Date Published: 02/16/10

The 4 Point Agenda By Osyman Dias

While recognising that Vice President Gooodluck Jonathon (GLJ) does not have much time in office and the probability of ever rising to such heights again is unlikely, his boss will most likely never be well enough again to resume and run for another term and the powers that be in PDP will never allow him to run in his own right as a Presidential candidate.

Jonathon should however look beyond his PDP constituency and to his largest and most powerful constituency: Nigerians.

Although GLJ might appear weak in the eyes of those who make a specialty of turning Nigerian politics into a ball game in fact he is in the strongest position imaginable. The natural adversary of all Nigerian governments, pro Democracy activists support him as he represents obedience to the constitution, the South- South support him by virtue of his ethnicity, even Northerners support him as his Presidency represents the best stop gap before the Presidency ‘returns’ to them, any other solution would have resulted in unrest. Reformers hope he will implement much needed changes, the international community has been quite vocal in their felicitations and congratulations. Most importantly he is virtually immune from assassination as the entire South would rise against any overt attempt to usurp him, the legal manoeuvrings of the Kitchen cabinet were so pedestrian and childish they should not overly trouble him. Thus if he should decide to impose his will on the country in a positive way, he could easily go down as one of the best Presidents and even if he didn’t get to run in 2011, by simple virtue of his legacy from 2010-2011, he would be the natural choice for virtually every political party he need not be beholden to PDP.

So not only would GLJ be revered in his own right but that he could run and win 2 terms as President if he completed several core tasks. Ignoring the failed 7 point agenda we suggest 4 key tasks that can ensure his position and legacy

·          Electoral Reform

·          Law, order and security

·          Electricity

·          Fuel and Refineries

Electoral Reform: is the easiest of all these tasks as it is merely a matter of signing into legislation the recommendations of the Justice Uwais Report. This simple move will demonstrate that his heart is in the right place and he is not in the thrall of the cabals and godfathers who have plagued the polity of the Federal Republic. The recommendations involve freeing INEC from the bureaucratic and political stranglehold of the Legislature and Executive amongst other things.

There is not a single legitimate argument that can be advanced for failing to implement this report and this simple action will build upon the initial goodwill generated by removing the clownish and utterly embarrassing former Attorney General of the Federation

Law, Order and Security: the primary duty of a Government is to ensure the security of the populace. The Nigerian Government over the years and increasingly to date has completely failed to do this. The peoples of the Federal Republic are currently subjected to the violence and depredations of militants both ethnic and religious, cultists, armed robbers, fraudsters, Camerounian Gendarmes, area boys, kidnappers, in fact virtually anybody with nefarious intentions. The Government has demonstrated a marked inability to deal with these crimes. As if this was not enough innocent Nigerians are victims of their own Security Forces as the terrible images broadcast on Al Jazeera demonstrate, what has been shown on this satellite broadcaster as an example of crimes against Muslims is in fact a daily occurrence in the Delta and other areas.

For society to function there must be order, for order to reign there must be security, those responsible for security must be governed by and adhere to the law.

In order to arrest the actions of cultists and militants, the Federal government should immediately publish the findings of all the probes into the various crises that have plagued the Federal Republic. As was said by someone a long time ago, the truth shall set you free. If these Panels were lawfully constituted and established a casus belli for each crises and more importantly the principal actors these people must be named. Some time ago it was stated that a list of political sponsors of MEND and other militants was discovered in one of the camps. Nothing has been heard of this list since then, it is alleged the Odili and Sekibo sponsored Ateke Tom and that the Governor of Sokoto and several of his Commissioners were linked with Boko Haram. Whatever the truth in these allegations the relevant questions must be asked.

The Amnesty in the Delta is of key importance to the peace and prosperity of that blighted region and the Republic as a whole, the Demobilisation and Disarmament Program must be restarted and followed through immediately. All demobilised militants must be concentrated, registered both biometrically and photographically and enrolled in an immediate demobilisation course. Existing groups should be broken up and the men broken down and classed by their educational status, and a range of training packages commensurate with their education implemented, those wishing further education should be put into the school system. It is folly to pay untrained ex fighters to sit around and do nothing.

A key part of the amnesty should be a thorough debriefing about their groups, leaders, bases and sponsors, these sponsors should be detained questioned and their guilt ascertained. All weapons handed in must be documented and publicly destroyed. It is not enough to state that they will be destroyed, Law and order depends not just on things being done, but being seen to be done.

The same principals apply to kidnapping and armed robbery, the best way to eliminate these crimes is to target the sponsors and godfathers. This will take good detective work and good honest policing. I refuse to believe that this is beyond the capabilities of the Nigerian Police Force. All that is needed is strong leadership and good retraining.

This then leads to the next issue, the impunity with which the security forces rob and murder Nigerians. The first and most important step is the immediate arrest  and trial by court martial of the Army officers in charge of the various internal security operations that have aimed more at targeting civilians than catching militants. Odi, Zaki Biam, Jos, Maiduguiri, Port Harcourt etc. Again the Law must be shown to be paramount over individuals or institutions. An officer who orders his men to shoot unarmed or wounded persons combatants or not is a coward and a disgrace to his honour and does not deserve to wear the uniform of our country. Once court martial’s are complete guilty persons should be handed over to civil courts for the civil charge of murder. This process should also apply to those officers who siphoned of money earmarked for soldiers allowances, housing and medical bills. Again an officer that puts his own enrichment before the welfare of his men has no honour. The same measures should be applied to the Police and Customs

These measures will be unpopular but they are necessary. By removing the few bad apples at the top the ones lower down will sit up and take notice. Again it doesn’t take much, merely a Presidential directive, unless the Chief of General Staff or Chief of Army Staff are directly implicated it is in their interests to demonstrate that they take the wishes of the acting President seriously and they are receptive to the yearnings of the people of the Federal Republic. As enumerated before these are popular moves and with good networking and by utilising the goodwill these actions will generate he can ensure that the mass of Nigerians are behind him to ensure that opponents of his policies comply.

Electricity: the power situation in the Federal Republic has been much reported and much maligned. All with just cause. Power supply is broken down into generation, transmission and distribution. All these stages in Nigeria are non functioning. Our Hydro power station do not function to full capacity due to lack of spares, thermal plants cannot generate due to epileptic gas supply. The transmission infrastructure is obsolete and poorly maintained and cannot handle even the tiny amount of power going through it. The distribution system is haphazard, has no structure and generally ends up feeding into more consumer points than the transformers and generating systems can handle

These 3 parts of the power supply network have been broken up into 6 generating companies ( Kanji / Jebba, Shirorro, Afam, Sapele, Delta, Egbin ) a national transmission company and 6 transmission companies (Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Jos, Yola, Enugu, Benin, Port- Harcourt, Ibadan, Ikeja, Eko). While the principle is right and there maybe good technical reasons for this structure I think another model would be better. The generating companies should correspond to the 6 geo political zones as should the distribution companies. The advantages of this is that the amount of electrical energy lost in transmission will be lost by having generation closer to transmission, also Power plants can be built and maintained according to local needs. Power generation in itself can be from a combination of existing plants, new plants both private and government all being transmitted by a national transmission company. This means that energy rich regions can sell electricity to other regions. By guaranteeing that fuel for the various power plants be it gas or diesel will be reserved at twice the maximum annual usage per year and sold at a fixed subsidised rate and also guaranteeing profitability through tax credits, external investors would be encouraged to invest in a market of over 150 million energy hungry people. By ensuring that the governments only have a minority stake in the Generating companies and distribution companies, limited to a 10% share at maximum and the operators with a 40% share, these companies can be run as commercial ventures with all the incentives towards profitability and efficiency that this entails. The same with the Transmission Company and distribution companies.

There is the obvious ‘Nigerian’ factor to contend with i.e. there are individuals and groups that benefit from the chaos that poor power supply produces. These individuals should be presented with the choice of either joining in and investing their ill gotten profits in the new electricity system or being run out of business. None of this will happen over night or be cheap or easy, but the profits available to an intrepid investor are huge, the benefits of guaranteed electricity are incalculable. From reduced manufacturing costs, increased industrialisation, reduced cost of living, improved safety and security, huge job creation from the various support and ancillary industries that would spring up and the improved quality of life to Nigerians.

Fuel and Refineries: again this is an issue that is not so much technical as political. It is of little doubt that all the obstacles to Nigeria’s self sufficiency in refined petroleum products emanates from corrupt officials and businessmen who profit from the scarcity. Our refineries could be repaired and operational in under a year with the money and manpower we have but it benefits certain individuals to deny us this. Private refineries could fill the gap between consumption and production however infrequent from the 4 refineries but they are tied up in red tape and regulatory nonsense’s.

For GLJ to ensure the undying regard of all Nigerians he should immediately take the government refineries back under control of a Federal Refining Company, which will use seed money from the Federal Government to repair and operate the refineries but act purely as a commercial company independent from government interference. Licences for private refineries should be granted and again commercial incentives such as tax breaks, credit guarantees etc extended to the proprietors with bonuses for those who get there facilities online as soon as possible. Dedicated crude oil supplies should also be made available to ensure there is no hiatus in commissioning and production. Concurrent with this those who have previously been in charge of the refineries should be called before a special panel to give account for their actions, those willing to come clean should be offered an amnesty in return for a clear indication of the individuals behind the machinations that have put us in this embarrassing situation

I do not pretend that these are easy tasks, particularly for someone who has emerged from the shadows in an environment as dirty and Machiavellian as Nigerian ruling party politics, but for the very reasons I listed above I think he is the individual best suited to carry out the reforms and policies mentioned. There is no particular tribal or ethnic group that can claim to be more disadvantaged or slighted by these policies, all regions have suffered from insecurity, power failure, rigged elections and power failures. The looters who will put up the most resistance are not of one ethnic group but transcend tribe and religion united only by their greed and venality.

History beckons Goodluck Jonathon. He could lay the foundation of a successful and popular 2 term presidency now or he could fade inconsequentially into the night.

The choice is his

Osyman Dias

Rally For Nigeria