Nigeria Content Online

The struggle over
the location of a refinery in Kogi State has caught the attention of
many Nigerians. The governor is accused of taking the refinery away
from Lokoja to his hometown.

The submission of
this article is that the governor, and all those who made the deal with
the Chinese to build three refineries, should actually be forced to
locate these refineries in not just their villages, but on their own
private land as well.

Why?

Refineries are not
industrial installations that people should wish to be located even in
their enemy’s community. They are extremely toxic and poison everything
and everyone around them. This is well known in the communities close
to refineries in Warri, Kaduna, and Port Harcourt.

Apart from the
release of toxic gaseous emissions into the atmosphere, the liquid
effluents from these refineries are scarcely treated, and are dumped
into water bodies on which local communities depend. The case of Ubeji
community, behind the Warri Refinery, is particularly pathetic.

The community river
and their mangrove swamps were severely polluted and engulfed in flames
in July 2007. Till date, no remediation exercise has been carried out.
You may hear that some compensation has been paid, but what is that
pittance compared to the danger to which the community is permanently
exposed to? What would such minor compensations do when the livelihoods
of most of the citizens have been more or less permanently curtailed?

Other countries examples

The toxic impacts
of refineries are just as bad in other parts of the world. In South
Durban, South Africa, the refineries (owned by Shell/BP joint venture)
were located according to the dictates of the apartheid political
system.

A visit to these
communities today reveals a high incidence of cancers, blood disorders,
and respiratory diseases such as asthma. Indeed, the prevalence of
cancers and asthma is so high that you would hardly find a family
without members that have died from these diseases, or who are
suffering from them. One of the things kids pack as they head to school
is the pumps to use in suppressing asthmatic attacks.

The difference
between the refineries of South Africa and the ones in Nigeria is that
the communities there are organised against pollution and work to
produce evidence through the use of means such as the Bucket Brigades
(who use bucket-like equipment to collect air samples for measurements).

There have been
charges of environmental racism with regard to the location of toxic
factories in the USA. However, one of the most spectacular incidents
involving a refinery in the USA was the huge explosion that occurred at
the Shell refinery at Norco, Louisiana, in May 1988. The fire from that
explosion lasted for eight hours before it was contained. The blame was
placed on rusty pipelines and inadequate preventive maintenance
procedures.

There are several
examples around the world of the negative consequences of siting
refineries in neighbouring communities. One peculiar case is an aged
Shell refinery in Curacao (near Venezuela) now being run by the
Venezuelan state oil company, after Shell sold the refinery to the
Curacao government in the 1980s for less than one dollar. They sold the
refinery because they were faced with the need to clean up toxic dumps
they had created at a cost of about 400 million dollars.

Back to Nigeria, it
is mindboggling to find people fighting to have these installations in
their localities. Those from whose localities they are moved away from
should actually be engaged in thanksgiving and celebrations, rather
than blocking highways in protests! The Chinese have found a business
opportunity because the NNPC has been inept at managing the four
refineries in Nigeria. Must the need to meet increasing demand for
petroleum products force us to open ourselves to be ripped off?

The Chinese are to
build and run the refineries until they recover their investments.
Without terminal dates of when CSCEC would hand over the facilities to
the NNPC, there is a wide room for corrupt practices and unmitigated
exploitation.

Moreover, placing
the refineries on the banks of the River Niger in Kogi State, as well
as on the shores of the Atlantic at Lekki may be ways of democratising
pollution, but these are moves we can ill afford at this time.

Besides, we need
public debates and examination of environmental impact assessments for
these projects before they proceed further.

Nnimmo Bassey is
Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth
Nigeria. He is also chair of Friends of the Earth International.

At the funeral,
last year, of a friend in his forties who died from ill-health, one of
his mourners noted in an aside to his circle of friends, the ‘awon
boys,’ that “hmmm, spousal support, o wa important!” They listened and
nodded but did not give it much thought.

The man was divorced. “Eh hen? So?”

The man was living alone. “What is so hard about that?”

The man did not look after himself. “He is in good company!”

Yet, over the course of the year, the term ‘spousal support’ has been brought to my notice again and again.

For lawyers,
spousal support is court-ordered support from one partner to the other
during a separation or after a divorce. Although the mourner was a
lawyer, it was evident he was not referring to the law. At heart, he
meant the care given by one spouse to another. He meant the
demonstration of concern during times of tribulation and anxiety. He
meant the vigilance of a partner when they notice small signs that all
may not be well. He meant insistence and harassment to see a doctor
about little symptoms like that persistent headache, or prolonged
fatigue. He meant that pep talk to lift the spirits of a dejected or
beaten down companion. He meant that listening ear and wise voice to
give advice and suggestions when prospects are looking bleak. He meant
the cheerleader who gives the player the courage to take bold steps and
take calculated risks, confident that there is someone who ‘has their
back’. He meant the person that you can break down crying with and who
will never refer to it again or treat you disrespectfully as a result.
He meant spousal support.

Thinking about it,
it seems like common sense and very logical. Yet, many of us lack it
and many of us fail to give it. We receive ‘spousal support’ as
children from our parents. As teenagers, we get it from our best
friends. As adults, the source can be from family members, mentors,
close colleagues, business partners and associates in general; or from
that family doctor who has known you since you were small and calls
periodically to check up on you. We like to name it ‘human feeling.’
Yes, those fortunate amongst us have received a form of it all our
lives; but how many of us are conscious of giving that emotional
support and succour to others in turn.

A listening ear

In our traditional
cultures, elderly people refer to living alone without ‘spousal support
‘as living ‘like a witch’ whom everyone avoids in fear for their
wellbeing! It is all right to live alone by choice for independence,
self-suffiency, and privacy; but it is not okay to live alone because
there is no one who cares enough about you to either stay with you, or
to invite you to stay with them. Our late friend fell into that
category. How did it happen? If this support is so crucial at the level
of couples, imagine the impact of the lack of it on a group, and even
wider to a network, a party, a people, a nation.

How do we show that
we care about the welfare of others, for our circle, for our network,
and the welfare of the state? Do we even show care for the state in the
spirit of spousal support? How have we demonstrated concern during
times of tribulation and national anxiety? Are we vigilant – looking
out for the small signs that all may not be well? Are we insistent on
seeking solutions to identified ills? From reports of progress in the
court, of seemingly clear cut cases of corruption that start off well
and trickle to nothing. I think we do well in giving ourselves pep
talks to lift our spirits. We invest a lot in items and events to make
us feel good about ourselves.

The presidential advisory committee seems like a good source of a
listening ear and wise voice to the president, if it is able to play
that role; but do governors and councilmen have similar people or
bodies to give them advice to the benefit of our lives and in the
interests of our nation? We have cheerleaders galore to urge each other
to take extravagant steps and make big promises that mostly do not pan
out. And when the chips are down, or the political appointment is over,
who ‘has our back.’ Former politicians are the first to tell you that
it is really lonely out there. Everyone disappears. We need to give
each other spousal support so that we do not die unnecessarily when a
little intervention, a little attention, and a little care can keep us
alive on the way to recovery.

Five years ago
policemen killed six young Nigerians in the Gimbiya Street area of
Abuja. Up until today, no one has been jailed for their murder.

Shortly before the
start of the World Cup, five staffers at this newspaper left the office
late in the night and were on their way to their places of abode in the
same car. At Ikeja they were stopped by some men of the Nigeria Police
and asked the usual questions. “Who are you?” “Where are you coming
from?” “Where are you going?” “Let us see your papers.” While all their
papers were in order, and their explanations checked out, the policemen
insisted on having them get out of the vehicle, and doing a thorough
search of the car for contraband. Despite not finding anything, the
policemen insisted on going further, and were at that point politely
reminded that they had reached the limits of their jurisdiction. There
and then they became threatening and actually accused one of the
journalists of public disorder for daring to remind them that he has
rights. For some reason (maybe because they were dealing with people
who can make some noise), the journalists were let go.

Imagine if this had happened with an ordinary citizen, at that time of night.

Two days ago, a
policeman killed someone in the Egbeda area of Lagos; over N50 ($0.33)!
You see, the late Kareem like the NEXT journalists from over a month
ago was fed up with routine harassment by the police, and decided not
to give heed to their daily extortion. He died for his impertinence.
People responded and there was a riot. The murderous policeman was
beaten up by the crowd and eventually rescued by his mates who somehow
found 200 of their number to deploy to protect a murderer! Where were
the 200 policemen when Bayo Ohu was murdered close to that area not too
long ago?

You see, one of the big problems we have around these parts is in the very structure of the police- over-centralization.

How does a police
force gather the intel and general community knowledge it requires to
do actual detective work and preempt problems if it is by default seen
as an outside force, and its members are “strangers” to the community,
often not even speaking the local languages. It is very wrong-headed
from the point of results. Of course it looks pretty on paper,

from a “federal character-oriented” and “detribalised Nigeria” point of view.

The solution to the
problems of policing in Nigeria (of many of our problems actually) can
only be solved by community policing. Bringing someone who has lived
all his life in Agbara to suddenly come and start solving crimes in
Ojoto will not make crimes disappear there. Hell, it would probably
cause an increase because he would only be able to use high-handed
methods to enforce law and order. An added advantage of sectional
policing is that a policeman who lives on the street next to you is not
going to kill your children. You know where his are, and if he gets
away with murder.

As regards the
murderers walking our streets in uniform, the level of entrants into
the police force seriously needs to be looked at. You can’t have
someone who makes up laws as he goes along in uniform. That is wrong.

May the souls of Augustina Arebum, Ekene Isaac, Chinedu Meniru,

Tony Nwokike, Paul Ogbonna, Ifeanyi Ozor, Kareem and other victims
of unpunished police violence rest in peace. And more importantly, may
they get justice. Amen.

The waterfall of leaks on Afghanistan underlines the awful truth: We’re not in control.

Not since Theseus fought the Minotaur in his maze has a fight been so confounding.

The more we try to
do for our foreign protectorates, the more angry they get about what we
try to do. As Congress passed $59 billion in additional war funding on
Tuesday, not only are our wards not grateful, they’re disdainful.

Washington gave the
Wall Street banks billions, and, in return, they stabbed us in the
back, handing out a fortune in bonuses to the grifters who almost
wrecked our economy.

Washington gave the
Pakistanis billions, and, in return, they stabbed us in the back,
pledging to fight the militants even as they secretly help the
militants.

We keep getting played by people who are playing both sides.

Robert Gibbs
recalled that President Barack Obama said last year that “we will not
and cannot provide a blank check” to Pakistan.

But only last week,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Pakistan to hand over a
juicy check: $500 million in aid to the country that’s been getting a
billion a year for most of this decade and in 2009 was pledged another
$7.5 billion for the next five. She vowed to banish the “legacy of
suspicion” and show that “there is so much we can accomplish together
as partners joined in common cause.” Gibbs argued that the deluge of
depressing war documents from the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks,
reported by The New York Times and others, was old. But it reflected
one chilling fact: The Taliban has been getting better and better every
year of the insurgency. So why will 30,000 more troops help?

We invaded two
countries, and allied with a third – all renowned as masters at
double-dealing. And, now lured into their mazes, we still don’t have
the foggiest idea, shrouded in the fog of wars, how these cultures
work. Before we went into Iraq and Afghanistan, both places were famous
for warrior cultures.

And, indeed, their insurgents are world class.

But whenever
America tries to train security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan so that
we can leave behind a somewhat stable country, it’s positively
Sisyphean. It takes eons longer than our officials predict. The forces
we train turn against us or go over to the other side or cut and run.
If we give them a maximum security prison, as we recently did in Iraq,
making a big show of handing over the key, the imprisoned al-Qaida
militants are suddenly allowed to escape.

The British Empire
prided itself on discovering warrior races in places it conquered –
Gurkhas, Sikhs, Pathans, as the Brits called Pashtuns. But why are they
warrior cultures only until we need them to be warriors on our side?
Then they’re untrainably lame, even when we spend $25 billion on
building up the Afghan military and the National Police Force, dubbed
“the gang that couldn’t shoot straight” by Newsweek.

Maybe we just can’t train them to fight against each other.

But why can’t
countries that produce fierce insurgencies produce good-standing armies
in a reasonable amount of time? Is it just that insurgencies can be
more indiscriminate?

Things are so bad
that Robert Blackwill, who was on W.’s national security team, wrote in
Politico that the Obama administration should just admit failure and
turn over the Pashtun South to the Taliban since it will inevitably
control it anyway. He said that the administration doesn’t appreciate
the extent to which this is a Pashtun nationalist uprising.

We keep hearing
that the last decade of war, where we pour in gazillions to build up
Iraq and Afghanistan even as our own economy sputters, has weakened
al-Qaida.

But at his
confirmation hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, Gen. James Mattis, who is slated to replace Gen.

David Petraus, warned that al-Qaida and its demon spawn represent a stark danger all over the Middle East and Central Asia.

While we’re
anchored in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida network could roil Yemen “to the
breaking point,” as Mattis put it in written testimony.

Pakistan’s tribal
areas “remain the greatest danger as these are strategic footholds for
al-Qaida and its senior leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman
al-Zawahiri,” the blunt four-star general wrote, adding that they
“remain key to extremists’ efforts to rally Muslim resistance
worldwide.” Mattis told John McCain that we’re not leaving Afghanistan;
we’re starting “a process of transition to the Afghan forces.” But that
process never seems to get past the starting point.

During the debate
over war funds Tuesday, Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., warned that we
are in a monstrous maze without the ball of string to find our way out.

“All of the puzzle
has been put together, and it is not a pretty picture,” he told The
Times’ Carl Hulse. “Things are really ugly over there.”

© 2010 New York Times News Service

Sceptics are often likened to stopped clocks;
mostly wrong but occasionally right. They have mostly agreed on the
wrong-headed approach to the upcoming 50th anniversary of Nigeria –
especially on the billions of naira, which the federal government has
budgeted for this event.

To be sure, the arguments against the celebration
are multi-fold. There are some who said since we have collectively
managed to make a mess of the independence we snatched from the British
in 1960, there is precious little to celebrate this year. Others,
though not so dismissive of the nation’s achievements in the past 50
years, expressed worry that the sum of money budgeted for the
festivities is way too high – especially as the country is presently
facing several challenges that some of the money might well alleviate.

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) described the
budget as ‘wasteful’ and ‘insensitive.’ Others complained that the
budget was another elite slap on the faces of ordinary Nigerians.

The howl of protest against the initial N10
billion budget for the programme was so intense that virtually all
levels of government took time to distance themselves from it. The
National Assembly loudly denounced the estimates as wasteful while even
officials of the presidency, responsible for putting the budget
together, resorted to blaming their predecessor for the suddenly
strange figure. No matter. For a while, there is a sense that
moderation has leapt from the pages of the dictionary to inspire action
on the part of our national leaders.

This was backed by the decision of President
Goodluck Jonathan to slash the budget by almost seven billion to
N9billion, which he then represented to the Senate for approval. This
was speedily done. But it then emerged that the amount approved by the
Senate for the celebration is itself way above what the president asked
for. In fact, at N17b, it is markedly higher than the initial sum that
generated so much joint national outcry. The amount approved by the
Senate is thus higher than the amount requested by the president by an
excess of about N7.715 billion. The jump in the approved figure,
according to NEXT analysis, comes from huge increases in the allocation
to certain agencies of government, including the Federal Capital
Territory and the Ministry of Aviation. The Senate added N2.83 billion
to the amount requested for the FCT, while it also fattened the
approved budget for the Aviation ministry by an excess of N4.885
billion. It was all done quietly, of course. Unlike the original
proposal sent to the National Assembly by the executive, which had
detailed explanation for each allocation, the budget approved by the
lawmakers had no details and was arranged in lump sums for subheads
only. It gets curiouser. Most of the assembly officials questioned
about this denied knowledge of the breakdown of the new budget. This
does no good to the image of the Senate as the more sober of the two
chambers of the National Assembly. It does not matter that the Senate
had earlier condemned the first budget as excessive; after all there is
nothing bad about changing one’s mind. It is possible that the Senators
have sufficient grounds to increase the budget for the celebration, but
they would do well to share these reasons with Nigerians who still
remain unconvinced that such a huge sum of money should be spent to
mark their nation’s 50th anniversary. The finance minister took a stab
at offering an explanation when he said some of this money would go on
capital projects – including the construction of roads and buildings.
Maybe so. But we wonder what the N4.6 trillion recently passed by the
National Assembly was meant for, if we have to depend on another
supplementary budget for the execution of capital projects. It is all
so untidy. Our sceptics might also be forgiven in their assertion that
so much of this money will just go to ‘waste’ or into the ever-gaping
pockets of some officials.

The idea behind the celebration is to uplift the minds of Nigerians
and strengthen their belief in their country. The manner in which
funding for the event is being allocated is anything but uplifting. In
fact, it is acutely depressing. It also makes us wonder if the skeptics
aren’t right after all.

Over the past month, one question seemed to be on everyone’s
mind at the economic conferences I attended in Europe: How did referees miss a
goal that England scored against Germany in their World Cup match?

Soccer reform wasn’t the stated focus of these conferences.

But thinking about how to improve the sport’s regulations comes
naturally to economists, especially after a few beers, because some of the same
principles should be applied to economic regulation.

The first is that the regulator – in this case, the referee – is
fallible. So the rules should make the regulator’s job as easy as possible.

Second, regulators can’t detect every irregularity, so the
emphasis has to be on getting the big stuff right. Finally, we want
performance, not regulators, to determine the outcome. The best regulators are
those we don’t notice.

In soccer, one head referee has to cover a “pitch” larger than
an American football field. He has three assistants who must stand on the
sideline. There is plenty of evidence beyond that missed English goal that
referees are indeed human. For example, referees call more fouls against the
visiting team, and against bigger players. So, what can be done?

ADD REFEREES Put at least one more ref on the field. (Basketball
has three referees on a much smaller court.) The idea is under consideration by
FIFA.

This is a no-brainer for the World Cup, which generates billions
of dollars in revenue, but in the world of financial regulation, adding
referees is costly. Governments will need to cut budgets, so we need to make
regulators more efficient, not more numerous.

ADD TECHNOLOGY Although instant replay showed that England’s
goal should have counted, FIFA officials have resisted using technology that
could help.

Many technological solutions, including embedding an electronic
chip in the ball, would make the determination of goal scoring faster and more
accurate.

Technology can help in other regulatory areas as well, and is a
good way to increase efficiency. For example, requiring banks to file their
compliance data electronically drastically reduces the time it takes to conduct
an audit.

INCREASE SCORING In the most recent tournament, the teams
together scored 2.27 goals per match, the second-lowest number in history. The
problem with low-scoring games is not just that they bore uncultured Americans
like me. Low scores magnify the importance of referees’ decisions. When a team
is awarded a penalty kick, it scores about 75 percent of the time, and that’s
very likely to affect the outcome of a low-scoring game.

In finance, a useful analogy is to increase the capital
requirements for banks. By requiring banks to have a bigger security blanket,
regulators themselves have greater margin for error.

REDEFINE ‘OFFSIDE’ The offside rule is now too hard to enforce.
When a player passes the ball downfield, no one on his team can have any part
of his body farther downfield than any defender, aside from the goalkeeper. The
linesman calling these violations runs along the sideline, keeping parallel
with the offensive player closest to being offside – all while watching the
ball.

This requires wide-angle vision that humans don’t possess. Short
of eliminating the rule, we might limit offside calls to players whose entire
body is ahead of the defenders. That should be easier to detect, and might lead
to more goals scored.

The general point is to make the judgment tasks of regulators
easier. The Securities and Exchange Commission had trouble assessing the
technical arguments that strongly suggested that Bernie Madoff was a crook, but
they could have easily had a rule requiring him to document his assets under
management.

RETHINK PENALTIES Another idea is to adjust the silly yellow/red
card penalty system. There are three levels of fouls in soccer, depending
partly on whether the action is “careless,” “reckless” or “using excessive
force.” It is asking too much to think a referee can distinguish between
careless and reckless on the fly.

A system similar to basketball’s, in which accumulated fouls
lead to expulsion, and “flagrant” fouls are heavily punished, would be easier
to put into practice, especially if an off-field official kept track of the
running totals.

The general principle here is that we don’t want small
differences in behavior, which are difficult for a regulator to distinguish, to
lead to large differences in punishment.

REDUCE FAKING Finally, there is the problem of diving. After
falling, players routinely writhe on the ground until the referee either
believes they’ve been injured, ignores them or, rarely, imposes penalties for
“simulation.” These instant injury judgments are very difficult for a single
on-field referee.

Such decisions might be turned over to referees watching video
monitors – and empowered to impose stiff penalties for faking. Diving is the
soccer version of the inevitable attempts to influence financial regulators, in
matters both legal and illegal. One can think of video replays as a
transparency requirement. We can’t expect to eliminate special pleading by
financiers for taxpayer bailouts, of course, but perhaps we can reduce the
impact of such efforts by opening them to public view through increased
disclosure about the process and its beneficiaries.

New rules in either soccer or finance shouldn’t put any more
burden on individual referees. As Larry Summers, the director of the National
Economic Council, said recently, in revising financial regulations, we do not
want to require anyone to get any smarter.

Richard H. Thaler is a
professor of economics and behavioral science at the Booth School of Business
at the University of Chicago.

© 2010 New York Times News Service

The recurring crises in Jos, heartland of the Middle Belt, call
for prayers, vigilance, atonement and repentance. Too much blood has been shed;
too many dreams aborted in the evil and misguided belief that something good
can come out of violence.

In the last decade thousands of lives have been wasted. In the
first quarter of this year, close to 1000 people were killed in a mindless orgy
of violence. Since then combatants on the different sides of the divide have
perfected the stealthy act of smoking out their victims in the dead of the
night before hacking them to death.

It is an unconventional warfare, conceived by hatred, nurtured
by bigotry, and executed with cruelty. The latest harvest of deaths came
Saturday, July 17 in Mazzah village where another eight lives were snuffed out;
four alone from a clergyman’s household comprising of his wife, two children
and a grandson.

Regrettably, this wanton destruction of God’s children is a
manifestation of lingering ethno-religious-socio-economic problems, which have
not been addressed with the honesty of purpose they require.

The economic basis of the crises is rooted in the clash between
pastoral and agrarian communities in their search for land to pursue their
livelihoods.

Because the parties involved are broadly split into two dominant
ethnic groups, expressing two religious faiths, the conflict also wears an
ethnic and religious toga.

It is economic because largely itinerant Hausa-Fulani herdsmen,
in search of pastures to graze their cattle, periodically clash with Berom
farmers, who see the incursion of the pastoralists as an unfriendly invasion of
their farmlands.

Because the Berom are largely Christians and the Hausa-Fulani
predominantly Muslims, each party also sees the contest as a religious contest
for supremacy.

This explains why religious houses are easily targeted; churches
and mosques are burnt to shake adherents’ faith, confuse and disorient them.

The failure of governance over the years to manage this tension
between the two faiths has deepened distrust so much that access to government
patronage through employment, provision of social amenities, and business
contracts is seen through Christian-Muslim prisms. This cocktail of economic
injustice, religious persecution, communal frustration, ethnic subjugation, and
social discontent, has stunted efforts to build trust upon which progress,
peace and development are hinged.

The result is the easy recourse to violence to redress these
feelings of injustice.

Because past perpetrators of violence are seldom punished, the
state has sustained a culture of impunity, which encourages reprisal attacks,
in the unending cycle of each party wanting to prove to the other it does not
have a monopoly on violence.

The skewed federalism that we practice has also contributed to
this pervading insecurity.

A state governor, in theory, is described as the chief security
officer. In practice, internal security is in the hands of the police, a
federal institution. A state commissioner of police takes his directives from a
federally appointed Inspector General of Police. Intelligence passed to the
police at the communal or state level is subject to federal approval.

When the army is involved, presumably to help the police bolster
security, the pattern of uneven handedness also prevails. A perceived policy of
religious favoritism in the security network especially in the last three
decades lends credence to the growing charges that such centrally controlled
security machinery is inadequate and should give way for a more compact,
trust-engendering, community-based security arrangement that can respond faster
to states’ security needs.

Nigeria must make up her mind on the political philosophy of
development she wants to embrace. Our professed liberal democracy guarantees
religious freedom, which expects that no one should be molested while
exercising his/her constitutional rights. It has no room for burning of places
of worship, or vengeful killings while the security officials appear helpless.

Conflict resolution does not have a quick fix approach. It
requires a judicious blend of short and long-term measures that will deliver an
enduring outcome. In the short term, internal security should be reappraised.
Since the Jos metropolis is as important as its outskirts these dawn assaults
on poor citizens in the villages must be contained by expanding the frontiers
of protection. The state must partner with relevant citizen-groups to create
confidence-building measures that will engage the populace in the business of
reconstruction and drum in the message that nothing good comes out of destruction.
Lopsided appointments in the top echelons of our security outfits should be
avoided.

An equitable arrangement must also be fashioned to protect
economic rights of farmers while developing buffer zones for pastoral grazing
in the short term; ultimately the transition to modern ways of cattle husbandry
will bridge the gap between the past and future.

The time is now for all people of good conscience to partner
with the state in this search for peace, knowing that we are all God’s children
tied together to understand ourselves, appreciate our differences, but
acknowledge our common ancestry as creations of a truly awesome God.

Never say that the gods lack a sense of humor. I bet they’re
still chuckling on Olympus over the decision to make the first half of 2010 –
the year in which all hope of action to limit climate change died – the hottest
such stretch on record.

Of course, you can’t infer trends in global temperatures from one
year’s experience. But ignoring that fact has long been one of the favorite
tricks of climate-change deniers: They point to an unusually warm year in the
past, and say “See, the planet has been cooling, not warming, since 1998!”
Actually, 2005, not 1998, was the warmest year to date – but the point is that
the record-breaking temperatures we’re currently experiencing have made a
nonsense argument even more nonsensical; at this point it doesn’t work even on
its own terms.

But will any of the deniers say “OK, I guess I was wrong,” and
support climate action? No. And the planet will continue to cook.

So why didn’t climate-change legislation get through the Senate?
Let’s talk first about what didn’t cause the failure, because there have been
many attempts to blame the wrong people.

First of all, we didn’t fail to act because of legitimate doubts
about the science. Every piece of valid evidence – long-term temperature
averages that smooth out year-to-year fluctuations, Arctic sea ice volume,
melting of glaciers, the ratio of record highs to record lows – points to a
continuing, and quite possibly accelerating, rise in global temperatures.

Nor is this evidence tainted by scientific misbehavior.

You’ve probably heard about the accusations leveled against
climate researchers – allegations of fabricated data, the supposedly damning
e-mail of “Climategate,” and so on. What you may not have heard, because it has
received much less publicity, is that every one of these supposed scandals was
eventually unmasked as a fraud concocted by opponents of climate action, then
bought into by many in the news media. You don’t believe such things can
happen? Think Shirley Sherrod.

Did reasonable concerns about the economic impact of climate
legislation block action? No. It has always been funny, in a gallows humor sort
of way, to watch conservatives who laud the limitless power and flexibility of
markets turn around and insist that the economy would collapse if we were to
put a price on carbon. All serious estimates suggest that we could phase in
limits on greenhouse gas emissions with at most a small impact on the economy’s
growth rate.

So it wasn’t the science, the scientists, or the economics that
killed action on climate change. What was it?

The answer is, the usual suspects: greed and cowardice.

If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow
the money. The economy as a whole wouldn’t be significantly hurt if we put a
price on carbon, but certain industries – above all, the coal and oil
industries – would. And those industries have mounted a huge disinformation
campaign to protect their bottom lines.

Look at the scientists who question the consensus on climate
change; look at the organizations pushing fake scandals; look at the think
tanks claiming that any effort to limit emissions would cripple the economy.
Again and again, you’ll find that they’re on the receiving end of a pipeline of
funding that starts with big energy companies, like Exxon Mobil, which has
spent tens of millions of dollars promoting climate-change denial, or Koch
Industries, which has been sponsoring anti-environmental organizations for two
decades.

Or look at the politicians who have been most vociferously
opposed to climate action. Where do they get much of their campaign money? You
already know the answer.

By itself, however, greed wouldn’t have triumphed. It needed the
aid of cowardice – above all, the cowardice of politicians who know how big a
threat global warming poses, who supported action in the past, but who deserted
their posts at the crucial moment.

There are a number of such climate cowards, but let me single out
one in particular: Sen. John McCain.

There was a time when McCain was considered a friend of the
environment. Back in 2003 he burnished his maverick image by co-sponsoring
legislation that would have created a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas
emissions. He reaffirmed support for such a system during his presidential
campaign, and things might look very different now if he had continued to back
climate action once his opponent was in the White House. But he didn’t – and
it’s hard to see his switch as anything other than the act of a man willing to
sacrifice his principles, and humanity’s future, for the sake of a few years
added to his political career.

Alas, McCain wasn’t alone; and there will be no climate bill.
Greed, aided by cowardice, has triumphed. And the whole world will pay the
price.

(c) 2010 New York Times
News Service

The people of Abia State are living in a
perpetual, some would say primal, state of fear – and that is no
exaggeration. Observers will tell you that the security situation in
the state is grave. A recent report by this paper shows that citizens
have no faith that they are safe, even in the most basic way.

This is after all the state where armed bandits
now give victims notice before an onslaught. In June, when robbers went
into First Bank and Fidelity Bank right in the centre of Aba, they had
written to inform the banks of their intention.

And they kept their word.

It’s the stuff of urban legend, and it would have
been funny if it weren’t so tragic. What kind of spectacular failure
would our security services have to be that they cannot even prevent a
crime about which they have been pre-informed? There can only be two
options: either the forces are working in tandem with the crooks, or
they are just incapable of responding to the threats to life and
property.

Morbid as it sounds, we can only hope that the
former is the case. It is surely better to imagine that our lives can
be protected; that the government responsible for our well being has
the capacity to keep us safe and simply chooses not to do.

But to imagine that there is no minimum ability to
safeguard life and property; in essence that we live in a society where
anything goes, we shudder to imagine the consequences.

The new trend of course is kidnapping in the east,
of which Aba has now become the capital, starting from 2009. The
stories are truly fear inspiring. Residents speak of criminals using
sledgehammers to break through the wall of houses. It gives a whole new
meaning to brazen.

Anarchy, lawlessness: these are not words one
expects to associate with any political grouping in any civilized
society, much less a supposedly functioning democracy, but people who
live their lives and run their business in the area find that these are
the only words that capture the essence of their daily realities.
Beyond mere formality, little evidence exists in much of this region to
show that government still functions. And it’s been downhill for
everything.

Aba used to be famous as one of the country’s
commercial nerve centres. Compared to its reputation however, it has
now become a ghost town, and this goes beyond the fact that nightlife
has all but disappeared. Businesses are closing up on a regular basis,
and it goes without saying that no one is in a hurry to invest in the
area. Those who still have businesses standing complain about a drastic
drop in sales. Indeed, Aba used to be the place where customers buy in
bulk and bring to Lagos and other urban centres to sell. No more.

“Things have somersaulted in this town”, says Uche
Awa, the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Aba branch, all of
this leading to even more jobless youths lining the streets of a city
already bursting at the seams with the unemployed.

There are no empty words of faith or hope to offer
the people of Aba and other parts of the state. Their government –
including the governor, the police, and the president who is in charge
of the police force – seems to have abandoned them to their fate.

But of course, on hand to give much-needed
re-assurance to a panicked people is a senior police officer who calmly
tells us it is all in our minds. Ebere Onyeagoro, Area Commander of the
Aba Area Police Command, thinks the whole situation is greatly
exaggerated and the people of Aba just like a bit of drama. “The thing
is not so high,” he says. “The only thing is the people are blowing it
out of proportion. In those days there was more of it but now it is
only once in a while.” This is despite the fact that even corporate
organisations including Lever Brothers, Nigerian Breweries, Aba Textile
Mills and, most recently, Dana Motors have had to, yes, flee the area.

Well, at least – unlike the Imo State governor – he didn’t blame it on the Stock Exchange.

The fate of our languages was brought into focus
recently during the second International Conference on the Extinction
of Igbo Language held in Owerri, Imo State. The Minister of Labour and
Productivity, Chukwuemeka Wogu, who represented President Goodluck
Jonathan, made a revelation that should not surprise anyone.

Quoting the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Mr. Wogu said that the Igbo
language might become extinct in the next fifty years.

The fact is that it is not only the Igbo language
that is under threat of extinction in the country. All our indigenous
languages are endangered species and there seem to be no visible
efforts to rescue them. A few years back Babatunde Fafunwa, a professor
of education and one-time minister of education conducted a controlled
research in Ife where some pupils were taught all subjects, including
the sciences, in Yoruba and the others in English. At the end of the
experiment both groups were examined and those taught in Yoruba
performed better than those who had their lessons in English. At the
end of the experiment Mr. Fafunwa campaigned for the adoption of
indigenous languages as medium of instruction in schools across the
country. His recommendation was implemented for a while, and then
abandoned.

The endangered status of our indigenous languages
has become more pronounced in the new world order, represented by
globalisation, and with the advent of the borderless Internet, which
has succeeded in giving English fresh dominance at the expense of our
local languages.

This is mistaken. In Japan children are taught all
subjects including the core sciences in Japanese and the country today
is a leader in the all facets of science and arts. Russia too has
demonstrated this in its arts and literature.

Its world renowned writers such as Leo Tolstoy,
Fyodor Dostoevsky and a host of others wrote in their native languages
and attained world fame based on the translations of their works.

In Africa, this debate has been ongoing and a
writer such as Ngugi wa’ Thiongo has since decided to write in his
native Gikuyu language and translate to English later.

In recent times some State Houses of Assembly have
resolved to conduct debates in local dialects as a way of encouraging
the revival of the local tongue. In Anambra State, Governor Peter Obi
has outlawed the treatment of Igbo as ‘vernacular’ in public schools,
while his Edo counterpart Adam Oshiomhole has advocated the teaching of
Edo language at both primary and secondary school levels.

We appreciate these gestures but the way to
achieve what they intend goes beyond tokenism. Structures must be put
in place to help achieve the aim. For example literature publishing in
local languages should receive government support.

The huge task ahead is however not for the
government alone; parents and teachers have important roles to play as
well. The idea of treating our local languages as inferior to English
or any other foreign language must be discouraged.

Language is bound up with our history and identity and our sense of
who we are as a people. Our local languages must not be allowed to
succumb to the ravaging flood of globalisation. We must not allow our
local languages to die and end up on the UNESCO’s listing of ‘dead’
languages. This can – and will – happen if we fail to speak our
languages, and to teach our children to speak and to write them.