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Madaki O. Ameh
Legal Practioner
currently a
Chevening Scholar at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law
and Policy, University of Dundee, Scotland, U.K.
OBASANJO AND THE YEARS THE LOCUSTS HAVE EATEN
TOWARDS A USEFUL
POLICE IN NIGERIA
TOO MUCH HYPE ABOUT
NIGERIA'S OIL
MAKING POVERTY HISTORY IN
AFRICA BEYOND DEBT RELIEF AND AID
BEFORE WRITING
OFF THE US INTELLIGENCE
REPORT
SOLUDO'S FIRST MISTAKE
Curbing Corruption in Nigeria:
Exploring Alternative Strategies
WHY NIGERIANS SHOULD NOT PAY
TAX
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OBASANJO AND THE YEARS THE LOCUSTS HAVE
EATEN
by Madaki O. Ameh
When
President Obasanjo assumed the mantle of leadership of Nigeria in May
1999, one of his early promises which still resonates in my mind is
that he would, within a short period, restore the years the locusts
have eaten. He had also promised then, that ordinary Nigerians would
feel the positive impact of his administration’s policies within the
first six months, and that their lives would begin to transform for
the better within the first full year in office.
Against the backdrop of
all the failed promises and hard times Nigerians had endured under
different administrations, it was no wonder that the new
administration enjoyed tremendous goodwill, and Nigerians were really
hopeful that things would change and the country would finally find a
sense of direction. This feeling was further reinforced by the fact
that President Obasanjo had ruled Nigeria before as a military
General, voluntarily handed over power to civilians in 1979, and in
the twenty years before he came back as civilian President, he had
tasted the frustration of being a hard government critic and a
prisoner on death row. Most Nigerians felt that, with such pedigree,
it would be impossible for him to run the country as business as
usual, and were prepared to give him the full support he required to
turn the country around.
In his eagerness to
settle into business and get the job done, apparently fuelled by a
genuine sense of patriotism and the divine process which brought him
from prison to Aso Rock, he made a number of early promises, like
ensuring provision of 24 hours uninterrupted power supply by December
31st 2001, a date which has since come and gone without any
meaningful improvement in that sector. Even though this may be
excused as being a promise made without taking full stock of the
extent of problems on ground, this was not expected of a President who
had prior experience on that job, and for whom there was not supposed
to be any extensive learning process. Nigerians are used to being
told to be patient, as their problems cannot be solved in one day, but
the endless waiting game really tries their patience, and amounts to
their being taken for granted by their leaders.
At the end of the first
four years, it was difficult to point to any meaningful achievement of
the government, in spite of the praise-singing and media blitz on the
anti-corruption crusade, reforms and laying a solid foundation for
Nigeria’s future greatness, all of which were not skin deep. The
second term in office however held out better promise, with the
injection of some young and brilliant men and women into the
administration, some of who have started producing results. The
reforms in Nigeria’s banking sector by Prof. Charles Soludo, the
single-minded manner in which Mallam Nasir el-Rufai has pursued the
transformation of Abuja, in spite of all the odds stacked against him,
and more recently, the debt forgiveness achieved for Nigeria by the
doggedness of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala cannot go unnoticed, even by the
hardest critics of this administration. Nigerians who are weary of
waiting for positive change really desire for more of such success
stories to happen, and quickly too, and whoever poses an obstacle to
such achievements should be promptly fished out and handed over to the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which has also
demonstrated that they have a sense of purpose, and is fast warming
itself into the hearts of Nigerians who desire the best for their
country.
By promising to restore
the years the locusts have eaten, President Obasanjo has set for
himself a daunting task, akin to the divine, and history will judge
him based on how effectively he played that role while in office.
This is because Nigeria has suffered from the infestation of a specie
of locusts in their public office holders, never before known or seen
by most countries in the civilised world. And that is why, in spite
of all the enormous resources available to the country since
independence, ordinary Nigerians have never really seen the benefit of
their being citizens of this potentially great nation, as most of the
wealth is appropriated by a few individuals, who live like kings and
princes at our collective expense. The reality on ground is however
still a far cry from uhuru, with allegations of obscene corruption
against many public office holders like Tafa Balogun and others, who
were given high national honours by the President, even when such
allegations were in the public domain, which eminently calls to
question the President’s sense of judgement. Even when it became
obvious that Tafa Balogun had to be removed from office for
corruption, the President tried hard to grant him a soft landing by
announcing that he was going on retirement, and sent him a
congratulatory letter for his ‘meritorious’ service to his fatherland.
Such an effort at covering up is completely unbecoming of a President
who wants to be perceived as an anti-corruption crusader. Also, the
fact that no prominent Nigerian has yet been convicted of corruption
is a huge shame, and makes a mockery of the entire crusade, elevating
it to no more than a huge joke in the eyes of right thinking people.
In addition to the above,
the recent launching of the Obasanjo Presidential Library Project,
where all the prominent businesses in Nigeria and state governments
were summoned and virtually coerced to contribute obscene sums of
money towards a purely private project of a serving President, raises
such huge ethical questions that have become an albatross to any form
of anti-corruption posturing of this administration. The sage,
Professor Wole Soyinka has aptly described it as ‘executive
extortion’. The fact that the President, in the suit filed by the
indefatigable Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, challenging the legality of
the launching and requesting that the amounts realised be forfeited to
the Federal Government, is pleading immunity from prosecution, a
constitutional provision which he has openly reviled in his public
posturing, also calls to question the depth of his ethical standards.
One wonders where the difference lies between him and Chief Joshua
Dariye of Plateau State, who he has almost crucified in similar
circumstances. Even as one hopes that there will be a judicial
pronouncement on this national embarrassment during what is left of
President Obasanjo’s tenure, it is not unlikely that the snail pace of
Nigeria’s judicial process and the tendency of Nigerians to move on to
other more important things, will again sweep this matter into
oblivion, and the President will simply walk away with his loot.
Finally, there has been a lot of euphoria about the debt forgiveness
achieved by Nigeria recently with the Paris Club which needs to be put
in its proper perspective. Even though it is a positive development
for Nigeria to be free of debt, in the hope that a new beginning will
arise for the people, we must never lose sight of how we got to this
situation in the first place. In all the public commentaries I have
read in connection with the debt forgiveness and how Nigeria’s debt
stock was accumulated, accusing fingers have continuously been pointed
at imaginary past bad leaders who took loans irresponsibly without
ensuring that its terms were favourable to Nigeria. In the euphoria,
no one seems to emphasise that throughout the period of Nigeria’s
unfortunate and costly civil war when there was no easy oil money,
Nigeria did not borrow a dime from anywhere, and that the first jumbo
loan of $3 billion taken by Nigeria was taken by President Obasanjo
when he was military Head of State. Up till this moment, we have not
been told what that loan was taken for, and given the penchant of
people to copy bad habits, all the other loans taken by subsequent
administrations were merely borrowing a leaf from a bad precedent that
had already been set. If President Obasanjo, as Head of State had
sustained the strict discipline of not taking foreign loans by the
earlier administration of General Yakubu Gowon, which he could easily
have done, given the fact that there was a huge oil boom in the
country at the time, the subsequent civilian administration would have
been wary of perfecting what he started. The amorphous nature of
computation of interests and penalties on foreign loans clearly
indicates, even to the uninformed, that $3 billion in 1978/79, poorly
managed, would far outstrip the current national debt stock. It
therefore appears that the origin of the locusts in Nigeria’s body
politic is becoming apparent, and that rather than dancing in the
streets for forgiveness of accrued interests and penalties on a
dubious debt, we should actually be thanking God that He gave
President Obasanjo the chance to clear up his mess in the first
place. And he is doing this with hard earned excess crude oil
revenue, which should have been better applied to provide much needed
infrastructure for Nigerians.
President Obasanjo has less than two years more to fully restore the
years the locusts have eaten, as he promised at the inception of his
administration six years ago, the annoying speculation of extension of
the tenure of his administration notwithstanding. Nigerians will not
just accept dubious statistics this time around but would like to see
measurable improvements in their lives when the epitaph of this
administration is written. But the ever present threat of increase in
prices of petroleum products, as if Nigeria buys crude oil from the
international market, or that the citizens are to blame for the shame
of not being able to refine the product locally, the rising
unemployment rate, crisis in Nigeria’s educational and health system,
extra-judicial murders by the Police, and worsening standards of
living of Nigerians by the day, are glaring indications that the
locusts are still very much around, and that the current species may
even be more resistant to pesticides. Even as we pray for things to
improve, we must all accept that God has been exceedingly good to
Nigeria, and that our problems cannot just be solved by prayers, but a
dogged determination on the part of the citizenry to hold those who
have put themselves incharge of our affairs to account. [back
to Top News]
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"The
second term in office however held out better promise, with the
injection of some young and brilliant men and women into the
administration, some of who have started producing results. The
reforms in Nigeria’s banking sector by Prof. Charles Soludo, the
single-minded manner in which Mallam Nasir el-Rufai has pursued the
transformation of Abuja, in spite of all the odds stacked against
him, and more recently, the debt forgiveness achieved for Nigeria by
the doggedness of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala cannot go unnoticed, even
by the hardest critics of this administration. Nigerians who are
weary of waiting for positive change really desire for more of such
success stories to happen, and quickly too, and whoever poses an
obstacle to such achievements should be promptly fished out and
handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),
which has also demonstrated that they have a sense of purpose, and
is fast warming itself into the hearts of Nigerians who desire the
best for their country."
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