Bishop David Oyedepo speaks to young people about choosing who to marry

POST-A-POEM

Shepherd’s Purse

BY PAUL PERRY

In the field — 

shepherd’s purse:

to be seen even in the dark.

Think on it — after the gravel paths,

after the roads — uneven and achingly long,

across the cold promise the border makes

to a sloping field, to a ditch.

A ditch like any other.

A ditch I have known — since.

Imagine them: green, slender, from crown to root,

a rosette of radical leaves, smooth,

arrow-shaped and above them numerous small,

white, inconspicuous flowers.

There was no need to ask

the man to kneel but he did,

as if he were going to beg forgiveness,

which he did not, nor did he ask for his life.

He named his children and his wife,

murmured to his own private God.

Overhead, there was the sound of pine shifting,

the moon winnowing in the distance.

So, nothing terrible about the night then,

if you do not count the earth tilting,

or the sound in the undergrowth

of a passage from this world to the next.

More than that I remember the flat-seed pouch:

weed some call it, as if to flourish and seed

in the poorest soil is to be just that.

They are everywhere now — 

it seems to me,

populating my field of vision

like a generative disease, an affliction.

Look:

a man walks into a field.

A field with shepherd’s purse.

He falls.

He falls again.

Every day, from this day until kingdom come,

he falls into the embrace of a field of flowers,

into shepherd’s purse.

ARE WE ALL EQUAL???.. DO WE ALL HAVE EQUAL LAWS????

...written by Sierra Marlee

Kim Davis, Kentucky country clerk, was recently arrested after she was found in contempt of court for not issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She says that the action would violate her religious beliefs as a Christian.

U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning placed Davis in the custody of U.S. marshals until she complies with their order. He said fines were not enough to force her to issue the licenses, and allowing her to defy the order would “create a ripple effect.”

“Her good-faith belief is simply not a viable defense,” said Bunning, who also said he has deeply held religious beliefs. “Oaths mean things.”

But critics are not happy about her arrest, saying it is an attack on religious freedom in the United States. They also claim that the law is not being enforced equally, and cite the case of Charee Stanley as evidence.

Ms. Stanley is a Muslim woman who, with the help of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations,) has filed a complaint against her former employer, ExpressJet for not accommodating her religious values. She says the airline did not work to reasonably work out an arrangement that would prevent her from being forced to serve alcohol, which violates her religious beliefs. The Political Insider published this quote:

A Muslim-American group plans Tuesday to file a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against ExpressJet Airlines for allegedly failing to accommodate a Metro Detroit-area Muslim flight attendant who objects to serving alcohol based on her religious beliefs.

The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the airline had directed employee Charee Stanley , to work out arrangements with the other flight attendant on duty to accommodate passengers’ requests for alcohol. The setup, it said, had worked without incident until Aug. 25, when ExpressJet placed Stanley on administrative leave for 12 months, after which her position may be terminated, according to CAIR.

There are now special ones????

“We have informed ExpressJet of its obligation under the law to reasonably accommodate Ms. Stanley’s religious accommodation request regarding service of alcohol,” Lena Masri, staff attorney for CAIR-Michigan said in a statement.

While it can be said that the cases are very different, as Davis was elected to do her job, consider the following:

• Kim Davis was elected to her county clerk position, but her job description was unlawfully changed by a Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court does not hold the Constitutional authority to make or change laws. These unlawful changes created a violation of Davis’ beliefs.
• Davis is also responsible to represent the interests of those who elected her. If the majority disagree with same-sex marriage, she has a responsibility to consider that in her actions.
• Charee Stanley volunteered to take a job where the job description should have been laid out before her in detail, including but not limited to the service of alcohol upon flights. She knew of her duties before accepting the job.

In closing, I’d like to note that the White House coming out and saying that Davis had to be arrested because “nobody is above the law” is hypocrisy at its finest. 

(This article was written by Sierra Marlee and first appeared here Christian Arrested, Muslim defended... )

University Education: Hope for the future???

TWO news items last week heightened the crisis in the tertiary education sector. First is the unconfirmed report that the Federal Government plans to revert four Universities of Education it upgraded in May 2014 (about a year ago), to their former status as colleges of education.

The second is the denial of full operational licences (accreditation) to eleven (11) private universities. The two reports underscore the magnitude of problems confronting education in general and tertiary education in particular.

The developments also show the lack of blueprint as to what the country wants to achieve through education and the modalities for achieving it.

What is being advertised are the ad-hoc measures being applied and how these have failed. Sadly enough, we are toying with the future of the country, which is built in the millions of youngsters whose aspirations are being truncated by the half-hearted measures.

It would be recalled that in an executive fiat, the Federal Executive Council had in May 2014 approved the upgrading of four Federal colleges of education to universities at a meeting presided over by the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan.

The colleges of education were Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo (to Adeyemi University of Education, Ondo); Federal College of Education, Zaria (to Federal University of Education, Zaria); Federal College of Education, Kano (to Federal University of Education, Kano); and Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri (to Alvan Ikoku University of Education, Owerri).

On the face value, it would seem that government took a progressive step to expand the teaching profession by churning out more graduate level teachers.

That is the seeming worth of the decision, which, however, is not the true worth of the “universities.” It would, therefore, be foolhardy for anyone to take the upgrade at its face value since in reality, little or nothing was done to upgrade the infrastructural facilities, laboratories, academic staff, funding, instructional materials and all that, to match the new “camouflage” woven around the institutions in the name of universities.

The N500 million reportedly approved for each of the new “universities of education” could hardly build a standard research laboratory; what about the other essentials that must be put in place? The upgrade was therefore merely on paper, in nomenclature and nothing more. It was politically motivated and not based on critical need.

The grant could have been given to the colleges to improve their capacity. They are better off remaining as they were than to wear the toga of glorified universities. Nothing changed.

The other side of the argument has to do with need. Was there a needs assessment to ascertain the imperative of converting those colleges of education to universities? On what was the decision based? Is the country lacking institutions that produce teachers at tertiary level? There are over one hundred universities in Nigeria that have education faculties that are looking for students.

The quota in the universities’ education faculties is not being met. If anybody wants to acquire education degree, there is chance to enroll in any of the existing education faculties that are almost evenly spread across the nation? Besides, the four colleges of education could be affiliated to some of the old universities in their jurisdiction rather than being pushed to assume university status they can’t sustain.

I am aware that the Alvan Ikoku College of Education is already affiliated to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and awarding degrees in education. The Adeyemi College of Education is also a College of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

Those in Kano and Zaria could as well be affiliated to the older universities in the North to achieve the same result. There is no justifiable reason to destroy these ancient landmarks that were established with a purpose by Nigeria’s founding fathers shortly after independence in 1960.

The four colleges were established between 1961 and 1963 to produce middle level teachers at NCE level and should be left to pursue their original goals and objectives without interference.

That need is still there. If, therefore, the Buhari administration is contemplating to reverse them to their original status, (as being rumoured), so be it. Those protesting this move, to my mind, are ill-informed and chasing the wind.

The other issue concerns the denial of full accreditation to 11 private universities by the National Universities Commission (NUC). The universities reportedly include Wesley University of Science and Technology, Landmark University, Rhema University, Samuel Adegboyega University, Paul University, Oduduwa University, Tansian University, Baze University, Obong University, Achievers University and Wellspring University.

The nine universities that received full operational licences are Veritas University, Caleb University, Geoffrey Okoye University, Fountain University, Adeleke University, Western Delta University, Afe Babalola University, Salem University and Nigerian Turkish Nile University.

The issue is not that a university is denied full operational licence or accreditation but the consequences of the action on the millions of students that enrolled in these universities.

What is the fate of the students? Are they going to continue to study in universities that are not accredited? What is the value of the certificates awarded by these institutions?

Why does the NUC allow institutions to open their gates for admission of students when they are not yet fully accredited? It is noteworthy that the same NUC had clamped down on a number of unaccredited private universities and other tertiary institutions that were classified as illegal.

The action shows that what makes a university are not the buildings alone but a lot of other necessities are equally needed – quality of the teaching staff, governance structure, adequate infrastructural facilities, etc.

What is the rationale for these unaccredited universities to remain operational before getting fully licensed and accredited? What is the guarantee that they will meet the accreditation requirements when the private universities are seeking federal government’s support, an indication that they are in a tight corner.

The NUC is in quandary! Having substandard universities in every nooks and cranny of Nigeria is no solution to our problem. Somehow, university education has been reduced to pure business rather than academic.

Whereas the establishment of the universities has helped alleviate the severe admission crisis, the truth is that most of the universities are ill-equipped.

There is gross dearth of teaching staff. Experts say the total number of lecturers in the country could just be enough to serve about 30 universities.

That explains why the same lecturers are commuting to and fro the various universities to teach. The teaching staff number is falsified by some of these institutions to meet NUC’s accreditation inspection. There should be a blue print upon which our educational needs are based to avoid unending policy somersaults.

(This article first appeared here http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/08/toying-with-university-education/ written by Luke Onyekakeyah on August 18, 2015 for Guardian Online Newspapers under the Heading: "Toying with University Education".  )

MY FIRST LESSON FROM BISHOP OYEDEPO, BY SAM ADEYEMI (senior pastor Daystar Assembly Int'lB)

THIS POST FIRST APPEARED HERE AND I DECIDED TO SHARE WITH YOU.

The first day I went to Canaanland, Ota to see Bishop David Oyedepo was a memorable one full of lessons. I had met him at the National Ecumenical Centre, Abuja where I first told him I wanted him to mentor me in ministry; because I needed the same grace of effortless accomplishments on his life and ministry.

He had his PA give me his complimentary card, then told me to come to his office at Canaanland, Ota. I was so excited that I couldnt wait for the Independence Day National Christain Service to end at the Ecumenical Centre so I could dash home and tell my wife about my encounter with the bishop.

On the appointed date, I went to Canaanland, Ota with my wife Nike to see the bishop. We waited for six hours and could not see him. There was a crowd of people also waiting. He is a thoroughly busy person, and he gives a good measure of time to each person that enters the office.

Dr. David Oyedepo

I was totally disappointed that day. I thought he would tell his orderlies and PA to bring me inside immediately once they saw me; because I was Pastor Sam Adeyemi of Daystar Christain Center.

By 3pm, we were all told to go home and come at another appointed day; without as much as any explanation. Since I entered full time ministry, that was my first time of having to wait for an audience with someone; to wait for a full six hours!

I went home angry. I told myself I wont go there again. “What sort of thing is this?” “How can I stay there and waste a whole day without seeing the bishop?” “Dont I have other things to do?” I kept fuming to myself at home. I couldnt calm down to piece together all that happened at Canaanland that day. For all I cared, the bishop knew I was coming that day to see him.

But my wife kept telling me to be patient so as to get what I want. Nike talked me into going back to canaanland for another wait for the bishop. I finally determined that I must see him, no matter the time it would take.

On the new date of appointment, I went again with my wife and waited another six hours before we were sent home. I had cancelled a lot of meetings and shifted a dozen appointments to go back to Canaanland, Ota. I was so thoroughly washed down by that second disappointment.

It then happened for the third time before my wife stopped talking me into going again. She allowed me to make my decision. I had had enough. I went home and got busy. I neither called the bishop during this my period of total hands-on-ministry, nor went to see him again. I simply bought all his books, and a thousand tapes of the bishop. I read the books till they became a part of me. I listened to the tapes at home, in the office, and when I’m driving. I soaked myself in the work of the ministry. We started many projects in our church, including setting up schools, orphanages, and the Daystar Leadership Academy. I didn’t bother to call nor try fixing another appointment with his PAs.

Six months later, we met at the domestic wing of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, and you should have seen the look of surprise and happiness at the same time on the bishop’s face.

“This my son. Where on earth have you been?” Did you travel to Mars?” He hugged me so tight as if his life depended on it. He was all smiles. He started asking me questions about how ministry has been going, and I answered excitedly, with all the clarity he wanted.

We found a seat in the lounge and talked for about 30 minutes; because the flight was delayed by 30 minutes. He kept asking questions and I kept talking.

The next day, the bishop called me. He called me again after three days. From then on, seeing him became less cumbersome. That was how I became a regular keynote speaker at the Covenant University Special Programmes on Character Development and National Transformation.

Today, the bishop pubicly refers to me as one of his favourite sons in ministry, and our ministry has grown in leaps and bounds because I sense the same grace upon the bishop operating in our ministry too.

Sam Adeyemi

TAKE HOME LESSON

Deep calls unto deep. Men of destiny, men of purpose, men who are busy and occupied with their primary assignment on the earth can easily recognise themselves across a hall when they meet.

All things being equal, busy people love busy people. Busy people rarely love to associate with, or accomodate people who slow down their momentum.

So whenever you find yourself complaining about an apperant lack of attention from a busy person, the solution is to just go and get busy with your life and assignment. First of all, discover your specific assignment, your niche, and grow in your influence. Get busy!

This is because recognising each other when you’re both at the top is far easier and effortless than recognising each other at the crowded ground level. The high decibel of noise and purposeless activity of the crowd at the ground level, comprising of people of all sort of character and orientation will never allow that to happen.

Up your game!

THERE IS HOPE FOR NIGERIA AS MALLAM AHMED JODA, BUHARI'S TRANSITION COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN OPENS UP ON HIS FINDINGS.

I stumbled upon this piece, an interview granted to Daily Trust by Ahmed Joda, 'the super perm sec', as he is fondly called by many of his admirers. I took my time to go through them and I was happy at what I read, not that I am happy of the state of the nation, but, I am happy that there is someone from the past who has told us that our nation was not like this from the beginning. That Nigeria was not the Corrupt nation as it is internationally accepted today. I now know that there was a time when accountability was not just on paper but in practice, I now know that there was a time when in this nation, government officials were held responsible by the populace for every of their actions, I now know that there is great hope for this nation to rise again. 

It is my desire that every well-meaning Nigerian especially our youth will get to read this piece and get angry with the things happening in our dear nation... it is my desire that after going through this piece we shall all take a decision to rise to the challenge of repositioning of nation at all costs beginning from giving the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari every support which he may need to lead this great country in the next four years.

Please read the interview below:

Can you recall your experience when you were appointed to head the APC transition committee and your feelings over the appointment?

I really don’t know how I felt. I had gone to bed and there was a bang on my door at about 1:30 am and I was naturally feeling sleepy and even afraid that anybody should wake me up at that hour. But they persisted so I opened the door and asked what it was and they said it was the president-elect who wanted to speak with me. I woke up a little bit jolted and the person who was on the telephone said the president-elect wanted to speak to me but they couldn’t get me earlier so he had just gone up but wanted to see you tomorrow. I do get surprises like that sometimes but I went to bed and slept without knowing what he was calling me for. But I guessed that it must be some kind of involvement in the transition, though I didn’t know in what capacity.

The next day I flew back to Abuja and met with the president. He told me about my appointment as chairman of his transition committee. I thanked him for the honour and privilege to serve our country and that was it. He then gave me a letter with the terms of reference attached and said I should do the work in two weeks and I made two observations. That, for the size of the task the number of the members was too small because I anticipated that we needed to set up a number of specialized committees that would receive volumes and volumes of papers from both the government and from other interested parties: the business community, the society groups, individuals who felt they wanted to make an input. He explained to me why the size of the committee was kept too low and I said the time was too short, but he said I should try and do it. Our first problem was where to meet and work; how to get the personnel that would help to do the work, set up the secretariat and appoint the resource persons, appoint rapporteurs and everything. It took us three days to find a suitable area of buildings where we could do our work efficiently. We then had to buy the computers and the necessary hard and software with which to work.

At the end of the first week we were ready to go and I had my first meeting with the former secretary to the federal government after one week of being appointed and we learnt that the government handover notes, upon which our terms of reference were based, would not be available to us until sometime in May, which would be four weeks after we were appointed and two weeks after our mandate would have terminated.

We had to strategize to receive memoranda; sometimes even without invitation there were a lot of memoranda coming from the public, trade groups, chambers of commerce, industry experts whether oil or gas, agriculture or electricity or transport, railway, waterways, port, harbours; everything was coming. But there was nothing coming from the government and we did not receive a single piece of paper until May 25, four days to the handover. This came in many volumes amounting to 18,000 pages so we had to set up our work groups and about five sub-committees. We spent the next three to four days trying to sort these papers out and assigning them to the various committees. We couldn’t start real work until the first of June and we eventually submitted our report and our recommendations. on Friday the last week to the president.

Specifically, what were the major terms of reference given to your committee?

Broadly speaking, we were to receive the handover notes from the outgoing government, study the notes, analyze them and make recommendations to the government on the economy specifically, on governance, security, corruption, on ministries and departments of government and agencies, defence; nearly everything you can think about. Specifically, we had to look into revenue streams from NNPC, from Federal Inland Revenue Service, Customs and other big corporations of government.

In the course of your assignment were you under some kind of pressure from people coming to lobby for one favour or the other?

There was a lot of that from people who wanted contract, who wanted to be given special favours. They were coming to me day and night and I said to them these are my terms of reference; they didn’t include things like award of contracts or recovery of bad debts from government or for employment of any group of people or individuals.

I told them these were not part of our terms of reference. But we continued to receive them and nobody believed me when I said I could not appoint them ministers or chairmen or whatever; they said look you have influence on Buhari and I said I don’t have and even if I had I didn’t think he would respect me if all I did was go to him with piles papers and saying he should do this favour to this or that man or this or that woman. Also, I was inundated with telephone calls. For example, somebody telephoned and after introduction said he wanted to vie for the position of minister of sports. I said well I don’t know the address to which you would send it to.

Did you come under similar pressures from people connected with the government of the past government who wanted to cover or influence certain things?

No! Not one single case. I have had people coming to me to say they had information about what went wrong, but I said to them we were not an investigative panel, and even if we were given that term of reference we would politely tell the president that we could not be investigators because we didn’t know how to investigate and more importantly we didn’t have time to undertake such investigations. But where people submitted documents incriminating people we just put them in envelopes and sent them to the relevant authorities.

You said it was barely four days to May 29 when you received communication from the past government’s transition committee. How did that delay impact on your assignment?

Of course, it delayed our work because we were mainly to receive the handover notes from ministries, departments and agencies of government. But we could not receive them for five or nearly six weeks after our appointment and, to that extent, our work was delayed. But as soon as we realized that this was going to happen we devised methods of getting our information because so much of this information is in the public domain. The problem was that you couldn’t define the true situation in the government.

When you submitted your report to the president you called on Nigerians to be patient with him over his cabinet appointments. What informed that appeal?

Well, I was the chairman of the transition committee in 1979 when General Obasanjo handed over to president Shagari. That handover was the military deciding on their own to handover power back to the civilians. They conducted the elections, accepted the outcome and decided to hand over and go and rest. There was no acrimony between incoming and the outgoing government because they were all polite and nice; it was smooth. By the time I was appointed chairman the Obasanjo administration had set up a complete office, furnished it and equipped it together with committee and conference rooms. He had also appointed people from the civil service and from the private sector to serve as rapporteurs, resource persons and so on. All we needed to do was to walk into these offices and start work; absolutely there was no problem.

In 1999, I was on what Obasanjo called Presidential Policy Advisory Group under the chairmanship of General T.Y Danjuma and I was Number Two and the same thing happened. We had a complete office block already made, vehicles and buses and our accommodation had been booked and when you arrived everything was smooth, including all the handing over notes were prepared on the first day. We had everything. Now, this election is the first time in the history of Nigeria that an opposition party had uprooted a ruling party. It was not just changing the president or changing the members of the states or national assemblies. We were all witnesses to the election campaigns, how bitter it was. There were predictions that the country would collapse; there were also all sorts of allegations and counter-allegations and the environment was very hostile.

People were expecting the worst, but God, in His infinite mercies, diffused all the tension but, perhaps, the outgone government did not expect to lose the election, I don’t know. They lost the election and had to put up a brave face. I, as a person, I completely understood the difficult situation emotionally they were in but the meetings I had with both the SGF and Vice President Namadi Sambo were extremely friendly. They offered me all the cooperation and we discussed things as Nigerians. I personally decided that I was not going to enter into any controversy or make the situation worse.

In any case, whatever they did or did not do would not likely affect the critical question of the change of government on May 29. And if they didn’t give us any information that information would be ours on that May 29. Therefore, I worked on this basis and I think our committee accepted that way of doing things instead of creating unnecessary additional tension to the political environment.

Was there any interface between your committee and some of the critical sectors of the past government and if there wasn’t, how did you cope?

The situation was this: we were to receive the handing over notes, study them and wherever necessary to seek clarifications from wherever, whether ministers, civil servants or chairmen of boards or chief executives of parastatals. But, like I told you, we did not receive those notes in time and our terms of reference although extended by the president limited us by the mere fact of our name ‘transition committee’.

On May 29, we could not be a transition committee because the transition had ended. We did not want to ask for extension in order to be able to interrogate the other government people. In any case the ministers had gone and it would have been a complicated, probably expensive exercise to bring them. We did not want to stay and nobody asked us to extend our time to interrogate them so what we said in our report is that look in view of the fact that the handover notes were delayed we did not have time to interrogate, question or interact with any of the people of government; therefore we leave this to the incoming government. In any case, it would be an investigative thing by now and the government can do what it likes.

What would you consider to be the greatest challenges you face in carrying out this assignment?

Nigeria should be ready to face a lot of challenges. The biggest in my view is corruption; it is everywhere. There is no department, no ministry that can be said to be free of corruption. There is nowhere that fraud does not take place on a daily basis. It has become embedded in the minds of the people because the rule books have been thrown away and everybody is doing what they like. Nobody follows the rules anymore. You employ people anyhow and pay them anyhow and I think you in the media have a fairly idea of what is going on and are surprised how bad things are. I often wondered, since the beginning of this exercise, if the PDP and president Jonathan had won the election what would have been the fate of Nigeria. It would have been more difficult for them to face the challenge because they had been telling people that everything was good; the roads are good. They were not talking about the absence of light in the house, but they were talking about the capacity to produce electricity is 12,000 megawatts out of which only 5,000 could be released. But even out of this 5,000 at the time they were doing the handing over notes only 1,300 megawatts were being generated, but they were talking about 35,000 kilometers of distribution lines and so on, but nobody told us the real problem – that there is no gas, or there is no capacity to transmit the electricity that could be generated; that even when it is delivered at the point of distribution the distribution system is so weak that it can’t take it.

I personally didn’t know that until I got into this exercise. Now, if they came back, they couldn’t wake up in the morning and say we can’t pay salaries, we couldn’t do this or even pay contractors and might even not be able to pay pensions and gratuities or finance any of our operations. We were told at the beginning of the exercise that the government was in deficit of at least N1.3 trillion and by the end people were talking about N7 trillion; everything is in a state of collapse. The civil service is bloated and the military and police, if you are a Nigerian, you know what they have been facing for a long time; everywhere is in a mess and these things have to be fixed. Now back to your question about the delay of appointment of ministers and other key officials. These are large numbers of people; in my experience as a civil servant one of the most difficult tasks is to get a list of names to appoint to existing appointments. Buhari, as a politician, knows a large number of people but not intimately. They have come and joined the political party in which there is Buhari and his knowledge of them can only be superficial. The only people he will know intimately are his friends, his relations and colleagues at work. But when you are forming a cabinet the Constitution says the entire country must be represented. Now in Benue, for example, there may be at least 20 to 30 people who can claim to be ministers and who by their paper qualifications and working experience are suitable materials for appointment but is that all you want from a minister? If you want to know the integrity of a person, his performance at his workplace, his relations with his workplace or even with his community and other weaknesses he has, you have to have all these and analyze them.

If Buhari came to be president in Nigeria on his claim that he is a man of very high principles, a man of integrity and courage, then you can’t go to him as a leader of your community and say ‘Joda is a good man, appoint him minister because he has his paper qualifications.’ You have to investigate these things so that they meet, not only the criteria you laid down, but your own expectation of the man; it needs some time. We have made mistakes before; I have known of ministerial appointments during the military days when they had announced the name of somebody is a similar name to somebody else and the young man arrived to be sworn in or you appoint a minister and suddenly something surfaces. I don’t know where you were when Murtala was the head of state, but if you can go and read back the newspapers of that time (August 1975) you will see that there were at least two people in the military government; serving officers who had to be replaced immediately because no checks were carried out on them.

In the past, when you were prepared to ignore security reports as had happened in the recent past in Nigeria you can appoint anybody, but Buhari says he is going to work with perfect people and the he appoints someone only to discover a week later or a month later that there is really no way you can keep him there; what happened? How did the man get there? But I am not making excuses; I am talking to you as a former civil servant who has had some experience of how things are done. For example, to appoint a chairman of let’s say the cement company in Yandev or Ashaka; I was permanent secretary industry and we had about 30 of such companies in which government had majority shares at that time and we had to work on assembling names for every one of these thirty companies. We had to produce about 5 or 6 people times 30 and it was extremely difficult. Because if I tell you I want somebody you will go and bring your friend or schoolmates. It is unavoidable because you can only bring names of people you know and politically there are people vying for these things.

Having served as chairman of transition committee in 1979 and as again as a member in 1999; now you have just chaired another transition committee, what parallels can you draw from these?

By 1979 the civil service was still intact; it was largely efficient and it had a tradition of being
loyal to the government of the day for the time being; it had not been politicized. People were not put there on political basis, but largely on their merits and they were prepared and willing to do their work. I served in the Gowon administration and in the Murtala administration and that of Obasanjo, but none of them interfered with the civil service.

Now, I think we have been witnesses to what had been the practice in recent years: permanent secretaries, directors of departments, chief executives of parastatals were all appointed on the basis of their party loyalty, if not affiliations. You could not survive in the system if you were independent and it is also a demoralized service; it is over-established and inefficient. So what happened in 1979, I had left the service in April 1978, so all the people in government; the permanent secretaries from the new head of service and the secretary to the government down to directors were all people with whom I had worked and who were junior to me in service. So it was easier for me to talk to the SGF and HOS without any restraint at all and they told me the truth and if the information is there they give it to me. The man who was now permanent secretary in the cabinet office and who was liaising with my committee was my deputy permanent secretary and if I had any problem I called him and said, ‘George, I don’t have this. What is the matter?’ And within the next one hour he would bring it; it is not so anymore and, like I said, these were polite times when people recognized the government as government, not the political party of the government.

The chairman of the defunct NPN, the late Adisa, was very powerful but he was also a gentleman who understood how to handle people. Even if he wanted to discuss sensitive political issues he did it in such a way that you cannot afford not to listen to the man; it is no longer the same.

Given the picture you have painted how challenging is the task before the new administration?

I think the new administration has a pretty good idea but the situation we are going to meet is going to be difficult. They should have prepared themselves to face these challenges adequately. That is why it is necessary for the government of Buhari to select those who would work for him to be extremely careful of how they select the people who will be doing the work for them; people who are willing and able to do the job and who are capable of delivering the goods. These are people who must devote themselves absolutely to the people of Nigeria and it is possible. It was possible under Awolowo, it was possible under Sardauna.

I was a very young man of about 32 but I know now what I did not appreciate before that those people – and I have worked with the two of them – were men who understood their responsibilities and duties and they encouraged those who worked for them to tell them the truth and nothing but the truth. It was possible for me to go to Sardauna and tell him that a decision they had taken or this action they had taken in my view was wrong and he would said sit down and tell me why you think it is wrong and I would tell him. And if he agrees with you he would thank you and if he doesn’t agree with you he would take time to explain to you why he preferred his own decision to yours.

I once served in a committee in which Awolowo was chairman and I knew he felt very strongly about a point why the committee was set up. When the presentation was made to him in his office he didn’t allow the meeting to continue because he said he now agreed that he didn’t know the basis of that recommendation. It was like that; you don’t receive decisions from above. I don’t know at what point a decision from above was invented, but we never had it in our own vocabulary; everything had to be reasoned and everything had to be recorded.

Talking about the cost of governance, the new administration is inheriting a battered economy with over bloated system of governance; what do you think is the way out?

A lot of work needs to be done. I don’t know exactly how the budgeting system operates now but up to the time I left you had a budget which captured every item of expenditure. Go and look at the published budget estimates of the sixties and up to the seventies and, if you look at it, take the ministry of, say agriculture. You will find out that the top of the line on the salary page one; minister, so much salary per annum; one minister of state, salary is so much per month; one permanent secretary, salary so much per annum. That is under the administration of the ministry of agriculture; then you have senior assistant secretary at so and so much per annum; ten assistant secretaries, so much per person per annum right up to the cleaner everything is listed and when it was approved you could not have a ghost worker because the salaries were clearly earmarked and you could not employ unless there was vacancy.

If there were supposed to be ten assistant secretaries in an establishment but only eight in place during the budget year you could employ not more that number to fill those vacancies. But now you have a situation where you have only ten vacancies but twenty people are employed; all the ten extra people are illegal and are not covered by the budget and under what we used to call the finance management Act it is a criminal offence to do that because you are breaching the approved budget. How do you employ these people by getting names from The Presidency that this or that man be appointed director in a ministry which already had one director, but The Presidency or Senate or House of Representatives or you have the senators and the members of the House asking for contracts from ministries and parastatals, and if you don’t give them the contracts they will put up an investigation against you. So why government is bloated is because it is from the presidency, from the ministers, from the senators, from the House of Representatives and all these are because of this impunity from high places where everybody feels that they would have their way. So unless you clean up these things but the cleaning process cannot also be immediate because in a situation whereby there is so much unemployment and the government says it has sacked thirty or fifty thousand people, what is the public’s reaction? If issue a press release to that effect everybody would be angry.

Therefore what I think the government can do is to sit down to see how they can rationalize this whole thing. I believe there are so many jobs to be done in Nigeria if we get our act right; that anybody you remove from a ministry, for example, out of twelve or thirteen River Basin Development authorities and if they are working they can dramatically change the economic fortunes of Nigeria because instead of producing one crop per year you can be producing three and people will be fully engaged among which would not be the farmers alone but irrigation engineers, irrigation technicians, it would be thousands of jobs. But all that you have at the River Basin Development Authorities now are idle people with a board of directors of about seven or eight members being paid allowances and so no and so forth; guest houses, protocol and administration people, financial people but no irrigation people. And there are so many engineers in Nigeria who are either idle or underutilized all over the place. These people can almost immediately put back to work and I am sure if you have sensible projects for irrigation you can find the financing. Our railways are not working but they could be made to work so you don’t need to sack people there but at the moment all you are doing is to pay pensions and salaries of people who are there idling away. Take Ajaokuta Steel Company; it has been there for over thirty years doing absolutely nothing and maintaining so many people. Why can it not be made to work? If there is nothing for them to do there or at Alaja Steel or Kaduna Steel Rolling Mill, Jos, Oshogbo; there are engineers there and instead of wasting there get them to do something that is beneficial to the economy and to themselves.

You cannot have an engineer who is idle living there without doing any engineering job for the next five years and still be called an engineer. If a doctor doesn’t practice for five years he is not a doctor for you to submit yourself to him. So the solution is sitting down to look at the service as it is, rationalizing it and creating jobs; public works where everybody gets engaged and the country see the results.

Still on the cost of governance how would you react to reports over the proposed N9billion allowances for national assembly members, a development that this is generating controversy?

You know I am an old man and I am used to the old ways. When I was permanent secretary here the premier of Northern Nigeria, the Sardauna you hear about, and his house is there and you can go and look at it. It had two bedrooms, one sitting room, one dining room, a kitchen and boys quarters. The family lived in the boys quarters while he lived in the main house. There was a conference room attached to the house and there was one guest house where important visitors to Kaduna lived. He also had two saloon cars and one other car attached to him; the two saloon cars were there because if he was going on tour, say, an engagement in Kano or Zaria if he insisted on getting there like say 5pm he insisted on keeping to time because he didn’t want to keep people waiting. So if along the way he had a puncture tyre he would not wait for it to be repaired so he jumps into the second car and kept to time. They had to explain that to the northern public as to why Sardauna had two cars. His office had no air conditioners and when they said he must have an air conditioner he said no it was a waste of money. And, he said, in any case I don’t like air conditioner. Even when they insisted it was not necessarily for him, sometimes for foreign dignitaries, he said no. So, until he died there was no air conditioner in his office or house. The Governor, Sir Kashim Ibrahim, after Sardauna got two cars. It was felt that he, too, as governor should not have less, so he was given a second car and a pick up van which was used to convey the family to the markets or if they were going on a trip it conveyed food items and assistants. My first shock after the military took over and Gongola was created and I was invited to government house. When I got there I found about six cars with escort vehicles, which Sardauna never had, and an ambulance with large convoy of about a hundred people.

If you go to Abuja today half of the governors are there and the sort of expenditure in terms of allowances is so high. I was permanent secretary from 1966 to 1978 and never had an official driver, never had an official car, never had a cook, never had a gardener. I paid my electricity bills and water rates. Of course, they gave me a house but they would give you chairs and a dining table but no bed sheets, no curtains, no pillows and pillow cases. What the government did for us was that you could apply for a loan to buy a car and they would give you an allowance that you could use the car for your official duties. There was what was called the basic allowance; they gave you that and it took care of fuelling and servicing the car, going to your office and back to your house. But if you were in Lagos and had to go on official trip to Ibadan they you applied for what was called touring advance and there was somebody who knew the exact kilometers from Lagos to Ibadan, in those days it was miles. They had a table and they would give you that money; Lagos to Ibadan and Ibadan to Lagos and they said okay where would you go when you get to Ibadan for your duty? If you went from Apatagangan to the secretariat you were required to come back and explain how you spent the money and if there was any surplus you returned it and in the case of an over expenditure that you could justify they paid you. They didn’t just give you N100,000 when you said you were going from Lagos to Kano as they do now, though going to Kano and coming back may be N50,000. And if you were working in Kaduna, for instance, you were not allowed to use government vehicles to go to your village for a weekend or to a naming ceremony or any social event.

Today, I know people who go every weekend, 200 to 300 kilometers for purely personal affairs, not only for themselves but with escorts, followers with three, four cars. Every trip might cost N1million or even N2million; this country cannot afford to continue like this. I don’t really know whether this can be solved. You said we want fuel subsidy, but are you really getting fuel subsidy? Maybe in Abuja they are selling it at N87 per liter but anywhere in-between Abuja and Kaduna is N130 and who is getting it? I can tell you; they take the fuel to Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Benin Republic and sell it three times the cost. And what are you getting here? When you say you are selling N87 per liter the meter is tempered with so that by the time you buy ten liters you probably get only seven liters. And this fuel is not even delivered; sometimes they just take the subsidy and go and they give it to the black-market. So there is a lot to clean up.

So how can we come out of this?

The government has to come out and tell the people of Nigeria this is the situation we are in; in this sector this is what is happening and they should put it in a way that people would see and understand it and appreciate any decision they want to take. If they take the decision to remove fuel subsidy this is the reason and they should so explain it not just for a few but to the ordinary man to also know why he or she must pay more and what are the benefits. There are a lot of tangible benefits that can occur if the government can get out of this racket and apply the money to do other things. Our schools are in bad shape and they may find the money to fix the schools, the roads, provide drugs in the hospitals. But if for policy reasons they cannot do it then they have to find the money to do the other things which are necessary.

There was the Steve Orosanya report during the tenure of Obasanjo that recommended the merger and even scrapping of so many research agencies that have outlived their usefulness. Do you think this is one of the ways forward?

Let me first confess that I have heard a lot about the Orosanya report but, unfortunately, I have not laid my hand on it. I have looked for it and have been promised, but I haven’t gotten it so I don’t know the details of its contents. But I was also engaged under the Obasanjo dispensation to review government parastatals and agencies. Government, at the beginning of our exercise thought that there were about just 500 parastatals and agencies, but by the time we finished our work there were over 800. Some of them were established many years ago and have ceased to have any relevance and they had no need to exist. They were forgotten and the people remained there and they continued to be reflected in the budget ant to be paid for. They should have been wound up and it was so recommend. This is about fifteen years now and I don’t know what has happened, but I have the impression that more are being more added. I think the Orosanya report, if it has addressed these issues, should be revisited and actions taken immediately. People, especially those out of government, are too fearful of any suggestion that more unemployment would be added in the market and an institution, no matter how irrelevant employs people and they get paid but they are really not doing anybody any good; not even for themselves. When you make people redundant you don’t just throw them away, you should work out an exit for them.

I remember when I was growing up there was one small generator supplying electricity to the European Quarters and it was so fragile that if there was raincloud in the sky, with the possibility of thunder, there was a man employed to go and switch it off so that it is not damaged by thunder. But this man remained there even when electricity was expanded and got to the town, but if there was a storm in Yola he would just go and switch it off; nobody could tell him to do otherwise. This continued until well into the 1990s when he died and that stopped. The same story in Yola; the toilet in Yola Airport in the arrival departure hall was the cleanest in any airport in Nigeria that I used to wonder why. If you went to Lagos Airport at that time, or Port Harcourt, the toilets were always filthy and smelling but reverse was the case at the Yola Airport; it was not only clean but always smelling fresh. I discovered that the only reason was because this man was so well trained by the European about cleaning toilets and so and he maintained that standard until his death and if you go to Yola Airport now it is like any other.

After submitting your report to the president, were you still under pressure from lobbyists for appointments into the new government?

Yes! When you came didn’t you see people here waiting for me? Wherever I go; I came to Yola and went to my village on Sunday. There is no road to my village. In the dry season, we just manage to go to the village. I went to see my sister and the family and when I was going they collected CV’s and gave me. I couldn’t throw them away so I continued to receive them by telephones, by emails by text message.

Given the enormous task ahead, what would you advise the president, Buhari?

Well, I am not an adviser to the president. I was a chairman of his transition committee and I have finished my work. He has the sole responsibility of assembling his advisers to advise him on every aspect and he can call on anybody in Nigeria to help him do this task. I am thinking of writing-if you people will agree to publish-some of my thoughts of what should happen. But I don’t think I am entitled to be writing to the president every day to say this is what he should do or not do. He is receiving too much of that kind of advice.

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This interview was first published by DAILY TRUST and was republished on PREMIUM TIMES where we got it and decided to also republish here.

MY ADVICE TO NIGERIANS - RENO OMOKRI

I saw this post on Facebook and I decided to share it on CENTUPOET's blog. I consider it timeless and a patriotic one, especially as it is coming from one who was an aide to the Former president, Goodluck Jonathan and did all he could to assist his benefactor return to office.

 According to him, Nigeria's growth is retarded due to the fact that we(Nigerians) are always in campaign mode. 

Jonathan lost the election of March 28th and has since accepted and moved on with his life while many sorry fellows are yet to accept the fact that Nigeria's president is Muhammadu Buhari, which is no wonder we see many Nigerians today going about promoting hates and making mockery of virtually every move of Mr. Buhari... how then are we going to move forward with such attitude towards our president and country? And just like Mr. Reno rightly said, "Great nations did not grow great because of their critics. They grew great because of those who introduced ideas that changed the world."

{please read the full text of his article below}

One of the most annoying things that has happened to me since my boss left office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the habit of some people to either egg me on or bait me to criticize the new administration of the President, Muhammadu Buhari.

I have said it before and I will say it again, whether in public or in private, I will always be for President Goodluck Jonathan. It remains a fact that no other administration has achieved so much for Nigeria within so short a time as the Jonathan administration.

With the fever pitch anti Jonathan sentiment now gripping the nation as a result of unbalanced one sided reports that Nigerians are being daily fed with, Jonathan’s legacy may not be so clear, but I am confident that just as the truth always overtakes falsehood, praise for Jonathan would have a renaissance in the not too distant future.

That being said, to those asking me why I am not joining the band wagon to criticize Buhari’s administration, I have got news for you-I HAVE MOVED ON. I will never hate on Buhari or criticize his government simply because my boss was not re-elected. I get better, I Never get bitter!

One major problem that has consistently retarded Nigeria’s political and economic growth in the democratic dispensation of the last sixteen years is the fact that we are always in campaign mode.

Nigerians will politicize anything.

The same thing that was done to President Jonathan is now being done to President Buhari.

The man has not spent up to a month on the hot seat and many Nigerians are making a mockery of him on Social Media to the glee of non Nigerians.

Have we not learnt from the last four years?

Even if we were not patient with President Jonathan, at least let us be patient with his successor. Nations are not built overnight. They are built over time.

Your value as a citizen of planet earth is irrevocably tied to Nigeria’s value. When we build up Nigeria, we are not building up Buhari, we are building up ourselves.

Nigerians of all political persuasions need to understand that when siblings fight to death, it is strangers that end up inheriting their father’s estate. The elections are over. It is now time to preserve the estate (Nigeria).

We will have another chance to fight for our father’s estate in four year’s time, but for now, that fight has been lost and won. It is time to either work or move on. There should be no room for standing still.

That does not mean I subscribe to the criticism of President Buhari from the Social Media mafia who are calling him out for not hitting the ground running.

To them I say, If a government hits the ground running without first taking stock of what is on the ground, they may run in the wrong direction and put more distance between them and the solutions they are looking for.

The average Nigerian intellectual loves to criticize and the average Nigerian reader of such intellectuals applaud them as if intelligence is judged by ones ability to identify problems rather than the ability to solve them.

Great nations did not grow great because of their critics. They grew great because of those who introduced ideas that changed the world.

The Nobel prizes are given to creative people and not to critics is because the world needs creativity more than it needs cynicism.

Wealth and joy tend to gravitate to those who see need and respond with ideas to meet that need. Nigeria has so much need. Our intellectuals should ideate instead of criticizing!

As a pastor, I have spent years teaching my congregants that regardless of events around Nigeria, they should speak about her with positive expectations and those events will bow to our collective optimism.

It is a fallacy to think that words were created by God for the purpose of communication.

Communication is actually a secondary purpose for words.

Thank God Christians and Muslims both accept the Old Testament of the Bible. I will now use it to prove what I have just said.

In the first 25 verses of the Bible, God did not use words to communicate.

He kept saying ‘let there be’ and what He said became a reality. God used words for creation!

It was not until Genesis 1 verse 26 that God used words to communicate within the Godhead.

The future can be described as consequence catching up to our words of today.

The present can be described as consequence catching up to our words of yesterday.

So to change our future, what we have to do is change our words.

I schooled in The United Kingdom and I have lived in The United States for a decade. One thing that is common to nationals of both countries is their propensity to bless their nation.

God save the Queen and God bless America are probably the most regularly used phrases in the United Kingdom and the United States respectively.

If you asked me the most used phrase in Nigeria, I would have to say it is-Nigeria is finished!

I am not proud of this admission, but I think I am fairly accurate in my judgment.

The way Nigerians use Social Media and especially Twitter, it’s as if they received a memo from Twitter headquarters that the 140 characters they are allowed must be exclusively devoted to negativity!

We cannot continue to speak evil about our country and speak good about ourselves and expect that we will progress. It is not possible to progress in your room while your house is on fire. Whatever progress is made in that room would be consumed by the fire over the house.

Let me end this piece with a little advice to Nigeria and the Black race.

Consider a buffalo and a wolf. One on one, the buffalo is stronger than the wolf. However, because buffalo will not unite to face wolves when wolves attack them, they become weaker because the wolves are united.

The biggest culture shock Africans have when they travel to the West, especially for studies, is to find out that they are at least as intelligent, and in many cases, more intelligent than the average Westerner one on one. However, because black folk are not willing to unite, we are weaker as a people and as a result we are under the influence of more united people.

Where other races naturally gravitate towards each other, the Black Race and especially Nigerians tend to gravitate away from each other except on the primordial level of tribe and even that is arguable.

For the Black race it is almost a case of me and my nation against other Africans, me and my tribe against my nation, me and my clan against my tribe, me and my village against my clan, me and my family against my village, me and my brother against my family and me against my brother.

Genesis 11:6 reads: “the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do”.

The most successful nations are those nations who understand the principle of Genesis 11:6.

That is the idea behind the United States of America; that is the idea behind the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the British Isles; that is the idea behind the European Union and also the United Arab Emirates. If black people, and especially the Nigerian nation, do not key into this principle, if they remain disunited along tribal, ethnic, regional and religious lines, we will never be able to fulfill our potential as a people, and as a nation.

This is my advice to Nigeria and to the Buhari administration.

Reno Omokri is a former Special Assistant (New Media) to President Goodluck Jonathan, and is now Pastor of the Mind of Christ Christian Center in California