17022021 - Insecurity: Nigeria heading to point of no return, unless....

18 — Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2021
ON February 1, 2021 the Minister
of Industry, Trade and Investment,
Niyi Adebayo, announced with
flourish the Federal Government’s
approval of the National Quality
Policy, NQP, which is primarily meant
to stop the rejection of Nigerian
exports to foreign countries.
Much as this measure is welcome in exports were rejected due to poor
that it will help in solving a major branding, labelling and packaging.
impediment to our efforts to diversify Nigeria accounts for over 60 per cent
our means of earning foreign of the world’s yam production but due
exchange from dependence on crude to lack of quality control issues, she
oil sales, it is seriously bemusing that is struggling to break the surface as a
a country that gained its independence major yam exporter.
over 60 years ago and once depended In April 2017, the immediate past
on produce exports for its survival is Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh,
only just now realising the need to had lamented: “Some consignments
create an NQP to promote its exports. of yams were exported from Nigeria
This simply underlines the decades to the United States and according to
of neglect of our non-oil export reports we have today, they were
sector. In September 2019, Williams found to be of poor quality”.
Eze, the Director of Business The Minister had vowed to
Development of the Nigerian investigate both the companies that
Investment Promotion Council, NIPC, exported the yams and the Agriculture
disclosed that 30 per cent of Nigerian Ministry’s Quarantine Department to
Who’ll implement the National Quality Policy?
find out “how such a consignment left
here”.
It is not as though no governmental
mechanism exists at all to ensure that
Nigerian exports undergo appropriate
quality control measures. Indeed, nine
Federal agencies and departments are
charged with this responsibility.
These are: the Nigerian Ports
Authority, NPA; Nigerian Customs
Service, NCS; Federal Airports
Authority of Nigeria, FAAN; the
National Agency for Food and Drug
Administration and Control,
NAFDAC; and the Standards
Organisation of Nigeria, SON.
Others are the Nigerian Export
Promotion Council, NPEC; Nigerian
Agricultural Quarantine Services,
NAQS; the Central Bank of Nigeria,
CBN; and the National Agricultural
Seed Council, NASC.
In Nigeria, the adage that “a goat
owned by many people dies of
hunger” is so true. Inter-agency
synergy is lacking. This much is
obvious even among our security
agencies.
The bureaucracy is full of indolent,
unpatriotic, corrupt and incompetent
workers, and the political leadership
is only interested in the power and
corrupt enrichment their offices
afford them. Few officials are
interested in the supervision and
follow-ups that produce effective
governance.
We suggest that for the NQP to
work, one agency should be handed
the core assignment with others
represented for their specialised
inputs.
The North and the rest of us (2)
This is the concluding part of
this piece. The first part which
was published yesterday
harped on the incompatible
association between the North
and the South.
By SAM AGBESUA
UNFORTUNATELY for
the innocent children of the
guard, the landlord came at the
time they were coming from
school. The Northern elite felt
disappointed seeing the children
coming in school uniform. He
queried the guard about what he
was seeing. The man explained
that it was the NYSC man who
enlightened them.
He then flared up with the young
man asking him whether that was
what he came to do in the North.
Thereafter, he arranged for the
transfer of the young man out of
the area.
One can reasonably guess that
that was the end of Western
education for those innocent
children whose crime was just the
accident of their place of birth.
How are we sure that those
children are not members of the
Boko Haram or the murderous
herdsmen or other bandits
tormenting innocent Nigerians
today. The above story clearly
reveals the marked difference
between the North and the rest of
us on what really constitute values
that are really having impacts on
the polity.
No wonder Sir Ahmadu Bello
unambiguously declared the
amalgamation of the North and
South as “the mistake of 1914.”
How long can we continue to
accommodate this mistake and the
retrogressive impacts of the North
on the rest of us? Under the present
situation, it is quite unreasonable
for the Northern hegemonists and
their selfish collaborator quislings
from the South to continue to shout
at the top of their voices that
Nigeria is an indivisible entity
without doing the needful first. This
is a great fallacy. Nigeria is
divisible. We should stop living in
self-delusion.
A Yoruba proverb says that in a
hunting expedition, instead of the
elephant to be the armour bearer
of the leopard, the expedition will
rather be conducted separately.
If every group goes its different
way and life becomes meaningful
for everyone, is it not desirable
than under an enforced association
where life is perpetually
meaningless to almost everyone?
The situation of the country is
moving to where the North and the
rest of us will be doing ourselves
favour to heed the counsel of Dr.
Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s First
Republic President. Zik pleaded in
a broadcast: “Whether our beloved
Nigeria will continue to remain
OPINION
united as one country or will
become disintegrated into minute
principalities depends now upon
two factors … I have only one
request to make … if this embryo
Republic must disintegrate, then in
the name of God, let the operation
be a short and painless one.”
Zik added: …Let it not be featured
by violence … should the
politicians fail to heed this
warning, then I will venture the
prediction that the experience of the
It is only the
restructuring of the
country that can save
the situation for
Nigeria as single
political entity
Democratic Republic of the Congo
will be a child’s play if it ever comes
to our turn to play such a tragic
role…”.
The bitter truth is that the
prevailing system cannot work. It
has never worked. It will never
work. It is only the restructuring of
the country that can save the
situation for Nigeria as single
political entity. This will foster a
symbiotic rather than the
prevailing parasitic relationship.
Each group in a genuine
federation will be allowed to
develop at its own pace, creating
room for healthy competition as
seen in the pre-independent era.
Then, under Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, the Western Region
became the cynosure of all eyes as
a result of spectacular social,
economic and political
developments that were glaring
even to the blind and audible to
the deaf.
Other regions tried as much as
possible to rise to the challenges
of the breakthroughs in the West.
Sir Ahmadu Bello in the North
and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in the
East also did things that were of
great landmarks and of immense
benefits to their people.
Unfortunately the negative effects
of the Northern domination on the
rest of us had virtually wiped off
the gains of that era.
The Northern elite of today are
not ready to face challenges of
generating the resources they need.
They are only interested in the
feeding bottle federalism in which
the needed resources, generated
mainly from the South are under
their control and doled out to them
periodically without making any
serious effort to work for what they
need.
It is purely a parasitic
relationship. Ahmadu Bello did not
rely on allocation from the centre
to develop the North. He worked
assiduously for what he needed.
In fact, under the present Buhari
government, it appears the
detestable Ironsi’s Decree 34 of
May 24, 1966 is just being
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implemented. Ironsi and his
cohorts failed to consider the
peculiarity of Nigeria as a multiethnic
and multi-religious nation
before coming up with the ill-fated
decree. Compare the language and
expectations of that decree with
what is on ground under the present
regime, you find the spirit of the
decree dangerously hovering over
the nation. The North can recall
the major role it played in the
conflagrations the ill-fated decree
inevitably attracted which did not
spare Ironsi and almost consumed
the whole nation.
If the decree, even before
implementation by Ironsi,
generated such conflagrations,
anyone who thinks it would work
now is living in a fool’s paradise.
The North should not be deluded
into thinking that there is
immunity for it against the
avoidable conflagrations this time
around.
Because the Northern elite are
already complacent with the
periodic allocation from the
centre, they are ready to even
threaten war to prevent the
restructuring of the country that
will force them to work for what
they need. The only alternative to
the restructuring of the country is
for each group to go its separate
ways peacefully just as Zik
admonished.
•Agbesua, former managing
director of Tribune, wrote from
Ibadan.