Segolene......

Aguntasolo 2011: Bye Bye Big Ass Government [Pt 2]

First off, a few pointers to give a better understanding of what my ideological slant will be if I manage to win your votes to become President of the Federal Republic.

a] Government is not some magical body which makes people become better than they really are. If a man is an idiot and he finds himself in government, he does not suddenly lose his idiotic tendencies. In fact, he has now become a powerful idiot which is an altogether bigger headache for the country....as opposed to him being an ordinary citizen where his idiocy can be controlled.

It follows then that if a government is populated by idiots, it is simply a conglomeration of idiots raising their idiocy to the power of x....where x is the number of idiots in the government.

To this end there will be no idiots in my government. I make this a personal promise.

b] The fact that government is the sole provider of a certain type of service does not mean that someone else cannot do it better. Nature abhors a vacuum, so if government is removed from a certain area and civil society is allowed to take over, ultimately that area will become better over time. It is important to note that it's very difficult to compete against government in any sector of the economy it's involved in. So we will never know how much entrepreneurial talent is being held back by govt crowding out the space for them to grow.

A perfect example of this was when government, via NITEL, was the sole provider of telephone services in Nigeria. You had to be extremely well connected [pardon the pun] to get a land line in Nigeria in those days which now seem so distant. The moment government was removed from the provision of telephony services, the number of people with access to telephone lines in Nigeria increased stratospherically. 

As the needs and sophistication of Nigerians increases, it becomes almost impossible for politicians and govt to cater to these needs. Our politicians being men of average intelligence in the first place of course doesnt help the situation. I will therefore try to reduce the dependence of ordinary Nigerians on the federal govt as much as I can in my first term.

Since I expect to be elected by the people without rigging or 'Iwuing', I expect to have a lot of goodwill from the public to guarantee me a honeymoon period of at least 6 months. It is in this first 6 months I plan to introduce the most radical aspects of my manifesto [see Part 1 here ]. 

Below are a random selection of some of the policies and actions I will take in my first 6 months in office.

Federal Character My Ass

The constitutional requirement that the Federal Executive Council [and other government agencies and departments] reflect 'Federal Character' is one of the ways in which the mediocre have managed to keep their stranglehold on Nigeria since the return of democracy. It also helps to keep the government the size of an overfed pig feeding fat on the misery of Nigerians. At any given point during our democracy, we have anywhere between 36 and 42 ministers just to keep the constitution happy. 

On the morning of May 29th 2011 at about 7am while the whole nation is preparing for my inauguration, I will release the names of 36 men and women who will constitute my FEC. 15 of those names will have portfolios attached to them and the remaining 21 wont have any portfolios.

This is to prevent the yeye  traditional rulers and Governors from lobbying and presenting their candidates and of course the Senate working out the price per minister per Senator for 'bow and go'. 

Once the 36 names have been cleared, the 21 ministers will be named as Ministers in Waiting with no offices, cars, official homes or allowances. They will not even be allowed to attend FEC meetings but will be paid their basic ministerial salary as prescribed by RMFAC. 

Nigeria can function perfectly with just 15 ministers and I plan to run my government that way. Who is the current Minister of State for the FCT? There you go........

Import Concomitant Directive 

It is fascinating how Nigerians have become a people who import everything from cassava to toothpicks. While it makes sense for some items to be imported where they can be produced cheaper, some things are completely inexcusable.

I also do not think banning things is the answer to the problem of importing goods which kill our local entrepreneurial spirit. Banning stuff is so yesterday.

In my first week in office, I will issue an executive order introducing the ICD [Import Concomitant Directive]. What this directive will seek to achieve is to seek out certain unnecessary items that are currently being imported into Nigeria and make them concomitants of other locally available items. 

As an example, if your daughter is getting married and you feel led to import the flowers to decorate the wedding venues from South Africa, you will not be discouraged from doing so. However flowers will be made a concomitant of manure, so if you are importing flowers, you will need to also import an equal in value amount of manure. Manure is also a concomitant of cows, so you will also need to import cows equal in value. As it will be unfair for you to import cows to come and eat the Nigerian grass meant for Nigerian cows, you will also need to import grass for them to eat. 

Grass is also a concomitant of manure.

Another example is Brazilian weave on. To import this type of weave on, you will need to import an equal in value amount of glue as it's not fair to use our local glue to glue imported Brazilian hair to your head. To import glue, you will need to import flour and to import flour you will need to import margarine just in case you decide to use the glue to make bread. To successfully bring in margarine, you will have to import whatever animal the fat was sourced from. If it's from cow's fat, then you will do well to remember that grass is a concomitant of cows which also requires the importation of manure.

Why would anyone want to import bullsh*t I hear you ask? Well why on earth do you want to import flowers to celebrate your daughter's wedding in the first place?

As always, there will be incentives for people who find an alternative means of producing what was previously imported. So if you set up a factory harvesting Brazilian hair locally, my government will support you. If you decide to import the Brazilians themselves, the govt will fast-track their expatriate visa applications and provide you with an interest free loan to set up your company locally.

A full list of concomitants will be released within the first 4 weeks of my government and will be constantly updated.

Billionaire Fast-track Programme a.k.a Who Wants To Be A Billionaire?

Ask any Nigerian to name the country's 3 richest businessmen and it's not unlikely that such a person will say Otunba Mike Adenuga, Femi Otedola and Alhaji Aliko Dangote. 

I like billionaires. Billionaires are good for any developing society as they have found a way to create wealth while also creating employment at the same time.

But looking at those 3 names I mentioned, you can immediately spot a small problem when you drill down to their core businesses. Femi Otedola makes his money from diesel, he doesnt sell spaghetti or cement which is Dangote's stronghold. Mike Adenuga makes his money from Glo and Conoil in the main. The core businesses of these 3 men are not in competition with each other....each of them has managed to carve out an area of the Nigerian economy and is now dominating it with minimal competition. 

If indeed this is a problem, what is the solution? Do we send the EFCC after them or seize their properties to destroy their wealth? Aguntasolo believes the opposite is the correct answer.

Nigeria needs more billionaires in direct competition with the 3 men I have named above. We need at least 3 more high profile diesel billionaires to increase competition in that sector. We also need a few more Dangotes selling cement and spaghetti in the country.

I will therefore direct my Minister for Social Mobility and Head of Business to launch my Billionaire Fast-track Programme. The idea of the programme will be to invite Nigerians who are multi millionaires in certain areas of the economy [but not yet billionaires] to submit a growth plan that will make them billionaires over a 4 year period.

As an example if you are currently a diesel merchant and you are making around N100m a year, you will be invited to submit a plan that can grow your business to generate N1bn in 4 years. Once your plan has been appraised, you will then be invited to a series of interviews culminating in a final round of interviews with the President and then a decision will be made as to whether to admit you into the BFTP.

It should be noted that you will not be made a billionaire by being awarded government contracts or simply money being credited into your bank account. You must demonstrate how you will add value to the country by the service or product that will make you a billionaire. So if you think building a diesel refinery in the country will make you a diesel billionaire, then the government will support you with funding, import waivers and cheap land to make this process as quick as possible. The programme will not support a person who is already making N800m a year for instance. The cap for consideration will be N200m in annual profits.

In my first term in office, I intend to create at least 10 new billionaires in various sectors of the economy to increase competition in strategic sectors of the economy. 

Once a member of the BFTP has achieved N1bn in annual profits, he or she must maintain billion naira profits for 5 straight years before he can be allowed to graduate from the programme. If profits drop below N1bn in the first 5 years, then the person will be removed from the programme and jailed for 5 years for fraud.

There will be several other conditions attached to joining this programme such as minimum employment generated and others which will be published in the BFTP prospectus.

 A simple example of the usefulness of billionaires in Nigeria can be illustrated by asking the question; How easy is it to buy the vote of someone who works in Adenuga's bank or Globacom? Can you offer N1000 to someone who works in Zenon to sell their vote to you on election day? Exactly. 

Sometimes the best and possibly only way to get services to the people, is to allow the service providers do it for a profit.

To whom much is given, even more will be given and much more will be expected.

So Messrs Otedola, Dangote and Adenuga......please support me. I promise my govt will not lay a finger on you but you will work a lot harder for your money.

Local Government Reform

The solution to corruption in Nigeria is not to send EFCC chasing after people. That's a classic case of attacking the symptoms and not the root cause of the problem. What is the point in exposing a government official to billions of naira and then going after him after he has obviously helped himself to some of the billions at his disposal?

There are also too many people living off our democracy and getting rich at the country's expense. This number has to come down so that government stops crowding out the private sector and allows it to flourish.

Nigeria currently has 774 Local Government chairmen and a further 774 Vice Chairmen feeding fat on the country and not doing much in return. We also have 8812 councillors for an average of 11 per local government representing their wards. 

Within 4 weeks of my inauguration, I will submit a bill to the national assembly scrapping the office of LG Chairman and Vice Chairman. In my previous note A Is For Allocation, I mentioned that based on the March Federal allocation to the LGs, the 'poorest' LG [Bakassi] received N53m for the month while the 'richest' LG [Alimosho] received N303m. Now it's not far fetched to imagine that the Chairman and Vice Chairman of each LG cost us N3m per month in salaries and corruption. Over one year this comes to a staggering N56bn and quite possibly more.

Under my reforms, only councillors will be elected at the LG level. Once the councillors have been elected [ I will also restrict this to a maximum of 10 councillors per LG] they will then have 30 days to elect a Head of Council among themselves by a simple majority. If they cannot elect a Head in 30 days, the council will be dissolved and all the councillors barred from contesting for any office in the country for 10 years. This will be punishment for wasting the public's time.

Part of the thinking behind this plan is to bring in more quality candidates at the local government level. If you are a professional and you believe you have something to offer your council, to make it easy for you and other good people to come into the system without the need for godfathers, in theory you will only need to win your ward to get on the council and then convince 9 other people to let you be the head of the council. It is a lot less difficult to win a ward which might only be made up of a few streets than to win an LG which might stretch for kilometres. 

The monthly allocation for the LGs will also be paid directly to the LG's bank account every month as opposed to being channelled through the Governor who will then retain a huge chunk for himself and his wife.

If this is still not enough for you to participate because you are a fine boy or girl, then you will be sent on exile out of the country for a minimum of 5 years if you are caught complaining about your local government on Facebook.

Federalized Downward Integration Programme

Currently every single Nigerian is represented by a Councillor, Member of State House of Assembly, Federal Representative and a Senator. This is ridiculous and is one of the prime drivers of corruption.

I plan to tackle this as well in my first 6 months in office. The aim of the FDIP [this doesnt really mean anything but I have given it this name to make it look like it's a good thing for the politicians] will be to eliminate the state houses of assembly as currently constituted and replace them with the current House of Representatives. So each Federal Representative will go back to his state and replace the current state house of assembly members. The positions of the current 990 state houses of assembly members will be scrapped and the members will be told to get a life. 

Nigeria does not need 2 legislative bodies in Abuja for any reason. There are simply too many of them hence the fighting going on in their chambers everytime. They also help to slow down democracy and stop it from working for the people due to their crazy behaviour and lack of common sense.

To mitigate this, the Senate will be increased to 4 Senators from each state as I am sure they will start complaining of the extra 'work' they have to do now that there is no longer a House of Reps. The Senate thus becomes a 145 member body.

In total my LG reforms and FDIP will remove almost 3500 ex, current and future criminals from access to government money. I fully expect them to become disgruntled elements throwing stones from the outside. If this helps to keep the remaining few on their feet, so be it.

Church And Mosque Non-Proliferation Treaty 

This is another area in which I will like to increase 'competition'. So under my CAMNPT plan, each church 'franchise' will be allowed to open 5 churches/mosques in each LGA for free. Any other church/mosque after the first 5 will attract a one off levy of N10m per branch and an annual charge of N2m per branch above the first 2 free ones.

There can however be an unlimited number of churches or mosques in a LGA provided they are different 'brand' names. 

This law will be applied in retrospect. So where we have a franchise with more than 5 churches already in place in one LGA, it will have to either merge the branches, sell them to a competing franchise, close them down or pay the levy as above. Competing franchises will also be allowed to bid for the branches of their competitors using a straight forward merger/acquisition or hostile takeover.

It will be up to the churches or mosques to then decide on the 'financial viability' of the branches and make a decision on whether to keep them open.

Government By Texting

Unlike one of my rivals, I will not be using Facebook to interact with Nigerians in the main. I will set up a free number where each Nigerian will be asked to send his name, date of birth and local govt. Once you have sent this free text, you will be registered to receive regular texts for free from the President. This will mainly be a tool for information dissemination and awareness.

For example, once the monthly allocation for your local govt has been paid to them, you will receive a text telling you how much your LG received [based on the LG you registered with] and when and how it was paid. We will also use technology to ensure each text is personalised to the sender e.g 'Dear Mr Olowoporoku, the President will like you to know that Ado-Ekiti LG has just been paid N100m for it's August 2011 monthly allocation directly into it's Skye Bank account.......'

I will direct my Minister for Statistics and Information Dissemination [MR SID] to set up a data bank to handle the information we will be receiving. The mobile phone network providers will also be asked to supply information on their customers to this end.

I will scrap censuses in Nigeria as they are a useless exercise [See P Is For Power] and instead use a wide variety of methods to collate data on Nigerians. The data will be released slowly but surely to the public on a regular basis until such a time as the public's mind has been fully prepared to receive the news that Lagos is far more populated than Kano from official quarters.

There will be no facility to reply the texts you receive from the President to discourage the sycophants and prayer warriors from responding or liking the text without actually reading the message. 

In the final part of my manifesto, I will be discussing my plans for the economy and how I plan to transfer economic power to the people so as to reduce the influence of money bag politicians during elections. I believe that for Nigeria to fully develop and for people to really participate in democracy actively, they need to stop worrying about where their next meal will come from first of all.

Long Live The Federal Republic of Nigeria

Aguntasolo 2011: Let's Go There!

The Word On The Streets II

Everytime I go to Nigeria, I always try to wear my amebo journalist's cap. This trip was a really short one but all the same I 'overheard' certain things.

1. Nigeria is a country blessed with beautiful women. Take any sample of Nigerian women from any subset and you will easily pick out a few remarkably good looking women. There are beautiful women on television, billboards, at weddings, on the streets....name it.

Bearing the above in mind, it is safe to conclude that the female air hostesses who work for Arik Airlines are NOT Nigerians. To stave off an internet lynching, I will say no more on this.

2. Staying with Arik, I wonder if Nigerians are snobbish when it comes to choosing what airline to fly with? Got to the airport on my way to Nigeria and was told my flight was going to make a 1 hour stopover in Abuja. As much as this was a bit of a nuisance, in fairness it wasnt that bad as it meant we were to land in Lagos at 6.30am as opposed to the normal 4.20am. Lagos being what it is, nobody leaves their house to come to the airport at that time of the day. 

The reason for the disruption was easy to figure out....they were clearly struggling with low capacity usage on their flights hence the need to merge the Lagos and Abuja flights on that day. This was confirmed by the fact that no one was heard screaming at the airport and the scales section where we Nigerians usually weigh our oversized bags was virtually empty when I got there. 

On the flight back, I was the only one on my row of seats in the middle aisle. As soon as the seatbelt lights went out, yours truly promptly pulled up all the armrests and voila, I was in business class. 

Now I am thinking if Arik cant fill a plane at a time when no right thinking Nigerian will gamble on flying with BA, it's either that their prices are not competitive or Nigerians havent warmed to them. They were the cheapest when I booked my ticket so I wonder............

3. Everytime I go to Nigeria, the cost of moving back home for a returnee appears to have gone up by N10m or thereabouts. Saw a 4 bed house somewhere in Lekki around the 4th roundabout. Nicely built and tastefully finished. I was told it sold for N60m. Move to Dolphin estate in Ikoyi and the same house would sell for anything up to N100m.

There's so much money sloshing around it's unreal. Government money has effectively become no one's money in Nigeria...so he who finds it, gets to keep it. Probably the only way left for people who have this kind of government money to spend it, is by buying up properties all over the place. 

We really havent got a clue how corruption is damaging us in that country. EFCC? Fuggedaboutit. We are not going to win the war against corruption using Nigerians on a salary to chase people who have almost unlimited resources. I think our thinking and government structure must change for us to even begin to deal with this scourge. 

What we currently have is a situation whereby the allocation for a state is effectively handed over to the governor every month for him to do as he pleases with. The temptations to steal are just too high. And when people in or around government steal, ordinary Nigerians cannot afford to live in the decent parts of town.

4. It's one thing to write and read about sycophancy, it's quite another thing to see the very thing in action. Hear what someone told me about his trip to Abuja to see a government minister about a contract:

"As I was sitting in the guy's office waiting for him to answer me, one guy just came in and without even sitting down he just started hailing the minister '..Your excellency, ever since you ascended to this high office, this ministry has never witnessed the kind of development and change you have brought here. God will bless you and continue to elevate you sir....' .....I was just sitting there and watching the scene..I couldnt believe it. And the minister was obviously enjoying it cos the guy was smiling. In his mind he knows that he can make you very rich with one contract so he's thinking I might as well give it to the person who swells my head.

"Another time I went to Abuja and as soon as I saw the minister, the guy said 'I am going to Kaduna, follow my entourage'......what are you going to do? You no go follow?"

Or how to win government business in Nigeria.

5. There's a lot of good stuff happening outside of Lagos. The widely held impression is that Gov Fashola is the best performing governor in Nigeria who uses other governors to wipe the floor. I dont think this is very true. For a start, most of the national media are based in Lagos so he tends to get the best coverage when he does anything good while the others only get a mention when they do something silly.

One name which I keep hearing for good performance is Sullivan Chime in Enugu state. I havent been to Enugu in many many years but those who have tell me he's doing good stuff out there. If anyone's reading out there from Enugu, please correct me if what I've heard is wrong.

I think as Nigerians who have grown up in a very mobile age, we have to be willing to look outside of Lagos for a lot of things. When I spoke to people about the senselessness of some of the costs of living in Lagos and the option of moving elsewhere in Nigeria, the response I usually get is that 'you will be bored in all those places'. This to me is a good sign as it means people acknowledge that they can have a life elsewhere but their only objection is the boredom. 

So if you want to get people to move to Jigawa state which I hear is a really easy place to do business with the government, maybe you should open a few night clubs there.

6. One of the things that might encourage people to move out of Lagos in the long term is the rail network currently being built/rebuilt from Lagos to Kano. Two contracts totalling N24bn were awarded for the work; Lagos to Jebba for N12bn and Jebba to Kano for another N12bn. As I understand it, work is at an advanced stage and 'self diagnosing computerised' locomotives have already been brought into the country. 

For someone like me, if I could find a way to get from say Sagamu to Victoria Island in 1 hour, I'd happily live there and commute. But that's just me. It will be interesting to see how the train service plays out when it starts operating by the end of the year as I understand. A few of the locomotives which have been brought in to the country are strictly for cargo freight. Will also be interesting to see how the trailer drivers of this world react to that.

7. Saw a plan for something that's supposed to happen in Lagos in the next 3 to 4 years. I was stunned I must say. The project will almost completely transform Lagos state. I toted up the figures at something like $1bn....amazing stuff.

Sadly in the Lagos of the future, there will be no room for poor people. No wonder people in government were pissed at the BBC's documentary.

8. So I was the MC at my friend's wedding. First of all the job is way harder than I thought. It took me forever to shake off the nerves so much so that 3 'well crafted and rehearsed jokes' I had been honing for a couple of months now, never made it out of my head where they had been stored. 

So I wont be yabbing MCs anytime I attend a wedding again. 

But what I didnt fail to notice was the disconnect between the older generation and my generation. Almost as if we've grown up so fast but in their eyes we remain little children. The Chairman at the wedding basically took the programme and told me to cut out half of the items on the agenda. I protested in vain. And when I went ahead and allowed the chief bridesmaid to give her speech which she had taken time to prepare, he immediately summoned me to query why I had allowed it despite him telling me not to. As far as he was concerned, young people cant handle the most basic of tasks without guidance.

My conclusion is that it's not just IBB who thinks my generation cant run things in Nigeria...he was just silly to voice it out in an internet age. 

What this also tells me is that, if we think we are good enough to guide Nigeria in the right direction and we believe we have better ideas for our country, we might as well start believing in ourselves. There are not a lot of people out there who believe in us.

9. The vast majority of my friends on Facebook are people whom I've never physically met. I have managed to transfer some of these friendships to phone calls, emails or even physical meetings over time. 

A couple of days before I left for Nigeria, a friend on Facebook whom I had never met or spoken to at the time sent me a message wanting to discuss the 2011 elections specifically relating to Pat Utomi. Anyway he rang me and I told him I was actually due in Nigeria in a couple of days. Would I like to meet Pat Utomi while I was around? I told him I was barely going to be in Nigeria for 72hrs but I'd meet with Prof Utomi even if he wasnt running for President. Somewhere along the line, he had discussed some of the stuff going on on Facebook with the Professor specifically what the 'internet militants' were saying about his campaign.

Long story short, he set up the meeting for Friday at 2pm and I got there at 1.30pm. Pat Utomi was in some meeting somewhere on the island but he duly arrived at 1.55pm and we had a meeting for over an hour. 

What did I think of him? He came across as a very decent man. Perhaps too decent for what we know about Nigerian politics. Is he serious about wanting to be President of Nigeria? I think he is BUT it's not a do or die affair for him. He seems to have a full life outside of politics. Can he win? I think he will struggle to win a free and fair election even, but stranger things have happened.

I will very easily vote for him. He is yet to win the nomination of the Mega Party and he told me they intend to have a free and transparent presidential primary as a way of winning over Nigerians as opposed to what is likely to obtain from the PDP version.

I will have more to say on this matter later but one thing I am clear about is that, when we vote for a President next year, we shouldnt just vote based on our current circumstances, we ought to vote based on what we want the country to be in the near future.....as opposed to looking backwards, we should try to look forward with our votes. 

In that sense, a vote for Pat Utomi, if he gets the nomination, is not a wasted vote.....assuming there's such a thing as a wasted vote in the first place.

He gave me a book as I was leaving his office and I asked him to autograph it. He wrote 'To Feyi for the things we seek for the fatherland'. Amen....yours truly is now a Comrade :-) 

To my friend who set up this meeting, thank you....sincerely. 

10. I am hearing that our much villified churches are fine tuning plans to play a very active role in the next elections. To the point where the big Pentecostal churches will come out to endorse a particular candidate even. 

Whether they manage to agree on a candidate or not, I think it's safe to say they are going to behave differently during this elections. I even hear there will be Sundays when congregants will be asked to come to church with their voters card and asked to show it openly. It is unclear whether a penalty charge will be added to the tithes of those who are unable to show their cards but I am all for anything that helps to raise awareness before and during the elections. 

The more aware people are, the harder it will be to rig.

11. Everywhere I went in Lagos, I never stopped hearing this song. It's not exactly a new song but now I cant seem to get it out of my head. First thing I did when I got back into London was to download it officially. I have promised not to illegally download any Nigerian artiste's song again as long as it's available to buy on the internet :-) 

12. The lack of 'adehun'* is alive and well in Nigeria. The night before I was due to leave, I told the driver who was to take me to the airport that I would be leaving the house at 7.30am and he said no problems.

Next morning at 7.30 the dude was nowhere to be found. He turned up around 7.45am and I asked him where he had been. 

Driver: Mo sare lo ra akara ni Obalende ni [I quickly went to buy Akara in Obalende]

Me: O lo ra akara? [struggling to contain my laughter] [You went to buy Akara?]

Driver: [Laughing] Beni [Yes]

Me: Akara na wa da? [So where's the akara?]

Driver: Mi o ri ra...ojo to'n ro yen ti le won wole [I didnt get to buy...the rain had chased the sellers away] 

*If you dont know what Adehun means, you need to ask your nearest Yoruba speaking friend.

13. At the wedding on Saturday, a room with 2 screens and drinks had been prepared for the guests who were itching to go and watch the Argentina match. I managed to join in for the second half of the game....boy, it's been a while I watched a Nigerian match in Nigeria. It was full blooded as expected and I cant count the number of times someone tripped off the TV in their excitement when a promising Nigerian play was developing. 

Then there was the usual were ni bobo yi o [this guy is nuts]......bobo yi o mo gba anything walahi [honest to God this guy cant play jack]....fun ni yellow card jo [give him a yellow card please] etc....all of these delivered at the highest possible voice pitch the person could muster and arms flailing wildly. 

A white couple who were visiting Nigeria for the first time joined us during the second half and I kept stealing glances at them. Initially the guy seemed terrified when people would jump up and down screaming at an overhit cross. But by the end of the game, the guy himself was nodding his head when a cross went into the box and holding his head in his hands when Kalu Uche attempted some silly first time shot when he should have taken a first touch in the final minutes. 

Welcome to Lagos.....where nothing is done in half measures.

14. Finally, I love my mother to bits. There is nothing she could have given me in life that she hasnt. She sacrificed everything to ensure my siblings and I, got a decent education. I always maintain that the blessings that have meant the most to me in my life have been channeled by God to me through my mother.

In light of this, I am struggling to find a way to tell her that I wont be bringing back ogi for her anytime I go to Nigeria again. The hassle I get at customs over the thing is unbecoming. The last time I went home, after I had been harassed by one woman, I made a point of giving money to the guy who had been appealing to her to take it easy and stop being uptight. 

This time around I was determined not to pay a kobo to anybody. So when they started their wahala, I simply told them I was going to leave the thing behind as I had no money to give them. After about 5 minutes of this standoff, they let me be and allowed me to take it with me.

There you have it.....72 hours in Lagos.

Congratulations to Sele and Enimien whose very special day I was proud to be a part of.

P Is For 'Power'

In my previous note, A is for 'Allocation', I tried to make the point that as a result of scarce resources in Nigeria, the larger a state or Local Government becomes in terms of population, the poorer it's citizens become in per capita terms.

A quick way to test this is to compare the revenue allocated to the largest LG in terms of population in March 2010 [Alimosho, N303m, Pop: 1.3m] and the smallest [Bakassi, N53m, Pop: 32k]. So while the population has increased by a multiple of 42, the revenue has only increased by a multiple of 6....or to put it another way, population is driving at a speed of 140km/hr while revenue is driving at 20km/hr.  

So if people get poorer per capita as population increases, what then is the benefit of having a large population? What does a large population in Nigeria get you? The short answer to both questions is power.

How Does Population Translate Into Power?

On paper Nigeria has got a pretty decent looking structure from the ground up. However the fact that we have never truly been a federal unit has meant that an inordinate amount of power remains concentrated at the Federal Govt level. This in turn makes the centre (or the Presidency) a huge prize in Nigerian politics.

So how does population hand you control of the centre? Strictly speaking, the prizes to be controlled are the Executive and Legislature. 

Let us exclude the Senate from the legislature for the purpose of this analysis. The composition and size of the senate is not determined by population size; each state simply gets 3 Senators to represent it. No smoking gun here, let's move on.

But the Federal House of Representatives is strictly determined and composed by population. In carving up the country into 360 federal constituencies, the idea was that each constituency should be made up of roughly the same number of people in terms of population. But dont take my word for it, here's what the 1999 constitution says in Section 49

"49. Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the House of Representatives shall consist of three hundred and sixty members representing constituencies of nearly equal population as far as possible, provided that no constituency shall fall within more than one State"

Now using the 2006 census which puts Nigeria's total population at 140,431,790, this would mean that each constituency in Nigeria should be 140,431,790/360 = 390,088 people or thereabouts.

The next thing to do is to test how accurate this is. For ease, I have consolidated the numbers up to the geo-political level. 

The total population of the South West is/was 27,722,432 which equates to 20% of the total population. How many Reps does the South West have in total? 71, which equates to 20% of the total number of Reps. Nice isnt it? Let's keep going. The South East has 16.4m people and 43 Reps which works out at 12% for both. In the South South there are 21m people sharing 55 Reps which again works out equally at 15% in each case. In the North West there are 35m people and 92 Reps working out at 26% for both. 

You are probably getting bored now so I will tell you that the percentage of the population for each zone exactly matches the percentage of the Reps it has in the House. It gets better; when you break it down to state level, all the 36 states and Abuja have identical percentages for their share of the population vis a vis their share of Reps in the House [due to rounding Lagos has 6% of the population and 7% of the Reps...same as Bayelsa with 1% and 2% respectively but every other state is exactly equal]. 

This is very accurate indeed. And that is exactly the problem; it is too accurate. 

Some sharp readers would have noticed a big flaw with my calculations above. What I am doing is using population numbers for 2006 for constituencies which were drawn up in 1998(?). And my answers are dead accurate! How is this possible? How is it that the constituencies delimited in 1998 are predicting the census figures for 2006? At the time the current federal constituencies were drawn up in 1998, the latest available population figures were from the 1991 census which put the country's total population at 88,992,220.   

The best way to answer the questions above is to test the movement from the 1991 census to the 2006 census.

Between both censuses, 6 states were created by General Sani Abacha in 1996. Nasarawa was cut out of Plateau, Ebonyi out of Enugu, Gombe out of Bauchi, Zamfara out of Sokoto, Bayelsa out of Rivers and Ekiti out of Ondo. [Again you will notice that 1 new one has been created in each zone to maintain the status quo]. So for the purpose of comparison, I added in the population numbers for the new states into their old states to get back to 30 states for both censuses.

Let's analyse by geo-political zones again. In 1991 the North Central's population was 12.5m and 15 years later it had increased to 20.3m. In both cases the share of the population was 14%. For the North East it was 12m in 1991 and 19m in 2006. Again in both cases, the share of the population was 13%. For the North West it was 23m and 36m respectively. And, you guessed it, 26% of the population in both years. It depresses me to report that each geo-political zone's share of the population in 1991 was exactly the same share in 2006. Not even a 2% swing between zones. Using the South East as an example [this zone has the highest and lowest increase across the 2 censuses] Abia State increased by 22% while Enugu increased by 73% while Imo and Anambra increased by 58% and 49%. In the end, the zones cancels itself out and the status quo ante is maintained.

I am not a student of population studies [if any population student is reading please school me where I am wrong] but these numbers are amazing to say the least. Can it really be that each geo-political zone's population is increasing in lock step with every other zone?

To rub insult upon injury, each state's share of the total population in 2006 in percentage terms is exactly the same as it was in 1991. No difference at all across any of the states. Of all the crazy things that happen in Nigeria, the way our censuses are calculated must the biggest LWKMD of all. 

The only conclusion from both examples above is that population numbers in Nigeria are merely an allocation of numbers using a formula that has been in existence for many years now.....but I am sure you knew that already.

The Question of Zoning and Why We Must Kick Out The PDP

It's safe to say a sizeable number of Nigerians have come to despise the whole zoning arrangement as symbolised by the PDP. Many people have rightly pointed out that the 'zoning arrangement' is a PDP palaver so in theory the problem will dissapear insofar as we can kick out the PDP. But is this really true? The answer isnt so straightforward.

Because of the diverse and multi ethnic nature of Nigeria, the idea of zoning has been implicit in our national politics. The difference lies in the 'brand' of zoning. So while the PDP brand can be said to be burukutu, we have generally been a nation of kai kai drinkers if you get my drift.

Geopolitical zones dont exist in the context of the Nigerian constitution but we do have 'Federal Character' which has been enshrined in our constitution since 1979. In theory they are 2 different things but in the hands of mischievous politicians they become almost intertwined. 

What makes Nigeria's geo-political zones a dangerous thing is that a deliberate imbalance has been built into it. Take a look at the map of Nigeria below for a few seconds.

The trick that has been played here is the inclusion of Jigawa State in the North West zone. It is for this singular reason that the North West has 26% of the population of Nigeria and by extension, 26% of the Reps in the House. Using the 2006 population 'numbers' again, if we move Jigawa from the North West to the North East, this significantly balances the federation across the 6 zones and no one single zone crosses the 25% mark [The North West drops from 26% down to 23% and the North East moves up from 14% to 17%]. 

What seems to have happened here is a weird game of 'pass the population' in which Jigawa state was used as a weight to ensure one zone was significantly more powerful than every other zone in Nigeria. Assuming we are going to even buy into this zoning business in the first place, we can see that the game is badly rigged from the get go. It's difficult to see exactly how anyone can look at the above map and conclude that Jigawa state is in the Western part of the North. Even a butcher at Odo Eran abbatoir in Lagos would have done a better job of carving up the country.

This should come as no surprise at all. The 'geo-political' zone idea crept into our national consciousness under General Sani Abacha and unwittingly Nigerians have come to accept it as a way of life. It was never an official pronouncement from his government yet today, 12 years after his death the idea has been firmly embedded in the consciousness of all Nigerians. So even though we reject zoning [the PDP brand] we are comfortable with zones. Another example of how bad leadership is not restricted to the tenure of the bad leader......the echo can be heard many years later. 

What the PDP are doing by carrying on with the zoning argument is effectively prolonging one of the legacies of Abacha. 

It is therefore not a question of supporting Jonathan because he will break this formula by getting the nomination for the presidency; it's a question of what that party has come to represent in Nigerian politics and how it helps to perpetuate Nigeria's kleptocracy masquerading as a democracy.

Now you are probably asking yourself 'if this guy is saying geo-political zones are a bad idea, why has he used them in his calculations above?'. The simple answer is that we need to see the mischief in the idea behind the things we are being fed by our leaders. So for example when you look at the movement of the population of the South East states across the 2 censuses what you see is 22%, 49%, 73% and 58%. Looking at those numbers dont show up anything suspicious. But when you take the Igbos as a whole in the South East, it becomes a weird zero sum game......all that movement just to stand still. Furthermore, all the movement ensures that each state of the federation maintains it's 'share' of the national cake by way of it's population. You are not permitted to rise above your station......you musnt speak until you are spoken to...and do not come forward until you have been called....etc.

So of the 13 different men who have ruled Nigeria [military and civilian] as President/Head of State, 5 of them have come from the North West zone....or 38% of the time. The kleptocracy works be it in khaki or agbada. 

Conclusion

When you look at the mischief being played with numbers in Nigeria you can see how wobbly the legs on which the country stands are. A state or region cannot vote more than it's population so elections in Nigeria can be seen as a controlled exercise in a sterile laboratory. They are designed to keep out everyone but a few people from participating. Membership is by invitation only. 

While we continue to debate each other over the size of the North as opposed to the size of the South, the fact of the matter is that that very debate is a red herring. The North or whoever gets the largest share of the population does not benefit from it.....when you view it from the point of the people who are supposedly being counted. It's why P is not for population in this note...but for power.

The road ahead of us as a nation is a rather long one and laced with landmines.......but I find it strangely impossible to give up on this country. 

So whereas Abraham Lincoln prayed on November 19, 1863 that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth......my prayer is simply that one day it shall find it's way into our land Nigeria.

 

FF

A Is For 'Allocation'

I have just been on a virtual tour of every Local Government in Nigeria and I am happy to report my findings.

What I have found striking is that, Nigeria does have a 'fairly' decent structure...at least on paper. By this I mean, a fairly decent amount of 'fairness' is inbuilt into our system. 

There are of course a lot of bugs in the system...some glaring, some not so obvious. What we need to be asking anyone who wants to run for President next year is how exactly he/she plans to fix this country and get it to work. Bearing this in mind, let's proceed into a fantasy world where all the country's money is shared among it's citizens.............

 

Population

You will struggle to find a Nigerian who thinks any of the last few censuses we have had in Nigeria were anything approaching credible exercises. This cynicism has fed the urban myth, no doubt propagated by politicians, that our censuses are designed to understate the numbers in one part of the country [usually the South] while boosting the numbers in another part of the country at the same time [usually the North].

But who really benefits from a large population? Say we had a miraculously credible census and the results showed that Southern Nigeria is more populated than the North, does it mean Southerners will automatically be better off?

Here's how Wikipedia defines Per Capita Income

"Per capita income means how much each individual receives, in monetary terms. It is the measure of the amount of money that each person earns in the country, of the yearly income generated in the country. This is what each citizen is to receive if the yearly national income is divided equally among everyone"

Bearing the above in mind, I decided to do a small exercise based on the Revenue distributed to the 36 States  and 774 Local Govts by the Federation Account Allocation Committee [FAAC] for the month of March 2010 [paid in April 2010]. 

Using the 2006 Census figures which puts Nigeria's population at 140,431,790, it's pretty straightforward working out the Per Capita income down to the local government level. What you find is unmistakeably clear; the more people there are, the poorer that local govt [and subsequently state] becomes. 

To make life simpler, I didnt bother allocating the FG's share of the revenue as this will simply be divided across everybody in the country. But even if we did each person would get an extra N800 on top of the PCI I will show you below. 

We can also calculate the PCI before and after the 13% derivation is added to the mix. In March, a total of N22bn was shared across 8 Oil producing states [Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, Rivers] on top of the money given to the LGs and the states.

So what's the richest LG in Nigeria when you divide the total allocation given to the LG and the state by the population before adding in the 13% derivation? Abaji LGA in the FCT Abuja. The PCI for this LG in March was N3,383. Cigarette money some might say, but that's how 'rich' Nigeria is I'm afraid. See the top 10 list below. And the poorest? Abuja Municipal [AMAC] in the same FCT with a PCI of N377 for March 2010 or just over 10% of what their neighbours in Abaji are 'worth'. This is of course a typical Nigerian thing....poverty and wealth coexisting happily side by side. It's important to note that even though AMAC got N292m in total for the month while Abaji got N198m, the population numbers [776,298 and 58,642 respectively] completely turned the PCI on it's head. 

The first LG from an oil producing state list to appear on the PCI ranking [sans derivation I hasten to add again] is Udung Uko LGA in Akwa Ibom at number 18, again helped by a low population [N1,652]. Ibeju Lekki LGA comes in at #10 [boosted by the VAT element of the LG's allocation] while Bakassi LGA in Cross Rivers [are they still part of Nigeria??] comes in at #3. The rest of the top 10 is made up of LGs from Adamawa, Taraba, Kogi, Ekiti, Osun...all of them driven by low population numbers with the exception of Ibeju Lekki as explained above.

Switching to the bottom 10, an astonishing 8 of the LGs there are from Kano State. AMAC is bottom of the pile followed by Nasarawa, Dala and Kano Municipal LGAs. Extend to the bottom 30 and it's the same. Kano state makes up 20 out the 30 bottom LGAs. Consider that Kano has 44 LGAs in total and it's even more striking to note. In fact the 'richest' LG in Kano state is Tofa LG which comes in at #437 in the list of 774 LGs [PCI: N985]. In the bottom 30, the only southern LGs that make the list are all from Oyo State [Ibadan North, Ibadan North East, Egbeda]. You dont need me to tell you that the number one driver of this compounded poverty [the country isnt rich in the first place] is a large population. 

What is also sad from looking at the numbers is how much damage corruption is doing to us as a country. Corruption basically entrenches the poverty our people already find themselves in. Take Jigawa State under Saminu Turaki as an example. The EFCC charged him for stealing N36bn from the state over the 8 years of his governorship [1999 - 2007]. Now in March Jigawa received a total of N4.2bn which works out to a PCI of N992 per month for the citizens of that state. Now say Jigawa received N4bn per month for 8 years, they'd have received something like N384bn......and Saminu Turaki walked away with 9.4% of that. When you feed this into the PCI, each person in that state will be poorer by nearly N100 per month....and that's before factoring all the other people who have their hands in the coffers and inflation and everything else which makes people poorer. 

A friend on Facebook recently remarked that Nigerian democracy is effectively a war by politicians against the people. You can see why....everytime they steal, we just get poorer and poorer. The message is clear; it's not enough for us to hate corruption. That wont do. We must despise it......the anger must well up inside of us when we hear of people stealing public money....whether the person is a Fashola who is 'performing' or an Alao-Akala who is bleaching. No one has a right to appropriate our money for themselves.

The time for games have also passed. We are not just looking for a career politician as President in 2011. We are looking for a brilliant Manager. This country is NOT rich....dont let any half baked politician fool you. We need people who understand this fact so they can know how to allocate our scarce resources for maximum effect.

The other day I was speaking to a friend who told me that Nigeria is currently importing Cassava into the country to meet local demand! These things are heartbreaking to hear.......cassava only needs to be stuck in the ground for it to grow...you literarily just stick the stem into the soil and you are good to go. And we cant deal with that as a nation.....SMH

Back to our PCI calculations. Now let's add the 'oyel' money into the mix and see what happens. Abaji LG in the FCT still has the highest PCI in the country but after that it's all change as they say on the London Underground. Remember Udong Uko LG in Akwa Ibom? They are now #2. It's an almost perfect place to live [lol] because of the combination of a very low population [53k] and a N1,587 derivation top up to to the N1,652 it already had from the LG and state allocation. In fact numbers 2 to 7 on the list are all LGs from Akwa Ibom state. Kolokuma LG in Bayelsa breaks the trend at #8 with a PCI of N2,932 before the Akwa Ibom juggernaut resumes from #9 to #16. Nembe LG in Bayelsa comes in at #17 and Akwa Ibom again holds numbers 18 to 26. This is the richest state in Nigeria per capita by a mile. Again a combination of a low population and oil money does the trick. If you are from Akwa Ibom and you are unable to see the evidence of what I am talking about, you need to have a word with Obong Godswill Akpabio. There cant be any excuse for a lack of visible development in that state. 

How about the bottom of the list after the derivation money is added? Naturally it remains the same as before. Kano is still dominating the pack along with Kaduna, Katsina and Oyo states. The first state to break their monopoly on this infamy is Ifo LG in Ogun State. As an aside, Ifo is one of the LGs in Nigeria to have more women than men according to the 2006 census. It's also interesting to note that Enugu and Ebonyi states are the only states to have more women than men in the total population [only Uzo Uwani and Igbo-Etiti LGs have more men than women of the 17 LGs in Enugu State] . My guess is that the women of Enugu dont know this....given the allegations of wife battery that dogged Chimaroke 'Ebeano' Nnamani while he was governor of that state. 

The long and short of the above is that high population numbers only makes everyone poorer. We as the citizens must excuse ourselves from the arguments made by politicians to boost the population numbers of their states. The simple question to ask is 'how does it benefit me if there's more of us in this state? It benefits the politician because it means the govt allocates more money to the state from the federation account [the formula for revenue allocation is a bit complicated but it's safe to say around 40% of the money a state receives is directly driven by population while the rest of it is indirectly driven by population numbers as well....stealing the money is pretty straightforward though].

So why do people lie about population numbers then? I will try to explain that bit in part 2.....titled P is for 'Power'. 

This note's long enough already and I hate to bore you.

FF

Beer Parlour 2: Chief Ojo Maduekwe in The House!

It's worth restating: One of the aims of Beer Parlour Activism is to fight ignorance and misinformation among Nigerians. A BPA should normally have more knowledge to share than the average man on the street

Nigeria's immediate past Minister for Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Maduekwe has agreed to take questions from the Beer Parlour Activists. 

Again, we are looking for information and insight into how government works in Nigeria....the method to our madness if you like.

As someone who has been a 3 time minister in Nigeria since the return of democracy [Tourism & Culture 1999 - 2001, Transport: 2001 -2007, Foreign Affairs: 2007 -2010 and PDP National Secretary] Chief Ojo is very well qualified to take and answer our questions.

The ground rules are simple

1. No personal questions or insults [ I understand Chief Maduekwe is very 'popular' with young Nigerians on the internet :-)]

2. Let the questions be as technical as possible i.e seek to unravel how government works at the highest level in Nigeria.

3. No need for long greetings or prayers. Straight to the point

4. Send your questions to naijabeerparlour@gmail.com . The deadline for submitting questions is 9pm on Monday 17th May 2010.

5. Please feel free to send in more than one question. However, a team of 3 Barmen [Editors] will make the final selection of questions based on the criteria above. 

Please use your imagination and objectivity when sending your questions. Remember that as a BPA you are speaking on behalf of millions of Nigerians who cannot read, write, have no telephones, have no education and have no access to the internet or any means by which to speak to their representatives in government

To truly shame the likes of IBB who claim we cant govern our own country, we must first arm ourselves with information.

Finally it's important to publicly thank Mrs Obiageli 'Oby' Ezekwesili for blazing the trail in this series. Her example is partly what has made this, and hopefully many more to come, possible. [If you still want a copy of the Q&A with Mrs Ezekwesili, just send an email to naijabeerparlour@gmail.com with 'Oby' as the subject and we will reply with a copy]

God bless The Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Beer Parlour Activists for Nigeria [Peppersoup Included]

P.S If you are new to this and you are wondering this is all about, you can read the BPA charter here

The Law of 'Unsowed Reaping'*

The Angel of The Lord appeared to Goodluck son of Jonathan while he lay asleep with his wife Patience in the palace of Akinola Aguda. The Angel caused a deep sleep to come over Patience such that she did not awake while he spoke to Goodluck.

'It has pleased the Lord of Hosts to grant you good success where thine predecessors had severally failed. The Lord has heard the cries of His children since 1972 for there to be light in the land and He has seen it fit to answer their supplications. Therefore tomorrow you shall proceed to the temple where Power is Held here in this city and you shall turn on the lights across the nation' the Angel said.

'How is it that the Lord has seen it fit to grant me this success? The Lord knows that I sit on this throne precariously and out of necessity...why has the Lord chosen me for this task?' Goodluck queried.

'Was it not the Lord your God who brought you out of Otueke? Was it not He who saved you from the creeks of Bayelsa and gave you your fedora in place of your fisherman's net? The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof....He freely gives to whom He pleases. Was it not The selfsame Lord who saw it fit not to allow Moses to lead His children into the land of Canaan? If it pleases the Lord He is able to allow any man to reap where such a man did not sow....the work has already been done, the Lord only requires that you go and turn on the light' the Angel countered.

'The nation has toiled for many years and many billions have been spent on light. My predecessors have been snared by promises of thousands of megawatts in the past and they have failed. But nevertheless at thy word, I will go forth to the temple where power is held and will turn on the lights' Goodluck said.

After the Angel of the Lord had left, Goodluck son of Jonathan was unable to go back to sleep and he roused his wife Queen Patience to narrate what the Angel told him. But the Queen did not pay him much attention as he spoke for she was still in a state of half slumber.

In the morning, King Goodluck called upon his closest advisers Odein son of Ajumogbia, Diezani daughter of Allison who was also the wife of Madueke as well as Ima son of Niboro. Together they headed to the temple of power holding and demanded the keys to the room from where the nation's light was controlled. 

King Goodluck turned his eyes to the heavens and said a prayer 'My Lord My God you have instructed me to do this and I have believed you. I ask that thou wouldest not forsake me as I turn on the light for your children' 

The King then turned on the light and for a few moments nothing  happened. Then the lights everywhere in the temple began to come on for the temple where power is held itself had no light. The King nervously instructed Ima son of Niboro to seek out reports from all parts of the land as to whether the darkness had been overcome. 

All over the country there were reports of pylons which had hitherto lain moribund coming to life. Wherever power was generated, it was being used to turn on the lights and the people were liberated from their darkness.

And it came to pass that in the time of the Acting King, Goodluck son of Jonathan, the lights were turned on in the nation.

From Potiskum to Port-Harcourt there was much light in the land and the people knoweth not what to do with it. There was an out pouring of great joy and in churches and mosques all over the nation the people came in rejoicing bringing in their sheaves.

The merchants of black gold who had hitherto profited from the darkness suddenly became pariahs in the land as the people swore never to return to the darkness again. The merchants of black gold cast their eyes upon their stock of black gold and the several ships which were on the waters bringing in more of the commodity and they too knoweth not what to do with it. Many of the merchants soon fell into financial ruin and their leader who had previously been feted across the ocean in foreign lands as a leader of commerce, proceeded into exile to escape his creditors.

And after a few months the people knoweth not what to do with their generators for they had lain redundant for many months. Soon after the people began to gather in various parts of the land in large open spaces to burn their unwanted generators. And they came in their thousands with many people bringing in several generators to be burnt.

And after the generators had been burnt, there remained a great mass of liquid metal in the furnace and yet again the people knoweth not what to do with it. 

And the leaders of the people who congregated under the banner of the red and green umbrella decided to make a graven image of King Goodluck son of Jonathan from the great mass of liquid metal proclaiming 'O King Goodluck son of Jonathan, may your reign be forever. As you have liberated we your children from the darkness that had hitherto enveloped us, may your reign be long and without end'.

All across the land, the people cast graven images of King Goodluck son of Jonathan and in some places they made images of Queen Patience. And the King did nothing to discourage them. 

And the Lord looked down on the nation and what He saw greatly displeased Him. 

But the Lord looked at His Angel whom He had sent to deliver the message to Goodluck son of Jonathan and He smiled.

*The writer by this piece is making a prediction [not altogether bold but based on factual and anecdotal evidence] that there will be a remarkable improvement in the supply of electricity in Nigeria sometime in 2010. 

The Law of Unsowed Reaping states loosely that it's not always the person who puts in the hard work into a project that ultimately gets the popular credit for it.

FF

Letter to Ahmad T. Muhammad

Guy,

How far? How runnings?

One of my guy send me one letter  wey he talk say you write for inside ThisDay newspaper. 

Abeg make I ask you; how your own take be? You be Oga Ibro campaign manager? Dem send you abi you send yourself? I just dey ask because I never hear your name before. Abi you be Cabal?

Me and Bob Dee no too dey gree but e be like say you wan make me and the guy become friend by force with this kind letter wey you write.

I no too mind make you dey right letter for inside newspaper...na you get your keyboard so anything wey you like you fit write. And for my village for here, na groundnut dem dey take newspaper sell...so e no too pain me.

But as you feel say you sabi reply person letter, me sef I talk say make I reply you.....make we dey reply ourself dey go.

The first thing wey you yarn wey vex me na when you talk say all men for Naija dey suffer because of all the bad things wey our Ogas for Abuja dey do. You come yarn say na because Yar'Adua dey sick and Obj dey 'garrulous' na him cause our sufferhead for Naija.

Na true say Yar'Adua sickness no let the guy do anything since he become Presido. But which one be garrulous again? Person dey garrulous mean say na bad President? 

Me I no like Obj on a good day...but no be because he dey garrulous. If na only garrulous dey worry am, me I no go mind o.

You talk say na only Hausa Generals the guy dey talk about. You hear say Mike Akhigbe talk say him wan run for President? Abi no be Buhari and Ibro don dey try become President since all these days? Guy abeg talk another one.

You yarn say Ibro brave and say him be meritorious soja. How him no go brave....make him come Warri for here waka for main road make we see how him brave reach. Nonsense.

For your own mind, Ibro na young boy abi? Person wey go reach 70 next year na him you dey talk say na middle aged. You come dey use the age of people wey dey live for country wey dey alright dey judge. You no know say for Naija World Bank talk say anybody wey don reach 46.8 years don try and anything after that one na extra time? No be because of the money wey Ibro thief na him make am still dey so? Schweppes?

Person wey dey live for on top mountain for Minna dey enjoy life...how he no go dey healthy? You no think say na because of the wahala and work of Naija President na him make Yar'Adua sick so? Think am well o...no go send Ibro go Aso Rock make he come die for there. Which day you hear say Senator for Naija get pericarditis? Dem no get any work wey dem dey for there now. If Ibro dey feel fine now na another matter if he reach Aso Rock o...abeg o, as one of my sister talk, I no fit take yam water baff o? You just dey yarn twe twe.....which one be Bobby Robson wey dey coach football club. Make I yarn you something.....na only like 2 hours a day football clubs dey do training. All the work wey dem dey do na for Saturday when match dey. Sunday dem dey rest. Na that one you dey take compare President of Naija wey go dey work everyday for 24hours? You be bad person and I know say you wan kill Ibro.

You yarn say your 'understanding' of why Ibro join hand invite Obj na to appease all men for Yoruba side because of wetin happen to Abiola. You come talk say dat one na 'magnanimity' wey Ibro show. Guy abeg wetin be the meaning of magnanimity because the only person wey go school for our yard here no dey house. Where you dey for 1998 when dem ambush Obj say make he run for President because you dey talk like say the thing na secret wey na only you know? 

After you abuse Obj finish say him be garrulous person, now you come dey yarn say Ibro dey magnanimous for say him dash us the guy. Which one you dey my guy? If say Ibro no cancel June 12, we for no get Abacha....abi you don forget say na God help us peff that guy? For your mind Ibro don pay for the thing wey him do when he cancel June 12 because he don arrange another Yoruba man for there. No be you talk for beginning of your letter say you no like make we dey do tribalism for politics? Now you come dey talk say one Yoruba man equals to another Yoruba man so make we free Ibro. Na only Yoruba vote for Abiola? Abi na President of Yoruba he contest for June 12? Guy you fall my hand with this kind thing wey you dey yarn inside newspaper wey people dey take money buy.

You dey give Ibro hailings on top say the guy arrange election wey bam for us. But why the guy come cancel am now? You no think say if Ibro no mash that June 12 result, today Naija for don be expert for election? You no see wetin dey happen for Ghana? If Ibro no cancel that election by now we for don do another one for 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2009....we for don dey even train other men for Africa how to do the thing.

If Ibro sabi organise election wey bam like you talk, why you no tell Ebele say make he make am INEC Chairman as per say that guy wey dey there now no too sabi anything.

I no understand the one wey you dey talk say technology to stop rigging don dey there since before 1999. You think say na for only INEC office dem fit dey stop rigging? E get one of my guy wey him na Egghead. When dem do election for Anambra for February the guy dey there. As dem dey count the result like this na him Egghead dey put am for Twitter [you sabi Twitter?] and Facebook. Before INEC release the result me I don count am finish for my yard....and the one wey dem release gree with wetin I calculate. Ol' boy na that one dem dey call technology o. And all those things no dey for now 1999. Today everybody don get Blackberry and internet so info dey spread sharply before bad belle people fit do their wayo. E be like say you never understand wetin Bob Dee dey yarn. 

Na now you come know say North and South for Nigeria be one blood abi? Na so. If Ebele talk say he wan run next year and he choose Yoruba man as him running mate, your people for Kano go vote for am? Small pikin no dey here abeg....leave that thing. Yawa plenty for Naija and no so we don dey manage am since.

So na anytime Ibro like he fit explain why he cancel election for June 12? See your mouth. So make we wait for am make he reach Aso Rock again he go come write letter to all of us tell us why him cancel the election. Na now you know say na military cancel the election....so no be Ibro do am abi? I dey hear you.

You dey talk say make nobody yarn say na Ibro encourage thief thief for Naija because you no see any evidence. Guy, which kind evidence you wan see? Person wey dey thief money dey give receipt? Come, before you write this letter inside newspaper anybody for there dey check am? I no think so sha.

You know say the time when Dele Giwa die na soja still dey Naija. Which kind yeye investigation fit happen when soja dey for government? Na today wey dem don dey kill person wey we no dey find the person wey do am. For your mind because dem never catch Ibro for Dele bombing that one mean say e no possible say na him do am. E just be like make I talk say because dem never find the person wey kill Bola Ige, dat mean say the guy die by himself. 

Even Charley Boy Papa talk say Ibro get hand for inside Dele bombing for inside the report wey he write for Obj. You no fit just dey yarn say because dem never hold Ibro trouser say that one mean say he no know about am. 

I see say you no talk anything about the report wey Pius Okigbo write about the $12.4bn wey Ibro fade from Naija. We for Warri no find that thing funny o. Make I yarn you say that report wey dem talk say miss before, dem don find am o. How Ibro think say he fit just carry all the money for all Naija men put am for pocket come come back talk say him want another one? Una no dey look face? Even if person na maga, no be one day the maga go get sense? Guy, I bow for you o.

The one wey make laff wan kill me die na where you talk say Ibro get Naija best interest inside him heart. You be heart surgeon? How you take know that one? Person wey dey dribble us for how many years ontop say we dey do transition...he come cancel the election again. Na that one you dey call democratic? If you check inside him heart well well you go see say he know say him fumble for Naija dat time. Maybe na him conscience dey worry am now so he wan come back before he die. Tell am say he do well but we no need am. Wetin he suppose dey do now be say make e increase the number of prayers wey he dey pray everyday say make God forgive am for the one wey he don do before. No need make he run for President again because the kind person wey Ibro be, he go go commit again when he reach there.   

Na so men finish reach for Nigeria wey be say na Ibro go come save us from the yawa wey he cause? If no be for Ibro we for no get Abacha. If no be for Abacha, Abiola for no die. If Abiola no die we for no get Obj and if no be for Obj we for no get Yar'Adua. No be today Naija don dey spoil but if say Ibro head correct that time, e for no bad reach this one now.

As I dey read your letter, my mind tell me say you get sense pass the thing wey you dey write but e be like say you don collect allocation na him make you dey write this kind thing. 

Ibro get right to talk say he wan contest for President o...him na Naija man so nothing do am. But make una no think say e go easy like that. Because na him get money pass no mean say Naija na him papa property. 

By the way sef, If Yar'Adua no sick, Ibro go get mouth talk say he wan be President next year? So the guy just dey pam for there dey wait for easy goal like that striker for AC Milan wey dey always stand for offside? 

I dey even wonder sef, why na when Ebele travel Ibro come dey declare? No yawa sha....when that one come back from where he go, I go ask am make he comot Ibro file for him office. I no even know who send that one go America. Actor wey dey act come dey behave like say na real life...LWKMD!

Slave trade don finish for Naija tey tey so I no understand this kind slavery wey una wan dey continue for Naija again. So because Obj don do two times, Ibro sef wan come back for second time? Small time now, Gowon sef go talk say he wan try him luck. Make una leave that thing abeg.

Make Ibro even run sef....maybe na that one go make Naija people wake up from their sleep join hand together pursue the guy go where he come from. E be like say dem dey remote control the guy....person wey suppose siddon for Minna dey organise how he go share all the money wey him thief before he die...he wan come back come do President at 70 years...who side? Una don plan am finish for inside Ibro parlour dem come send you make you go launch am for inside newspaper abi? I see. 

As I dey type so, enough internet ninja don dey mobilise against Ibro. We fit no know wetin we want for Naija o, but we know wetin we no want. Take am say as I write this letter to you I dey talk for all the people wey dey my yard for Warri because na only me get internet for here. Go tell the people wey send you say e no go easy like that for Ibro o. Anything wey una wan do, make una think am well o.....make fire no go start for Naija ontop this matter.

At the same time sha, this na Naija so anything fit happen. Una gameplan be say make hunger dey waya our people 24/7 so dat when you give them N1000 dem go sell their vote to you at N250 per year. God dey.  

Meanwhile I wan even ask you sef, na you go dey write for the back of ThisDay every week now? I no think say I go get time to dey reply you every week so e get one small boy for here wey no get work....I wan train am to dey write letter of reply. Him name na Bright.

Hailings.

FF

Dame Flora Louisa Shaw

As hard as it is to gather one's thoughts on Nigeria when the country lurches from one religious violence to another constitutional crisis, here are my unsolicited ramblings on the Nigerian experiment.

1. The office of the President of The Federal Republic of Nigeria needs to be drastically cut down in size and significance. It is now almost perfectly clear that only a thug can successfully lead Nigeria as presently constituted. The job of the President of Nigeria cannot be performed by a decent, honest man. Even Obasanjo for all his thuggery struggled to get a grip on Nigeria's problems...it was afterall on his watch that MEND started throwing bombs....or maybe thuggery begets thuggery.

Only a pagan foreigner will be acceptable to all Nigerians perhaps. Nigeria and Nigerians have been consistently let down by the office of the President of the country throughout our 50 year history. It is heartbreaking that, with the exception of Murtala Mohammed perhaps, no Nigerian comes close to being universally accepted by the majority of Nigerians as a great leader.

We cant go on like this. 

The office of President is armed to the teeth with so much power to the point where such power is now dangerous in the hands of ANY Nigerian. 

It is also abundantly clear that, as a result of the above, Nigeria cannot afford to make a mistake in the person it elects as President BUT the system is set up in such a way that we are guaranteed to elect the wrong person in 2011. 

The cost of making a mistake in the choice of President cannot be overquantified. Yar'Adua fell ill on November 23rd 2009. Since then absolutely nothing has happened in the name of actual governance and moving Nigeria forward. Dodgy contracts have been awarded [£195k for the same body scanners that cost the UK govt £80k....$400m for a new runway at Abuja Int'l airport etc] while Nigerians have been distracted by the high drama set in Abuja and Saudi Arabia. 

The office of the President needs to be reduced to something only slightly above a ceremonial post. Presidential duties should only include tasks such as welcoming our footballers when they return from a tournament and meeting foreign Heads of States when they visit Abuja.

This, I am sure you will agree, is more than enough work for one man.

2. The amount of power concentrated in the Presidency has allowed our democracy to completely malfunction. The elected officials at the very bottom of the ladder can get away with doing nothing for 4 years [or however long their term is] other than stealing money. 

The powerful presidency also allows everyone to pass the buck upwards to Abuja. How on earth is Jonah Jang not being held responsible for the atrocities committed under his watch as Governor of Plateau State? Instead he's allowed to blame everyone from the army to the Presidency over something that was completely preventable.

He will of course say he has no powers over the police as the appointments are made by Abuja and report to Abuja.

Instead we have to wait for Goodluck [who himself is under padlock] to send soldiers to Jos to maintain law and order. Of course Goodluck cant win since he is a Christian and the perpetrators of the last carnage were muslims. Once the soldiers go in there with their typical heavy handedness, we will simply be postponing the resentment and ill feeling in the land. 

Revenge, being a dish best served cold, will only be a matter of time.

3. Certain people are now a major pain in the neck of Nigeria. The country simply cant move forward as long as they are breathing and running about the land causing mischief. By any means necessary, Nigeria needs to say bye bye to these people...so that the country can move forward.

These people have amassed so much wealth and patronage that they will continue to influence every decision concerning that country. Given their antecedents for selfishness and outsized greed, the outlook is grim for Nigeria indeed. 

Take James Onanefe Ibori as an example. Having finished with Delta State after 8 years in 2007, he has since graduated onto the national stage thieving here and making mischief there. His nomination and frankly appointment of Michael Aondoakaa turned out to be the equivalent of setting the Nigerian constitution on fire. 

Such a man should have been confined to Delta State politics where the Delta people will eventually find a way to deal with him in time. As it is now, he has escaped their clutches [despite stealing all his wealth from them] and after a few years can return to the state in the manner of a hero. We can only watch helplessly in trepidation as we await what role he will play in the 2011 elections. All we are sure of is that he will play a prominent role one way or the other.

Because the Presidency or 'center' is so powerful in Nigeria, local thieves from different parts of Nigeria can team up to multiply their powers at the Federal level. 

We need a system that stops an Andy Uba from entering into an alliance with a James Ibori to cause havoc for Nigeria.

4. Our democracy is probably one of the most expensive in the world in terms of what it costs us just to keep it going. 

There cannot be a more useless gathering of men and women anywhere on the planet than what we have in Nigeria's National Assembly. 

360 Ables [Honor withheld] in the House of Representatives with more than half of them having no idea why they are they are there in the first place. 109  Undistinguished Senators whose sole purpose in life is to be more stupid tomorrow than they were yesterday. They are on track in achieving their aims.

Let's compare our numbers with the numbers of the largest democracy in the world, India. The Indian Lok Sabha [Lower House] has 545 members while the Rajya Sabha [Upper House] has 250 members. India has a population of around 1.14bn people so they have 1 Representative for around every 1.4m people. 

Let's also try the United States. The US Senate has 100 Senators and 435 members of the house. With a population of 307m people, the US has 1 Representative for every 537,000 people.

Nigeria's population stands at 150m [real figure unknown] which translates into 1 Representative for every 319,000 Nigerians.

There's no point getting into a debate about value for money as we can only reach one conclusion. But we can discuss why we have this bizarre system. Oil is the only thing that makes this waste possible. These men and women get elected and the go and hide in Abuja where most Nigerians cannot reach or even afford to spend a night in.

Of course if you are a thieving politician with nothing to offer the electorate, Abuja is the perfect place for you to be.

5. This whole idea of Federal Character is one big joke. This requirement means that when a President is selecting his cabinet merit must come second in his consideration. The most important criteria is what state you are from. No matter how eminently qualified a person is, once his state's 'allocation' has been fulfilled he/she cant get in the cabinet again. 

This is the inane arrangement that led the Foreign Minister to declare recently that as long as he was Foreign Minister, Nigeria's foreign policy will be determined by Abia State where he comes from. 

President Obama has 15 Secretaries in his Cabinet as well as 6 other appointees who have cabinet status.

Nigeria on the hand has around 45 or so ministers [including 3 Ministers for Special Duties.....a job which presumably involves testing the microphones at the FEC meeting and ensuring that the digestive biscuits haven't gone soft].

Did you know that Mr J. C Odom is the Minister of State for the FCT? Me neither. More importantly what on earth does the Minister of State for The FCT do? And what value does he or she add to the Federal Republic? It is a recipe for disaster when ethnic consideration is the most important factor in choosing a Nigerian minister. 

You cannot preach national unity and then choose govt officials based on where they come from. Let the best man have the job.....heaven will not fall.

6. I have read several documents on the events leading up to the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates in 1914 by Lord Lugard. I have not come across one single piece of evidence that this was something that was desired by the people at the time. 

The name Nigeria was indeed coined by Dame Flora Louisa Shaw, Lord Lugard's girlfriend [aponle ni consort....girlfriend ni girlfriend n'je] at the time. Not wife, girlfriend.

Questions must be asked if the foundations on which Nigeria stand are strong enough for a nation to be built. Yet talking about the composition and future of Nigeria is almost a taboo in Nigeria today. Predictably, those in Abuja do not want to hear any such thing. 

But what exactly is the point of Nigeria? Who benefits from Nigeria the way it is? Can anything good come out of a country built on such rubbish foundations until those underlying issues are addressed? Must we remain together as we are simply because Lord Lugard and his girlfriend said so?

The British left 50 years ago yet the seeds of confusion they sowed before they left continue to haunt us till today.

If we are to be honest with ourselves, Nigeria only exists in 3 places; Abuja, our green passports and inside our heads. Outside of these 3 places it is hard to find anywhere else where Nigeria exists physically or in any other form.

Should we all go our separate ways? Maybe, maybe not. But what is clear is that we need to be free to live the way we want without being forcefully joined together by nonsense policies like Federal Character and Rotational Presidency. 

This is very achievable but those who cannot see beyond their noses are too scared to even discuss it. At some point we will....if not tomorrow, the day after.

7. General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma is from Taraba State in Northern Nigeria specifically from the Jukun tribe. He recently announced that he made $500m from the sale of a oil well he was allocated and he didnt have the foggiest what to do with it. 

Now take a look at these photos to see where that $500m profit came from. In a country that has never been united and is facing all kinds of unrest in the Niger Delta as a result of years of neglect of the area, this is unacceptable and is asking for trouble.

How can one man leave his state in Taraba to go and extract $500m from one of the most neglected parts of Nigeria simply because he has been a member of the ruling class? 

It's simple, the people on whose land the oil is found and who bear the brunt of the environmental damage it causes must take their own share first before the rest of the country starts dipping their hands in there. We cannot pretend to be Nigerians when it comes to oil and then behave like natives when it suits us.

Because of this 'free oil money' today there are states in Nigeria that contribute absolutely nothing to the national GDP. All their Governors do is collect money from Abuja every month, pay salaries and pocket the rest. 

We like to pretend that we are a capitalist country but this type of governance is extreme socialism.

8. Going back to the first point, if we reduce Abuja's significance and cut it down to size, Local govt chairmen and councillors wont be able to hide anymore. Nigeria has 774 local govts each one with a Chairman presiding over it. Collectively these 774 LG Chairmen [ably assisted by around 7000+ Councillors] are a black hole into which Nigeria pours money every year....at a rate of return of -100%.

These LG Chairmen just hide under the radar for 4 years after which they would have been become exceedingly wealthy. I imagine they cant believe their luck as to how easy it is for them to get away with grand larceny.

9. Religion is now a massive problem in Nigeria. Christians and Muslims now almost qualify as stumbling blocks in Nigeria'a path to progress.

As a Christian I can only speak for my religion. The brand [the only correct word for it is brand] of Christianity we practice in Nigeria has now succeeded in moving into the grey area of Nigerian life. 

Christianity can no longer be found in the black or white areas of our society. What happens in the larger society is disturbingly mirrored in our churches. 'Touch not my anointed' has become the equivalent of the 5th Amendment for our Pastors in Nigeria....aided and abetted by a culture by a culture that has never encouraged us to ask questions.

Churches dont ask questions about where their largest tithers get their money from. Granted, the church does not operate as a credit reference agency but in cases where people have been revealed to be tithing stolen money, the church has responded with deafening silence.

Pastors wives now collect multi million naira contracts from politicians. Such a Pastor cannot be expected to be on the side of the people if a politician is found to have been short changing the people. You might say there's nothing wrong with this but I beg to differ. The church has not been called to hobnob with politicians. The church should always be independent, especially in a country like Nigeria where sitting down beside a politician alone is enough to corrupt you...so that the church as an institution retains it right and ability to speak truth to power.

10. Finally having lived in the northern part of Nigeria for a few years in the past it is clear to me that the brand of Islam practised in the northern part of Nigeria sees violence as an important tool. Christians and Muslims are bound to disagree all the time...forget all those stories about all of us serving one God....the 2 religions are distinctly different.

However being different does not mean we should want to kill each other over every disagreement. 

I remember many many years ago in Kaduna one fateful Friday. In those days, every Friday during Jumat prayers there would be a large crowd at the Central mosque. This mosque was was right in front of a dual carriage highway so what used to happen was that when the mosque got full people would spill out onto the roads and block one section of the highway. This used to cause untold traffic as everyone was then forced to use only one side of the road until the prayers were over.

In any case people kinda got used to this arrangement and you knew to avoid that road on Friday afternoons. However one particular Friday the traffic was so bad and at a standstill while the prayers were going on. One driver in the traffic was said to have complained out loudly to the hearing of one of the muslims saying his prayers....naturally this led to a heated argument and insults were traded.

To cut a long story short before that Friday was over, not a few churches had been burnt in Kaduna and one Pastor who was a friend of the Pastor of my church had his nose sliced off. The riots went on for around 3 days before the soldiers cracked down on it and imposed a curfew in town.

I witnessed quite a few religious riots in my time in Kaduna and what never ceased to amaze me was how people could be killed in their hundreds in the name of religion over what was sometimes a very petty argument.

What irks the most about the Jos massacre is the sight of babies and young children that were killed. 

The northern elite know the score on this one but they choose not to do anything about the situation as they themselves benefit from this easily deployed violence especially during election time.

In fairness it's not just Muslims that kill in Nigeria...Itsekiris too kill Ijaws in Delta State and Ife and Modakeke did a good job of killing each other only a few years ago. But the frequency with which it happens in the north can no longer be ignored.

11. Final final point; we must learn not to show more respect than is absolutely neccessary to people who are currently in govt or who have been. Granted a lot of these people can be said to be smart and intelligent, the vast majority are not very bright at all.

The evidence is there for all to see....if Nigeria had been led by it's best brains all these years, the difference would be clear by now.

As an example I recently saw the following status update on Mallam Nasir El-Rufai's page. 

Recently I was at the Atlanta airport and listened as the man who initiated the project informed the world that that airport earns more money than the entire government of Nigeria. This made me determined to push for the diversification of Nigeria's economy away from oil. We desperately have to educate our people s...o that our youth can make Nigeria great by what is in their head not what's under their leg. Nasir

Now I have always viewed Mallam El-Rufai as perhaps one of Nigeria's sharpest brains but to see him make a reckless comment like that is heartbreaking to say the least.

You can see the 2008 final accounts of the Atlanta Airport here. Needless to say the airport made a turnover of $661m in 2008. Nigeria's oil production has now risen to just under 2million barrels a day. Yesterday the price of a barrel of oil closed at $80/barrel.....we will surpass the Atlanta airport's annual revenue in something like 5 days.

At the last count 152 people have 'liked' the status update. If you are one of those people and you are reading this, quietly go back there and click the unlike button......let's encourage the Mallam to raise his game.

FF

Beer Parlour 1: Understanding How The Nigerian Govt Works

Ask The Minister!

The Beer Parlour has it's first customer! 

One of the aims of Beer Parlour Activism is to fight ignorance and misinformation among Nigerians. A BPA should normally have more knowledge to share than the average man on the street.

Personally I have often wondered how govt in Nigeria works. Yes we know in 'theory' how it's supposed to work but how does it actually work? How do decisions get made? How can one get ideas passed across to the highest levels of the Nigerian govt to the point where we as BPAs can influence change?

These questions are perhaps best answered by someone who has [or still is] been a part of the Nigerian govt at the highest level. 

Our first customer is such a person.

Know Your Customer [KYC]

The person was one of Nigeria's most high profile ministers during President Obasanjo's second term. Very widely educated with qualifications in Law and Accounting.

Our customer held two different ministerial portfolios during President Obasanjo's second term and is today widely respected both in Nigeria and in the western world.

So as to not prejudice the questions, I will not reveal the customer's name until after all questions have been submitted. Hopefully this will help keep things objective.

The Questions

The Customer has offered to answer questions from Beer Parlour Activists on the workings of the Nigerian govt based on the person's experience in govt as a minister.

We are looking for questions from BPAs based around the following

• What can a Nigerian minster do and not do?
• How do contracts get approved? What is the process like? 
• How do budgets get allocated and what's the budget setting process like?
• What's a typical FEC meeting like?

The above is by no means an exhaustive list [I have clearly run out of ideas] so please feel free to widen the terms of reference.

The whole purpose of this Beer Parlour session is to better understand the workings of the Nigerian govt and why it never seems to meet the aspirations of Nigerians.

Where possible, The Customer will try to use personal examples to answer the questions.

Please keep the questions as objective as possible. No long greetings and/or prayers necessary. Let your question go straight to the point.

Please include your name and country you currently reside in. If you are sending the questions from America, please include the state as well.

The last day for submission of questions is Friday 5th March 2010. 9pm UK Time. The Customer's name will be revealed immediately after the deadline has passed.

The best questions will be picked and submitted to The Customer to be answered. The answers will then be published on Facebook in a note form.

Please send your questions to naijabeerparlour@gmail.com before the deadline above, A team of 3 Barmen [editors] will choose the best questions to be forwarded to The Customer. Please do not be offended if  your question does not make the final list...if we get a lot of questions we will be forced to cut out a few of them. 

You are however allowed to send in more than one question.

Please not that this is not a PR exercise for the Nigerian government. The whole point is to gain an insight into how our government works because we are all shareholders in Nigeria Plc.

The honest truth is that a lot of us probably dont really understand how our government works and how decisions are made.

Please use your imagination and objectivity when sending your questions. Remember that as a BPA you are speaking on behalf of millions of Nigerians who cannot read, write, have no telephones, have no education and have no access to the internet or any means by which to speak to their representatives in government.

Hopefully some knowledge and insight will be gained from this process.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

FF 

Barman.

The Beer Parlour Activist's Charter

The History

I still remember that Sunday morning in April 1990 when the news filtered out that there had been a military coup attempting to topple Nigeria's self styled President, Ibrahim Babangida.

In the days when military coups were frequent in Nigeria, it was widely held that one of the first things the plotters needed to do was to cut off the telephone lines and seize control of all radio and TV stations....so as to control the flow of information.

One of the reasons [unconfirmed of course] that was given for the failure of Gideon Orkar's coup in 1990 was that the soldier handed the responsibility of cutting the telephone wires leading into Dodan Barracks in Lagos was apparently drunk....so drunk that he couldn't tell a telephone wire from a clothes line.

The failure to cut the telephone lines made it possible for Sani Abacha to rally his soldiers including Lt Col U K Bello [who was eventually killed by the putschists] and the plotters were routed.

It's interesting that Nigeria has not witnessed a military coup since 1990 and particularly since 2001 when mobile phone usage became widespread. It would be interesting to see how a successful coup could be carried out today in a country where it is almost impossible to control the flow of information.

I also remember the dark days of Sani Abacha's [mis]rule from 1993 to 1998. In those days it was practically impossible to engage in any kind of discourse on the ills of Nigeria in any public place. It's the closest we have ever come to a police state in our very chequered history.

The Opportunity

Fast forward a few years to 2010. For the first time in our history, the flow of information and misinformation has been forcibly yanked from the control of those in government. The Nigerian government has zero control over the internet and the things that are said there. 

A government minister can release a statement in the morning and have it ripped to shreds by afternoon of the same day. Nigerians who had lost their voice [or perhaps never had one], can now freely exercise their God given rights to have their say on the state of affairs in their country.

You can pontificate, bombast, perorate, grandstand, brownnose, articulate, postulate.....anything that helps to release some of the frustration at a country that insists on being a parked vehicle. 

You can rub minds with Nigerians who feel just like you do in various parts of the world. You can be friends with someone you've never met simply because you share the same passion for Nigeria. You can trade insults and opinions without coming to blows and still remain friends after all that.

The internet is the biggest beer parlour available to Nigerians. A Nigerian beer parlour is a place where you are certain to hear a few loud arguments fuelled by the alcohol which helps people find their voices and say things that they probably wouldn't say in sobriety.

In the same way, people who would not normally get involved with matters concerning Nigeria now have a guaranteed community to engage with 24/7/365 and discuss all the happenings in our crazy country.

The Gap

There's also a gap to be filled in our nascent democracy; the role of independent arbiters in a disagreement between the elected and the electorate. In a country of so many competing interests there is a need for a select group of people who are not necessarily interested in political power but are motivated to raise the standard of governance and quality of leadership in Nigeria.

The country is crying out for such people. The press cannot be relied on to do this job. Their track record says they have been doing this job for donkey years and have barely made a dent in the problem. In many cases they have aided and abetted poor leadership in the country.

The Movement

The requirements for becoming a Beer Parlour Activist are simple and straightforward

• That you have gone to bed at least once in the last 365 days worried about Nigeria
• That your passport is green and you know that no one else's passport is greener just because such a person is in government or in a political party
• That you understand that you cannot really be a serious shareholder in Nigeria Plc if you dont speak your mind
• That you are not a politician and you have no interest in partisan politics in the near future but you understand that that doesn't make you less of a Nigerian
• That you are dissatisfied with Nigeria underachieving in perpetuity
• That you understand that being educated in Nigeria is a privilege and you realise that when you use your education to speak out, you are doing so on behalf of millions of Nigerians who are hurting but are not even able to articulate their hurt in any language
• That you understand that even though you are not a Professor of Health and you are not qualified to be Minister of Health, it doesn't take away your right to criticise the Health Minister if you feel he/she is not doing their job properly.... after-all you should know since you are the one who has to pay through the nose for basic healthcare in Nigeria.
• That you understand that there are no 'elders' on the internet and while you will respect people as fellow human beings, you do not owe them any extra respect simply because they are in government. For too long Nigerians have been cowed into a mentality of 'obey before complain'. Beer Parlour Activism seeks to turn that mentality on it's head.
• The Beer Parlour is not a place where you come to champion a politician as the best thing to happen to Nigeria since sliced bread. A BPA views every single politician in the same way; a servant of the people. BPAs have no time for sycophancy. 

As a Beer Parlour Activist you must also know and understand that talking and criticizing is not a waste of time. When you go to a Beer Parlour to engage in a discussion or argument, you don't set out from your house with the intention of going to waste your time.

As a BPA you must understand that there is absolutely nothing wrong in engaging with like minded Nigerians on matters affecting Nigeria.   

You cannot be a politician or political office holder and be a Beer Parlour Activist at the same time. BPAs exist to hold those in power to account and a higher standard.

Fear is not allowed in the Beer Parlour. If you feel your liver is failing you, drink some more virtual beer. BPAs cannot be afraid of someone simply because such a person is a govt Minister or elected public official. 

As a BPA you must be willing to talk and talk and talk and talk.....you cannot be discouraged by those who say the only way to make a change in Nigeria is to 'get involved' or join a political party. This is a terrible lie....there is so much work to be done in developing our nation to be left alone to members of the political class.

The job of a BPA is not to write white papers or policy documents...there are people paid to do that, no need to make them unemployed. Your job as a BPA is to passionately criticize when you see things you are displeased with in Nigeria.

High intelligence and plentiful university degrees are not necessary neither is the mastery of flowery language a requirement. All that is needed is for you to feel something, anything for Nigeria and then say it. There is no spell checker or grammar policeman in the Beer Parlour....come as you are only with your green passport.

It's cool to be frustrated and annoyed at Nigeria. You are also allowed to be outside Nigeria and criticize the country from thousands of miles away. There is no shame in that. The right to speak your mind and say how you feel about Nigeria is a God given and inalienable one.

As a BPA, you DO NOT have a right to remain silent. Anything you DO NOT say can and will be used against you. 

But you must also be able to take criticism of your ideas and accept such criticisms as the process of iron sharpening iron...not always a pleasant one but necessary all the same.

The Future 

• Maybe the Beer Parlour movement will become Nigeria's own Tea Party....a movement driven by passion that forces everyone else to take it seriously.
• Maybe there will be town hall style Beer Parlours held in the country.
• Maybe the Beer Parlour movement will catch one two faced hypocrite [masquerading as a politician seeking elected office to help the people] and stop such a person from getting elected
• Maybe the Beer Parlour movement will become a thorn in the side of useless politicians who have nothing to offer the country 
• Maybe the Beer Parlour movement will become an independent voice of Nigerians spread out all over the world drawn and bound together by a common frustration at a 50 year old country that still acts like a toddler
• Maybe one day Beer Parlour Activists will be able to force the sacking/resignation of a govt minister who has no reason to be there in the first place....instead of waiting for a 'cabinet reshuffle' to do the obvious.

The doors of the Beer Parlour are always open....no one will be turned back [provided the requirements above are met].

The Beer Parlour is not a quiet place. The idea is to make as much noise until those in authority take notice [there is evidence that they are already paying attention]. 

There are so many things to talk about concerning Nigeria. The time to stop feeling guilty about 'just talking' is over. No point sitting at home when you can go into the Beer Parlour and say it exactly as you feel it.

Use a fake name....use a fake profile picture....type in all caps....use bad English...whatever you do, dont be like a certain ex military leader of Nigeria who is now trying to make Nigeria a better place at the age of 76....because he cant see a future for his grandchildren in the current mess. Yet he had a chance to lay a foundation for his retirement when he was head of state.

Imagine you are from the South Eastern part of Nigeria. You go to your village and see an illiterate woman unable to speak English who has suffered at the hands of the country's woeful healthcare system. Imagine you take such a woman to meet Prof Babatunde Osotimehin the health minster and ask her to complain, do you think she could possibly communicate her feelings to him?

As a Beer Parlour Activist, those are the people you have been called to speak out for....the people who hurt but do not have the means to explain their plight to those in authority.

Come in to the Beer Parlour, grab a seat and release the frustration....there will be more to come and all ideas are welcome.

In the fight against the enemies of progress in Nigeria, your only weapon is a keyboard. You are thus an internet guerilla.

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