The state produces over 70% of Nigeria’s Soya-beans and is home to one of the longest river systems in the country – River Benue, which has the potential for viable fishing and tourism industries complete with festivals similar to the one in Argungu. The river has the potential to generate electricity, to support dry season farming through irrigation and improved transportation through inland waterways. There are also proven reserves of solid minerals like Limestone, Gypsum, Anhydride, Kaolin, Salt, Lead and Zinc, Clay, Coal, Calcite, Gemstones and Magnetite. The Benue Basin has proven quantities of natural gas and there is the likelihood of crude oil as well. The state has many tourism assets like Ushongo Hills, Ikwe Holiday Resort, Enemabia Warm Springs, Dajo Pottery,mTiv Anger Weavers and many traditional festivals. The traditional music and dances of the state attract thousands of Nigerians and foreigners, with potentials for significant development.

With a land mass of 34,059 sq km, Benue State had a population of 4,223,641 in 2006 – now estimated at nearly five million – a little above the population of Congo and more than twice the population of Botswana. Abdullahi Shelleng was the first military governor of the state (March-1976-July 1978). Aper Aku was the first democratically elected governor under the National Party of Nigeria and served from October 1979 to December 1983. More recent governors are George Akume (May 1999- May 2007) and Gabriel Suswan. Suswan holds  an LL.B from the university of Lagos, a masters degrees in Law from the University of Jos, and in public administration from the University of Abuja. He was a two-time member of the House of Representatives, and began his first term as governor in May 2007.

According to the NBS poverty profile 2012 based on data up to 2010, of the population of the North Central zone, 61.9% is relatively poor, 57.4% is absolutely poor, 38.6% is food poor – an irony indeed for a zone with such generous agricultural endowments. Benue’s poverty incidence is high at 36%, which means that more than one out of every three persons is poor: as opposed to one in seven for Lagos, and more than half – 58% in Yobe state. Benue’s unemployed population is a whopping 25.4 % or more than one in every four working age person is unemployed, as opposed to neighboring Plateau’s 14% and FCT’s 13%, and above the national average of 21.1%. Benue States has one of the highest incidences of HIV infections in the country, accounting for about one out of every eight infections nationally.

So what should Benue State be doing in the face of these endowments and challenges?

Education is one of the key indices to measure state government effectiveness. It should be investing a large percentage of its budget on improving public education. The government must deliver affordable and quality healthcare. It should also invest in key infrastructure to attract investors to its agricultural, fishing, tourism and mining sectors. It should address the needs of its farmers for title to land, rural roads, storage facilities and Argo-processing capacity. Are the authorities doing that?

We were unable to obtain the detailed budget of Benue State anywhere. Even members of state assembly contacted were reluctant to provide more than sectoral summaries. Gabriel Suswan had on the 22nd December 2011 presented a budget of N105.5 billion to the state house of assembly for the 2012 fiscal year. The budget would be financed with N59.9 billion from FAAC, N15.2 billion as IGR and N30.3 billion from other sources – meaning loans and grants-in-aid. Typically Benue received about N40 billion every year from FAAC, so the amount expected this year is a bit optimistic. However, after review by the house of assembly, the budget figure was scaled up by N7 billion, bringing the total figure to N112 billion. In terms of federal allocations between 1999 and 2008, of the total N3.7 trillion allocation that has been distributed amongst the 19 Northern states, Benue received N203.4 billion, making it the 6th largest beneficiary.

Of the total budget sum, N58 billion amounting to 52% is earmarked for recurrent expenditure, and N54 billion, about 48% is set aside for capital expenditure. This means that this rural state is spending much more on running the government than securing the future of its citizens. It should scale capital investment to closer to 70%, and reduce recurrent spending accordingly.

The sectoral breakdown of the budget shows the following structure; N34,406,400,000 (30.72%) for the Works and Transport, N14,336,000,000 (12.8 %) for the Finance ministry pay of loans and set up effective revenue generation mechanisms; 4.82% or N5,376,000,000 for Agriculture, Water Resources got 9.1% or N10,192,000,000. The Rural Development ministry was allocated N11,670,400,000 or 10.42%, and the Health allocated N4,592,000,000 or 4.01%. Judging from the distribution if the budget, these figures alone, one is inclined to question the spending priorities of the Suswan administration.

The largest allocation of N34,406,400,000 or 30.72% of the budget is set aside for the works and transport. In addition, the state house of assembly approved a Fixed Rate Development Bond Issue 2011/2016 of N13 billion for the state. Listed in March 2011, the five-year, 14% coupon rate bond proceeds are for the completion of roads and other projects like water supply in Markurdi, Otobi and Katsina-Ala. Questions remain though – how much of the N34.4 billion is from the proceeds of the N13 billion bond that will be need to be paid back over a five year period? How much of the N13 billion bond was spent so far, and what was it spent on? Venue citizens probably know these answers.

It is indeed a paradox that while Benue state is endowed with one of Nigeria’s biggest rivers with very good water traffic, the citizens live in perpetual water shortage. Regarding River Benue, one would wonder why the state isn’t exploring its hydro tourism/hydro electric potentials; starting up cruises or exploiting its reputation as a major Nigerian river towards developing water transport or building a whole sporting industry, water games and all. Looking at the figure of N10,192,000,000 (9.1%) allocated to Water Resources, the first question that should come to mind is, how much of the N13 billion bond was specifically spent on water projects?. How much of these funds are directed into the areas listed?

As a state with abundant agricultural potentials – land that is very fertile and about 80% of the state’s population is involved directly or indirectly in sustenance farming, wholistic ficus on agricultural production is the key to the state’s future. Sadly, Benue has a reputation for wasteful agriculture as the state lacks basic storage infrastructure. Agriculture is not yet mechanized beyond sustenance such that it will amount significantly upon the states IGR. A careful state endowment and value chain study, with investments in key areas will enable Benue feed most of Nigeria’s population. That is one area for the attention of the authorities

On the bright side, doing business in Benue is relatively easy. Amongst the 36 states and the FCT, Benue was ranked 10 in the ease of doing business, with 8 procedures that will span a minimum of 36 days, 6 places behind its Plateau counterpart. Plateau State’s doing business ranking is number 4, with 8 procedures over a 31 day period. This relatively easy business climate is doing well for Benue, considering that in 2010 the states combined IGR was N6.8 billion, in 2011 it increased to N11 billion, and in 2012, there is an IGR projection of N15.2 billion.

The state deserves some credit on its attractiveness to investors, in 2010, the Benue Cement Company merged into the Dangote group, thereby increasing its capacity in cement production, in 2011, the Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (TRANSCORP) subsidiary, Terago Limited, leased, renovated and recommissioned the Benue Pioneer Fruit Juice Concentrates Company for 10 years at the cost of N1 billion. Also in 2011, an MoU for the revitalization and management of the near moribund Taraku Oil Mills was signed. Interestingly all these industries were established during the life of the earlier administration of Governor Aper Aku.

Educationally, Benue is a disadvantaged state. In the 2008 academic year, 41,410 Benue students sat for WAEC, and only 1,879 or 4.5% scored 5 credits including Maths and English, the same year, only 389 students from Benue State were admitted to Nigerian Universities, compared with 3,569 and 4,030 for Edo and Enugu states – the leading performers.  This trend should be of concern, especially in a times such as this, when a core focus of government should be to reduce its unemployed population so they do not constitute a threat to society.

Another worrisome aspect of the budget is the allocation to health: an allocation of 4% or N4.5 billion of the entire budget sum when health should be a priority sector for the state. The  special adviser to the Benue state governor on HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases said that there are no fewer than 400,000 persons in the state who are carriers of the disease, out of three million infected Nigerians. Considering this situation, does Benue aim to safeguard the health of its citizens with this level of spending? Maybe, laudable is the fact that the state government renovated all general hospitals in the state, has partnered with Essential Pharma to curb the menace of fake drugs within the state, and is one of the few states to upgrade its Action Committee on Aids to an Aids Control Agency. There is need to do more in both preventive and curative healthcare provisions.

Benue’s recurrent budget is more than three times its IGR. It is therefore incapable of standing on it own and is one of the “parastatal states” that rely on monthly FAAC hand-outs to exist. Interestingly, in spite of this, there is a strong movement for the creation of another state out of Benue for the benefit of the political elite Idoma ethnic group! The government is doing much better on the IGR front than most states in the country, but must scale down the size and cost of its administration. It is investing aggressively in transport infrastructure and that is commendable but more investments are needed in education, healthcare and agriculture. Tourism, mining and hydroelectricity are all areas that Benue can focus to deepen its comparative advantages within the Nigerian nation. Until these are addressed and urgently too, the people of Benue should be looking at voting differently in the next election.

Two Sad Events
This week started with a depressing note for me, and got worse yesterday with the bombing of ThisDay’s offices in Abuja and Kaduna. On Monday, the sensibilities of Nigerians were challenged by a motley crowd of hired thugs protesting AGAINST the excellent report of the Farouk Lawan Committee on Fuel Subsidy. I was depressed. Have we become this bad that people can shamelessly support what is wrong? Do these protesters have parents? Have we lost all our values to illicit money and now ruled completely by corruption?

As I was struggling with these, learning that Boko Haram has targeted the offices of ThisDay worsened my state of mind. How can those that report news be the problem or the target of anyone? How can anyone justify the killing of another? Where is our sense of community? thee attacks must be condemned by all well-meaning Nigerians. We call on the authorities to rise up beyond the usual platitudes and speeches and protect the lives and property of our citizens. May the souls of the departed rest in peace. Amen.

At the crossroads that we have found ourselves as a nation, where a sitting government has shown no capacity and competence to confront these two challenges, we must be blunt in evaluating what has gone wrong – perhaps the moral outrage that results will be the basis for action to change things for the better. There are some preconceived and utterly wrong notions of where we are, how we got to this point and who to hold accountable that need to be questioned. There are narratives that are biased and not serving the nation well that need to be stated openly and sterilized. This is a duty beyond politics and partisanship, founded on respect for facts and logic. I will do my best to present some of these as a basis for our engagement. I thank you again for inviting me.

Terrorism and corruption are two words that now dominate our headline news more than any others. Domestic terrorism has now joined corruption as defining characteristics of our nation. It is sad that while other countries grapple with rebuilding their financial systems, upgrading their physical infrastructure and human capital, and adopting leapfrogging technologies to enhance their global competitiveness, our sensibilities are daily affronted by news of stolen trillions, multiple bombings and hapless leaders.

Terrorism
Terrorism is simply the use of violence and intimidation in pursuit of political goals. While to many, it appears to be a recent phenomenon in Nigeria, looking at it closely shows it has been with us in various degrees. What else do most of our political parties do other than use violence and intimidation in pursuit of political goals? Who else exemplifies these characteristics more than the ruling party? In the context of this definition, where would you place what OPC and Egbesu Boys were doing in the 1990s? What have the militants of the Niger Delta and their umbrella organization called MEND been doing for years? Now there is no dispute as to whether the anarchist Boko Haram is a terrorist organization or not. The truth is that one’s freedom fighter is the terrorist in the eyes of another.

Even with the activities of these fringe ethnic and regional groupings, Nigeria did not enter the map of terrorism-prone nations until recently. Maplecroft, a British risk analysis and mapping firm that publishes the Terrorism Risk Index (TRI) ranked our country 19th and at “extreme risk” of terrorism in 2011, ahead of Israel (20th) but safer than Yemen, South Sudan and India among others. With the escalation of attacks by Boko Haram in the north, and resumption of threats and hostilities by MEND in the Niger Delta, Nigeria is likely to jump to near the top of the TRI soon, unless something concrete is done.

Our nation and citizens are in grave danger. Our unity in diversity is at the highest levels of risk since independence. The possible break-up of Nigeria is being discussed openly not only in the Villa, but in various regional and cultural association meetings. Our democracy is in danger, and its desirable end canvassed by young people in social media. The state no longer has monopoly of violence, and no longer in exclusive control of our maritime borders. We are increasingly resembling a failed state with confused and corrupt persons at the helm of affairs who seem concerned only about enriching themselves and their coteries of choristers. How did we get to this point of near helplessness so fast?

Corruption

Corruption on the other hand refers to dishonest or fraudulent conduct by people vested with authority, and usually involves bribery or gratification. I think corruption is something Nigerians are sufficiently familiar with, so we do not need to spend a lot of time defining it. We all know it when we see it, and we see it often. For those in public office, I think the best way to determine whether that innocuous end-of-the-year gift amounts to a bribe, the question posed by Islamic jurists is appropriate – “Will this thing of value be offered to me by the person in question if I am not holding this public office?” If the answer to the question is not an immediate and unhesitant “Yes”, then the gift is a bribe, and should therefore be rejected.

You will notice I have carefully avoided referring to legislation, legal maxims and decided cases in defining either terrorism or corruption. It is not just because we have little by way of convictions for terrorism and corruption in our case law, but because many Nigerians have lost confidence in our justice system in its effort to deal with these terrible phenomena. For years, our nation has struggled with the reputation of being one of the world’s most corrupt nations. In 2002 we were amongst the bottom three, but with the emergence of EFCC and the implementation of several governance reforms between 2003 and 2007, we were out of the bottom thirty by the time the Obasanjo administration left office.

Under Nuhu Ribadu, the EFCC charged eleven former governors for corruption and money laundering. With the exception of Lucky Igbinedion’s ‘plea bargain’ arranged by Farida Waziri, none of the cases have moved forward since then. Several of them now sit in the senate and chair powerful committees. Our justice system has been lax and ambivalent about dealing with cases of grand corruption, as evidenced by the recent conviction of James Ibori in London after a federal high court in Asaba had dismissed over 100 counts of money laundering and corruption against him. It is not surprising that we are now back to nearer the bottom of the corruption league table.

According to Human Rights Watch (2007), the endemic nature of corruption in Nigeria has led to the loss of US $380 billion between independence and 1999. A Global Financial Integrity Initiative report dated January 2011 estimated that US $130 billion worth of illicit financial flows occurred between 2000 to 2008. Adding these numbers to the loss of nearly $7 billion to the fuel subsidy racket alone brings our national loss due to corruption to something in the region of US $600 billion from independence to end of 2011!

In 2008, Afrobarometer reported that 57% of respondents surveyed considered the Yar’Adua government as handling the anti-corruption war badly. The same survey revealed that 30% of respondents did not trust political parties. Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2010 painted a similar picture with 40% of household respondents judging the government’s war against corruption as ineffective, while political parties and the national assembly were perceived to be amongst the most corrupt bodies in Nigeria, side by side with the Nigeria Police.

This finding – that political parties, the legislature and the Police are the least trusted is not surprising because corruption takes many forms. Indeed, I am of the view that rigging elections is the foundation of all corruption because it confers power without legitimacy, and without responsibility. And in Nigeria’s fourth republic in particular, it has birthed not only financial corruption, but immorality, violent crimes and terrorism.

The scale and scope of corruption in Nigeria have moved from irritating road-side demands and under-the-table payments worth billions of naira per annum captured by officials to a multi-trillion naira business under Yar’Adua and Jonathan. Everywhere we bother to check, billions and trillions are being wasted or stolen – fuel subsidy, pension funds, inflated and unexecuted contracts, goods and services paid for that are never supplied, taxes collected but not remitted, illegal allowances and benefits collected by officials, and entire budgets for security diverted to private pockets. How did we get to this point of near hopelessness so fast?

The Unholy Trinity

Violent crimes, corruption and terrorism were referred to as the unholy trinity that would confront citizens and countries in the twenty first century by Shelley (2005). These constitute Siamese triplets that often go together. Some commentators like Sarup (2005) insist that corruption increases terrorism. Contributing at a debate about corruption in India, a judge, Justice Santosh Hegde opined that “terrorism is caused by a disease called greed.” He went to observe that “politics was public service, now it is business.” Do these sound familiar? Do these opinions apply to us in Nigeria in 2012?

In my humble opinion, our own version of the unholy trinity has roots in toxic politics, rigged elections and bad governance. Political ‘God-Fatherism’, transactional leadership and social injustice are the key manifestations of this trinity. They are a toxic cocktail that would bring down any community, nation or government sooner or later. We got to where we are because due to years of practicing a brand of politics that is neither democratic nor meritocratic, with elections that are mostly rigged in many parts of the country, and political parties that are capriciously controlled by a few people.

Undemocratic politics is based on the deployment of money, violent thugs and coercive powers of state machinery. In many states, politicians and parties have armies of “youths” that are fed with cheap drugs and then armed with machetes, swords and guns to attend political rallies and attack any perceived opponents of the party and candidate. For instance, in Bauchi, Isa Yuguda has his ‘sara-suka’ (attack and stab), Ali Modu Sheriff in Borno had his ECOMOG, and Gombe’s Danjuma Goje had his “Yan Kalare”. In Rivers State, Ateke Tom and Asari Dokubo were similarly trained and armed by the PDP initially to ‘win elections’.

What then happens after the elections are won and the supply of cash and drugs end? Society was left with young, bitter and hopeless people that happen to possess some dangerous weapons. The result – kidnappers for cash that metamorphosed into militants in the Niger Delta, kidnappers and armed robbers in the South-East and Area Boys and various NURTW thugs in the South-West, and Boko Haram in the North-East.

When ‘elected’ officials know for sure that they were not truly elected, but rigged their way to power, the organic link of accountability between the leadership and the electorate is broken. The ‘elected’ official panders to the interest groups that got his or her into office rather than the people – these could be the party Godfathers, the officials that wrote the results (INEC, Police and the SSS) or the thugs that snatched ballot boxes and so on. The structure and composition of these interest groups vary from state to state, but the overall picture is similar across the board.

Pandering to these narrow interests cost money with the result that diverting budgets, operating huge security votes and appointing hundreds of ‘aides’ that do nothing becomes the norm. It is when these interests are taken care of that the electorate is remembered. The overall outcome is capricious governance, discretionary application of resources and transactional mindset in governance. Little can be achieved under these scenarios, and this is what happens in most of our 36 states, the FCT and the Federal Government in most of the 13 years of ‘democratic’ governance.

Social and economic injustice is the sum total of these decisions and actions by the political leadership. Young people that have worked hard to get an education do not have equal opportunity to compete for jobs, because only those that are politically-connected get jobs even when they are the least qualified. The lazy drop-outs of the last few years have built mansions and drive SUVs because they were ‘youth leaders’ of the ruling party. Gutsy but brainless people that are willing to dance to the tune of the state governors end up as local government chairmen or in national or state assemblies as members earning hefty but illegal allowances for doing next to nothing.

Unintended Consequences

Our politics and its products completely inverted and reversed the incentive structure in our society. Merit, honesty and hard work ceased to be virtues in politics and public service. Sycophancy, servility and cunning were more useful qualities for getting ahead and succeeding. Our young men and women – about 4 million of them added every year to the population – have observed and appeared to internalize these distorted values. There is little or no sense of community in that generation just as the concept of social justice is unknown to them. Generally, there are just two types of young people now. The smart ones that wish to take advantage of the system and the honest but bitter ones that feel short-changed by our generation and the system they think we created.

With the exception of a minority of deeply thoughtful ones amongst them that can see through what is going on, most of our children have zero idealism. Many are uncouth, rude and abusive to everyone.They have no respect for their peers and seniors, and using the anonymity of social media, they vent their anger and frustrations on anyone that they believe is remotely responsible for their condition. They take no responsibility to be informed, educated or experienced. Such youths see everything through ethnic, religious and regional lenses. They only care about sex, expensive cars, music and European soccer leagues. When I compare the idealism with which we viewed the world in our younger days with what I read on Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger these days, I am worried about the future of our nation (or more precisely, the lack of it.)

Another unintended consequence of our toxic politics is poverty, unemployment and income inequality. Nigeria boasts of a rapidly-growing economy but has 113 million living below the poverty line of a dollar a day. For an agricultural nation, it is a shame that 41% of Nigerians – nearly 70 million – are classified as “food poor” in 2010. The zonal distribution tells a deeper story. Nearly 52% of the people living in the North-West and North-East, 39% of the North-Central, 41% of South-East, 36% of South-South and 25% of South-West are hardly able to feed themselves.

Unemployment is the primary target of every sensible nation’s economic policy, but our policy makers seem quite content trumpeting our jobless growth. Nationally, at least one in every five able-bodied Nigerians willing and able to work has no job. Again, a sample of different rates for states show a more serious disparity. In Lagos only about 8% are unemployed, and 9% in Oyo State. In contrast, it is 39% in Yobe State and 27% in Borno – the birthplace of Boko Haram. Other states’ indices are Bayelsa (19%), Akwa Ibom (26%), Kaduna (25%), Kano (26%), Zamfara (33%), Benue (26%), Nasarawa (22%) and Anambra (21%).

Income inequality is another serious problem. According to the NBS, in 2010 65% of Nigeria’s wealth is owned by just 20% of the population. This effectively means that 80% of the population share between them only about one third of the nation’s wealth. This income inequality manifests itself in conspicuous consumption by a few side by side with abject poverty experienced by the many. Income inequality, unemployment and poverty have been shown to correlate strongly with increases in violent crimes in many societies. This cocktail is what US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson referred to when he stated that Nigeria’s Boko Haram was capitalizing on popular discontent with bad governance in Nigeria in general and the North in particular. The fact that virtually all indices of development and progress have been deteriorating from 2007 in spite of being a period of high oil prices and production should make every thoughtful person to question what is happening.

Emergence of Boko Haram

In 2007, we had terribly flawed elections that brought Umaru Yar’Adua and several governors into office. In at least 14 states of the federation, ballot papers for the presidential election were being delivered when the results declaring Yar’Adua the winner were announced. The new president was decent enough to admit that the election that brought him to power was flawed and established a committee to recommend remedial measures. The judicial challenges to the various elections were going through the election tribunals slowly but surely.

The Yar’Adua-Jonathan administration inherited about US $50 billion in foreign reserves, US $27 billion in the excess crude account, and only US $3 billion in foreign debt. Yar’Adua inherited a country that was liquid and had a strong balance sheet, with BB- sovereign credit rating by both Standard & Poor and Fitch. The economic prospects were bright if the political economy was managed well. The twin deficits of electricity and rail transport were being addressed through the award of contracts to build seven new power stations and the Lagos-Kano dual-track, standard gauge railway line.

Over the ensuing four years, the federation earned another US $180 billion from oil and gas, import duties and taxes. By 2011, all these resources had been wasted with little to show for it. The excess crude account had been run down to less than $1 billion, the reserves drawn down to about US $35 billion and none of the rail and power infrastructure projects completed. What is significant is that since February 2010 when he became acting president, Mr. Jonathan has been borrowing an average of US $1 billion monthly, mostly by issuing bonds, thereby doubling our total debt levels to nearly US $42 billion and counting. The federal government is fast accelerating towards insolvency!

In April 2007, Sheikh Jaafar was murdered in cold blood while praying in his mosque in Kano by assailants that years later turned out to be suspected members of a sect to be known as Boko Haram, operating out of Bauchi State. However at the time the Sheikh was killed, an attempt was made to link the murder to the state governor Ibrahim Shekarau. This as we shall see, became a recurring pattern of behavior by the security agencies in cases of this nature – the politicization of terrorism.

In July 2009, Yar’Adua deployed the Nigerian Army to “crush” Boko Haram. The leaders of the sect were captured alive, or arrested from their homes and extra-judicially executed by the Nigerian Police. The sect believes that Ali Modu Sheriff, then governor of Borno State and the Commissioner of Police took the decision to wipe out its leadership, regrouped and went on what was essentially a revenge mission targeting the Police, the Borno State Government and other uniformed services of the Federal Government. That is how Boko Haram evolved from a largely peaceful, fringe Islamic organization to a vengeful sect and currently an anarchist threat to the Nigerian nation.

Initially, Boko Haram’s targets were symbols of authority (Police, Borno State Government, etc.) and limited geographic (Borno State) scope. The attitude of authorities to the sect’s (Northerners are killing one another, so we do not care, etc.) activities emboldened them, and when the first bomb was exploded by MEND in Abuja on October 1, 2010, the sect learnt a thing or two about grabbing national attention. As the media gave the sect attention, it mainstreamed its activities to first attack Yobe State then the Federal Capital Territory.

The watershed in the sect’s activities were the June 2011 bombing of the Police Headquarters and the August 2011 attack on the UN Headquarters. By these actions the sect established the capacity to operate in the nation’s capital, outside its original geographic location thus attracting national and global attention. Sadly, between 2009 and 2012, more than 1,000 people have lost their lives as a result of Boko Haram’s attacks in Maiduguri, Potiskum, Damaturu, Jos, Kano, Gombe, Kaduna and Abuja. In 2011 alone, Boko Haram attacked 115 times with 550 deaths resulting.

Socio-Economic Impact of Terrorism and Corruption

Terrorism raises levels of insecurity and fear among citizens. It results in movement and travel restrictions and curtailing of human rights. These have negative impact on investment flows and functioning of markets. These combine to reduce employment opportunities, wealth creation and capital formation.

According to the World Investment Report of UNCTAD, the Nigerian economy recorded a reduction in foreign direct investment from US $8.65 billion in 2009 to US $6.1 billion in 2010 due to the fear of Boko Haram. The Nigerian tourism sector which is worth some N80 billion annually has lost more than half of its value due to fear of terrorist attacks. The domestic air transport industry which generates some N3 billion annually has been hard hit by flight cancellations to destinations in the north, with nearly half of the revenues lost.

In Borno State, schools have been closed. In other affected parts of the north, normal social life is unlikely to return soon. In places like Jos, the city is so neatly divided along ethnic lines that the vibrancy and inclusion that has been its heartbeat has been lost for a long time to come. The recent attack on media houses and Bayero University has opened new areas and targets of the sect that should worry the authorities.

The north has been the hardest hit with the leading commercial centre, Kano being under military occupation since January 2012. Kaduna, a leading industrial centre has also been repeatedly attacked by the various shades of what is known as Boko Haram. Many of us believe that there are at least four variants of Boko Haram – the real BH and three other fakes that use the brand to advance their own narrow, self-centered agendas. Many in the North see the patent inaction of the authorities as the advancement of a sinister agenda to destroy an already near prostate northern economy through occupation, militarization and disruption of socio-economic activities. The federal government has done nothing to indicate otherwise, and the state governments have acquiesced to the cavalier attitude of the Villa.

Way Out of the Quagmire

Terrorism and corruption are big issues with no easy solutions. There are no silver bullets and no country has been able to eradicate corruption or be totally immune from domestic terrorism. I will make some suggestions here as a basis for discussion and way forward.

I do not think our anti-corruption strategy attacks the roots of corruption. In addition to the unsuccessful ‘arrest-and-charge’ approach that we have tended to focus on, I believe we must reduce cash transactions to the barest minimum. If all transactions are electronic, it will be harder for untraceable, illicit payments to be made. If Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s efforts in cashless banking are complemented with a national ID system that can identify, monitor and audit every resident, and his or her financial transactions when a court order is obtained, it will be harder to take bribes and launder the money.

We also need to strengthen institutions by appointing decent people to head them, respect their tenures and appoint successors from within rather than bring in political hacks to do jobs that they are neither qualified nor trained to do. Our judiciary needs revamping. The last CJN has done incalculable damage to the the most important arm of government – because without an honest and decent judiciary, nothing will ever work in this country.

Terrorism is a harder nut to crack. I am of the view that a multi-track approach is necessary to increase the chances of its’ success. First, the prevailing narrative in the Jonathan camp must be discarded. This narrative is what the national security adviser tried to communicate at the Asaba summit of south-south leaders, but he was misunderstood by the media. Jonathan and his inner circle believe that Boko Haram is a northern conspiracy to prevent Jonathan enjoying his presidency. And northern political leaders like IBB and General Buhari are the sponsors and financiers of Boko Haram.

This narrative is believed by most Niger Delta leaders because of their own experience in organizing, training and arming the militants and providing funding for MEND during the period of ‘resource control’ agitations of the Obasanjo administration. Because theirs was a conspiracy of the political elite, they think the North must be doing the same. And they also feel that Boko Haram largely kills northerners or “parasites” as one presidential aide, Reno Omokri tweeted; so the more they are killed, the lesser the burden on the ‘oil-rich hosts.’ Another presidential aide actually said these words to an old ex-OPC friend of his in London in June 2011. With this narrative wired in the brains of Jonathan’s inner circle, they spent their first year trying to link some of us in opposition to Boko Haram instead of honestly tracking the real problems. While wasting time on us, the sect grew stronger, bolder and better trained. The first step therefore is to unwind this narrative and honestly ask the right questions.

It is of course disingenuous to believe the narrative, but I assure you that they believe it. Boko Haram’s first bloody confrontation with the authorities was under a northern, Muslim president in 2009. And Obasanjo is not a northerner but governed without Boko Haram. Anyone can see that it is indeed northerners and Muslims that constitute the bulk of the victims of the insurgency. And I think the insurgency escalated not because Jonathan became president by whatever means, but because the government did not care to address it early enough. Now things have spiraled out of control.

Secondly, I believe the fundamental roots of the insurgency challenge – rewarding those who take up arms against the state with the cash hand-outs called amnesty program has to be reviewed. Any society that rewards bad behavior with cash creates a moral hazard that may consume that society. Those giving out the cash should know that they are doing no favors to anyone. Indeed, they are fostering an entitlement culture that would ultimately be the undoing of that part of the country. Boko Haram does not appear to be motivated by money, so those thinking of an amnesty-like program may need to go back to the drawing board.

Thirdly, the corruption, inequality, poverty and unemployment cocktail that creates the breeding ground for violent crimes and terrorism need to be addressed through well-thought out and targeted programs of investment in education, healthcare, skills development and training, and infrastructure building that will provide employment opportunities in various communities. In addition, the authorities must criminalize the existence of political thugs by whatever name and of whatever description, and ensure elections are henceforth free, fair and credible. The political parties need to be reformed, leadership selection be guided largely by merit, while the electoral institutions need to be alive to their responsibilities.

Fourthly, as a medium term, structural measure, we must work to restore our federalism to the broad outlines embedded in the 1963 republican constitution, devolving more powers and responsibilities to the states and making the federal government less of a busy body. This would require that states like Bauchi whose annual internally-generated revenue is N7 billion should not run a government costing N58 billion because of monthly hand-outs from Abuja. Each state should learn to live within its means and seek to actively develop its comparative endowments. This also means the states would have greater say over their policing and security, natural resource royalties and taxation. State governors will then be compelled to use their resources better and not point fingers at the federal government.

Finally, in addition to reviewing the failed military strategy now in place and scaling back what has become the militarization of the north, the government must work with community leaders in Borno, Yobe, Plateau, Kano and Kaduna States to identify interlocutors that would enable honest discussions with Boko Haram to establish what they REALLY want. The arrest and prosecution of those that murdered their leaders would certainly be one demand, but there may be others that the government knows but would not want us to know. The Maitatsine sect was easily defeated in the 1980s because the surrounding communities despised them and their methods. The current situation in Kano and Borno States is one in which the military occupiers are killing more innocent people than Boko Haram, which injustice is tilting sympathy in their favor and against the Army. Unless the reckless killings of unarmed men, women and children stop, these communities would revolt sooner or later.

There is nowhere in the world where insurgencies like Boko Haram have been defeated purely through military force and occupation – ask the Americans about Afghanistan and Iraq, or the British about Northern Ireland. Those saying “crush them” should know that recent history of the war on terror is not on their side. We want a country that works for everyone, and this senseless loss of lives must end soon. The government that has the responsibility for our security must bend over backwards to deliver it. If they continue to fail in this regard, they will not be in government for too long.

House Committee Report on Fuel Subsidy Removal – Federal Republic of Nigeria

Lagos State was created on May 27, 1967 by virtue of State (Creation and Transitional Provisions) Decree No. 14 of 1967, which restructured Nigeria’s Federation into 12 states. Prior to this, Lagos Municipality had been administered by the Federal Government through the Ministry of Lagos Affairs as regional authority, while Lagos City Council (LCC) governed the City of Lagos. The metropolitan areas (Colony Province) of Ikeja, Agege, Mushin, Ikorodu, Epe and Badagry were administered by the old Western Region. The State took off as an administrative entity on April 11, 1968 with Lagos Island serving the dual role of being the State and Federal Capital. However, with the creation of the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja in 1976, Lagos Island ceased to be the capital of the State which was then moved to Ikeja. With the formal relocation of the seat of the Federal Government to Abuja on 12 December 1991, Lagos Island ceased to be Nigeria’s administrative capital.

Mobolaji Johnson was the first Governor of the state; however Alhaji Lateef Jakande was the first elected Governor of the state who served from October 1979 to December 1983 under the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). More recent and significant Governors of Lagos are Buba Marwa (1996-1999), Bola Tinubu (1999-2007) and Babatunde Fashola who was elected in 2007.

Babatunde Fashola is a lawyer by profession who excelled in his professional career which spanned over a decade and a half leading to his recognition as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. In 1999, he joined the public service and served in various capacities with the Lagos State Government until his rise to the position of Chief of Staff to Governor Bola Tinubu. In his first four years in office, marked improvements were noted within the state – the cleanliness of the metropolis which residents and visitors could attest to, improvements in roads and traffic within the state, improved transportation systems with the introduction of BRT and ferry services across the state – Fashola is without doubt, one of the few “performing” governors in the country and it must be credited to Tinubu that politically, his succession strategy has worked. The ground work for most of what is visible today in Lagos was jointly laid by Tinubu and his team including the current governor Fashola. The result is focus and continuity in governance rather than “witch-hunting” of predecessors which has bedeviled other “anointment arrangements”. Fashola’s comparatively stellar performance in office makes many wonder if professional politicians are best suited to deliver on the difficult job of good governance!

Lagos is the most populous state in Nigeria with over five per cent of the national population estimate. Ironically, it is the smallest state in terms of land mass; the state has an area of 356,861 hectares of which 75,755 hectares are wetlands. Interestingly, of this population, Metropolitan Lagos, an area covering 37% of the land area of Lagos State is home to over 85% of the State population making it a densely populated state. UN estimates that at its present growth rate, Lagos state will be third largest mega city in the world by 2015 after Tokyo in Japan and Bombay in India, with a population nearing 30 million!

According to the World Bank and DFID, Lagos’ 2009 GDP is estimated at N4.163tn. Lagos which is a mega-city is the largest contributor to the national GDP at 18%. Lagos’ GDP ranks 6th after Cairo ($98 billion); Johannesburg ($79 billion); Cape Town ($75 billion). Its GDP equals that of Kenya ($29.5 billion) which has a higher population (30million) than Lagos. Lagos boasts of a higher GDP than Cameroun ($20.6 billion), Cote d’ Ivoire ($19.6 billion) and Ghana ($15.2 billion) which have populations of 19, 21 and 24 million people respectively.

The South-west zone of Nigeria is the most prosperous part of the country. According to National Bureau of Statistics Poverty Profile 2012 which studied poverty incidences nationwide using 2009 and 2010 data, poverty is classified in four categories; absolute poverty (based on daily food intake), relative poverty (determined by household expenditure) and purchasing power parity (dollar per day). 59.1% of the people in the region live above poverty line which is appreciable given the humongous 77.7% in the North-West region that live well below poverty lines. 50.1% of people in the South-West survive on about a dollar a day while only 25.4% are absolutely (food) poor which is impressive compared to other states in the country. Gini coefficients are used to measure income inequalities and in Lagos, a co-efficient of -26.2% indicates a decrease in income inequalities within Lagos State between 2003 and 2010 – something the governors should be proud of! Lagos has the highest percentage in Nigeria (85.4%) of people who can feed themselves. Statistics also indicate that 40.8% of the population in Lagos live above poverty lines. Though there is room for improvement in the poverty indices, it is much better than states like Bauchi and Sokoto where only 16.3% and 13.6% respectively live above poverty lines!

Lagos state is one of the few in the country which has a well detailed and structured budget made available to the public on the state Government’s website which is fully functional. The budgets are properly explained and broken down by the MDAs with expenditures and revenues properly accounted for. Also, the state posts its budget performance reviews online which indicates transparency and accountability in governance. It is ironic that even with the enactment of freedom of information and fiscal responsibility acts, most State Governments still hide their budgets and breakdowns from the citizens of their states and the general public.

In the 2012 budget, there was an increase from the previous years’ budget of N450.8b to N491.9b (9%). The total revenue for 2012 is estimated at N399.8b and impressively, the ordinary revenue (Lagos IGR, other IGR, dedicated revenue, etc.) of the state is N289.7b which is about 73% of total revenue. This is more than double of the N110.2b that Lagos expects from the federation account in 2012. Lagos is therefore not one of the numerous “parastatal states” that cannot pay salaries unless the FAAC meets in Abuja! Compared to some other states whose budgets have grown astronomically with no commensurate growth in IGR, the budget of Lagos state has steadily increased alongside its IGR as shown by an 8% (N262.6b to N289.7b) increase in ordinary revenues between 2011 and 2012. So while the federal government preaches fiscal consolidation without practicing, it is Lagos State that is practicing it without all the noise!

Comparing both years’ budgets, there is a projected increase in ordinary revenue (IGR inclusive) by about N27b between 2011 and 2012. Taking the case study of Bauchi state whose budget was analyzed last week, it’s projected increase in IGR for this year was just N1b! Unlike the case of Bauchi state where the government spends money on maintaining many commissioners and 924 aides that it’s IGR cannot support, Lagos State Government has 23 commissioners and 20 Special Advisers, and yet is performing much better. In fact, looking at the revenue earning capacity of Lagos in comparison to many states of the federation is going from one extreme to another.

Capital expenditure for 2012 is N258.3b (53%) while recurrent expenditure is N233.6b (47%) of the total budget. Although the ratio does not meet the best practice of 70% for capital expenditure, it must be acknowledged that Lagos enjoys the dual advantages of limited geographic spread and legacy of inherited federal infrastructure, and therefore does not need as much greenfield infrastructural investments as other rural states. What it needs though is high levels of spending on maintenance and running costs. These are perhaps reflected in the higher recurrent portions of the budget.

The government, in 2012 increased its recurrent expenditures on education from N28.4b in 2011 to N35.4b and justifiably too as there has been continuous increase in both volumes and pass rates of SSCE candidates from Lagos. The number of candidates who obtained five credits in WASCE including English and Mathematics has improved from a miserable 7.58% in 2007 to an impressive 21.11% in 2010.The 2010 National Literacy Survey also shows that Lagos has the highest literacy rate in any language. Increased allocation of funds to this sector is definitely a commendable step in the right direction.

The environmental sub-sector of Lagos state which receives about 6% of the overall budget allocation, recorded a huge leap from the N335m revenue generated in 2011 to projected N2b in 2012. This is one sector which the residents of Lagos have felt a visible difference. There was a slight increase in health allocation from N32.9b in 2011 to N33.3b in 2012. In spite of the increase, the health sector is expected to double its revenue from N393m to N655m. Works and Infrastructure received 18% (N88.1b) of the budget reflecting investments to address existing infrastructure deficits. The transportation sector however, dropped in projected revenue by about N400m whereas its budgetary allocation increased by about 11% for the same reason.

The personnel cost budget for the entire Lagos State government for 2012 is about N81.6b. This is less than one third of its IGR and less than 5% of the federal governments (N1,600b) staff costs, yet many would say that Lagos runs better than Nigeria these days. Departments such as lands, environmental protection, works and infrastructure, transportation, and even the judiciary earn sufficient revenues to cover their personnel costs. In fact, the lands department earns enough to cover all its recurrent expenditures while the state’s Ordinary Revenue (N289.7b) can cover its total recurrent costs (N233.6b) with a surplus of N56.1b. That is how a federating unit’s finances should be!

In year 2011, Lagos State High Courts alone made revenues of about N700m and are expected to earn about N1.2b in 2012 which is higher than the IGR of most states of the federation now depending on the Federal Government for monthly handouts. The lesson and experience of Lagos is this – each MDA is a revenue as well as a cost centre. Each government department that offers services charges some fees to cover all or part of the cost of the service. That is how to run a department, state, or country! My admiration for the business-like way Lagos is run is clear by now.

Lagos is only state in the country which can survive solely on its incomes from taxation. However according to the World Bank Doing Business rankings 2010, the state was ranked 25th out of 37 in Nigeria in terms of ease of doing business. Lagos is not an agrarian state, neither is it endowed with any mineral resources. It is therefore disturbing that despite the huge amount of private sector investment and potential, the business environment is far from friendly. The authorities need to create a thriving environment for businesses in Lagos especially since taxes and land charges are the major source of fiscal sustenance of the state.

All our states should learn lessons from Lagos not only in the areas of budget transparency but fiscal independence from Abuja, delivery of public services, investment in education and even governance succession. With these outlier qualities, it is not surprising that Lagos is run by a party other than the PDP of today!

Bauchi State was created in 1976 by the Murtala-Obasanjo-Danjuma administration upon acceptance of the Irikefe Panel on States’ Creation. The panel recommended that the old North-Eastern State be split into Borno, Bauchi and Gongola States. In 1996, the old Bauchi State was split into the current Bauchi and Gombe States. With an estimated 5.7 million citizens, it is the seventh most populous state in Nigeria. If Bauchi was a country, it would be ranked 33rd out of 54 African countries, and about the population of Togo. Within the ECOWAS sub-region, Bauchi is bigger than Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in population. The state is more naturally endowed than the four West African nations mentioned. It has ample arable land, spanning the two ecological zones of Sudan and Sahel Savannah and serviced by two major rivers – Rivers Jama’are and Gongola, thus enabling all year round irrigated agriculture. Its vast fertile soil and hardworking farmers produce maize, rice, millet, groundnut, and guinea corn. Cattle and livestock are also reared in the state.

The state has several proven reserves of solid minerals like Barites, Gypsum, Granites, Potash, Bauxite, Sapphire and Mica amongst others. There is likelihood of oil and gas deposits existing in Bauchi, Gombe and Benue Basins as well. Bauchi’s Yankari Game Reserve is the largest in West Africa and is a leading tourism asset. Other similar but less publicized tourist attractions include Premier Game Reserve, rock paintings at Goji and Shira and the Tafawa Balewa Mausoleum.

The North-East zone of Nigeria is the poorest part of the country. According to NBS Poverty Profile 2012 which studied poverty incidence nationwide using 2009 and 2010 data, 75% of the population of the region was relatively poor, 71.5% was absolutely poor, 51.5% could hardly feed itself (that is, food poor) in an agriculturally-endowed region and a whopping 68.2% live on less than a dollar per day. The states of Yobe (58%), Borno (56%), Katsina (50%) and Bauchi (49%) have the highest poverty indices in Nigeria. All except Katsina are in the north-east zone. Aggravating the absolute, relative and food poverty measures are very high levels of income inequality. Yobe and Taraba in the north-east recorded the highest increases in income inequality between 2003 and 2010 as measured by changes in Gini coefficients. Happily, Bauchi State recorded a decrease during the period due largely to the period of decent governance under former Governor Ahmed Muazu.

The north-east also has the highest levels of unemployment in Nigeria, with Yobe leading the pack with 39%, Bauchi (30%), Gombe (29%), and Borno (27%) following closely. These numbers should be compared with the 8% unemployment rate of Lagos State and the national average of 21%. Bauchi was doing better in educational attainment, though things may have deteriorated since 2008. In that academic year 13,520 Bauchi students attempted WAEC and only 1,764 (about 13%) got five credits including English and Mathematics. Only about 850 Bauchi youths were admitted to universities that same year compared with over 4,000 for Enugu. In healthcare, along with Kano and Sokoto States, Bauchi has the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality in the country. It is clear that Bauchi, like most northern states have huge challenges in virtually every governance area.

Whichever way one looks at and compares these statistics, they confirm the continued economic and social under-performance of the north-east zone of which Bauchi State is a leading component. It is therefore not surprising that while the Nigerian political Sharia movement of the early part of this century started in Zamfara State of north-west, it was the north-east zone that gave birth to the anarchist movement generally referred to as ‘Boko Haram’. Indeed, it was in Bauchi that the first state engagement with Boko Haram occurred, but was initially carefully handled by the state government. Things deteriorated after Shehu Gabam, Yuguda’s chief of staff that managed the first crisis left the administration.

Are all these ingredients of the birth and growth of insurgency there for all to see? Or was it aggravated by poor governance, misplaced spending priorities and incompetent security management? What should the Bauchi State government be doing to secure the future of its citizens? Has state governance in the last few years delivered on social services and opened up economic opportunities for citizens? Let us look at the 2012 budget for answers to some of these questions.

In 2011, the State House of Assembly approved about N118 billion as the budget, to be financed with N53 billion from federation allocation (FAAC), N6.3 billion from internally-generated revenues (IGR) and a whopping N59 billion as loans from money and capital markets. The Bauchi State government budgeted N138.7 billion for 2012, an increase of about N21 billion over the amount in 2011. Yuguda intends to finance the 2012 budget with N69 billion from FAAC, a paltry N7.3 billion as IGR and another N58 billion as loans. In what should be a violation of any sound fiscal responsibility law, nearly 40% of the budget will be financed through borrowing for two years in a row. In 2011, Bauchi State’s domestic debt was about N91 billion, so by the end of the year, Bauchi would be in debt to the tune of some N150 billion. Public debt charges this year is some N6.3 billion and rising. It looks like Yuguda is determined to leave behind a debt-ridden, if not financially insolvent state!

Let us now look at the budget proper. The entire budget document is about 30 pages long, short on details and defective in organization. About N77.3 billion (53%) of the 2012 budget is earmarked for capital expenditure, while N61.4 billion (47%) is for recurrent spending. The recurrent budget is made up of N27.5 billion (20% of budget) for personnel cost and N33.8 billion (24%) for overheads. Yuguda’s budget is therefore better than the federal 28% allocation for capital spending, but still falls short of the minimum of 70% needed to achieve real development. Only three states met this minimum in 2012 – Akwa Ibom (84%), Rivers (74%) and Imo (73%), and the first two may perhaps be easily explicable on the basis of excess oil revenue windfalls. And how can a state that could raise only N7 billion internally budget four times that amount for staff costs?

The sectoral breakdown of the budget showed the following structure; N36.2 billion (26%) for general administration, N25.8 billion (19%) for economic sector, N23.1 billion (17%) for regional development, N41.5 billion (30%) for what I will classify as social services, and N12.2 billion (9%) as Consolidated Revenue Fund charges. The largest total departmental allocations went to Education (N19.4 billion), Security under the SSG’s office (N17.6 billion), Health (N13.7 billion), Works & Transport (N7.7 billion), Rural Development (N7.1 billion), Agriculture (N7.6 billion), Power & Solid Minerals (N5.0 billion) and Water Resources (N3.2 billion). The bulk of the allocation for security is usually spent at the discretion of the governor, without any transparency, accountability or records for necessary audit.

The Judiciary including the Sharia Court of Appeal will cost N3.2 billion to maintain, while the Legislature was earmarked a total slightly above N2 billion. The political office holders in the executive branch along with ‘severance gratuity’ will cost over N3.1 billion in 2012. Adding up the cost of political office holders in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Bauchi State government comes up to N8.3 billion – a billion naira more than the state’s entire IGR! Thus, Bauchi State exists only because it collects monthly hand-outs from FAAC. Since the advent of this republic in 1999 to 2011, the state has collected some N347 billion from Abuja, about 2.7% of federation revenues. At least N180 billion of this total was spent under Yuguda’s first four year watch. And what are the results? The people of Bauchi State are in the best position to answer that question. We will just draw attention to a few items of expenditure and leave the conclusions to the reader.

Bauchi State has budgeted nearly N5 billion for a ministry of power and solid minerals. These are essentially federally-regulated functions best undertaken by the private sector. These monies will simply be frittered away. In 2012, about N19 billion will be spent to produce about 1900 students qualified to be admitted into University, while nearly N14 billion will be spent to improve maternal health and reduce infant mortality. Over N50 billion will be spent to open up economic opportunities and address the needs of vulnerable groups in Bauchi State, without a clear strategy to address value-chain issues and binding constraints in agriculture, livestock production, tourism and mining – sectors in which the state possesses relative competitive advantage. Similar amounts have been spent in previous years with nothing to show for them.

Bauchi was ranked as the tenth state in Nigeria in the overall lowest cost of doing business by the World Bank in 2010, but 21st in ease of starting a new business. Nearly three in ten working age persons in the state are unemployed, with over 43% of all employable females jobless. Unfortunately, instead of addressing these issues with a slim government that directs its resources to building physical infrastructure and human capital, encouraging agriculture and mining, and delivering on basic social services, the government announced the appointment of 924 political appointees as ‘aides’ in September 2011. These consisted of 20 special advisers presumably approved by the State House of Assembly, 94 senior special assistants, and 810 special assistants. Yuguda also appointed 24 directors-general of agencies, 20 local government deputy chairmen and 82 councilors. This is quite apart from some 20 commissioners and several heads of executive bodies. Yuguda, like many northern governors is spending the state’s resources on a very small circle of political jobbers while the general populace gets poorer, more hopeless, thereby constituting greater threats to the society.

Is the Bauchi State government securing the future of its citizens? No. Is its budget structure and spending priorities better than that of the federal government? Yes, at least slightly. But Bauchi State is not fiscally independent or viable unless it improves its IGR and slashes the size and running costs of its bloated government. Unless the government does that, it does not deserve the support of its citizens.

Ultimately, it is a sad commentary on the mind-set of government that massive infrastructure development projects to generate employment and reduce poverty were relegated in favour of misplaced and ineffective security spending and other recurrent expenditure that mostly benefits those in power but have near zero impact on Nigerians. The cost of governance – never mind it is of such a poor quality and totally dysfunctional – has never been higher. How can such high levels of insecurity, fewer hours of electricity than ever, and the hardly-educated products of our educational institutions cost us so much as a country?

While the focus of this column has been on the federal government, we cannot escape the fact that the dereliction and mismanagement of our resources are not confined to the center but replicated in all the component units of the Nigerian Federation: If President Jonathan leads in profligacy, most of our 36 state governors and 774 local government chairmen are proving to be very good followers. From 2001 to 2011, available records indicate that a total sum of N34 trillion accrued as revenue into the federation account, apart from what was paid into the excess crude account for a rainy day. In the five years of Yar’Adua and Jonathan at the helm, over $200 billion have been frittered away by the federal, state and local governments with pretty little to show. On monthly basis, these revenues have been distributed among the federating units using the revenue allocation formula: FGN – 52.68%; States – 26.72% and the LGAs – 20.6%. This is apart from the 13% using the derivation formula, which accrues to each of the nine ‘oil producing’ States, and transfers from ecological funds, natural resources funds and the like, all at the discretion of the president to favored states and pet projects.

We must begin to ask: how have these huge allocations and financial transfers from the centre been expended? Is it in the interest of the generality of the people at the federating units or that of a privileged few that mostly rigged their way into power? And we must begin to seek answers. This is the task to which this column will devote itself to in the coming weeks as we look at specific cases of subnational revenue and expenditure trends with data from all of the six geopolitical zones of the country.

In the meantime though, there is need to assess, in real terms, what is today referred to as the Nigerian federation. Is it plausible to refer to Nigeria as truly a federation or a failing nation-state in which all the component units were designed to live off the federation account, and maintained by the federal government at the centre? Will our current ‘federal’ structure ever create a productive and competitive nation? Or are we doomed to be a nation of parasites on oil and mineral wealth that we neither produce ourselves nor really sweat for? But, has Nigeria always been structured this way?

From one perspective, there might be a nexus between our anomalous federal structure and the lack of accountability, particularly at the state and local government levels. If we reflect on our distant past, the 1963 Republican Constitution was close to an ideal federal structure, with clear guidelines on how the Nigerian federation and the federating units were to be financed without undue reliance of one on the other. Unlike the 1979 Presidential Constitution and its successors including the current 1999 version, the 1963 Constitution set clear parameters for territorial and fiscal federalism and carefully avoided undue centralization. For instance, section 140(1) (a) & (b) of the 1963 Constitution foreclosed any agitations in the guise of ‘resource control’. While all minerals – solid or liquid – remain unequivocally the property of the government of the federation, the Constitution provided thus: “There shall be paid by the Federation to each region a sum equal to fifty percent of – the proceeds of any royalty received by the Federation in respect of any minerals extracted in that Region; and any mining rents derived by the Federation from within that Region”.

In reciprocal terms, the regions were contributing towards the costs of administration of the federal government at the centre in the proportion of what they received as their own share of proceeds of export, import and excise duties collected in each region by the region on behalf of the government at the centre. In the case of oil production, the same applied with the unforeseen exception that the federation will go into joint ventures and production sharing contracts that bring in revenues other than rents, royalties and taxes. This system was maintained until the circumstances of the civil war changed it radically in favour of retention of most of the revenues by the centre, in order to prosecute the war. Things have never been the same since then.

Accordingly, the fallout of military regimes that governed the country for the greater part of our post-independent era; was that virtually all those roles being performed by the regions were overtly taken over and centralized to the situation we now have. We now have a federal government at the centre that tends to be biting more that she could chew for instance by the ineffective policing of the streets, highways and borders across the length and breadth of the vast geographical space called Nigeria. Prisons have been taken over from states and local governments. Every major interstate road is a federal road – which then neither gets built nor maintained when it ever gets constructed. The Federal Government has secondary schools, attempted to build Primary Health Centers, and construct boreholes – activities best done by Local Governments! We can go on and on, but I believe the point is well made. The federal government should scale back on the breadth and depth of its interventions.

Many of these so-called federal functions that are backed by huge recurrent budgets and bureaucracies in Abuja are better handled, cheaper by State Governments. But looking more closely at our states, are they capable of shouldering the burden? These are the questions we will seek to answer over the next few weeks. With the possible exception of Lagos, we currently have states, most of which cannot survive on their internally generated revenue without the monthly transfers from the federation accounts from Abuja. The States now resemble parastatals that wait for a monthly subvention! Compare this with what was obtainable under the First Republican Constitution, there is no incentive for the states to impose and collect income and other taxes, scout for mineral resources in their domain and make efforts for the exploration of same, and develop their agricultural potentials. These would have raised revenues, created employment opportunities and made the citizens of the states more prosperous – and more secure! In effect, rather than forging a reciprocal resourceful interaction with the government at the centre, the states wait monthly to be spoon-fed by the federal government – and with that we see the inevitable erosion of their independence and constitutional powers. In this fourth republic, only Bola Tinubu and Raji Fashola as governors of Lagos State had the fiscal independence – and therefore the guts – to not only stand up to any attempted oppression by Abuja, but tell the successive occupants of the Villa to take a walk!

The resultant consequences of this distortion of our federation have now come home to roost? There are increased agitations and hatred among the federating units – manifest in open calls for some National Conference (NC), the senseless but continued demand for the creation of more states, and the review of the revenue allocation formula. It is clear to everyone that such agitations are not borne out of genuine developmental need but to satisfy the territorial ambitions of the political elite in such enclaves. The dismal fiscal performance, poor governance and lack of financial accountability in the existing states are too self-evident for any rational person to insist on more of the same. The case of the oil producing states that enjoy huge derivation windfalls from the federation accounts does not exempt them from this. Rather than spend the huge monthly allocations to build badly-needed infrastructure, create employment opportunities and improve the welfare of their people, the levels of poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation remain largely unchecked amidst high per capita incomes! It is similar to the case of Nigeria’s fast-growing economy but with over 112 million citizens living in poverty and tens of millions of qualified youths looking for jobs!

Without question, I believe the situation would have been different if true federalism in which every state generates the bulk of its recurrent needs, lives within its means and gets help from the centre on need basis; operated as in the 1963 Constitution. Rather than blame the government at the centre for the woes of the states, citizens would have learnt to hold state governors and local government chairmen responsible for their neglect, and the incessant scramble for political positions at the federal level would have been less desperate and divisive. As it is, the attitude is one of “it is our turn to rule and chop” – with dire consequences for national cohesion, transparency and accountability in governance.

A sound federal structure with balanced devolution of powers among the federating units would provide a respite for the security challenges currently facing the country. In our pieces on the armed forces, the Police and the paramilitary agencies, this column advocated reforms which would encompass decentralization of the police structure close to what was obtainable under the 1963 Constitution as a panacea to the current heightened level of insecurity in the nation.

At the local government level, there is virtually no infrastructural or social development. Apart from paying salaries of teachers, political appointees and the overheads of running the LG secretariats, the rest of the allocations from the federation account are usually not accounted for by the chairmen. The plight of LGAs was further compounded by the constitutional provisions which make it obligatory for a State-LG Joint Account to be established, under the control of the State Government. This became a conduit of a sort where funds allocated to the LGAs for grassroots development simply grow wings – to land in governors’ offices. Rather than entertain the clamour for more non-sustainable states, this is one area that should attract the attention of the National Assembly while considering further amendments to the 1999 Constitution. To play their rightful roles and engender true federalism, any constitutional amendment must clearly specify the tenure of local government chairmen and councilors, and entrench direct transfer between the LGAs and the federation account.

Dream as we may for a better Nigeria; a country that works; a nation with egalitarian principles of equal opportunity for everyone and built on peace requires governments that are responsive and responsible. These ideals will remain mere dreams if we are unable to aggregate and articulate concerted efforts to first have elections that really reflect the wishes of the electorate, a decent judiciary, and then entrench a constitutional structure that enables true federalism. These need to be pursued not sequentially but simultaneously, and immediately. Until these are done, Nigeria will remain a federation in dire need of real federalism. And we will continue our accelerated decline towards state failure. That will be very sad indeed.

Abdoulaye Wade has been a major player in the elections of Senegal since 1974 when he founded the Parti Democratique Senegalais (PDS) as a Labour Party until the party adopted Liberalism by default with the laws of Senegal permitting the existence of only three parties with three distinct ideologies. With two already taken by the other parties, Wade’s party opted for Liberalism. Wade ran for the presidency for the first time in February 1978 against Leopold Sedar Senghor, garnering a respectable 17.38 per cent of the votes. He lost. He contested the Presidential elections again in 1983 and 1988 after a two year stint at the National Assembly from 1978-1980. He placed second behind Senghor’s successor Abdou Diouf each time. Wade again lost the presidential elections in February 1993 having only managed 32 per cent of the votes compared to Diouf’s 58 per cent.

The 2000 elections brought Wade a different kind of fortune. He received 31 per cent of the votes but the incumbent, tall and gentle Abdou Diouf failed to win a first round majority for once. Wade won a historic runoff on March 19, 2000 with 58.49 per cent of the votes having enjoyed the backing of candidates from the first round including the third placed Moustapha Niasse. Wade then took the reins on the 1st of April, 2000, putting an end to the forty year rule of the Socialist Party. He got re-elected in 2007 beating his former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck, once considered his protégée. Wade has since amended Senegal’s constitution over a dozen times, as he sought to increasingly weaken the opposition even as he grew even more autocratic in style by increasing executive power through the several constitutional amendments he pushed through parliament. Abdoulaye Wade an educator, lawyer, professor of law and economics, with certificates in psychology, mathematics, sociology, physics and chemistry ought to know better but it goes to show that the possession of a Phd. is no guarantee for results or of integrity in leadership.

Wade foresaw his own possible political mortality last year. He was not unaware of his diminishing popularity in Senegal. He made moves to check the possible repercussions off that receding influence on the electorate when he tried through his party to change a part of the constitution that requires a president to be elected with an absolute majority of the votes – 50 per cent plus 1. The “Hare” as the cunning Wade is called in Senegalese politics had sought to reduce that requirement to plurality of votes cast with a minimum of just 25 per cent.

Thousands of protesters marched and gathered outside Senegal’s parliament throwing stones and other objects, immobilizing the city in the process. Police dispersed them but they had done enough to themselves dispense with Wade’s penultimate quest to stay in power for a 3rd term. Wade later withdrew the draft legislation. His final push for the power to stay in office beyond 2012 did pull through as the country’s Constitutional Council on the 27th of January 2012 approved Wade’s third term bid. He did run and acknowledged on the 27th of February, a day after the elections that he had failed to win a majority. Had Wade’s 2011 proposed 25 per cent barrier pulled through, his first round numbers of the highest votes cast but of 34.81 per cent of the total, would have been more than enough to have him win the elections. He lost the runoff to Macky Sall polling 34.20 per cent of the votes to Sall’s 65.80 per cent. Sall will be installed as the 5th President of Senegal on the 3rd of April, 2012, in sha Allah. The rest they say, is history but before these historical events, something happened in 2009 that persuaded me that the Senegalese opposition had found the secrets to defeating the incumbent.

While a Mason fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, I became very good friends with two outstanding Senegalese citizens – Mrs. Naye Bathily and Fode Ndiaye. Just before our graduation, a family friend of Naye’s had just defeated the son and heir-apparent of Mr. Wade to be elected the Mayor of Dakar. One thing led to another but while still in exile, I was invited to Dakar, the capital of Senegal in October 2009 by its new Mayor Khalifa Sall. I arrived in Dakar at a time President Wade came under fire from the international media for paying a departing IMF official some two hundred thousand US dollars in cash, calling it “an African parting gift”. That remains another chapter in his twelve year legacy of roller-coaster leadership in Senegal.

It was more than a visit for me though; it was part of the Mayor’s quest to institutionalize reforms in the capital. My two weeks’ stay saw myself and two of the secretaries who served with me as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory present our ideas and views on the city management priorities Sall’s administration had set for itself. Some of the objectives were ideas of a Town Council Team, including initiatives in Land Use/Town Planning, Waste Management, Transparency and Accountability to the residents of Dakar. They were projecting a “New Face, New Life” idea for the city at the beginning of a 5 year term.

We had comprehensive sessions on Town Planning, Land Use, Education, Health, Culture, Sports, Waste Disposal, Relocation of Markets and the like. With Dakar being home to well over a third of Senegal’s population, Mayor Sall had a lot to. At least two things were not working for him though, the constitution vested a lot of control of the taxation, land and administration of the city in the hands of the central government, coupled with the fact that Khalifa Sall had just shockingly beat President Wade’s son Karim Wade at the polls – you see why a Wade is not losing to a Sall for the first time.

Sall, a member of the Socialist Party (PS) had scored 81 of the 100 votes cast by municipal councillors to emerge Mayor. The March 22nd, 2009 local elections had voters who were fed up with rising prices and fuel shortages in Senegal, overwhelmingly vote for the opposition coalition Bennoo Siggil Senegal in key locations including the capital. That was the first major blow to Wade’s then nine year dominance of Senegal’s politics and a first indication of what was to come in 2012. There are lessons for Nigeria’s opposition groups to learn from Senegal’s very poignant recent democratic process.

The era of playing the opposition for the sake of it must either come to an end soon or we leave our people at the mercy of political actors who do not see anything wrong in having produced 112 million poor people, more than the population of any other African country. If the bigger evil called the PDP must be defeated at the polls, we must do things much more different from what we used to do – the first step is realizing that PDP’s current crappy governance will consume us all in the end. The second is to moving from the politics of self-enrichment and personal promotion to one that recognizes overriding public interest. Forming a broad-based political coalition that brings together disparate platforms of the good is the next step necessary to dislodge the toxic aberration running the country.

Senegal’s opposition saw the power of a coalition when together they handed President Wade resounding losses in local elections 3 years ago. That was the testing ground for the realities we see in Senegal today. Even though they yet again ran on different platforms in the first round, a previous alliance made it easier for them to align for the runoff and the results are there for everyone to see. When I spoke to Sall and his group in October 2008 about the possibilities of Wade rigging the elections, they were shocked at even the idea. It was obvious the thought was alien to them and they said that much. They were not bothered about rigged elections because they knew the people of Senegal will just not accept it, be part of it, or be paid money to do it! It is never going to happen, they added.

We will not have a democracy to be proud of as long as some political parties value themselves as successful when they present candidates that “then succeed” at the polls no matter how unknown or unpopular these candidates are. Democracy is about the majority and as long as we continue to have puppet-esque political parties, Lilliputian candidates and corrupt arms of governments that simply pursue their self interest, we will continue to have policy accidents, increasing corruption, unabashed ineptitude, abuse of law and order, insecurity, injustice and the likes as it is the way and norm of the current power brokers in Nigeria’s national political space.

What are the lessons the Nigerian opposition are learning from Senegal? Do we now see that to beat Nigeria’s biggest nemesis and evil, an early alliance starting with the local and early polls would prove very useful? Confidence must be built with opportunities such elections offer while trust is engendered through understanding as we seek to defy the ‘do or die’ politics of the powers that be to help provide the much needed leadership our people crave and need for meaningful growth and development.

Thirteen years of democracy under this dispensation has come with much more pains, poverty and penury for our people than joy. We have moved forward at times but taken giant leaps backward. The leaps and reforms the Obasanjo years set in place in many sectors have since been eroded by careless leadership, wanton corruption, unabashed cronyism even as our debts rise in inverse proportions to projects and infrastructural provisions on the ground. It has been a case of growing national debts with poorer outcomes and zero results. If this is allowed to continue, we would have just been mere spectators that had the opportunity to take the bull by the horn, but lacked the courage to do so. Then we would have failed to birth the desired leadership that would secure our future, that of our children and grand-children.

Senegal our little brother has shown the way, and just as Khalifa Sall’s team told us how they were desperate to see Nigeria play its role as a leader on the continent, it remains to be seen if those of us that chose to be in opposition will take a cue from Senegal’s example and light the new order of change for Nigeria. It is the only way we will end the rule of these thieves of our future – the leaders squandering our resources today, providing little or no infrastructure and social services, thus ensuring they steal the future of our youths, children and generations unborn.

Far more humbling and sobering for me were the number of military officers, both serving and retired that called, wrote, tweeted and sent emails to confirm the essence of  what we wrote last week, and offered further stories, anecdotes and facts about the general decline of our once-proud military and peacekeeping capabilities. It seems according to one commentator, that the Nigerian military now has acquired all the sad  constituents of decay that have bedeviled the country. We will share some of these today, looking a little closer at the quantity and quality of the equipment of the Nigeria Army, facts about the declining levels of our peacekeeping capacity and the disorganization and mismanagement of our defence infrastructure in the last few years.

The backbone of any Army is the Infantry, Armoured and Artillery Corps. They are the ones that fight the wars. All other corps largely provide support services. Let us look at information published in Failed States – 2030 authored by some colonels of the US Air University in 2010. So consider first, some of the equipment holdings of the Armoured Corps of the Nigerian Army, of the 129 T-55 main battle tanks owned, 29 are out of service. Similarly, only 36 of 150 Vickers Mk 3 battle tanks are functional. Out of 120 AML Reconnaissance vehicles, only 40 were functional in 2010, and only four Saxon Armoured Personnel Carriers were operational out of 75. No wonder, we can only send a few broken-down APCs to Darfur.

Take the Artillery Corps. They initially owned 48 155mm FH-77B Howitzers but only 25 are working. Out of 200 122mm D-74/D-30 Field Guns, only 84 worked in 2010, while all the eight  122mm BM-21 rocket launchers we had had broken down. The anti-tank weapons cache is slightly better, though pathetic by the standards of modern warfare. We have 3,000 RPGs for the entire Infantry Corps, explaining why our soldiers in Darfur cannot have any to repel rebel attacks. We had 240 of 3.5″ RL M20 anti-tank guns but when you have a country where equipment continually depreciates with no effort or resources put into maintenance or replacement, barely 10% (24) of those guns are functional. It does not get any better; only 12 of the 50 40mm Bofors L/60 air defense weapons are still doing what they were purchased to do. The list goes on and on with barely any of the categories having all their equipment ready for the defence job for which they are meant. And yet, we budget over nearly 1.2 percent of our GDP on defence!

It is also sad to note that one brand of the Armoured Personnel Carrier, Cobra which is in the holding of the Nigerian troops in Darfur is a topic of jest amongst other country contingents. It is reputed to be Chinese manufacture, but the engines were sourced from another country. The Cobra APCs  are not up to 7 years old, yet they have all broken down. In saner climes, whoever purchased such refurbished contraption should be court-martialled or put on trial, but in Nigeria, he probably got a promotion and national honour!

Apart from our major military equipment which to a large extent are broken-down, there are quality issues with the personal equipment such as boots, blankets and bullet proof vests, which to say the least is pathetic. Some of the troops deployed to UNMIL in August to September 2010 lacked beds and mattresses; some had only mattresses, while others slept on the bare floor, and the conditions have not changed for the better.

As is usual in the case of Nigeria, the decline in quantity and quality of defense equipment is ironically not as a result of funds allocated to the sector; instead it is quite the contrary. As the government allocates more resources to the sector, there is a corresponding decline in the quality of our peacekeeping capacity. It is also evident that the defence ministry specializes in purchasing sub-standard equipment that are not durable. There appears to be no procedure or consideration made to replace already broken-down equipment until the troops are left with nothing thereby giving room for a huge allocation to be made for the purchase of such equipment which eventually never happens.

Besides the sorry state of defence equipment, the quantity and quality of the peace-keepers are on the decline. Quality, as shown in last week’s article, is a function of training, both in hard military fighting skills which we demonstrated in Congo in 1960 and ECOMOG in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, but are unfortunately losing as shown by the ease with which our troops are being routinely disarmed and killed in Sudan sometimes without fighting back. Training in “soft skills” required in modern peacekeeping operations to address human rights and sexual exploitation, disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR),etc. are absolutely necessary to enhance our peacekeeping capabilities. These soft skills training has never been our forte and it is disheartening to observe that no efforts have been put towards changing the status quo.

Quality is also measured by logistic capability of the contingent which includes the capacity and ability to transport a contingent to and from theatre using a nation’s own air force, how it maintains those troops in the theatre in terms of feeding, medicals, accommodation, water, sanitation, minor engineering, transport needs and recreation. This is the area where countries make the money UN pays them for logistics but Nigeria scores abysmally low here and our soldiers are among the worst in almost all operations we participate. Apart from loss of money, there is the attendant loss of prestige in fielding a rag tag army that cannot cater for itself while other national contingents from even poorer African countries are doing far better with Ghana, Rwanda, and Ethiopia just to mention a few.

The MOU signed in January 2008, between Nigeria and the UN for troops deployment to UNAMID in Sudan, provides that Nigeria will be paid a sum of $83,422,020 each quarter, all things being equal, for deploying 4 infantry battalions. However, out of this amount, for a particular quarter, the country was only able to claim, a paltry $15,902,122.07 thus losing a whopping $67,519,897.93. If one takes into account that the MOU was signed in January 2008 at the beginning of UNAMID, an operation which is still ongoing, and also the fact that the logistical situation of the Nigerian units in the operations has not improved since then, and may have even deteriorated further, the losses as at present (2012) would be colossal as Nigeria would have lost a total of at least $804 million since the operation started, a potential revenue loss of N128 billion, or nearly a third of the defence budget in 2012.

Sadly, in UNMIL, the Nigerian units were rated lowest among all national contingents deployed to the operation meeting barely 60% of COE obligations thus forfeiting another $325,196,93 for the corresponding period. In typical fire brigade manner, the Nigerian  government made the necessary minimal purchases for the contingents to ensure that the Nigerian units were not deactivated following the threat by the UN to do so.

Nigeria was until recently, the biggest African contributor in terms of quantity to global peacekeeping. Quantity is assessed in terms of the number of military and police peacekeepers that each member state contributes to the UN peacekeeping. The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, towards the end of 1999 began to display and keep monthly records of peacekeeping contributions by each country. The countries are then ranked in order of the total number of peacekeepers they contribute monthly to the UN.

It is interesting to note that for more than 3 years unbroken, Nigeria was placed fourth largest contributor to UN peace operations behind only India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and also the largest contributor among African countries. Unfortunately, once again, rather than improve, Nigeria has slipped back a place from December 2011 to number 5 and Nigeria’s fourth position is occupied by Ethiopia, another less-endowed African country. Another record which Nigeria held up till the end of 2011 was being the highest contributor of female peacekeepers. Once again, the position has been taken by South Africa.

Until recently, Nigeria held top mission leadership positions in the UN such as Special Representative of the Secretary General, Force Commander, Deputy Force Commander, Sector Commanders and Police Commissioner. This no longer obtains due to the deterioration in the quality and quantity of our peacekeeping contributions. For instance, Nigeria lost UNAMID command to Rwanda when General Agwai was not given an extension. Nigeria also lost some positions in UNMIL Liberia. Currently, only Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari of UNAMID and General Moses Obi, Force Commander UNMISS occupy such posts. A contributory factor to Nigeria losing such positions is the dysfunctional selection process into the peacekeeping force that allows for people to be sent for missions not based on their abilities but on who they know. Eventually they compete with the best from other countries and as expected, cannot beat the competition and meet the rigorous standards of the UN.

Finally, corruption within the Nigerian Army is a major mitigating factor to any meaningful progress in the defence sector. Rather than use the UN peacekeeping reimbursements (which are not claimed in full due to our poor performance) gained from participation in peacekeeping to better equip and train the armed forces, these monies are diverted for political interests such as funding political campaigns. In 2010, there was a case where the national,assembly raised queries regarding funds earmarked to buy equipment for peacekeeping which was never spent. The issue died a natural death as soon as the relevant committee was “carried along” in Nigerian political parlance!

In conclusion, the hard earned reputation of Nigeria in international peacekeeping gained through the efforts of late General Aguiyi-Ironsi,  Generals Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Olusegun Obasanjo and T Y Danjuma, as far back as 1960 is about to be lost as our contingents are now rated among the worst in terms of training, logistics and professionalism. Even the fighting reputation we used to have no longer exists as all it takes to disarm our ill equipped troops are rag tag bandits. Something needs to be done. Is the commander-in-chief listening, or do all Nigerians need to take up arms against the state, become militants, insurgents or terrorists to attract his attention?

Since publication, I have received diverse responses from informed Nigerians. Many confirmed the alarms raised about the state of equipment in the armed forces, while others disagreed with the claims of Nigeria’s stellar peacekeeping roles. The one point of agreement was that the deterioration of the quality of governance in the country has equally reflected on the peacekeeping capacity of the Nigerian Army and the Police. Is this administration bent on destroying one of the areas where Nigeria established a global competitive advantage?

The United Nations (UN) was formed after World War II to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Peacekeeping is undertaken under the auspices of the UN and other regional groupings like the African Union and ECOWAS to end violence between contending parties, restore peace, build social capital and physical infrastructure destroyed by conflict, and get the ex-combatants to respect any agreements and commitments made. The UN has led nearly 50 peacekeeping operations since the 1950s, 40 of them in Africa.

Nigeria joined the UN in October 1960 and a few weeks later offered our Army officers and men as peacekeepers to the Congo; Yakubu Gowon and Olusegun Obasanjo cut their military teeth as young officers on this mission. Since then, we have been involved in over 20 such operations in and outside Africa, largely under the UN. The notable exceptions were the ECOWAS monitoring group (ECOMOG) which we led in the 1990s to end conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone – and reportedly spent between US $8 and $10 billion.

The Army is hierarchically organized starting with a ‘section’ consisting of about ten men (and women!), with a corporal or sergeant as section commander. Five sections make up a ‘platoon’ commanded by an officer – second lieutenant to captain with a staff sergeant as the second-in-command. Three platoons make up a ‘company’ of at least 90 men led by a Major. Three companies make up a battalion which is made up of at least 270 infantry officers and men, with support staff like military police, Intelligence, medical, supply and transport, Imam and chaplain raising a typical battalion size to at least 500, and as many as 1,100. A battalion is usually commanded by a Lieutenant-Colonel. Amongst the various corps of the Army, the Infantry and Armoured are organized as battalions, while the Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps are organized as regiments, so battalions are often larger in size. Three battalions make up a brigade in the Infantry Corps – the heart of the Army. The size of a brigade differs from corps to corps, depending on the mix of equipment and human resources. A brigade is commanded by a brigadier; three brigades make up a division commanded by a major-general. Nigerian peacekeeping contingents have ranged from a platoon to a division.

The Nigerian Army’s 60,000 officers and men are distributed across five divisions and a special brigade. The major equipment of the Army include battle tanks, reconnaissance vehicles, personnel carriers, Howitzers, field guns and rocket launchers, as well as anti-tank guns and surface to air missiles. Like every institution in Nigeria, the levels of equipment holding and state of preparedness of the Army have deteriorated to a level that it can hardly meet its constitutional role – a decay that is directly affecting our competitive edge in peacekeeping roles which was one of our few successes.

We have every reason to be proud of our peacekeeping record. Some of the peace keeping operations that we have been involved include sending a battalion to Congo (ONUC) 1960-1964; military observers to New Guinea (UNSF), 1962-1963; battalion to Tanzania by bilateral agreement, 1964; military observers during the India-Pakistan conflict (UNIPOM) 1965-1966; battalion and staff officers to Lebanon (UNIFIL) 1978-1983; battalion and staff officers to Chad (Harmony I, via bilateral agreement) 1981-1982; brigade to Chad (Harmony II under auspices of the OAU) 1982-1983; military observes during Iran-Iraq conflict (UNIIMOG) 1988-1991; division to Liberia (ECOMOG) 1990 to date; military observers for Iraq-Kuwait (UNIKOM) 1991, and to Angola (UNAVEM II) 1991-1992; training teams for Sierra Leone (NATAG) 1991; company to Angola (UNAVEM III) 1992-1995; military observers to Namibia (UNTAG) 1989-1990; to Western Sahara (MINURSO) 1991; and to Cambodia (UNTAC) 1992- 1993;

We also contributed a battalion and staff officers to Somalia (UNOSOM) 1992-1994; battalion and staff officers to the former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR) 1992; military observers to Mozambique (ONUMOZ) 1992; a battalion to Rwanda (UNAMIR) 1993; training teams to the Gambia (NATAG) 1993; military observers to Aouzo Strip (UNASOG) 1994; and to Israel (UNTSO) 1995; and more recently Liberia – ECOMOG where a Nigerian general, Suraj Abdurrahman is Liberian Chief of Army Staff; to Sierra Leone – UNMIL; and finally Dafur – UNAMID, which we will discuss in some detail as it is an ongoing operation. Our hope is that we will learn from the current failures to retrieve our national image and our reputation in the global peacekeeping community.

The achievements of Nigeria’s peacekeepers in Africa and elsewhere led the UN to entrusting us the lead role in global peacekeeping; since 1999, Nigeria’s successive ambassadors to the UN have chaired the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping. The Head of the Darfur Mission and Joint Special Representative (JSR) of the UN Secretary General, Ibrahim Gambari is Nigerian. Until 2009, my brother and former Nigerian army and defence chief General Martin Luther Agwai commanded UNAMID, and Lt-Gen Chikadibia Obiakor was the UN military adviser on peacekeeping operations for two years until 2010. In UNAMID Darfur, Nigeria was the largest Troops Contributing Country (TCC), with four battalions, one Military Hospital, Military Observers, and Staff Officers.

However, the poor equipping of our troops has resulted in the total loss of confidence of the UN and other observers in the Nigerian Army. In fact, the UN has recently questioned the operational capacity of our troops in Darfur. The Government of Sudan in March 2010 and January 2012 protested to the UN Security Council over what it considered “the deliberate re-arming of rebel groups in Darfur by Nigerian troops”. This may not be unconnected with the ease with which Nigerian troops, out of the 53 participating armies, are easily captured, disarmed or killed. In the 5 years of UNAMID, Nigerian troops have never won any fire fight or fought back in self defence, resulting in the highest casualty recorded by any contingent.

In February 2010, a Nigerian military patrol of a company strength was intercepted by a rebel group and disarmed completely with their Armour Personnel Carriers (APCs) seized without any resistance. In January 2012, another Nigerian patrol was waylaid by a small rebel group and disarmed. Apart from taking their weapons, the commander was killed. From these failures, the humanitarian community in Darfur and International NGOs prefer being by other national troops; the Sierra Leonean forces that were trained in 1990s by the Nigerian Army are now more valued than our troops!

The February 2012 visit of the American Envoy to Sudan, Ambassador Smith to our Minister of Defence was principally to do with the poor performance of Nigerian troops in Darfur. What are the reasons for the decay of our peacekeeping capacity? Poor equipment, corruption, poor personnel selection and training, inadequate feeding and welfare of officers and men seem to be the reasons – symptomatic of the general malaise in governance in Nigeria under Jonathan.

Our equipment holdings are disgraceful and totally unacceptable; every country earns money from its Contingent Own Equipment (COE) – from uniforms, boots, face masks, compass, rifle, mortar, RPGs, APCs, power generating sets, kitchen equipment and even furniture. They are inspected every month and payments made, but our military and police contingents cannot meet up to 20% of the COE required by the UN. Out of over 45 APCs for four battalions of 800 troops, less than 7 are serviceable. Some of the problems of the APCs are as basic as batteries and tires. The equipment available to our troops is enough to demoralize them when compared to other countries. The Nigerian government is supposed to earn $6,000 monthly for each APC. By contrast, each Rwandese battalion can boast of over 50 vehicles. Rocket Propel Grenades (RPGs) is today the weapon of deterrence to wade off ambushes, but it is rare to find any with Nigerian troops.

The process of selecting troops to peace missions is also flawed. Some battalions are loaded with clerks, cooks, batmen and orderlies who can barely handle a weapon, but are well-connected! It is not unusual for legislators, retired military officers and traditional rulers to influence the selection process, so competence and capacity get compromised. Some of these ill trained soldiers simple take to their heels when under attack. The end result is the high casualty rates of our officers and men. Similarly, poor feeding also affects the performance of our troops. The UN pays for the feeding of the troops but in our case, the money is provided to the home government to ensure the inclusion of local content. What is ultimately provided by the MOD/Presidency contractors never meets the expected international standards. The Rwandese government allows the UN to directly feed their troops and so four Rwandese soldiers share one whole chicken during a meal. A Nigerian soldier is not likely to see a piece of chicken throughout his or her six months tour of duty in Darfur.

How is the money paid upfront by the UN for our participation in peacekeeping spent? Other countries use the funds to sustain their military and add value to their national economies; in Nigeria, such funds and even the income tax deductions from the earnings of military officers are not remitted to the treasury but supposedly re-channeled into the armed forces – with no accountability! The monies earned from peacekeeping are not recognized as revenues, the procurements not subject to rigorous ‘due process’ scrutiny on spurious security grounds and therefore often looted by the Ministry of Defence and the Presidency.

Many observers opined that the policy changes introduced by two former Chiefs of Staff, Agwai and Azazi to transform the army into an American-type institution destroyed the British military tradition of valour, honour and integrity. These two army chiefs between 2003-2006 introduced the policy of achieving C+ at the staff college as the main criterion to earn promotion and command appointments. This was abused and mediocre officers were able to buy their way and move up to command positions.

The poor performance of our troops today is a direct consequence of deficits in command capability. Currently, over 90% of those who placed Nigeria on the world map with their extraordinary feats in Liberia and Sierra Leone are out of service due mainly to the C+ policy. It is time to correct these errors, equip our armed forces better and restore our nation’s reputation in international peacekeeping. It is not too much to ask of a real commander-in-chief.

The recommendations, however, were not adopted by the Government of Umaru Yar’Adua.

Electoral Reform Committee Report 2008