The Fashola poser: ‘Is regular water and electricity supplies, good governance?’

BY CHIKA ABANOBI

That was one of the questions that Baba­tunde Raji Fashola, the immediate past governor of Lagos State, posed at the 16^th Annual Bishop Mike Okonkwo Lecture, when, as the guest lecturer, he spoke on the topic: “The Nigerian Political Class and the Citizen’s Quest for Good Governance.”

So, what’s your take? The audience’s response was a resounding yes. But Fashola who was de­scribed earlier by Prof. George Obiozor, (Nigeria’s former ambassador to United States of America, and later to Israel, and chairman of the occasion) as “the high priest of the political class,” and, by Tee A, Nigeria’s popular comedian, as “the politi­cians’ politician and administrators’ administrator, a man who makes a promise and stands by his promise,” was not convinced that the audience’ response will be a generally accepted one outside MUSON Centre, the venue of the lecture.

His reason: from experience, he said, Nigerians are not generally agreed yet on what should con­stitute good governance. “I think it is easy to agree that a government that provides electricity and water supply can be considered as a good one. But not all of the people will be happy with regular power and water supply. Those who import gen­erators or who supply water in tankers, will not be happy with a government that makes power and water regularly available.”

REGULAR WATER AND ELECTRIC­ITY SUPPLIES

Fashola’s lecture was full of such posers, about 50 of them, meant not only to make the audience, and by extension, the general public engage their minds in self-reflection but to also show that the average Nigerian citizen, nay, electorate, is his or her own greatest enemy.

“The question is: ‘What is good governance?’ he asked. “Can we agree on a definition? If there’s regular supply of fuel, is that good governance?” The audience said, yes. Then he came in with a clincher: “Is there nobody here who sells fuel on the highway? That person wouldn’t regard regular fuel supply as a mark of good governance. In the last two weeks before the election, business was booming. Wasn’t it? But now, the business is lon­ger booming because for some reason, the supply is a bit stable; you can now drive into fuel station and drive out. Majority of us may agree that that is good governance, but there is a minority among us who don’t see that as a mark of good gover­nance. Indeed regular fuel supply cannot be good news for those who sell in kegs of many notches above the recommended market price.”

SPONSORSHIP OF RELIGIOUS PIL­GRIMAGE

“Is sponsorship of Hajj to Mecca and, of pil­grimage to Jerusalem, good governance?” Fas­hola asked. Many in the audience said no. “But some governments and parties have won election because of it. And I can tell you that some people have voted for governments and parties only be­cause of that. For some people, their own measure of good governance is sponsorship to Hajj and Jerusalem by the government of the day. Current figures revealed that sponsorship to Hajj this year will cost about N785, 000 per person. Yet some poor woman or a child would lose their lives during childbirth because they cannot afford to pay the cost of a caesarian section which rang­es between N150, 000 and N1, 000, 000. Some people will die of malaria because they cannot afford anti-malaria drugs that cost between N300 and N1, 500. Is it good governance to sponsor pil­grims with N785, 000 and lose human like that could have been saved by less than N1, 000,000, at the maximum?”

“I have no issues with anybody going on pil­grimage,” he explained. “The point I am trying to make is what each of us defines as good gov­ernance that endears us to a particular party or to a particular candidate, differs from person to person. And it will take us inexorably to the ul­timate conclusion that we have to draw: we have not agreed as a nation on what should be the min­imum parameters of public good that we can ask our government to give us. Some people, for ex­ample, expect that the government must provide a house and it must be free (general laughter). And, a government that doesn’t deliver that, as far as that person is concerned is not a good government.

“Some people expect also that they should not take health insurance; they should not contribute to their own well-being and that they can have five, six, seven babies and then those five, six, seven babies will also go to school free (laughter). That is the legitimate expectation of some people. Let us be clear about it: we need to come together and say, look, a government that does A, B, C, D, qualifies to be called a good government.

“To be on the same page is going to be diffi­cult because even in mummy’s kitchen we are still debating whether to have eggs, or fish or rice or tuwo. So, because of all of this, some of us have argued, politically, that really instead of providing these services – water, fuel, roads, let’s just mon­etize them. So, instead of building schools, hos­pitals, power plants, refineries, roads, bridges and life-enabling structures that we find in countries like Finland and South Africa, there has been a strange thinking, of do nothing but have it mon­etized. On the eve of election, just distribute food, money, distribute some kerosene and some rice. They said this is the infrastructure of the stomach. And, it has produced result! Election has been won that way. Why should we then complain if the person we elected end up not doing anything within the four or eight years of his administra­tion? Really, for every finger we point at the polit­ical class, four are pointing back at us.”

TRADING ON ROADSIDE/WALKWAY

In the course of his introduction of Fashola as the guest speaker, Tee A, who was the moderator of the day’s programme, had, as is typical of co­medians, told some funny stories to enliven the atmosphere. One of his friends, he said, had an uncle “whose eyes do not stay in a particular di­rection. Every time he is driving, he is looking out for young girls, even when his wife is with him. One day, his wife caught him and said, ‘Honey, what are you looking at?’ Out of the blues, the man said, ‘Ah, Fashola o n try’(laughter). The wife looked at my friend who was sitting at the back and said, ‘What did Fashola try?’ That one said he did not know.

“Later, when they got down from the car, his uncle said to him, ‘you are stupid. I said, ‘Fashola o n try (Fashola has tried),’ instead of you to say, yes, you are busy running your mouth another way and trying to disgrace me before my wife.’ My friend said he didn’t understand what he meant. He said: ‘Didn’t you see those two beau­tiful girls?’ In his mind, he was wondering what Fashola has got to do with that, when his uncle asked: ‘Is he (Fashola) not the one that did the wide and beautiful walkway that those girls are walking on? If the sidewalk was not good, would those girls think of taking a walk? (laughter).”

Remembering Tee A’s joke, Fashola asked the  audience: “Is it good governance for government to allow people to be trading on the roadside? The audience said no. “But we have them because immediately government tries to remove them, what do we say? The government is anti-poor. The government will lose election? You don’t support the government to do that. So, it seems to me that we want good governance but we are not acting good governance. The truth is that, gov­ernment, ultimately, responds to what we want. These for me, are the examples that animate the discussion.

THE ‘BAN’ ON COMMERCIAL MO­TORCYCLISTS

“I will give you one more example of the lack of consensus on what constitutes good gover­nance. At one point during my tenure as Gover­nor of Lagos, we received monthly reports of at least 15 deaths per month, 600 accidents of vary­ing degrees, per month, from government hospi­tals alone and increase in robberies through the use of motorcycles. That was the reports we were getting. In one instance, a young medical doc­tor was shot on Ikorodu road and it was impos­sible to track the assailants because they simply hopped onto a motorcycle on the other side of the road and rode away. We don’t have enough doc­tors yet but they shot one in broad daylight. Police couldn’t respond because those who perpetrated the deed jumped on a bike faced oncoming traffic and escaped.

“On one occasion, my security men and I ar­rested three people driving on a bike and riding against traffic on a bridge leading to the Third Mainland bridge. We stopped them and they were telling us to go back. But they were riding against traffic (general laughter). But when my men came out, they suddenly realized they were policemen and tried to bolt. But they were un­lucky that day. We arrested them and found on them a gun. We also found a woman’s purse and a woman’s bag. In it were some baby diapers. But there were three men on that bike and there was no woman. You can draw your conclusion.

“Now, we were losing lives. People were los­ing limbs. Our most important capital, human life, was being diminished because some people wanted to do business – ride motorcycles. Is that good governance? Should that continue?” The audience said no. “So, what did we do? We went back to law and order. We amended the old traf­fic law that has been in existence in Nigeria since 1949.

“Our House of Assembly held a public hearing inviting all those operators who will be affected by the amendment to give their own contribu­tions. On the second day of August 2012, I signed the bill into law which restricted motorcycle of less than 200 cc capacity from plying 475 roads out of over 10,000 roads. So, they could ply over 9,000-something inner roads. That was five per cent restriction of the total number of roads. In places where there were no restriction, the law required riders to have registration plates on their motorcycles for identification. We required them and their passengers to wear safety helmet. It pre­vented them from carrying pregnant women and little children and from carrying more than one passenger. The law also prohibited them from rid­ing against traffic. It required them to obey traf­fic signs and to stop at traffic lights. One of their complaints is that we did not provide enough street signs. We rolled out about 15,000 signs. La­dies and gentlemen, was that good governance?” The audience said yes.

“If all of us say it is good governance, why was there opposition? Some of them said that there were bad parts of the law but I don’t recall any­body who specifically mentioned that bad part. In any event, we were the first to acknowledge that there’s no law made by man that could be per­fect. We ourselves are not perfect. If the quality of a Law must be assessed, it seems to me that the standards of assessment must be the policy intent of the law itself rather than a few sections that may have been inelegantly written. This is because a law is an expression of policy. So, a law that makes murder an offence is an expression of a policy that seeks to protect human life even if sections of it may be badly drafted. Therefore the quality of law must be tested against the policy intention of Government that it seeks to project. What does the law seek to stop? What does it seek to achieve?

“The law set out to save lives. But some peo­ple felt that we were anti-poor. Our opponents joined the chorus in a deceitful act of double­speak because many of their states had done the same thing without passing a law. They deliber­ately christened a restriction on 5.6% of roads as a ban. But let us look at the result of the policy. The 15 deaths per month dropped first to three per month, later to one per month and later there were no reported deaths in the whole of 2014. The over 600 reported accidents dropped to about 100 accidents monthly (83%) and the Commis­sioner of Police reported an 85% drop in crime over a 10-month period of the enforcement of the law. For those who may say this is not good governance, I will refer to Section 14 (2) (b) and (c) of the 1999 Constitution where it is provided as follows: “(2) It is hereby accordingly declared that: (b) the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government; and (c) the participation by the people in their gov­ernment shall be ensured in accordance with the provisions of this constitution.”

“This is what we sought to do by holding a public hearing before the law was passed and the security and welfare of the people was achieved by the lives we saved with the law. This is the pri­mary purpose of government as prescribed by our constitution.”

REGULAR PAYMENT OF TAX

It is also part of good governance that citizens ensure that they paid their tax promptly and regu­larly, Fashola argued. He is such a wonderful and dutiful public servant, Tee A, had joked before he came up to deliver the lecture. “He would see you doing your work instead of him to face his own, he would be looking over your shoulder. ‘Tee A!’ Fashola would call out. ‘I said, ‘what?’ He would say, ‘tax, tax, your tax, have you paid?’. Turning to Fashola, he said: ‘At least, now we are the same. You too will pay your tax now!’ (laughter).

“As far as taxation is concerned, this is anoth­er matter entirely,” Fashola remarked during the lecture. “Some politicians and political parties are still campaigning that they will stop the payment of some taxes in order to induce votes and deceive people. To the extent that democratic governance is representative, then taxation is the basis of rep­resentation. Those who earn income and do not pay do not deserve to be represented. Not only is it ille­gal not to pay tax, it is corrupt to benefit from the proceeds and services delivered by taxes when one who is entitled to pay does not pay.

“During my tenure of service, our data showed that about nine million people were employed and earning income of one form or the other out of our population of 21 million people (the re­mainders were either minors, in school, too old or unemployed). Nevertheless only 4.5 million were paying the taxes that run the state for all of us. The number was only about 500,000 tax payers in 2007 but thankfully because of the services we provid­ed, more people started paying until we got to 4.5 million, but there are still 4 million not paying. If these people fulfill their part of the social contract, if they participate, if they put their money where their mouth is, the burden will be lighter, the pie will be bigger, the delivery of public goods will get better, the cost of enforcing tax compliance will reduce and can be put to other services.

“Voting and taxation are only examples of partic­ipation that deliver good governance and until we all imbibe this as part of life, where voting and pay­ment of taxes become a badge of honour, we will be in breach of our participatory covenant of the social contract. Can we then expect good governance un­der the democratic structure when we are in breach of our own part of the contract?”

Adeyemi vs Melaye: U-turn as INEC confirms APC primary held

From Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja

THE Election Petition Tribu­nal sitting in Lokoja, Kogi State, Tuesday accepted the close of defence of the All Progressive Congress and Dino Melaiye in the case brought by Smart Adeyemi challenging the election of Melaiye as the senator repre­senting the Kogi West Senato­rial District.

At the resumed hearing of the case, APC and Melaiye had brought three witnesses to counter the allegations of the petitioner (Smart Adey­emi) that the election was fraught with irregularities and that the APC candidate never participated in any party pri­mary election before he con­tested for the general election.

But a witness brought from the Independent Na­tional Electoral Commission, (INEC), Abuja office, Ibrahim Sanni Mohammed stunned members of the Tribunal when he said the commis­sion monitored the conduct of the APC primary election contrary to the stand of INEC office in the state which was documented via the INEC lawyer, that Melaiye did not participate in the party pri­mary before was presented as the APC candidate.

While under cross exami­nation by Adeyemi’s counsel, Olakayode Olatoke(,SAN) ,the witness said the supeana summoning him to the tri­bunal was addressed to him directly rather than being ad­dressed to the commission to nominate witness as it used to be.

The witness under cross ex­amination also said he did not know the INEC official that conducted the primary but was only availled the report of the exercise, mentioning two different locations where the primary was conducted.

Appointments: South merely crying wolf -Shuluwa

Says Jonathan was more sectional

From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi

OUTSPOKEN Peoples Demo­cratic Party (PDP) Chieftain, Chief Abu King Shuluwa, claimed that President Muhammadu Bu­hari has achieved within 100 days what his party could not achieve in 16 years. In this chat, the for­mer member of the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission, however, said the president must first take the anti-corruption war to the judiciary if he wants to make an impact in that area. He also spoke on other salient issues affecting both the na­tion and his home state, Benue.

Excerpts:

What is your reaction to the alleged lopsided appointments by President Buhari?

If you remember, I had an inter­view with you about two years ago or thereabouts. In that interview, I warned Jonathan, I warned Edwin Clarke and Asari Dokubo that the way they were speaking and the way they were going about issues, I said one day this power will shift. I reminded them that power is transient and will leave the south and come to the north. North is not just Hausa/Fulani per se. North is another nation of itself.

When the power was in the south, particularly the Niger-Delta, every juicy appointment was given to the South, with very few to the North. How many appointments did Jonathan make in Benue? Take the north central as a whole. The north central has seven states, how many appointments did he make from the north central? I want you to cast your mind back and look at what Jonathan did. If you look at the appointments Jonathan made, all the major appointments were from the south. Secretary to the Government of the Federation was from the south, National Se­curity Adviser was from the south, chief of Staff was from the South. Minister of Finance was from the south, Petroleum Minister was from the south. Minister of Avia­tion was from the south. Minister of Agriculture was from the south. Health Minister was from the south. Minister of Power was also from the south. Look at the lop­sided appointments. The south-south is one geopolitical zone and when you look at these positions, they are more than 40 . They all came from the South. Nobody complained or talked about it. I spoke about it two years ago. In one of my interviews with The Sun then, I said when this power comes back to the north, there would be a revenge.

However, Buhari is not reveng­ing. How many appointments has he made so far? Just about seven out of which three or four are from the north-east and not even from his home state. So, when people sit down in the south to say that Bu­hari is from the north, you tell me, who is from Benue among those he has appointed so far? Nobody.

Is Benue not in the north? Yes it is. How many appointments has Buhari made made from the north-Central and is the north-central not in the north? Has he made any appointment from Kaduna State? Who is from Kebbi that is in that appointment? Who is from Gombe that has got this appointment? It baffles me when people sit in the south and talk about Buhari as the President of the northern Nigeria. When we are talking as Nigerians, we should understand that we are all Nigerians. Yes, Buhari is from the north but how many has he made from Daura? Remember that even the NNPC head during Jonathan’s time was from the south-east.Nobody talked about that then. Now, the same Igbos are saying Buhari is a northern Governor. But do the appointments reflect the north? He had only made seven appointments. Three out of his appointments are from Borno. Borno is not Fulani but Kanuri. That shows you that the man is not tribalistic. He had said that he knows those who suffered with him and wherever he goes, thy would be with him. And I think those appointments are his prerogative and he has not violated the constitution by those appoint­ments.

I agree, if you want to ap­point somebody who should work closely with you so that you can achieve a goal, would you allow somebody to give you the person of his choice and not your choice? Buhari wants to deliver Nigeria and in doing so, he wants to choose people he wants. He doesn’t want people to ‘give’ him people.

The onus of choice rests with him and if he fails, he has failed with his colleagues. If he succeeds, then he has succeeded with his colleagues. I don’t buy the idea of Buhari running a northern govern­ment or that he is president of the north.

Jonathan did worse than Buhari. During Jonathan, the whole of Abuja was taken over by the south-south. Go to any big hotels or companies then. Flashy cars in Abuja were being driven by people from the south-south. And bad talks were coming from the south-south more than anywhere simply because they were in power. You don’t see that coming out from the north. We don’t make noise. And the people from the south should know that there are other tribes in the north aside Hausa and Fulanis. And when you put these other tribes from the north together, they are more than Fulani and Hausa. Unlike in the east where the Igbos are the majority and if you put all the other smaller tribes in the east together, the Igbos are still the ma­jority but it is not like that in the north. So, the south should not b crying wolf when there is no wolf.

How do you assess the Presi­dent in the last 100 days?

Let me tell you this honestly, not as a PDP man or APC man, but as a Nigerian, people who share Buhari’s view in Nigeria are very few. Buhari is talking about corruption and he wants to run cor­ruption out of Nigeria. He wants to enhance security, economy and youth empowerment. People who have that kind of burden for Ni­geria are very few. As to whether Buhari will succeed, if Buhari wants to succeed, he must start the war against corruption from the judiciary. This is because when most of the corrupt people go to the judiciary, they are set free. Our judiciary is becoming very corrupt. Totally corrupt. And before you say anything, they would say ‘rule of law’. And when the rule of law is to be followed, what do you do? We have a situation whereby armed robbers would engage lawyers to defend him and in the end, he would be set free. A man who has stolen our money from our treasury, in the final analysis would engage the services of the best lawyers and he can get away with it. And when he gets away with it what happens? He would sit and enjoy his loot with his family while the generality of the people suffer. Our children have become shaves to those who have looted our treasury. So, in essence, what Buhari is doing so far, I have given him 99 percent pass. Buhari has not appointed ministers yet, but we all know that Buhari wants to get to the root of Nigeria’s problems through the permanent secretaries who are now the accounting offi­cers of the various ministries. And most of these monies that are sto­len are not from the ministries but through agencies such as NNPC, Central Bank, and so on. So, Bu­hari wants to know exactly where he can block these loopholes. And he knows it because he was a head of state and a minister of this country. Given the kind of person he is and now that God has given him the power to be the president of this country, he will try. And so far, so good. I only pray to God that God should protect and give him wisdom to protect the fortunes of this country. Nigeria is rich and if anybody tells you Nigeria is not rich, he is lying. Nigeria is rich but its riches are in the pockets of few individuals who sit on top of the money or keep the money in their rooms. Nigeria’s money is not in the bank because these looters don’t put it in the bank.

Don’t you think Interference of the APC henchmen can dis­tract Buhari?

Buhari has only spent 100 days in office out of his four-year man­date. Hundred days is too short to evaluate a person whether he has done well or not. What we need now is to be patient with Buhari. The APC warlords also have to be get very patient. Yes, they have contributed to Buhari’s emergence but did they contribute do that they can get their money back of their contribution Is towards a better Nigeria? I think they chose Buhari because they want this country to be run properly. They chose him to win an election because they knew Buhari is the type Nigerians espe­cially the ‘talakawas’ want. They should allow Buhari to perform and should never attempt to disturb him. All we need to continue pray­ing for him is that God will protect him and give him the wisdom to rule Nigeria well. I am sure the APC wants to rule for more than the period the PDP has ruled. Whatever they do now, if they are not careful, we the PDP will easily take over power from them in the next election and continue to rule. So, if the APC is now fighting the presidency, I can assure you that it will be nowhere in the next election. On the other hand, the only way you can remove Buhari is by impeachment and if he has not committed any impeachable offense, how can you remove him? It is difficult to level any impeach­ment charges against Buhari as if now.

Do you agree with those who say that the PDP is not prepared for the role of opposition that it has found itself now?

That is very true. What has happened to PDP is what they envisaged could happen. Nobody ever thought the APC would win this election. Let me be very honest with you. But the actors and players of the PDP failed us. They took everything for granted thinking they were going to win by any means and therefore did not work towards winning the elections. They were busy fighting among themselves. For example, there were two PDPs; old PDP and new PDP. Look at the number of people that decamped and yet PDP was saying there was no problem. Instead of them to find out why the people were leaving the party and find a way to reconcile them and bring them back, they did not. Most of those who left the PDP have won elections in the APC. In Benue for instance, Gemade left PDP and won his election in APC. Ortom went into primaries with PDP candidate and lost because the governor then vowed never to hand over to Ortom. He did every­thing to frustrate Ortom.

 

from today
____________________
No more rejection for you,
No more sickness for you,
No unnecessary delays for you.
In fact, God is changing your story.
If you believe, TYPE AMEN.

N300b corruption allegation: Amaechi fights back

• Drags PDP, others to court

Immediate past governor of Rivers State Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has dragged before an Abuja High court, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the party chairman in Rivers State, Felix Obuah and two others over false allegations of foreign accounts ownership and N300 billion embezzlement against him.

Between August 6 and August 21, the party had alleged that Amaechi stole $757million or N80 billion of Rivers State public funds and stashed them away in an account in his name in Bancorp Bank in Minnesota, United States of America, among other allegations.

However, in this fresh suit filed before an Abuja High court, FCT, Amaechi stated that each of the said malicious publications by the Defendants (PDP, Felix Obuah and two others) “are untrue, false, motivated by ill-will and without any foundations in truth whatsoever and avers that the Defendants made the said libelous publications after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) failed the Presidential election and with a view to rubbishing him in the eyes of right thinking members of the society and the persons to whom the said libelous publications have been made.” In his statement of claims in the suit, Amaechi averred that he did not steal the sum of $757million or N80 billion of Rivers State public funds and did not stash them away in Bancorp Bank in Minnesota in United States of America or stashed any State public funds in Switzerland.

He said the Bancorp Bank in Minnesota in United States of America did not at any time reveal that the Plaintiff (Amaechi) embezzled or misappropriated or connived in the embezzlement and misappropriation of monies meant for Rivers State people in the sum of $757million or N80 billion and stashed them away in his name with Bancorp Bank in Minnesota in United States of America.

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