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Wolves In Sheep Clothing? Issues Of Access To, Printing Money, And Rebranding Nigeria. By Dr. Felix S Odaibo fodaibo@hotmail.com Dear John, It is time to tackle this issue of why I keep reading and writing about Nigeria. Having left Nigeria for all these donkey years, one should not look back you say! You have also expressed the fact that I have a good job, my children are all in good schools, Health and Dental care are not issues I even think twice about. My life is secure as I can worship unhindered at anytime anywhere, keep my front door unlocked and travel anytime of the night without fear of being attacked by robbers. So you ask why do I continue to look at what and how things are being done or not done in Nigeria and not leave you people alone. You claim being so far away, we have the privilege to talk freely, laden with a holier than thou attitude. You claim that it is easy for me to criticize as when one is enmeshed in the Nigerian system, one becomes either corroded, co-opted or corrupted . Either way you said one can never be the same again. Otherwise you get excluded. The situation is also true of Nigerian Newspapers compared to their counterpart Internet news portal ones that have been displaying good and fearless Journalism, only because they are aware that they cannot be reached, bribed or clamped in jail, though one of their journalist was detained in Nigeria, - despite YarAdua’s Mantra of rule of law - for months. He has just been awarded Naira 500 million case against the Federal Government! You prod me with questions such as why do I want to be burdened and made aware of these acts of recklessness displayed by the Politicians back home, as if I do not have enough of my personal problems abroad to deal with. You even reason that the fact that I even find myself abroad in the first place, despite Nigeria's huge potential, is enough cause of angst to avoid everything Nigerian. Firstly, in time, the present issues become history. You are either a student of history, relying on other people's fading or jaundiced and biased memory of the issues that were current or contemporary then, or you are part of the present discourse; acutely aware, cognizant of the role of each player in the issues and being able to make informed judgment and commentaries now, for the sake of posterity. For we can never know what role God will throw down our laps in future. See the case of Obasanjo, Mandela, Tsvangirai, Museveni etc.! Secondly, as a citizen, I have every right to be fully involved and contribute to how we are governed and how wisely the tax/oil money is being spent. Let me give you four examples why I cannot but be involved in affairs of Nigeria. A.] Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu who has left office as the immediate past governor of Nasarawa State, had two lions he bought for security at the Lafia Government House and they continue to burrow into the state’s meager resources? Do you know that - "The incumbent administration has budgeted an annual salary of N18 million (N1.5 million per month) to take care of the ferocious creatures kept at the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Abuja." The article goes further, "The lions (a male and female) are ironically said to be ill due to lack of proper feeding and care, arising from what sources at the Commission disclosed is the concealment of the two animals’ monthly budget by certain officials of the Commission. Sunday Sun - Sunday, March 15, 2009 Where is our priority even though I love animals! Imagine how many workers this tidy sum can pay a few hundreds of Nasarawa citizens. May be there are no salary arrears for the State workers, even then Imagine what N1.5 Million would do in buying a few books, vaccine, chloroquine or whatever for the children of that state. Situations like this stick out as to the glaring lack of priority and direction of our leaders and their being so vainglory. Should we keep quiet here? If in future, someone wants to use a tiger as a personal guard animal then I would remember one Abdullahi Adamu has been there before! B.] Our dear Iwu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has criticized the nation's elite for compromising the electoral system and hear this "called for a comprehensive reform that will encompass Nigeria's political and economic development." Does he not see 'electoral' being classified under Political process? Had he not once said that our Electoral System is perfect, EVEN MORE SO THAN THAT OF USA! How would I have known that our very own Chairman of INEC, did you say after the horses have bolted, has these radical and radically changing views, if I have not been closely following events in Nigeria?
This is getting pretty heavy now and sounding very Un-Nigerian. Did he clear this with the President, or is he not aware that the President retains the right to chose the Chairman of INEC? Even so, some other Politician will say "Wait a minute, when it is now my turn you are talking about LIMITING ACCESS TO MONEY?"
Apparently, the INEC boss made the remarks
while speaking on the topic: "The Electoral Processes and the Imperatives
of Electoral Reform in Nigeria" at the Senior Executive Course 31 of the
National Institute of Strategic Studies(NIPSS), Kuru, Jos.
This is pretty philosophical and serious! If I get what he is saying is that what we need is not truly thinking men as they can be bought in Nigeria, but morally upright beings. With all these, John, you are asking me to keep quiet and out of all this fun when we are already preparing for a new election and the attendant drama? INEC will soon publish a new agenda in May, Electoral reform White paper is taking such an inordinately long time to come about to the point that it is almost in itself ready to be re-reformed. HABA! And I should keep mute? If I had not seen the publication of Punch Friday, March 13, 2009 that Screamed : EFCC: Judge orders Iwu's probe over N27.7bn funds I wouild have missed out on the other side of this evolving story. "A Federal High Court in Abuja, on Thursday, granted the application of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, seeking the leave of the court to compel the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Maurice Iwu. " Would we eventually know who the truly "thinking men" are in Nigeria if the case is ever concluded? Kuru. There is something about temperate environment that cools your brain isn't it? I remember a few years ago some of our Reps took a long sabbatical abroad so as to deliberate on issues that affect Nigeria. Lucky chaps! There are too many distractions in Nigeria I must say, especially now that the world is starting to know that there are not a few deserving of FORBES list that are missing in action. C. Did you hear that Jimoh Ibrahim has asked that Nigeria print more money! To simple minds, it makes sense for how would people like Dangote and Otedola and other undeclared world's richest in Nigeria who have lost $2tn to stockmarket meltdown, recoup their money? "The global financial crisis has wiped 332 names off Forbes Magazine's "rich list" of world billionaires. The latest Forbes billionaires rankings released yesterday (Thursday) shows that only 793 people scaled through the crisis hurdle to clinch various positions on the list, but not before losing about 23 per cent of their wealth on the average. The world's richest men lost $2tn in 2008 to scale down their combined wealth from $4.4tn to $2.4tn in 2009, according to Agence France Presse. Punch Friday, March 13, 2009. There is counter argument though,- http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/mar/14/national-14-03-2009-01.htm Please Mr. President, despite what some of these moneybags say, do not print more money. You will recall that Soludo was trying to consolidate the Naira a few years ago and he was shot down. I do not want to believe that a conter-strategy is winning the day! With Nigeria, you never know what Voodoo economics predominates. Go back in History, ask Idi Amin's Uganda of the 70's, Brazil and Argentina of the 80's, Sierra Leone in the 90's, even Ghana a few years ago, and Zimbabwe now ! Even me, I know that It is not how many denominations you have in your pocket that matters, but the value, how much it can buy! D.] Do we really need to rebrand Nigeria? INFORMATION and Communications Minister, Dora Akinyuli, yesterday sought the support of the National Assembly for the latest Federal Government's image laundering project tagged, "Re-branding Nigeria. At a meeting with the information committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives at the National Assembly, Akinyuli said the project was conceived following the failure of the "Heart of Africa" campaign on which she said over N1 billion was expended from 2007. She said it was imperative to re-brand the country to protect ordinary Nigerians who had "suffered serious embarrassment" on account of the bad image foisted on the nation by the international community. It is not the Leaders that are suffering but the ordinary Nigerians! Can I suggest something? The first step is to protest strongly and in no uncertain terms to Forbes that we have been dealt an under-the-belt blow. We definitely have many more Billionaires than represented by these two. It is grossly unfair. It is a shame that we are not talking about Naira denominations, we would have been talking about Trillionaires! What an Insult for only 2 Billionaires coming from the Giant of Africa. We should protest vehemently! What happened to all these billions from those slush funds, unfinished power and refinery contracts, kickbacks, mobilization kicks and excess 'greasy and crude' oil accounts so far unaccounted for? If the funds are with our foreign trading partners then what we should be doing is not rebranding Nigeria but asking that the money be repatriated forthwith. I wonder if the swiss Bank will ever carry out their threat of showing their books to the whole world. I know that you "do not put new wine in old skin." Until we can clean up as much as possible of all the corruption in high places, institute stringent laws that will stop Nigeria being a corridor for drug transshipment and repackaging as well as seeing our leaders that bring the full power of the law against such perpetrators of Electoral and 419 malpractice, any attempt at rebranding Nigeria will be like "putting old wine in new skin." Ordinary citizens will suffer even more as the whole world knows that it is still the same old rotten egg in a new package! Please expose the wolf and deal with the issues. One thing I agree with Iwu however is that the elite disappoint, but the ordinary citizens suffer serious embarrassment.
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