Re: FG to reduce tariff on imported rice; - TARIFF AS A WMD; TARIFF AS AN ACT OF WAR!

In a recent report, (1Q, 2014), the Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iwuala, said that the existing 110 per cent duty on the importation of rice was encouraging smuggling of the commodity into the country. “We increased the tariff to 110 per cent, and it encouraged some people to go and grow rice and we grew 1.1million metric tonnes of the product. But it also encouraged smuggling from neighbouring countries because they immediately dropped their own tariffs to 10 per cent,” she said.

And we don't know what to do? Russia invaded The Crimea in Ukraine for reasons that are quite flimsy compared with the blatant enemy action by Benin Republic over this rice issue.

Our Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina and others are working their butts off taking our rice production up, closer to where it should be. And the government and people of Benin Republic fearlessly undermine that. If that is not a declaration of war, I honestly don't know what war is.

I can understand a country like Sierra Leone, with over two centuries of rice production under its belt, deciding to utilise its comparative advantage to have a legitimate share, like India and Thailand, in supplying Nigeria's large and growing population. But Benin Republic? Excuse me! The only way is for the government of Benin to subsidise rice production. In effect their government will spend part of its budget in feeding Nigerians. Can Benin Republic afford that?

The current action of Benin Republic in bringing in several multiples of its rice needs for next to nothing in duty and organising a quasi official smuggling train into Nigeria is a sabotage that no self-respecting nation can condone. There is no way the ECOWAS trade protocols would have allowed such

patently unfriendly action. It is actually futile highlighting the obscene collaboration by our own Nigerian Custom Service and other security agencies in this criminal enterprise.

WHAT SHOULD BE NIGERIA'S SENSIBLE RESPONSE?

I recommend that a flotilla of the Nigerian Navy pays a not-so-friendly visit to Cotonou at the same time when about five brigades of the Nigerian Army undertakes a 2 to 6km hot pursuit incursion into Benin Republic after "criminals, smugglers and car snatchers"! There will definitely be a diplomatic uproar with explanations and apologies flying all over the place. Upon withdrawal of Nigerian troops, we then close our land borders with Benin Republic for a minimum of six months. I would very much love to see them squirm under the load of rice that they cannot eat. The above looks drastic, but our very survival is at stake here.

Prof Bolaji Akinyemi has stated time and again that Nigeria must extract respect (and possibly fear) from its neighbours. It does not need to be loved.

NORTH DEMANDS NEW NATIONAL CONFERENCE - Northern leaders reject Jonathan’s confab report

It has been reported that prominent Northern leaders, on Tuesday, rejected the implementation of the 2014 report of the National Conference convoked by former President Goodluck Jonathan. They had claimed that it did not address the key issues affecting them. . Really?

I begin to wonder whether the North was actually represented at that discredited conclave. I now recall that some delegates, especially the traditional rulers were busy arguing and protesting ovet the nonprovision of allowances for their aides, drivers, horse-handlers and trumpeters. What a distraction! No wonder they did not know when important resolutions were passed.

The rest, mainly gerontocrats, slept right through the exalted deliberations, or worse still, died on duty in the hallowed chambers, in the service (?) of the fatherland! Will somebody please bring down the flag at half mast as we sing the first stanza of the National Anthem.

The report continued: 

"In its place, the northern leaders are asking President Muhammadu Buhari to convene a FRESH conference that would take into cognisance the challenges facing them and proffer solutions to them.

"The northern leaders who are mostly former political office holders under the aegis of Northern Reawakening Forum (NRF) and headed by a former member of the House of Representatives, Mohammed Kumalia, said:

   . . . (that) IT WOULD BE WRONG FOR BUHARI TO IMPLEMENT THE REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE CALLED BY THE FORMER LEADER!

And former military president Babangida routinely and glibly talks about settled issues. Is any issue ever settled in this God-for***en land?

I must confess that the above proposal is a very good one. Furthermore to make sure that the the membership of the NRF and Arewa Consultative Forum (ARF) feel comfortable and completely at home, the proposed brand new conference must take place in Daura, Sokoto or Maiduguri. The composition of the membership must be front loaded with the Arewa delegation having a 2 to 1 numerical advantage over the rest of the country. That will guarantee a 2/3 majority at the very first votes.

Finally, a law must to be rushed through the current 8th National Assembly requiring the implementation of the predetermined outcome of the new national(?) conference before the end of the first term of office of President Buhari. That is the only way to play safe. Otherwise the next administration can willy-nilly jettison the brand new decisions that we are about to bulldoze through the proposed new conference. The enemy or the other side (take your pick) cannot be trusted not to spring the same surprise in the (likely) event that it does not like the outcome of this new conference. And so the merry go round continues! . Please dear reader, take a brief time-out and pray for our grandchildren. They are in serious soup.

While going through the above motions, the president might as well save us both the time and trouble by issuing a no-nonsense decree expropriation the revenue from the oil resources of the South (meaning Niger Delta) for the long deferred development of the North. I am making all this addendum on the authority of Aliyu Gwarzo (alias: It is either the Koran or the sword) who had earlier clearly indicated some of the things the North wants OR ELSE!

To support the educational renaissance of a resurgent North, teachers would also need to be (forcefully) conscripted to take northern kids through their ABCs and beyond. Oh yes I nearly missed this; renaissance and Reawakening actually mean the same thing. Welcome on board Mohammed Kumalia. Our people say that whenever one wakes up constitutes morning for him.

The North must be developed no matter whose ox is gored.

The above is serious business. Did anyone hear me laughing?

THE DEBT THAT NIGERIA OWES BLACKS - Re: Mandela Was Angry With Nigera

The following article is derived from an open letter that I wrote to Prof Randall Robinson the renowned Afro-American teacher, activist and writer two years ago. I had known about him from his two "controversial" works THE DEBT - That America Owes Blacks, and QUITTING AMERICA, the later chronicling the odyssey, both mental and physical, culminating in his emigrating from his own country the US to the Caribbean island nation of St Kitts & Nevis. Prof Robinson has been quite busy as his literary output shows. Because of his unrelenting push on the matter of reparations, I had reminded him of the work of the late Chief M K O Abiola and also mildly cajoled him to join forces with the Nigerian intelligentsia in that effort.

That was almost two years ago in December 2013. Much as I had widely distributed  my commentary, it was never published in the Nigerian press. I am therefore resurrecting the ideas in the firm belief that they are as relevant as ever.

Since reading THE DEBT, I had continued to look up to Prof Randall Robinson for incisive analysis of the black situation in the US and beyond. And I told him so. In addition, my reading of QUITTING AMERICA among other things helped formulate my own views about the punitive and absolutely unprofitable US foreign policy  stance towards Cuba. History shows that Black Africa has not fared any better despite nice diplomatic noises to the contrary, as illustrated by events in the Congo/Zaire, Rwanda, Angola, Namibia and apartheid South Africa etc.  On Cuba, we have apparently both been vindicated by the bold steps quietly pursued by the Obama administration and which have come to light in the last couple of months culminating in the reestablishing of diplomatic relationships.

THE DEBT THAT NIGERIA OWES BLACKS. 

My thesis remains the following. While a new generation of activists led by Ta-Nehisi Coates are fighting for and waiting for the white man in America, to acknowledge and perhaps pay up his DEBT, others including this writer have pointed out that Black Africa (often meaning Nigeria) owes Africa, especially Africa in diaspora, a resounding success today at home, now. Success in getting our act together, against all odds, will be very good, nay uplifting, for black pride and psyche. And confidence too.

All the stories about Mansa Musa, Ashanti, Meroe, Timbuktu, Zimbabwe, Askia are validly in the past. We need new authentic Africa heroes and success stories for today.

Writers like W E DuBois, DeGraft-Johnson, Walter Rodney, Howard French and lately Tom Burgis (author of The Looting Machine), have rightly chronicled how Africa always ended up with the short end of the stick. The huge burden of underdevelopment with which Africa has been and continues to be shackled by deliberate policies and sheer brigandsge by the European world of which the US is an integral part is a fact of life. Unfortunately here in Nigeria the revelations by bleeding heart colonial-era civil servants like Harold Smith are dismissed and treated as non events. Can we ever learn?

In his writings, Prof Robinson briefly mentioned Dr Dudley, a long time Jamaican ambassador to Nigeria and doyen of the diplomatic corps. As a regular contributor to the Nigerian press in the 80's, Dudley's constant lament was the DEBT that Nigeria owed and still owes blacks.

Dr Dudley wrote long before the black US ambassador, Walter Carrington, in the 90's, took up what was obviously a very personal mandate, namely to shake Nigerians, especially the elite, out the lethargy of underdevelopment and poor governance in which they are complicit. Both men had stridenty maintained that unless Nigeria succeeds, and is seen to succeed, the rest of Africa and Africa in diaspora can hardly imagine pulling themselves up by the bootstrap as may be necessary.

In short, Nigeria owes its very success almost as a religious duty to the rest of the continent. Our black brothers in America can currently claim as alibi, "You guys were never enslaved, or dispossessed, or had your family structure blatantly destroyed, or had to face Jim Crow laws. You have been free. If you can't make progress, how does the world expect so much of us?"

As a graduate student almost forty years ago, I used to be quite dismissive towards the low achievement of the average black male in the US since I met almost none in my academic environment. Not anymore. I do not accept what I currently see, but I am a lot more understanding. So we owe them too. That was exactly what I tried to explain to Prof Robinson. I wanted him to keep up the demand on Nigerian by engaging them.

Without bothering to elaborate on the regular contribution to this discussion by our own Profs Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, I want to draw our attention to a not so recent lecture by Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, a one time Foreign Minister of Nigeria. He dealt once again with the DEBT that Nigeria owes blacks: NIGERIA- The Blackman's Burden. I commend the learned professor's lecture once again to my dear countrymen and women.

http://anwarkazaure.blog.com/2012/08/01/nigeria-the-blackmans-burden/

As the whole world was falling over one other to align with the values attributed to Nelson Mandela, it is appropriate to remind ourselves again what The Madiba had to say about the DEBT that Nigeria owes blacks; what grieved him so much.

http://mobile.saharareporters.com/article/mandela-was-angry-nigeria-dr-hakeem-baba-ahmed

Dr DeGraft-Johnson and others like Basil Davidson (The Blackman's Burden) have had their say. Others like Prof Richard Joseph have more recently wept publicly for Nigeria. Nigerians must therefore continue from where these most eminent personalities stopped until victory is achieved.

When Nigeria cannot undertake simple operations like making petroleum products available for its population, in a world awash with oil, it says a lot about our discipline, commitment, and sheer resolve to engage in activities that are not only difficult but complex upon which our national survival and pride may depend. My disappointment would have been the same even if Nigeria produced no oil, like Mali.  Black Africa and Africa in diaspora is watching Nigeria with bated breath.

Re: Database for Nigeria - John Tosin Ajiboye

All the government agencies mentioned by Mr John Ajiboye are perpetually involved in an internecine turf war that has absolutely nothing to do with service delivery. Their only aim is to retain and if possible expand their individual budgets. Each superfluous agency has its champions and protectors in both the Executive and Legislative arms of government. Hence the current impasse. The management and staff of these agencies with overlapping functions are certainly not so blank as not to see what Dr Orosanye (erstwhile Secretary to Federal Government of Nigeria) and his colleagues saw. The name of the game is to use all means fair and foul to maintain the status quo.

Let us take a few of the agencies one by one.

FRSC: This agency almost got away with its new scam surrounding Vehicle Registration, Vehicle License Plates and Driver’s License. Despite the strident public outcry and the intervention of the Legislature, the FRSC still had the temerity to go back to court to continue fighting the issue against WE THE PEOPLE. This is very strange indeed.

The POLICE: I wonder who will advise The Nigeria Police that in this day and age, the Central Motor Registry or CMR is not a place, like in a physical building, but an electronic data repository, the kind banks maintain and secure routinely. No Nigerian will trust The Police to properly archive any data for him. It is as bad as that. So long as The Police has unfettered access to the data, it has no reason to complain.For all the data at its disposal, when was the last time The Police came knocking at anybody’s door to announce “Sir, we have found your missing car”?

NIMC: By whatever name called, the NIMC has consistently had a bad reputation starting from the tenure of the late minister of Internal Affairs dinner etiquette at the table of governance became the topic of many editorials and beer parlour talk.

NPC: The results of the many enumeration efforts in the past by The Nigerian Population Commission has always led us into strange territories. Schools have been built in locations where there are very few children of school age. On the other hand inadequate health facilities are provided in localities with teeming population. How do we address this monster? One way is to entrench much deferred fiscal federalism without which Nigeria cannot make any headway. Since we pretend to copy the Americans, we might as well go the whole hog. I recommend that all personal income tax should accrue to the Federal Government. The demographic information derived from the tax returns will then constitute invaluable input for rationalising the raw census data.

Re: As Ambode lusts after Walmart - WHAT POSTURE SHOULD NIGERIA ADOPT IN DEALING WITH FOREIGN INVESTORS?

In a recent article in her very popular  column, Ms Abimbola Adelakun wrote among other things:

"The Lagos State Governor, Akinwumi Ambode, can do with (that) wisdom as he lusts after foreigners bringing their businesses to Nigeria. Recently, when he met officials of the retail chain, Walmart, he expressed such unrestrained enthusiasm about their berthing in Nigeria and the potential for jobs they would generate for the economy. Walmart is not a charity organisation, why should it care about Nigeria’s employment figures? Walmart’s advent in Lagos cannot be sheer altruism. . "

The misgivings expressed here is on correct grounds. However one of the jobs of every right thinking government is to channel the "greed" and extreme capitalistic propensity of each and every multinational towards serving the national interest. Are we up to the task?

Milk and yogurt, that would otherwise be wasted (or perhaps not even produced), are now available to grace supermarket shelves in Lagos and Abuja. We have Friesland WAMCO and the so-called white Zimbabwe farmers of Kwarra State to thank for that.

Whether it is through Dole, Del-Monte, Transcorp or Walmart, the same situation is about to evolve in the area of fruit juices. There is more to come. Fresh all season corn on the cob, avocados, mangoes, oranges and papaya.

For example, without surrendering to say rice smugglers, Nigeria still needs to lean on organisations that know what they want to do, based on track record. Right now we are leaning on Olam and others for rice. These companies must however be ready or be made to share the benefits. We must sharpen our negotiating skills. To keep them honest, we must keep some competition in the game. Best practices are not learnt overnight, especially in our dog-eat-dog business environment.

Having said that, I can now aver that the berthing of Walmart and similar organisations in Nigeria can and should be a good thing. Nigerian companies are pretty advanced in merchandising, both retail and online and also in logistics. However applying that to perishable agricultural products is a whole new ballgame. Inadequate electrical power supply has rendered the vital cold chain a most unreliable link in the many vast enterprises that the nation must rely on for increased productivity and hence growth. Add bad roads and the nonexistent railway network and you have a situation akin to middle China in the 1940s during the Japanese invasion. That is how bad I read the Nigerian situation.

One writer recently took the trouble to explain how a broiler chicken bred in Sokoto and sold for N300 apiece to wholesalers gets resold at Lagos at N1,600. The reason was quite simple. The losses are routinely in the region of 60-70%. And we are not talking about bird-flu.

India is a country that, despite wide spread endemic poverty, is still much more advanced than Nigeria on all fronts. Even before the new Prime Minister Nahendra Modi took office, the nation was involved in serious soul-searching in the matter of allowing the Walmarts of this world set up shop there. The merchant class were understandably up in arms, while pro-growth analysts harped on  the same arguments that I have tried to deliver above.

Let me draw attention again to this statement by Ms Adelakun: "Recently, when he (Gov Ambode) met officials of the retail chain, Walmart, he expressed such unrestrained enthusiasm about their berthing in Nigeria and the potential for jobs they would generate for the economy. . etc"

Fortunately or unfortunately, that is the way such business is initiated. Investors must be made to feel welcome. Even in the US, counties will tempt investors with various sweetners and local tax holidays. At this very moment, New York state has introduced a 10 year tax holiday scheme for new investments covering most of the state. Other examples abound.

It would be instructive to find out from those who should know, (and that includes Nigeria's ambassadors), how Alhaji Aliko Dangote is received when he lands in most African capitals. I can easily visualize the fawning. What with the decades-long benign neglect by both the Blue Circle and the Lafarge groups. That's the power of capital for you. That does not mean that we have to hand over the family heirlooms just because foreign investors express an intention to invest in our economy.

Nigeria is still in the very easy stages of engaging the megabusinesses and conglomerates with whom we must do business to sustain the 5 to 10% growth rate that we so much desire and covet. I have written extensively in the past on power, gas development, coal mining and the mining industry in general.

The truth is that we have not really started. When we do start, there is no way BHP-Billiton, Rio-Tinto, Anglo-Gold Ashanti, Vale, Newport etc will not be involved. One should also add to this list Glencore (Trafigura) who have to date only shown interest in trading in our underpriced crude oil and selling us refined petroleum products that we normally shouldn't import. With the sad economic developments of the past few weeks, these mining behemoths seem to have bitten more than they can chew, for now. We still have no choice but to cultivate them.

Kellog Brown & Root, Fluor and Bechtel will have to get on board in engineering and construction to join the Japanese and Koreans. The incestuous relationship we have had all these years with the Bilfinger-Berger group is definitely not sustainable.

For our railways Bombardier,  Alstom and the Chinese must be seen competing for transport infrastructure projects.

A big and fast growing economy requires big investors with access to huge capital. We are in for a very long and turbulent ride with all sorts of sharks in order to move Nigeria forward. Does the government have the requisite legal manpower that can pilot the nation through the legal minefields we must necessarily cross in the course of the negotiations? Unfortunately the track record  so far does not offer any basis for confidence. But we must move on.

One should therefore note that the "teeny-weeny" $1b investment that General Electric has put down in Nigeria is, to use the local expression, "cikiny moni," - chicken change. What in a country where, rightly or wrongly, a single individual is routinely accused of pilfering $5b!

To keep Nigeria on the desirable growth trajectory, we may often have to stoop to conquer, whilst still not losing our heads in the process.

To conclude I wish to paraphrase a statement by Dr Pat Utomi at an event hosted by the Indigenous Quoted Group of the Nigerian Stock Exchange some 20 years ago. In his paper he had lamented the "inexplicable mixture of timidity and brashness" exhibited by our public officials while dealing with foreigners. Striking a proper balance is essentially what Ms Adelakun should be asking for.

Can Buhari appoint Dr Martin Fregene as Minister of Agriculture?

Reading Jon West's comments (on the article by Dr Martin Fregene), makes it clear that we will always recall the Jonathan regime with a large measure of ambivalence. I however beg to disagree with his assertion that the former President's mistakes or deliberate errors were few or minor. However nothing can devalue his administration's impact on the agricultural front. 

The same ambivalence applies to our early reading of the nascent Buhari administration for which we have so few data points to hazard a (premature) judgement at this stage. All Nigerians, including those in the new ruling party, the APC, agree that President Buhari's take off is excruciatingly slow. The original bright promise has been undeniably dimmed. Perhaps we are being unduly hasty, but we are entitled to our expectations. It has been said time and again that GMB's administration would hit the ground running. Some rather uncharitable commentators have accused him of hitting the ground and sitting exactly where he landed.

That said, I must observe that I have found Dr Martin Fregene exceedingly fluent in the subject matter, agricultural transformation, that he chose to address. If I knew him any better, I would immediately conclude "There goes our new Minister of Agriculture!" I believe that he was a good understudy of Dr Adesina, the new boss at AfDB. . . I wonder if the Buhari administration has a more suitably qualified candidate in mind. Time will tell.