By Evelyn Okakwu
Ahead of his
inauguration, earlier this month, President Mohammadu Buhari had promised to tackle
majorly three issues; namely the economy, corruption and; top on the list,
insecurity.
During its
campaign preceding the election, the APC had stated that: “Nigeria urgently
needs fundamental political reforms in governance, more transparency and accountability”.
In addition
to capturing the three-fold objective
of the president, the above paragraph is
also notable for addressing the urgency required in this administration’s
approach to governance.
As a measure
of urgency, the president had during his inaugural speech promised to relocate
the military headquarters to Maiduguri, the den of terror, in response to his campaign
of bringing the menace of terror to an end. “Our government would bring to an
end the menace of Boko Haram that is plaguing the society”.
Similarly,
this resolve to move the Military base to Maiduguri is not unconnected to the
promise of his vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, during the campaign
period. “Fighting insurgency requires the commander in chief to lead from the
front by providing leadership.
President
Buhari in his speech concurred with his deputy, thus: “Progress has been made
in recent weeks by our security forces but victory cannot be achieved by basing
the command and control center in Abuja. The command center will be relocated
to Maiduguri and remain until Boko Haram is completely subdued.”
But how
feasible is this move in tackling the menace of terrorism. Frank Tietie is a
legal practitioner and chief executive of the Citizens advocacy for Social and
Economic Rights; (CASER) “the fight against insurgency is an intelligence
driven war; not necessary a war that involves putting troops on ground. It’s not really a combatant war. Insurgency
in this regard deals with people who have mixed up with the community and it
will be difficult to follow them, except there is a well-coordinated
intelligence”.
The decision
to relocate the defense headquarters, to Maiduguri is a move that can be
described as mare playing to the gallery; in the sense that it is a fire brigade
approach that will not have any value. There will be no difference, whether the
defense headquarters is in Abuja, or Maiduguri; in fact it will make matters
worse; except he is doing it in order to punish the military chief by making
them uncomfortable, making them work outside their zone of comfort. It may be
said to have a secondary value, but when it comes to fighting the insurgency,
it will have no effect. That is why I subscribe to the school of thought that
say; ‘has any country in this world moved its defense headquarters to the
theater of war? Where in history has it ever been said that the national defense
headquarters if moved to the theater of war?
There is no armory
in the defense headquarters, the armory are spread across all the states. The defense
headquarters is purely an administrative and intelligence coordinating set up; so
I think it is a mare playing to the gallery.”
Tietie adds
however, that the president has the constitutional backing to relocate officers
anywhere he feels like. “If he is asking the soldiers, that’s the defense chiefs
to go to Maiduguri; he has the constitutional powers; as the commander in Chief;
but the relocation of the defense headquarters with all the apparatus; he
cannot do that. Although as the commander in chief, he can relocate the defense
personnel anywhere;, but if that he what he means by his statement at the inauguration,
then good and fine, but we are also saying that it will reduce the man’s
efficiency, because the tools he needs to work effectively are in Abuja, and
not in Maiduguri. We are talking about an intelligence driven war, which relies
so much on surveillance, and a lot of coordination. You don’t expect for
instance that there will be any difference, if Major General Chris Olukolade now stays in Maiduguri; for what?
Olukolade
should be in Abuja to coordinate information properly, because insurgency has
to do with what is called the war of atrophy; propaganda is very important, during
insurgency war.; so if for example, Chris Olukolade is in Maiduguri, he may not
be able to counter the propaganda machine of the insurgents as much as he would
have done when he was in Abuja, where he has access to several press men.
Understand
that you cannot put an absolute end to terrorism; because it is criminality,
and you cannot end criminality. It will always have a way of being with us, and
we should not give a larger than life definition to it. It is an illusion to
what to think that you want to completely wipe out criminality, what you should
do is to increase the security consciousness of the people so that they can
assist the authorities, especially the law enforcement agencies in preventing
crime. For me, the relocation is clearly over reactionary
Regarding corruption
the president did say during his campaign that; “There will be no confusion
regarding where I stand.” In another campaign scenario, he promised to bring to
book all that have been involved in major cases of corruption in the history of
the country. But during his speech, after the inauguration he stated thus: “A
few people have privately voiced fears that on coming back to office I shall go
after them. These fears are groundless. There will be no paying off old scores.
The past is prologue.” Again Frank Tietie speaks: “My understanding of what the
president is saying is that in the interest of peace, he may not have to which
hunt anybody, but at the same time clear cases of corruption and bridge of
official trust will not be condoned. The president does not have any option, but
actually conduct a serious enquiry on important places, like power, and in the
oil sector, especially in terms of subsidy payments, the issue of compliance to
financial regulations in all the ministries; the president cannot afford to
turn a blind eye to all those issues. He must in the interest of his own
government conduct an enquiry; either a commission of enquiry, or a judicial
enquiry, to look into certain issues. The formal enquires that have been
constructed have yielded no tangible result. So we think that a judicial
enquiry where there will be certain immunities and certain freedom given to
citizens to come and testify and raise issues would seem to have more impact.
The judicial
enquiry will not be a problem to the executive; the executive will remain
focused in doing what it is supposed to do while the judiciary will conduct an
enquiry into these matters, because there are issues that must be dug up. Be aware
that at the beginning of every era where there has been certain Malay, that had
happened, for example in 1999, there was an Oputa panel, called the truth and reconciliation
panel. The idea was; “Let the truth be spoken so that we can have a national
healing. It is not out of place for this government to consider strongly setting
up a judicial enquiry into various cases of maladministration and
misappropriation and then where it is found out that some persons have corruptly
enriched themselves, they should be made to pay. That is the essence of
criminal law; this president cannot afford to go back on his promise of probing
not only the past administration, but issues that are related to corruption;”
About the
economy, the president made similar promises, prior to, and after his election,
and subsequent inauguration; “We intend to attack the problem frontally through
revival of agriculture, solid minerals mining as well as credits to small and
medium size businesses to kick – start these enterprises. We shall quickly
examine the best way to revive major industries and accelerate the revival and
development of our railways, roads and general infrastructure”. A major deficiency
however is the explanation as to how he intends to fulfill some of the economic
objectives.
Mr Dayo
Olaide is the deputy director Mac Arthur foundation: “I think firstly that in the startups they should be able to have
plans that will address issues in the immediate, short and medium term, as well
as in the long term. I believe his decision to revive those industries that
have gone moribund is a welcome development certainly. It will help reviving
the nations lost economic glory”.
“In the immediate;
there are a number of new startups; so many young and emerging entrepreneurs
that I think present themselves as opportunities for the new administration to
start providing support, that will make some of this young businesses to grow. Go
to Lagos for example; take a look at what has now come to be known as the
computer village; there are a lot of young people that are using technology to create
jobs. Konga just recently started, but it has become a major player in
e-business. There are other examples that I think would help fostering great opportunities,
I think the government should identify this opportunities and invest on them;
not just pumping money, also providing technical know-hows that enable this
young businesses to grow so that they can begin to absorb young people.
You can also
see a similar model in Kano; right now there is an immerging big market for
mobile repairs. I think such ventures provide opportunities and government can
start providing support for such ventures.
That for me
is a good example of what they can do in the immediate.
I think in
the short to medium term, there a number of businesses that they can begin to encourage,
like the agricultural sector, I am aware that the outgoing government started a
number of ventures to try and promote the value change structure in the
agricultural sector. I think that holds a lot of opportunities, because you can
actually find a lot of countries in the west need some of the materials that
are produced here, in terms of raw materials for production. So I think the
agricultural sector does provide opportunities, both in the short to medium
term for this government to start investing. There is so much that they can do
in terms of capacity building, investing infrastructure; they can begin to help
small scale farmers to begin to expand.
I think
within the short to medium term, those are opportunities. They would also need
to invest in a lot of research on ways that will bring about value change in a
lot of produce, that are made in this country. I think regarding the revitalization
of dead industries, like those in the north, the government should consider the
visibility of reviving the dead industries, there was a time when the north was
known to have a lot of textile industries. I am not going ask them, to just
jump into the sector and begin to invest; I would expect them rather to commission
some sort of feasibility, to consider the possibility of these things, paying
particular attention to the infrastructures that are actually needed to revive
the industry, the rate of power supply needed to revive the industry, I think a
lot of feasibility studies will need to go into the sectors to identify whether
they are issues that can be revived.
For the
south east, the sector is known for a lot of motor industries; I think the opportunities
that provide themselves in the south east are such that can take the government
short and medium term investments, “The government should ask questions like: “what
can we do to support expansion, how can we build industries, for example. Immerging
having a motor industry that is actually functional, not the lies, which we had
in the past years, but major investments that are driven by clear plan of industrialization.
Look at
Nolly wood, film production is one sector that can contribute enormously to the
economy; it would surprise you to learn that a recent survey actually showed
that Nolly wood and the power sector are actually the fastest growing in the
economy. That would tell you that a lot can come from that sector.
Then when
you come to the electricity sector, government would have to rethink its policy
of the national grid. I think that government should come up with a clear
policy on improving the power sector. Government should also invest on other
alternative sources of power like the solar and the likes, with that I think
you would see brilliant young men coming into the sectors, getting employed and
creating employment.
So I think
the central thing is to say first that government needs to recognize the
regional diversities, identify the opportunities, that exist in each of these
different states and on that bases come up with clear plans to invest in those
sectors. This would involve a lot of collaboration with the states.
In the case
of the refineries, I think that right now, there is so much secrecy; such that
very little is currently known about the status of the refineries and for
government to be able come up any clear program, the first step would be for
government to be able to determine, what are the status, and the opportunities.
We have heard so much about the possibilities of government to invest in
smaller greener refineries, for that to happen, government would need to
conduct some sort of investigations, for example we know that over 9 years,
Dangote has been talking about investing in the greener refineries but we haven’t
seen it, so the question that should be on the lips of every one is what has
been stopping him. So I think that for government to be able to make informed
investment there, the starting point would be for government to first of all
invest in knowledge gathering it is knowledge that would drive government’s
investment in that regard.
While this points are notable in accessing the President's inaugural speech, it is also not out of place to state that the focus of this right up was mainly on the Presidents main agenda, as indicated earlier
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