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16 — Vanguard, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2022 Flood, passivity, and acting urgently to forestall a ruined future THIS year 2022, the floods seem to have united different parts of the globe. The World Bank report estimates that 1.18 billion people or 23 per cent of the world population, face significant flood risk. The floods have hit 27 of Nigeria’s 36 states and impacted around 1.4 million people, according to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management. It has been reported that more than 500 people have been killed and 90,000 homes submerged, apart from supply chain disruptions. In the North Central, in particular, Koton-karfe and surrounding communities have been seriously impacted while the Orashi area of Rivers State has not been spared. Apart from unusual rains, the recent release of water from the LagdoDam in neighbouring Cameroon has also been blamed for the devastating floods. Beyond these statistics is the individual human tragedy of colossal proportions that beats our imagination. People have lost their livelihoods. The elderly and sick are displaced, food and necessities are scarce, and life becomes drudgery and misery. All these are on top of the stifling economic crisis that every Nigerian contends. Climate change and its impacts are more of a worldwide conversation than a local one. And we hope the UN Climate Change Conference 2022 (UNFCCC COP 27) in Egypt in November 2022 will make a meaningful impact on the conversation, although tremendous pessimism exists given the poor results of previous conferences. The impact of the flooding in Nigeria is exacerbated by a lack of respect for science and leadership problems. Our lack of respect for science and preference for superstition is at the root of the flood disaster we have at hand. We do not respect science; therefore, we seem not to have any place for strategic planning based on scientific evidence. The flooding problem is symbolic of a country whose leadership at all levels does not value planning, working with data and proactiveness. All the agencies in the environment sector, both local and international, based on scientific evidence, predicted the current flood ravaging our country, but nobody showed authentic leadership to provide solutions. Our leaders did not even benefit from past experiences and availability of expertise. These floods did not start this year, and Nigeria was affected in 2010 and 2012. We have enough time to have learnt lessons. But there have now been many years of recurring flood disasters, and from this most recent development, it is evident that we have learnt no lessons. What lessons must we take from this flooding problem, and how can we prevent or mitigate the impact of flooding in Nigeria? First, we must take the science of environment and climatic changes serious. It is noteworthy that in the recent instances of flooding disasters, it is not the lack of data and scientific knowledge that is the problem, but the lack of effective and efficient use of the analysis from the data to plan and put in place measures to either prevent the flooding or reduce its impact. Our leaders act as if all environmental emergencies are Acts of God and, therefore, inevitable, and this is baseless and ignorance. Too much rain alone or overflowing rivers does not create much havoc when structural and procedural anti-flooding arrangements are in place. In countries where they take scientific evidence relating to flooding seriously, there are early warning signs to evacuate people and valuables, and people put in place measures to protect their homes and valuables. Government provides channels for the easy flow of water to designated areas and sets other scientific and environmental standards that reduce the impact of flooding. There should be enlightenment campaigns for Nigerians and their leaders to counter superstitious beliefs and attitudes towards flooding and elevate the supremacy of scientific facts in this regard. This knowledge will help leaders better plan for and respond to flooding in more practical ways than the current blame-shifting or complete nonchalant attitude we see among them today. Second, the first line of defence against flooding is Nigerians living in flood-prone areas. There should be scientific information on flooding, which should be made available to locals residing in the suspected flooding areas. The institutions saddled with this responsibility must be alive to it and be accountable if they fail to gather scientific data, analyse them, and inform the people about the impending flood. I must note that in the case of the Lokoja flooding, institutions provided scientific information and early warning signals about the flooding, but nothing much was done by the leadership or even the first line of defence against flood – the people. Nigerians should demand a fitfor-purpose crisis management regime against natural disasters. The National Emergency Management Agency must be well funded and properly managed to react to disasters and work in synergy with local people to plan and manage crises such as flooding. Third, being reactive to issues for which we have prior information is symptomatic of lack of proactiveness and accountability. Worse still, the leadership needed to ameliorate the impact of flooding cuts across all strata of government. The Federal Government should protect the lives and property of people in affected areas by declaring a state of emergency and The impact of the flooding in Nigeria is exacerbated by a lack of respect for science and leadership problems designating human and m a t e r i a l resources to reduce the impact o f flooding. Federal Government can use its security apparatus support and enforce evacuations, maintain dredging and waste management, and invest in flood mitigation efforts and infrastructure. In floodprone areas, Federal Government should work on enhancing food resilience and security. In times of disaster, food and medicine are essential to limit the casualties of the disaster. State government must desist from allocating land for building in designated flood plains and flood-prone areas, allowing for the construction of houses that block natural water flowing routes, or not having an effective drainage system to control flooding. The national emergency response regime must be prioritised and adequately funded to help prevent disaster (flooding) rather than reacting to the disaster. The legislature should provide a robust and adequate legal framework for dealing with flooding emergencies to ease the prevention and management of such natural or artificial disasters. Fourth, the world is facing a climate change crisis. It is not time to question the science behind it, it is time to embrace it and champion it in Africa. There is a clear opportunity for Nigerian leaders to lead the Global South in demanding accountability from the global community regarding their climate commitments, especially the Global North. The proverbial saying must apply here, “the dog should not eat faeces and the goat’s teeth decay”. Climate change results from more activities in developed countries than in developing countries. China and USA have the highest carbon footprint in the world, representing the two biggest industrialised nations. China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide gas, with 10,668 million metric tonnes emitted in 2020, followed by the US with 4,713 million metric tonnes of total carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. Nigeria’s emission is relatively and comparatively insignificant. Continues online: www.vanguardngr.com to
Vanguard, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2022 — 17 Send Opinions & Letters to: opinions1234@yahoo.com Nigeria and abandoned projects SOME economists claim that you can predict the economy of a nation by counting the number of people idling around at motorparks and airports. There are all kinds of touts outnumbering the ones that are employed. They are so busy collecting money and extorting people. People who are so busy doing nothing but wasting in idleness and laziness, and ironically those next to them are national officers such as Road Safety Marshalls, Police, Military, Vehicle Inspection Officers and so on, harassing motorists just to extort money from them for little or no traffic infractions. Another group comprise those from the state and local government offices who harass drivers, especially of commercial vehicles carrying goods and passengers within and outside the state. They mount illegal checkpoints, requesting for vehicle documentations that have absolutely nothing to do with the roadworthiness of the vehicles. It became necessary for the vehicle drivers, especially those who ply particular routes where these groups of criminals, as I would call them, mount these roadblocks. The people just keep wads of N200 notes to give so they are not bothered and delayed on the road by these jobless individuals who believe their job is to harass citizens who are going about their lawful businesses. The National Assembly man who goes to the company to ask for a cut of a budget that has been approved for a contract. How are you going to look after me since I am a member of the committee that approved the budget? The reason why they are not working is that government has encouraged so much waste. Subsidy is at N4 trillion and you are earning N7 trillion; it is obvious that the subsidy is higher than the budget and earnings. The justification to go on with the subsidy is explained with the story that people will suffer if the subsidy is removed. The people are suffering much more now. The Operation Feed the Nation, OFN, seemed laughable but people went to the farms to produce. It worked; but now it is abandoned. The ministers have no plan for agriculture. Past ministers only acquired farms for themselves having understood the value of farming. They only made it possible for themselves. Young men who are in the city have no jobs, that is those who should have been given the opportunity to go into agriculture. What a wasteful nation. The issue of subsidies for PMS (petrol) could have been dealt with several years ago. A plan to solve this problem has been abandoned. Now the problem looks unsolvable. Government's response is to abandon the problem. In Lagos the Federal Secretariat was projected to serve as flats for Nigerians in diaspora who planned to return. The project has been abandoned for over 20 years. It is common to see many abandoned high-rise buildings in Lagos. Can you imagine if that space was transformed to serve as a general hospital? Can you imagine how many people would be gainfully employed? The NITEL Building in Marina acquired by former Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, was abandoned over two decades ago; the Federal Guest House in Victoria Island, Lagos, the NICON Building, the National Oil building and so many others have similarly been abandoned. For administrative reasons, we kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Only the buildings that belong to the banks seem to be working. Why has the subsidy solution been abandoned? So also are the three refineries in Nigeria, the activation of which must be an integral part of dealing with this unsupportable subsidy? Is the subsidy regime not surviving because it provides incredible wealth to the unsatisfiable piranhas along the food chain of oil? Today the conventional wisdom is that 80 per cent of our oil is stolen. Is the subsidy regime not surviving because it provides incredible wealth to the unsatisfiable piranhas along the food chain of oil? Today the conventional wisdom is that 80 per cent of our oil is stolen Shell has just warned that the oil industry is in danger of collapse. In MM2 there is a skeleton of a Five-Star airport hotel abandoned now for over 20 years. Near the Race Course, the former Ministry of Communications has been abandoned to squatters. The National Museum project has been abandoned and its building is now a shopping mall in King George Street. Does government not understand that people should be employed gainfully to occupy these buildings? Can anyone imagine the GDP of Nigeria if these buildings were functional? They buy it and they abandon it. Can anyone imagine how much money had been spent on these buildings and the ridiculous amount they had been purchased for, yet abandoned. There are more airlines in Nigeria that have died than in any other nation of the world. Imagine how much has been sunk into the airline business in Nigeria? The Nigerian Airways was killed, resurrected, died again, rebirthed and rebranded but to no avail. Yet other airline operators who came to learn from us still proudly have their airlines in operation: Ghana Airline, Ethiopian Airline and Kenyan Airline, to mention but a few. Today we have aviation fuel issues and we complain while all the other African and European airlines, though also complaining, are still thriving. The other airlines use the same aviation fuel, yet they fly. Arik once had 19 planes and today it is in receivership just like Aero. Where are all the gains? When these businesses die, the organisations set up to run them continue despite their high running costs. If all the airlines were running, there would be more people employed. In the airline industries, they can’t pay salaries and the unions continue to threaten. The airline unions threaten strikes and sometimes they discharge the airlines of their duties. And we expect the country to function? The steel plants in Ajaokuta, the oil refineries in Warri, PH and Kaduna are all mothballed. (By the way it was the Ukrainians who built the Ajaokuta Steel Plants.) The Ajaokuta Steel Plant occasioned the building of the railways to Warri; now it is a useless moribund white elephant project. Apart from the Ajaokuta Steel Plant, Nigeria built six steel rolling mills which have all been abandoned. In 1975, government built 12 brick making factories, one in each state. They have all been abandoned. Nigeria had a Peugeot assembly plant and Volkswagen Badagry, and in Enugu, Mercedes Benz had the Anamco Truck Assembly plant. All the ancillary industries that were supposed to support the industries across these value chains were built but are now abandoned, yet the civil service had no diminution in their pay despite the death of these industries. To be continued 2023: Much ado about Ngige’s preferred presidential candidate By JOSEPH ATOBISI AS a labour activist and keen observer of political events in the country, my attention was drawn to the attacks against the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, over his recent appearance in Channels Television “Politics Today” programme, where he declined to say on air, his preferred choice between the presidential candidate of his party, the All Progressive Congress, APC, Ahmed Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP. Leading the onslaught against Ngige was the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of APC, one Alhaji Murtala Yakubu Ajaka from Kogi State, who accused him of engaging in “anti-party” activities. Ajaka told the minister and other federal appointees to publicly campaign for Tinubu or tender their resignation. Similarly, one Rev. Solomon Semaka, purportedly speaking on behalf of a civil society organisation, "Save Nigeria Movement", described the comments made by Ngige in the interview as indicators that he was working against the government of President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling APC. Semaka further alleged that poor handling of labour issues by the minister, particularly the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, imbroglio, was a deliberate ploy by Ngige to set Nigerians against the APC and its presidential candidate. On his own part, the embattled Anambra State Chairman of the APC, Basil Ejidike, released a statement disowning the minister, saying whatever statement he made in the interview was personal to him. Back to the Channels TV interview, to begin with, Sen. Ngige is no stranger to controversy. He came into political limelight when he was elected Governor of Anambra State in 2003 under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Although his tenure lasted 34 months, he will for a long time be remembered for his sterling performance in office, especially in the development of physical and social infrastructures. History will also remember him as the governor who dislodged the greedy political godfathers who, prior to his assumption of office, feasted on the resources of the state. During his tenure as governor, Ngige survived an attempt by the selfstyled political godfather in Anambra State, Chief Chris Uba, to force him out of office, using the proverbial federal might. Acting on orders from above, an Assistant Inspector General of Police, Raphael Ige (now late), stormed the Government House Awka with two trucks of policemen on a mission to abduct the sitting governor and remove him from office, but their mission failed. Also, an Enugu High Court, presided over by Justice Stanley Nnaji (also late), ordered the withdrawal of his security details. Many of Ngige’s contemporaries as governor, such as Joshua Dariye, Rasheed Ladoja and Ayo Fasoye, who drew the ire of the same federal forces, were thrown out of office through impeachment, even without meeting half of the requirements for the impeachment of a sitting governor. But, in Ngige’s case, he neither resigned nor was impeached until the Justice Garba Nabaruma-led 2003 Anambra State Governorship Election Tribunal in Awka, nullified his election in favour of the petitioner, Peter Obi of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA. Curiously, the same tribunal admitted that both PDP and APGA benefitted from the fraudulent votes cast in the same election. As a result of Ngige’s travails, great literary icon, Chinua Achebe, turned down the national honours offered him by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo. After leaving office as governor, Based on his sterling performance, President Buhari re-appointed him in 2019; it is instructive to note that from the time of his first appointment in 2015 till date, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment has conciliated over 1680 disputes Ngige won one of the most contested senatorial elections in the history of Nigeria. This feat was remarkable for two reasons. One, he won election to represent Anambra Central in the Senate on the platform of Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, a party widely seen as a “Yoruba party”, thus, breaking the barrier of the Igbo/Yoruba politics of rivalry and discord, traceable to the 1950s when Awolowo deployed “ethnic card” to deprive Nnamdi Azikiwe of the premiership of the Western Region. Secondly, to win that election, Ngige defeated former Information and Communication Minister, Professor Dora Akunyili (now of blessed memory), who was the candidate of the ruling APGA in Anambra State. The election was held three times and yet, Ngige won in the senatorial district of both the APGA sitting Governor, Peter Obi and National Chairman, Chief Senator Victor Umeh. In the same polls, Akunyili had the strong support of PDP, which controlled federal power in that era, and even some elements within Ngige’s own party, ACN. In spite of the whole “gang up”, Ngige won. As an opposition Senator, he played a pivotal role in the formation of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2013. The party was an amalgam of ACN, Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, and a faction of APGA. For campaigning for Muhammadu Buhari presidency in 2015, his opponents tagged him a member of “Boko Haram” party and this cost him his senatorial seat. When Buhari eventually won the presidency on APC platform, he appointed Ngige as the Minister of Labour and Employment. His appointment was greeted with criticisms by many Nigerians who queried the rationale behind appointing a medical doctor as the Minister of Labour. However, it took just a few weeks after his assumption of office, for him to prove skeptics wrong. Being a stickler for excellence, the former Anambra State Governor revolutionalised labour administration and management in Nigeria, adopting a proactive approach to the conciliation of labour disputes. A few examples will suffice here. Before he came on board, the Federal Government was at loggerheads with the National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, over unresolved issues in the 2012 agreement they entered. Ngige quickly ended the dispute, which almost crippled the already beleaguered electricity sector. He also resolved the protracted industrial dispute, between Exxon Mobil and a section of its staff, which even went to the Supreme Court and was returned to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, for conciliation. The climax of his first tenure was the negotiation of the N30,000 Minimum Wage for all workers in Nigeria, which President Muhammadu Buhari, signed into law in April 2019. Based on his sterling performance, President Buhari re-appointed him in 2019. It is instructive to note that from the time of his first appointment in 2015 till date, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment has conciliated over 1680 disputes, leaving very little work for the Industrial Arbitration Panel, IAP, and the National Industrial Court of Nigeria, NICN. Under Ngige, the ministry has successfully conciliated disputes involving workers across different sectors, including, education, aviation, health, power, banking, petroleum, judiciary and legislature, among others. Continues online: www.vanguardngr.com •Atobisi, a labour activist and public affairs analyst, wrote from Abuja. C M Y K
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Page 15: THE BIG INTERVIEW How Nigeria can g
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Page 25 and 26: BENIN-AUCHI-OKENE HIGHWAY: Resident
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