A President’s Troubles

 

By Babajide Kolade-Otitoju

For a president, who, in some quarters, was thought to have started well, the current shape of things is the equivalent of a nightmare. President Umaru Yar’Adua assumed office in a hail of promises condensed in his Seven-Point Agenda. The action plan, on the surface, looked like a single-dose solution to the posse of developmental problems afflicting the nation.

 

Even with the plan’s lofty contents, many Nigerians would struggle to point at the administration’s positive impact on the ordinary Nigerian. Admittedly, Yar’Adua did not create Nigeria’s power problem, but the problem has provided lethal ammunition to critics of his administration. The criticisms are, undoubtedly, not undeserved, given Yar’Adua’s inability, thus far, to oversee any kind of progress in that sector. And on current evidence, the power problem remains a huge embarrassment to every Nigerian, including the President and his ministers. On 10 June, electricity supply to the council chambers of the State House, Abuja, went on recess before the commencement of the weekly meeting. The outage was blamed on officials of a German company saddled with maintenance services in the Presidential Villa.

 Critics of Yar’Adua, who, while campaigning, promised to declare an emergency in the sector, insist that he has not lived up to his word. Though the administration promised to achieve 6,000 Megawatts by next December, given the country’s generating capacity of about 1500 mw, even the most wildly optimistic Nigerian knows that the target is a mere dream. While the federal government earmarked $1.5billion for gas gathering in the 2009 Budget, six months down the line, many of the projects earmarked are yet to take off. Part of the problem is that the government stopped funding the National Integrated Power Projects, NIPPs. In an interview with a Lagos-based newsmagazine, a former Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Farouk Adamu, accused Yar’Adua of making Nigerians suffer by stalling the power projects in the name of probing Obasanjo. “It is not true that Obasanjo stole $16 billion meant for National Integrated Power Projects. Yar’Adua came, stopped funding the projects. So it is Yar’Adua who has sabotaged the NIPPs by not funding them. Is it not Nigerians who are suffering?”, he asked.In a speech delivered on 10 June, former Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nasir el- Rufai, said: “In Nigeria today, electricity generation has fallen from 3200mw in May 2007 to less than 1000mw and all inherited power investments put on hold while being endlessly investigated and falsehood propagated to discredit badly needed investment decisions.” The former minister, who in May 2007, predicted that the Yar’Adua administration will outperform the Obasanjo administration, now apparently sees things differently. Now, el-Rufai is urging Nigerians to remind Yar’Adua of the need to live up to his promises. But the government’s response has been heavy on the hope that it can fix the power problem in record time. “I am pleased to inform you that what we have is over 4,500 mw available, but because of gas constraint, we are able to deliver just 2,500 mw as at today. You will recall that we had some problems in the Niger Delta and part of the damage was to our gas supply,” Governor Namadi Sambo of Kaduna State told journalists after the Presidential Steering Committee on National Integrated Power Projects, NIPPs, met about a fortnight ago. Not a few Nigerians view this as a lie.

Those who spoke with this medium on Sambo’s assertion could not hide their disdain. Abdullahi Garba, a resident of Mararaba, a highly populated settlement in the Federal Capital Territory, complained that he has not had more than five hours supply of electricity in his residence in the past two weeks. He is lucky. Adebajo Shofoluwe, a banker who lives in Matogun in Ifo Local Government, Ogun State, said his neighbourhood has not been supplied power for a month. “Where did Sambo get his 2,500 megawatts? Even when power supply was about 1500kw a couple of years ago, we were still having light. The truth is that this Yar’Adua administration is damn inefficient and is killing off Nigeria and Nigerians from where Obasanjo stopped,” Shofoluwe quipped. Industry analysts believe that if Yar’Adua had set out at assumption of office to tackle the problem of ageing infrastructure, weak transmission capacity, faulty lines and sub- stations as well as overloaded distribution transformers and so on, he would, by now, have set the country on the path of reliable electricity supply. Instead, the President stopped funding the NIPPs, with the excuse that funding the projects with money from the Excess Crude Account was illegal. He also got busy with controversies that his predecessor spent about $16 billion on the power sector during his eight-year reign without any concrete results to show for it. The House of Representatives subsequently latched on to Yar’Adua’s claim to launch a probe on how much was spent in the sector. While the probe was on, work on the projects was stalled.

But characteristic of the Yar’Adua administration, the once reviled NIPPs, funded from the same Excess Crude Account, are now being vigorously pursued, after precious time had been wasted. Meanwhile, poor electricity supply continues to take its toll on the economy. For one, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, disclosed an unrelenting free fall in its membership. This, according to the president, Alhaji Bashir Borodo, is due to: “Unsteady and inadequate power supply, dilapidated road network and absence of a defined masterplan for railway development, scarcity and persistent increase in the prices of petroleum products, uncoordinated tax administration, smuggling and other trade malpractices, difficulties in accessing long-term bank credits for small scale industries, failure to achieve a one-digit interest rate and general insecurity of lives and property, as exemplified by the activities of hoodlums, militants and pirates.”

In 2007, MAN expressed delight that most of the problems were part of the new administration’s Seven-Point Agenda, while affirming that power remained the biggest challenge to manufacturing enterprises in the country. Two years in the saddle, rather than the much expected improvement, the woes of players in the real sector have worsened. Currently, there are barely 200 operators in the real sector of the economy. Dominant players in the sector like Dunlop Nigeria plc, which is quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, have been shutting shop. Dunlop, Nigeria’s biggest tyre manufacturing plant, has transmuted into a mere trading company as a result of high cost of production, the major component of which is hefty sum spent on alternative source of power for its operations monthly. The company said it will concentrate on importation of tyres for sale in the Nigerian market from South Africa. The closure of Dunlop resulted in the loss of over a thousand jobs. Michelin, another tyre manufacturing company, had earlier closed down its plant in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, for the same reason.

No doubt, the sector that has been the worst hit by the inability of the Yar’Adua administration to tackle the power problem is the textile sub-sector. The last surviving textile mill in Kaduna, the United Nigeria Textile Mills, UNT Plc, closed shop some months ago. As recently noted by the Secretary- General of the Nigeria Textile Garment and Tailoring Employers Association, NTGTEA, Jayeola Olanrewaju, the sub-sector, once second only to the public sector as employer of labour, has virtually collapsed. The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, UNIDO, statistics indicated that over 175 textile companies have closed shop and 125,000 employees rendered jobless on account of poor power and water supply, high cost of fuel and massive smuggling of counterfeit products into the country from Asia. To give succour to the sector, the Obasanjo administration, a few days to the end of its tenure, indicated its readiness to revive the sector through the N70billion Textile Revival Fund. But the operators were not able to access the fund before the expiration of the tenure of the former administration. The Yar’Adua administration had characteristically been playing games with the fund

Comrade Isa Aremu, General Secretary of Textile Workers Union, said the controversy over which institution will disburse the fund is unnecessary. According to him, except urgent steps are taken, the Nigerian textile industry may become extinct. Aremu added that even the expected N70billion is now too small to bail out the textile sector: “Urgent steps ought to be taken to revive the sector before the end of the year, if not Nigeria might have to bid farewell to local textiles manufacturing. There is a need to increase the bail-out fund to over N200billion as the proposed N70billion is no longer enough to bail the sector. The sector needs more to save it. A delay in the release of the funds would render the revival plan useless to the industries.” Manufacturers have also been under crushing effect of high exchange and high interest rates and inefficiency at the ports. The declining value of the naira against other major currencies, this magazine learnt, has led to increase in cost of imported raw materials, further hike in cost of production and is responsible for the general rise in price levels currently being experienced in the country. In Borodo says the Yar’Adua administration has failed to match its words with actions. The MAN president particularly condemned the policy reversals by the Yar’Adua administration, saying that earlier gains made were being reversed to the detriment of manufacturers.

In an interview with London’s Financial Times during his first anniversary in office, Yar’Adua said: “Next year will be really a very interesting year for this country, very interesting.” It has been an interesting year, but an unpleasurable year; one that most Nigerians will want to forget as soon as possible. The last one year has been characterised by decrepit power problems, intermittent scarcity of petroleum products and indecision on crucial national issues. All macro-economic indicators that influence the direction of a country’s growth and development have been on the slide since Yar’Adua stepped in. In June 2007, the exchange rate was N120.63 to the dollar; now it is N146 at the official market and N165 at the parallel. Lending rate, about 17 per cent in 2007, is 22 per cent at which it was pegged early this year by Central Bank. Before then, it had run riot up to 27 to 32 per cent, including all sorts of charges. Inflation rate was 9.7 per cent two years ago; now it is about 15 per cent and this is being charitable.

The effects have been escalating cost of consumables and services. A market survey conducted by this magazine last week indicated that a 50kg bag of rice (Mama Americana brand) has shot up to N9,500 from its price of N8,500 in February. The same product sold for N5,200 in February last year. The Loy brand has been moving in the same proportion. The Caprice brand, which went out of circulation immediately after the Christmas and New Year celebrations, has staged a comeback, but this time, consumers have to pay more. From a price of N7000 in February last year, the 50kg bag now goes for N10,500. The situation is the same for beans. A bag of the ‘drum’ brand sells for N16,000 as against N14,000 in February and N5,500 in February 2008. The Oloyin brand goes for N17,200 a bag. Its market price last February was N14,500; it was N10,000 a year earlier. Even the price of garri, once regarded as the poor man’s alternative, has soared exponentially. A bag of Ijebu garri that sold for N4000 in February last year has risen to N8000, a 100 per cent increase, by last week. The same bag of the item went for N6000 last February. The yellow garri of the same quantity cost N4,500 last week, as against N3,500 in February and N2,500 a year before.

Madam Chioma Eze, a frozen foods dealer, told TheNEWS that prices are dictated by prevailing exchange rates. She put a carton of chicken at N5,100 slightly lower than the N5,200 price four months ago. The same product sold for N4,800 in February 2008. Similarly, a carton of turkey sold for N6000 last week as against N6200 in February this year and N4,800 a year earlier. A carton of kote fish, which sold for N4,800 in February last year, rose to N5,200 in just one year before it dropped to its new price of N4,700. Mrs. Betty Agoi, a frozen food seller, attributed increasing prices to the high cost of running their generators. A medium sized tuber of yam, which hitherto sold for N300, now goes for between N500 and N600, depending on the market. Prices of perishable items like tomatoes and pepper have risen by over 100 per cent. Tomatoes arranged in saucer pans, which sold for N20 a few weeks back, now attract N50 and in reduced quantities. The same thing is applicable to pepper and onions.

Also, a kilogramme of Semovita has risen from N150 in February to N180 last week just as a two kilogramme bag has shot up to N350 from N320. These items traded for N120 and N250 respectively in February 2008. A 500 gramme tin of the Milo beverage sells for N530; it was N500 four months ago and N400 in February 2008. The 900 gramme tin goes for N950 as against N900 in February. Similarly, a 500 gramme tin of Bournvita traded for N500 last week as against N450 four months ago, while the 900 gramme now sells for N900 as against N850 during the same period. Prices of household goods have also been going up. The cost of a standard size Close Up (Herbal Toothpaste) has increased from N170, in February, to N180 last week, just as the Get brand of the same size has risen to N160 from N150 in February. A N400 gramme tin of Dano milk traded for N550 on 16 June as against N500 in February this year. A standard cube size of St. Louis sugar has surged by 33.3 per cent in just four months, rising from N120 in February to N160 in June. A carton of Indomie has risen from N1,050 to N1,250 during the same period, slightly below 20 per cent.

Consumers of alcohol are also having a feel of the pains. A bottle of Gulder which sold for N170 two weeks ago, has risen to N200, while Malta Guinness currently sells for N120 from its N100 price a month ago. A litre of kerosene sells for N80 at filling stations, up from N50 about two months ago. Barbers in the Akute, Ajuwon and Alagbole areas of Ogun state, have increased the cost of their services by 50 per cent from N100 to N150 for adults since last month. The problems Yar’Adua faces are not limited to the economic sphere. There are high political hurdles for the President to surmount in other to meet the aspirations of Nigerians and earn their support for re-election in 2011. For example, he is perceived to have surrounded himself with politicians from Katsina State and, to a little extent, Kano State, who dominate his kitchen cabinet. This is thought to have robbed Yar’Adua of a sizeable amount of goodwill, even in Northern Nigeria. One person who has criticised President Yar’Adua for this is Farouk Adamu, a Jigawa State-born politician and loyalist of General Muhammadu Buhari, the President’s main opponent in the 2007 election. He has accused Yar’Adua of running an insular government. “You cannot run a government with just the people from your village. Obasanjo got everyone involved in his government, so his government was a national failure. But Yar’Adua’s government is a Katsina failure because he has only Katsina people around him,” he contended.

While it is certainly exaggerated that the President has only Katsina people around him, the fact remains that the most powerful people in his administration are from Katsina. “There was no single Yoruba man in Obasanjo’s kitchen cabinet. But with Yar’Adua, I can mention five people, all from Katsina. You can’t run Nigeria like that. There is such a disconnect between the President and Nigerians. We think he is not well, but they lie to us that he is,” Adamu added. Hajiya Najatu Muhammed, first female senator of Northern extraction, is not impressed with Yar’Adua’s decision to pack his government with people from Katsina, and accuses him of not protecting northern interests!  “In the north generally, except for his friends from Katsina, who knows there is Yar’ Adua in office?” she asked in a recent interview with Insider Weekly.

Yet, the Yar’Adua administration has been accused of having a northernisation agenda, in violation of the Nigerian Constitution, which stipulates in Section 14 sub-section 3 and 4, that positions are to be spread in a way to ensure unity and promote a sense of belonging among the nation’s ethnic groups. Recently, Yar’Adua’s appointment of Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria triggered protest in certain quarters. Like other managers of the economy– Shamusideen Usman, National Planning Minister; Mansur Muktar, (Finance) and Tanimu Yakubu, Chief Economic Adviser to the President– Sanusi is from the North-West. He is from Kano State. Even key appointments in parastatals in the transport and energy ministries are held by Northerners. Many Nigerians frown at this, but the President seems not to care. Recently, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Federal Character, Senator Smart Adeyemi, and 21 other senators planned to move a motion to ensure an official hearing on the matter, especially when they had received a good number of petitions on the appointments made by the Yar’Adua administration. Senators like Olorunimbe Mamora, Ayogu Eze, Isiaka Adeleke, Joseph Akagerger, Ayo Arise, Andrew Babalola, Lawan Ahmed Ibrahim and Nkechi Nwaogu were among those who planned to support the motion, but some forces moved in and ensured it was not moved.

The president is also distrusted by Nigerians, especially given the way he has handled the report of the Justice Mohammed Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee. On 28 August 2007, the President set up a 22-member Electoral Reform Committee, ERC, headed by retired Justice Mohammed Uwais to “examine the entire electoral process with a view to ensuring that we raise the quality and standard of our general elections and thereby deepen our democracy.”  Uwais submitted its report and a draft bill to Yar’Adua in December 2008. The former was to accelerate the lawmaking aspect of the exercise. But Nigerians enthusiasm soon evaporated, when the President tampered with the original recommendations, especially the aspect that concerns appointment of the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Uwais, in his report, recommended that the appointment of INEC Chairman be relinquished by the President and be vested in the National Judicial Commission, NJC, “subject to the confirmation of the Senate”. This, Uwais and his committee argued, would guarantee an independent electoral arbiter. A three-man committee set up by the Federal Executive Council, chaired by Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, submitted that the President should retain the power to appoint the INEC boss.

This development kicked up a controversy characterised by impassioned criticisms. In a statement jointly signed by Comrade Moshood Erubami and Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, Chairman and Publicity Secretary respectively of The Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, a naked anger to the recommendations of the Uwais Electoral Reform Committee was expressed. That Yar’Adua tinkered with report, according to TMG, smacks of subverting the will of the Nigerian people “who took time nationwide to participate and contribute to the public sitting organised by the Uwais-led reform committee”.  Also, the Civil Society Coordinating Committee on Electoral Reform, CSCC, described the President’s insistence on appointing the INEC boss as a “slap on the face of the nation”. The CSCC is made up of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, TMG, Electoral Reform Network , Citizens Forum for Constitutional Reform, CFCR, National Coalition on Affirmative Action, Gender and Constitutional Reform Network and Alliance for Credible Election.

The group argued: “In our view, rather than infringe the principles of separation of powers, it reinforces the doctrine of checks and balances among different arms of government, as it is a more viable option than having the President, who is a player in the electoral process, determining whom the umpire should be”.  The Action Congress, AC, in a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, also condemned the development, saying: “We reject the argument that allowing the National Judicial Council, NJC, to oversee the appointment of the Chairman of INEC and those of the three proposed bodies would encroach on the separation of powers, as argued by Professor Dora Akunyili, the Information and Communications Minister. If the appointment of Justices of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court by the President, subject to confirmation by the Senate, does not infringe on the so-called separation of power, why should it be a problem for the NJC to oversee the appointment of these key officials of INEC and other proposed bodies? Perhaps the powers that be simply want to retain some measure of control on INEC, which is a blow on its independence”.

At the conference, Barrister Festus Okoye, a member of the Uwais Committee, presented a paper, “The ERC and Executive Bills on Electoral Reform: The Strategic Imperatives.”  Okoye argued: “It can be seen that the Bills forwarded to the National Assembly were deliberately packaged disjointedly, lacking in imagination and programmed to fail. The government is, therefore, either deliberately or out of mischief, forwarding the Bills in a manner that will lead to their death or the government has finished buying time and is now comfortable with the current electoral situation in the country and does not need to amend any law”. The implication, according to him, is that Nigeria may go into the 2011 elections under the 1999 Constitution and with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2006. Other voices that condemned the doctoring of the Uwais committee report include notable Nigerian newspapers. In its editorial titled ‘Electoral Reform: Yar’Adua’s Dilemma’ of March 16- 22, 2009, an Abuja-based weekly, Peoples Daily, wrote: “We share in the committee’s concerns about the independence of the electoral commission, the appointment of INEC’s Chairman, its funding and unbundling, the need to conclude election petitions before winners are sworn in.” According to the paper, “part of the problem is that there are many entrenched interests and forces that may not want any changes that will threaten or undermine their political ambitions.”

The Vanguard editorial of 16 March, titled ‘Ruined Electoral Reform’, said: “Even prophets of doom would be alarmed at the extent the federal government went decimating the Justice Uwais report to respectable irrelevance”. According to the paper, government attitude to the Uwais report so far proves that the electoral reform “was a public relations stunt aimed at reducing the tensions that arose from the 2007 elections”. One of the greatest concerns of Nigerians, for which they are very disappointed in Yar’ Adua, is his snail speed. While Obasanjo approved the rehabilitation of the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway on a Build, Operate and Transfer, BOT, basis to Bi-Courtney Limited in May 2007, Yar’Adua exhibited indifference to the project until last month, when the agreement was finally signed between his government and Bi-Courtney, the company which built the Murtala Mohammed Airport Terminal 2. That delay caused the value of the contract to go up by about N30 billion. Long after the contract award was announced, Nigerians are yet to see the contractors moving to site. It is one of the reasons why there is so much infrastructure delay in the country. Though aides of the president often blame the slow nature of the regime on the need for due diligence, the reason may be the poor health of the president.

Once, a former National Assembly member dragged the President to court over his health, seeking the court’s order that Federal Executive Council constitute a medical board of seven people, including the President’s personal physician, to produce a report on his health. Last year, the President spent 17 days in Saudi Arabia, even when he was not on leave. What Nigerians were told was that he went for Lesser Hajj. Speculations about the President’s health remain a staple largely because Aso Rock’s responses to enquiries on such are considered unbelievable. In a recent interview with P.M.NEWS, Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Lagos-based Latter Rain Assembly argued that Nigeria is already a sick nation that does not deserve a sick leader! It is believed that Yar’Adua’s ill-health may count against him in 2011, thereby forcing his party to go for another candidate. One thing is certain, if Yar’Adua does not think he is strong enough to stand for election he will stand down, paving the way for the nomination of another candidate. Yar’Adua, meanwhile, has never been a candidate overwhelmingly accepted by the North.

Not a few northerners think the President has failed and even if his health permits, he may not get their support. The President was stoned last year, while visiting Jos. The treatment was repeated last January during a peace meeting between factions of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Kano State, where protesters sang songs that could not be regarded as hymns in praise of the President. And to rub it in, Obasanjo’s name featured in their many songs of praise. The grouse of the protesters was that he picked bureaucrats– Dr. Shamusideen Usman and Mansur Muktar instead of career politicians. Those who stoned him in Jos were angry about his slow response to the violence which caused the death of hundreds before servicemen brought the situation under control. Hon. Adamu describes the attitude of the Yar’Adua regime to corruption as deceitful. He argues that “the only case that was determined, the case of Lucky Igbinedion, was ridiculous.”

Igbinedion, a former governor of Edo State, Adamu said, had about 120-count change against him reduced to only one, was convicted on that one, fined N3.5million, asked to forfeit about N500million and was allowed to walk away with the billions he stole. He claimed that while the former Health Minister, Professor Adenike Grange, and Senator Iyabo Obasanjo were taken to court because of the N10million they took from unspent budgeted money, the Ministry of Agriculture took some of its unspent funds. Adamu added that with a godfather in government, anyone arrested for corruption could walk away– free.

Yar’Adua’s poor performance riles his countrymen and women. Dr. Junaid Muhammed, National Leader of the Peoples Salvation Party, PSP, noted that since Yar’Adua came to power he has failed to solve even one of the nation’s problems. He said two years into the administration, the power sector is worse than it has been in the last 20 years. “Since Yar’Adua has failed to deliver on any of the promises he made two years ago, what makes you think Nigerians will trust him on the ones he is making now. And what makes you think this latest promise sits well with his wife, a co-President, to whom top government officials and ministers defer in major policy issues, not to talk of big time contractors? So, absolutely, the Yar’Adua government, both in style and policy, is a total failure. Even Obasanjo, who brought him, admits in private that the man has been a failure,” he submitted. Chief Maxi, Okwu, National Chairman of Citizens Popular Party, CPP, reckons that Yar’ Adua suffers from the Shagari Syndrome since he had no plan to be president. He said in all spheres of national life, including the Niger Delta problem, the President has spent the better part of his two years undergoing internship at the Villa!

But in spite of his failings, Dr. Mohammed is convinced that Yar’Adua will seek re- election. “In normal political and democratic politics, any succeeding election is supposed to be a referendum on the previous term of the government, the party in power and the previous term of the government, the party in power and the individual. Unfortunately, in Nigeria that has not been so. Nobody should be surprised if Yar’Adua wants to have a second, third, or any number of terms because to Obasanjo, Yar’Adua or PDP, the will or wish of the people does not matter in election,” he contended. He warned, however, that Nigeria cannot survive another six years of Yar’Adua and the PDP. If Yar’Adua is forced on Nigerians in 2011, he said, “I only see the possibility of violence and social revolt.”

 

 

Additional Reports By Ademola Adegbamigbe, Oluokun Ayorinde /Abuja, Clement Oriloye, Mmeribeh Maduabuchi /Kano And Oluremilekun Osobu.

Did you Enjoy this story? you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Random Post

• December 9, 2009 -- Hello world! (1)
• March 31, 2008 -- I’ll Never Sell My Mandate —Oshiomhole (5)
• December 9, 2008 -- We Lost Cars Worth Over N28 million To The Mayhem (2)
• April 20, 2009 -- Banking On CNN (0)
• April 15, 2008 -- Deregulation Is The Answer (0)
• March 9, 2009 -- Dirty Policeman (0)
• September 8, 2008 -- ILORIN/Olabayo Cautions Yar’Adua (2)
• October 6, 2008 -- Nigeria Needs A Revolution (21)
• May 18, 2009 -- As Shoddy As It Can Get (0)
• February 25, 2008 -- Tension Over Hisbah Raids (7)

No tags for this post.

Related posts

• No related posts.