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Presidential
aspirant on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Harry
Akande, says he has nothing against the governor of Kano State, Ibrahim
Shekarau, for abandoning him during the last national convention of the
party.

Mr. Akande, who
initially had Mr. Shekarau’s backing for the position, lost to
Ogbonnaya Onu, who emerged as the chairman of the party at the
convention in September.

Mr. Shekarau allegedly withdrew his support from him a night before the convention.

Mr Akande, who was
responding to claims that he has not forgiven Mr. Shakarau for
switching support from him, denied that he joined the presidential race
to frustrate the ambition of the governor, who himself is a
presidential aspirant.

He stated that he
was not a politician who harbours bitterness in his heart, noting that
his plan to contest the presidency of Nigeria surpasses trivial issues
of trying to get back at an individual.

He explained that
prior to the convention, Mr. Skekarau, in company of 50 delegates from
Kano State, came to his house in Lagos twice, asking him to join the
chairmanship race, though he was not interested in this. According to
him, he had brighter chances to lead the ANPP in 2006 ahead of the
former chairman, Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, but decided against running for the
position.

“I have never been
interested in that position, but because the party’s fortune was
dwindling and going out of relevance in Nigeria political terrain, I
decided to give it a shot in order to work with people of like minds to
re-engineer and re-build the party,” Mr. Akande said.

No veteran aspirant

The presidential
aspirant, however, said he accepted to run for the office of national
chairman last September because of the urgent need to reposition the
party. Mr. Akande noted that he trusted Mr. Shekarau to deliver the
delegates from his geo-political zone, which accounted for about 32
percent of total delegates to the convention, but he (Shekarau)
betrayed him the night before.

“Therefore, I lost
because we did not touch that zone in our campaign prior to the
convention, believing that the governor would deliver his own end of
the deal and a gentleman agreement to realise the noble agenda,” he
said.

Mr. Akande also
condemned those who described him as a veteran presidential aspirant,
saying “The only unfulfilled dream of my life today is the realisation
of a better Nigeria with the best economy and infrastructural
development and no amount of resources invested on this noble project
to better the life of my people will ever be a waste,” he said.

The Attorney
General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Bello Adoke may
intervene in the impasse at the House of Representatives by persuading
the leadership to obey court orders and allow members of the
“Progressives” to attend plenary.

The attorney
general’s influence, had earlier in the year led to the resolution of a
case where the leadership of the Senate disallowed Alphonsus Igbeke,
who had a valid court judgment legalising his election victory, from
taking his seat as a senator.

An official of
the Justice ministry, who spoke to NEXT on condition of anonymity, said
Mr Adoke, who was outside the country last week, is expected to enjoin
the leadership of the House to obey a High Court order that nullified
the suspension of some members.

Dino Melaye and
other members of the “Progressives” were throughout last week
consistently barred from entering the Assembly complex and attending
sittings, even after they obtained a court judgment nullifying their
earlier suspension in June.

Mr. Melaye and 10
other members of his group in the House, were last June forcefully
evicted from the chambers and subsequently suspended indefinitely after
they accused the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, of allegedly misappropriating
N9 billion out of the capital vote of the House.

“The action of
the House leadership indicates they have something to hide,” Chidi
Odinkalu, the director of Africa Program for Open Society and Justice
Initiative, said of the action of the House leadership.

On Thursday, the
House recalled two more apologetic members of the group and sustained
security surveillance against those who had obtained court judgments
nullifying their suspension.

Court contempt or “Locus clasicus”

The leadership of
the House said it was unlawful to let the “unrepentant” lawmakers back
just yet because they have appealed the High court’s judgement and
applied for a stay of the execution. Eseme Eyibo, the spokesman of the
Representatives argued that there is a “locus clasicus” that when a
case is on appeal, nobody is supposed to take further steps to
actualize the ruling.

“The basis of the
gentlemen coming to resume does not arise because there is a motion for
a stay of execution and a notice of appeal,” Mr. Eyibo said.

Femi Falana, counsel to the “Progressives” and other notable lawyers
interviewed by NEXT, however said Mr. Eyibo’s logic is wrong. “All
judgments of every court of law must be obeyed instantly by everybody
in the country, including the president,” Festus Keyamo, a renowned
lawyer said.

Tunde Balogun owned
a barbershop from which he used to make a living. As a struggling young
man living in Ikorodu, a suburb of Lagos, he could not afford to rent
an apartment and had to sleep in his shop. With the little income from
his trade, he had hoped that he would be able to pay his bills and
afford the little luxuries of life possible even for someone like him.
His major challenge however was power supply. With a little generator
usually known as “I better pass my neighbour”, he hoped to be able to
remain in business. When he discovered that he was making little or no
progress in this line of business, he had change his means of
livelihood.

“Usually, my major
problem was power and when I consider that I was not making good profit
after removing cost of fuel and servicing the generator, I had to pack
up.” He is now a commercial motorcycle operator popularly called Okada.
“At least with this one, all I have to do is maintain the machine and
afford fuel” he said.

With an ordinary
diploma in business administration, he said his attempt to get a job
before going for higher education was unsuccessful. “It was the little
funds I saved while working as a casual worker at a Chinese-owned
factory that I was able to set up the barbershop. I had to quit that
job because of the inhuman working condition at the factory. My
brother, suffer dey this country,” he said.

Many Nigerians can
understand Tunde’s story. The state of infrastructure in the country
has made it increasingly difficult for businesses to thrive, especially
in sectors which rely heavily on such amenities as power and
transportation. What that means is that the additional cost incurred in
improvising in order to remain in business is passed on to the
reluctant consumers, thus limiting consumption of those goods or
services.

This sorry state of
the economy was brought to sharp relief by the recent disclosure by the
governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Lamido Sanusi of the
high cost of maintaining government, which he said has made it
increasingly difficult to invest in the critical sectors of the
economy. The cost of doing business is high and this has pushed up
interest and inflation rates. A recent World Bank report doing business
in Nigeria showed that there are several constraints which impede the
survival of small to medium-size domestic firms, one of which is the
poor state of infrastructure.

A fortnight ago, Mr
Sanusi stated that if the country continues to spend on areas that add
no real value to the economy, it will be difficult for the nation to
achieve any meaningful development. Relying on figures from the budget
office, he said out of the over N500 billion total federal government
overhead, the overhead of the National Assembly was N136.2 or 25.1 per
cent. He said this huge cost of maintaining government was harmful in
view of the numerous challenges facing the nation.

According to him,
the lopsided structure of the country’s budget in favour of wasteful
spending was fuelling inflation and making it difficult to service
other sectors. He said, “Ninety percent of tomatoes produced get wasted
between the farm and the market. We produce cassava than any other
nation, but we have no (finished) cassava products. We produce crude
oil, but we rely on imported fuel.”

Budget figures

In the 2010 budget
proposal sent to the National Assembly in November 2009, out of the
N4.079 trillion proposed expenditure, N1.37 trillion was earmarked for
capital (infrastructural and developmental) expenditure; N2.011
trillion for recurrent (salaries, allowances and servicing government)
expenditure.

The rest was for
debt servicing and statutory transfers. Out of the statutory figures,
the National Assembly was allocated N127.7 billion, health got N161.84
while education was allocated N249.08 billion.

However, by the
time the budget was eventually passed by the lawmakers, the total
budget figure had jumped to N4.6 trillion, with N1.8 trillion earmarked
for capital projects and N2.027 trillion for recurrent expenditure,
while the allocation for the national Assembly was jerked up to over
N136 billion. There are fears that the total budget figure may rise to
N4.85trillion by the end of this fiscal year.

Director general in
the budget office, Bright Okogu said in an environment where various
parties always have to restructure and reconcile the difference in
figures between what the executive proposed in the Appropriation Bill
sent to the National Assembly and what comes out as the final figure
included in the Act, “It is inevitable that one would have the
challenge of expansionary numbers.”

Mr. Sanusi said he
harped on the overhead cost of government because they are the greatest
inflationary item in the budget. “The issue of overheads was selected
(in my lecture) because they are the most inflationary elements.” He
added that the nation’s overhead cost have been on the rise since 2009
and have been a great challenge in the management of the economic
indices of the nation.

Ali Ndume, the
House of Representatives’ minority leader who took on the CBN governor
when he appeared before the House of representatives to defend his
statement said while the percentage of the lawmakers overhead relative
to the budget is still debatable, that is not the only contributor to
the poor economy. “What happens to the remaining 75 per cent, where do
they go?” the lawmakers asked.

Perhaps it was a
rhetorical question designed to draw the attention of the public to the
fact that legislators are not the only wanton spenders in government.
And as if to confirm this, two days later, the Finance Minister,
Olusegun Aganga said he would be cutting down recurrent expenditure.
“As of today, the recurrent expenditure is too large and therefore we
don’t have enough for capital project, so that was one thing we needed
to change and I have a committee working on that and we are changing
that structure, to review the level of recurrent expenditure. It is too
high, ” the minister said. He cited the instance where personnel cost
went from N985 billion in 2009 to N1.5 trillion, “this is before we
made adjustments for minimum wage.” Mr. Aganga who also recently
admitted that the country has recorded growth without job creation and
employment, said there was need to cut down on the recurrent
expenditure and increase capital spending.

Slimming the federal establishment

A financial analyst
who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the high recurrent over
capital allocation has always been the norm in the country’s budgeting
system. According to him the difference now is that the high cost of
maintaining government was no longer sustainable. “The recurrent budget
itself was never sustainable. What are its components? If salaries,
then we should be slimming the federal establishment. There is a strong
case for this, for as the public sector moves from being a service
provider to providing regulation for designated sectors, we would need
fewer numbers, and more skills. But where is the political will to take
on a (possibly) bloated civil service?” He said government may however
be reluctant to contemplate reducing the workforce. “Unemployment is a
major problem already. We cannot think of adding to it without first
implementing a poverty reduction strategy that is strong on the
creation of new jobs.

“An overly large
recurrent budget could be because we can easily hide rent-seeking
behaviour in salaries and overheads, as opposed to the capital budget.
In this case, we should be looking to a stronger public expenditure
management framework to deal with this,” he said. Over the years, the
country has always allocated an average of 70 per cent of budgetary
allocations to servicing government.

Lagos based lawyer,
Bamidele Aturu said the lawmakers and members of the executive are
behaving like vampires ready to suck the blood out of the nation. “They
imagine that the country belongs to them. That explains their greed and
profligacy. We have been tolerating them for too long.” He said the CBN
governor was right to have raised the alarm, but also advised him to
look within. “He should also know that even in the CBN there is
wastage. I think it is an elite problem.” According to him, the economy
was worse off as a result of this lopsided budget structure. “When you
spend so much on allowance of people who are not adding real value, the
result is what we see in the poor state of the economy. The roads are
not there, transportation is a problem so goods and services will be
expensive. We don’t even have good waterway transport system.

The economy is
crippled.” He said the business of law making should be made part time
in order to cut down on the cost of maintaining their stay as a full
time function. Felix Oboagwina, spokesperson of the Democratic People’s
Alliance said the presidential system of government was becoming too
expensive to maintain. “Or we must find a way to tame the cost of
government. The general feeling now is that we have lost control of
self serving legislators which is tyrannical and incorrigible.”

Lots of noise, little will

Despite this
outcry, it is not clear how much lessons the government has learnt.
Figures from the 2011 budget which would soon be presented to the
National Assembly indicate that it is still business as usual. The N4.5
trillion 2011 budget estimate will have an increased non-debt recurrent
expenditure compared to the 2010 budget. The recurrent non-debt
expenditure increased by 6.77 per cent to N2.849 trillion with major
increase in personnel cost and lower overheads.

Quite surprisingly,
funds allocated for revamping the economy (capital expenditure)
decreased by 20.9 per cent to N1.083 trillion, a far cry from the N1.37
trillion for 2010.

Despite the many
statement by government officials suggesting this is a problem that has
been recognised and will be tackled, a preview of the 2011 budget which
is due to be presented to the Assembly on Tuesday shows that some bad
habits are set to be repeated. For example, as revealed in our
exclusive story last week, the president has given permission for the
sale of official residences to principal officers of the assembly. The
Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker of the House of
Representatives and the Deputy Speaker have all been given leave to
purchase their current living quarters. Provision has already been made
in next year’s budget for the construction of replacements at the cost
of N1.5 billion.

With additional reporting by Emmanuel Ogala

Disappointment
about President Barack Obama within his own Democratic Party recently
burst into open with public bitterness that he is too weak and yielding.

“If you don’t fight
for something, you can’t expect to get it,” said Democratic Congressman
Anthony Weiner. “I don’t think you should expect Democrats to be happy
about it.” What they’re unhappy about is a deal that will see temporary
tax cuts enacted under President George Bush extended for all
Americans, even the most affluent.

Mr Obama had argued
emphatically against the extension for the rich, describing it as a
$700-billion giveaway to people who don’t need it from a government
that can’t afford it.

But Congressional
Republicans said they would block any partial extension and, with just
weeks to go before all Americans’ tax cuts elapse at the end of the
year, Mr Obama traded the full extension for Republican support for tax
and spending measures to help the poor and unemployed.

Mr Obama says it was the best deal he could get. Many Democrats say he has to toughen up and demand better deals.

Jonathan Mann
presents Political Mann on CNN International each Friday at 18:30
(CAT), Saturday at 3pm and 9pm (CAT), and Sunday at 10am (CAT).

The emergence of
former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar,as consensus candidate for the
Northern Political Leaders Forum does not reflect the interest of the
entire northern states,governors of Benue and Kaduna states, Gabriel
Suswan and Patrick Yakowa, have said.

The governors, who
were in Benin to condole with Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole over
the death of his wife, Clara ,described the decision of the nine-man
committee headed by Adamu Ciroma as that of a minute clique who were on
a mission to impose on the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] and the
entire North.

The governors
expressed their support for President Goodluck Jonathan in the
forthcoming elections, saying the NPLF’s choice should be seen as a
self seeking exercise that “does not reflect the entire will of the
Northern states.”

Messrs Suswam and
Yakowa also said the decision of the Adamu Ciroma committee was a total
infringement of their rights and that of their states to freely
associate.

“I don’t know
anything about consensus candidate,” Mr. Yakowa said. “We already know
our candidate and President Goodluck Jonathan is our only candidate for
the presidency.”

Circle of conspiracies

Mr Suswan also
said that in a democratic setting, opinions of certain persons should
not be forced on others who might not share in such an agenda.

“The issue of
consensus candidate is not known to me,” he said “I define politics as
a circle of conspiracies, so if nine people agree among themselves that
they want to select among themselves somebody who will contest an
election, I don’t think that is binding on me.

“I was not
consulted and the people of Benue State were not consulted. So, to make
a generalization that that is a Northern position, I don’t think that
is fair. I, as the governor of Benue state, a decision is taken and am
not aware and someone says the decision is binding ,I don’t think that
makes sense to anybody and it does not make sense to me anyway.”

Reacting to media
reports of the plan by his party (PDP) to give automatic ticket to its
members who are already at the National Assembly, Mr.Suswan said such
thinking does not exist in the party, an attempt to do that will negate
the principles of democratic norms and values.

“The chairman of
the party himself denied that news report,” he said. “I don’t think any
democratic party, not to talk about the PDP, even small parties that
are undemocratic, will engage in such things. What I learnt is that
,National chairman talked in respect to women, not members of the
National Assembly. So, I think he was misquoted out of context.”

He described late
Clara Oshiomhole as a woman of substance and a “firebrand” who stood by
her husband in spite of situations that came their way.

“We as colleagues
of Adams Oshiomhole, knows that behind that firebrand governor, there
must have been a very gentle woman who has stood by him, unfortunately
today the woman is no more and so I am here,” he said.

A
new episode in the saga of underhand dealings between senior Nigerian
officials and Pfizer over the battle to get justice for children in
Kano who suffered physical and mental impairment when the
pharmaceutical company administered a trial drug on them continues with
the release of some US diplomatic cables related to the incident by
Wikileaks.

NEXT had published
several reports on the challenges facing the Trovan victims and their
families in their quest to receive compensation from the multinational
drugs company, as well as the involvement of senior members of
government and others determined to deny them their due.

A cable posted by
Wikileaks has detailed how Pfizer officials sought to blackmail former
Attorney General of the Federation, Mike Aondoakaa, into dropping the
Federal Government’s lawsuit against the company over the 1996 Trovan
clinical trial in Kano.

Mr Aondoakaa faces
several allegations of corruption. A team of government lawyers, Pfizer, and the Ministry of Justice has so far refused to
disclose the terms of the secret agreement finalised in October 2009,
saying the settlement was covered by a confidentiality clause.

In an April 20,
2009 cable, then U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Robin Sanders, informed
Washington that Pfizer hired investigators to uncover Mr Aondoakaa’s
corruption and then discreetly passed the results of the investigations
to the local media for publication.

She said the former
minister buckled and agreed to withdraw the case after the unceasing
damaging reports on him became too much for him to bear.

The cable said, in
parts: “In follow up to the April 2 meeting, EconDep (Department of
Economic Affairs at the US embassy) met with Pfizer Country Manager
Enrico Liggeri in Lagos on April 9. (Note: Liggeri has years of
experience in Nigeria because his family operated a business in Lagos
from the early 1960s to the late 1980s. He spent most of his childhood
in Lagos. End Note.) “Liggeri said Pfizer was not happy settling the
case, but had come to the conclusion that the $75 million figure was
reasonable because the suits had been ongoing for many years costing
Pfizer more than $15 million a year in legal and investigative fees.

According to
Liggeri, Pfizer had hired investigators to uncover corruption links to
Federal Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa to expose him and put
pressure on him to drop the federal cases.

“He said Pfizer’s
investigators were passing this information to local media. A series of
damaging articles detailing Aondoakaa’s “alleged” corruption ties were
published in February and March.

“Liggeri contended
that Pfizer had much more damaging information on Aondoakaa and that
Aondoakaa’s cronies were pressuring him to drop the suit for fear of
further negative articles.”

Dealing of heavyweights

The pharmaceutical
giant in its reaction to the leaked diplomatic cable dismissed the
claim that it hired investigators to uncover evidence of corruption
against Mr Aondoakaa, saying it is ‘preposterous.’ The company claimed
“it negotiated the settlement last year with the federal government of
Nigeria in good faith and its conduct in reaching the agreement was
proper.”

However, contrary
to Ms Sanders account, NEXT has learnt that the decision to drop the
charges was based more on greed and insensitivity to the plight of the
victims by all the parties involved in the negotiation, than on any
fear that Mr. Aondoakaa’s dirty deals would be exposed.

Sources also
explained how some eminent Nigerians participated in the sharing of
what was described as “blood money” by late president Umaru Yar’Adua,
in the name of collecting legal fees.

Watch out for a detailed report on this.

Editor’s Note: Earlier today, we incorrectly identified Maryam Uwais as the lawyer that led the government team in the Pfizer negotiations. The error is regretted.

When my friend Aniedi fell out of a danfo the other week, two
things troubled him. One was how he came to be under the same bus that threw
him out earlier, with the first violent swing of the steering wheel. The bus
then hit a curb, smashed the wire meshing for flowers, and came to rest in the
middle of the road. And yet Aniedi is discovered under the fender, when he
should have been lying way back, a signpost for where the accident began.

“When we get to heaven,” said Ani who likes to keep his hopes
high, “I will ask to see a playback of that scene, in slow motion.” He thinks
God is a movie director who keeps reels of tape of the pivotal moments of our
lives; evidence that will save or condemn us on Judgment Day.

When he was able to focus again, Ani heard voices screaming,
“There is someone under the bus, person dey under moto!” and thought, “Oh dear,
they should do something about the poor fellow, under the bus.” But of course,
it was Aniedi they were talking about, the poor fellow.

The second mystery concerned the conductor. Ani could not
understand how he came to be standing there without a scratch when just before
the accident, he was the one at the door, hanging there by the tips of his
fingers, pushing his face through the front window to talk to the driver.
Shouldn’t he have been the first casualty in any accident?

Yet there he was helping Ani up with that look of disdain that
conductors show their passengers, an arrogance that is beginning to make sense
to my friend. Because surely, anyone who could survive a crash while hanging
from a bus, when people sitting inside were being picked from under, deserves
to feel superior.

The whole thing bugged Aniedi. “Do you think he saw the accident
coming and jumped?” he asked. I said, “Well, for all we know he didn’t even
jump; he probably kept hanging on to the bus like a trapeze monkey, swinging
this way and that as the bus careened off the road, air-floating with the
flow.”

At that point, someone asked the 24.41 percent question, “Are
these conductors human?”

There is some evidence of that, of course, but probably not
enough to convince a jury. The things that conductors do, normal people can
only contemplate. I have seen one face up to a police officer who refused to
pay his fare and ‘abuse’ him well. “You are talking to Mopol like that?”
demanded the officer, raising his gun. And the conductor sneered, “Do your
worse.”

I was in a bus when another conductor took on three friends, men
bigger than him, holding two by their collar while the third pummelled him
until they all fell off the vehicle. But he returned with a new N20 in place of
the torn note they had used to pay him. I have seen them shoo old women who
didn’t have the exact fare out of their vehicles, and made pregnant women run
to catch the bus. On many occasions, acting as the driver’s rear mirror, they
would look behind and seeing an oncoming trailer, nevertheless growl to the
driver, “Enter, no fear.”

This morning, acting on the advice of his conductor who appeared
to have impeccable sources, our driver decided to dump us well short of the bus
stop. There was a mighty row: everyone approached the conductor, demanding
money back. The lad walked a few paces, turned his back on us and proceeded to
pee right there, threatening to turn his hose on anyone who came too close.

Rude and reckless, harassment seems to be their chief goal.
Yesterday, when the conductor refused an old woman her small change, she lost
control and began to curse. She told him that his life would be a misery and
his children vagabonds; that he would die in an accident and rot while vultures
picked at his bones. It was all quite eerie.

When she left, I asked if he was not afraid. He looked almost bored. “You
don see vulture for Lagos before?” he asked.

In October, flooding originating from the Oyan dam displaced
whole communities in the Ikosi-Isheri and Agboyi-Ketu local council areas of Lagos
State and other communities in neighbouring Ogun State. Days later, the Lagos
State government relocated over 1,000 of the victims to the Resettlement Centre
and Relief Camp located in Agbowa Ikosi at the outskirts of the state.

It is over two months now; the water is gone, and normalcy is
returning to the affected communities, but the people are still waiting for
government’s promise of financial assistance. While some of them still reside
at the relief camp, others say staying put in the camp would amount to self
destruction, especially when one has a family to cater for.

ThankGod Erebi, a traditional bone setter at Kio-Kio, one of the
communities that were severely impacted by the flood, has returned to his work,
even though he still maintains his room at the relief camp where he visits
occasionally.

“There are many people in the camp who go to work and return.
Some people like us don’t go there every day. I have slept there for like six
days at different times, but my family is there. There are some people who do
not go to work. There are other people like that. I can tell you that anybody
who stays there permanently does not have anything to do; that person is not
working, and the person does not have a business that he is running, because nobody
can say that there is still water in his house,” he said.

Grappling with the
disaster

The flooding had occurred largely because of the release of
water from the Oyan dam into the Ogun River which flooded its bank, and that of
other channels. Experts say it is natural for rivers to overflow their flood
plains occasionally. In this case, the houses that were affected were built on
the flood plains.

According to Mr. Erebi, water was over one foot high in most
houses during the flood and different people employed different adaptation
techniques, while some relocated to lodge with friends and family in other
parts of the state.

“When the flood happened, some people ran away to their friends’
places. Some people lost their properties, water spoilt everything for them,
especially the people that were not around when the thing happened. Me, if I
tell that I lost my property, that will be a lie. I didn’t lose my property but
I spent money to secure them. In my house, I made something like a stage,
placed my property on top. I bought nine inches blocks, 60 of them and I bought
12 planks, N1,200. So, I was laying blocks round then, I will put the planks on
top. If the water increased I will lay another line of blocks on top to raise
my properties. That’s how I managed,” Mr. Erebi said.

When the state government opened the camp and provided buses to
move the victims there, some people did not go to the camp to register,
especially those who had left the area. Some of them are now seeking to
register but to no avail. Simon Anyadike, who lives in Kio-Kio, had just put up
his furniture shop by Ikorodu Road, when the flood came. Then he travelled with
his wife and kids after enduring the flood for a few days. By the time he
returned, the camp had closed registration and he desperately wants to register
because of the money government had promised to give to registered victims of
the flood.

“My own is that I want to register my name on that list. All of
us suffered this water together, how would they now write other people’s names
and they will not write my own. Water entered my house, and many living inside
came to stay in my shop then because the place high small. So, some people were
sleeping here. I was not doing anything here, so I travelled. The first time
TVC (television channel) people came here, I was the person they interviewed.
There was water everywhere. Please tell them, they should write my name in the
list of people that will get the compensation money,” said Mr. Anyadike who had
since returned to his business.

Problems with the camp

Mr. Erebi said though food is served three times daily and
medical care services are impressive at the camp, there are still many
challenges that the people are faced with.

“The camp; they are trying in some areas, like food,” he said.
“They serve us food morning, afternoon, and night, although me, I don’t eat it,
I buy food outside, but some other people like it. All the days that I stayed
there, one mosquito did not bite me, because they [spray] the whole place and
the surrounding is neat.

“And the medical care there is very good. But the problem there
is that if you stay there, you want to buy pure water, you cannot afford it
because you don’t have money. And the children, they put them in a school where
they are doing just revision; it’s like extra moral lessons.”

No water in camp

Sinclair Olorogun, who is a member of the committee set up by
the flood victims to represent their interest at the camp, corroborated Mr.
Erebi’s point. He resides in the camp but still attends to his business as an
electrician.

“The major problem in the camp is water. When we came, Ikosi
Ejinrin Local Council Developmental Area, were bringing bags of pure water
(sachet water) for us every day. In the morning, they will bring 50, afternoon
50, evening 50; 150 bags every day. After some time the management started
selling this pure water to us. When those people discovered they were selling
it, they stopped bringing it.

“The tap water there is not good for drinking. But people are
drinking it now. The water looks clean but if you fetch and allow it for some
time it will settle and you will see what you are drinking. I’m having fever
now, look at all the drugs they gave me at the clinic, and it’s because of lack
of potable water,” Mr. Olorogun said.

But the camp commandant, Wewe Adeboye, said it is not true that
people are leaving the camp, contrary to media reports.

“Who is saying that? They are still here. We have placed their
wards in schools. They are going to school. This is what we call emergency education.
Anytime you come to the camp you will see people. We are on the last stage now,
we have gone through preparation, mitigation, response and we are now on
recovery. What we are doing now is to help them recover to the state they were
before the flooding occurred,” he said.

Mr. Adeboye said water cannot be a problem because they pump 35
litres of water from the two boreholes in the camp to serve the 1009 flood
victims and that the water was certified drinkable by the Lagos State Water
Corporation. He said the pure water supply was stopped because the sachet
constituted environmental nuisance in the camp.

While the victims await their promised financial assistance,
which will mark the end of the camping for them and possible eviction from
their communities, to forestall future disasters, Mr. Adeboye said, “the camp
was opened by the governor and will be closed by the governor”.

Nigeria’s National Assembly has no
functional budget office that provides the liaison between the
legislature and the executive on budget matters. This was revealed to
participants at a policy meeting at the weekend.

Chairman, House of Representatives
Committee on Finance, John Enoh, said though work had actually
commenced on the building project a few years ago, it was abandoned
shortly after following disagreements between the Presidency and
National Assembly management over issues he did not elaborate.

“There is no Budget office in the
National Assembly at present, like the Congressional Budget office.
But, a lot of work has actually gone on in the National Assembly. For
some years now, we have been working on the National Assembly Budget
office. At some point, it had actually gone for Presidential assent,
but there were some little bit of disagreements here and there with the
National Assembly management,” Mr Enoh said in an answer to a question
at the seminar.

Though the House of
Representatives has a Committee on Legislative Budget, the lawmaker
assured that the office would be fully functional during the next
National Assembly, considering its usefulness to the lawmakers in their
legislative functions.

“Unless that is done, we will keep depending almost entirely on what is given by the executive,” he said.

The office is the equivalent of
the United States Congressional Budget office established in the
Congress to engage with the budget office to provide independent
information for the legislature on the budget, before annual estimates
are presented.

Mr Enoh who was speaking on some
of the challenges that create distortion in the country’s budget
process noted that despite the existence of Fiscal Responsibility Act
(FRA) since 2007, the implementation of most of its provisions has
always been in the breach.

“The budget process is a challenge
that everybody must appreciate. For instance, there are listed agencies
and corporations of government, like the NNPC (Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation), NPA (Nigerian Ports Authority), CBN (Central
Bank of Nigeria), and so on, that the law says that when the estimates
for next year’s budget are to be led before the National Assembly, they
must accompany, so that they will be able to capture in totality what
the real figures are and not just Federal Government expenditure. I do
not think this is the case in practice,” he pointed out.

Besides, he said the country’s
budget has continued to be a problem in almost 12 years of our
democracy, either in terms of controversy about who owns the budget
process between the Executive and the legislature, or in the timing of
presentation, stressing the importance of engagement of the National
Assembly by the Executive in the process of preparing the budget to
avoid discrepancies.

Time constraint

According to him, the timing of
the budget presentation must be reviewed to give the lawmakers
sufficient time to look at the estimates presented by the executive
before passing it into law.

“The Fiscal Responsibility Act
requires that the Medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) must be
submitted to the National Assembly not later than three months to the
end of a particular year. That has not been achieved yet. The House of
Representatives passed it (the MTEF) only yesterday (Wednesday). If
that is to be led before the House by next week Tuesday, how much of
that is going to benefit from the MTEF?” He wondered.

“We must get these things right.
The National Assembly needs to have as much time as it can to work on
the budget. If in a particular year, the budget is before the NASS in
September as required by law, members would have enough time to look at
all issues before passing the appropriation law.

“The Budget office, Ministry of
Finance and all those involved in the budget process need a lot more
engagement to get the National Assembly to appreciate what damage they
could be causing the budget if the rules are not followed,” he
explained.

Budget indiscipline

Executive Director, Centre for the
Study of the Economies of Africa (CSEA), Menachem Katz, said though the
Federal Government made progress in strengthening public financial
management since 2003, there has been limited improvement in service
delivery, resulting in increased budget indiscipline.

According to Mr. Katz, the
country’s budgets in recent years have become increasingly
expansionary, accounting for deficits of about 10 percent of the gross
domestic product (GDP) as well as increased spending and depletion of
the excess crude account.

On the timing of the budget
process, he said major delays have been experienced in the approval,
pointing out that there is need for the current budget calendar to be
replaced with an alternative cycle that would provide sufficient time
for in-depth discussion of government fiscal strategy and policy
priorities.

“Poverty was handed over to me. I inherited poverty from my dad.
Nobody gave me weekly allowance or pocket money. But there is something that
hardship does to your brain. Poverty makes you desperate to make it by all
means.”

These words were spoken by Paschal Okwundu, a Stanbic IBTC
banker, as he addressed 100 young people who attended The Ajegunle Project, a
youth enlightenment initiative organised by the Tulip Foundation, a social and
moral values non-governmental organisation on December 4, 2010 at Bequest
College, Ajegunle.

Mr. Okwundu described growing up as a 19-year-old in Ajegunle,
Lagos’s most popular slum, who wanted to go to university but whose parents had
no money to send him there. It cost N1,650 to purchase the Joint Admissions and
Matriculation Board form at the time, but neither Mr. Okwundu nor his parents
could afford it.

Determined to succeed

Mr. Okwundu began to organise after-school lessons in maths and
physics for students at Hope Tutorial Centre in Ajegunle. Five days a week, he
worked two hours daily. He earned N45 an hour, making N450 weekly and N1,800
monthly. By 2001, he had saved up enough money to buy a JAMB form and he got
admission in 2002 into the University of Lagos to study chemical engineering.

“I had saved N2,500 in two years when I got my admission,” he
told the students. “But this money finished in two weeks. So I began doing home
coaching and working night jobs again. And by the time I was in year three, I
was running two businesses and making N34,000 monthly.”

Education and
transformation

Richard Yabrifa, who also grew up in Ajegunle and now works with
First Bank, also spoke to the youth on the importance of personal development.
He said the purpose of education goes beyond getting a good job, paying one’s
bills, and catering for one’s family, but becoming an agent of change in one’s
environment.

“Many people go to school but their education has not brought
much transformation to their lives because they have not realised the value of
their education, which is personal development,” he said. “Ask yourself, has
education really changed my ideas, my level of reasoning? You should see
education as your own responsibility to make an impact on the society.”

He further encouraged the youth to align their dreams of what
they wanted to achieve and become in future with their purpose for going to
school, which should not be dependent on the state, the educational system nor
their teachers.

“Purpose is that thing which motivates you to move forward.
Attach a high value to it. Without purpose, you’ll just go to school and just
make up the number, graduate, and at the end of the day become among the number
of unemployed graduates. Don’t see it as your teacher’s responsibility to give
you an education but as your personal responsibility,” continued Mr. Yabrifa.

From zero to hero

Johnson Abbaly, the president of Achievers Consortium
International, a non-profit youth empowerment organisation, compared the resilience
of Ajegunle youth to the 2005 Champions League winners, Liverpool FC, who in
the finals of the football competition came from a 3-0 deficit to win the
tournament against AC Milan.

“Nigerians have a spirit that never says die, and in Ajegunle,
that spirit is very evident in our daily survival,” he said. “Don’t allow your
background keep your back on the ground. You can come from zero and become a
hero. Stop looking down on yourself and instead start celebrating yourself as a
success.”

The coordinator of TAP and Tulip Foundation founder, Bolatito
Coker, further said the answer to rebranding Nigeria lay in changing the
mentality of the younger generation by instilling the right values in them.

“The rebranding of Ajegunle is the major focus of this project,”
she said. “With this project, we want to encourage the youth that there is more
to life, more to achieve, more to hope for, more to dream about, more to live
for, and so many more. They can be the best at what they do.”

Show some love

A motivational speaker and pastor with the Church of God
Mission, Ifeanyichukwu Harrison, who for 10 years had lived in Ajegunle, said
from his 18 years experience working with the youth, the absence of love is the
main reason children grow up to become the miscreants the society now
castigates them for.

“We need to learn to accept these so-called area boys and give
them a sense of purpose,” he said. “Most of them have become what they are
because nobody loved them, because nobody wanted them. As a people, we need to
show some love.”

Youth speak

Many youth who attended the TAP event said they had come to see
themselves and their environment differently. Priscilla Arinze, a recent
secondary school leaver who for 15 years has being living in Ajegunle, said
that the messages had inspired her. Before then, she had questioned the
necessity of an education in Nigeria.

“The youth in Ajegunle need to change their mentality and know that
education is necessary,” said 17-year-old Miss Arinze. “I used to wonder what
is the need going to school but now I understand the usefulness of an education
is to learn more and develop myself. I have learnt to aspire for greater
heights.” Edidiong Solomon, a 12-year-old JS3 student of VKC Schools in
Ajegunle, said: “I learnt that my environment cannot stop me from becoming
something in future. I am going to make a difference in this country and
improve Ajegunle.”