The Saraki Argument

Although I would want the Saraki trial to continue - to serve as deterrence to other negligent or fraudulent public officers - I can't help agreeing with those who say that the latest ruling of the Code of Conduct Tribunal is a discriminatory application of the law and an affront to fair hearing principle enshrined in our constitution.

The job of the Code of Conduct Bureau is to collate completed asset declaration forms submitted by public officers and examine them for omissions or undisclosed assets. If the Bureau finds evidence of such, the law requires that it invites the officer and confronts him or her with the proof. This is where it gets interesting, especially for those like Saraki at that time - those elected and about to assume a public office. If the officer admits that it was an honest omission, the matter dies instantly as a correction is made. If however there is a disagreement or the Board finds evidence of corruption (for those already in public office), the matter is referred to the Code of Conduct Tribunal for adjudication and/or trial. In other words, the disciplinary board is only there to resolve the issue of recalcitrant asset declarants or those who are judged to have misappropriated public assets as evidenced by their subsequent declarations while in office.

APC chieftain, ex-Gov. Bola Tinubu, escaped the Tribunal's hammer because he was able to prove that he was not invited first to the Board to defend his asset declaration before being hustled to the Tribunal to face corruption charges. Today, however, the same tribunal chair who allowed Tinubu to go because of a breach of due process by the Bureau has given Saraki a different ruling from a similar breach of due process.

This is all so tiring; I feel the frustrations of President Buhari but I lay the blame not on the judiciary but squarely on the incompetence of or sabotage from the corruption investigators.

I think there is need to ensure that the executors of the anti-corruption crusade are ready for the job. Initially, I used to think that there is a method to the madness they display through their tardiness - a kind of deliberate muddying up of the process, perhaps to create room for "negotiations" or to pull the wood over the eyes of an angry public baying for blood. Now, I'm not so sure that this is not a case of genuine negligence or lack of capacity on their part.

It is a genuine cause for worry. This is the most critical outcome that I for one would like to see from the work of the panel investigating the activities of EFCC and CCB/CCT.

As for the matter of the Senate President, it is unfortunate that the rules of the process were breached. There are two credible options left, in my view: follow due process by referring his case back to the CCB to give Saraki the fair hearing that he was denied; or follow the Tinubu precedence by dismissing the case because due process was not followed. Doing anything else, including continuing with the case,  cannot escape from being rightly perceived as vendetta and political persecution.

Lagos, their Lagos

I escaped from Lagos yesterday, after spending three days of pure torment on her roads.

I've come to the conclusion that, in order to continue to cling to this madness, a resident must carry about a bag of patience and hope (hope that the traffic situation will somehow, magically, improve in the nearest future).

Thank God I abandoned Lagos more than a dozen years ago - after spending almost 18 years of unending misery on her roads.

With what I saw in the past three days, I no longer resent the super rich who have chosen to deploy choppers and yatchs to survive Lagos while the rest of the boisterous crowd sweats it out in the sweltering standstill! The Lagos that I left yesterday has become even more of a bloody waste of fuel, time, and productivity.

But Lagosians won't have it any other way. I should know; I lived there.

Survive the Peace

Most of my friends who are APC sympathisers have advised that the government slows down or abandons it's current resort to "propaganda" and instead embrace "strategic communication" as a better strategy to win the soul of EVERYBODY and thereby inaugurate the peace it needs to govern.

I buy the objective but am not sure that the strategy is a viable option. A strategic communication programme is not implemented in a vacuum. If we go by the understanding that strategic communication is the science and art of managing two-way communication between and among a project's stakeholders, there is a presumption that we have a strategic project in place.

As far as one can see, there is no strategic vision that is being executed. Instead, what we do have are two "reactive" activities taking place - pursuing those who allegedly looted Nigeria to cough out their loot and serve jail terms, and fighting to dislodge Boko Haram insurgents from Nigeria. 

Both activities also appear to be in dire need of strategic focus. For instance, nothing has been heard about any strategic plan to prevent corruption from taking place as we speak (the 2016 Budget proposals expose the fact that corruption is alive and well.) Again, beyond the use of crude force, we should be thinking of developing strategic defense plans to engage and forestall developing harams such as the Shi'a Muslims challenge, IPOB, Fulani herdsmen, and Niger Delta Avengers, to mention but four. On economic recovery, the infrastructure development components that the administration met appear to have suddenly become more challenging to manage, including tasks that are not dependencies of Budget 2016.

I have argued elsewhere that the ministers are not to blame for resorting to propaganda to fill up the performance challenge. The real problem is that there does not appear to be any central, articulated strategy that the ministries are following. This leaves proactive ministers to articulate their best guess of a development vision based on the leader's body language, and, for the less creative, a relapse to good old propaganda.

Inexperience (or lack of capacity, as OBJ put it) will ultimately be the bane of this government if it continues to run a non-inclusive administration. Part of the problem is this resort to appointing only those the leader "feels comfortable with" - whatever the interpretation. This will inevitably rob the leader of the opportunity to take great decisions based on a robust debate at meetings, rather than one-way thinking that has defined most public policies to date. 

Let's not kid ourselves on this one: there's very little on the ground that can sustain a robust strategic communication initiative I'm afraid. And, let's not confuse strategic governance with strategic communications. Strategic communications is what you integrate in your design of a strategic governance plan. Even a non-professional like Prof. Wole Soyinka understood this - that you really have to think through the problems of the moment and take a policy position on how to deal with it. Once this is done, strategic communication helps you communicate, establish buy-in, and manage feedback in an iterative process that leads to the achievement of objective.

Governor Tambuwal is the Man

I just read the story of the release of Patience Paul, the school girl who was abducted and turned into a sex slave in Sokoto.

According to the lawyer who represented the family, Governor Aminu Tambuwal called immediately he read of the story and promptly initiated actions that got the girl freed from her abductors.

The governor's interest also ensured that the abductor was arrested by the police and would be charged to court soon.

Thumbs up to you, Your Excellency. God bless you.

Fulani Herders, the Case For

These are some of the viewpoints I've come across so far, in support of doing nothing about this problem that Nigeria is confronting, and as both herders and local farmers pay the terrible cost with their lives and their property:

1. Is it because Buhari is now in power that you want to play politics and exhibit your ethnic hatred on the issue? This is one more cheap attempt to discredit the present administration!

2. Whether we like it or not, we have to deal with the herders because we need their cows for meat.  There are no train services and bad roads make it difficult to tranport via trucks. Alternative is by foot so we have to bear it.

3. There were clashes during the last dispensation but those shouting now looked away for political reasons. The issue has now been politicised and ethnicised.

4. You'll complain when they go on strike and meat becomes scarce. Be careful what you say about them please.

5. What do you expect them to do when hundreds of their cattle are killed or rustled by local people and thieves?

6. Do we no longer have freedom of movement in Nigeria? Should we now stop the Igbos from coming to trade in the North? Why should their own be different?

QUESTION:
Which among these arguments address the problem we have on our hands? Which will most likely provoke a national search for solutions to the problem?

There are no prizes for the best answers!