Nigeria Content Online

The rebellion in
Libya stands out among the recent unrest in the Middle East for its
widespread violence: unlike the protesters in Tunisia or Egypt, those
in Libya quickly gave up pursuing nonviolent change and became an armed
rebellion.

And while the
fighting in Libya is far from over, it’s not too early to ask a
critical question: Which is more effective as a force for change,
violent or nonviolent resistance? Unfortunately for the Libyan rebels,
research shows that nonviolent resistance is much more likely to
produce results, while violent resistance runs a greater risk of
backfiring.

Consider the
Philippines. Although insurgencies attempted to overthrow Ferdinand
Marcos during the 1970s and 1980s, they failed to attract broad
support. When the regime did fall in 1986, it was at the hands of the
People Power movement, a nonviolent pro-democracy campaign that boasted
more than two million followers, including labourers, youth activists
and Catholic clergy.

Indeed, a study I
recently conducted with Maria J. Stephan, now a strategic planner at
the State Department, compared the outcomes of hundreds of violent
insurgencies with those of major nonviolent resistance campaigns from
1900 to 2006; we found that over 50 per cent of the nonviolent
movements succeeded, compared with about 25 per cent of the violent
insurgencies.

Why? For one thing,
people don’t have to give up their jobs, leave their families or agree
to kill anyone to participate in a nonviolent campaign. That means such
movements tend to draw a wider range of participants, which gives them
more access to members of the regime, including security forces and
economic elites, who often sympathize with or are even relatives of
protesters.

What’s more,
oppressive regimes need the loyalty of their personnel to carry out
their orders. Violent resistance tends to reinforce that loyalty, while
civil resistance undermines it. When security forces refuse orders to,
say, fire on peaceful protesters, regimes must accommodate the
opposition or give up power – precisely what happened in Egypt.

This is why the
Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, took such great pains to use armed
thugs to try to provoke the Egyptian demonstrators into using violence,
after which he could have rallied the military behind him.

But where Mubarak
failed, Muammar Gaddafi succeeded: what began as peaceful movement
became, after a few days of brutal crackdown by his corps of foreign
militiamen, an armed but disorganized rebel fighting force. A widely
supported popular revolution has been reduced to a smaller group of
armed rebels attempting to overthrow a brutal dictator. These rebels
are at a major disadvantage, and are unlikely to succeed without direct
foreign intervention.

If the other
uprisings across the Middle East remain nonviolent, however, we should
be optimistic about the prospects for democracy there. That’s because,
with a few exceptions – most notably Iran – nonviolent revolutions tend
to lead to democracy.

Although the change
is not immediate, our data show that from 1900 to 2006, 35 per cent to
40 per cent of authoritarian regimes that faced major nonviolent
uprisings had become democracies five years after the campaign ended,
even if the campaigns failed to cause immediate regime change. For the
nonviolent campaigns that succeeded, the figure increases to well over
50 per cent.

The good guys don’t
always win, but their chances increase greatly when they play their
cards well. Nonviolent resistance is about finding and exploiting
points of leverage in one’s own society. Every dictatorship has
vulnerabilities, and every society can find them.

Erica Chenoweth, an
assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University, is the
coauthor of the forthcoming “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic
Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.”

New York Times

One thanks ‘Bisi
Fayemi, the wife of the Ekiti State governor, for putting things in
perspective; legislating on matters like indecent dressing is truly
nothing but a distraction. With so many other national challenges, it
boggles the mind that anyone would consider making laws to regulate
mode of dress. What shall be the rules? It’s easy to ban the obvious
favourites of the Indecent-Brigade: spaghetti, show-me-your-tummy and
sagged pants. But how will the rules be enforced with outfits that are
not specifically described in the law? Who determines what constitutes
‘indecency’? Won’t we create another set of bullies with such a
subjective test?

“It is hereby
decreed that all women’s blouses must be at least eight [8] inches from
the tip of the nipple to the neck; with said 8 inches measurable only
when or after breasts are safely ensconced in appropriate housing.”

And on to the glossary: “In the context used, the real and implied meaning of appropriate housing is bra.”

Or this as Section 1:

“ALL women shall,
by this law, have their clothes appraised and approved by ALL relevant
bodies without exception; said appraisal shall not be deemed concluded
until a certificate of clearance is obtained, duly signed by ALL
members of the panel;

Provided that ALL
members of the panel reserve the right to seek, without any dissent,
‘further clarification’ in form of dress rehearsals, either held
publicly and/or privately, solely for the purpose of determining how
the said woman actually looks in the clothing, and more importantly, if
she could be a potential source of grave sin.”

For crying out
loud, what’s next? Indecent eating; indecent farting but only if it
stinks; indecent face if one is ugly; indecent sex if your overtly
enthusiastic bedtime activity disturbs a neighbour; indecent wickedness
for frying and eating chicken weekly when your neighbours can’t afford
it? Some things are just too personal to regulate! How will that law
make life better for anyone, other than to conspire to further the
cause of those who consider women to be a lesser specie? Or do you
doubt that the law will only be enforced and enforceable against women?
Is indecent dressing the cause of a teenager raping a grandmother of 79
years?

Puritans may say
what they want, but beyond conforming to what is considered as the
traditional mode of dress in any country, the only other way you can
decree dress is on religious grounds or within a group. In other words,
either one’s religion or group prescribes a dress code, or one wears
standard traditional clothing in the traditional manner it is worn in a
country. In choosing to wear any country’s traditional-wear, one ought
to respect the rules as set out by her owners. One may try to bring
individuality into the outfit but without killing the essence of it.
For instance, Nigerian men now have their traditional trousers (buba
and sokoto) made with an elasticised waist because the original string
style is cumbersome, especially when a man needs to take a quick leak.

So, what is
indecent? Is it not dangerous to legislate about something with
limitless opportunities? We are ruled by a fear of cleavage and thigh;
but as fashion evolves, should a law predict and can you regulate
future behaviour, or indeed this law when it becomes operative? This
obnoxious focus on dress as the source of all that is evil is
ridiculous! Women will now be blamed for the animalistic behaviour of
an uncontrollable carnally besotted man? The only result is that people
will seek to help enforcers enforce; women will be stripped naked by
mobs that feel justified by a warped law supposedly supporting their
action.

Will policemen be
sympathetic towards women who are beaten? Capital No! In these parts,
an assault on or rape of a female is always her fault; ‘stubbornness’
is considered a valid reason to ‘discipline’ women! And stubbornness is
a quality attributed to ‘over-sabi’ women: the schooled, the
opinionated and wearers of ‘open-eye’ clothes. Disciplining is deemed
fair punishment for being unduly attractive, brilliant or confident;
and rape is a form of discipline because it is the fault of the woman.
As if to say conspiratorially, “You too…why are you so beautiful?
It’s your fault for being so fine; how did you expect me to resist you?”

Finally, what’s that rule of jurisprudence again? Thou shall not
make any law that shall be impossible to obey; otherwise the law shall
be observed only in its breach? This law, if passed, shall act in vain!

Unrest across North Africa and the Middle East has
afforded Nigeria an outstanding opportunity to re-invigorate the
country’s oil sector and refresh its depleted currency reserve funds.

In May 2008, Nigeria’s foreign currency reserves
stood at US$62 billion but had dwindled to $40 billion by March 2010.
The rate of depletion has since slowed but has not yet shown a
sustained return to growth. But the current global situation combined
with a sustained reduced level of conflict in the Niger Delta plays
into Nigeria’s favour in terms of increased oil revenue. Libyan oil
production has halved from 1.6 million barrels per day (mbd) to as
little as 850,000 barrels per day as a direct result of the current
conflict. Libya’s 1.6mbd represents about 2.3 per cent of global crude
oil production, which rates the country as the fourth largest oil
producer in Africa.

Libya’s oil production can quickly be ramped back
up to 1.6mbd if conflict subsides and oil production and transport
facilities are not significantly damaged. However, with Muammar Gaddafi
ordering the sabotage of the country’s oil facilities, resumption of
production may be severely limited.

The anticipated reduction in production due to
political tensions in North Africa and the Middle East will mean that
available spare capacity may have to be brought online. The bulk of
that spare capacity lies with OPEC countries which have increased spare
capacity from 1.4mbd in 2008 to the current level of 5.2mbd. The
majority of that spare capacity or 3.5mbd is in Saudi Arabia which
could not be said to be immune to the current political instability
sweeping the Middle East. With an estimated 37 billion barrels of oil
reserves, Nigeria could continue production at the present level of
2.4mbd for around 42 years. Coupled with around 183 trillion cubic feet
of gas reserves (at January 2010) Nigeria has an impressive
resource-based potential but a reasonably near term horizon. In fact,
at the present rate of production and without any further major oil
discoveries, Nigeria would have less years of oil production ahead of
it than it has had of production since the first commercial production
of oil in 1956 at Oloibiri in present day Bayelsa State. At the current
rate of depletion and without major replacement through discovery, most
of the current population of Nigeria could live long enough to see the
end of oil as the country’s main income stream. If Nigeria’s oil
production reached the projected target of 4mbpd within the next couple
of years, then its current known reserves could be depleted within 25
years.

These sobering figures start one thinking and
inevitably asking, “So what’s the plan?” The long term question is:
“What are we doing to ensure Nigeria has a solid economic base when oil
reserves are finally run down?” The short term question is: “What are
we going to do with the additional revenue from increased production
and higher than budgeted oil prices?”

The amnesty in the Niger Delta has facilitated a
dramatic rise in oil production that was languishing around 1.35mbd in
the first quarter of 2010 to 2.35mbd in the first quarter of 2011.
Production has continued to rise by around 100,000 barrels per day each
month in 2011.

According to Minister of Petroleum Resources,
Diezani Alison-Madueke, with current oil production at 2.4mbd, Nigeria
now earns around N43.7 billion (US$282 million) per day from crude oil
sales based on the combined daily production figure of crude and
condensate.

These recent production figures all sound very
encouraging and a possible cause for celebration. However, one must
recall earlier years and soon realise Nigeria’s relatively recent
growth in oil production has not reached new heights but merely
returned to levels of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of the
intervening years saw much lower levels of production. Nigeria’s oil
production was 2.2mbd 10 years ago and briefly touched current levels
in 2004. In the euphoria of Shell achieving daily production of one
million barrels, the optimistic oil sector development strategy set a
target of 4 mbd to be achieved by 2010. The government bought into the
dream. The reality saw production reach only half the target level.

Nigeria is presented with a second chance. With
oil currently trading at over $100 a barrel on the back of North
African and Middle East unrest compared with the $65 anticipated in the
country’s 2011 budget, there is a clear opportunity to significantly
increase Nigeria’s revenue from crude oil. With the indications of
global economic recovery comes the prospect that demand for oil may
sustain higher oil prices. Many industry analysts expect oil to remain
above $100 a barrel for several months despite Barack Obama probably
opening access to US strategic reserves.

With this revenue windfall comes an opportunity to kick-start a
sovereign wealth fund in some form, whether it be the Nigeria
Infrastructure Fund, the Future Generations Fund and the Stabilization
Fund or something similar. Most importantly, the construction of a
sovereign wealth fund must ensure it can’t be tapped at the whim of
government to finance the government’s running costs or cover budget
mismanagement.

Last week, Christians across the world
commemorated Ash Wednesday, thus kicking off the season known as Lent,
which culminates in Easter, the celebration of the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Lent consists of 40 days meant to be dedicated to
self-denial (fasting), prayer, a heightened sense of submission to God,
self-reflection, benevolence, and repentance.

Socrates it was who said, centuries ago, that “the
unexamined life is not worth living.” In this harried age of ours, it
seems easier than ever before, to succumb to the lure of the unexamined
life. We have periods like this, to be found in most religions, to
thank for seeking to provide an oasis of calm amidst the maddening
bustle of contemporary life.

There’s no reason why non-adherents cannot
identify with the reflective impulse behind such commemorations.
Whether it is Ramadan, or Lent, or any other similar period in other
religions, we believe all Nigerians, irrespective of religious
persuasion, ought to see it as a time to pursue the admirable ideals of
the season. The earlier Nigerians start to understand that religion
should never be a basis or excuse for exclusionary attitudes, the
better for us all as citizens of a secular nation.

In one of our previous editorials to mark the
commencement of the Ramadan season, we said: “Perhaps one of the
biggest feelings of the post-Ramadan period is one of rebirth. A period
when – as Christian theologians would say – old things pass away. It
would be fitting if Nigeria’s leaders, a large percentage of whom are
fasting Muslims, would also draw a line under their past inadequacies.”

That message still stands. This Lenten season
demands something from all Nigerians, leaders and followers. The
concepts of contemplation and self-sacrifice are endangered species in
this land. The insistence on prayer during Lent is meant to symbolise
the importance of quietude, contemplation and submission; while the
fasting ought to stand as a manifestation of the need for suppression
of physical desire; the quelling of the often wayward impulses that
drive the human body. As a symbol of sacrifice and selflessness, the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – which form the cornerstone of
Christianity and the inspiration for the celebration of Lent – stand
high up there.

Sadly, Nigerian leaders show little desire
whatsoever to demonstrate self-restraint in their actions in office. If
there is one overriding theme in all of the diplomatic cables in our
possession, courtesy of the whistle-blowing site, WikiLeaks, (and from
which we’ve run a series of stories all week), it is that there are too
many greedy persons in the corridors of power; driven by unbridled
hunger to amass as much of our commonwealth as they can, for themselves
alone.

This greed, coupled with an inability to be sober,
reflective, to ask common-sense questions – for example, in James
Ibori’s case: how are the ordinary people of Delta State expected to
live decent lives when all of these billions meant to be spent on their
welfare are ending up in my foreign accounts? – has kept Nigeria
underdeveloped for all of 50 years

But the leaders are not alone. Followers, averse
to the idea of sacrificing immediate and transient pleasure for the
purpose of overwhelming future gain, must also share in the blame. This
inability to think in sacrificial terms is partly why politicians find
it so easy to purchase the loyalties of the electorate with meagre cash
sums and bags of rice. Citizens that sell their electoral birthright
for a mess of badly-cooked pottage are as disgraceful as the
politicians who make the proposition in the first place.

The coming general elections will take place
during Lent. We expect all our politicians, and their supporters, to
take that into consideration, and strive to comport themselves in a
responsible manner; a manner that demonstrates respect for the ideals
that the season represents. This should happen irrespective of
religious persuasion. On the campaign grounds, we hope to see
politicians humbly attuned to the yearnings of the electorate;
campaigners who understand that true leadership is actually
servant-hood, self-sacrifice and submission.

It would be a tragedy for Nigeria if the message of Lent was lost on
us, especially at this crucial time in our existence as a democratic
nation.

With the 2011
elections now entering end game phase, the debating season is upon us.
I had the opportunity of participating in a slightly different forum
for candidates: the one organised by the Murtala Muhammed Foundation as
a policy dialogue for some of the leading contenders for the office of
President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Of the five invited
candidates, only three made it. There will be other platforms for
presidential candidates to be assessed, culminating in the presidential
debates at the end of the month. This is being organised by a coalition
of media and civil society organisations, headed by the Broadcasting
Organisation of Nigeria and the Newspaper Proprietors Association of
Nigeria. But if it happens that, of the many independent fora
available, we reach voting day on April 9 without having seen anything
more of the candidates than at venues and presentations arranged and
packaged by the candidates themselves or their political parties, rest
assured that my vote won’t be going to any of those who are ‘too big’
to stoop to conquer.

Rest assured? The
automatic response of most politickers and candidates is that,
actually, they weren’t all that worried about my vote; that all the
grammar and stuff about issues is not where the votes are to be had.
Even the thinking candidates will confess that if they don’t do all
those things that the thinking voter finds irrelevant, irritating or
downright infuriating (read ‘mass’ rallies, pasting posters and the
continuous — interminable — broadcast of the aforementioned ‘mass’
rallies on terrestrial television stations) then it’s as good as saying
that they are not seriously ‘on ground’.

It’s partly
because of turf wars: this is my territory. That is why some governors,
particularly in the ruling People’s Democratic Party, are determined to
prevent the opposition from holding any rally or meeting in their
states, with a variety of excuses that are as lame and insulting to the
intelligence as they are specious and immoral. The sad thing is that
the security agencies, who ought to be neutral in these matters,
willingly connive at the claims that ‘security couldn’t be guaranteed’.
The amusing thing is that such measures, designed to convey strength
and confidence, carry the whiff of desperation and fear.

The opposition, no
less determined to mark out their own turf, can hardly prevent Mr.
President from arriving in a cloud of heat, dust and traffic jams to
visit traditional rulers and hold rallies. So they have to be a bit
more creative: witness the Action Congress of Nigeria’s four
counter-rallies that coincided with Goodluck Jonathan’s descent on
Lagos on March 1. There’s also the less creative low-tech approach of
defacing or tearing down the other side’s posters.

With so much time
and money devoted to this brouhaha, it is not surprising that some
candidates are reluctant to expose themselves to the (relatively mild)
rigours of public debate, especially with people who aren’t begging
them for one favour or other. In the past, those who stood aloof did so
to convey the message that they were too big and too important to stand
on the same level as other supplicants for the peoples’ votes. Victory
is already ‘in the bag’, went the thinking, and all we need is some
shows of strength so that we can justify the landslide victory that we
intend to write for ourselves.

And since the fear
of the ‘wasted vote’ and anxiety to be on the ‘winning side’
(irrespective of a voter’s actual preferences and invisibility to the
subsequent victor) is still well-entrenched in our political culture,
it is inevitable that much of the campaign will consist of: I am
wonderful, I have done wonderful things, We Go WIN. So you might as
well vote for me.

But as the culture
of candidate debates grows, a refusal to take part on the same terms as
other contestants conveys a different message to the intended one. When
even some state governors are ready to engage in informative debate,
doubts arise about those who claim to be ‘too busy’. Suspicions
crystallise that they are afraid to participate either because scrutiny
of their record by other contestants might reveal that they lack even
any policies, let alone achievements; or because, shielded by the
soothing flattery of hangers-on and supplicants, they have forgotten
that they are mere mortals and now risk exposing themselves as
incoherent, empty and vain. Or worse.

I make no apology for belonging to the class of voters who want
something more than ‘We Go WIN’, even if only for reassurance that
candidates aren’t complete duds. It’s true that debates are a
performance, but I want to see how they perform. I want to see how
people who want to be president stand up to scrutiny and a bit of
pressure. There are more voters like me in this election than there
were in the last. And there will be more in the next. So election
debates — giving us something with which to make an informed choice —
that’s a culture candidates had better get used to.

The manifesto of
presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, and his running mate, Tunde
Bakare, encapsulates the belief that the country’s missing ingredient
for the greatness so passionately sought by many Nigerians, is a few
good people. It is not surprising, I suppose, from a man who justified
his self-invitation to lead a country on the grounds that its leaders
were hopelessly corrupt, waged a war against indiscipline only to be
defeated by other military officers who expected the rhetoric of
incorruptibility to remain rhetoric. That his running mate is a former
barrister clothed in theological garb reinforces the image of
incorruptibility projected by this presidential team of the Congress
for Progressive Change. Major-General Buhari’s manifesto is the most
concrete of the Nigerian ones I have studied, about how to reduce
corruption, and one of the vaguest about how precisely to improve the
lot of the ordinary person.

It starts with
linguistic flourish: “Every country has its ‘lost generation’. Some
were stolen away by war, some by economic downturns, and some by
visionless governments. Nigeria is perhaps the only one stolen by too
much power, money, leisure and privilege.” I must confess that I have
never associated life in Nigeria with a surfeit of leisure. Life seems
to be a perpetual grind for too many people. Then, it proceeds to its
diagnosis and prescriptions. Mr. Buhari intends to reform politics and
governance by amending Nigeria’s “Constitution to remove immunity from
prosecution for elected officers in criminal cases.” He plans also to
restructure government into a lean organism. To stimulate transparency,
all governmental contracts exceeding N100 million are to be published
in all media, a freedom of information bill granting individuals the
right to state data is to be enacted, and all minutes of local
government meetings are to be published.

A Conflict
Resolution Commission is to be established to “help prevent, mitigate
and resolve civil conflicts within the polity” and permanent peace is
to be brought to the Niger Delta, Plateau and other troubled zones. Mr.
Buhari offers no explanation whatsoever about how such a desirable
outcome is to be accomplished. His explanation-devoid style of promises
extends into the economic arena. Nigeria’s gross domestic product is
set to grow at 10 per cent per annum. How? With what inflation target?
Or national savings rate? I was impressed by the promise of
implementing a national identification scheme to enable the informal
economy to be merged into the formal economy. Without answers to those
questions, this wish is a mere dream. I was impressed by the promise of
implementing a national identification scheme to enable the informal
economy to be merged into the formal economy. India is in the midst of
issuing universal identity numbers to each of its 1.2 billion
residents, based on unique biometrics markers such as fingerprints.
Nigeria should be able to emulate India.

Another proposal
that would have substantial benefits for Nigerians is that of creating
a national electronic land title register. The inability of farmers to
specify precisely the contours of their holdings inhibits their ability
to raise capital from formal financial institutions. It is no
coincidence that the most productive farmers on earth — American
farmers — have mortgages covering most of their farmland. If only the
same could be said of Nigeria’s farmers! Mr. Buhari did not disappoint
by failing to pledge to triple Nigeria’s power supply. All Presidential
candidates must throw out a huge number in the electricity generation
industry. The balance of his manifesto is full of the usual
developmental bromides populating Nigerian presidential manifestos:
pass swiftly the Petroleum Industry Bill; raise the federal budgetary
allocation for education or open six new grand health or educational
facilities. Mr. Buhari intends to open six new science and technology
universities. Nollywood will receive some sort of assistance. The
environment seems to be dear to his heart. He plans to encourage the
planting of lots of new trees to arrest the spread of the Sahara desert.

There is little doubt of Mr. Buhari’s patriotism. Yet, some
omissions left me unhappy. The promise of N30 billion for the farming
sector reveals little ambition for that sector. There is tremendous
growth of income and employment there. For example, by designing a
system of combining road, rail, and sea transport and technical farming
expertise, landlocked and arid Mali was able to increase its mango
exports by 1,042 per cent between 1993 and 2008 and boost rural income.
What Mali has done, Nigeria can surpass! There were no proposals to
simplify the conduct of formal business in Nigeria. Corruption withers
in a slimming state. In sum, this is not the manifesto for a vibrant
Nigeria.

Nigeria’s 63
registered political parties turned up at an event organised by INEC
and the International Republican Institute on March 8. The objective
was for all the political parties in the country to sign the Code of
Conduct they had jointly developed with the electoral commission. This
Code was a considerable improvement over the one which political
parties signed in 2007, which unfortunately was obeyed more in the
breach than in practice.

The Code obliges
parties to eschew violence, abusive and hate language in their
interactions. It constrains them to abide strictly by the Electoral Act
in ensuring internal party democracy in their operations. By signing
the Code, parties would undertake to adhere to outcomes of primaries
they have conducted, and not substitute names of winners with people
who had not contested or won.

The Code also has
clear stipulations that parties who enjoy incumbency should not abuse
their powers by preventing opposition parties from freely campaigning
in their states, displaying their posters and signboards and having
access to radio and television. Indeed, the Code is clear that there
must be a distinct separation between party and government, so parties
that control governments must not use such powers to oppress their
political opponents. All governments must serve all members of their
communities, whatever their political affiliations.

These are great
principles which I admire enormously. Indeed, in my goodwill message to
the meeting, I congratulated INEC and the parties for developing such
noble principles. I pointed out, however, that the results of the party
primaries demonstrated clearly that the parties operated in flagrant
disobedience of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended, and that if they
would not obey a law that has clear sanctions, they were unlikely to
take the Code and its injunctions seriously.

My argument was
that there is a missing link. Political parties do not respect voters
and party members for the simple reason that they know that citizens
either do not, or more likely, cannot sanction them for their
transgressions. It is only when the votes count and voters can sanction
parties for their acts of commission and omission that things will
begin to change. It is interesting that only 46 out of the 63
registered political parties agreed to sign the Code of Conduct. Some
of them complained that the Code is focused only on the behaviour of
political parties without corresponding undertakings by INEC that it
would change its ways and stop rigging elections. In their complaints,
they drew attention to the fact that we now have it on judicial
evidence that INEC was an active participant in the organisation of
electoral fraud.

This is true. Be
that as it may, the demand by some of the party leaders that INEC
should meet with them regularly, without the mediation of international
organisations to discuss problems, is completely legitimate. I urge
Attahiru Jega to take this request seriously and devote more time to
conversations and negotiations with the parties.

On the substance,
however, the law has already provided sufficient rules to govern the
conduct of INEC, and what remains is for the leadership of INEC under
Professor Jega and the law enforcement mechanism to monitor and report
transgressions by INEC officials. In other words, the 17 parties that
refused to sign were misguided in their actions. The idea of the code
of conduct is for them to voluntarily adhere to the highest standards
of electoral conduct so that Nigerians can see that they are opting for
appropriate standards of political behaviour.

The day after the Code of Conduct launching, the Murtala Mohammed
Foundation organised a policy dialogue for presidential candidates in
Abuja. In his session, Pat Utomi alleged that the Jonathan/Sambo
campaign organisation spends N100 million every day from public
resources, for their campaign. He castigated those of us in civil
society for not monitoring and challenging this insidious form of
corruption. He was a bit unfair to us. We all suspect a lot of the
campaign money is from public coffers. It is, however, difficult to
prove it and many of us are afraid of making allegations we cannot
substantiate. Nuhu Ribadu was also impressive at the Murtala Mohammed
Forum. In his usual fiery language, he assured the audience that if he
wins the elections, even his friends in the Action Congress of Nigeria
who are proven to have been corrupt, will go to jail. There will be no
sacred cows, he assured Nigerians.

The upheaval that is sweeping across North Africa does not have a predictable outcome.

US Secretary of State Clinton was recently
praising Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a loyal friend. In 2009
Clinton said, “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be
friends of my family.” But it seems 30 years of Mubarak was enough for
the people of Egypt.

Secretary Clinton holds a similar view of Gabon’s
President Ali Bongo Ondimba, a “valued partner.” The US supported Ali’s
father Omar who led the country for 43 years before handing over to
Ali. A US Senate report released in February 2010 noted that both
President Omar Bongo and his son Ali have amassed “substantial wealth
while in office, amid the extreme poverty of its citizens.”

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi must be wondering
what has gone wrong this last week. Widespread uprisings have seen
Gaddafi retreat from the Libyan capital amid brutal repression of
protesters. He too has recently been hailed as a “friend of the West”
with visits from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
It seems the Libyan people have decided that 40 years of Gaddafi is
enough and they are not interested in continuing the reign through
Gaddafi’s son.

Even Saddam Hussein was greeted warmly by Donald
Rumsfeld in the 1980s at a time when Saddam was known to have abused
the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical
weapons on Iranians and his own people. Directives signed by President
Reagan reveal the specific U.S. priorities for the region: preserving
access to oil, expanding U.S. ability to project military power in the
region, and protecting local allies from internal and external threats.
Not much has changed.

Closer to home Liberia was saddled with Charles
Taylor whose close connections with the US ensured he would assume
power and amass considerable wealth. Unfortunately but not
unexpectedly, Charles Taylor’s presidency came at the expense of the
citizens of Liberia who suffered unspeakable human rights abuses at
Taylor’s hands.

Saddam Hussein’s close association with the US was
much like the association between Charles Taylor and the US. Both men
assumed power with the assistance of the US. But, like other US
“friends”, priorities change and friendships soured.

It is little wonder that the citizens of these
countries who have lived under repressive regimes for 30 or 40 years
rise up to throw out such dictatorial, self serving rulers who amass
staggering wealth at the expense of the citizens who often suffered
human rights abuses.

This is the global context to Nigeria’s evolution
as a democratic nation. We hear of many complaints about Nigeria but
there is an abundance of evidence that Nigeria continues to make
progress towards a robust democratic nation. To declare a nation a
democracy can be done in a moment but to demonstrate deeply rooted
democratic instruments of government such as free and fair elections,
transparency in revenue streams from the Federal Government to State
and Local Governments and a judiciary above corruption takes many years
and in many cases a generation. A strong democracy does not come easily
or quickly.

Nigeria is making its own way in the world. It is
not captive of western power brokers seeking oil or a base from which
to project military power. In part this is because Nigeria is as much
Muslim as it is Christian. In part this is also because no one tribe,
political or religious faction has been allowed to dominate. The
jostling of political parties and candidates for the presidency which
often attracts condemnation and can be mistaken for instability is a
dynamic that ensures for every check there is a counter check. This is
a self-correcting mechanism, which nations such as Libya, Egypt, Iraq,
Iran, Bahrain and Tunisia have lacked.

All levels of Nigerian society are engaged in the
politics of their state and nation. The poorest people have opinions on
political parties and candidates every bit as strong and informed as
those of the wealthy and well positioned. This is a robust polity that
will not easily surrender to outsiders.

Nigeria belongs to Nigerians and this is the way it should remain.

Last week, Nigeria
had its first presidential debate for the 2011 elections – and three of
those who seek to lead it, stood to answer questions sourced from
members of the public across board.

Nigerians – of all
stripes and across demographics – gathered around TV sets across the
country in volumes only seen during perhaps the World Cup and foreign
football leagues, as citizens proved their engagement with this
election cycle. It was the strongest sign yet that this will be an
election like no other.

Citizens might not
be enthused with the political landscape, the candidate options and the
lack of preparedness on the part of our election’s custodians, but they
seem to have accepted the reality that it is better to participate than
to leave participation to those focused on narrow interests.

Ibrahim Shekarau,
Nuhu Ribadu and Muhammadu Buhari dealt with questions about corruption
to accounts of stewardship, power reform, political association,
education and a whole range of issues affecting the Nigerian people.

There is a lot
that will be or has been said of the performance of individual
candidates; however, one thing is clear – the three options for
president are serious-minded aspirants who, at the minimum, seem to
have a genuine engagement with the issues at the hearts of ordinary
Nigerians. Unforgettable for instance, was the performance of the
governor of Kano State, a man hitherto unknown by Nigerians outside his
direct sphere of influence and associated with a political platform
that has been besotted by one crisis after another – but Mr. Shekarau
disproved bookmakers and proved himself at least intellectually and
eloquently capable of fine insight into many of the problems that a
president of this country will need to solve.

While the debate
was largely amiable, the saccharine air of conviviality that coloured
the vice-presidential version was thankfully absent, lending the
atmosphere to an intellectually charged affair where candidates were
able to clearly draw contrasts with their opponents. It will be
difficult to forget Mr. Ribadu’s broadside reminding Nigerians that he
has been in active service for the past 25 years while at least one of
his opponents has been in retirement for the same period, or Mr.
Shekarau’s well-received assertion that bodies like the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices
Commission are nothing but “glorified police stations”.

The questions were
direct and engaged, and the candidates didn’t flinch. While the
continued absence of Goodluck Jonathan from well-done debate platforms
like this not arranged on his own terms are deplorable, this debate
made it clear to Nigerians that we are, at the very least, spoilt for
choice. Indeed, the president’s presence or absence was irrelevant in
the final analysis. If anything, Mr. Jonathan sidelined himself from
serious-minded consideration by choosing an interview with a musician
best known for lyrics about the female anatomy, to bouncing off ideas
with his contemporaries in this election.

In fact, with his
absence, what became clear is that Nigerians do have options to the
incumbent. The debate was a study in candidates whose strengths are
diverse and whose plans are distinct.

We are proud of
the moderator, Kadaria Ahmed, who shone forth with the fearless,
authoritative and independent journalism that has been our watchword at
NEXT.

In a nation that
desperately needs to build strong democratic institutions – a
functioning legislature, a disciplined executive, a vibrant,
progressive judiciary and an independent press – last Friday was a
giant step in the right direction.

Of course the
choices we will make in this election must go beyond the outcome of one
debate – Nigerians must go beyond Mr. Buhari’s admirable calm, Mr.
Ribadu’s visible passion and Mr. Shekarau’s obvious knowledge, and
examine thoroughly the history, track records, manifestos and
interactions of these candidates. The work of rescuing Nigeria
continues.

As the
elections inch closer, the Senate last week passed a bill that will
eventually give Nigeria one of the strongest anti-tobacco laws on the
continent. Sponsored by Olorunimbe Mamora, a senator (Lagos East) on the
platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria, the bill is called the
Nigerian Tobacco Control Bill.

It’s essential components include:
raising a National Tobacco Control Committee to shape the future of
tobacco control policies and guide implementation; A comprehensive ban
on smoking in public places, and the sale of cigarettes by or to minors;
and detailed specifications on points of sale notice. That is not all,
however. The bill has finally given legal backing to a directive by the
Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) which a few years
ago banned all sorts of advertisement, sponsorship, promotion,
testimonials and brand stretching of tobacco products across the
country.

The bill is also to ensure that health
messages cover 50 per cent of the areas where tobacco products are to be
displayed, while the minister of health is empowered to prescribe
pictures or pictogram and ensure that the law is effectively
implemented. As it is now, the bill has only been passed by the Senate.
It is to be sent to the House of Representatives which will hopefully
pass it before it goes to Goodluck Jonathan for his assent. We at NEXT
do not expect the House to have any fundamental disagreement with the
version that has been passed by the Senate.

The upper house had, in the two years
the bill was with it, ensured that all the stakeholders – civil society
groups, tobacco manufacturers, health experts and the general public –
had their say at the public hearings that preceded the debates and the
passing of the bill. Mainly, the Nigeria Tobacco Control bill
domesticates the World Health Organisation (WHO) initiated Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The treaty is the first global
health treaty which is mandatory on all WHO members. Nigeria has signed
and ratified the treaty.

We commend this step by the Senate and
plead with the House not to water down this laudable bill. Passing it
into law could help this set of lawmakers become one of the most
proactive to have passed through the hallowed chambers. It is a great
contribution to public health. We make this appeal because we know that
tobacco products have for several years wreaked havoc on our people.
This is our opportunity to curb this terrible scourge.

A few years ago, some states like Lagos,
Gombe, Kano and Oyo sued some tobacco companies, asking them to pay
billions of naira for the damages their products had caused their
citizens. For instance, Lagos sued for ₦2.7 trillion claiming that
research carried out by its staff in hospitals across the state show
that at least two people die daily owing to tobacco-related diseases;
and that the state had recorded about 20 per cent increase in the
smoking rate over the past two decades with reported cases of 9,527
tobacco-related diseases in government-run hospitals monthly, in one of
Nigeria’s most populous states.

This is a high figure and a high price
to pay for a disease with a cause that is known and preventable. And
that is only for a state that has cared to carry out research on what it
costs it to treat tobacco-related diseases.

We salute the doggedness of Mr. Mamora,
the civil group Environmental Rights Action (ERA), the United States
based Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK), the media and other groups
that fought for the enactment of this bill. However, the fight will not
simply be over because the House and the President assented to it.
Implementation of the clauses of the bill must be monitored and adhered
to. Only then would it help our public health and protect us from the
fatal tobacco-related diseases.