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16 — Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2022 Send Opinions & Letters to: opinions1234@yahoo.com The Queen’s Britain stole our future QUEEN Elizabeth II’s exit from the mortal plane was bound to excite extreme sentiments because she personified the good, bad and ugly of our history. She was historically and politically our “mother”, who wore the British crown with such charm, charisma, grace and majesty that truly inspired. How much of the British legacies in Nigeria can we attribute to (or blame on) the late Queen? Or, how many of the British legacies can we not attribute to, or blame on, her? Though a ceremonial, constitutional monarch, the Queen retained the post of Commander-in-Chief of the British forces with the power to declare war as she did over the Falklands in 1982. Every new Prime Minister still went to her to collect the instrument of power. No major decision was taken without consulting with her. She remained the Head of State of 14 independent countries and leader of the 54- member Commonwealth consisting of over 2.5 billion people; a third of the world’s population. In her 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth was forced by circumstances beyond her control to superintend over the dissolution of the British Empire through the granting of independence to the former colonies. The manner in which Nigeria’s independence was packaged is responsible for the crises we are still experiencing. Any building with a faulty foundation will collapse sooner or later. But the kind of foundation that Britain laid for Nigeria was such that it would neither stand nor fall. Britain opted for this kind of foundation so that, in cahoots with some anointed local agents, it would continue to manipulate and exploit the system long after independence. In 1914, Frederick Lugard amalgamated Nigeria in a manner of mixing water and oil. Water and oil can be in the same bowl but they will never mix. The Northern Protectorate (the Sokoto Caliphate, which was already an Islamic Republic) was saddled upon the Southern Protectorate ruled by indigenous kings whose people were rapidly embracing the Christian faith and Western outlook. Nigeria should have been three countries or at least, a confederation of three or more autonomous regions with the free option by any of its constituents to quit the union. But, due to British interests, the North was saddled on the South; a neo-imperialist arrangement that remains till today. The Queen herself supervised the final packaging of Nigeria for independence that doomed her permanently. The first was the lopsided manner in which the electoral constituencies were shared between the North and South just before the pre-independence regional and federal elections between 1958 and 1959. Though the population of the South was more than that of the North, the North was given more electoral constituencies. The North, with its huge landmass was made one region, while the South, which was roughly one-third its size, was split into two regions. The geopolitical advantages were massively stacked in favour of the North. Also, the military advantages were in the North’s favour both in terms of institutional locations and personnel recruitment. The North was placed in a position to dominate, whether under democratic or military rule, with Britain always behind it against the South. There is this allegation of a British secret pact with the Sokoto Caliphate which is not part of Nigeria’s official history. According to this notion, the British authorities, after a mock Nigeria is set up to enable the North exploit the South while maintaining the negotiated privileges of Britain; Queen Elizabeth’s British configuration of Nigeria is such that you need Northern approval before you can change anything military exercise in a secret location in Sokoto, handed Nigeria over to the Sultan and the Northern People’s Congress, NPC, leaders. If you hear some Fulani ethnic irredentists boasting that Nigeria “belongs” to them, it is probably an offshoot of this alleged exercise. We can also see it in their leaders’ pattern of handling the South like their colony. It is evident in the parasitic tendency of Northerners. They take over commanding sectors of the economy exploitatively and consumptively, not productively. These include the Military, Police, Customs, the Ports Authority, the oil sector, the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja), Immigration, the Judiciary, and others. Nigeria is set up to enable the North exploit the South while maintaining the negotiated privileges of Britain. Queen Elizabeth’s British configuration of Nigeria is such that you need Northern approval before you can change anything. Before the North gives its approval, it must listen to Britain first. This is why all coups planned by Southerners and Middle Belt officers failed with mass executions, while Northern coups were mostly bloodless “palace” coups. This was why Biafra failed to secede, and anything “Biafra” is addressed with military nihilism. This is why “restructuring” has failed after over 50 years of agitation by Southern politicians and pro-democracy activists. This is why the Constitution cannot be amended to correct imbalances and promote equity. This is why peaceful change is impossible in Nigeria and development is retarded. And this is why the country is bleeding from all pores and the system is imploding. Even those who thought the system the British left behind benefited them are worse off in every item of the human development index. They are fleeing their region in their thousands everyday to shelter in the same South they have dominated like internal colonialists. Sometimes people ask the question: why continue to blame Britain for our woes after over 60 years of independence? We have just painted a picture. So, it is not as if people have not tried to peacefully or violently to correct Britain’s deliberate act of rigging Nigeria against Nigerians for their own benefit. Today, when our leaders are sick (which is most of the time) they run to Britain. When they want to educate their children, they send them to Britain or America. When they steal our money, they hide it in British banks. And when we chase after them, they run to Britain. Would these be the case if Nigeria were normal? Queen Elizabeth’s Britain stole the future of Nigeria! ASUU strike: Bringing back the ‘universe in the university’ By NICHOLAS EBEHIKHALU THAT universality in the university is not a morphological coincidence, not a nomenclatural ornamentation or a terminological embellishment. It was carefully conceived with an in-depth morphology. The universe is the vivacity or the soul of the university without which the university becomes lifeless. This is why Professor Niyi Osundare in his valedictory lecture, July 26, 2005, stated that “the‘Uni’ in the university is a oneness, derived from a whole, a macrocosm condensed into microcosm”. University is a conglomeration of academics and scholars in the universe for the perpetual process of experimentation and discovery. University is an ivory tower or academia with the overriding goal of generating, propagating and disseminating knowledge. In the antiquity and/or the medieval ages, university was known as studia generalia, meaning that universities were generally recognised as places of studies opened to scholars from all parts of the world. The universe in the university resides in its ability to globalise the local and localize the globe. In the university, universalisation and mondialisation have been jealously guarded and robustly empowered over the ages. Once upon a time in this country, our universities flourished as homes for high quality university education. The universities were comparable with some of the best universities in Europe and America. Students came to study in Nigerian universities from all parts of the world. Many of the lecturers in the universities were expatriates and they were very happy living and working in our universities with their families. The universities were dignified and dignifying. Basic physical facilities such as lecture theatres/auditoria, laboratories, studios/ workshops, libraries, and staff offices were in the state of international best practices. Students were living in good condition in their hostels and were studying in conducive environments. There were no inadequacy of lecturers in the system, students - lecturer contacts were frequent and effective. Lecturers were well paid, well housed, assured of decent pension plan, lecturers were wonderful role models and accorded with due respect in the society. Universities in Nigeria were the Jerusalem and Mecca for scholars from many parts of the world. These good old days of the universities in Nigeria existed because the ‘universe’ was clearly visible and conspicuous in the Nigerian university system. It was a time when the existing universities were acclaimed internationally in some specific disciplines and specialties, for instance, University of Ibadan’s physicists and chemists were ranked amongst the best in the world. Today, the story is different, lamentable, pathetic and abysmal because something has happened to the ‘universe’ in the universities in Nigeria. The ‘universe’ has dropped out from the university system. It has taken its flight. The universe is conspicuously absent and seems to be on permanent vacation which vividly shows that a lot of things have changed gravely in the universities to a phenomenal decay. Our universities have become completely localised. In a whole university you can hardly find a foreign lecturer or student. They are no longer attracted to Nigeria universities because the universities are pitifully and disgracefully bad and are not in any way economically attractive. In the 1960s and 70s the salary of a lecturer was comparable to anywhere in the world. Nigerian universities had lecturers from different parts of the world because the salary and welfare were very competitive. But today the salary is not even up to onetenth of what lecturers are earning around the world and even some African countries; hence no lecturer from any part of the world is attracted to work in any of our universities. Nigeria must take notice that no meaningful development can be achieved in a country where government fails to put issues concerning the university education in the front-burner for global reckoning and competitiveness. We should be honest enough to admit that something, indeed, has happened to the ‘universe’ in the university system. How long do we have to continuously pretend like the proverbial ostrich that buries its head in the sand thinking that its backside is not seen, over the crummy condition of our universities? Universities where the lecture theatres/auditoria, laboratories, studios/workshops, libraries, staff offices and other facilities for teaching and learning are far short of the international best practices and even Nigeria national minimum standards; universities where the physical facilities are overcrowded No meaningful development can be achieved in a country where government fails to put issues concerning university education in the front-burner for global reckoning and competitiveness poorly furnished and with non-functional facilities, dilapidated structures and poorly ventilated; Universities that are mostly lacking in basic facilities like magnetic boards, public address systems, projectors, et cetera; Universities where the staff offices are inadequate in number and space, the offices overcrowded to the extent that they have become like staff rooms in the secondary schools with two to three senior lecturers sharing an office space. I always find it very lachrymose informing or describing the abysmal crummy conditions under which lecturers manage the scholarships of students in our universities. Almost all the laboratories lack basic equipment, basic consumables (chemicals and reagents), electricity and water supply. There are instances in which water from buckets and kerosene cooking stoves improvise for tap water and gas burners. Students use kerosene stoves instead of Bunsen burners to conduct experiments in the laboratories. Specimens are being kept in water bottles instead of the appropriate places where such specimens should be kept. Lecturers have generators in their offices to be able to work. Some departments have two or three generators to be able to work. The conventional and e-libraries are poorly furnished, in dilapidated structures and mostly inadequate in space and number. There are poor deployments of ICT. The hostel accommodations in the universities are grossly inadequate and unfit for human habitation. Students live twelve (12) to eighteen (18) in a room like piggery. They have what they call ‘short put’, where they excrete in polythene bags and throw them through the windows into the fields because there are no toilets. You find faeces sometimes in the classrooms because students have no place to use. We are never short of reasons for this abysmal, dismal and phenomenal decay in the Nigerian universities. Our universities have been disendowed with universe because successive governments in Nigeria have neglected the universities over the years through drastic shortfall in government funding. Between 2016 to 2021, Nigeria budgeted only N3.6 trillion (about 6.5%) for education out of the whopping and humongous sum of N55.3 trillion total budget, this happening in the 21st century where countries, all over the world are budgeting 26% UNESCO recommendation for any country’s budget for education. In 2016, out of the total budget of N6.06 trillion, only the sum of N369.6 billion or 6.7% of the budget was allocated to public education. In 2017, N550 billion or 7.38% was allocated to education out of N7.29 trillion budgets. In 2018, N605.8billion or 7.04% was given to education out of N9.2 trillion budget. In 2019, N620billion or 7.05% was allocated to education out of the budget of N8.92trillion, while in 2020, education got N671.07 billion or 6.7% out of N10.33 trillion budget. In 2021, only N742.5 billion or 5.6% was allocated to education out of budget of N13.6 trillion. On the other hand, according to the report of World Bank, Ghana allocated 23.81% of its national budget to education in 2015, 22.09% in 2016, 20.1% in 2017 and 18.6% in 2018. In this year’s budget, Federal Government of Nigeria allocated the sum of N355.47 to the 44 federal universities in the country from the total budget of N875.93billion given to education sector. According to the document by the Civic Organisation, out of the N355.47 billion allocated to the federal universities, N326.9 billion would go for recurrent expenditure comprising of N320.7 billion for personal cost and N6.2 billion for overhead cost. Only N25.5 billion is slated for capital projects in the universities. No nation can develop beyond its educational standard. That explains where we are as a country in the comity of nations. ASUU must continue to struggle for the soul of Nigerian university education, for the universities to survive and for the universe to be brought back to the university system. It has been said that when you want to destroy a country, just destroy its university educational system. At the entrance gate of a university in South Africa, there is a message: “Destroying a nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long range missiles… it only requires lowering the quality of its education.” The patients die in the hands of doctors and nurses from such education; justice is lost at the hands of judges and lawyers of such education; buildings, roads and bridges collapse at the hands of engineers from such education; humanity dies at the hands of religious scholars from such education; and moneys are lost at the hands of accountants from such education. Continues online: www.vanguardngr.com •Dr. Ebehikhalu, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Abuja, wrote via: nicholas.ebehikhalu@uniabuja.edu.ng,
Peter Obi's presidential run(2) The first major obstacle that any politician who aspires to transform Nigeria in any real sense would encounter and that would immediately hobble rather than enhance their performance pertains to the structure of Nigeria. Ours is a unitary system that disguises as federal. It is a system that robs Peter to pay Paul, a legacy of the military’s incursion into politics that has over the years deformed and rendered useless the tradition of healthy rivalry among the country’s constituent units and politicians right before independence in 1960, and was to be entrenched by the Constitution of 1963. But beginning from 1966 under the Aguiyi Ironsi military government that stood in the gap created by the failed putschists of January 1966, the country’s federal structure that was made up of semi-autonomous regions suffered incalculable and so far, irreparable damage. The farther we have travelled as a political entity from that period, the worse it has been to manage Nigeria without the chaos attendant to a failed state. This structural deformity from the military that was first transferred into the militarymidwifed Constitution of 1979 is the obstacle that has been confronted and will be confronted by every Nigerian leader in the post-military era with any slight awareness of what has to be done to right the historic wrong that was introduced into the country’s politics by the military in 1966. It was a political problem that is today also a constitutional crisis. You can only take charge of and change for good a problem you know exists. Peter Obi’s rhetoric has clearly glossed over this fundamental aspect of the Nigerian crisis and demonstrated no awareness of it, to say nothing of him proffering any solution to it. It is the political elephant or, perhaps more appropriately, the leviathan in the room that Peter Obi and his obedient partisans have failed to acknowledge. It is the failure or inability to either acknowledge or address the challenges posed by this structural conundrum by past and present leaders that is at the base of the identarian crisis that has frayed the country’s social fabric, tested its political unity and made its transition merely from a state to a nation a perennial challenge. No past or any other politician of the present times for that matter, including Peter Obi, stands the chance of making any impact on the calloused skin of the country’s divisive nationalisms as long as they choose to ride against the headwinds of this problem. Until Peter Obi is able to offer a road map around and away from the treacherous slopes of this roadblock, his prognosis of the Nigerian crisis will always remain a poetic flight of fancy than a realist take of our political situation. While Peter Obi’s starry-eyed postulations concerning how Nigeria was railroaded into its present situation would appear to carry the seeds of the solution to the problems of governance he has identified, only a clear and detailed elaboration of HOW we can get out of it should count. Thus, rather than the WHAT of the situation, it is the HOW (to get out) of it that matters. In other words, what should be of moment is what he has to say in unvarnished Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2022 —17 truth of how Nigeria can get out of the corner it has been painted into by the incompetence, misgovernance and corruption of some past leaders (all issues that have been accentuated by the structural problem identified above). This aspect of Obi’s and the so-called Obidients’ apprehension of the HOW of the matter is in clear deficit. I am taking seriously the focus on Obi because he is that one of the three leading presidential candidates that has said he, and we have been told to accept, has the touch to transform Nigeria in a manner no other candidate can or has. But where and in what way will or can this transformation take place given the structural imbalance that has humbled both the potentially capable if not great leader and the manifestly incompetent politician in post-military Nigeria? How can Peter Obi navigate the course differently from others who have showed an awareness of the Away from the structural challenges, Peter Obi and his Obidient train still have to work out how they can muster enough votes to win the presidency (with 25% of ballots across two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the FCT) with nothing more than the abrasive enthusiasm of urban-based supporters problem, the original sin that has informed such demands as the calls for a sovereign national conference, the fashioning of a new constitution, the restructuring or, in more extreme cases, outright dismemberment of the country along ethnic or religious lines? While the likes of Olusegun Obasanjo chose to ignore any call for correcting the structural challenges and Muhammadu Buhari and his APC promised but have failed to do something in that regard, no serious politician (Umar Yar’Adua tried his bit during his short presidency in his admission of the flawed process that brought him to power and constituted the Muhammed Uwais Panel) has ignored the challenge the way Obi appears to be doing while waxing lyrical on what is amiss with governance. Even as “clueless” as Goodluck Jonathan was supposed to be, he was aware of this problem and constituted a National Conference to address it in 2014. The recommendations from that conference although not implemented are in some respects unimpeachable. What does Peter Obi have to say about this? Where does he stand on the matter for this is fundamental to anything else he hopes to achieve? Away from the structural challenges, Peter Obi and his Obidient train still have to work out how they can muster enough votes to win the presidency (with 25% of ballots across two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the FCT) with nothing more than the abrasive enthusiasm of urban-based supporters. This may be theoretically possible (if his assumed supporters choose to vote irrespective of party affiliation), but how practicable is this? How much can be achieved with the road walks or “million-man” marches of supporters? How financially mobilised are these foot soldiers, home and abroad? Although Nigeria has no cap on campaign funding, how much can donors or international remittances do in the face of the financial war chest of the APC and the PDP? Yes, Peter Obi may be richer than the average Nigerian or politician but will he run his campaign on personal funds? At the moment, his campaign nationwide is largely anchored on his PDP connections aside from the support that his APGA ancestry will provide in the Igbo-speaking states. The politicians he courts are also mostly from the PDP, a likely pointer to where he has his base and from where he could expect to draw votes outside APGA. Could this explain his Obidients’ constantly savage attack on Bola Tinubu, the potential beneficiary of the split votes of the PDP? Given the way Obi’s supporters attack Tinubu any cursory observer could be excused to think he is the sole aspirant to the office of president aside Peter Obi himself. Concluded They came on the wings of hope. Was it building castles in the air? Oh, the commonality of cliché! Nigeria will be good again. Life will be worth celebrating. Life will be safe. Food will be available. The dollar would return to the pre-1999 value. They would put an end to fuel subsidy, and electricity would be available to the people, because any government that couldn’t resolve the problem of electricity or power within six months was irresponsible. Their government would not be irresponsible. Transportation - rail, road and air - will work once again in our nation. The only thing this government didn’t promise us was that they would bring the moon down so that, like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, the American astronauts that went to the moon in July 1969, Nigerians could also step on it and say “we come in peace for all mankind”. Come to think of it, Nigeria needed peace at the time. The nation needed hope and needed good men to stay in the gap and raise the standards. APC, as a political party, raised the men that filled that gap and began to feed the people with the sweetness of hope. They took the word, Panglossian, and painted it on a canvass of hope so that Nigerians would have no reason to despair ever again. Nobody ever thought of the flip side. The unquestioned flip side has become a haunting reality. Having 08055069060 (SMS Only) For telecoms, the curse of the low hanging fruits placed some men and women of questionable competence in strategic offices, this government has failed so miserably that it is looking for all kinds of channels to raise finances to fund its operations. One of such channels, unfortunately, is the telecommunications industry which, at the moment, continues to outperform other sectors in spite of the government's failure to protect the sector. Globally, the telecoms industry suffers the fate of the low hanging fruits, readily available for any government in need to quickly pluck and solve its problems. For some of us with roots in the village, the expression, low hanging fruits, only stirs a nostalgia, some pleasurable throwback of those journeys to the farms after school, to meet your parents, and the joy of savouring the fruits of those economic trees that line the sides of the farm route, to quench your immediate hunger. Low hanging fruits. You didn’t need to struggle much before harvesting enough to fill your stomach. But life has changed so much. Nostalgia can now inflict pains because going to the farm has become more dangerous and deadlier than suicide. This is one dreadful legacy this administration is going to bequeath to Nigerians. As it is, some top officials are throwing everything into the fire to do whatever salvaging is possible. So, it was with respectable aplomb and fait accompli that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, announced in July this year, the implementation of a five per cent Excise Duty on telecommunications services. There was outrage. But it was the curse of the low hanging fruits. Industry bodies, the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, ATCON, and the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, ALTON, said this was one tax too many. There was already a 7.5 per cent VAT, bringing the total to 12.5 per cent tax that the subscribers would have to pay. It would be an overkill for the subscriber, an overkill for the industry and even an overkill for the government that may enjoy some advantages in the immediate. While one may observe here that some individuals and organisations do pay their taxes to the government, it is difficult to establish how much education is going on, and how healthy and safe the environment is History will record it as a pleasant surprise that an elite member of the ministerial coterie, Dr Isah Pantami, whose rambunctious posturing has done so much damage to the telecommunications industry, has broken ranks to fight on the side of the industry. His remonstrations have led to a suspension of the five per cent excise duty, while also compelling the government to set up a committee to take another look at the decision. The minister’s position is very clear. You don’t need to strangle a front-line performer as a reward for good performance and efficiency. He observed that in spite of the tax overload being borne by the operators, the industry has continued to perform well. “Three unprecedented positive developments have occurred in the digital economy sector in the last three years. In the last quarter of 2020, ICT alone, without including digital services, contributed 14.70 per cent to the GDP. In the second quarter of 2021, we saw another record where the sector contributed 17.90 per cent to the GDP. The last record was in the second quarter of 2022 where ICT contributed 18.44 per cent to the GDP. By implication the sector has been contributing a lot to the GDP,” the minister stated. On this matter the minister is right and enjoys overwhelming support. What irks me a little bit is that the regulator of the industry, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, had enough material to defend the operators but I wouldn’t know how much it tried. Otherwise the minister didn’t need to get into the fray at all. In a 2020 research titled: "A Compendium of Taxes, Levies and Fees by State Governments on Telecoms Operators in Nigeria and its Effect on the National Digital Economy", the regulator which sought tangible proofs of payments from the operators, was able to establish 41 sundry taxes in the basket of the operators with the Minister of Finance scheming to add even more. “The Telecommunications Operators in Nigeria reportedly pay more than 40 different taxes and levies to different Agencies of the Government at Federal, State and Local Government levels in Nigeria,” the report said. In talking about tax, I particularly like the researchers’ choice of K. Nightingale’s definition, which says: “A tax is compulsory contribution, imposed by Government, and while tax payers may receive nothing identifiable in return for their contributions, they nevertheless have the benefit of living in a relatively educated, healthy and safe society.” While one may observe here that some individuals and organisations do pay their taxes to the government, it is difficult to establish how much education is going on, and how healthy and safe the environment is. Universities are shut for nearly seven months and insecurity is pervasive and hovering at the fringes of a full blown war. What returns are the people and corporates getting from their taxes? The evils of multiple taxation were also clearly listed. The word, multiple, speaks well for itself. The researchers describe multiple taxation as follows: "an income that is subjected to tax more than once, often by two or more different authorities in a way that may be unfair or illegal. Illegality and unfairness distinguish multiple taxation from double taxation.” A grim reality established by the research is that “the higher the taxes the higher the level of unserved areas - areas not covered by telecommunications services. It shows that taxes hinder the expansion of the telecommunications industry towards areas that are unserved and as a result might hinder the achievement of the digital economy.” Here is my little observation. It is in the nature of government to look for multiple channels to increase revenue; more so in a world where the global economy is challenged, and further exacerbated locally by installed incompetence in high places. But it is also the responsibility of the regulator to stand firm and defend the industry and its customers with available statistics. Otherwise, regulation only becomes an instrument of legitimised extortion.
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Page 3 and 4: Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14,
Page 5 and 6: Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 ,
Page 7 and 8: :Vanguard News Keyamo’s diatribe
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Page 15: Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14,
Page 19 and 20: Nigeria’s oil exploration begins
Page 21 and 22: In my 30s and craves proper sex Dea
Page 23 and 24: By Anayo Okoli, Vincent Ujumadu, Ch
Page 25 and 26: OKOBOSHI I, formerly known as MISS

14092022

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