UNDERSTANDING CORRUPTION IN THE NIGERIAN OIL AND GAS SECTOR: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES PRESENTED AT THE ANTI CORRUPTION TRAINING FOR OIL AND GAS SECTOR ORGANIZED BY AFRICAN DIASPORA INITIATIVE ON 30/03/2009; AT THE U.K. BELLO CONFERENCE CENTRE MINNA. NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | May 1, 2009

I thank the organizers of this workshop for finding me worthy to deliver this paper before this august gathering. Your choosing to discuss corruption in the oil and gas industry means that there are cynicism and corruption in the sector, that all is not well with the system and that there is urgent need to put processes in place to add value to hydrocarbon production for the benefit of all stakeholders and Nigerians in general. That Nigeria is the 10^th and 3^rd largest oil producer of oil in the world and Africa respectively; yet so poor goes against any rational reasoning, methodical explanation and epistemological interpretation. It is incontestable that we are where we are because we run a spoilt system. The need to shift from our past makes the topic very apt at this time.

Introduction

For more than five decades of oil and gas exploration in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, all we have are tales of woes and the massive negative impacts amongst which are: extreme poverty, high unemployment rate, infrastructural decay and corruption. All these have led these communities; in whose land we extract oil and gas to ask the Nigerian State to come up with the best arrangement that will reverse their awful and agonizing past.

Corruption is the deviation from the norms and ideals of transparency, accountability, honesty, truth and the engagement of people in self-serving activities to actualize selfish interests at the expense of the larger group. Corruption is a non-restrictive practice, which knows no boundary, culture or society. It is found in the nooks and crannies of every nation, whether emerging or developed. It starts from the micro level of the family as a unit and extends to the broad spectrum of society.

Therefore, corruption is not just taking and giving of bribes. It could be moral, political, social, economic and religious. It is effusive, pervasive, infectious and a highly globalized phenomenon. Corruption is human. It has voice, flesh, bone and marrow. It is highly professional. Corruption cuts across classes and strata of societies. It occupies low and high places. Those at the low level engage in it to make ends meet. Those in high places engage in it to maintain the status quo, cling on to power and eat what they do not need in the present to preserve their generation unborn. The perpetrators are conscienceless and deadly. It is on this premise that one believes that the oil and gas industry cannot be insulated from corruptive tendencies. Corruption is destructive and must be seriously tackled because where corruption thrives, nothing works. Corruption may not be totally wiped out but structures can be put in place to reduce the endemic social disease to the barest minimum. I believe that it is in the contest of trying to reverse the negative trends of corruption that the African in Diaspora Initiative is seeking a pathfinder, which will enthrone transparency and accountability in the oil and Gas industry in Nigeria.

Oil is an organic matter and also usually referred to as hydrocarbon. It is formed from dead marine organisms and plants, which were buried over several million years ago. It is transformed into oil and gas by heat, pressure and bacteria. Our economy could be said to be largely monolithic and largely dependent on the oil sector, which accounts for more than 98% of export earnings, about 85% of Federal government total earnings, 30-40% of our GDP; 90%-95% of foreign exchange earnings and between 65%-70% of government budgetary revenues. It is the most efficient natural resource that could be used for the rapid economic growth and development with the highest propensity to attract abundant foreign investment. Oil and gas are strategic to our national security, development and growth. They are even more important in our environment where we have no developed ready-made alternatives like coal, solar and nuclear energy to drive our technological development.

Brief historical perspective

• 1908: Exploration work started in Lagos and Okitipupa coastal areas by the Nigerian Bitumen Company established by a German consortium.
• 1908-1956:  Various exploration, exploitation continued in various parts of the country
• 1956: Oil discovered in commercial quantity at Oloibiri by Shell D’Arcy
• 1958: Shipment of 5,100 BOPD
• 1960:  175,000 BOPD
• 1971:   Nigeria joined OPEC
• 1979:  2.3mm BOPD
• 1958: Shipment of 5,100 BOPD
• 1960:  175,000 BOPD
• 1971:   Nigeria joined OPEC
• 1979:  2.3mm BOPD
• 1983: Oil glut led to a reduction to 1.3mm BOPDv  2008: 2.4mm BOPD
• From mid 1980s-september 2003, oil prices generally stood at $25/barrel. From then on prices rose above $30/barrel.
• August 11 2005, it rose to $60/barrel
• July 2008, it peaked at $147.30

At the end of 2008, it slumped to $33.87 and in 2009, gradually climbed to above $50 by the end of March, 2009. Currently, more than 800,000 barrels have been shut in due to youth restiveness, militancy in the Niger Delta region and the unabated vandalism of petroleum pipelines

Upstream

The upstream focuses on mining, exploration, exploitation, production and exportation of crude oil and the most important sector to the Nigerian economy. Nigeria’s average yearly production of crude oil is 710 million barrels. Present reserve is expected to last for about 49 years if no additional reserve is added. This shows that oil is a depletable asset. Nigeria has proven natural gas reserves of 187 trillion standard cubic feet, the 7th largest gas reserve and a production capacity of 34.97 billion cubic billion metres and present average gas consumption is 700Mscf. The country currently flares less than 75% of our gas is flared (it is 42.52% (2006) and 27% (2007) of associated gas and hopefully would wish to have a zero flare target by the year 2010. In addition, it is also the desire of the country to increase the National Oil Reserve base from the present 36.22 billion barrels to 40 billion barrels with a daily production of 4.5 million barrels by the year 2010.

The Downstream sector

The downstream sector concentrates on the refining of crude oil into usable products through distillation, conversion, extraction, and other special treatments to produce petroleum products and petroleum gas. It also covers the operations of the petrochemical plants. Nigeria has four refineries; two in Port Harcourt, one in Warri and one in Kaduna with a total refining capacity of 445,000 barrels (PHRC 210,000 WRPC 125,000 and KRPC 110,000) per day. However, these refineries have been unable to meet with their refining capacities because of several mitigating factors, which include decades of neglect, lack of turnaround maintenance, obsolete policy thrusts and vandalism of petroleum pipelines.

Service sector

Provides technical, engineering and consultancy services mainly to aid the upstream in the drilling, exploration and production activities.

It is noteworthy to note that NEITI has tried to instill fiscal discipline in the oil and gas industry through financial, physical and process audits. The audits reconciled figures and coherent maps of who paid what money, to whom, how much, the amount of oil and gas produced, lifted, exported within the period under review and a critical examination of extractive processes and levels of justification of capital expenditure.The reports noted weak accounting infrastructures, inefficient interfacing between the relevant agencies, inadequate financial and infrastructure to support the operations of the agencies, poor record keeping practices and lack of independent capacity to carry out independent assessment of oil companies royalty liabilities,  Like in any other sector, corruption can take place right from the planning stages to the completion phases of projects.

Therefore, there is the need to understand and appreciate how they can occur before we can begin to proffer solutions to corruption issues in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.  Our policies and laws guiding the operations of the oil and gas are so obsolete that they skew in favor of the contractors and give vent to corruption. Technical incompetence and lack of adequate manpower further compounds the inability of government to optimize the revenues accruable to the government in oil and gas business in Nigeria. It is in realization of this that the Oil and Gas Reforms Implementation Committee (OGIC) was constituted by the Federal government. The bill to support the legal framework is presently before the National Assembly.

Tender process

The beginning of any oil and gas business starts from the tendering and bidding processes. Often times, what transpired here will be the determinant of how much corruption can be perpetrated in the life of a particular project.Contractors usually seek those that can assist them with in-house benchmarks or even get the scope drawn by the internal collaborator for a fee.

This was proven in the Wilbros case in which $6million was said to have been used to secure a contract through various agegovernment. With an accomplice and a “godfather” at the top, the contractor either stays on the benchmark or a little lower. Once the job has been secured, he pushes for variation costs, which can be as high as 200-500% of the original cost.

More worrisome is that the supervising arm of government may not have recommended the companies that finally get the job, courtesy of “orders from above”From recent revelations, it has been found that winning contracts in the oil and gas industry is laced with huge corruptive tendencies. On this, Isakpa revealed “Steph, two other unnamed Wilbros executives and two employees of a multinational construction firm, were alleged in the indictment to have planned to spend $6 million to secure lucrative contracts with the construction of Eastern Gas Gathering System. The bribes were hidden as consultancy fees”. Continuing, Isakpa said “At some point US, French, Swiss and British authorities investigated allegations that Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), the Halliburton subsidiary, was involved in the operation of a slush fund when they secured the award of contracts worth $10 billion for the construction of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas plant at Bonny in the late 1990s and early 2000s”. 

Agreements/types of agreements

The agreements drawn could give teeth to the corruption traps set during the bidding stages.

Joint Venture

The Joint Venture arrangement in which two or more oil companies enter into an agreement for joint development of jointly held oil prospecting licences (OPLs) or oil mining licences (OMLs) and facilities. Each partner in the joint venture contributes the operating costs and shares the benefits or losses of the operations in the venture.

Drawbacks

• Delayed cash calls and projects because all crude oil sales are paid into the Federation account therefore subjecting it to the whims of government bureaucracy
• The Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) which regulates the Joint Venture deal does not have review clause which makes the contract to be in favour of the operators.
• Personnel recruitment and expatriate quota are grossly abused. For instance, at this time and age of our development, some companies still have expatriates as community liaison officers.
• Perpetration of corruption through a community liaison officers. 

 PSC and Cost verification

It is because of the drawbacks of the JOA that PSCs emerged. The prospecting licences and mining leases granted in the deep water fields of the Nigerian coast have been on this term. The PSCs enable a sharing formula to be implemented which allows the operators to pay statutory tax and royalty and keeps the larger part of the profit.The contract period is usually for 30 years (inclusive of 10 years exploration and 20 years OML period and governed by the PSC agreement).

Cost Verification

It is that portion of the amortized cost for the period recovered through crude lifting. The components for consideration are capital and recurrent expenditure. The capital expenditure is amortized through a period of five years i.e. 1/5 of the total recovery while the recurrent expenditure is recovered within the year. These are the total expenditure that will be available for recovery.According to the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts (Amendment) Decree No. 26 of 1999 PSC “means any agreement or any arrangements made between the Corporation or the Holders and any other petroleum exploration and production company or companies for the purpose of exploration and production of oil in the Deep Offshore and Inland Basins.

Origin of PSC

According to Johnston (1994:39-40), the first PSC was signed by IIAPCO an Indonesian National Oil Company at that time (now Pertamina) in August 1996 with Permina. The concept is now used in more than thirty (30) developing countries including, Malaysia, Oman, Angola, Peru, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Libya, Gabon, Thailand, China, Nigeria, etc.The essential characteristic of PSC is that of state ownership of the resources. The Contractor receives a share of production for services performed after payment of Royalty, recovering of operating costs, and payment of tax oil. The remainder is shared as profit oil in an agreed ratio.

Emuchay in Egwuenu (2000) in a public lecture  postulated that “PSC emerged as one of the fiscal regimes in the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector as a concerted attempt to improve on the traditional Joint Venture agreement to the advantage of the government which lacks adequate technical base and sufficient financial resources”.

Johnston (1994: 242-243) posits that the 1993 PSC in Nigeria has cost recovery limit of 40%. He also defined PSC as “a contractual agreement between a contractor and a host government whereby the Contractor bears all exploration costs and risks and development and production costs in return for a stipulated share of the production resulting from this effort”.

Akomolafe in Kupolokun (2004) posits that “it is anticipated that the PSC arrangement would attract up to $10 billion in foreign investments to the upstream over the next five years. However, effective and consistent monitoring and control of costs by NNPC as well as the general supervision of the operations on a continuous basis is a necessity”.

From the above, Production Sharing Contract (PSC) could be defined as is a contractual agreement between a contractor and the host government or it’s agency. The Contractor bears all the risks, incurs all the costs for exploration, development and production. In this arrangement, a contractor is engaged to carry out operations in Government wholly held acreage. Initial exploration and risks are borne by the Contractor and recovers his costs as oil is produced, the Contractor receives shares for its services after the payment of Royalty, recovery of operating costs (cost oil), payment of tax oil and share profit in an agreed ratio.

There is usually a clause in the agreement, which states, “the operator and its auditors shall have the right to inspect and audit the books and accounts relating to the contract for any year and if such inspection and auditing have not been so carried out within two (2) years following the end of the year in question, the books and accounts relating to such year shall be deemed to be acceptable by the parties as satisfactory”.

This means that cost verification is time barred e.g. 2008 verification must be carried out from January 2009-December 2010. To ensure that the deadlines are not met, the companies dilly-dally over reconciliation meetings with the appropriate government agencies and seek ways of ensuring that the cost verification is not done with the stipulated period.Cost verification is an important tool in PSC agreement as it relates to our country because the verified and certified cost constitutes a background with which the operator puts on record its performance bond and above all recover costs through cost oil (crude entitlement).  Once a cost verification has been duly carried out and certified crude is allocated under PSC arrangement after cost has been verified and certified. Where this is delayed or not done, crude will be allocated on the contractor’s reported cost, which usually will be higher than verified cost. It has been opined by several interest groups that PSCs are increasing in number without commensurate capacity to cope.

According to Akomolafe (2007:18) ‘Timely preparation of cost verification exercises of PSC companies by skilled personnel will bring about quality verified costs devoid of misstatements and errors for cost recovery purpose of the operator.” Olamide (2008:29) posits that the delay or lack of constant cost verification gives the PSCs especially the leeway to file for unmerited costs”. This is one situation that favours the producing PSCs are very comfortable with, but a serious means of leakages to the government. Even where these costs are recovered at a later date, money loses value with time. Corruption here if detected could run into multi billions of $. If for instance a government agent had to verify and certify costs of a company and the government agency found $35 million unmerited costs.

The company in bid to keep all the profits can offer such government agent(s) $10 million while the company keeps $25. For an officer that does not earn up to $2.500 per month, your guess as to what might happen is as good as mine.

Features of PSC

• Signature Bonus $0.5-$1.0 Million per block.
• Bid Bonus $10-$30  Million per block
• Royalty Oil up to 16.67% depending on water depth
• Cost Recovery- 100% after royalty.

The Fiscal arrangement for Gas and Downstream Investment have five years tax holiday, exemptions from import duties/VAT

Petroleum Profit tax

During the NEITI audit, it was discovered that some companies were in arrears of 3-4 years. This encourages corruption and short-changing of accountability and transparency processes.

Royalty

• Paid based on volume and decrease as there is increase in water depth
• On Shore                      20% 
• Off Shore  0-100 M      18.5%
• 100-200M               16.67%
• 201-500M               12.00%
• 501-800M                 8.00%
• 801-1000M               4.00%
• Above 1000M           0.00%  

Draw backs of PSC include

• Agreement stresses cost recovery rather than paymentv  Loaded costs
• Possible underpayment of royalty, due partly to the lack of a clearly defined point of assessment of royalty.
• Possible underpayment of PPT, due to a practice of self-assessment that has not been adequately validated by FIRS 

Risk service Contract (RSC)

The RSC is a minor variant of PSC and rarely used. The contractor carries out exploration activities on behalf of the government or its agency for a fee either in cash or kind. The main features of a Service Contract are: The contractor has no title to the crude oil, but the right to be repaid the investment plus an agreed mark up if and when oil is discovered in commercial quantities and produced, each Service Contract relates to a single block unlike PSC, which may cover more than one block. The continuation of the contract is subject to the contractor meeting an agreed level of work programme each year. The major incentive for the risks undertaken is that the contractor has first option to purchase the fixed quantities of crude oil produced from that contract area.In Kuwait- the constitution forbids foreign ownership of mineral resources but government allows foreign investments in the upstream oil development in their own terms. She pays the agreed term per barrel rather than Production sharing arrangements.

Concession

This is a contractual agreement that guarantees the exclusive rights of a company to explore, produce, market and transport oil and gas in return for paying specified costs and taxes. This is contained in the Petroleum act of 1969. It is usually for 20 years.

DrawbackIt has the lowest returns in form of royalty or income tax

Bidding for oil blocks

This is an area that has been grossly abused because of obsolete laws, the spoilt system and military/government interventions in the running of the oil and gas sector. In the Petroleum Act of 1969, the Minister of Petroleum reserves discretionary powers to allocate oil blocks. To support this assertion, the Sun quoted Ofurhie (2008) as saying that “between 2001and 2006, there was no open bidding for oil blocks, but only selective bidding authourized by the Presidency”

During this period and contrary to the rules, monies for signature bonuses have been paid in naira instead of in hard currencies and monies paid were not receipted for more than five years.The House Committee noted that some signature bonuses were paid in naira contrary to the provision of the guidelines, adding that from the records available to them, there was a short fall in the payment of signature bonus of $1.6bn. according to the Committee, the records of the signature bonuses in 2005 showed a total of over $2bn but only the sum of $1.6bn was paid while some payments were made in local currency the Director of DPR admitted that some payments were made in local currency but that he was directed by the Minister of state for Petroleum to do so. “I received signature bonus in naira because of instructions from above. It was also discovered that the wired payment for $2.5 million paid for OPL. 257 in June 2003 by Vintage Oil spent five years before it was receipted on July, 8 2008”. Even with the open bidding system, which is supposed to be a more transparent system, many companies came to the panel of the House Committee investigating the oil and gas sector  accusing government of unfair treatment in the allocation of blocks while Starcrest investment Ltd said to have been represented by its Secretary Emefor Etudo, alleged that about 10 powerful individuals connived and cornered $35 million stated before that blocks were awarded after the bid rounds based on the instruction of the Minister (http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/news/….ocks%20missing); sensitive documents relating to block allocations were said to have been missing.

This was confirmed by the acting director of DPR, Alhaji Mohammed Aliyu Sabo before the Committee said “we can only give out what we have and cannot give what we don’t. We can’t find some of the documents”. More disturbing is even the reallocation of the oil block belonging to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC); a supposedly government’s agent, which is the exploration arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to a Chinese company, the China National Oil Development Corporation (CNODC).  An oil block which NPDC has operated since 1989 as Oil Mining Licence (OML) 65 since 1989 was put in for sale as Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) 289. The committee found that OML 65 was transformed to OPL 289 without first being first revoked therefore going against due process.

The Former Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC, Funso Kupolokun was said to have expressed shock when he found out that the two oil blocks were one and the same. He told the committee that he was deceived by DPR into approving the oil block which was already in the possession of NPDC for sale to CNODC. The question is, are there no ways of verifying assets before putting them on sale?.

Blocks have been found to have been allocated, withdrawn and given to another company at a lesser amount. The committee also discovered that Shell paid $210 million in December 2003 as signature bonus, but only the sum of $1 million was reflected in the records, while Statoil also made a payment in 2003 but the receipt was issued in 2004. In the case of the controversial OPL 245 won by Malabo Oil, it was discovered that while $210 million was paid, it was later withdrawn and awarded to Shell which, paid $1 million as commitment fee before Malabo went to court).

Torulagha (2006) posits that “the oil blocks is almost given freely to those who are highly connected to those in power. These individuals then sell the blocks to International Oil Companies and earn substantial income. It operates like a government-subsidized welfare program for the selected few. Translated politically, Nigerian leaders use oil blocks as a form of reward and punishment to compel or elicit certain behaviour from certain individuals”. 

From this standpoint, it can be summarily adduced that when a particular leader wants support for a particular policy or self effusing agenda, he identifies the zone where opposition will be massive and settles them with oil blocks as a pre-emptive way of eliciting their support to buy into the agenda. On the other hand, an agreement on any block so freely given can be revoked at the whim of either the President or the Minister of Petroleum as a punishment for not supporting an agenda of government. This type of system if allowed to continue perpetuates corruption and where there is corruption, nothing works.

Seismic Activities

This is the beginning of acquiring data whether in the swamp, onshore or offshore. Here, the money spent on community activities and hiring of equipment can be veritable source of overload and corruptive tendencies. Another area in which searchlights should be beamed is in the area of equipment lease agreements, which could be hyper inflated. All these increase overhead costs, make money into private pockets with slimmer margins to government. 

Lifting

The main important components under watch here should be records and metering. NEITI auditors opine that “The amounts listed may not for various legitimate reasons not correspond to the entitlements inferred in the hydrocarbon balance like the lack of standard definitions and measurement points.

Downstream

On July 20, 1999 former President Olusegun Obasanjo in his speech on the occasion of the inauguration of the National Council on Privatization at the Presidential Villa on in his speech noted that the refineries were built on quicksand and went ahead to put succinctly some of the challenges facing the refineries and listed them as:

• Defective Capital Structurev  Excessive Bureaucratic Control or intervention.
• Inappropriate Technology.
• Gross incompetence and Mismanagement.
• Blatant Corruption and;
• Crippling Complacency

What he however, refused to tell Nigerians in addition to the above is that the past leaders, the political heavyweights, proxies of those in power and the Nigerian factor led the refineries to their death knell.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would have been at the hob of turning around the downstream sector but the criminal crippling complacency of government in its refusal to allow the refineries run like a truly commercial venture since inception led to the coma of the refineries. The NNPC Act of 1977, which established NNPC as a statutory corporation did not provide it with the power to borrow beyond nominal sums by bank overdraft arrangement. Section 8 of the NNPC Act provides that the approval of the National Council (now the President under the present constitutional dispensation) must be sought before any substantial borrowings.

Furthermore, under general legislation affecting the borrowing of statutory corporations, the Ministry of Finance is designated as the appropriate arm of government to administer such transactions.This Act negates the core foundation principles of commercialization. For instance full commercialization means that enterprises so designated will be expected to operate profitably on a commercial basis and be able to raise funds from the capital market without government guarantee. Such enterprises are expected to use private sector procedures in the running of their businesses. Partial commercialization on the other hand means that such enterprises so designated will be expected to generate enough revenue to cover their operating expenditures. The government may consider giving them capital grants to finance their capital projects. In both full and partial commercialization no divestment of the Federal Government shareholding is involved; and subject to the general regulatory powers of the Federal Government the enterprises shall:

1. Fix rate, prices and charges for goods produced and services rendered;
2. Capitalize assets; and
3. Sue and be sued in their corporate names (Guidelines on Privatization & Commercialization, p 55).

Previous administrations paid lip service to the strengthening of the downstream sector. What they put into it with the right hand they took back with the left. The refineries were rendered ineffective through policy inconsistencies. The main share holder (government) changes the leadership at will and in less than a decade, NNPC had about 5 Group Managing Directors. With these changes, the Managing Directors of the subsidiaries also change to the effect that some of these refineries have had more than 10 Managing Directors in less than two decades. The Turnaround Maintenance, which should be done biennially was left undone for decades and where it was done, the shareholder through back hand business determines which companies should do the TAM irrespective of having the technical competence or not. Those managing the refineries were never truly empowered to effectively manage the plants. The Managing Directors had a financial authourity of N5 million ($34,000) when Managers of lesser and newer plants have signing authorities of $1-2 million. Seeking approvals for capital projects, refurbishment of spares could take more than one year in some cases. When the NNPC was still running Eleme Petrochemical Company, the officer in charge of its Materials’ Management unit had a signing authourity of N30,000 ($200). From 1999-2007, almost all the approvals for capital projects ended with the Presidency. This meant that projects were bogged down by bureaucracy and the Management was unable to react to critical emergencies. 

To turn the bad dreams into depressing nightmares, restiveness and militancy took its roots in the Niger Delta region. The chanomi Creek trunk line, which supplies crude to the Warri and Kaduna refineries have been blown up twice between 2004 and 2006. The contractors were unable to mobilize to site until they settled issues with the communities. The repairs took about one year and six months each. This meant that WRPC and KRPC were unable to perform their roles as they could not possible produce petroleum products from water. Whereas the enabling statutes setting up Petronas and Petrobras from inception made them truly commercial enterprises, the Act that set up NNPC programmed it as a merely regulatory body thereby being made to be unable to compete with any National Oil from inception.

Under the above circumstances, only magic and miracle would have brought NNPC to a world class standard of our dreams. It is in this direction that the Oil and Gas Reform Implementation Committee (OGIC) was put in place. If implemented as conceptualized, it will be a welcome development. The essence of the exercise is to put the organization in the same position as the Petrobras of Brazil, Petronas of Malaysia, and Statoil of Norway, which were established at the same time with the NNPC. These companies managed their countries’ petroleum resources and have also ventured into exploration and production of oil in countries other than theirs and they are making remarkable progress in this regards, Petrobras is investing on Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 216 and 246 and Statoil have invested in Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 217 and 218 in Nigeria.

While the Petrobras, Petronas and Statoil are busy investing in other lands, NNPC has been crippled and weighed down largely by the overbearing influence of its shareholder and unending bureaucracy. Efforts to invest in the past had been inhibited by government bureaucracy. This was corroborated by some previous Group managing Directors of NNPC. Dalhatu Bayero, a former GMD of NNPC, remarked, “I hope the government will allow NNPC to carry out successfully its process of transformation”. Another former GMD, Chambers Oyibo once said: “It was not that the NNPC never made attempt in the past to invest outside Nigeria, but it was never supported by past governments”. 

Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) Issues

Pre-90s, staff of the refineries with a very few external experts were responsible for doing TAM and on the dot of ninety days, those plants were back running. However, as soon as the military government introduced third party contractors’ arrangement that they can foist on the system, the plants went comatose. The third party arrangement was put in place as a deliberate attempt to make money for the military leaders at the detriment of effective running of the refineries. In October 1994, the government enacted the Petroleum Special Trust Fund (PTF) Decree. All proceeds from the petroleum product sales in the domestic market except for fuel oil and special products were transferred from NNPC to PTF. NNPC was then paid N1.7 per litre ($0.02) to transport crude oil to refinery, refine the crude oil and distribute the products nationwide. Consequently, they were denied access to internally generated revenue. The World Bank’s Report on its 1994 Public Expenditure Review opined that the allowed margin of N1.7 per litre was just 54 per cent of refining cost. This implies by rough estimate that refining cost should have been above N3 per litre as at 1994 by World Bank Standard. This arrangement made NNPC to go cap in hand to beg for money to run her operatoins.

On TAM, Ereyukomhen in Ola says “that the Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) of the Port-Harcourt Refinery was awarded to an Oil Services company in 1998 and was partially completed in 2001. The Oil Service Company was unable to handle the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit. As a result, the capacity utilization level after TAM remained below 60 per cent. The Turnaround Maintenance of Warri refinery was awarded to another French Company. Despite the completion of Tam, the company could not operate beyond a maximum of 70 percent. The TAM of Kaduna was awarded to an oil marketing company in 1997 but the bulk of the work did not start until 1999. After the TAM, the plan could not operate above 45 per cent capacity utilization”.

If indeed our past leaders were sincere about their commitments towards the effective running of the refineries and the provision of petroleum products for Nigeria’s use, all the companies that took part in the sham TAM would have been called to question. The refineries were terribly raped but the rapists are out there in absolute freedom enjoying their loot. This is against the principles of due process, accountability, transparency and the rule of law. 

Challenges

• Decayed infrastructure.
• Corruption.
• Lack of political will of government to turn around the oil and gas sector.
• Improper record keeping.
• Lack of adequate institutional infrastructural support.
• Attitudinal problems.
• Complacency by government towards genuine oil and gas reforms.
•  Manipulation of oil and gas industry to give rewards to loyalists of the government in power.

Conclusion

All said however, I want to conclude by saying that for there to be accountability and transparency in the oil and gas sector; we must all be committed to the values of honesty, transparency, patriotism and loyalty. The government should sincerely and genuinely follow through the OGIC reforms it has put in place. Anti corruption drive must be sustained at all levels. The government must find ways of shielding whistle blowers and anti corruption agents in the industry from victimization. Society should also stop eulogizing corruption made heroes and heroines. Celebrating and associating with corruption made individuals calls to question the definition of corruption and the moral principles of our leaders who wine and dine with these questionable characters in the cover of darkness. This attitude has brought to bare the kind of polarized contradictions in our society where we attempt to fight corruption but on the other hand accept it as a norm.Thank you. 

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http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/news/…ocks%20missing 

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 Ogbeifun, L. B. (2006); Oil and Gas Operating Environment: A Challenge for Labour-Management Relations, Kano.

Ojo, J (2008); No open bid for oil block, House told,  Sun News online, Abuja.

Isakpa, P (2009); Nigerians, routinely indicted abroad for corruption, are let off at home, Business day, Nigeria

Okogu, B (2006): The Nigerian EITI: Extending the Quest for Transparency to the Solid Mineral Sector, Enugu.

Opusunju, F (2008); PSC Cost Verification and Crude Oil Entitlements, Kaduna.

Usigbe, L (2008), NPDC, Chinese firm clash over $2bn oil block, Vanguard Newspaper Abuja.   

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LABOUR CRISES IN THE OIL AND GAS SECTOR: CHALLENGES TO DEVELOPMENT IN THE OIL AND GAS SECTOR AT THE WORKSHOP ORGANIZED BY THE NIGERIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT (CHATERED) ON 3RD JUNE 2008 AT JOS.

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | April 1, 2009

Conflict: A tip of the iceberg

Introduction

Oil and gas is the most efficient natural resource that could be used for the rapid economic growth and development with the highest propensity to attract abundant foreign investment. They are even more important in our environment where we have no developed ready-made alternatives like coal, solar and nuclear energy as in advanced nations. Oil and gas are strategic to our national security, development and growth.

It is an organic matter, also referred to as hydrocarbon, formed from dead marine organisms/plants and buried over several million years. It is transformed into oil and gas by heat, pressure and bacteria. Oil and gas constitute about 90% of our foreign exchange earnings and 83% of our GDP. Revenue from the oil and gas sector is the backbone for the effective diversification of our economy. Petroleum and petrochemical products constitute about 50% raw materials required for industrial development.

Brief historical perspective

• 1908: Exploration work started in Lagos and Okitipupa coastal areas by the Nigerian Bitumen Company established by a German consortium.
• 1908-1956:  Various exploration, exploitation continued in various parts of the country
• 1956: Oil discovered in commercial quantity at Oloibiri by Shell D’Arcy
• 1958: Shipment of 5,100 BOPD
• 1960:  175,000 BOPD
• 1971:   Nigeria joined OPEC
• 1979:  2.3mm BOPD
• 1958: Shipment of 5,100 BOPD
• 1960:  175,000 BOPD
• 1971:   Nigeria joined OPEC
• 1979:  2.3mm BOPD
• 1983: Oil glut led to a reduction to 1.3mm BOPD
• 2008: 2.4mm BOPD

Currently, more than 1,000,000 has been shut in due to youth restiveness and militancy in the Niger Delta.

 Key sectors

 Upstream.

The upstream focuses on mining, exploration,     exploitation, production and exportation.

The Downstream sector.

The downstream sector concentrates on the refining of crude oil into usable products through distillation, conversion, extraction, and other special treatments to produce petroleum products and petroleum gas. It also covers the operations of the petrochemical plants.

Service sector.

Provides technical, engineering and consultancy services mainly to aid the upstream in the drilling, exploration and production activities

Labour: This represents the human resource that drives other means of production in an enterprise. They are made up of two major constituencies namely: the employer and the employee.  Some employees at the higher level of the organization is called Management.

Employer: The employer is the owner of the enterprise

Employee: The employee is hired by the employer to render service to the enterprise in exchange for a determined wage, which is expressed in contractual terms.

Management: This is a group of employees that holds the enterprise in trust for the owners. It formulates the company’s policies. It oversees the day-to-day running of the organization on behalf of the employers.  It ensures that company policies are implementation through the most efficient and effective use of the three Ms (Man, Materials and Money). It acts as the bridge between employers and employees in collecting bargaining matters. This group of workers could be through direct hire or grow through the ranks. They are usually experienced bureaucrats who are always striving to maximize profit for the benefit of shareholders.

Where two or three people who differ in religion, values, culture, orientation and goals are gathered to jointly work for a common purpose, there are bound to be incompatible goals that will eventually lead to conflict

Conflict: This is a situation where two or more parties recognize their mutually incompatible goals. (Hornby 2001:239) defines conflict as a situation in which people, groups or countries are involved in a serious disagreement. Conflict cannot be said to be good or bad. It is the way we manage conflict that matters. If well managed, it could become a motivator that will spur us to achieve greater results in our daily endeavour. If mismanaged, it develops into crisis.

For conflict to occur there must be a relationship. Relationships satisfy needs, whether at work or home. Every relationship is a vehicle for delivering value to each partner. Our relationships with our bosses, subordinates and peers hold potential for satisfying our needs. We need the positive rewards of relationship to feel productive, to accomplish meaningful work, to produce widgets and to earn our pay. When these needs are met, we are happy people. If the needs are not met, we are unhappy, dissatisfied, frustrated and productivity begins to decline. This is the kernel of this study. Unresolved conflicts may not result in industrial action but may take its toll on the organization and individuals in terms of hidden costs

Causes of conflict in the oil and gas sector:

1. Human relations
2. Political
3. Economic
4. Social
5. Communal, youths’ restiveness and militancy

Human relations (Workplace):

The breach in labour-management relations, pension issues, wages, bad faith bargaining, non-implementation of agreements, expatriate quota abuse, unfair labour practices like casualization, outsourcing, contract staffing; globalization issues, which have subsets in Privatization, mergers and acquisitions;  etc. are some of the issues that cause the recurrent crises in the oil and gas sector.

 Political:

The political class at various times have seen the oil and gas industry especially the Nigerian National Petroleum  Corporation as a field for patronage to friends, political associates and cronies. This is one of the major reasons for the lack of will to carry out a proper reform in the sector and when such reforms are contemplated, they are for selfish reasons.

Lack of trust in the political class because of double-speak and inadequate consultation with stakeholders on policy framework and implementation. In addition, the incessant fuel hikes with the same old reasons of recouping such monies wasted on fuel subsidy for developmental purposes without any meaningful appreciable infrastructural development often pitched labour against the government. For instance, subsidies removed in the past were to be used in road construction, rehabilitation and agriculture. As at today, several roads in the country are death traps and agricultural sector is seriously underdeveloped.

Economic:

 The need for government to get money into its coffers and keep faith with the conditionalities of the Breton Woods’ institutions led to the proposed privatization of the refineries. The mergers and acquisitions were done to assuage the feelings of the political class hence the stiff resistance by the Unions. Government perpetually maintained that the refineries were not functioning optimally and therefore wanted them sold. On the other hand, the Unions insisted that the inability of past leaders to build new refineries and maintain the only four refineries was responsible for the refineries’ situations. The Unions agreed to the privatization of the refineries on a 51% (Core Investor)-49% (Government) basis. They reasoned that wholesale privatization of the refineries to a single individual has both security and economic implications for the nation.

Social:

The need to play some roles in carrying out social responsibilities on behalf of the populace led the Unions against the government. For instance at the wake of the Obasanjo government’s insistence on the removal of fuel subsidy, the Unions made it abundantly clear that in Europe, the European leaders heavily subsidize agriculture and sometimes pay the farmers and the excesses that cannot be warehoused are destroyed. The Unions argued that whereas there are several safety nets to cushion the effects of inflation and increased prices of petroleum products abroad, Nigerians are exposed to stark realities of market forces without any consideration from government.

Communal, youths’ restiveness and militancy:

The environment is becoming unsafe for the workers as kidnapping and hostage taking of oil workers is making working in the oil and gas industry a dangerous adventure.  The vandalism of flow stations and petroleum products’ pipelines as a way of avenging government’s neglect, marginalization, poverty, unemployment, hunger and disease have increased unabated. This has resorted in the workers putting a lot of pressures on their employers for improved wages and salaries which the employers are not willing to pay. This inability to meet with the workers’ demands, have resulted in so many strained relationships between the workers’ representatives and employers.

Actors:

The actors involved are the workers’ representatives (the Unions). The Petroleum and Natural Gases Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) represents the senior Staff or the White Collar employees while the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG) represents the interests of the Junior staff(blue collar workers); the Government and the Employers.

 Cost of conflicts

Dana (2005: 6) states that conflict drains the capacity of relationships to satisfy our needs. When we experience too much unresolved conflict, the relationship loses its ability to satisfy us. This leaves us alone, isolated, unable to do by ourselves what we are supposed to do and leads the organization or parties with some hidden costs.It is often said “A tree does not make a forest”. This connotes that in every human endeavour, there are interdependencies that take place in order to achieve our common goals. When monkeys are smart jumping from one tree to another, it is because of the nearness of such trees that make their escape during emergencies possible. If trees are kilometers apart in the colonies of monkeys, jumping from tree to tree becomes impossible. This analogy is drawn to bring to fore that we need others to help us achieve our goals. 

Dana (2005:15) listed the cost of conflicts as: Wasted time; sabotage/theft/damage; lowered job motivation; lost work time; decline in productivity; and health costs.

Challenges: Some of the challenges that are unfolding because of the aforementioned are: depletion of assets, divestments, insecurity, under-development, strikes and societal dysfunction.Way forward:

Union-Management relations:

The stakeholders should be open in the process of negotiation, engage in good faith bargaining and dialogue; and do everything possible to faithfully implement agreements reached.

Government/Agencies:

Usually the Ministry of labour of Labour and Productivity is the arrow head of the resolution of disputes between the Unions and the employers. This Ministry did a lot to assist the Obasanjo’s administration as it acted proactively on several issues. However, it has some challenges, which government should urgently address. These include:

• Decayed infrastructure.
• Inadequate funding.
• Delay in reacting to some ultimatum given by the unions and lack of political will by Government to implement agreements reached with the unions.
• Non-implementation of agreements reached with the Unions by Government

Legal:

Most of the oil and gas laws are obsolete. For instance the legal and governance structures designed for the oil and gas sector since the 70s and the Petroleum act of 1969 are no longer adequate for the governance of a 21^st century business endeavour. The department of petroleum Resources that should play a major role in the regulation and monitoring of activities in both the upstream and downstream sectors is incapacitated by serious infrastructural decay, inadequate funding and manpower challenges. In 1993, one of the reasons PENGASSAN embarked on strike from June 7^th was to pressurize Government to create a Petroleum inspectorate Commission strong enough to police the industry. All over the world, a very strong regulatory, research and development agencies are critical “musts” for effectiveness and efficiency.  

Civil Society Organizations (CSO):

The CSOs should assist in calling the attention of government to transparency and accountability issues in the oil and gas sector

Conclusion:

Just like all other sectors, the oil and gas has had its fair share of crises but because of the patience and maturity of the stakeholders. The rate of dysfunction has been minimal when compared to other sectors. There is the need to keep faith with agreements reached and Labour should also begin to realize that the oil and gas industry in Nigeria is gradually going into coma because of the challenges of the Niger Delta Crises. Therefore, there is the need for a new way of imposing demands on individual companies. Companies should not wait for workers to ask before giving out some of its profits to enhance the welfare of staff because these papers pass through the tables of the Union members.

References:

Convey, S. R (2004);  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, New York, Free Press

Dana, D (2005); Managing Differences, Prairie Village – Kansas, MTI Publications.

Ogbeifun, L. B (2007); The Role of Labour Unions in the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria: A

Practitioner’s Perspective, Lagos, Concept Publications.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/iceberg.asp

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MANAGING SUCCESS: THE ACHILES HEELS OF SUPER BRATS IN SPORTS

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | March 6, 2009

Success may be defined as the attainment of a status, which is measurable against a particular beginning. The journey to success takes quite a while. It spans a period of time. The yardstick of what constitutes success differs from one person to another. It comes with planning, sacrifice, self motivation, hard work, working smart, putting in some scheduled time and consciously working towards the attainment of set goals and objectives. When these goals and objectives are met, a new status emerges. Achieving this new status is one, managing it is another.

In the field of sports; the aim of all the participants is to win the overall championship medals. This does not come easy. It comes with a lot of pains and sacrifice. As a soccer player, who combined reading with playing of soccer to survive, I know what it is to sacrifice. I know what it is to train early in the morning when people are still in bed. I know what it is to go on endurance training during the cold harmattan season; to be put on track, under the rain and under the scorching heat of the sun in order to be conditioned for a particular weather. I know what it feels to train with aching muscles, empty stomach and tears. I know what it is to be an orphan when the team loses and I know how it feels to be great with several parents on winning a match.

This is why I rejoice with those who make it to the top in their chosen sporting events and idolize them in the inside of me even when we do not know each other. When renowned sportsmen and women also fall from grace to kiss the canvass of a grassy turf, my heart weeps for them knowing fully well that the success going down the valley is an unquantifiable loss not only to them but to humanity.

The memory lane of outstanding sports men that ascended the ladder of success but unable to hold on to the mace of success is legion. For this discuss, I shall use a few who saw money, fame, and success at a very early age but were unable to hold on to the top because of attitudinal challenges.

Etim Esin the “Nigerian Maradona” was a very skillful Nigerian player who represented the country in FIFA organized matches between 1987 and the 90s. He was one of the few footballers who at 21 were driving brand new 505 Peugeot cars to the training pitch when some of us trekked kilometers to reach our training venues. He rose through the ladder of hard work to the pinnacle of success. He played for Nigeria and represented the country in FIFA organized competitions. He was one of the footballers that found their ways to Europe for professional football early in their career and later played in Belgium.

Unfortunately, his life style was a reflection of that of the super brats and he soon got himself into trouble. While in Belgium, he was charged for rape and he had to hurry out of Belgium back to Nigeria. That was the beginning of the end for his outstanding football career. He has been in obscurity until he became a football analyst with a cable network hitv signed him on as a football analyst.

“Iron Mike” Tyson was just twenty years old when he won the World boxing Heavyweight Champion. Just like the Esin, he was unable to manage the strings of successes that smiled on him early in life. He was involved in several inappropriate behaviours including the raping of Miss Desiree Washington, a Miss Black American Beauty pageant in a hotel room in Indianapolis. He was committed to prison for six years. He came out of prison deflated, traumatized and knocked out. He was unable to stage a comeback. Despite his more than $300 million earnings during his career, he filed for bankruptcy in 2003.

Michael Vick is also in his twenties, very successful and an outstanding United States of America’s top football star. He was said to be one of the 10 richest athletes in the United States before his life took a dive for the valley. He also got himself involved in dog fighting operations, which led to the death of several dogs. This was a matter of youthful indiscretion. It landed him in 23 months imprisonment and three years probation. If Tyson’s experience is anything to go by, it means that leaving the four walls of the prison to stardom will take extraordinary dream, strength, sacrifice and work. One can only wish him well.

O. J. Simpson”the Juice”, a retired American football player, sports analyst and actor; also had the blessing of being successful in his twenties. At 26, he had recorded a string of successes as the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in 1973 season. From 1995 to 1997, he was embroiled in the celebrated case of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Simpson. He was later acquitted of the charges. However, on 16th September 2007, he was arrested in Las Vegas for robbery, burglary with firearm, assault etc. This time his sins found him out and had no place to hide. He was found guilty, convicted and now cooling his heels in the prison.

Paul Gascoigne, a retired English soccer legend rose to stardom quite early in life too. He was said to have captained the Newcastle’s youth to an FA Youth Cup in the 1984-85 season. He later played for top clubs in Britain and represented his country. On the field of play, he had put up unbecoming behaviourial attitudes, which that earned him about twenty thousand pounds. He had brushes with the law, attempted suicide a couple of times, feels largely insecure, an alcoholic who has been in and out of rehabilitation centres a couple of times.

These were great and self made men that would have been role models to the youths of our time and those who had the singular misfortune of being born into poverty. They would have been the source of hope to the hopeless. They would have been a source of inspiration to those who thought life is meaningless and unfair. But they screwed up!

One common denominator in the lives of the above athletes is that they were in their teens or twenties when they hit the limelight and stardom. Unfortunately they were unable to manage their successes that would have made people believe in them. In addition, their attitudes to life, misdemeanor and indiscipline led them to their journey towards the great fall.

At 19, Michael Phelps, another outstanding American swimmer won 6 gold medals and 2 bronze medals at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Shortly afterwards he was charged and convicted for driving under the influence of alcohol. This legend at 22, also won eight gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Early in the year, this young man was caught inhaling from a marijuana pipe albeit in public. He has been suspended by the national sports body for three months without financial support while he stands to lose several millions of signature rights.

After these two incidents, now is the time for Michael Phelps to get fitted in the clothes and shoes of right mental attitude. According to Ziege in Maxwell,”Nothing on earth can help the person with a wrong mental attitude”. This young man will need the help of good natured coaches and mentors to remain on top and retire a happy man so that he does not end up in the boats of Esin, Simpson, Gascoigne and Vick.

Some of the things that bring people down from the citadel of success to the valley of failure include:
 Wrong mental attitude.
 Complacency.
 Dwindling inner drive.
 Increased socialization at the detriment of more work.
 Squander mania.
 Lack of respect for constituted authourities.
 Arrogance and ego trip.
 Refusal to follow up on the path of sacrifice.
 Indulgence in hard drugs and inappropriate behaviours.
 Mixing with people of easy virtues.
 Underrating opponents or competitors.

Therefore, if you are on top and wants to remain on top, you require doing some of the following tips:
 Give up vices that can destroy your concentration.
 Sacrifice more in order to stay up.
 Work extra smart and hard to remain on top.
 Invest in value addition activities.
 Smoking and excessive drinking of alcohol put extra burden on the lungs and liver, which play very vital roles in the life of a sportsman or woman, so desist from smoking and drink in moderation.
 Stay on track and don’t be too rich or too good to ignore the counsel and instructions of your coaches and mentors.
 Avoid stressful situations as sports itself is enough stress.
 Do not invest your hard earned money in gambling and non-money yielding ventures.
 Get adequate rest rather than stay long hours in “joints” (beer parlors, brothels, disco rooms etc.). The calamities that have ruined good athletes started from the joints.
 Invest in reading and mental challenging activities.
 Eat according to the advice of your nutritionist.
 Ensure you up and maintain your training schedules.
 Introspect and change all attitudes that are retrogressive.
 Do first things first.
 Do not allow the level of your success to puff you up.
 Buy only those things that are necessary.
 Be moderate in taste.
 Find time for quiet (meditation).

From my own perspective, I believe that it easier to manage and live with poverty and surely anybody can manage poverty. Failure can be managed with faith hinged on a better tomorrow; but managing success is the most difficult of the three phenomena that one may encounter during the journey through life. When you get to the top, it takes extra efforts to remain on top. At the top, several persons are competing for what you have but nobody is proud to compete with a failure or a poverty stricken person. So you are like a bait in the river infested with crocodile.

As a successful person, you no longer have a personal life. You are in the full glare of the public. Whereas failure is an orphan, success has several parents, admirers and well wishers. Hidden among these admirers are those that are working hard on “bring- him-down syndrome”. Therefore, it takes real commitment, sacrifice, work and more work to remain on top.

To all successful sportsmen and women and those on the road to stardom; they should decide quick enough to remain good, consciously removing the landmines that can bring about wrong mental attitudes and aptitudes that would hinder their success drive. They should not let their indiscretion ruin the chances of holding on to their hard earned money and; the top of the ladder of fame and success. They should maintain the right attitude that would secure their future because a time comes, when the limbs can no longer bring into the vineyard the fruits, harvests and the fortunes of old.

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A LEGISLATURE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | February 5, 2009

The Constitution in a democracy defines the type of government, the arms, the mode of interaction and assigns roles to each of them. It is the supreme law of the land. In a democracy, such as the presidential system of government, which we practice, it sets out the terms of eligibility for the person that will be at the helm of the Executive, the judiciary and the way the representatives of the people at all levels are elected into the Chambers of the National Assembly.

Our democracy is supposed to be a representative democracy in which the citizens in a free and fair elections chose representatives into the Senate, House of Representatives and the States’ Houses of Assemblies, the President, Governors and the Local Government Council Chairmen. The Constitution also guarantees what constitutes the citizens’ fundamental rights. All the laws made in the country are expected to conform to Constitutional requirements.

The government in a democracy comprises of the Executive, Legislature, which in our case is bicameral and the Judiciary. In between these organs of government are prescribed checks and balances, which ensure that no organ runs wild without being called to order by the arms.

The Legislature makes the laws and has oversight functions on the executive arm to ensure that the budget is implemented. The Executive implements the programmes for the development and good of the people while Judiciary adjudicates between the organs and interprets the laws to ensure that the laws made are implemented according to the intents.

In all these, the citizens are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the positive benefits of democracy. When any of the organs malfunctions or fails, the citizens become the victims of bad governance. This is where the current face off between the Nigerian Senate and their House of Representatives counterparts over the Constitution amendments and the 2009 Appropriation Bill becomes worrisome. more disturbing is the fact that there are no plausible and immediate explanations why the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), which is the ruling party in Nigeria, with a controlling majority in the National Assembly has not been able to mediate between the warring factions.

On December 2^nd 2008, President Yar’Adua presented the 2009 appropriation bill to the Joint Session of the National Assembly. The Senate passed the bill on the 18^th of December 2008. The Lower Chamber did not believe that the Upper Chamber followed all legislative due processes in the expressed passage. One of the noticed flaws was that after the passage of the 2009 budget by the Senate, the Executive presented virement in respect of 2008 budget that was also passed by the Senate. This would mean that the performance of the 2008 budget has not been technically sealed off. The House of Representatives opted to smoothen all rough edges before passing the 2009 Appropriation Bill.

Secondly, every Nigerian agrees that the Nigerian people did not agree to the process that gave birth to the 1999 Constitution. It was an imposition by the Military. so that has been massive agitations for its review. Many Constitutional lawyers and people from the six geo-political Zones have argued that the Constitution has serious flaws and needs some levels of amendment. Towards the end of former President Obasanjo’s administration, the National Assembly attempted a review of the Constitution but the third term saga, which would have elongated Obasanjo’s tenure, killed the idea. This led to the setting up of the Joint Committee on Constitution Review (JCCR).

At the opening session of the retreat by the Committee on Friday 17, 2009; the 44 members of the House Representatives staged a walk out. Their grievance was that the Deputy Speaker, , Honourable Usman Nafada, was referred to as the Vice-chairman of the Joint Committee instead of the Co-chairman.  They believe that both Chambers are equal and one member should not be subordinated to the other. Defending its position, the Senate opined that at the Joint sitting of both Chambers, the usual practice is for the Senate to preside over proceedings and quoted relevant sections of the statutes to buttress its position.   

For three weeks now, both sides have been indulged in name calling and the disparaging of each other in the media. The House alleged that a satanic spirit exists in the Senate. The Senate alleged that there are unforeseen hands manipulating the Lower Chamber in order to prevent the process of reviewing the 1999 Constitution, which might on the long run derail our nascent democracy.

While the people watched with awe, there are wide spread insinuations that the real reason for this impasse is inequality in the distribution of the ‘perks’, allowances attached to this particular assignment and the signing powers of the instrument of withdrawals from the account of the committee. Only the actors in this impasse can tell the world what is really going on.

I have keenly followed the bail out package of President Obama to the Congress of the United States of America. While one can see some level of partisanship in the discussions on some issues, the areas of disagreement deal with real issues. Even at that, one can see the seriousness of each member trying hard to put the American people first. I am sure that in less than a week, the Bill will be presented to Mr. President for his assent. This shows the seriousness attached to the business of law making.

Following this ugly incidents, I am tempted to ask:

• What was the .procedure adopted during joint sittings in time past? 
• Are their no rules stipulating each Chamber’s role during joint sittings?
• How can two Legislative Chambers dominated largely by the same political party be so far apart in principles and unable to reach a workable agreement for this long?
• How can a mere nomenclature and recognition derail the laudable proposition of amending the Constitution that has held the people they purport to be representing captive for so long?
• Is this gulf not a pointer to the fact that there are personal reasons over national interests?
• At the end of the day, whose interests will this disagreement serve?
• Could they not have resolved their differences in their hallowed Chambers without causing serious disrespect to the “distinguished” and “honourable” nomenclature of the members as typified by the mud slinging in the press for weeks now?

Only the ruling party and the “Distinguished/Honourable” members have plausible answers to the questions above. The legislative years from 1999-2008 was bogged down by internal squabbles. Two Senate Presidents and two Speakers of the House of Representatives were impeached during this period. The Executive became the beneficiary-in-chief. The legislators were unanble to effectively perform their core duties and were unable to carry out due diligence in their oversight functions.

If they had done their jobs well, the multi billion dollars that went down the drains, the abuse of executive functions as shown in the recent power probes, privatization exercises, Federal Capital Territory land scamand the Nigerian Ports Authority scam would have been uncovered and dealt with before now. At the end Nigerians were poorer for it.

With the way they are presently carrying on, there is nothing to show that the Chambers won’t again play into the hands of the Executive. Nigerians will not want to trod that path again and our Legislators should know that when two political elephants fight, the masses become the grass that suffers. It is often said that when once bitten by a snake, even the sight of earthworm provokes a flight. We have been bitten many times by political snakes; please, do not take us through that nightmare again. You should unite to ensure that the dividends of democracy are delivered to the people.

What Nigerians need now is good governance and the legislature must ensure that the Executive conforms. Our Lawmakers should know from past experience that any Legislature that is divided against itself becomes a useful tool for bad governance in the hands of the executive.

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PEACE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | February 1, 2009

When a group of people with diverse cultures, visions, aspirations, objectives and goals are brought together either by nature or by man; there would be one form of disagreement or another. They may, out of this disagreement not display open hostilities thereby maintaining graveyard peace but deep down feel so embittered that it is just a matter of time for the bubble to burst. The checks and methods devised to managing conflicts that arise out of these human relations will determine the level of peace that could be enjoyed at a particular period 

Peace has been generally taken to mean absence of hostilities. Peace to me is not a mere absence of hostilities, but a relative state, in which a group of people are able to manifest tolerance, understanding and respect for each other’s views; to preserve or achieve a common goal, objective or purpose for the good of all.

In the socio-political and economic front, most people in communist countries do not like the system of governance, yet they live with the repression that laws impose on their inner peace by the State. Though the state of things may seem peaceful, the people may not necessarily be at peace, yet no open hostilities. It will be wrong to say that such a system offers the kind of peace one looks up to.  

In the economic front, things are getting more scary and awry. On January 27^th 2009, Ervin Antonio Lupoe and his wife, Ana who both lost their jobs at Kaiser Permanente, West Los Angeles Medical Center; found no other ways to cope with the harsh realities of life. Haven reached their wits end, also had their lives and that of their 5 children terminated. The folk that pulled the trigger wrote and implicated work-related issues. Though the State may be witnessing some level of peace, the people are witnessing hell unleashed on their inner peace. 

In Gainesville, Ga; Gregg and Brittiny Peters were luckier as they got their inner peace restored by Donnia and Keith Blair of Texas who bidded $20,000 for their properties except their house that were put on sale on the eBay. The Peters wanted to sell all they had in order to start life all over again. They wanted to be able to give life a meaning to their medically challenged 2-year-old son Noah who was said to have been diagnosed with autism and with sensory and gastrointestinal disorders, their 7-year-old daughter Ayla said to have been diagnosed with juvenile arthritis and an innocent 1-year-old son, Eli.    

Even the rich are not insulated from the meltdown. They are bleeding to death. In Great Britain, mail online reported that Kirk Stephenson a very successful business and family man unable to cope with the pressures of the credit crunch took a dive from a moving train to end the unfolding bad business drama. In Germany, the BusinessWeek in a moving report says “German industrial mogul Adolf Merckle, 74, committed suicide on Monday after his group of companies got into trouble as a result of the financial crisis, his family said on Tuesday”. This is even gorier considering his age and he was said to have been run over by a train. In the United States of America the ABC news had reported on December 23^rd 2008 “Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, a well-respected French investment fund manager appears to have committed suicide”  

As recounted above, the economic meltdown is now taking huge tolls on the people across the globe. It has taken some lives like that of the Lupoes, Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, Adolf Merckle and Kirk Stephenson. Surprisingly, the woes and the repercussions are boundariless. For the Blairs, it would have also taken away the hard earned properties of the Peters. The sad occurrences might have been forestalled but for the recklessness of discretionary powers, lack of effective and efficient leadership in business transactions and the questionable unbriddled freedom of the capitalist market system.  

There may not have been open hostilities during the economic meltdown period, but everybody knows that at no time since the late 1920s has there been any economic violence against man as we currently witness. Even then, experts are warning that it may get worse. So, who is the next victim?   

Though there are no wars, there are massive human sufferings mounting in dizzying paces that one cannot truly say that there is peace in the world. Except something is done and urgently too, the revolution of the belly may soon take nations down the road of physical revolution. 

The threat to peace in any environment is caused by perceived inequalities and insecurity by part of a group. The “I have a dream” speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jnr; was borne out of political, gender, racial, economic and social inequalities unleashed on blacks in their own country. These inequalities led to series of campaigns, agitations and actions embarked upon by activists to call the nation’s leaders to order. Just as predicted by King 46 years ago, all forms of inequalities are today pushing people to the brink. It is becoming a game of the jungle rule that supports only the fittest. 

Compounding the woes of mankind are the preventable and senseless wars leaders of nations are taking their people through. Looking at the world today and the level of hostilities across the globe, one is constrained to pause a while to ask some questions on why there are genocides and ethnic cleansing in modern day civilization. Why would brothers rise against brothers as witnessed in the Congo in the 90s and now, the Darfur region of western Sudan, the Sierra-Leonean war of 1991-2002, the Liberian wars of 1989–1996 and 1999-2003, the Nigerian Civil war, 1967-1970, the Rwanda genocide in 1994 and the Chechnya in 1999? Why would a nation wake up one morning to destroy or aim to destroy other nations as in the cases of recurring Israel/Palestine wars, the current Iraq/allies war that has killed thousands of people, made several widows, widowers and orphans; invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990, Iraq/Iran war of 1980-1988, Russian/Georgia in 2008 and the increased destruction of lives and properties in the name of religion by fundamentalists?.  

Several reasons have been adduced for these preventable wars which have wasted several millions of life and pushed trillions of dollars down the drain. These reasons include ethnic, race, religious and class rivalries. Apart from these reasons, one major cause of these wars have been the West’s manipulation of the political and socio-economic order to suit its ever increasing appetite for domination of the world. The other reason is the greed, selfish and the inordinate personal ambition of majority of the leaders over national interests. This has been proven by the numbers of ethnic and national leaders jailed by the International Court of Justice in recent years. 

Unfortunately, innocent youths who are not in the know of the main reasons behind these senseless wars are drafted to actualize the dreams of the West and these selfish leaders. This is even very true of terrorists groups whose leaders run manipiulative media propanganda to convince the common man on the need to lace themselves with explosives to blow up others in the name of God.

In almost all the circumstances, most of the children of these leaders are abroad studying or in the comfort of their parents’ homes without being drafted to fight alongside the masses nor are they used as suicide bombers. So, by implication, their own children must not die in order to lord it over others when the wars are over. 

In reviewing the reasons for most of these wars, one can conclude that if the leaders involved had tarried a little while, to listen to the voice of reason, allow effective mediatory efforts, shack the garb of greed, pride and self-centeredness, the world would have been a better place to live. There is nothing to show that the reasons people take to terrorism cannot be addressed on the dialogue table. It is a matter of people being hasty in their judgements.

 Conflicts arising from inter relationships can be managed to such a level that all the stakeholders will be free to carry out lawful activities that will fetch them food, housing and other social benefits without hindrance from any quarters. Many wars are preventable if we uphold the tenets of social justice, rule of law and the state provides welfare services for the good of the people. 

It is my view that it is possible to live together in one accord no matter our racial divide and religious differences. If the leaders do what is just and fair, the followers will follow as directed. It is my dream to have world’s peace that transcends all barriers. In this dream, peace will have no consideration for colours, race, boundaries, nations or religion. I believe that there is enough for everybody to make life meaningful if only human beings can exercise restraints in greed and self-serving ventures. 

When everybody learns to respect the views, culture, norms, religion of others we can achieve the level of our desired peace. When we are our brothers’ keeper just like the Blairs have been, we shall have no reason to steal from our commonwealth when in position of authourity, aggrandize what belongs to the commonwealth for our personal gains or convert what is for the commonwealth to our use. When we have mutual respect for each other, we shall be in a position to truly see other people as human beings worthy of existence and entitled to all good things of life. In this lays the panacea for peace in our environment and by extension beyond our shores.  

The West should please, reconsider its manipulation of world’s political and socio-economic order, which to a large extent led to most of the wars mentioned earlier. Leaders of countries should see themselves as servants of the people rather than ride to the crest of power only to foist disorderliness, angst, poverty and hunger on the people. I sincerely believe that peace without boundaries is possible if only we truly care and love our neighbours as ourselves. Let us all join hands to preach the peace that will give our future generation a peaceful start now.   

References:

 http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.phparticleId=41586875&channelId=2951&buyerId=newsmeatcom&buid=3281 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/4-children-moth.html 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1063356/Credit-crunch-banker-leaps-death-express-train.html 

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jan2009/gb2009016_945115.htmchan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories 

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/story?id=6518968&page=1

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Obama and Oshiomole: underdogs on the saddle of Power.

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | January 18, 2009

In October 2008, I opined in my blog at www.louisbrownogbeifun.com in the economic meltdown: lessons from America: “To the Americans, this is the time to tell each other that they deserve the best candidate in the White House irrespective of race, sex, creed, colour or religion. They should tell the world that the White House was not built to symbolize the white race.  The founding fathers who designed the white house could not have inferred that it would be occupied by whites only”.

With the last American elections, Americans from all diverse backgrounds told themselves the truth, spoke with one loud voice without bias, voted to change the entire historical landscape of America’s political history and to my delight; concurred with the above assertions.

By this singular act, America proved to the rest of the world that she is indeed a land of opportunities for those who are rational, bold, courageous, confident, smart, honest and hardworking. In addition, it was proven that those who behave, act, and reason beyond the ordinary; irrespective of colour, race, sex or religion have a special place in American history.

A new ray of hope and expectations wrapped in the pouch of change has ushered the world into a new dawn. This dawn was philosophically predicted by the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior in his popular “I have a dream”. The new dawn, which was incubated and has been kept alive since August 28^th 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC; shall be formally delivered on January 20^th, 2009 when Barack Obama, shall be sworn in as the first black president to rule the United States of America and the world’s largest democracy.

The successful climb from the political valley to the mountain top by Obama started with the crushing defeat of high profile American Democrats including tough and intelligent Hillary Rodham Clinton, now the Secretary of State. It did not happen by an accident of history. It happened because providence beckoned and smiled at Obama to come forward at this time, to redeem the sagging image of America worldwide, help to reposition America back to the path of economic greatness and restore people’s confidence in the financial institutions in America. To outwit his opponents and destroy the DC syndrome, Obama evolved a lot of radical change management tactics.

First, his opponent settled for federal grant to prosecute his campaigns, Obama sourced for funds through all legal means by sticking with the masses that donated various sums from a dollar upward.  

Secondly, he was in touch with the citizenry through the internet. This afforded the less privileged Americans of having direct relationship with their future leader.

Thirdly, he dissociated himself from the Washington group and their politics. He appealed to the psyche of Americans with his mantra of “change”. This made him more popular among the youths, the middle class and the workers who were at the receiving ends of the theory and practice of George Bush’s socio-political-economics.

Fourthly, he remained very humble and respectful to his opponents even when they portrayed him as small fry and a not-ready-to-rule president. He was battered from all sides. His Christian character was questioned in some instances diminished. The statements of his pastors were used to portray him as a non-believer in the ideals of the real America. Sentiments about his association with childhood friends and acquaintances who are religious fanatics were whipped up.

Indeed, both Clinton and McCain saw Obama as a non-starter. Though not pronounced, they fell short of telling Americans that this young black man “of Kenyan roots” cannot just walk from the Kilimanjaro with his bogus ambition of wanting to lead America. I am sure some folks are still in doubt whether this is a huge joke or not.

All his opponents from the primaries to the main election saw in him embarking on a failed mission, but Obama saw in himself, the only gold medallist in the 2008 American presidential elections. Clinton’s camp saw in him a candidate good enough for the Vice Presidency but he saw in himself a President elect. Today, he has reversed the role the Clinton camp wanted him to play.

Rather than succumb to blackmail and be intimidated by the rhetoric of the Washington playmakers, he was calm, focused and he refused to be distracted. Obama was severely underrated by the political class, but before they woke from their slumber, he breasted the tape and the umpire presented him with the seal of the overall best candidate in the 2008 presidential elections.  Accordingly, he shall rule America for the next four years from January 20, 2009.  Such is the power of focus and faith in ones capability to see success where others see failure.

Back home in Nigeria, another underdog; the former President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Adams Oshiomole was declared the governor of Edo State in Nigeria on 11th November 2008 by the Appeal Court, in Benin. Oshiomole contested under the platform of Action Congress (AC).

The election tribunal headed by Justice Umeadi, upheld the decision of the lower Court, which declared Oshiomole as the winner of the 2007 gubernatorial election in Edo State, Nigeria. In that election, the political godfathers in concert with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) manipulated the process and awarded victory to Professor O. Osunbor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

However, just like the proverbial dog that will not hear the hunter’s whistle when death is near, Osunbor fell out of favour with the major bloc that enthroned him. This led to two camps in the Edo State’s PDP; which made it impossible for them to work as a team in order to re-enact the abracadabra of the 2007 elections in favour of the ruling party. Oshiomole became the beneficiary of the fight of the titans and Osunbor ended up being the grass that suffered as a result of the fight between two warring elephants struggling to control the soul of the PDP in Edo State.

To the common man in Edo State, this is an uncommon feat achieved due to providence and divine intervention. Divine intervention because, never in the history of Nigeria has the political godfathers/class been made to look so ordinary. Oshiomole like Obama was harassed, mocked and blackmailed, but he remained dogged. He was offered mouth watering sums to back down in the pursuit of his case, but he refused to compromise or ditch his electoral victory for a pot of pottage.

So, with doggedness, belief in the support of their constituents, their abilities and capabilities; wearing the armour of positivity and working smart towards the realization of their goals; these enigmas (Obama and Oshiomole) surmounted all forms of complexities, injustice and the political behemoths to take the mantle of rulership in their domains.

However, both of them have daunting challenges ahaed of them and their future after the first tenure will be squarely dependent on the people’s harvest of the dividends of democracy. Edo State is grossly underdeveloped with a lot of decayed infrastructure, poverty and hunger. America is at her worst socio-economic era since the great depression of the late 1920s, 1930s and early forties.

Ruling at this time for these leaders is not a tea party because the people are expecting so much from them. We know that the path to the economic recovery of America and the reinvention of Edo State within four years looks a rough, tough and tall order. In Edo State, the masses want to see the real “Heart Beat of the nation” take the centre stage of activities in the country again. Edo line, the foremost transport company in Nigeria must be on the road as the leading transport company in Nigeria. Bendel Insurance football club should make a gradual come back as the leader in our local league. Everything possible should be done to reclaim our first position in sports in general. Good roads should sprout in every nooks and crannies of the state so that the road networks, which were the attraction of so many travellers to the State of old, can be revived. There should be good infrastructures in education and health for the good of the people. Jobs should be created to take care of our teeming unemployed youths. Open technical and vocation centres to teach our youths different skills; so that our youths especially the female folks, who are daily migrating to other parts of the world can be meaningfully engaged.

The Americans wants to see the end of foreclosures that have rendered hundreds of thousands of Americans homeless. Americans want to return to their jobs so that their children can have food on their tables and their children able to go to school. They want to see more of their sons and daughters preserved from the carnage of wars that are raging in Iraq, Afghanistan and in other parts of the world. They want to see the return of Clinton’s magic that gave America a buoyant economy and peace during the eight years of his rule. The Americans would love to be able to travel to all parts of the world without the hatred planted in the minds of other nationals against them in the last eight years.

Irrespective of the damages done to the economy and the fabric of Edo State and America by the immediate past regimes; lamentations and excuses will not exonerate President Obama and Governor Oshiomole from inability to turn things around for the good of the masses in the next four years.  Perform, they must and yes, they can!

The great lesson for the masses who still fear to step out of their shelves and cocoons because of the phobia of failure is that something white can come from a black pot. The circumstances that threw Obama and Oshiomole up say to you today; No man can turn you away from your destiny except you agree to turn yourself away from it. No matter the challenges, let no man intimidate you to abandon your set goals and pursuits. Let no man make you believe that you are an inferior being to the other and let no man convince you that you are only meant for the valley.

Though a popular belief that the mountain top is meant for the brave, the courageous and the witty, Obama and Oshiomole have shown that the race is not just for the swift nor for the strong alone, but also for those that can tactfully and smartly follow the course of nature with perseverance, fearlessness, methodical patience, resilience, good character and honesty. Good luck brothers.

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GAZA IN A NEW YEAR QUAKE.

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | January 5, 2009

In my last post, I wished we had a new world order in which peace and respect for human dignity will reign supreme. Unfortunately, a triangular human platform made up of the Palestine, Israel as countries and Hamas as an organization are on top of an unfolding human tragedy that has welcomed Gaza into a New Year’s man-made quake and a black January.  

When Egypt helped brokered a six month cease-fire pact in June 2008, the world heaved a sigh of relief. Within this period, most of the borders were under surveillance.  Rafah at the Egyptian border serves as the major route for supplies into Gaza. It has also been used for the illegal smuggling of armaments into Gaza. I once watched a documentary in which I saw several underground tunnels dug by people to smuggle all sorts of things into the Palestinian territory. I got frightened because children were taking part in some of the illegal activities. Most of them driven by hunger, poverty and neglect.

With no political solutions in sight, and most of the channels of getting both legal and illegal supplies blocked, Hamas faced very serious frustrations and decided to fire crudely made but deadly Qassam rocket missiles into Israel.  As the end of the period of the cease-fire approached, Israel started a precautionary closure of the strip sometime in November 2008 with the promise that she will extend the truce if Hamas stopped firing the Qassam rocket missiles into Israel. It was estimated that more than 2,800 of such rockets were fired into Israel in 2008. These rockets were majorly fired into civilian areas.

Israel reported these rocket attacks to all the world bodies that should know. The Arab leaders were aware of these attacks. They never condemned it in strong terms or take decisive steps to stop the provocation of Hamas. Human rights organizations, the Palestinian leadership and the media across the globe watched as this aggression continued without the kind of protests we have witnessed in the last few days.

Every reasonable person would have known that Israel will sooner than later be driven to a point of retaliation because no nation will fold her arms and watch an organization from another country turn the country into a rocket missiles field, which was endangering the lives of the Israelis and crippling economic activities in the affected areas. 

The questions are: what did the world leaders do in their spheres of influence to dissuade Hamas from continuing with her aggressive behaviour? How many protests took place all over the world to speak out against the aggression of Hamas? What did United Nations and the Arab Nations do to aggressively restrain Hamas from the rocket fires?  Rather the Palestinian authourity who has lost their sovereignty to Hamas watched helplessly and could only criticise Hamas Islamist movement for the state of aggression.

When Hamas did not stop the rocket attacks, Israel took to the path of war. As at today, reports from the media put the death tolls as 4 civilians and about 5 soldiers and some of the soldiers wounded on the Israeli side and about 507 dead and 2,700 injured on the Palestinian side. They have also fully taken over strategic areas of Gaza. This definately is condemnable because the force being exerted is like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly and this has rightly led to so many demonstartions in different parts of the world. The casualties in Israel has been deemed low because most of the people now live in bunkers and the basements of their homes with less people on the streets.  Could these demonstrators and world leaders not have taken these actions before Israel was driven to the point of exasperation?

It is usual in this kind of war for each of the sides to claim victory over the other and Hamas will do everything to capture Israeli soldiers since they cannot match the Israeli fire power. Those so kidnapped will become a tool for negotiation and a show of their strength. If this happened, Israelis are not likely to accept any entreaties until the soldiers are released. This will cause a blow on the peace process being currently initiated by world leaders.

The world will soon ask the Israelis to quit Gaza, but it is doubtful if Israeli soldiers will vacate Gaza soon without a concrete plan in place that will bar Hamas from having the control of Gaza. This possibly might provoke further hostilities from Hamas and delay the reopening of closed borders. This will signpost a human tragedy because a full scale occupation of Gaza will make negotiation difficult, delay the reopening of the borders, delay the restoration of people’s socio-economic life and compound the human sufferings in Gaza.

There is no doubt that the entire world failed the ordinary Gazan who is at the receiving end of this preventable war. The world had months to prevent this senseless war but did not. The victims of this provoked, senseless and preventable war are the children, women and the aged who have nothing to do with the cravings of Hamas. They are also the victims of the economic blockade. They cannot get food, water and medical supplies. This is not about religion or race. It is about human beings like us who do not have a place they can call their own and living in perpetual fear. If the world leaders swooped on Gaza at the wake of the rocket attacks by Hamas as they are doing now; to let the organization see the consequences of their actions perhaps this war would have been aborted. All world organizations must now work tirelessly to stop the carnage in Gaza and liberate the people.

The panacea to the human catastrophe in Gaza is to follow a six point approach namely:

1.   Immediate cessation of hostilities. Hamas must particularly agree to stop launching rockets into Israel during any cease-fire period. She must respect the sovereignty of Palestine as a nation by being law abiding at all times.  

2.  Opening of the crossing points at the borders with Israel that will allow only legal, medical and food supplies.

3.   Rehabilitation of the injured and infrastructure for social services.

4.   Negotiation towards a permanent solution. Some of the critical elements to be addressed here without which any agreement reached will be a graveyard quiet should be a bilateral pronouncement of recognition of each other’s sovereignty and rights to a peaceful co-existence. Palestinians should be in firm control of all the organizations under her control.

5.  All nations funding terrorism and supplying arms to the region should be made to face international sanctions.

6.  The sealing off of the tunnels through which illegal arms cache enter Gaza.

War cannot and will not be a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian crisis. We have seen that it is the innocent citizens that suffer during these wars. Hamas and the Palestinian political leadership have money, medical and food supplies stockpiled for a period like this. It is the ordinary people that have no water to drink or food to eat.

The people of Israel and Palestine deserve to live their lives all year round without dislocations. They deserve to engage in genuine economic activities in order to earn a means of livelihood, which is impossible in times of war. Let the leaders in the region know that it is a dangerous trend to have decades of wars, which makes children grow to believe that sounds of guns, mortar bombs and grenades represent a normal way of life. Let these children not feel that aggression and wars are the ideal and sane ways of managing relationships and conflicts.

The people now dying in Gaza have no reason to die. All the actors in this show of madness must work hard to prevent the wastage of lives they cannot create. Children must be allowed an all year peace, which will make education possible because poverty of the mind destroys a people and their visions. What is happening in Gaza now is horrendous and should not be allowed to continue for another day.

Together, the Israelis and the Palestinians can redefine the strategies for a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere that will guarantee freedom from strife and war, which is making life difficult for the people of both countries. This is the time to bring to bear restraints, sincere dialogue on both sides and a win-win solution, which will lead to a peaceful Israeli/Palestinian relation.

Every concerned world leader must ensure that a permanent solution that is doable and sustainable is put in place now. Civil society organizations and the media should be true watch dogs in the monitoring process of any truce that will be reached and blow the whistle against breaches. Let us do everything possible within our spheres of influence to put pressure on all the parties to implement the agreement that will be reached. Let us not wait until people are killed before showing the passing away of innocent citizens on screens and pages of newspapers. The time to stop this war is now. Yes, we can!   

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PEACE TO THE WORLD IN 2009.

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | January 1, 2009

Peace is not just the absence of quarrel, disturbance, disagreement, agitation, conflict, strife or war, but the harmonious cohabitation of people irrespective of race, tribe, religion or sect in a give and take atmosphere, which at the end enables the high, the low and the mighty to live in one accord within a given community or nation.

2008 symbolized the direct opposite of symbiosis in human relations across continents. It was a year in which all the elements of disquiet, disagreements, quarrels, conflicts, strife and agitations pervaded the frontiers of human existence. It was a year that saw nations rise against nations, intra and inter communal clashes occurred in dizzying strides. Incidents of piracy, hostage taking, kidnapping and oil theft became the Achilles heels of the oil and gas business across the globe.

The nerve shattering and gory tales of carnage from Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Congo, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Mumbai cumulatively made more widows and orphans in 2008. Despite foreign aids and money pumped into governance in the third world, the suffering of children, women, the aged, infant and maternal mortality rates, poverty, disease and hunger increased.

The indiscretion of men, corruption, break neck competition by corporate bodies, lending without collateral, massive layoffs and unemployment leading to inability to service debts and loans led to the collapse of several financial institutions and economic meltdown all over the world. This seemed to have compounded the gloomy nature of the emerging world order.

As people wined and dined during the yuletide, my heart went to those families engrossed in grief over the losses or at the portal of losing someone to preventable and manmade deaths. As I watched people shout happy New Year, I was only able to pray and hope I could lighten the burden of somebody out there at this hour. I found no other way of reaching out than to dedicate this first post of 2009 to the all those that have suffered one form of deprivation or pains in the year that just ended.

As the world enters a new year, I use this medium to appeal to world leaders to rule the people under their care with the fear of God. Let due process and the rule of law not remain but a sermon but elements sincerely deployed in ruling over the people. These elements have to be brought to bear in all facets of governance in 2009 in order to enthrone socio-economic justice. Political, economic and religious leaders should endeavour to lead by example and invest in the liberation of poverty of the mind. The uneducated mind is a ferocious and dangerous neighbour that will act at the whim of emotions and spur of the moment without objective reasoning because of restricted knowledge. Let there be equal opportunities for every man or woman in every endeavour as this year begins.

There is enough for everybody to eat and keep body and soul together if only there was transparency and accountability in governance.  Therefore, leaders should learn not to aggrandize what belong to society for their personal use. After all, what will it profit a man, if the rich was the only one that can afford three square meals in a community where some pick food from the dustbins and others hungry all year round? A millionaire in a hamlet is as poor as the poorest person in that hamlet. When revolution comes, the millionaire becomes the first target of the spears and cudgels of the angry and hungry mob. Leaders should let it sink that they can put down rebellions over misrule and election rigging but they cannot win the battle against the revolution of the belly whenever it erupts.

Governments all over the world should please, invest more in human capacity, provide quality jobs for the youths who are the leaders of tomorrow, portable drinking water and shelter for the masses. They should stretch out hands of fellowship to the needy and the homeless; and jointly work to eradicate corruption, poverty, disease and hunger.

To all followers, let us imbibe the spirit of selfless service, loyalty and patriotism. We should always remember that we can only be efficient and effective leaders if we were good followers. Bad followers do not make good leaders. There is virtue and reward in true, honest, dedicated and transparent service. If the leaders neglect us, let us make it a point of duty to pull up a falling friend, brother, sister and enemy alike. Let our lives be like a book that others will read and repent from their evil ways. Let every man or woman, old or young love themselves irrespective of race, colour or religion.

When there are differences and misunderstandings, it is possible to get them resolved through a give and attitude rather than resort to violence. Any war won in the war front only provides graveyard peace. Sooner than later it will erupt like a volcano to consume all the actors. Only the war that ends on the dialogue table proffers a more genuine, lasting and sustainable peace.

All those involved in terrorism, militancy and sabotage in the name of freedom fighting should lay down their arms and imbibe dialogue over whatever grievances there are to save further destruction of lives and properties as witnessed in 2008. No nation develops in an atmosphere of anarchy and dysfunction. As we journey through the year, let us be ambassadors of peace without borders so that the world can witness peace in the New Year. Here lays in the panacea for the emergence of a peaceful society, walking towards the cohabitation of minds and bodies that will ensure that peace reigns in 2009.

As you read this post, please; go ye into the world and preach tolerance and peace whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.  I wish all the inhabitants of the new world order I dream about; a happy and prosperous New Year.

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CORRUPTION FIGHTS RIBADU.

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | December 28, 2008

Corruption is the deviation from the norms and ideals of transparency, accountability, honesty, truth and the engagement of people in self-serving activities to actualize selfish interests at the expense of the larger society. Corruption is a non-restrictive practice and it knows no boundary, culture, race, religion, sex, black or white. It is found in the nooks and crannies of every nation, whether emerging or developed. It is both in the family unit and in the broad spectrum of society.  In many nations, it is the reason why workers want tips before performing their official functions. It is the reason why there are several pen robbers that aggrandize the resources of the masses for selfish reasons. It is the reason why people falsify their real ages to stay longer in service. It is the reason why so many religious leaders and organizations twist doctrines for the purpose of attracting to themselves unholy perks at the expense of the salvation of their followers. It is the reason why corporate organizations falsify profits to avoid taxation. It is the reason for rigging elections by politicians (remember the Florida debacle over the election results of Al-gore and George Bush) and the 2007 elections in Nigeria. It is the reason for the inducement of vulnerable voters to sell their voting rights and conscience to make up votes for the ruling class. It is the reason for negotiating to sell Obama’s vacant seat to the highest bidder in God’s own country. It is the reason why oil illegally bunkered in Nigeria end up in “corruption free” advanced nations without qualms.

In Africa, it is the reason why majority of African rulers steal money meant for our common heritage and stash it in foreign banks; without those foreign governments seeing themselves as aiding and abetting immoral and corrupt acts, only to see us as the corrupt ones while they are the saints. It is the reason for turning ebullient and energetic youths to political thugs to snatch ballot boxes and assassinate political opponents.  It is the reason for high level miscarriage of justice.  It is the reason why law enforcement agents are unable to unravel criminal activities committed by the elites. It is the reason for sacrificing meritocracy for tribal and parochial interests. It is the reason why governments overrun other sovereignties to protect their own interests rather than national interests. It is the reason for the instability of the world’s political and socio-economic order. It is the reason why a poor folk wants to ride an exotic car and live in high brow areas even without any means of livelihood. It is the reason why public servants (both political and civil) own uncountable number of cars and estates without going through any mortgage house. It is the reason for several broken marriages, examination malpractices, harassment of female students and cultism educational institutions.

Therefore, corruption is not just taking and giving of bribes. It could be moral, political, social, economic and religious. It is effusive, pervasive, infectious and highly globalized. All the actors that partake in, and eulogize corruption are corruption per excellence. Corruption is human. It has voice, flesh, teeth and fangs. It is highly professional. It is there wherever we go.  Corruption cuts across classes and strata of societies. It is found in low and high places. Those at the low level engage in it to make ends meet. The practitioners in high places engage in it not for lack of want, but to keep political, social and economic powers so that they can lord it over the majority in perpetuity. Those that engage in it sleep and wake with it. They are conscienceless, deadly and are anything but the devil incarnate.

Corruption has killed so many visions and people. Corruption (in this article is a collection of individuals from all backgrounds) at one time or another denied Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Kashimawo Abiola, Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Professor Pat Utomi of becoming the Presidents of Nigeria. So, when one sets out to fight corruption in a place like Nigeria, it is like voluntarily opting to go to the hottest axis of the war front. As an anti corruption agent, one is doomed both in the course of the fight and after the fight because the results of the assaults remain indelible and those victims continue to leak their wounds long after one has left the scene. When the anti corruption agents can no longer enjoy the protection of the State, corruption goes after them to seek revenge. It is like fighting a man that has sophisticated weapons with bare hands. Only a few people have fought corruption without being consumed.  Therefore, so many mortals would rather tread softly in their advocacy against corruption because corruption being human has the tendency to fight back in a very ruthless manner.

In Nigeria, the list of those who tried to fight corruption with burning desires and zeal in order to steer up a revolution that will demolish oppression, repression, corruption and human rights abuses; had corruption fighting them back in a ferocious manner. They faced frustrations, incarceration, intimidation and abuses. Some got killed in the process. Others died out of the cumulative effect of the stress of fighting corruption. They include, Adaka Boro, Dele Giwa, Dr. Beko Kuti, the social crusader and musician Fela Ransome Kuti, Ken Saro Wiwa, Chima Ubani and Tai Solarin; all of blessed memory. Those still living have persistently remained the targets of the man corruption. They include Alozie Ogugbuaja (the author of the military men as pepper soup drinkers and coup plotters), Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, Nuhu Ribadu et al.

Of these, Ribadu and Alozie Ogugbuaja,  both Police Officers tend to have a common heritage. They seem to have the same point of embarkation and are likely to have the same point of disembarkation.  Alozie got recruited into the Police Force with the sole aim of being part of the radical reform process of the decaying police system while Ribadu was brought to help rid the nation of corruption by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. For me, they are gallant officers because they looked at corruption in the face and spat on it. But one common lesson they did not learn quick enough is that the worm that destroys the kola nut eats it from the inside. They were outspoken against the mafias in our society without considering that one needs some level of empowerment, self preservation and cover to win against corruption. They forgot that for a man to win the war against corruption, one has to stoop to conquer. They fought corruption on pages of newspapers instead of using the tactics of an ardent crime fighter - “less visibility, less talk, more work and element of surprises”.

 As a recap for those not familiar with Alozie’s story, he was the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the Nigerian Police Force during the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. In his own account, one of the propelling inner drives that took him into the Police Force was the brutal murder of twenty eight defenceless coal miners and wounded others on the orders of Sir Philips, a British officer during our colonial days.  The coal miners were on industrial action to protest poor wages. Despite the fact that the panel set up to look into this tragedy proclaimed that a mistake was made by the officer’s judgement, he was recalled to Britain and knighted by the Queen. He saw in this a miscarriage of justice. If it were now, Sir Philips would have been summoned to the Hague.

On entrance into the Force, he discharged his duties with love and fearlessness. He was ready to serve his father land with all the zeal and energy desired. He refused entreaties of extortion and bribes. He became the goliath of the oppressed officers. In trying to bring to the fore, the unfair salary disparity between the police and the military at that time; Alozie accused the military’s high command of secretly increasing their own pay when indeed the military officers did nothing but sit in the officers’ mess drinking pepper soup and plotting coups (at that time coups and counter coups were popular all over Africa). The military felt insulted and started a gradual compression of Alozie’s jugular.

First he was relieved of his position and then suspended. He headed for the court. At the end of the struggle, the court restored his rights and he was recalled. He later suffered multiple transfers and derogatory postings.  Just like the cases of this nature, it only took only a while to frame him up and had him dismissed. He is however lucky to be alive to tell the story. Today, Alozie, a mass communication graduate of old cannot be said to have fully recovered from the socio-economic dislocations he suffered from the pepper soup saga.

Alozie’s history is replaying itself in Nuhu Ribadu, the erstwhile TSAR of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). They represent the same side of the coin. He was appointed the pioneer Chairman of EFCC by President Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) in 2003. The Act that established EFCC mandates it to combat financial and economic crimes”. Though he was brave and courageous in the discharge of his duties; the absolute nature of the operations of EFCC under Ribadu, especially between 2004 and 2005 earned him the toga of the “Tsar of EFCC”.  He sent chills down the spines of the hitherto political and economic mafia and untouchables in the country.

As the President Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN); I disagreed and still disagree with Mike Adenuga the business mongul on his posture to labour related issues in his companies (BELBOP and CON OIL). Despite this, I disliked the way he was humiliated just because he was perceived of having business interests with General Ibrahim Babangida, a man Obasanjo hates to love.  Others treated in like manner were Uzor Kalu’s mother and Tafa Balogun, the former inspector General of Police who had fell out favour with Obasanjo.  EFCC fell short of using bulldozers to scavenge the offices and homes of these people. He turned the Vice president of the Federal Republic, Atiku Abubakar to his foot mat just because he was on the other side of the President. He used very derogatory languages in the Hallow Chambers of the National assembly on some of the serving Governors. These actions were not in line with due process and the rule of law.

I have no qualms about EFCC or ICPC inviting suspected looters of the treasury for questioning or prosecuting them; but never should any organization apply the wrong process pursuing a just and lawful course.  Where investigations implicate any person for betraying the people’s mandate, such person should be made to face the music.  All accused persons deserve some level of humane treatment. It is always said that an accused person is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction. Even a man sentenced to death for whatever reasons deserves his human dignity until his execution and nobody should be pronounced guilty on pages of newspapers before the courts so declare. Ribadu as a lawyer knows this but in his own wisdom decided to do otherwise. He was fond of ignoring the orders of the court and unknown to him; he will someday approach that same judiciary for succour. As a matter of fact, it is only the judiciary that can save Ribadu at this point.

Ribadu found several persons guilty even before approaching the courts. He used State apparatuses to muscle members of the some State Assemblies to undertake the impeachment of their Speakers in other to get at their Governors. Some of the impeachments were carried out outside the specified hours of business. Some were carried out at night, some in the wee hours of the morning; some were carried out by proxy, others in hotel rooms while others took place at Abuja. These were outright breaches of our constitution. Agencies of government should allow the judiciary to be the final bus stop in the determination of guilt.

The height of his indiscretion was mixing politics with his job by pitching his tent with the then President to nail those not aligned to the third term project President Obasanjo. When Ribadu looked into the activities of PTDF; he found Atiku guilty and OBJ was exenorated. The Senate also looked at the same PTDF activities and exenorated atiku. Ribadu fell short of calling the highest ledislative chambers nuisance. In addition, he told Nigerians that he had enough evidence to send almost all the Governors that served from 1999 to 2007 to jail. Unfortunately, even when the Governors lost their immunity in May 2007, only a handful were picked up and the few that have been prosecuted came out convicted on plea bargain platform.

Now, the questions being asked are: where then are the incriminating evidence against these Governors? What kind of system will leave someone accused of converting billions of naira of public funds to his private use only to be asked to release some hundreds of millions and to keep more than half the loot? As soon as President Obasanjo left, corruption started the plot to destroy Ribadu by taking the following steps in quick succession.

Step one. 

He was removed from EFCC to Nigeria Institute Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) at Kuru. If only he knew how to play the game of self preservation at Kuru; I thought it would have helped him to make the place a restoration and introspection centre. Unfortunately he did not see the handwriting on the wall. Rather than help to stop most of the media hype about him while a student he did not.

Step two.

To make him ineligible to continue his programme he was demoted from the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) to Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) on the excuse that due process was not followed in his accelerated promotion. The police Service Commission said that accelerated promotion can only be carried out for gallantry and other special circumstances as determined by the body. Perhaps gallantry in this sense will mean fishing out, dismantling armed robbery syndicates and killing armed robbers the way Parry Osayende did during the Anini saga.

If killing robbers or putting down insurgencies alone will pass for gallantry then they miss the point. What led our country to the valley of indebtedness, rot, underdevelopment, poverty and hunger was not armed robbery but 419 and pen robbery perpetrated against the State by our past leaders. Those fighting armed robbers and the pen robbers face unpredictable ends just like Ribadu is now facing the tough times from the hands of the man corruption.

In every organization, there are egg heads and high fliers that are promoted on accelerated basis though such promotions do not necessarily breach corporate procedure guidelines. I also believe that irrespective of his shortcomings, what he did in EFCC could simply  pass for gallant acts that merit some level of upliftment, if not, it will be very difficult for any officer to stick out his or her neck  in the name of patriotism to fight corruption.

Step three.

After his studentship, he was immediately deployed to an office that will make him irrelevant and true to anticipation, reports had it that he refused to report to Edo state. When this posting took place he would have used the power of hind sight on Alozie’s case to plan his exit strategy. He did not. The question is, would he have been sitting doing nothing before his case in court against the Police is disposed? He forgot that he was still a member of the Force and must obey the orders of the Inspector General of Police and the Police high command. 

Step four.

He was invited to EFCC; he refused to honour the invitation until lately.

Step five.

He was invited to see the Inspector General of police; he did not honour the invitation. Again Ribadu forgot that he voluntarily opted to serve under the prescribed ethos and ethics of a command structure that abhors insurbordination. Within a short period, he refused to answer the calls of EFCC and the Police. He refused to wear the uniform when he, in company of other Force men paid a courtesy call on President Yar’Adua and during his graduation. He refused to explore the option of internal remedies of his constituency and proceeded to sue the Inspector General of Police, the Police Service Commission, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) to Court and then the ECOWAS Court thereby complaining before obeying the orders from above. In a command structure this is a grievous error of judgement.

Step six.

It was said that Ribadu was invited twice to appear before the panel set up by the Police, he also refused to put up appearance.

Step seven.

The panellists returned a guilty verdict on Ribadu and he was aptly dismissed. All the invitations to Ribadu were ploys to give the dog a bad name for easy hanging. The Police authourities knew Ribadu will not honour the invitations neither was he going to report to the new post as a Deputy Commissioner of Police. Again he played into their hands on the pretext that the invitation was a ploy to arrest him. How can a man that said that he was ready to die fighting corruption be afraid of mere arrest? Perhaps he suddenly realized that what he did to others in an undignified manner was to befall him. In all these, Ribadu who had said several times that no one was above the law was not only above the law but was law himself.

Looking at the process above, one can see the similarity and the replay of Alozie’s travails in the Police Force in that that of Ribadu. The end is known and likely to follow the path below:

• More than 45 lawyers including Femi Falana, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, several SANs and others will appear to defend Ribadu at no cost.
• The court is likely to return a verdict of restoration of his rights and bring him back to the Force for not having fair hearing.
• The Police will appeal through the layers of hierarchy to the Supreme Court to wear him down psychologically. If the Supreme court also favours him the Police will have no optioon but to restore him.
• By the time Ribadu is finally restored if at all, most of his junior officers would have become his seniors and possibly one of them the IG.
• He will be posted to a redundant position and frustrated. They may become so vicious that Ribadu will be forced to voluntarily throw in the towel (ask Alozie about his experience).

While going through these travails, he might be invited or arrested and quizzed by EFCC to account for the donations from the donor agencies and how he managed his budget for the period as the Chairman of EFCC. He might also be expected to give a detailed account of the total money received and how much was returned to the various states from the repatriated loots.

It is a known fact that the real offence of Ribadu is that he did not maintain the balance in his war against the political class. He made it clear that the man dictating the pace of the war was the former President. He and Obasanjo were the only saints in the entire nation and all others were thieves.  He fought his war on pages of newspapers and opened his bosses and the President of the Federal republic to public ridicule during his removal as Chairman of the EFCC.  In reaction to this, I said in the Tsar of EFCC goes to school “No matter the good intentions of those in this school of thought that Ribadu is indispensable as the Chairman of EFCC; they only succeeded in pitching Ribadu against the government, created two Inspector Generals of Police and two Presidents of the Federal Republic: one in Ribadu and the others in Okiro and Yar’Adua”. 

 In the game of boxing, you never open your guards that gives cover to your face, temple and the abdomen but Ribadu did. He opened his flanks and allowed his enemies to know his weakest link and that precisely is what they are using against him now. He made people feel that these corrupt elements were his personal enemies instead of making them the enemies of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Nigerian people.  It was a fight on behalf of the Nigerian people. Unfortunately, EFCC under him was Ribadu personified. Above all, he shot himself in the foot by showing utter disrespect to his bosses in the Police Force, forgeting that, that same Police Force produced him and that someday they might have the power to take certain decisions on him.  

It is sycophantic and hypocritical to support Ribadu’s antics and refusal to obey the orders of his Superior Police Officers. I am sure he could not have taken this from his subordinates when he held sway at EFCC in his capacity as the Chairman.  Anything short of “obey before complaint” in a command structure is insubordination and the punishment is well known to Ribadu.

Be that as it may, Ribadu should not have been thrown away like the baby inside the dirty bath tub. I feel so concerned because I can see our tax payers’ money used in training the likes of Alozie and Ribadu wasted. Egg heads have their bad sides. Those of us who played the game of football have seen demeanours of stars in action. It takes methodical patience on the side of a good coach to manage them because they win games for their teams.

If the dismissal of Ribadu stayed, I can see the apathy this will bring to genuine minds who want to become anti-corruption crusaders after the ashes of Ribadu’s travails settle. There is nobody outside the shores of this nation that will believe that Ribadu was dismissed for indiscipline as pronounced by the Police. His dismissal is seen as a form of victimization and it will take a lot of image laundering and huge resources to remove this bias.  The only way Government can instil the much needed confidence in the international community is to tamper justice with mercy on Ribadu’s case by bringing him back.

Questions are already being asked.  Why must a man lose his head for a country that cannot protect him against those he offended in the course of carrying out official duties on behalf of the State? Could there have been no other way of using internal instruments to deal with Ribadu without the dismissal option so that the 419ers and those he prosecuted do not take credit for his travails?.

On Mallam el-Rufai, the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT); it is also not the rosiest of times as well because he has been declared wanted by the EFCC. In his case, nature has shown that it never completely smile at us on our journey through this portal. It does not also forget to pay us in our own coins according to our deeds to our fellow men.

Our own el-Rufai is claiming to be studying now in the UK and therefore, unable to answer the call of EFCC. The same man used his agents to attempt a forceful eviction of Dr. (Mrs.) Timiebi Koripamo Agary, the former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Productivity on March 1, 2007 when she was on official duty abroad.  He also cannot claim to have respect for the rule of law because he flagrantly disobeyed the courts of our lands during his time as the FCT Minister.In this instance, an order of
interim injunction was made by a court in FCT on February 19, 2007 restraining the FCT from evicting Agary. Due to the enormous powers of the FCT Minister and his immunity from OBJ; Agary was removed as Permanent Secretary by the former President. But for this present administration, she would have ended her public service career abruptly.

Secondly, the former Chairman of Code of Conduct Bureau, Justice Bashir Sambo, an elderly man who had lived in his house for more than 10 years and had paid N65 million for the house was forcefully evicted from the house despite an injunction on August 3, 2006 restraining the FCT from evicting him. The trauma of this ordeal has been implicated by family members as the primary cause of his death.  The same el-Rufai, who in the above instances played God, has approached the court to restrain some of the agents he used against Nigerians during his time as the Minister of FCT. What an irony of fate? What he is going through now is a fulfilment of the law of cause and effect. So, let him remember after this ordeal when dealing with others that what goes around comes around.  

Wherever we go, let us carry in our pouches, the reasoning that policies are made for the comfort and safety of man and it is only when alive that one can reap the benefits of such policies. Therefore, policies should be implemented at all times with human face. Public officers should learn to respect institutions outside theirs because no one can tell when one needs the help of the other; just like Ribadu and el-Rufai who in their height of administrative arrogance despised the judiciary they now look unto for succour and bail out.  

Knowing that the measure we use for others will be used for us some day, all the stakeholders in the two cases above should endeavour to follow due process in dealing with these officers. They should not do things that will reflect any shade of vengeance. After all; the officers served the state the way they thought fit and to the best of their abilities. Irrespective of what el-Rufai did wrongly, he stepped on toes to partly restore the Abuja master plan. On Ribadu’s part, the removal of Nigeria’s name from the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) marked the highpoint of his service and this must be credited to EFCC and the Obasanjo administration.  

The long public holidays have possibly played down the story of Ribadu’s dismissal and el-Rufai’s travails on the pages of newspapers. Surely, these are not the best of times for them. In most part of the New Year, the case of the man corruption versus the man Ribadu on one side, and the EFCC versus el-Rufai on the other side will be the main menu of our national discourse. All I can wish them now is Good luck and Happy New Year in advance!  

Notes

http://www.dawodu.com/orkar.htm http://www.ugandaruralcommunitysupport.org/2000/06/30/home-coming-at-last-30-june-2000/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dele_Giwahttp://odili.net/news/source/2008/aug/10/507.htmlhttp://www.punchontheweb.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art200804111573726 http://news.biafranigeriaworld.com/archive/2006/06/index.php 

http://www.triumphnewspapers.com/archive/DT06032007/index.html 

The Tsar of EFCC Goes to school in http://www.louisbrownogbeifun.com 

Youpele Banigo in http://www.dawodu.com/banigo1.htm

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ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCES’ (HR) MANAGERS DURING ECONOMIC CRISIS.

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | December 4, 2008

Economic meltdown is the contraction of the economy for two consecutive quarters while economic crisis is a state in which an economy witnesses slowdown of economic activities, increased level of unemployment, decreased consumer spending, low level investments, low level of trading activities and the loss of the value of assets by a segment of the financial institutions, which persists over a long period of time.

For the first time in several decades, the tough talking developed nations are at their wits’ end. Their citizens have been grappling with the harsh realities of increasing food and gas prices, increased foreclosures, massive retrenchment and massive job cuts signposting an economic meltdown. For instance, the United States alone witnessed one of her worst months in unemployment related matters as provided by the Bureau of Labour Statistics, US Department of labour in http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm “In September 2008, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) rose by 167,000 to 2.0 million, an increase of 728,000 over the past 12 months. In the US housing sector alone, the foreclosures in 2007 stood at about 850,000 and by the 3^rd quarter of 2008, financial institutions like Lehman Brothers, AIG; WaMU, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan-Chase, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and many others cracked under the meltdown.

As this was happening, the stock market all over the world tumbled under the yoke of the economic downturn to an all time low. By the last week of October 2008, it was a gloomy picture across the globe. Writing for Associated Press on October 24 2008, Kennedy said “the U.S. dollar sank to a 13-year low against the Japanese currency, falling below 95 yen. Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average slid 9.6 percent to 7,649, its first close below 8,000 since May 2003…… South Korea’s stock market fell sharply for a second day as figures showed the economy there was slowing. The Kospi dropped 10.6 percent to 938.75, falling below the 1,000 mark for the first time in more than three years…”

The above is a frightening data from the world’s strongest economies. To stem the tide of further losses and rescue the collapsing institutions, governments hurriedly put bailout options in place. In the United States, $700 billion was adopted by the legislature, the British Government adopted a £500billion was also adopted. This will enable the government have direct investments in banks, guaranteeing their debts and insuring of all deposits.

In our own environment, we do know that getting data to back up current job losses is a herculean task. However, it is common knowledge that the manufacturing sector started a gradual move towards a shut down few years ago and the world situation can only but aggravate the situation. The oil and gas sector is in turmoil and releasing workers on daily basis because of the activities of militants, vandalism of petroleum pipelines and reduced production activities. The resonating gloomy economic picture puts a lot of pressures on workers. This leads to apprehension, anxiety and distrust. I am sure that in 2009, the Unions will become more demanding, confrontational and combative.

In the third quarter of 2008, Nigerian capital market witnessed very serious slides in shares and Government had to put in place several interventions to save the market. Abimboye in Newswatch of October 13, 2008, p. 59 says “against this backdrop, the Central Bank of Nigeria, had injected about N150 billion into the financial markets in the wake of the crisis. It also cut its lending rates to 9.75 from 10.25 per cent”. In his own analysis, Aluko opines, “In terms of capital decline, the Nigerian capital market has since the March 5 lost to date about N3.38 trillion, or about 26.7%”. 

This is particularly worrisome and devastating because several investors had borrowed money from the banks to trade in stocks. Irrespective of these interventions, interest rates are still high and nothing seems to suggest that the economic meltdown will not scar through our system. While it is true that our economy is not a credit strewn system there is nothing in the horizon to categorically exclude us from what the end of this economic fatality will be.

If the global economic slide continues, the developing economies are likely to suffer the backlash because we are largely a consuming nation. As crude prices dips, the home offices of the multinationals would become stringent with spending and if this continues for too long, foreign aids and recall of capital may occur. Imagine what will happen to our economy if the multinationals decide to pull several billion of dollars from this economy with lower volume sales of oil.

As at today, most of the multinational oil companies have cut their cut production levels because of the Niger Delta crisis. For instance, SPDC that was producing about a million barrels per day about five years ago produces less than three hundred and fifty thousand barrels per day. Chevron intermittently shuts down operations as its facilities because of incessant attacks by militants. If these are aggregated, they will accentuate the economic crisis; then we are heading for real challenges.

During periods of economic crisis, workers put their future security and welfare over above doing their jobs as prescribed by the organization’s procedural handbooks. Therefore, managers of human resources (HR) should have it at the back of their minds that they are dealing with employees that are confronted with high emotions, low morale, curiosity, anxiety, uncertainty, thoughts of negativity, possible loss of life savings, losing their houses, apprehension and near state of hopelessness because of the fear of the unknown over the sustainability of their gratuities and pension. All these lead to increased rumour mongering, accentuated stressed levels, irritability, decreased productivity, disloyalty, cutting of corners and hidden health costs to the organization.

While these occur, it behoves on HR practitioners to start a realignment of thoughts, synergy and step up programmes that will give hope to workers. Only an inward looking HR management, which is strategically positioned, efficient and effective that will successfully swim through this ocean of uncertainties into a period of boom, which usually comes after a period of downturn.

In the third quarter of 2008, Nigerian capital market witnessed very serious slides in shares and Government had to put in place several interventions to save the market. Abimboye in Newswatch of October 13, 2008, p. 59 says “against this backdrop, the Central Bank of Nigeria, had injected about N150 billion into the financial markets in the wake of the crisis. It also cuts its lending rates to 9.75 from 10.25 per cent”. In his own analysis, Aluko opines, “In terms of capital decline, the Nigerian capital market has since the March 5 lost to date about N3.38 trillion, or about 26.7%”. This is particularly worrisome and devastating because several investors had borrowed money from the banks to trade in stocks. Irrespective of these interventions, interest rates are still high and nothing seems to suggest that the economic meltdown will not scar through our system.

While it is true that our economy is not a credit strewn system there is nothing in the horizon to categorically exclude us from what the end of this economic fatality will be. If the global economic slide continues, the developing economies are likely to suffer the backlash because we are largely a consuming nation. As crude prices dips, the home offices of the multinationals would become stringent with spending and if this continues for too long, reduction of foreign aids and recall of foreign capital may occur. Imagine what will happen to our economy if the multinationals decide to pull several billion of dollars from this economy with lower volume of oil sales. As at today, most of the multinational oil companies have cut their production quota because of the Niger Delta crisis. For instance, SPDC that was producing about a million barrels per day about five years ago produces less than five hundred and fifty thousand barrels per day. Chevron intermittently shuts down operations as its facilities because of incessant attacks by militants. If these are aggregated, they will accentuate the economic crisis; then we will be heading for real challenges.

Reasons for the Economic Meltdown.

• Negative impacts of borderless markets (globalization).
• Criminal borrowing.
• Incompetent practices.
• Weak regulations.
• Lack of transparency.
• Corruption.
• Unrestricted mortgage activities and lending to those with bad credit history.
• Decreased consumer spending as a result of massive job losses.
• Questionable greed.
• Break neck expansion craze.
• Stiff competition by corporate bodies.
• Lack of proactive strategy by the executive, legislature and the financial experts to deal with the symptoms at an earlier stage.
• Absolute freedom of the market economy.

Negative Impact (s).

• Closure of enterprises because of lack of access to borrowing from banks and high interest rates.
• Massive job losses and accentuated unemployment (In the aftermath of the South Asian crises in the 90s, job losses rose from 5,015 in 1996 to 38,217 in 1997).
• Erosion of the middle class.
• Decreased consumer spending.
• Decreased capacity utilization.
• Increased cost of available goods.
• Hyperinflation.
• Bad debts.
• Recession.
• Negative impact on our foreign reserve. On the foreign reserve, (Aluko says “If one looks at its website www.cenbank.org  – Foreign Reserve Movement page – starting from January 2, 2008, one sees that our gross foreign reserves steadily increased from $51.2 billion to a high of  $63.5 billion on September 10, 2008, before declining to a value of $61.99 billion on October 1, 2008 – the last recorded entry.  That is a decline of $1.5 billion within a two-week period, following which, after three weeks (today is October 23, 2008), there are NO MORE ENTRIES in the table).

It is vivid from the above that there is no hiding place for any of the world economies from the negative impacts of the economic meltdown. Even before the financial crisis, Nigerians have been witnessing some of the impact of a receding economy because of lack of infrastructural support, manipulation of the electoral systems, which littered the political landscape with corruption and other related vices as typified by the activities of the EFCC and ICPC. If unaddressed, the multiplier effects of all the indices will make life unbearable for the masses of this nation.

How the economic crisis affect Human Resources Management (HRM) in Nigeria

• Decreased oil revenue. In the first week of July 2008, Nigeria’s Bonny Light Crude sold for $146.15 but slipped to $76.24 and $57 per barrel at the middle of October and November 2008 respectively and Light Sweet Crude Oil. $47.78 on 3^rd December 2008. This represents a dip of about 69.83%.
• Dwindling revenue will affect budgetary performance and allocations to sub sectors because of the country’s monoculture economy.
• Possible delays in the discharge of government’s responsibilities in recurrent expenditure.
• High indebtedness to internal contractors.
• Pension payment might become a huge source of worry because of the dwindling finances to meet up with the financial obligations of recurrent expenditure.
• Restriction or reduction of foreign aids, which may affect counterpart funding of projects.
• Job cuts, layoffs and increased unemployment.
• Loss of jobs of Nigerians abroad who send money to their relatives in Nigeria therefore affecting foreign funds inflow into the country.
• In worst case scenario, multinationals may withdraw huge sums from their portfolio in the country to support home offices and operations.
• Increased restiveness of the labour unions.
• Industrial actions. Howbeit and irrespective of the state of this seeming hopelessness, rather than brood over the present global financial crises, HR practitioners have a huge challenge and an opportunity to reinvent HRM; engender increased developmental processes to improve human behaviours, attitudes and staff relations that will bring about improved productivity; which at the end put them be on top of corporate policies for a key turn around.

Suggested HR strategies to reduce effects of the crisis.

Communication.

 Dedicate time to positive reasoning. Hold town hall meetings involving staff and management on ways to tackle the challenges of the downturn. Hear the staff out. Take time to listen to the employees for confidence building. During such engagement, declare immunity to cover all staff, in which any staff that offers to critique the organization is insulated from witch-hunting sanctions and victimization. This gives room for sincere invectives and inputs, which may turn the organization around for good.Staff should be encouraged to objectively give their assessment of where the organization was, where it is and where they believe the organization should be and what should be done to survive the recession.After listening to the staff, thank them for valued contributions and promise to work with their inputs. Reiterate the vision and mission statements of the organization. Appeal to staff to do everything possible to actualize the goals and objectives of the organization. They should show more personal and collective commitment, loyalty and dedication to the organization for improved productivity. Seek their support for the strategic action plans.At the same time, strengthen the two ways communication process and dedicate time to feed backs. 

Positive team culture.

Stress shared vision, strategies and belief in team culture, improved symbiotic team spirit because of the positive value addition of synergy. HR Managers should at this time radiate and give hope and lift their staff from negativity to positivity.  A positive team culture stresses collectivism, and symbiosis. Do well to stress the importance of every team member.   

Learning. 

Learning is the key that opens the individual employee to knowledge beyond his/her immediate reach. It helps to bring a strong barrier against failures and landmines that may bomb the organization out of existence. It assists the worker to open up to new initiatives, ideas and best practices. Design programmes that put the organization on top of the pack and enable the organization have a competitive edge. Staff may not necessarily be moved from their places of work because of the innovations in as e-learning and intranet services are becoming a way of life. Encourage staff to participate in workshops and conferences to enable them compare notes on experiences and learn from others. Where only a few staff can attend, those who attended should be given an opportunity to share their learning experiences with their colleagues at a forum.

Leadership focus during the downturn.

• Transparency.
• Accountability.
• Courage to effect necessary changes.
• Training.
• Proactive strategy.
• Sacrifice.
• Incremental changes.
• Address issues of insecurity.
• Credible leadership.
• Mentoring.
• Coaching.
• Nurturing.
• Sifting down process between the effective staff.
• Walk-the-talk.

Performance incentives.

• General Motivation techniques: Positive and negative sanctions
• Performance Incentive Bonus (PIB)

Review of organizational structure and procedures.

•  Reduce complex structure to a simple structure.
• Increased autonomy to improve decision making process.
• Concentration on core areas.
• Elimination of tribal, political and racial considerations in the appointments of chief executives and recruitment processes.
• Review of recruitment policies. It is a well known fact that in most parastatals of government in Nigeria, there are periods of employment freeze, unfreeze, refreeze and retrenchment at the fiat of the executive arm of government.
• Review financial management procedures to optimize profitability.
• Improve cost culture and asset utilization.

Redefinition of business value system.

This is a moment to re-examine the organization’s business value system, goals, roadmaps, strategies and practices to align with the anatomy and physiology of the organization. The vision of the organization should be cascaded down the ladder so that there will be a total buy-in; into the new ways of achieving the vision even at these difficult times. A shared vision sets the tone for the conscious will power to achieve the impossible.

Succession planning.

The chief executives of many parastatals of government are removed and replaced at will. The high turnover of the top management is the bane of poor performance of some organizations. It makes planning difficult, truncates strategic plans processes and kills any organization’s initiatives to achieve a well tailored succession plan, which is a Sequa-non for organizational success. There should be a reversal of this unwholesome process.

Attitudinal change.

• Paradigm shift in work culture and values.
• Stop the attitudes of being busy doing the wrong things. The aim is to change from busyness to effectiveness as being busy does not connote effectiveness. Being busy and working hard without focus does not translate to results the organization needs to be effective.

Job rotation.

• Temporary postings to areas of unsaturated staff.
• Equal opportunities.
• Redeployment.

Pre-retirement seminars.

• Pre retirement workshop.
• Incentives for early retirement (discourages swearing affidavits to cheat on age).

Personal income management.

Almost all staff are now very heavily indebted to the banks with slimmer income. It is often said that the “take home pay of workers no longer take them home”. Staff of various organizations have found themselves in this conundrum in Abuja because of the need to purchase personal houses in other to avoid the cut throat high rents in the FCT.

Engage external consultants to talk to staff on personal income management and the need to prepare for retirement. HR managers should help enforce the one-third rule of loans over which a staff cannot approach the organization for loans so that staff will be able to maintain and cater for their immediate families at this critical time.

Proactive HRM.

• Application of emotional intelligence strategies.
• Fair HR practice in the use of the carrot and stick approach.
• Assessment of the competencies of employees and productivity level. Do not wait for the end of year.
• In-plant knowledge sharing forum should be enthroned to encourage staff to share their knowledge in an in plant workshop. This will assist the organization to source for and maintain a knowledge pool in the organization.
• Change management. Change will be effected in bits and not radically so as not to further stress the staff.
• Review the organization’s customer management processes.
• Enthrone an integrated research and development processes.

Performance evaluation.Enthrone an effective performance management system.

Performance evaluation should focus on:

1.     The organization.
2.     Departments.
3.     Customer service.
4.     Teams’ performance.
5.      Processes.
6.      Individuals.   

• Solutions to challenges rather than sanctions, condemnation and the blame trade.
• Seek to be understood before seeking others’ understanding.
• Expectations should be mutually agreed using basic standard benchmarks.
• Consider individual strengths, experience, priorities, inner motivation (is he a loner, extrovert) and confidence in assigning tasks.
• Acquire the skills to align the staff skills and competency to align with the organizational objectives.
• Monitor performance (don’t wait until the end of the year).
• Reward top performers and ascertain collateral damage if any.
• Investigate and sanction poor performance.
• Watch out for the aftershocks of performance evaluation.

Any of the following models could be used to address the performance challenges that organizations may face during the periods of financial crisis: 

• The Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan and Norton provides the theoretical framework for the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) with four perspectives - financial measures, customer knowledge, internal business processes, and learning and growth. The BSC helps the organization to strike a balance between short, medium and long-term objectives. The BSC is a tested tool change processes.
• Ulrich model. 

Conclusion. 

The conclusion that could be drawn from our economic position based on the global financial indices, our monoculture oil economy, the need for the readjustment of government spending because of the uncertainty in oil prices, the increasing interest rate and high unemployment situation; the depression in the capital market is that HRM needs a new approach in strategies and direction. CEOs should not wait for a time like this to cut their perks as the $1 salary proposals of the CEOs of the United States auto giants. This sacrifice and radical cost curtailment measures would have started long ago.   HR Managers will need to change their own conditioning, paradigms and lead by examples. HR managers should not be afraid of proffering radical but workable solutions to their CEOs even at the expense of their own conveniences. Failure to do this will ultimately lead to losing the perks and area of influence you may be protecting because when the baby dies (the organization); every nanny or babysitter (the workers) goes home. The organizations that will come out stronger after the meltdown are the resilient, proactive and adaptive change HR practitioners. Now is the time to walk-the-talk.  

End notes.

Abimboye D, (2008); Global Financial Crisis, Newswatch Magazine, Lagos.

Aluko M, (2008); The Global Financial Meltdown: Impact on Nigeria’s Capital Market and Foreign Reserves.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_crisis.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081024/world_markets.html.  

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.html/.

http://www..economicconfidential.com . http://www.balancedscorecard.org/BSCResources/AbouttheBalancedScorecard/tabid/55/Default.aspx.http://www.paypershop.com/articles-UK/ulrich.html. http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/3-steps-to-positive-hr-with-a-recessionlooming/. http://hrmadvice.com/blog/2008/09/07/hrm-innovations-in-recession/ .   

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