Is a new Nigeria really possible?

This little story says a lot about Nigeria. I was driving along Opebi Road, Lagos, when the traffic lights turned red at Salvation junction. The vehicles ahead of me kept moving nonetheless. I thought the lights were faulty but still decided to stop and watch. Then the drivers behind me started hooting as if I had committed a heinous crime. The guy directly behind me was screaming what I strongly suspected were obscenities. Then a commercial motorcyclist levelled up with me and started lecturing me on why I should ignore the lights, insinuating that I was wasting everybody’s time. He was still making his presentation when the lights turned green. They were working fine, after all.

What was my offence? I understand that it was early, around 7am, and people were maybe hurrying to the office or wherever. What they didn’t know was that I was in a hurry too. I wouldn’t leave my house at 6.30am and head for a joint to eat catfish pepper soup. I was going for a workshop and needed to be there on time. But traffic lights are not Christmas lights and are, therefore, not decorations. In Nigeria, we engage all kinds of excuses to avoid doing the right thing and then turn around to say our country is not working. The same people who ignore traffic lights in Nigeria would obey them in Rwanda — only to return and start lamenting that Rwanda is a better country.

Yesterday, when Waziri Adio, former executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), presented his memoir, ‘The Arc of The Possible’, in Abuja, the Salvation traffic lights incident kept coming to mind. I have read Waziri’s book from page to page a number of times. Each time, I see the resolve of a public officer to go against the grain and do what is right. He should ordinarily be celebrated. But each time, I see how the system and its operators can frustrate and demonise you and even try to make you feel exceptionally stupid. Still, I remain optimistic about what is possible in Nigeria. Our country is redeemable. We have the ingredients.

In yesterday’s conversation moderated by Mr Samson Itodo, the panellists — Amb Yusuf Tuggar, Ms Yewande Sadiku and Dr Joe Abah — agreed that despite the challenges, there are Nigerians in the public space who desire to effect positive change. Mr Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, chairman of the event, had set the tone with his opening remarks, echoed by Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, the chief host. World Bank country director, Mr Shubham Chaudhuri, Ms Sharon Ikeazor and Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi gave goodwill messages. After Dr Okey Ikechukwu’s book review, Kaduna state deputy governor, Mrs Hadiza Balarabe, did the presentation. The event anchored by Mr Kingsley Osadolor.

In the ‘The Arc of The Possible’, I see, on every page, the same Waziri I have known as a friend and mentor since we met in December 1989 as undergraduates at the University of Lagos: principled and resolute. His attempts at instilling prudency at NEITI — spending public funds shrewdly as if he were spending his personal resources — and his uncompromising attitude to work ethics are exactly what we need to transform our public service and, invariably, the country. Nigeria will never make progress if the engine room of government — the civil service — continues to run as it currently does. If we can reform the civil service at local, state and federal levels, Nigeria will be transformed.

In the memoir, I saw at least five things that should count as Waziri’s achievements (he consistently commends his NEITI colleagues for making them happen). One, apart from clearing backlogs of the annual audit reports, NEITI did the unthinkable by releasing the 2020 report nine months ahead of the deadline set by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the global body. You wouldn’t appreciate it. In the past, we were always two years late. Nigeria had become an embarrassment to itself. This is to say nothing about the absurdities of the late releases — such as making the media report issues that might have already been addressed along the line.

Two, Waziri helped reduce the cost of producing audits by almost half. For a government that promised to be the epitome of prudence, Waziri should have been its poster boy under normal circumstances. Nigeria has been suffering severe revenue crisis since 2014. But rather than government expenditure, especially overheads, coming down to reflect the times, they have been rising every year and we continue to stockpile debts and deficits. I imagine that if the MDAs watched their costs the way NEITI did under Waziri’s stewardship, things would be much different today. But, well, government money is nobody’s money and we keep wasting it like drunkards. Who cares?

Three, I read, in anger and pains, how Waziri struggled to leverage on personal goodwill to get donor support of over $1.5m for NEITI’s operations. You would think NEITI, as the extractive industry auditor, would be priority for a government that wants to fight corruption in a country where the operations of the sector are globally graded as shady. Not only was NEITI unable to pay its rent for some years, it was always short of cash, partly because the agency would not do what many other MDAs do to get fat allocations passed as budgets and then oil the system to get the votes released on time. NEITI was practically kicked out by its landlord and had to rent a much smaller space.

Four, the beneficial ownership register was delivered on Waziri’s watch. Typically, the real owners of the extractive companies are hardly made public. The register now reveals the real owners. It has been a major international requirement to combat opaqueness in the sector. When NEITI unveiled the register in January 2020, Nigeria became the only country with any form of open register of beneficial owners in the whole of Africa, Asia and the Americas. Also, Nigeria became the first country in the world with a beneficial ownership register specifically for the extractive sector. This will someday become a powerful weapon in combating the sector’s legendary lack of transparency.

Five — and this was my favourite as a researcher — NEITI introduced policy work to its portfolio, regularly producing analytical publications. In particular, I gained remarkable knowledge and insight into the Nigerian natural resources sector by reading the NEITI Policy Brief, the NEITI Quarterly Review, and the NEITI Occasional Paper Series. NEITI went beyond telling us “revenue is missing” or “revenue is unremitted”. It started providing educative insight into the workings of the extractive sector, even making policy proposals that would later play a critical role in sectoral reforms, notably the amendment of the law on deep offshore law and inland basin production sharing contract.

Remarkably, Waziri is man enough to own up to what he says were his failings in office, admitting he could have been “less impatient with people, and less judgemental, less irascible”.  He says he could have paced his actions differently “especially those that required changes in other people or came with a measure of discomfort”. He writes: “I could also have invested more time and energy into reading the room, paying more attention to the changing power configuration in the operating environment, and in creating more time for political management which is deemed the primary responsibility of a public official”. It was more about style not substance, he writes, but both matter.

He admits that focusing intently on goals and outcomes, being driven by righteous anger, and living by example are good and necessary, “but they may not always be enough especially when dealing with deeply rooted norms in settled and complex environments”. I hardly find this level of introspection in Nigerian memoirs and autobiographies. The regular lines are “I don’t have any regrets”. Former public officers often paint a blameless picture of themselves, even when we have facts to the contrary. But whatever Waziri did not do well enough in office, I can say this even at gunpoint: he never soiled his hands. Rather, he gave up personal comfort to serve his fatherland.

And herein lies what makes me hopeful for Nigeria: there are thousands of Waziri Adios out there waiting to be tapped — competent people who have prepared themselves for public service, who have the vision and the values. They want to transform the society. But herein lies what makes me despair at the same time: these people hardly get the opportunity to deliver, either because the system cannot withstand or accommodate their ideals or they do not have “any man” to lift them up in the first place. The saddest part, though, is that decent people have also joined government and lost their way on sighting the ogbono soup on the tables of power. Behold, many have gone rogue!

Back to the traffic lights story. Many people do the wrong thing and seek to justify them by saying everyone else is doing it. The drivers in front of you are running a red light, so why not do same? That is one of the things hampering good governance in Nigeria. People get elected or appointed into public office and start doing unlawful and unethical things because that is what others are doing or did. Also, many public officers are pressured to do the wrong thing because of the circumstances around them: the need to meet a commitment, to be comfortable, to make hay while the sun shines. This compares well with the other road users putting pressure on me to run a red light.

Moreover, Nigeria has gone so bad that what is wrong is now treated as right and what is right is seen as wrong. How can you insult me for obeying traffic lights? Within the 30-second wait, I started feeling like an idiot. Now, imagine somebody going into public office and helping government to save money — as well as not having his hand in the till. People will question his sanity. At a point, he too will begin to question his own sanity. Waziri was flying economy class before the federal government made it mandatory for agency heads “to cut costs”. At the end of his tenure, he chose not to buy his official vehicle (often sold as scrap). He even returned the official laptop. Is he normal?

I could feel Waziri’s frustrations when he was in office but he never gave up. He believes Nigeria can be changed. I believe so too. But we do not have similar attitudes to public service. His own approach is to try to change things from the inside by being part of government. My own approach is to influence change from the outside without ever being part of government. We need both approaches, but Nigeria needs more Waziris who will roll up their sleeves, get into the kitchen and work their heads off to prepare the recipe that will change Nigeria. There are thousands of Waziris out there. Imagine how great Nigeria can become with the right people at the helms. It is possible!

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

BADAGRY EIGHT

A week ago, while we were all talking about the heart-breaking death of 12-year-old Sylvester Oromoni, a student of the elitist Dowen College, Lagos, something not less tragic happened at Jah-Michael village along Badagry expressway: eight children were found dead in an abandoned car. They were aged between four and 12. Their apparently poor parents said they were asked to pay N100,000 for each body to undergo autopsy, so they decided to bury their wards like that and lick their wounds. Knowing what killed them will not bring them back to life but they can at least come to closure. Lagos state government must step in. The poor are human beings too. Justice.

KILLING FIELDS

On Tuesday, bandits set a bus ablaze in Sokoto state, burning dozens of passengers to death. Poor and lowly Nigerians reduced to ashes because their country could not protect them! On Wednesday, nine worshippers (some said 16) were killed when gunmen invaded their mosque at Mazukaka village in Niger state. Poor and lowly Nigerians mauled in a hail of bullets because Nigeria failed to protect them! These savage acts did not trend in the media because, as we know, they did not fit into the template and do not confirm to the conspiracy theories. However, these are fellow human beings. We must all rise and fight for a safer and more secure country. We are all at risk. Fact.

APARTHEID OR APATHY?

There has been a number of complaints about “vaccine apartheid” — the notion that rich countries are cornering the COVID vaccines while poor countries are lagging behind. The way to go, it is said, is vaccine equity. Rich countries are expected to help the poor ones. It makes sense because COVID infection in any country is a threat to every other country. But the biggest problem in poor countries, if I’m not mistaken, is the vaccine hesitancy. Because of the outstanding success of the anti-vax movement, propelled largely by religious leaders, people are refusing to be vaccinated. Less than 3% of Nigerians are jabbed, so should we really be complaining about vaccine apartheid? Apathy.

NORTHERN BOOM

Are you a northerner? Do you want to make millions ahead of the 2023 presidential poll? I have a business idea for you: form a group. You can even be the only member. Then join the multi-billion naira endorsement industry. With so many southerners eyeing Aso Rock and needing to show that they have support in the north, you can start issuing press statements and organising press conferences to endorse one candidate or the other. This business is moving very fast already. “Arewa Union backs Gorimapa for 2023”. “Northern Youths Endorse Ikeregbe”. And there are loads of naira and dollars on offer. Do not say I have not done something for you this year. Sycophancy.