The Dawn of a New Era; So help us God!

It is a new day. Today marks the beginning of a new era. We have hit rock bottom. As a result there is no way to go but UP. Unfortunately I am forced to relish this new day from a distance. However I am happy indeed that I can share it with you. 

In the heat of the fuel crisis, I had written a few days ago:

"Even if he has to go to Eagle Square on a bicycle or horseback, Muhamadu Buhari is going to be sworn in. You better believe this."

This is from a rejoinder from one of my brothers. 

"For Buhari; if possible he should leave now with his entourage ON FOOT and would surely get to Eagle Square on the swearing in day. . .

"Just hang on folks; we are almost there. . ." - Amalinze JJ Azih

By the time you will be reading this, I hope that we would have been vindicated. Please God!

Best Regards,

Long fuel lines, no electricity, no gsm; What's the new game plan? Any suspects?

It is understandable that GEJ is suspected by many to have a hand in the total system collapse that we are currently experiencing. I doubt it. I imagine that all the major facts will come to light in the next 90days. What we have here are powerful criminal enterprises at work trying to reconfigure the evolving environment in order to protect their entrenched interests. It is amazing that nobody is mentioning the Nigerian equivalent of The US RICO Act, not to mention the rudiments of Anti-Trust laws which any smart lawyer can dredge out of our many extant laws. We have enough on the ground to put many of the "fuel importers" in jail for a very long time.  And gleefully throw away the keys!

Did I mention conspiracy to commit felony and "overawe the federal government"? Was that not what Uwazurike of MASSOB has been routinely accused of? What on earth is the business of the petroleum tanker drivers/owners with the controversy between the Federal Govt/NNPC/PPPRA and the petroleum marketers. They can never be regarded as employees of the federal government but we treat them as if they are. At the rate we are going, the area boys under the Oshodi flyover will soon insist on an audience with the Vice President as condition for resolving the disputes that arise ever so often.

My thesis is that the powers that be are engaged in one last violent struggle to bend the future to their will. Unlike Jonathan who has obviously reconciled himself with the new reality, these guys will not go down without a fight. They have a whole lot more to lose. The next few months will turn out to be very interesting times indeed . Forget Chief Bode George. I suspect that members of the fuel subsidy cartel may be among the first to leave town. Good riddance!

Re: Stakeholders to revive Kaduna textile mills – and other matters. In BusinessDay

                       

There is this report by Ife Adedapo in The Punch newspapers of September 14, 2014, headlined “Stakeholders to revive Kaduna textile mills." Which stakeholders, I ask.

According to the news report, “Mr Wordam Simdik, the Chairman, Coalition of Closed Unpaid Textiles Workers Association, said, “The Board of Directors of Kaduna Textiles Limited has met and they have taken a decision to see how they can SELL (emphasis mine) some of their landed properties to pay the workers’ entitlements.

The Kaduna Textile Limited, owned by the 19 northern states, had been shut for production since December 2002 while Arewa Textiles closed shop in December 2004.

The textile factories in the northern part of the country were renowned for the production of an array of traditional designs, but were faced with many challenges, including MISMANAGEMENT, thus restricting the contribution of the sector to the economy.”

My observation is that we are routinely confronted here by a very strange paradox. Failed governance, endemic unemployment, a collapsed economic system overpopulated with heroes!

How many in the list of awardees of National Honours and honorary doctorate degrees over the past 13years included in their illustrious “service” to the nation, their stint in the Boards and Management of the Arewa and Kaduna textile mills among other failed government enterprises? Yet they strive to bestride the political firmament like Colossus, more often than not making a nuisance of themselves.

It is worthwhile to note that at this stage, the companies under consideration have been long dead. Meanwhile there continues to be a mad scramble to participate in the activities leading to the final interment. Is it a surprise then that assets are earmarked to be sold to finance the payment of idled workers? The situation looks very similar to the PHCN debacle. 

Stakeholders my foot. Anyone who has never put his money where his mouth is, (like I have), by PERSONALLY investing in the sort of risky ventures, without which Nigeria can never move forward, has no business claiming to be a stakeholder. I have written elsewhere that Nigeria can never make both technological and economic progress by doing ONLY THE EASY THINGS. I still stand by that position. 

We currently have a surfeit of freeloaders and opportunists. Despite the ability to successfully balance their chequebooks, they otherwise do not have the foggiest idea how the world actually works.

Other commentators have harped on the need to entrench a robust R&D culture backed by serious funding of research activities. That dream, akin to wishful thinking, has been brought to the fore by the nation’s apparent helplessness in the face of the Ebola scourge. Meanwhile the under-reported but unparalleled success of our medical teams and administrators in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and elsewhere, is actually in spite of our lack of preparedness. I have consistently taken the liberty to point out this very bright spot to our brothers in the Diaspora involved in the medical sciences.

Stakeholders, anyone?

September 29, 2014 | Filed under: Analysis | Author: ODUCHE AZIH

Re: Something worse than Ebola is already here - newsafricanow.com

Please, I refer to the article by Abimbola Adelakun, titled as above. She started off with the two words, “mass hysteria”. How apt.

As I watched the British Broadcasting Corporation News on Saturday, I observed that because a Liberian deliberately imported Ebola into Nigeria, the country was illustrated in RED just like Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The BBC and others have stigmatised the whole of Nigeria despite the status report that the unwanted import has so far been successfully contained within the perimeters of one or two medical institutions.

It is on record that the United States through the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has, with its eyes wide open, (also deliberately) imported two live cases of Ebola onto its shores. Our own inimitable Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would have asked, “Which kin craze be dat?” And yet the US map has yet to be shown in any newscast in Ebola-RED.

I cannot resist including the following item forwarded to me earlier by my daughter. It seems frivolous but it dovetails with the title of the piece under discussion:

“Head of a family was feeling very sick, weak, and was throwing up. He was taken to the hospital and several tests conducted. At this point, all his family members were afraid to touch him including his wife and children. He was even locked inside a room. After some time, a doctor came out and was about to break the news. Before he said anything, some of the man’s relatives were even crying. The doctor said, “We have concluded all the necessary tests and the result is,… he has HIV.“ All the family members started shouting, jubilating: Thank God, thank God! Some were even singing praises. One of them called home immediately and said Sister, it is only HIV and not Ebola…The man was discharged immediately. . Has Ebola demoted HIV to what people should rejoice for?”

How sad. God help those confronted with tuberculosis, leprosy etc.  In any case I am glad Ebola has been eradicated from our shores.

Gowon, Danjuma and the microphone

For a change I am now finally able to offer to society what I claim to be a truly original idea or observation. I am referring to the widely unappreciated power of the microphone. Unknown to many, the microphone in the hands of a journalist makes the most reticent of the Nigerian political class to open up to the point of singing like a bird. This is the case even when he has absolutely nothing to offer. Is it any wonder then that when confronted with a question for which he has no answer the Nigerian politician endeavours to recover his composure with "Thank you for that question." It may be needless to point out that this drives me nuts. 

The picture I have painted above will probably explain what has now developed into a habitual problem with the otherwise respected former Nigerian military head of state General Yakubu Gowon. Since he left office, the amiable general is not known to have delivered any landmark speech, meticulously prepared by himself or his speech writers or more memorably off the cuff, like in the manner of a Winston Churchill. 

Why then is it that any time he is confronted with a simple microphone he feel an irresistible compulsion to verbally deliver one more chapter or paragraph of his long ignored memoirs? His diatribe on Odumegwu Ojukwu and the Aburi Accord immediately comes to mind. This writer has already taken on the General on this very issue albeit on a rather limited media platform. I had wanted to let the sleeping dog lie, but gerontocrats have refused to give peace a chance. They would want to revise our common history when most of us the participants are still very much alive.

As most Nigerians were trying to come to terms with Gen Gowon's uncharitable outburst on Ojukwu and Aburi, General Theophilus Danjuma, his right hand man, joined the fray. Hear him. Like President Jonathan, Ojukwu should have simply conceded defeat thus saving the fractured nation and Biafra the horrors of the 30month civil war. I wonder if Gen Danjuma has spoken to his erstwhile colleague David Ejoor over the past 20years? In a series of verbatim reports published by The Vanguard Newspapers, Ejoor rightly summed up that the whole war effort to defeat Biafra was but a long drawn out completion of the anti-Ironsi coup of July 1966, no more no less. This becomes clearer when we juxtapose the latest unsolicited statement of Gen Gowon to the effect that the Biafran leader Ojukwu underrated his resolve to go to war. So much for the reluctant warrior and Christian gentleman. "Christ afujugo anya." The things that people do in his name. People think only about Asaba when the issue of genocide is discussed. How wrong they are. 

At this point, I must share some ideas from a contribution I made years ago in a private forum discussion on just one aspect of the role of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the civil war. I refused to pick up the typical Ndigbo mantra on starvation during the war or £20 after. My thesis was that most Igbo gave too much credence to the ability of Chief Awolowo to stop or even resist the invasion of Biafra by federal troops. How was he supposed to do that? With his bare hands or the power of persuasion? Lagos and the entire West was meanwhile garrisoned by northern troops. 

Awolowo correctly read the sign of the times and joined the winning side. As history goes he could jolly well have been wrong. However I refuse to believe that with the momentum gained with the decapitation of General Ironsi's military government, followed by the mass murder of the mainly Igbo officer class, that any logic, not even an Awolowo, was going to stop the rampaging horde from trying to conclude what it had earlier started. And we were supposed to fold our hands? Perhaps only the UK could have exerted enough pressure to prevent the invasion. But then why should it do that? 

Will someone remind Danjuma that the first shot at Gakem was fired INTO Biafra or Eastern Nigeria? Take your pick.  

Because I regard General Danjuma's comment about conceding defeat as a farce, I will like to throw the following back at him. 

Although the conflict is still on, and despite the latest turn of events, the US high command had essentially declared victory in Iraq and Afghanistan and pulled back its troops. In our own case, if there was no insatiable blood lust, (and there was), Gowon's federal troops could and, (according to Danjuma), should have marched into Nsukka and the outskirts of Enugu then promptly declared victory. They would then have headed back home confident that they have taught Ojukwu a lesson! With this announcement, the wild jubilation in Lagos, Enugu, Ibadan, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, etc would have known no bounds. Three million lives would have been spared! 

Does the above sound farcical? That is the idea. This is exactly the kind of response that Danjuma's comment rightly deserves. 

Re: NATCOM sacks 400 NITEL, M-Tel workers

Again another quickly cobbled investment vehicle, NATCOM, has finally taken over the carcass of the defunct NITEL/MTel. And now there is this new controversy because NATCOM is reported to have sacked 400 workers. The "workers" are up in arms. 

Which workers? Could NATCOM have sacked anybody? How do you sack somebody who has never worked or had to come to work for 10years or so? All this while his employer went bankrupt or insolvent, lost all his assets, nay achieved a ruinous negative net worth due to the "superior" enterprise of these same workers, assuming that they were ever worthy of that appellation. This scenario has already played out at NEPA/PHCN to the detriment of our commonwealth  and as I had warned earlier will ultimately haunt us again as we wind up the NNPC as we must. 

I hereby plead with the news media not to put words in the mouth of the latest rescuers of the defunct NITEL/MTel. NATCOM does not have any employees so to speak and hence cannot lay off any staff. If any group wants to lay another booby trap for the incoming Buhari administration, by mentioning NITEL, a company that many 15year-olds have never heard about, they had better stopped it forthwith. 

If Presidents Obasanjo, Yar'Adua, Jonathan and four different Houses of Representatives & Senate could not resolve the NITEL debacle in 16 years, I wonder what anyone expects Buhari to do especially now that the nation has resolutely moved on in all matters telecoms. 

A store-keeper does not set his store ablaze, burning what items he did not steal, and then turn around to expect commendation, salaries and bonuses from the now dispossessed owner. Sadly this keeps repeating itself in Nigeria. 

My fellow countrymen will remember the initial phase of the contributory pension scheme for public sector employees about 10years ago. I cannot immediately recall the name of the character who strangely proposed merging the existing private sector contributions with the non-existent public sector contributions so as to facilitate the payment of pensions and gratuities to civil servants! Talk of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Of course the idea was stillborn. 

The amazing thing was the civil service chapters of the NLC never saw the problem looming. They probably never even cared but slept on their rights and collaborated with their senior colleagues who made away with funds rightfully belonging to their members. 

Any NITEL "worker" who after 10years of inactivity still does not realise that the party was long over must be living in a fool's Paradise. He probably deserves our pity. 

Re: Oshiomhole - I am entitled to have another wife

I was not following the story/gossip on Gov Oshiomhole's love life since the death of his dear wife Clara. From the unnecessary clarifications by the governor, it is obvious that he has been pilloried for marrying again. 

Ignorance, especially the self-imposed variety, is a terrible thing. I am sure that many of his critics have attended Catholic and other Christian marriage ceremonies time and again. The official vow always ends with something to the effect, "till death separates us." 

Many otherwise straightlaced individuals, men and women, just lose it when their loved one passes. Instead of remarrying, they indulge in all manner of extra-marital affairs. Here I blame the priests and pastors who do not devote enough time and resources in their ministries to actually ENCOURAGE remarrying. 

The one aspect that disturbs me immensely is that irrespective of the moral standing of young widows, many of them easily fall prey to the scheming of the menfolk. On the other hand their own families do not help matters, by discouraging their brother's widow from remarrying. She is supposed to remain their property. In this day and age? As if the vow/contract/agreement is not yet over. This restrictive and irrational social attitude just has to change.

Can Nigeria take care of its own? Does it want to?

"Nepal has really taught me a lot about privilege and just how fortunate we are to be born in a first world country where if a disaster happens, we're not calling in other countries to assist us," said Danielle Banks. (US KHOU.com)

Danielle banks is a 22year old recent graduate of Texas A&M University. She had gone volunteering in Tibet with organisations taking care of trafficked persons only to face the harrowing prospects of death in the recent earthquake. The above statement was reportedly made by her on her return, after being rescued, to the waiting arms of her family in Dallas. 

When will Nigeria man up and really take care of its own when disaster strikes without "calling in other countries to assist us"? 

That is one of the markers of a developed nation which we stridently shout that we aspire to be. Are we even working on the project?

Can Nigeria advance by doing only the easy things?

December 17, 2014 |  Author: Oduche Dennis Azih

On November 14, 2012, Uche Igwe published an article in The Punch titled “Take me back to Brasilia”, which was a report derived from a trip to Brazil. The writer was completely seduced by the idyllic ambience of a very well-planned not-so-new capital city, while he and other participants endeavoured to tackle the global cancer of corruption. He compared Brasilia with our Abuja, and of course Brazil with Nigeria, a very depressing exercise any day.

QUALITY OF LEADERSHIP

It has been stated time and again that those who presume to lead/rule us have consistently undermined Nigeria’s national interests in many ways. I will deal with only two in this exercise. 

One is by refusing to apply rigorous analysis (late Prof Awojobi’s former students know exactly what this means) to the matter at hand, often from first principles. For example, a good number of people in government who speak to us ex-cathedra on electrical power have no business making the pronouncements routinely attributed to them. While every electricity consumer is entitled to air his frustrations, the same does not apply to proffering solutions to the obvious mess Nigerians have had to put up with all these years. To put it mildly, it is not an equal opportunity topic where all views are welcome. Those who have never heard of (let alone understood) the Laws of Thermodynamics have no business engaging in any meaningful discussion relating to thermal power plants, not to mention combined cycle, etc. The sheer lack of knowledge of issues associated with mass and energy balances explains why a bunch of individuals will build a power plant, neglect to arrange for the fuel and then try to explain away that lapse. Only in Nigeria!

It is also not obvious to most Nigerians that not all engineers are competent to contribute. This is due to personal limitations and specialisation in some narrow sub-disciplines. I reserve my comments about the other non-engineering professionals swarming all over the presidency and the Power Ministry and all known corridors of power in the name of consultants.

RECKLESSNESS AND POOR ETHICS 

The other method whereby our leaders undermine the national interest is by going through all the right motions of planning, securing expert advice, paying for such advice, and then proceeding to abandon the logical next step. The reader can quite easily provide his own illustrations from current happenings. On my part, I wonder aloud whether or not we still have a contract with Manitoba Hydro. No, they are not necessarily my favourite company. After all, I had cause four years ago at a Newswatch/Celtel colloquium to trade tackles with those I believed to be the brightest and the best on the issue of power. How wrong was I in that assumption! I had proposed the idea of discontinuing the National Power Grid. The tragedy was that not one participant could articulate even one question to me over that arguably strange idea. My obvious loneliness eased a couple of months later when two people I had then not met published identical views. As Pat Utomi often says, there is still hope for this country, and keeping that hope alive is not an option. It is a duty that people of my age owe our grandchildren.

SOME NOT-SO-EASY THINGS WE MUST BE INVOLVED IN

Yes, back to Brazil. We recall that after many delays and postponement, our late President Yar’Adua finally undertook the state visit to Brazil. One will be right to assume that our policymakers in education, agriculture, oil & gas (NNPC), transport (railways, maritime, etc), aviation, housing & urban development, etc, must have done their homework so as to maximise the yield from that state visit. It is very sad to note that as President Yar’Adua departed Brazil the one picture burnt into our psyche and left for posterity on the covers of our many newspapers was of President Lula Da Silva presenting, of all things, a football to our president! A FOOTBALL? I will never recover from the shame of that incident. To say the least, even our football has gone to the dogs, but that is another story.

If we ignore the fact that Brazil is routinely mentioned in connection with BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) emerging economies, with all the implied and recorded technological achievements, I would have been satisfied if our president had asked for and received just a bowl (mudu) of high-yielding soy beans as sample planting material. That would have shown that at least one person was thinking about the agricultural sector and our long-suffering and ignored farmers. The Brazilians are not that stingy. More than half its population traces its ancestry to Africa. It then becomes obvious that before and during the state visit to Brazil we did not ask for anything tangible. The entire trip, like many others, was one huge jamboree. Perhaps I should now mention a few of the many engineering and developmental achievements of Brazil so that we can fully appreciate the folly of going there and coming home with a football.

THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

As far back as 20 years ago the Brazilian auto industry was supplying engines to US General Motors among others. The Germans under Hitler developed biofuels during WW2 as a wartime necessity. It was the Brazilians who took the biofuel industry to maturity throughout its entire value chain.

RAILWAYS & MARITIME

Brazil builds its own locomotives, not just wagons and coaches. It builds its own ships, marine and naval, including submarines.

AVIATION

Embraer, its flagship aircraft company, is standing toe-to-toe in its chosen segment with the likes of Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier and Fokker.

PETROLEUM; Oil & Gas

Petrobras, Brazil’s own NNPC, is a world leader taking care of its own backyard while selling its capabilities overseas including in Nigeria.

ELECTRIC POWER

Itaipu, a product of joint Brazilian-Italian engineering, for many years remained the largest gravity dam in the world with the largest installed output of 22,000Mw (that is, until China commissioned its 30,000Mw THREE GORGES Dam and Power Plant Project). Meanwhile, our policymakers are selling us the dummy that the entire complex on-again, off-again Mambilla Hydro Irrigation and Power Project of about 4,000Mw will be completed in the life of the Jonathan administration. Nothing could be further from the truth. It would be a monumental achievement if the Power Ministry manages to get the Mambilla Project to the bidding stage for construction within that time frame.

WE OVER-PROMISE & UNDER-DELIVER

Does anybody still remember the now expired promise to build us three refineries essentially overnight? That was about three NNPC GMDs ago. There is a whole lot of difference between governance and wishful thinking. I can go on and on. 

STICK TO THE DIFFICULT ASSIGNMENTS

As a failed manufacturer, I used to introduce myself saying, “I am into engineering ceramics.” The typical response used to be: “What is that?” Our account officer at the defunct International Merchant Bank (IMB) once blurted out after a visit to my factory, “Why can’t you guys find something EASIER to do?” Tragic, to say the least. How could he have known that this writer had done structural engineering design work including qualification of as-builts inside the containment structures of nuclear power plants? With the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) looking over my shoulders!

About 12 years ago, I literally climbed the seven mountains and crossed the seven valleys of our folklore to get the people at Shell Petroleum to listen to my organisation. We were in the very early stages of an engineering relationship long before the term local content became part of our lingo. And what did my bank do? Actually nothing that would have made either Shell or my people happy. Again, that’s Nigeria for you. And my banker wants me to do easy things. Perhaps I will, in my next life.

To handle tough jobs was EXACTLY why people like me went to school in the first place. How couldn’t my banker get it?

Fallout from the UK Elections

The following is my take from the just concluded UK Elections. 

From the report by Reuters I learnt that the Labour Party leader, Ed Milliband, phoned Cameron to concede and then resigned as party leader. . . 

In addition, . like Labour's Miliband, Liberal-Democrats leader Nick Clegg and UKIP leader Nigel Farage resigned as party leaders. . That's taking responsibility for failure. 

I am awaiting reports of those who will decamp to the Conservative Party and yet others who will, in the manner of our Nigerian compatriots, visit #10 Downing Street in the dead of the night. 

I have just read Olusegun Adeniyi's recent write-up in Thisday titled "Inside the PDP Tower of Babel." I fully align with his opinion that ALL OF US should encourage the PDP to survive and succeed as a vibrant opposition party. However in line with my comments above, I do not see how that can happen when it is saddled with the current leadership. 

Oh Nigeria! We truly hail thee. 

Between Greece and Nigeria: Passing Off Insolvency as illiquidity.

On Monday, February 2, 2015, I watched Nina dos Santos on the CNN Business View speaking with Sarah Shawn of the Standard Chartered Bank London office on the Greek economy. She commented on the notion that Greece has for quite some time had a solvency problem being routinely passed off as a liquidity problem. Having followed the Greek economy with trepidation even before the unwarranted gamble with the Centennial Olympic Games, I agree wholeheartedly.

Since I am neither a Greek nor an economist, one would wonder why I am concerned with this scenario. I do so because I have seen images of Nigeria in the Greek debacle which worry me a lot.

First, Greece had no business hosting the 2004 Olympic Games. Because Greek labour productivity notoriously languished in the low ranges (together with Spain and Italy), it was no surprise then when the multi-billion Euro cost overruns started piling up. To make matters worse, the same extreme left wing labour unions (that last week voted in the Syriza Party) then moved in for the kill, extracting all manner of unsustainable concessions from the Greek government as a condition for keeping up the pace of construction for the games. In addition, every so often, the unions called out their members on strike to remind the government who was really in charge!

It has been over a decade since that party cum jamboree was over. The revellers have long gone home while the ordinary Greeks were left carrying the baby. After two or is it three feeble attempts at debt and economic restructuring, the basic problem is still with Greece, with Europe and the global economy at tenterhooks. Meanwhile, politicians, the monied class and the middle class who could, deployed their utmost best at tax evasion. Money was routinely stashed outside Greece. This further emptied the state coffers. The list of the top cheats is in the public domain. One can easily draw parallels from Nigeria’s sad situation.

Over three decades ago, I learnt from one San Francisco business journal about the importance of having the big labour unions invest in (ie their pension funds) and sit on the boards of major companies. The view from outside the board is always extremely rosy, often reinforced by the limited disclosures on financial and corporate governance issues prevalent in that era. Unfortunately, this idea did not then and still does not now come naturally to management. Of course, not in Nigeria with our uppity Oga-At-The-Top mentality. Nobody seems to have heard of the Igbo proverb, “If you smack me to kill a tse-tse fly, then, show me your bloodied palm.”

In the Nigerian context, the labour unions (unfortunately like the politicians) believe that the financial circumstances of their employers are infinitely elastic and capable of accommodating every whim. In the case of Greece, it is on record that Greek protesters with a warped sense of entitlement heckled the German Chancellor on one occasion and on another mobbed the Finance Minister.

With the freshly minted left leaning government now running Greece, one wonders what is going to happen next. Can Syriza find a common ground with the EU, the ECB and the IMF?

The new Greek leaders are currently engaged in whirlwind visits to European capitals in an effort to sell their alternative economic plans to sceptical members of the EU. Many commentators believe that time is running out for Greece. Is the same not true of Nigeria?

Gowon: Ojukwu misinformed Nigerians on Aburi | TheCable - My Rejoinder

See what Gen Gowon said recently. Understandably, it caused quite a stir: http://www.thecable.ng/gowon-ojukwu-misinformed-nigerians-aburi-accord Here is my comment published in The Cableng. March 25, 2015.              **********             WRITE, GEN GOWON, WRITE The amiable former Nigerian military Head of State, General Yakubu Jack “Another Northerner” Gowon is one of the most unlikely members of his class of elite to wilfully engage in an intellectual joust of any sort. As a lightweight he will more likely than not come out of any such encounter thoroughly battered. Against this background one is at a loss, actually bewildered that this officer and gentleman would come out, as quoted by TheCable online news network, to make this strange even bizarre statement attributed to him namely that the late Ikemba Nnewi, Eze Gburugburu, Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu misinformed Nigerians on Aburi. This is a most serious allegation levelled against a dead man. Many observers have been understandably taken aback. Thankfully, reactions are coming in fast and furious. General Gowon has finally asked for it. I hope that he is prepared for what is coming to him. One commentator has respectfully pointed out that one trait expected of a “statesman”, is knowing when to shut up. Another wrote that General Gowon should not have attended the book launch. That is neither here nor there. Nobody forced him to speak. He could have, in the Nigerian parlance, quite simply graced the occasion. The matters arising from the 1967 meetings at Aburi have been deliberately left unaddressed for posterity by General Gowon for 48years. One is therefore at a loss at the sudden sense of urgency in his wanting to have his say at this most inappropriate forum. I doubt if his host President Jonathan was amused by that faux-pas. DADDY, WHAT IS BIAFRA? I think it was in 1989 that my then 10yearold daughter came home from school and threw me the above curved ball. The silence that followed reminds me of Prof Wole Soyinka’s poem Telephone Conversation. I cannot immediately recall the detailed explanation that I fudged to satisfy her 10yearold mind. What I do recall however is the meat of a short article on this encounter which I sent to a number of newspapers. What version do I give this girl? My own story? Which will render her a social misfit, nay outcast, at school so early in her life? Or do I rehash the official line enabling her to march along with everybody else oblivious of the baggage that each Igbo willy-nilly carries in this Nigerian federation? Thankfully I am now at peace because there are now almost as many Igbo apologists amongst our so-called enemies as there are in Igboland. With Noor Saro-Wiwa, Ken Saro-Wiwa(Jr), Tombari Sibe, Akin Osuntokun and, wait for it, Femi Fani-Kayode and a host of others coming to their own conclusions about “our season of thunders”, I almost do not need to run to our Prof Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe to make the Igbo/Biafran case. I doubt if General Gowon has ever followed the extant opinion of these gentlemen. I was there. General Gowon’s comments indicates that he probably thinks that we are all dead just like the Ikemba. Leaving the remote causes but dwelling on the proximate, I lived three hundred metres from the Enugu railway station and so saw the refugees arrive, including one without a head. Grown men, 60yearolds could not bear to look at the pictures in POGROM (a 1967 publication of the Ministry of Information Eastern Region) when I recently took part of my personal archives to the club. Some were truly ignorant, while others were in self deluding denial. Gowon will surely like it that way. However he cannot have forgotten that dealing with the aftermath of the Igbo exodus from the rest of Nigeria was one of the many issues discussed at Aburi. Of course there were several others. GO WRITE YOUR MEMOIRS, SIR I have had cause to weigh in a number of times on the issue of our leaders in crucial periods of our history dutifully bequeting the nation with well written and verifiable memoirs. Leading lights like Eddie Iroh have publicly agonised over this. When Bisi Daniels wrote about his difficulty in getting late Chief Anthony Enahoro to authorise and collaborate over his memoirs, I undertook unbeknown to him to soften the ground through Enahoro’s son. Ultimately Mr Daniels, a writer, lost interest in the project and soon thereafter, Chief Enahoro passed. Note however that General Gowon’s name sits at the very top of that pile of reticent who-is-who. Moreover he keeps reminding us of that unredeemed debt by his frequent unguarded public statements. About 20years ago General Gowon expressed reservation at the launching of a book, An Official History of The Nigerian Army because “it gave too much prominence to Igbo/rebel Biafran officers.” There was no indication that any Biafran officer, retired, dismissed or in jail, was on the editorial board. I had then opined that although the General had technically passed through Warwick, it was obvious that Warwick didn’t pass through him. Unfortunately that view of mine has not changed. It is perhaps too late in the day to expect any such change. Much later amid the uproar that greeted Achebe’s THERE WAS A COUNTRY, the amiable general again could not resist taking a pot shot at Ojukwu through Achebe. Hear him: ”Achebe’s book is fiction”. When this matter was brought up in a private discussion group on the internet, I was constrained to point out that General Gowon who has adamantly refused to write on his wartime activities and experiences, has no locus standi to criticise other writers’ version of events. I had added that if he was earlier afraid that the People’s General, Odumegwu Ojukwu would counter his narrative, then he needed to wake up since the Ikemba was already dead. In other words General Gowon is back at his old habits. He needs to write those memoirs. If he imagines that the writings of his praise singers like John de St Jorre, Dame Magery Perham and Prof Isama Elaigwu will do, then he is mistaken. At the moment the one reliable collection even for those not exactly enamoured of Achebe’s There Was A Country is the irrefutable list of references that constitute almost 15percent of the book. They are mostly beyond these shores and hence out of the reach of iconoclasts. In addition the archives at Whitehall and the Estates of his collaborators Sir Harold Wilson and Sir David Hunt will gladly help refresh his memory. As the young take their own reading of the Nigerian crisis and civil war under Gowon’s watch, I suspect that the trend is towards a most scathing judgement. A well written memoir, with the human foibles thrown in, and the appropriate dosage of mea culpas will definitely smoothen and ease the harsh judgement of history. Write, Gowon, write! Time is not on your side. Hurry! Leave earlier writers alone. The nation will be better for it.

RE: Govt (CBN) N300b Bonanza; The Gas-To-Power infrastructure Conundrum, And Other Related Matters

On Friday night I watched Mr Kemi Agbejule an NNPC  spokesperson on NTA. It was an advertorial on the oft repeated plan to make gas massively available for power plants. It dwelt partly on the news that the CBN was providing some N300b subsidy to the "privatised" power companies.  We have heard those promises very many times before. This has prompted me want to make my long deferred unsolicited and probably unwanted contribution on the matter at hand. 

I still hold the view that the many arms of the NNPC constitute an unrepentant and irredeemable criminal enterprise. How I wish that the organisation would succeed in convincing most people otherwise. 

NOT A MONEY PROBLEM
The past several governments of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, including the present one, have been busy throwing money piecemeal at the problem of power as if that would take care of several decades of outright neglect. The planning, if any, has been sub-optimal, a reflection of the "Yes-Prime-Minister" culture (aka Oga-at-the-Top) that pervades government decision making process, a veritable infinite series of hare-brained schemes. 
THE ROLE OF OUTSIDERS AND OEMs
The complete absence of a homegrown planning capability, with a 20 to 40year time horizon, has made it possible for the field salesmen of every Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) in the western world, including the much revered Jeffrey Inmelt (the Salesman-in-Chief at GE), to have unfettered access to our Minister of Power and hence to our President. I shudder whenever these gentlemen claim to know what is best for Nigeria or that they step into the breach and plan for us. Even the newspapers offer the GE boss space to express his views whereas GE can afford to pay for its advertorials. 

On another front, one can only imagine the negative impact of this state of affairs on our avowed policy thrust for Local Content. When was the last time anyone contemplated retubing by ourselves, a small or medium size boiler/heat exchanger at any of our power plants? It was only recently that we have come to recognise the place of the certified welder in this huge construction spread called Nigeria. However many gaps remain.      

THE SAD STORY OF NETCO
Three decades ago I  worked in one of the sevral design offices of Bechtel Power Corporation. Although I had moved on to other engineering endeavours, I was still excited on my return to Nigeria to learn that the Bechtel Group was to partner with the NNPC in its joint venture engineering subsidiary the National Engineering and Technical Company Limited (NETCO). The aim was to pursue the domestication of engineering capacity in Nigeria’s Oil and Gas industry. Most of the skills are routinely applicable to other sectors. The sad story of the breakdown of the JV after internecine squabbles with NAPIMS is for another day. 

NETCO was always underutilized and that was the main reason for Bechtel Inc to pull out after eight years. None of this development can be gleaned from the rosy account of the state of affairs at NETCO posted on its website. The truth is that whatever good that NETCO has achieved today, stature, prestige, technology and man-hour jobs billed, pales in comparison to its true potential. With the deep pockets of the NNPC, the NETCO should have achieved a lot more for Nigeria, hence pulling other stunted sectors like power along. Sadly, in collaboration with NAPIMS, NETCO happily turned its offices into an avenue for farming out hundreds of thousand man-hours engineering design jobs to overseas outfits. So much for Local Content.

RESERVING RESPECT FOR (GOOD) IDEAS AND NOT PEOPLE
I recall that as an undergraduate at The University of Lagos I used to have a running battle with some of my professors, routinely disagreeing with them when the occasion demanded. Yes it was risky but then what can I say. Years later we remembered each other with genuine fondness. Both sides benefited from the exchanges including the many others who were often too scared even to whimper. I just wonder whether The Manhattan Project and the like could have succeeded if the participants were simply yes men! 

I know it for a fact that a good many of the decision makers in government are actually not competent to discuss the many ramifications of electrical power. It is often generally assumed that once an observer is capable of listing the many ills of the electrical power conundrum (often only from the consumer perspective) then that implies knowledge about the viable solutions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Complaining with righteous indignation is basically cheap. Anyone, even a fool can do that. I have stated elsewhere that the issue of electrical power is not an equal opportunity topic. All views are certainly not welcome. Wrong and ill informed opinion constitute a serious distraction no matter how vigourously expressed. It is on record that at times the government falls for such for such falsehood because a good number of WELLMEANING individuals with the ear of the government said so. 

GAS SUPPLY NATIONWIDE
Some 15years ago, I was present at the occasion of the commissioning of the NGC Metering Station at Alausa, Ikeja serving Gaslink Nig Limited. During the discussion event that followed at Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Ikeja, I had publicly drawn the nation's attention to the need to establish a comprehensive natural gas grid. The idea was to empower investors to make investment decisions with the availability of gas as a given. I was speaking from sad personal experience. At that very time I was firing my furnaces with trucked in LPG (often not available) sold to me at street retail price. 

It is instructive to note that the Chairman of the occasion, a former NNPC guru(?), disagreed with me, giving of all reasons that the concept is expensive. That same issue came back to haunt us later during the later years of the same Obasanjo presidency when even the grossly inadequate NIPP power plants were built but had no gas supply. That this problem has persisted till today indicates the quality of the decisions that has emanated from Abuja over the years dating back to the days of the military. 

REALLY, ARE OUR LEADERS KNOWLEDGEABLE?
A few years ago at the Newswatch Colloquium on Power where I was dragged in to be a participant (having shown up just to observe and listen), I was dismayed that not a single one of the leading lights present that day could get around to asking me even one question or answering the few simple ones that I asked. Sample: What is 1megawatt? Is it big or small? What can 1megawatt do? Can anyone of you visualise a 1megawatt pump? . . Resounding silence. That's your decision makers for you. If one cannot wrap his mind around 1megawatt, the basic unit of count, then any further discussion of 100, 400, or perhaps 1,200megawatts is meaningless. I am sick and tired of attending events where the smartest of the participants regales us with the sad news that industries HAVE STARTED RELOCATING TO GHANA! News indeed. Often figures are quoted credited to Alhaji Aliko Dangote to illustrate how dire the circumstances are. For goodness sake, we already know that. 

TARIFF 
Now let me tackle a very unpopular subject, tariff. The glitteratti of the Nigerian professional and social landscape, who on the average are far smarter than I am, studiously avoid this topic despite the data at their disposal. It was this same mindset that made it impossible to create the critical mass of enlightened opinion necessary to push through the very necessary removal of the wasteful fuel subsidy. No matter how long it takes, we will yet come the realisation that the removal of fuel subsidy remains one of the strong legs on which will ultimately rests the very economic survival of Nigeria. To be seen cavorting with the masses at the Gani Fawehinmi Park, became a badge of dubious honour. Well, somebody has to SAY IT AS IT IS (apologies Tunde Fagbenle). If not me, who?

THE BUSINESS MODEL MUST CHANGE
To make progress on the power front, the current business model must be changed. We must pay the going rate for EACH and EVERY input in the complex value chain that is the electrical power industry. The government cannot realistically give what it does not own. The mass, energy and value balances must be achieved. That explains why I am ready today to pay more than double the going rate of N12.83/kWh if I can get reliable/ uninterrupted power. It will surprise many that if this is done, I will actually pocket a minimum of 30% savings on my current total expenses for electricity. The savings are even more for the so-called Mr Ordinary Poorman who nonetheless still operates a tiny generator at home. Or Mr Vulcanizer at the corner who spends an arm and a leg operating a 1horsepower petrol engine to run his air pump, when he can spend less than a third of that running an electric motor for the same purpose. I hereby appeal to the more numerate members of the consuming public who are capable of rigourous analysis "from first principles" (apologies to my late Prof Awojobi) to do their own findings and share same with us. 

The value I attach to not having the noise and fumes, the highly inflammable fuel in my trunk, spent engine oil in my home, etc is immeasurable. As for the mechanic, we will continue to exchange only pleasantries whenever we meet. 

I wonder how many recall the tongue-in-cheek article in the Guardian Newspaper a couple of years ago titled, "My Generator is smaller than yours." All these illustrate how far down the slope we have slipped.  

ENERGY SAVING APPLIANCES
I will then continue to devote my efforts to energy saving practices and procedures, lighting, other usage and appliances. I was seriously embarrassed to see the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) belatedly drag our President to present and publicly recommend energy-saving light bulbs on network TV. This came a full 4years after discerning consumers like myself started using them.  

AN ENLIGHTENED CONSUMER IS THE BEST CUSTOMER
Mine is the kind of enlightened consumer attitude that the power companies can depend on to make investment decisions. Insisting that supply reliability MUST improve before the regulator (NERC) allows viable tariff will only postpone the improvements we all desperately desire. I have commented earlier on the strange resistance of MAN to a proper upward review of tariff. They should know better. They have the numbers in their own books. 

The time to act is now. If the current tariff is anywhere near fair, then why on earth does NERC go through the convoluted process of justifying the fixed charges which make absolutely no sense? It is one thing to be billed a (high) tariff for power supplied. But to be billed even 1kobo, for whatever reason, when power is NOT supplied is a real hard sell. The patently false populist stance of the government seeking on the other hand to intervene to PROTECT the consumer from the rampaging(?) power companies is actually premature and at this time counterproductive. We are supposed to be a nation in a hurry to make up for the years lost to the locusts, aren't we?

NEPRI
For starters I had more than three years ago proposed to several knowledgeable individuals (who may perhaps understand and/or have a toehold in the corridors of power) to initiate the setup of the NIGERIAN ELECTRICAL POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE as an independent organisation. The government will be perfectly free to ignore its findings and recommendations to its own peril. History will be the judge. I envisaged NEPRI modelled after EPRI of Palo Alto, California, completely free from the suffocating stranglehold of the government of the day. It is instructive that this writer did not get to know about EPRI while a student at Stanford. That eurika moment came many years later here in Nigeria when as a budding developer/manufacturer of inputs for the electrical power industry, I had to deal with the routine shenanigans of the unteachable management and staff of NEPA. 

I am still waiting. 

WHY NATIONAL GRID?
I am yet to run out of "crazy" ideas. In one forum I had proposed the idea of discontinuing the national power grid as a way of resolutely devolving power over power (no pun intended) to the states and/or the six geopolitical zones. Within three months I read of three different individual who had independently come to the same conclusion.  One was/is an engineering professor at the University of Lagos, the second a foreign technologist who had come into Nigeria for an event. The most amazing was the last, wait for it, a lawyer somewhere within the decision making structure of the ruling party PDP in Ogun State! I immediately linked up with him. 

I envisage a situation where for example the people of Benue, Taraba, Nassarawa and Kogi States after despairing of waiting for ever to get the power they need. They then decide to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, determine by themselves just how much power they need and proceed to build the power plant required. Each of these states is bigger than The Gambia many times over. I do not want to bother visualising what the Lagos State Government can and will do if we simply stop standing in its way. The single fact of approvals and contracts no longer being awarded at Abuja will probably provide an extra four percentage point boost to the growth rate of the GDP. 

IMPLICATIONS OF FREE-MARKET
I cannot conclude without sharing some predictions of tough bad days ahead. There is a non-zero probability that some (a few) of the privatised power companies will yet go bankrupt, after the willingness of the government to keep bailing them out will have been stretched to its limit. Yes. That is the price of free enterprise, stupid! Much as they are evolving as we march along, the basic rules have been more or less clear. A poor effort at Due Diligence is nobody's fault but the investors. 

There was a time when every "money-miss-road" aspired to own a brewery and did. The countryside until recently has been littered with the carcasses. While I hold very strong views about the government not adequately protecting the pioneer CDMA telecom operators (more like throwing them under the bus) I can also observe that failures in that sector already abound, and we are living with it. Just like every bored retired army general aspires to join David Mark in the Senate, all those who made the new money of the last decade and half just could not resist making a play for one or more of the power companies, the new game in town. Lo and behold, they won! Now comes the hard part. Winning has serious consequences. For one, a good many of the new power moguls are now required to actually work for a change, managing men and materials, a tough undertaking even in the best of circumstances. 

The burden of sourcing for funds for both rehabilitation and network expansion is something they were supposed to have planned for. Did they? This burden will consume a good number of them. The government must be prepared to take them over, stabilise and sell them once again. The public had better get used to this evolving scenario.  

INVITATION
Is there anyone out there, who is not otherwise engaged in looking for "chop money", ready to step up to the plate? Nigeria definitely needs A FEW GOOD MEN, . AND WOMEN! .Not contractors. . Let's get NEPRI off the ground. The one thing that I can promise is that it will outlive all of us, which gives me a very nice feeling.