Meeting MDG target on shelter

WITHOUT sounding so overtly pessimistic, we are not on track towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal on shelter, which expects us to achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers (all over the world) by 2020. If anything, we are destroying the slums without replacing them with habitable shelter for the most vulnerable in the society.

South Africa has become more radical in addressing that problem and theirs is a more promising outlook. I had said earlier that we have an initiative that we know will make such an impact in Nigeria but we need the partnership of government and development finance institutions to achieve it.

Highpoints of the World Economic Forum on Africa

Referring to is the 18th World Economic Forum on Africa and we had the the presence of four Heads of State - South Africa, Malawi, Burundi and Ghana, and the Prime Minister of Kenya at the opening plenary.

Our president, Yar’Adua was slated to be there too but he pulled out at the last minute. We expected him to be there because he was actually in South Africa for a state visit at the time and we read on the papers that he would participate at that session but his seat was removed just before it began. That session was quite exciting because the discussions among them were primarily on the opportunities available now for Africa to sustain growth. Most of the sessions after that took a similar trend.

One interesting feature of this year’s event was that before the Opening Plenary there was this Africa Economic Brainstorming session and we were presented with a long list of Drivers of Change that will impact the continent the most in the next 12 months to vote on covering the broader areas of political, economic, technological, and others. In the end participants voted for education and skills development, visionary leadership, infrastructure, economic growth and I think food security.

But the interesting thing is that the World Economic Forum had posted these Drivers of Change on their website for the public to vote and interestingly there own results turned in a completely different set of drivers which I’m sure will raise the question of a disconnect between the policymakers and the populace on development priorities but I will rather discuss that later if you raise it.

On rationale for professional builders at the forum

There is a strong link between professionalism and development. The world needs good bankers, good accountants, good economists, good engineers, good doctors, good lawyers and of course good builders to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

For me as a builder, first joining to resolve the housing crisis is my passion. Of man’s three basic needs, only affordable habitable shelter is beyond the reach of the low-income earners of the society. You can organize basic food for yourself if you must stay away from such big man’s food like fried rice, salad and all that stuff but still eat a balanced diet, you can make good clothes for yourself and still not wear Armani, Gucci and the rest of them.

How much does it cost to get basic habitable housing? Take it or leave it, only a trained builder can substantially tackle that. We have come up with a design that will go along way in tackling the problem of low-income housing. So when you put this commitment to join other professionals in taking on issues of development then you can see why a builder is at the World Economic Forum on Africa.

Secondly, our company is active in construction, which is a key industry in any economy and added to all that is that I always look forward to such discourse on environment.

Lessons for Nigeria regarding economic prosperity, stability and global competitiveness during the meeting

New lessons for Nigeria; Well, any new lesson will be that we are not only competing with the West but there is now stiff competition from within and a lot of African countries are doing things right and even though size matters, good policies rise above everything else.

Interacting with other Africans I got the sense of a competitiveness mindset already within the continent. Take a country like Angola for instance, I was discussing with one of their business executives and he told me that they are recording double-digit growth, of course, driven by their oil resources.

Here is the fine point of it, they are guided by the resource curse that has afflicted countries like Nigeria to make sure that growth prosperity coming with it touches the lives of their people across the board. Not to talk of a country like Senegal now described as a huge construction site with massive investments in infrastructure and many huge projects going on simultaneously. So in a sense we have lessons to learn from just across the door.

On energy generation, conservation and distribution

On generation, we need to look other sources of energy more concretely and we need to do more to encourage the private sector to invest in that sector, especially in the brownfield projects. Government also needs to put in more of its own money in greenfield projects especially now that oil prices are on our side. We really need big bang investments in infrastructure and that is the truth. We also need an effective gas masterplan that will take adequate care of power generation infrastructure.

On distribution, we need new technologies in order to expand our distribution capability and network. More advanced power distribution systems are out there and we have to bring them in to address that particular problem. Again the private sector should be encouraged to invest in electricity distribution. The multi-year tariff framework just enacted is a good starting point. We now have to privatize the distribution companies. The process was on during the twilight of the Obasanjo era but it seems suspended too.

The Electric Power Sector Reform Act addresses most of these issues so it should be implemented.

Leadership ascendancy over Nigeria by South Africa hosting WEF?

No, it is wrong to come at it like that. 18 years ago, that was in 1990, the World Economic Forum saw the prospect of South Africa’s re-entry into the international community and knowing the size of the economy it will bring with it and the fears of a possible collapse of such a large economy in a post-apartheid South Africa, they organized a forum to discuss that subject alone. It was basically convened to discuss South Africa in Davos.

Apparently they were encouraged by the success of that event, so another one was convened the next year and I believe it was at that forum that Mandela and then president, W. de Klerk, met for the first time outside of South Africa. After those first two meetings, it was agreed that future events should be on the homeland so to say, and it was also agreed that discussions should be expanded to include other countries in the Southern Africa region probably because of the role they would play in the economy of post-apartheid South Africa and then it was called Southern Africa Economic Summit. If I remember correctly it was still that when Nigeria made her first appearance in 1999 through former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, don’t forget also that all the while we were a pariah state. I also remember that some of those initial Summits were in Durban and another one I recall was held in Windhoek, Namibia; before they decided to bring in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa into the picture and made Cape Town the home of subsequent events.

The World Economic Forum on the Middle East is usually held in the Dead Sea resort in Jordan . However, countries can make a special request. For instance, former President (Joachim) Chissano of Mozambique requested to host it during his last year in office and the event was moved to Maputo for that year; I was expecting President (Olusegun) Obasanjo to do same last year but it didn’t happen. Even this year, the Forum on the Middle East was held in Egypt and not Jordan as has always been the case. This does not take away the fact that in terms of the size of the economy, South Africa has a far bigger economy than Nigeria and there is no debating that in any quarters at all but that is a separate issue.

Judging President Yar’Adua’s seven point agenda and 2020

Well the seven point agenda, if implemented to the letter, can take any country to the top. But my view has always been that we should take on the first things first. If there is one thing Obasanjo achieved during his time it is macroeconomic stability, which should just have a next president to, as one commentator put it, simply read the minutes of the last meeting. I believe the uncertainty that goes with reversal of polices of the last administration and this go-slow business is not good for the long-term stability of the macro economy.

For instance on May 29, the president said that there were plans to make some changes in his administration and nearly two months after that, no news. Is any minister in the key sectors of the economy on his or her way out? What will a new person bring to the table as is always the case? Is the talk of changes dead in the water or is there something to come?

Just look at the health sector, how many months now and no minister yet and we have Millennium Development Goals to achieve in that sector. Foreign and local investors and policy forecasters would like to have answers to these questions so they can shape their decisions or else they will take them somewhere else. And yes, there are countries just across the road waiting to receive them and we will be the loser in the end.

During the World Economic Forum there was this consensus that because we are such a huge market with unlimited potentials, Nigeria is the country that will be. But no one seems to be sure which direction we are heading and which policies will remain and which ones will be upturned. One year of planning may be good but let us remember that other countries are not held back by a stopwatch. When Mrs. (Ngozi) Iweala was redeployed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I wrote an article warning of the dangers of such instability for an economy in transition. I recall that I mentioned about eight African countries whose economies are doing well simply because they had one good Finance minister for an average of seven years. Trevor Manuel in South Africa is doing his tenth year as Finance minister there, the current president of the ADB, (African Development Bank), Donald Kaberuka; was Rwandan Minister of Finance for seven years and we know that Rwanda has not only turned the corner but has remained on the right track. Same with Mozambique whose current Prime Minister was Minister of Finance for 13 years, go and check out how their economy is doing now. I can say the same for Botswana and Ghana .

Another alarm bell is in the area of monetary policy. Who is really calling the shots? Just look at what is happening to interest rates. It does not help us in any way, whatsoever especially in monetary policy if we have what is now perceived as a lame duck CBN simply because people believe that the administration is hell bent on not renewing Soludo’s term. Good policy requires stability. What we needed all the while was to also have good and effective people in the infrastructure sector and in particular, power and transportation. I think we now have someone like that in transportation so we wait for the results. I do not know much about the minister in-charge of the power sector.

It is now a global trend to concession infrastructure assets belonging to the state to private sector concessionaires to finance, develop, maintain and manage them based on concession agreements. That was why I referred earlier to the Minister of Transportation because from her statements and what I know is happening in the ministry, she’s driving the sector in that direction. But there has to be an Infrastructure Concession Regulation Commission to regulate, monitor and supervise the contracts. The Act establishing the Commission was signed into law and, we at the Infrastructure Policy Commission of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, (NESG), has been calling for its establishment.

Fortunately, a few weeks ago government appointed Chief Ernest Shonekan as the Chairman and we hear that members of the board will be announced thereafter. It is a step in the right direction but we also have to move fast on this because by its nature, the infrastructure sector has a longer gestation period and work in that sector can be delayed by the rainy season. So if the government wants to see the fruits before leaving office, then the time to act is now.

Culled from the Sunday, 17 September 2008 edition of The Guardian newspapers. http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/sunday_magazine/article16//indexn3_html?pdate=070908&ptitle=’Policy%20Reversals%20And%20Go-slow%20Tactics%20Not%20Good%20For%20Macro%20Economic%20Stability’&cpdate=100908

- Chinua Achebe

As the 20^th Century was receding, the World Bank commissioned a group of experts well versed on the subject of Africa to scan the horizon and craft the path to prosperity for the continent in the next century. The outcome was a seminal document appropriately titled with the question: Can Africa Claim the 21^st Century? The group identified the following as the continent’s plagues – economic decline, huge debt burden, aid dependence, poor governance, deteriorated capacity, weakened institutions, endemic diseases like HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, high child mortality, lagging school enrolments, decrepit healthcare facilities, severe poverty, inadequate infrastructure, and so on an so forth. These are the usual suspects that have so ravaged the continent and for which then British Minister, Tony Blair described Africa as “a scar on the conscience of the world”. Without a doubt, the most incurable of optimists would have been forgiven for capitulating to the pull of despondency and indeed many did. Yet as he bid farewell to the 20^th Century during the “Millennium Debate” at the South African Joint Houses of Parliament, President Thabo Mbeki audaciously proclaimed that the 21^st Century will be the African Century. But even he knew that, like an incubus, Achebe’s grim words were lurking around the corners of the continent.

That World Bank publication was described as a business plan for Africa and it came with a long list of measurable targets against which the African Century can be realized: improve governance, manage conflicts, rebuild states, address poverty and inequality, invest in people, lower barriers to infrastructure, information and finance, spur agricultural and rural development, diversify exports, reorient trade policy, pursue regional integration, reduce dependence on aid and debt, and strengthen partnerships. 

At the break of dawn for the new century, it did appear that Africa had turned the corner as key indicators and statistics were beginning to look good. By 2000, the two giants of the continent were democracies again – South Africa had done one full term as a non-racial democracy and Nigeria had just inaugurated civil democratic rule. The civil wars ravaging the peoples of Mozambique, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Angola and Sierra Leone had abated and a scattering of nations like Botswana, Angola, Tanzania, Mauritius and Ghana were recording consistent strong economic growth rates. It was then safe to conclude that the 21^st Century was going to be ours and it was a good time to be African, a feeling last experienced during the days when the curtains fell on colonial rule in the fifties and sixties.

Buoyed by the possibility that an African Century could indeed be a reality, African Heads of State and Government vowed to take the destiny of their people in their hands by launching a New Partnership for African Development, NEPAD. Part of that initiative is a Peer Review mechanism intended to call African leaders to account by their peerage in office. As a response, western creditors initiated programmes that actually reduced and in most cases eliminated debts accumulated during the dark century and also returned looted funds in the vaults of their banks. Foreign direct investment flowed into the continent in large numbers and our diasporas were encouraged to return with their skills, talents, knowledge and, of course, money.

As I participated in some of the thrilling sessions at the World Economic Forum on Africa and also at this year’s World Bank’s Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) , I considered three issues as constituting the main obstacles on the path to the African Century: the mismanagement of democratic transitions; the absence of an effective policy establishment within (and all the way to the top) of the political process; and the diminution of an educated and informed citizenry. I discuss them in turn.

One, as I stated earlier more African countries were already in the zone of electoral democracies at the beginning of the century. But the hope brought about by that “wind of change” is being swept away by storms of despair as more elected leaders just cling on to power. Even the continent’s famed giant, Nigeria, relapsed into this signature malaise when former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, inordinately but unsuccessfully attempted to extend his rule and the ripple effect of that transition muddle is that the current president, Umaru Yar’Adua is still struggling with a crisis of legitimacy even after one year in office. Earlier in the year, a hitherto stable democracy, Kenya was saved from an outright descent to genocide and probably civil war largely due to another muddled electoral process by the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, who was incidentally elected only a few years ago through democratic elections. Then, of course, there is Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe. These examples are just symptomatic of Africa’s dilemma – sit-tight leaders in Libya, Cameroon, Gabon, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Egypt, Angola, Togo, Ethiopia, Chad and just about everywhere else who just stay on in office, obfuscate political leadership and refuse to ventilate the political space. In its bowels, this phenomenon carries implosive threats to the stability of the continent.

Two, we know that there is no shortage of ideas and discussants at usually well-attended fora on the policies desperately needed to unlock Africa’s potentials, reverse the slide and capitalize on opportunities. But such fora are almost always a dialogue of the politically limbless because I have observed that ninety-nine percent of the participants at such development fora and meetings are not in a position to make the key political decisions required to walk the talk. Most often even their best ideas still have to be processed at the top, in the inner sanctum of power where it is almost always stifled by other vested political interests. Sadly too even when some of them are able to get a seat, and this is especially true among the top business executives, the tendency is to speak differently to power in order to profitably maximize their business interests. It is just unfortunate that over the years and for too long we have bowed to the mediocrity in our politics and yet politics is the “technology of power” for the “great adventure of progress”. Our politics is desperately in need of a policy establishment of forward-thinking Africans who are excelling outside the political spectrum to open up the creative potential of politics. Yes, our politics is under-institutionalized and ripe for some creative thinking and recalibration but there is nothing wrong with our politics that cannot be made right by a surge of new, successful and visionary leaders into it. And this is not to scare anyone but on this subject I also refer the reader to the book written by Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder As Political Instrument.

Finally, Africa is littered with a horde of unemployable youths produced during the twilight of the 20^th Century. They were failed by our leaders and simply lack the necessary skills to drive an African Century. The constant abrasion of qualitative education across the continent is indeed a clear and present danger that stares us in the face. With it comes an armada of uninformed citizens who do not even have a basic understanding of the world around them. We confront this sob story in our daily lives so there is nothing more to add to this commentary on it. And yet Africans are excelling in other highly competitive environments like the United States of America, Europe and Asia. The system at home cannot fix itself but fixing it must be Job 1 for Africa. If not, to whom will we then entrust this African Century?

But I end, as I must, with a word on the future of South Africa. Late last year, delegates of the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress overwhelmingly voted Jacob Zuma as their president. A populist politician with no formal education and whose race to the top of the party’s hierarchy was characterized by charges of fraud and corruption, and a rape acquittal involving a HIV-positive woman (he famously brushed off concerns about AIDS transmission by saying that he took a cold shower after the intercourse), Zuma is on track to lead Africa’s strongest and biggest economy in 2009. The outcome of this turn of events should not be lost on all Africans and the African Century.

In my mind’s eyes, eight years is no doubt too short to assess a centurial outcome but I strongly believe that I have noted the fundamentals on which other drivers of change like good governance, economic growth, infrastructure, universal basic healthcare & education, science & technology, research & development, and all that stuff can connect and be sustained over a the long haul. But as I recall the words of Chinua Achebe (that prefaced this article) and as I think through some of the issues I have raised, I ask: can Africa still claim the 21^st Century? I offer my unsolicited two cents: if we address these fundamentals in a proactive, positive and productive manner, then my answer is yes. Then comes the next question, are we ready? Well, ready or not, we must get on the path because the rest of the world will not hold a stopwatch on things like this. But I ask you, will Achebe’s words definitively come to pass for Africa? Can Africa still claim the 21^st Century? What do you think?

We your family, friends, associates and aquaintances do join you as you celebrate in style; while thanking God for his mercies upon your life for today and the many more years of sojourn here on earth.

We look forward to many more years of service to man and country.

Happy Birthday!

I recall that the Babangida administration introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 with its major elements drawn from the (in)famous Washington Consensus - a set of policy reform instruments imposed by political and financial Washington on developing countries of Latin America, and later sub-Saharan Africa. During the SAP era, macroeconomic indicators showed that (for the first time in two decades) Nigeria’s economy recorded back-to-back GDP growth for three years but Nigerians remained poorer until the Abacha government rolled back the programme in 1994.

Nigeria’s GDP has recorded a post-NEEDS growth rate of 7% since 2003. A number of other post-NEEDS statistics from Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Prof. Charles Soludo (Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria) shows that the numbers are finally beginning to look good. Not to mention the favourable credit ratings by Fitch and Standard & Poor’s. But the problem with macroeconomic growth figures is that they may not tell the whole story about poverty. Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says that the poverty rate in Nigeria has reduced to 54% from about 80% but a further examination of that figure could steer us away from obdurate narcissism. And hubris. Poverty is characterised by unemployment, income inequality, medical neglect, undernourishment, illiteracy and premature mortality. This is definitely not an exhaustive list but it helps to focus on some particular indices that demand attention in our growth strategy.

My point is that NBS will do well to track and provide figures that show the unemployment rate, Gini coefficient (measure of income inequality), average life expectancy at birth, change in per capita food consumption (bread, vegetables, meat, milk and fruits), illiteracy and numeracy rates (including student/teacher ratios, class sizes and the rate of improvement of educational facilities), mortality rates (including doctor/patient ratios and the rate of improvement of health facilities) and the misery index. (The misery index was devised by the Democratic Party’s candidate for the 1976 US presidential elections, Jimmy Carter, by adding the inflation rate to the unemployment rate). As in much of (post-Washington Consensus) Latin America, these figures will give us the big picture on the true state of affairs and help the reforms team in rethinking Nigeria’s economic reforms going forward.

The prevalence of poverty easily leads to the ephemerality of growth with its attendant impressive numbers thereby making a mockery of economic reforms. This growth evanescence is usually caused by insufficient levels of critical complementary factors like infrastructure. That is why successful reforming economies undertake a “big bang” approach of underpinning economic reforms and at the same time reduce high incidences of poverty through a massive investment in the construction, reconstruction and rehabilitation of physical and social infrastructures. The remarkable efforts of the economic reforms team will pale to insignificance if it is not supported by good roads, regular power supply, clean running water, good public schools and hospitals, and an efficient rail system. These growth drivers deliver the quick wins of reforms.

In addition to providing the backbone for sustained economic growth, such large-scale development of infrastructure creates emergency public employment. That is what the New Deal reforms did for the United States in the 1930s through its Public Works Administration. In his book, Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen (Winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998) also made a significant point that the successful East Asian economies “went comparatively early for massive expansion of education, and later also of health care, and this they did, in many cases, before they broke the restraints of general poverty.” The operative phrase is “massive expansion”.

The debt relief from the Paris Club and increasing revenues from high crude oil prices means that we have more money to implement such a programme. But even more importantly, Okonjo-Iweala’s fiscal management regime, the Due Process mechanism put in place by Oby Ezekwesili (now Minister of Solid Minerals), Nuhu Ribadu’s EFCC and with Soludo at CBN (to monitor money supply and control inflation) all ensures that we have the appropriate institutional framework to get it right. This leads me to another crucial point.

The economic reforms team has some of Nigeria’s finest brains and we are seeing some of the fruits of their efforts. But there are other crucial components of reforms that must be in play so we can pluck the low hanging fruits of economic reforms from infrastructure development. Successful reforms do not start and end in the Ministry of Finance. We also need knowledgeable, radical reformers in such ministries as Education, Health, Power, Transport, Water and Works to lock in the necessary complementarities of reforms and create a platform to significantly reduce poverty in such a way that growth not only endures but also improves the lives of our people and lead us confidently into the next round of reforms.

In the letter, which has very much become a scenery in public discourse, Chief Ogbeh wrote, “In life, perception is reality and today, we are perceived in the worst light by an angry, scornful Nigerian public for reasons which are absolutely unnecessary.” He made gloomy comparisons between this PDP-led government and the one led by the National Party of Nigeria that was vacated from office by the military in 1983. Chief Ogbeh subsequently warned,
“I am afraid we are drifting in the same direction again” and called on the president to act because the buck stops on his table and he (Ogbeh) dared “to think that we can, either by omission or commission allow ourselves to crash and bring to early grief, this beautiful edifice called democracy.” And he is the Chairman of the party in power!

But before the military struck on December 31, 1983, another letter was written but this time by a leading opposition figure, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. In his letter to then President Shehu Shagari, dated July 1, 1981, Chief Awolowo wrote, “There is a frightful danger ahead visible for those who care and are patriotic enough to look beyond their narrow self-interest. Our ship of state is fast approaching a huge rock, and unless you, as chief helmsman, quickly rise to the occasion and courageously steer the ship away from its present course, it shall hit the rock. And the inescapable consequence will be an unspeakable disaster such as is rare in the annals of man.”

Ogbeh may not be an Awolowo but what is worrisome is that he is a leading member of the present ruling elite. After all, when Dr. Alex Ekwueme complained about the conduct of the 2003 presidential primaries in the PDP, Chief Ogbeh reminded him that no individual can lay claim to a monopoly of integrity and when Major General Muhammadu Buhari protested the conduct of the 2003 general elections and threatened mass action, Chief Ogbeh responded that the PDP had what it took to ‘crush’ any such action.

But what unites both letters is that Awolowo implicitly drew attention to perception and Ogbeh was explicit about it. As the President of the World Economic Forum, Prof. Klaus Schwab, once said, “success depends on perception.” I had written in the past that the present government must change the perception of the people to make reforms work. In another commentary, I warned that it is the sacred duty of the reforms agenda to ensure that democracy does not perish in Nigeria. Perception makes reforms and governance work. Leadership sustains perception. Perception sustains democracy. That is why on that morning in December, 1983 as we heard martial music blaring from our radio sets and later a voice saying

“I, Brigadier Sani Abacha, of the Nigerian Army address you this morning on behalf of the Nigerian Army . . . .”, we simply returned to our beds and finished our sleep. Nobody went out to the streets to protest or speak out for the civilian government that claimed to be a product of democracy because when the voice behind the broadcast referred “to the harsh, intolerable conditions under which we are now living”, Nigerians knew what he was talking about. The broadcast went on to articulate what we always knew about the government in power. In truth, perception is reality. It is the binding thread in the triangulation of people, policy and politics.
Sadly though, the military wrought an era of developmental barbarity on the nation such that the choice between civilian democratic rule and military autocratic rule is aphoristic, because, as is self-evident, democracy has in itself, ushered in some respect for human rights and the enhancement of individual freedoms. The military subsequently handed over power to civilians in 1999 to begin the hard work of rebuilding a traumatised nation on the foundations of democracy and economic development.

We did not expect President Obasanjo to transform Nigeria into a Singapore, Malaysia or even Botswana overnight. But Nigerians know a government that is working for them when they see one. The sad truth is that they do not see it in this government.

That is what happens when the pump price of fuel is increased ostensibly as a result of a rise in crude oil prices but there is no reduction when crude oil prices fall by as much as 25%; that is what happens when the president says with all authority that there is no abject poverty in the Niger-Delta region yet we know that abject poverty can be defined as that experienced by those who do not have enough food to remain healthy, a situation that is prevalent in the region and the rest of the country; that is what happens when the president (who retains the portfolio of petroleum minister) says that he did not know that kerosene costs more than petrol and orders a concomitant reduction but many weeks after the presidential order, kerosene still sells more than petrol (yet kerosene is the staple fuel of many Nigerians); that is what happens when the governor of Anambra State is not only abducted but the physical edifice of government in that state is desecrated and reduced to ruins and ashes. I can go on and on to point out the reasons why Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, ‘accused’ Nigerians of being ungrateful. We are becoming a country where Professor Pat Utomi wrote that impunity is the norm.

Democratic governance and constitutional rule are by nature conferred certain inherent and distinguishing features and characteristics as opposed to other forms of government. In a letter appointing his son, Abdullah, as Crown Prince in January 1999, late King Hussein of Jordan described his countrymen and the roles expected of the future king in words that are instructive to Nigerian leaders on Nigerians: “They have never shirked their duty and never disappointed their leadership and their nation as they have always been loyal to their nation and capable and ready to confront difficulties and challenges. (They) have the right to expect from their leadership to work for their present and future and to achieve for them a dignified life and the protection of their rights as provided for in the Constitution.”

The most difficult tasks in a democracy are done by everybody but it is impossible without leadership and that is the democracy dividend that Nigerians have waited for. That is why the issues involved in the exchange of letters between President Obasanjo and Chief Ogbeh seem to be bigger than both of them. Nigeria is losing capital by the day. Many more Nigerians are losing faith in their country. A larger number of Nigerians no longer believe their government and the leaders. A lot of Nigerians will go to great lengths to leave this country and go anywhere. Social capital and values are in deep recession. There is a receding horizon.

But it is not late in the day to make hay while the sun shines. I draw inspiration from Turkey under current Prime Minister Recep Erdogan. He inherited what Newsweek International magazine’s Owen Matthews described as a dysfunctional police state and an economic basket case. Erdogan has only been in power for just 20 months but has led Turkey to turn the corner such that the country is now considered to be a very good candidate for entry into the European Union. Where there is a will, there is a way. Nigerians have the will and they expect the government to lead the way.

I am very worried about Chief Ogbeh’s comparisons between this government and the government that collapsed in 1983. I am also very worried that we are also in the mood to return to our beds and finish our sleep. This ought not to be so because democracy still needs defenders.

So, on behalf of his fellow Nigerians, the patriotic and well-meaning peoples of this great country, President Olusegun Obasanjo ought to do something about this raving despondency in the land, because it does not usually matter who may leave ‘penniless’.