No, thank you, Mr President.

         “Do not put your hand into the lion's mouth just because he says he does not eat meat anymore.” Nigerian proverb.

There are still a few people in the nation who do not believe that it is true. They want to see further proof that President Jonathan plans to spend N2b (yes, two billion Naira only) in the north-eastern region  as the federal government’s contribution to rebuilding socio-economic infrastructure  devastated by the insurgency of Jamaatu Ahlil Sunnah Lid Daawati Wal Jihad (JASLIWAJ). Others who believe it because it is in the proposed 2014 spending plans are outraged. A few who did not expect even the N2b are not disappointed. They have long resigned themselves to the possibility that only State Governments and the international community will bother to put in place a major initiative needed to begin the reconstruction of a region on its knees. Whether the approved 2014 appropriation eventually sets aside N2b or N200b will depend largely on public pressure, the manner the National Assembly perceives its responsibility, and the degree to which President Jonathan feels the need to show requisite levels of political sensitivity. At any rate, this is not an issue that should be left to the discretion of the President, or be treated as a matter between the north east communities and the President. It is a matter of national importance, and it is central to success or otherwise of the fight against the insurgency.

It will serve no purpose to compare a planned spending of N2b in the north-east with budgetted  spending in other areas generally considered wasteful. Some commentators have drawn attention to plans to spend more than N4b to host the World Economic Forum, a gimmick that will add nothing to our national economy reflecting two distinct characters. One showcases an enclave economy where returns on investment  are very high, while the other is hostile to any investment of real value owing to unstable and insecure environment. The proposed 2014 spending plans include over N100b to be spent in the Niger Delta in spite  of the recent lamentation of the President that the Niger Delta Development Corporation  (NDDC) has not impacted on the lives of Niger Delta citizens in a manner that justifies the huge spending through it. It is possible that somewhere in a government office, there are records of the full amount spent on the amnesty programme started by late President Yar’Adua to date; the total funding of the Ministry for Niger Delta; the 13% derivation and the statutory allocations made to States in the Niger Delta in the last ten years. If those records exist, it is doubtful if anyone will be brave enough to publish them today.

The plan to spend N2b in the North East as counterpart fund by the federal government makes people ask awkward questions that are only remotely relevant. How many people have been educated and given skills and jobs for being self-confessed militants from the Niger Delta? How many phases of the Amnesty Programme have been implemented, and how many ex-militants are still knocking on doors for new phases? Where are the ex-militants who have been trained in Europe, Ghana, South Africa and other parts of the world? How many ex-militants are tying down multi-billion Naira contracts around oil and gas facilities? What would the Niger Delta look like today if the federal government had not invested so heavily in building basic infrastructure and the education and training of people who came forward to claim that they had taken up arms against the nation?

Parallels do not need to be drawn between the Niger Delta problem and the insurgency in the North to make the case that you have to invest in the community and the local economy to address the structural roots of both threats. In the case of the northern part of Nigeria, the case for massive investment in basic infrastructure and the economy is much more compelling. Niger Delta militants substantially targeted oil and gas assets and made huge money kidnapping expatriates. The nation invested heavily in giving them alternatives to a life of crime, and in giving communities greater access to resources from natural assets around and under them. The insurgency in the North locked out any fresh investment, local or foreign. It destroyed a lot of social infrastructure like schools, hospitals and markets. Transport and communication facilities have been badly damaged, abandoned or shut down. Basic economic activities like farming and fishing have suffered major setbacks. Government spending has been largely restricted to providing security. Traders have migrated to safer areas. Thousands of lives, including breadwinners, have been lost. Families have been dispersed. Children have not received education as they should. Rich and influential people who can move out of the zone did so in droves. Many young people moved out in search of menial jobs, and out of fear of becoming victims, conscripted by the insurgency or being picked up by the security forces on suspicion. The entire economy and social structure has to be rebuilt over the next few years, even as the battle to defeat the insurgency is sustained. If this is left to the States, it wont be done at all. 

State governments had, in the last few years, routinely dipped into shallow coffers to provide relief to bereaved families of citizens and security personnel. They repaired damaged homes, schools, hospitals, police stations, military facilities and prisons. They substantially funded security agencies, and paid for ancillary outfits which supported them. Governors rushed to divert funds that could have built schools and trained teachers towards providing relief and assistance to victims because they felt an obligation not to wait for federal government assistance. Perhaps they had hoped that one day, the federal government will tally all these expenditure and make efforts to share their burden. Or they may have acted instinctively, conscious of the fact that the insurgency is a home -grown disaster which needs local efforts and resources to deal with, at least before external help came. The federal government was never an external factor in the manner the JASLIWAS insurgency started, developed and is currently manifested. It has been involved in every stage, and the fight against this insurgency has been its own, with little input from the community. At a stage, in fact, much of the community felt that it was a double victim: not safe from federal security agencies, and helpless against the insurgency. It is inevitable that the years of fighting an enemy which uses the community as shield will leave many scars on that community. This enemy will either submit eventually, suffer final defeat or dig in for the long haul without making any restitution for damage. But the federal government cannot do that.

The nation will be reminded of the President’s pledge to provide support to victims when he received the Report of the Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North. Although some mischief was attempted around his refusal to use the word compensation to suggest that victims will be abandoned to their fates, most Nigerians understood that the President meant that communities, families and individuals who suffered one type of deprivation or the other as victims will receive some relief. Two weeks ago, the United States government urged the federal government to expedite action towards providing substantial economic relief to the region. The last North East Investment Forum drew attention to the need for States in the region to improve spending in agriculture, education and infrastructure, while urging the federal government to honour its pledge to contribute to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of economy and society in the region.

People who thought the federal government was taking its time since it received the Dialogue Committee Report to roll out a major economic initiative will be among those who will be disappointed by plans to spend N2b in the region. Many thought the federal government will create a Ministry for the region, akin to the Niger Delta Ministry. Others thought the federal and relevant state government will collaborate in an elaborate plan that should last the decade, to invest in social and economic infrastructure. Virtually everyone familiar with the genesis and development of the JASLIWAJ insurgency knows that its ultimate defeat will not be accomplished by a military option. The poverty which feeds dislocating social values and structures has to be comprehensively tackled by all governments, but particularly by the federal government. The longer non-military options such as the fight against poverty are delayed, the longer it will take to defeat this insurgency. It is difficult to imagine what N2b will accomplish under current circumstances.

The plan by President Jonathan to spend N2b in the North East, under whatever guise, should be rejected. Nigerians should raise their voices against this outrage, and if he insists on this level of funding, the nation should tell the President to keep his N2b.  Beyond this, since this issue is way beyond the personal whims of President Jonathan, Nigerians will expect the National Assembly and all other Nigerians with influence to work towards substantially increasing the planned spending by the federal and state governments from the region for the next 10 years. It is not unreasonable to ask that N200b is spent in the region most affected by the insurgency every year for the next five years; and this should be reviewed after an impact assessment for continuation. If President Jonathan will not accept to substantially review his planned spending in the North east, he should be told by all major stakeholders to keep his N2b, and leave the community at the mercy of poverty and the insurgency.

2014: A watchlist

“Dogs do not actually prefer bones to meat;it is just that nobody gives them meat.” Akan proverb.

2014 will be   critical in  shaping  Nigerian politics in the next decade. A combination of significant political developments, widespread dissatisfaction with management of the economy and the failure to defeat an increasingly localized but vicious insurgency will  provide opportunistic avenues for exploiting the weaknesses of the democratic process, and the limitations of the administration. The elections in 2015 will be the major focus of much of the administration, and tensions will rise as President Jonathan and his party take on a resurgent opposition that shows a potential to cause a major upset . The following are some of the issues and events that should be watched  closely in view of their significance for the nation’s future.

1.           President Jonathan.

Although he says he is yet to decide whether to run for another term in 2015, it  seems most likely that President Goodluck Jonathan will be a candidate in the 2015 elections. Not to run again will be interpreted as succumbing to pressures from the North, and this is likely to trigger hostile reaction among his core supporters and  possible violence. The President himself and his close associates will worry over their fates and fortunes without political power after 2015. This will be a major impetus for him to run.

If he does run, it be on the platform of the PDP, which is fragmenting and exposing deep geo-political divisions. His party is already effectively a minority in the national legislature, and further defections   will weaken it and confine its main support to his South-South zone and areas in the North where religious and ethnic pluralism are played up with potentially-dangerous consequences.

President Jonathan will be hard put to sell a candidature on solid achievements in management of the economy, reducing corruption, tackling an insurgency or providing a strong personal leadership in a nation expressing worrying doubts over its future. This will not stop him from trying, but he may have to reinforce his poor record by exploiting smouldering faultlines that will expose the nation to further threats to its security. President Jonathan has a difficult choice to make, but it is most likely going to be made for him by a powerful circle of Ministers, aides, political godfathers and beneficiaries of a weak management capacity in the presidency.

2.           Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)

The PDP is likely to undergo further fragmentation and  more defections. It is unlikely to undergo the type of radical overhaul in its leadership guaranteed to reduce or reverse its internal problems. It will most likely provide President Jonathan with a ticket for 2015, and risk further alienation of support from the North and parts of South East and South South. The PDP will attempt to retain support through massive inducement of opinion leaders in the North and South East, and through the intensification of campaigns around faith and ethnicity. Its activities in many parts of the country will be accompanied by increasing hostility and violence. Next year, PDP will confront the real possibility that its dominance of the national political landscape is over.

3.           The opposition (APC)

The political opposition will make further incursion into PDP territory, but could be hurt by failure to manage sensitive intra-party developments. It has lost valuable time in improving harmony within the party, registering members and establishing lower-level structures. Damaging quarrels involving factions of legacy parties could prevent emergence of credible and unifying leaders and candidates at state and lower-level structures. Unresolved issues arising from the manner defected nPDP governors and other bigwigs are treated (or rewarded) will pose serious threats to party cohesion and preparations for the 2015 elections. Sensitive issues such as presidential and gubernatorial flag bearers will provide flashpoints that may seriously damage the party’s chances. In 2014, APC will have to take some very important decisions that will determine whether it defeats PDP, or it fritters away a good opportunity to form governments in Abuja and state capitals.

4.           Judiciary

The judiciary will be dragged into some of the intense political quarrels arising from the fragmentation and defections in the PDP. The judiciary will have to rule on major issues over the status of defected governors ad legislators, as well as hundreds of cases on intra-party disputes in both the PDP and the opposition. The year 2014 will challenge the judiciary to redeem its poor image among Nigerians. The manner it responds to the demands for integrity and independence will substantially affect the build-up to 2015 elections, as well as the quality of the elections themselves.

5.           INEC

Virtually all preparations for the 2015 elections will have to be concluded within 2014. INEC is facing a major crisis of credibility, although its leadership claims that bad politicians are painting it worse than it is. With the Anambra elections still afresh as a lower benchmark, one or two key elections in 2014 will again test INEC's capacity to improve on its performance. The nation has been alarmed at the hint that the insurgency in the North East could threaten elections in the region in 2015. In 2014, INEC will ask for, and receive most of the funds and other support it will need to conduct the 2015. All its preparations will be very closely followed by the nation and the international community.Violence will be a major factor in all  campaigns and elections.

6.           The Economy

The management of the economy is unlikely to see a radical improvement in 2014. With elections in 2015, patronage and leakages in the manner public finances are managed are likely to be more pronounced. Revenues from sale of petroleum resources will remain high, but industry-scale theft of crude will continue to deprive the nation of vital resources. Disputes over lack of openness and transparency in the manner public resources are managed will intensity, but it is unlikely that President Jonathan will raise the current standards of accountability.  Poverty, youth unemployment and decaying infrastructure are unlikely to be substantially addressed.

7.           Corruption and crimes

President Jonathan has not shown a strong will to fight corruption, and the general perception that too many of his closest associates, advisers and Ministers are beyond reproach on suspicion of corruption will deepen. The nation will watch how he responds to the scandal involving the purchase of bullet-proof cars and other scandals around pensions, petroleum subsidy and others. Anti-corruption agencies such as E.F.C.C. and I.C.P.C. will be assessed in terms of their capacities to operate with independence and integrity, rather than as political weapons to be deployed by the President against political opponents and threats. In 2014, corruption will assume a pride of place in campaigns for 2015 elections, and public funds will be specifically targeted as election campaign funds are harvested.Violent crimes such as kidnapping and armed robberies are likely to increase as policing assets are stretched around political concerns.

8.           Legislature

The National Assembly will go through turmoil as the changing political landscape is reflected in its membership and disposition. PDP will find itself in increasingly defensive position as it loses legislators to the opposition, and the legislature as a whole is likely to be more hostile to the executive. With 2015 in the horizon, however, both arms will focus more on saving political careers, making compromises and stocking-up on campaign resources. The year 2014 will witness tension and stresses in the legislature as legal battles rage on defections and careers, and opposition members, seeking to flex muscles, take on colleagues from the PDP and the Presidency.

9.           Insecurity

The federal government is unlikely to bring an end of the insurgency in the North East in 2014, going by current disposition and the words of the President. Part of the nation is shocked and offended by the plan to spend N2b in the region by the federal government in 2014  as its contribution towards reviving the economy. Insurgents appear to retain capacity to make spectacular attacks using porous borders and intimidated communities. With little evidence of change in tactics or new strategies in the horizon, the nation and the insurgency will continue to bleed in 2014. Other internal security challenges may feed-off intense politicking and the exploitation of ethno-religious faultlines to deepen, or re-emerge. In 2014, national security will most likely be severely challenged.

10.        National Conference

The President appears bent on organizing a National Conference in 2014. In spite of widespread suspicion and hostility to the idea, most Nigerians will follow its deliberations and outcome with intense interest. The political opposition is likely to scuttle efforts to create any legitimacy in terms of representation or outcome of the Conference. The presidency may be forced into organizing a forum involving largely hand-picked delegates who may work towards a pre-determined goal. Even then, the Conference will suffer setbacks if issues such as tenure elongation or review of revenue allocation formular are tabled. 

11.        The World Cup

Nigeria will participate in the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. Most Nigerians expect it to do well. While the Eagles' participation lasts in the tournament ,it will give Nigerians one of those rare moments when they are only Nigerians.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

50 questions for Ngozi

“A person cannot dance well only one leg.” South African proverb

The House of Representatives Committee on Finance invited the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okouja-Iweala last week for a briefing on the national economy. According to reports, the Committee heard from the Minister that she was unwell, but had answered their summons out of respect. Which was just as well, the Committee felt, because she can now take away the questions they had planned to ask her, all fifty of them, as homework, and submit written answers in two weeks. She would then appear before them in January next year to defend her answers. The Minister requested to be given a verbal examination on the spot, assuring the Committee that she and her colleagues will not give haphazard responses to the questions. The committee insisted that it wanted written responses to its questions, and for good measure, reminded the Minister that she was not in the Ministry of finance where her words were law, but in the House of Representatives where she had no say.

The 50 questions by the Committee which the Minister had wanted to answer on the spot verbally were then published for all Nigerians to see. It is safe to assume that those questions were never intended for the Minister to answer verbally, on the spot. Even without her poor health, it was not the type of examination the Committee would have planned to conduct verbally, in a sitting. It is more likely that the Committee went into the meeting with its 50 questions tucked away, and would have engineered any situation that will prevent a verbal examination. It will be uncharitable to assume that the Minister herself had an idea of the type of questions the Committee had planned to ask her, but her request for a verbal examination, if it had been granted, would have ended up in either of two ways. One, she would have answered many with a simple yes or no. That would not have satisfied the legislators. She could have been vague, general or unsure over many others, insisting that she needed time to give fuller and more reliable answers. With the press around, that would not have satisfied the legislators. She could have advised that some of the question required extensive consultation with colleagues in other Ministries, but the legislators would have insisted that the coordination role she plays is sufficient for her to answer all questions on the economy. She could have repeated many of the official explanations, rationalizations, projections, justifications, limitations and frustrations of the national economy, but the legislators would have said they had heard it all before. So the meeting would have ended up producing nothing except perhaps the humiliation of the Minister, and a waste of time and resources. Or the legislators and the Minister would have discussed weighty issues over the structure, operations and challenges of the Nigerian economy merely as a media event, without doing justice to any of them.

As it turned out, the legislators insisted on full written answers to questions that appear to have been well thought out. In fact, you could say the Committee on Finance had decided to raise all the fundamentals of the management of our economy as questions, and then hang the Minister of Finance on them. If this was an examination, you will fail the examiner, and not the student on the grounds that the questions asked are not intended to be answered by reference to a marking scheme. Undergraduate students studying, Macro Economics, will be familiar with questions like “What will you consider as the major economic achievements of this government in the 2013 fiscal year and why? In your explanation, we will need facts and figures in demonstrating such achievement.” Easy for Dr Okonjo-Iweala, but she may not get a pass mark from legislators who have made up their minds that there are no major economic achievements. 

If that is the only question, she would be failed and asked to repeat the test. She will repeat the same answers. There are many questions on capital and recurrent spending, inflation, competitiveness of the Nigerian economy, privatization of the power sector, poverty, debts and assessment of the performance of the Nigerian economy. There are others far her homework on protection policies, National Sovereign Fund, SURE-P, interest rates, oil prices and benchmarking, Excess Crude Account, funding of the EFCC and revenue figures from NNPC and other revenue sources. The Committee wants answers on extra-budgetary spending, foreign investment, planning as an instrument of governance, external reserves, missing funds from sale of crude, growth of the economy and job creation. 

There are many questions asked, to which the Minister can answer yes or no, but this is hardly going to be sufficient. Adequate answers to many others will involve extensive consultations with colleagues in Petroleum Resources, Trade and Investment, Power, National Planning Commission, Central Bank of Nigeria, agencies such as Federal Inland Revenue Service, Customs and Excise and Budget Office of the federation. These consultations may produce responses that merely rehash everything that the Committee and the nation has either heard before, or has records of. The Minister could submit responses in bound volumes larger than the Report of the Advisory Committee on National Dialogue, and confront the legislators with the challenge of making any sense of it all. Or she could submit a response like Obasanjo’s 18-page essay which will raise more answers that need more answers.

It is very difficult to see how the framers of the 50 questions can be taken seriously. They have made Okonjo-Iweala’s examination very easy. She merely has to go back and submit responses which reinforce existing positions, and stick to them in arguments over validity of facts, assessments or suspicions. The Committee will never get her to admit that the economy is poorly run; policies are not informed by the best options available; that absence of transparency in revenue collection is a major problem; that funds from crude account are missing; that extra-budgetary spending is a recurring element in the economy; that the Excess Crude Account is illegal; or that assessment and rating of the Nigerian economy which she holds up are fraudulent. In subsequent engagements, she only needs to refer to her detailed explanation on all facets of the economy covered by the 50 questions. The committee could disagree with her on virtually all her responses, but they will have to prove that she is wrong, and they are right.

How will they do this? If the Committee has hard evidence, statistics and facts on the management of the economy, and they are holding on to these waiting to examine, pass or fail the Minister, it will give many Nigerians great comfort. But they do not. If they have capacities for research and analyses which will allow them to prove conclusively that the Coordinating Minister for the Economy is either incompetent, uninformed or misleading them and the nation, that will generate a major boost of public confidence in the legislators’ capacity to exercise oversight responsibilities. But they do not have these capacities, which is tragic. If the Minister has not been hardened by numerous skirmishes with legislators over every element in the management of our economy, she may be more disposed to provide more balanced responses to questions which have been posed in a combative manner.

Ngozi’s 50 questions homework will remind the nation of the deficiencies in the manner our democratic system operate. In those 50 questions, you see evidence of the gulf which exists between the executive and the legislature in the manner one runs the economy, and the other struggles to exercise oversight responsibilities over it. You see evidence of prolonged stress, hostility and suspicion between the two. From the executive, you see evidence of a resigned submission to powers of the legislature, but not one which has a genuine and credible need for information on the management of our economy. So everyone goes through the motion of answering summons, responding in a defensive, or even combative manner, giving information which is hardly useful, and then sitting back waiting for the next summons. From the legislature, you see evidence of frustration from an organ with huge powers but little means of exercising those powers.

As the political landscape changes in the National Assembly and the gulf between the executive and the legislature widens, relations between the two will worsen. Ngozi’s 50 questions merely reflect a deep-seated hostility which exists between key organs of the national assembly and the presidency. Dr Okonjo-Iweala will be tossed and thrown around as these tussles intensify. No one should expect anything of value from the Minister’s responses to the 50 questions.