we consider the various coulda, woulda and shoudas that have culminated
in what we now refer to as the UK general election of 2010.

A certain
conclusion however, would be the ambitious outcome of a coalition
government that has been the fruit of this recent UK general election.
Julian Glover in the UK Guardian observes that although the election
might have been born of an electoral accident – a hung parliament in
which no single party could rule alone securely – it is generally
acknowledged that the union of the two parties represents a fundamental
coming together of ideas and values. And what a coming together this
has proved; an opportunity to do away with the typical combination of
liberal economics and social conservatism, a government that would be
neither solely pro-market Thatcherism nor Marxist socialism. How long
will the coalition last? Only time will tell.

The new government
however, has gotten on with things. In its new coalition manifesto, key
areas of action have been identified and compromises sought. These
include getting the economy back on track by effecting cuts in public
spending as opposed to tax rises; setting a cap on inward migration by
non-EU citizens and increasing tax allowances for low to medium earners
in the country. But it will be difficult, very difficult indeed to make
rapid progress as these are difficult times.

UK unemployment is
at its highest since 1994 and further spending cuts will arguably make
any recovery very painful. Of course, there are a raft of social issues
of rising concern including migration and Europe, both contentious
areas of policy for both members of the UK’s newest political marriage.
This is before the issue of Afghanistan and the UK relationship with
America is considered.

Howeverm for me, what stood out in the just concluded UK general
elections was the political maturity exhibited by most of its
participants. Yes the UK elections were beset by problems and game
playing – it actually took six days for political consensus to be
achieved and for a government to be formed. However, it was done
respectfully and most certainly; it was not a do-or-die affair. This
was evidenced in Mr. Brown’s dignified and brief departure from number
ten .Of course, a key reason for this is the fact that the political
systems in the west are largely based on ideology and a clear desire to
serve as opposed to what we have back at home, typified by patronage
and ethnic alliances. Whilst a middle ground can be achieved between
pro-market thatcherite thinking and Marxist socialism, some would argue
that a bridge between Hausa and Igbo may not necessarily be the best
approach for a Yoruba man or Itshekiri. Following Barack Obama’s
historic election recently, politicians around the world have
campaigned on the back of genuine change and in some cases; actually
believe in positive change for their respective communities. Will
Nigeria ever achieve this luxury? Is the change lurking in the
background here in Nigeria, for good or bad? Most importantly, I cannot
help but wonder if events that occur in the run up to 2011, will lead
to the change we need.

One of the
specificities of Nigerian federalism is that there are no statutory
mechanisms for intergovernmental relations between the federal and
state governments. And yet, the constitution has a long concurrent list
in which the federal and state governments have joint competence in
social service provisioning in education, health and so on. The
mechanisms that have developed such as the National Council on
Education or Health are sites in which the Federal Government makes
policy recommendations to states but there are no compelling
implementation processes that flow from it.

It is in this
context that that the Office of the Senior Special Adviser to the
President on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), led by the
indefatigable Amina az Zubair, has made a major breakthrough in getting
the federal and state governments to work together in providing joint
services to the people.

The Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) are eight time-bound development goals that
were adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. They aim to –
eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary
education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child
mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases; ensure environmental sustainability and build a global
partnership for development.

Taken together, the
goals seek to combat poverty and promote development. If we can achieve
these goals in a timely manner, that is by 2015, we would be improving
our human capital as well as good governance in our society, two
variables that are important for economic development.

Last week, I
participated in a review meeting organised by the MDG office on the
Conditional Grants Scheme (CGS) component of the programme in Yankari,
Bauchi State. The MDG programme was established by the Federal
Government following the negotiations with the Paris Club leading to
the payment of a part and cancellation of the other part of our public
sector debts. It compelled the government to set up a mechanism for
tagging and tracking the performance of specific poverty-reducing
expenditures in the budget. The tracking is done jointly by private
consultants and civil society organisations and the purpose is to
demonstrate the transparent use of Government resources and ensure that
the approved implementation plans for all MDGs project and programmes
are strictly adhered to; especially as they relate to coverage,
quality, outputs and outcomes at all levels.

The Centre for
Democracy and Development where I work has been involved in this
monitoring process since the implementation of the 2006 budget. At that
time, our major discovery was that the projects which were conducted by
Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies in all local government
areas in the country had no ownership. Even state governments and local
governments had no information about bore holes or health clinics being
built in their communities. There was no link between project planners
and implementers in Abuja and end users who were supposed to benefit
from them.

The MDG office
seized on this finding to propose the conditional grant scheme in which
projects were designed by state governments in consultation with
communities and proposed to the federal government which funds half the
cost and the other half is provided by state governments who implement
the programme as part of their own poverty eradication strategy.

The Yankari retreat
was an occasion to see what has been achieved so far and the challenges
that remain. One key achievement on the policy front is that most of
the state governments involved have used the supplementary resources
provided to give content to their state poverty eradication programmes
and have considerably scaled up provision of potable water, rural
clinics, ambulances, the training of health workers.

As the
implementation guidelines for the programme require community
consultation and the governments involved are aware that there will be
independent monitoring of the projects, efforts have been deployed to
ensure that they are built and operated as model projects to showcase
achievements of the state governments.

So far, over 22,000
projects in the form of bore holes, comprehensive rural clinics,
ambulances, health personnel, drugs and equipment are being delivered
and are beginning to make an impact in the lives of the people.

Some components of
the MDG programme such as constituency quick win projects designed by
National Assembly Members and the NAPEP Conditional Cash Transfer
Scheme have not been operating as effectively as the Conditional Grants
Scheme.

The lesson we are learning is the government can work in this
country if that work is monitored and a link is created between project
design and demands of beneficiaries. As we approach the 2015 deadline
for the attainment of the MDGs, the time honoured principle that
government is for the people should continue to guide the use of public
expenditure.

What exactly is a Ministry of “Woman Affairs? Let
me explain my question further. Is it distinct from a Ministry of Man
Affairs? And just in case my state of confusion is not clear dear
reader, would such a Ministry of Woman Affairs be perfectly within its
rights to have a Department of Aunty Matters, not to talk of an Office
of O rishi rishi?

Surely this must be a peculiarly Nigerian
invention. We have ministries of universally recognised sectors of
governance such as works and housing that deal with areas of proper
concern for any nation desirous of organising itself and keeping pace
with the world community of nations of which we most proudly count
ourselves a part.

It is not as if we had decided to dispense with
all obfuscation and dubbed Mr. Odein Ajumogobia, Minister of Outside
Matter with a Department of Agaracha. In all other ways it seems we are
happy to keep pace with the rest of the world except when it comes to
the matter of the female gender where we find no other recourse but to
tell it like it is, to resort to the literal, and just put it out
there, abandoning all pretence at linguistic refinement. Okay just take
it like that: Women Affairs! Come to think of it a Ministry of Women
Issues would have confused the daylights out of any visiting emissary.
What with: “Yes I had two issues for my first husband and three further
issues for my second .God has been good!” Is there a single item of
concern to women that does not in some way involve a man, and vice
versa? Can we separate the importance of the role of women from the
importance of the role of men? Where would Umaru have been without
Turai and Turai without Umaru?

Look at all the allusions that have been made to
Goodluck and Patience and the attendant suggestion that one has been
the reward for the other. Of course the third party in this
relationship is the Nigerian people and the hope still springing in
spite of history, is that all the gifts that will accrue will be for
the good of Nigerians as a whole and not just the latest first couple.

Lets take a look back at the history of
nomenclature in the administration of our endlessly innovative country.
At one time we had this alphabet soup of a ministry, youth,
information, sports and culture. I think even social welfare was thrown
in there too. It sounded as if some guys were just impatient with the
whole business of dealing with anything that did not have the golden
glow of money to be bilked and contracts to be conceived. So they just
lumped these “small small” concerns together into some big for nothing
name. And here we are today with almost 50 percent of our population
comprising of youth and one hell of a problem on our hands if we do not
wake up to prospect of a future of lost generations, sporting talent
that is finding its way to other countries and energy and potential for
growth and resurgent patriotism left to waste.

Then we had that curious flirtation with minister
of and minister for. Suddenly people who were happy to dispense with
the finer points of English grammar, those niggling little prepositions
and definite articles, were all at once exercised by distinctions in
rank that could be harvested for political expediency to expand the
number of snouts at the trough.

The first time I heard the term woman used to
describe a female prototype was in reference to a tall statuesque
friend of mine. “That one na woman mountain,” this male said. If he had
just stopped at mountain I would have understood that it was merely a
reference to her height. But there was something grudging about the
tone and also something about it that objectified her.

The term Women Affairs quite apart from the fact
that it sounds as if it was not conceived with as much gravity as we
give to say the ministries of health or finance does suggest by the
vagueness of its title that we do not care very much about the issues
it is concerned with.

Seriously, how do you define Women Affairs as
distinct from the concerns of men, children and the aged? Who takes
care of these three groups in terms of day-to-day welfare and the
minutiae of tasks necessary to their well being?

Naming is serious business in our culture. It
expresses our hopes, embodies our prayers, carries our history and
affirms our identity. We all know deep in our hearts that the glue that
holds us together as a family, community, village, nation, polity, has
no gender. The hoopla about stronger or weaker is just that, useless
hoopla. It gives us something to joke about and adds that frisson to
relationships that makes for fun and excitement. But we all know deep,
down that this male superiority business is nonsense.

So, if na joke, stop am. We can do better than Ministry of Women Affairs!

President Goodluck Jonathan urgently
needs to realize that the reputations, and legacies, of political leaders are
built – or destroyed – not only by them, but also by those that surround them.

Last
Wednesday, May 12, the media prominently reported the statement by Cairo
Ojougboh, the president’s special Adviser on National Assembly Matters, that
Mr. Jonathan will run for President in 2011.

“Mr.
President is a PDP president and he is a member of PDP, and Mr. President will
run under the PDP,” Mr. Ojougboh said, adding that “there is no moral
justification to ask Jonathan not to run.”

Hours
after that emphatic declaration Mr. Ojougboh was back in the news, with a press
statement claiming that the views he expressed earlier were his, espoused in
his personal capacity, and not on behalf of the President. In essence, he
disavowed his earlier statement. “Further to my interview earlier this morning,
let me state that at no time did I say that Mr. President mandated me to say he
will run in 2011. For the avoidance of doubt, I said the President can run if
he so decides and that it will be unfair to ask him not to run. If he decides
to run I will vote for him. All what I said is my personal belief as a private
citizen with the right to freedom of expression.”

We
have reason to believe that Mr. Ojougboh, by telling us that he was speaking on
behalf of himself and not the President, is being economical with the truth. It
is doubtful that a senior Presidential aide would, in making a statement about
a matter as potentially controversial as the President’s decision to go against
the party’s zoning agreement, conveniently forget to immediately qualify the
statement as personal.

It
appears that Mr. Ojougboh was knowingly playing the mischievous game of testing
the waters; and that the whole incident may have been engineered by the
Jonathan camp to gauge the reactions of Nigerians to the possibility of a 2011
Presidential campaign by him. Politicians have been known to create scenarios
like this, knowing that there is always the escape hatch of denial, of claiming
to have been misquoted or misinterpreted.

It is
this kind of ruse that former President Olusegun Obasanjo employs, years after
his failed bid to extend his rule to an unconstitutional third term. When Mr.
Obasanjo today boasts that he never wanted a third term, his ready evidence is
that not once did he ever hint or say that he was interested, and that is of
course, true.

But
we recall that a prominent tactic of that era was for the President himself to
remain silent and aloof while his aides and hangers-on huddled beneath the
umbrella of “personal opinion”, “personal belief” and the “right to freedom of
expression” to push and sell the 3rd term idea.

Mr.
Jonathan, it appears, is borrowing that disingenuous strategy. Posters are appearing
in Abuja and other towns, and all sorts of faceless groups have been calling on
the President to run in 2011 or throwing their weight behind his “intentions”
to run. Like Obasanjo in 2006, Mr. Jonathan, while eagerly dissociating himself
from these groups (through press statements issued by his aides), refuses to
make the much-needed categorical statement to put an end to rumours and
speculations. And to think that elections are only a few months away?

If,
on the other hand, if we chose to believe what Mr. Ojougboh would like us to
believe, that all he did was to in his capacity as a private citizen, make an
innocent personal statement, which subsequently suffered the misfortune of
being misinterpreted by the press and public, then we have to confront the
crucial question that arises regarding the quality of presidential counsel
surrounding the President. A senior Presidential adviser who does not hesitate
to make bold assertions about controversial matters regarding his principal is
clearly a bull in the Presidential china shop, and a staff that the President
would clearly be better off without. One wonders how many other such aides
surround the President, and how soon it will be before they cause him
irredeemable harm.

It is clear that
however we look at this incident, Mr. Ojougboh goofed. President Jonathan also
erred in more than one way: in not being more strident in his rebuke of his
aide; and in not clearing the air once and for all on his plans for the future.
He must be made to realise that years from now his legacy will be defined by
the way he has chosen to deal with touchy issues like this one.

On
May 5, President Umaru Yar’Adua ended all speculations about his health
by dying, and I am reminded of a lunch I had three years earlier,
shortly after his nomination as the presidential candidate of the
Peoples Democratic Party.

The food was good,
and the Taiwanese embassy was paying. Mr. Chan, who called to invite me
to the diplomatic lunch, only had one request, “Sheraton or Hilton?” So
to the Hilton we went.

The place was
filled with senior civil servants mostly, and some like me, top aides
to political office holders. I was then the senior special assistant to
the chief whip of the House of Representatives, Abubakar Bawa Bwari, a
man of singular integrity – which is partly why he is not the governor
of Niger State today. As Mr. Chan was to tell me that evening, in
halting but impeccable English, “You do not find fish in clean water.”
Anyway, a few minutes into the meal, two men from the embassy walked up
to me, introduced themselves and asked how I was enjoying the food. As
they were the sponsors, I obliged them with a reply and thanked them
for their kindness. And then in that humble, long-suffering manner of
the Chinese, the leader of the two asked me a question. “Why does your
President Olusegun Obasanjo need a sick man to succeed him?” It was
late2006, the heady days after the defeat of Mr. Obasanjo’s Third Term
Agenda, and shortly after his revenge (?) choice of Mr. Yar’Adua as the
PDP flag bearer. So I gave him the PDP answer: “ It is just rumour,
this sickness. No one really knows how sick the man is.” “We know,”
said the man from the Taiwanese embassy, blandly. “We have seen the
medical report. He is too ill.” I was stunned. Not so much by the fact
that for the first time I was meeting a man who was dead sure that Mr.
Yar’Adua was too far gone to function as president, but by the words:
we have seen the report. Was that possible?

And who were these
people who seemed to know so much about the medical history of my
anointed leader, something we had been told was sacrosanct?

Suddenly, the meal
wasn’t so free or sumptuous anymore, and while my colleague was giving
them the stock reply – Oh, Obasanjo just needed someone he could
control, someone who would do less than him so that it would seem that
he had done more than he really did – I was otherwise preoccupied with
divesting the fish of its bones.

“Mr. Jacob,” said
my host, “ Why ‘re you quiet, suddenly?” “Mr. Chan,” I said, “ I am
just enjoying the fish.” But all through the campaigns, I watched Mr.
Yar’Adua struggle on the stump, skirting states and events, leaving Mr.

Obasanjo and Dora Akunyili to do the loud part of his verbalisation for him.

When the rumour that he was dead started, I was scared until Mr. Obasanjo made that famous phone-call.

A man with a
secret, I waited in horror for its validation. But when two years into
his tenure nothing serious happened, I concluded that Mr. Obasanjo had
no diabolical plans, at least nothing worse than his usual megalomania
A few months before the PDP primaries, he had given hint of his
intentions at a midnight meeting held at the Aso Rock villa. Shortly
after the meeting, attended by party stalwarts, National Assembly
leaders, and the ubiquitous ‘stakeholders,’ began, the then president,
apropos of nothing, announced: “The governor of Katsina is doing very
well. He has N3 billion in his coffers when his colleagues are crying
that they are broke.” As usual, everyone nodded in support, shaking
their heads in flagrant amazement, smiling inanely. Then Mr. Bwari
asked, “Sir, does that mean that he had taken care of all the health
and education needs of the people? Because if he had not, wouldn’t it
be better to-” “Shut up,” said Mr. Obasanjo, shutting him up. “Haven’t
you people heard about saving for a rainy day?” Nobody talked
afterwards, and like most meetings with Mr. Obasanjo, it began and
ended with the sound of his voice.

Truth is, Obasanjo
was always worried that if he did not succeed himself, whoever does
should not be one capable of squandering the huge foreign reserve he
had accumulated. By this token, Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar, and
Peter Odili who were the strong contenders, did not qualify. He chose a
little known governor with debilitating illness and the ability to
leave N3 billion in government coffers. He didn’t, as his critics
prefer to believe, do that so that Goodluck Jonathan, a man from the
South-South can by this way become president.

“What I need to say
is that nobody picked Yar’Adua so that he will not perform. If I did
that, God will punish me,” he said a few months ago.

Well, for very many reasons, God may yet punish him, but it will not be because of Mr. Yar’Adua.

In
Nigeria the issue of party funding has for long posed a serious concern
to watchers of our political scene. In the First and Second Republics
it was an issue that was hotly debated in the state parliaments and the
National Assembly.

It was the fear of
allowing the so called ‘moneybags’ to put political parties in their
pockets that led the regime of Ibrahim Babangida in the nineties to
make government partly responsible for their funding.

Under the 2006
Electoral Act currently in force while the recommendations of the Uwais
Panel is being debated, the National Assembly is empowered to approve a
grant to be disbursed to political parties. The 2006 law also
stipulates how the grant should be divided, 10 percent going to be
shared equally among the registered political parties and the remaining
90 percent disbursed in proportion to the number of National Assembly
seats won by each party. The law also gives INEC the power to place a
limit on the amount of money or other assets an individual or group can
contribute to a political party. For a presidential candidate the sum
is N500 million, governor N100 million, senator N20 million and a
representative N10 million. A state assembly candidate, or chairman N5
million and a local councillorship, N500,000.

It is an open question whether this aspect of the electoral law has ever been paid attention to not to talk of being enforced.

Some of the
present 50 parties have not in any way justified the money they receive
from government. It has been discovered that some of the parties only
exist on the pages of newspapers and magazines. They only function when
elections are coming or when funding is released by government. They
collect the funds, share and go home to rest till another round of
funding is available. A few of the parties are even run by close-knit
family members.

So what does a party exist for if it is only to share government funds?

As the nation
moves towards elections next year, it has become imperative to revisit
the issue. The Uwais Panel report recommends the continued funding of
parties by government through INEC, but suggests a ceiling for
individual donations for each category of office. These figures run
from a limit of N20 million for individual donations for a presidential
candidate to N15 million for a governor, N10 million for a senator, N3
million for a local government chairmanship candidate.

It makes eminent sense for party members to fund their own organisation.

If members pay
dues and subscriptions, there is the tendency that they will take the
party seriously and would not allow it to be hijacked.

In other countries
we know that parties raise funds through several avenues and there is a
limit to which an individual or corporate body can contribute to
parties, we must begin to have that here too.

This has become
necessary because we know how much corporate bodies and individuals
gave to the Obasanjo campaign fund during his first term, and we now
know how that affected or coloured his judgment in their favour.

Our stand is that
for electoral reform to be meaningful and effective it has to address
how political parties are to be funded. The nation should not think
that the removal of Maurice Iwu would spell clean elections and make
things run smoothly. One of the crucial pillars of democracy is
political parties and the proper nurturing and development of them
should not be neglected or else there is no way we can succeed as a
democracy. Finally, government funding of political parties as
desirable as it looks because it serves as a form of assistance to weak
parties, should be regulated. The Uwais panel recommends that only
parties that score 2.5 percent of the votes in the 2011 elections
should be eligible to receive funds from public grants, but this like
many other issues may be expunged in the final document that emerges
when the two houses have reconciled to produce a final bill.

In the final analysis whatever the form the legislation that makes
it through may take, it will have no effect if it is not enforced.