Monday, July 30, 2018
Renaissance: Nigeria and the Monetization of Democracy
Renaissance: Nigeria and the Monetization of Democracy: The treatment of politicking as a transactional exercise by which politicians gain profit has been with us for some time. After the annulmen...
Nigeria and the Monetization of Democracy
By Tawfiq Abdullah
The treatment of politicking as a transactional exercise by which politicians profit has been with us for some time. After the annulment of June 12 presidential election which was acclaimed the freest and fairest election in Nigeria, the then military dictator midwifing the election, identified the inappropriate use of money as one of the reasons for the annulment of the vote.
“There were proofs as well as documented evidence of widespread use of money during the party primaries as well as the presidential election. These were the same bad conduct for which the party presidential primaries of 1992 were canceled. Evidence available to the government put the total amount of money spent by the presidential candidates at over two billion, one hundred million naira (N2.1 billion). The use of money was again the major source of undermining the electoral process.” General Ibrahim Babangida claimed in his public statement trailing the annulment.
Babangida pressed on to explain that another reason for the annulment borders on moral ground, “There were cases of documented and confirmed conflict of interest between the government and both presidential candidates which would compromise their positions and responsibilities were they to become president.”
Without taking away the public perception of the election as free and fair, he concluded, "We believe that politics and government are not ends in themselves. Rather, service and effective amelioration of the condition of our people must remain the true purpose of politics.”
I dare say the conflict of interest is not between the political aspirants and the government as Babangida put it, but between the political aspirants and the Nigerian constitution on the one hand and the Nigerian people on the other side because the goal of public service is to serve the people with loyalty to the law of the land. Where a politician had used money to buy votes, there would be a conflict of interest between service to the people and self-seeking.
Taken Babangida's hypocritical position for the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, has anything changed since then?
The 2015 presidential election was another case of use of money to unduly induce voters in an election. The election initially scheduled for February 4 was postponed to March 28 for security reasons according to the electoral umpire. Within the period of the postponement, we witnessed a dollar rain in the country from the ruling PDP. Revelations after the election the erstwhile President Goodluck Jonathan lost to the incumbent President Mohammed Buhari indicated that the $2.1b meant to fight terrorism was the one diverted to induce electorate in the election.
The most recent Ekiti election was no exception, thanks to BBC Pidgin that exposed the use of money to induce the electorate by the two dominant parties in the election.
The winner of that election, Kayode Fayemi, had denied the use of money by him and his party on his visit to the President after the election. The denial is expected because any politician in Nigeria has never publicly admitted that he/she used money to induce voters and buy their PVCs from them.
The stand of career politicians on the validity of the allegation of money inducement was busted, however. The recent experience of the Nollywood diva in Nigerian politics, Kate Henshaw, was not different. She confessed she had to bribe party delegates to vote her in the primary. She eventually lost. According to her, to win an election in Nigeria, it is either you have the money to spend, or there is a political godfather that would influence your electoral victory. She had neither of these in abundance to coast her to the national house of representative.
The trending monetization of democracy is cloaked in government policy. Buhari’s administration decision to share $322 million, out of Abacha’s loot, to indigent Nigerians in 19 states is an exemplary monetization of democracy. The initiative is a right one. As a country with about 80% of her population in poverty, it is desirable we have a social welfare program that takes care of the poor ones and other socially excluded members of our society.
However, the initiative is provoking more questions than answers, more vagueness than clarity and more perception of an ulterior motive than a perception of the sincerity of intention. The database from which the government intends to identify the poor Nigerians is not available. The government is yet to give the reasons for prioritizing the selected 19 states over the remaining 17 states and Abuja.
Supposing the government starts the disbursement with the 19 states, it is yet to tell us when the remaining part of the country would be included. The endurance of the policy is in doubt as the Nigerian economy still depends on the fate of the volatile crude oil in the international market.
Until Buhari government can address all these grey areas, its social welfare program seems more like a smoke screen hiding money inducement of the electorate than a well-planned social welfare program that would outlast 2019 general election and Buhari’s administration. We are in some months away from the election and failure to clear the grey areas leaves discerning Nigerians with doubts about Buhari government’s sincerity of purpose regarding its social welfare policy.
President Buhari has been reported to abstain from the use of his money in inducing voters before ascending to the presidency, but he is a beneficiary of the crooked money politics that has pervaded the Nigerian system. It falls on him to initiate necessary laws to correct the anomaly and champion the execution of existing laws preventing the undue influence of money in Nigerian politics.
© Tawfiq Abdullah
Facebook: Tawfiq Ola Abdullah
Instagram: tawfiqolaabdullah
Twitter: @AbdullahTawfiq
Linkedin: Tawfiq Abdullah
The treatment of politicking as a transactional exercise by which politicians profit has been with us for some time. After the annulment of June 12 presidential election which was acclaimed the freest and fairest election in Nigeria, the then military dictator midwifing the election, identified the inappropriate use of money as one of the reasons for the annulment of the vote.
“There were proofs as well as documented evidence of widespread use of money during the party primaries as well as the presidential election. These were the same bad conduct for which the party presidential primaries of 1992 were canceled. Evidence available to the government put the total amount of money spent by the presidential candidates at over two billion, one hundred million naira (N2.1 billion). The use of money was again the major source of undermining the electoral process.” General Ibrahim Babangida claimed in his public statement trailing the annulment.
Babangida pressed on to explain that another reason for the annulment borders on moral ground, “There were cases of documented and confirmed conflict of interest between the government and both presidential candidates which would compromise their positions and responsibilities were they to become president.”
Without taking away the public perception of the election as free and fair, he concluded, "We believe that politics and government are not ends in themselves. Rather, service and effective amelioration of the condition of our people must remain the true purpose of politics.”
I dare say the conflict of interest is not between the political aspirants and the government as Babangida put it, but between the political aspirants and the Nigerian constitution on the one hand and the Nigerian people on the other side because the goal of public service is to serve the people with loyalty to the law of the land. Where a politician had used money to buy votes, there would be a conflict of interest between service to the people and self-seeking.
Taken Babangida's hypocritical position for the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, has anything changed since then?
The 2015 presidential election was another case of use of money to unduly induce voters in an election. The election initially scheduled for February 4 was postponed to March 28 for security reasons according to the electoral umpire. Within the period of the postponement, we witnessed a dollar rain in the country from the ruling PDP. Revelations after the election the erstwhile President Goodluck Jonathan lost to the incumbent President Mohammed Buhari indicated that the $2.1b meant to fight terrorism was the one diverted to induce electorate in the election.
The most recent Ekiti election was no exception, thanks to BBC Pidgin that exposed the use of money to induce the electorate by the two dominant parties in the election.
The winner of that election, Kayode Fayemi, had denied the use of money by him and his party on his visit to the President after the election. The denial is expected because any politician in Nigeria has never publicly admitted that he/she used money to induce voters and buy their PVCs from them.
The stand of career politicians on the validity of the allegation of money inducement was busted, however. The recent experience of the Nollywood diva in Nigerian politics, Kate Henshaw, was not different. She confessed she had to bribe party delegates to vote her in the primary. She eventually lost. According to her, to win an election in Nigeria, it is either you have the money to spend, or there is a political godfather that would influence your electoral victory. She had neither of these in abundance to coast her to the national house of representative.
The trending monetization of democracy is cloaked in government policy. Buhari’s administration decision to share $322 million, out of Abacha’s loot, to indigent Nigerians in 19 states is an exemplary monetization of democracy. The initiative is a right one. As a country with about 80% of her population in poverty, it is desirable we have a social welfare program that takes care of the poor ones and other socially excluded members of our society.
However, the initiative is provoking more questions than answers, more vagueness than clarity and more perception of an ulterior motive than a perception of the sincerity of intention. The database from which the government intends to identify the poor Nigerians is not available. The government is yet to give the reasons for prioritizing the selected 19 states over the remaining 17 states and Abuja.
Supposing the government starts the disbursement with the 19 states, it is yet to tell us when the remaining part of the country would be included. The endurance of the policy is in doubt as the Nigerian economy still depends on the fate of the volatile crude oil in the international market.
Until Buhari government can address all these grey areas, its social welfare program seems more like a smoke screen hiding money inducement of the electorate than a well-planned social welfare program that would outlast 2019 general election and Buhari’s administration. We are in some months away from the election and failure to clear the grey areas leaves discerning Nigerians with doubts about Buhari government’s sincerity of purpose regarding its social welfare policy.
President Buhari has been reported to abstain from the use of his money in inducing voters before ascending to the presidency, but he is a beneficiary of the crooked money politics that has pervaded the Nigerian system. It falls on him to initiate necessary laws to correct the anomaly and champion the execution of existing laws preventing the undue influence of money in Nigerian politics.
© Tawfiq Abdullah
Facebook: Tawfiq Ola Abdullah
Instagram: tawfiqolaabdullah
Twitter: @AbdullahTawfiq
Linkedin: Tawfiq Abdullah
About Me
I am a marketer, communicator, and blogger. I worked extensively in the private sector as a business executive and organizational communicator, precisely in sales training. I bagged a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), an MBA from the Lagos State University. I am an associate of NIMN and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana where I am about to defend my Master’s thesis to bag the MS Communication degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
I am a marketer, communicator, and blogger. I worked extensively in the private sector as a business executive and organizational communicator, precisely in sales training. I bagged a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), an MBA from the Lagos State University. I am an associate of NIMN and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana where I am about to defend my Master’s thesis to bag the MS Communication degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
“English Language and Me”: International Students’ Experiences in their Quest for Knowledge of English Language.
By Tawfiq Abdullah
Mo Alsalahi visited Riyadh city to commune with relations. Hardly did he know that this visit would make lasting changes to his life. In this particular town that he visited, what jolted him was he couldn’t communicate with many people he met. In this town located in the suburb of Riyadh, everybody speaks the English language- a reflection of Riyadh’s metropolitan culture, away from the conservative Islamic culture that characterizes the general Saudi Arabian society.
It's not the communication gap alone. Mo's self-esteem diminished as a monolingual that is soaked in Arabian culture.
"It's a kind of fancy thing to have the English language in your life, you look more educated and sophisticated," he confesses after this experience.
This was a turning point for him: a decision to come to the US to study English language and study for his second degree in English. This turn of event resonates in the stories of many internationals studying in the English language.
For Jeamie Cho, an international from Korea, fierce competition among working-class Koreans to get a highly paid job in mega-corporations was the motivator. He explicates that there is not enough manpower in Korea with English language competence. Good corporations are asking for English language competence from job applicants. He decided that if he must learn English, the US is his chosen destination.
The competition wrapped up around English language competency is deeper in Saudi Arabia mass media where the production and technical aspects of the business are Anglicized.
"Competency in English is necessary to get a job in Saudi. For example, in directing and producing, all the technical jargons are in English." according to Mo.
The impetus for Vladimir Jakovljevic was the athletic scholarship he got to study in the US. He added that higher education is strenuous and sloppy in his country, Serbia. The well-structured educational system in the US was also a stimulus.
There is a high premium placed on English language competency in the labor markets of these internationals’ countries.
For all of them, English is neither their first nor second language, yet it’s taught in elementary and high schools in their countries. One wonders then why the need for competency that spurs them to embark on a journey of English language discovery to the US.
For Mo, Jeamie, and Vladimir, the English language curriculum in their individual countries fall short of competitive standard and rigorous procedures capable of producing high English language competence in students. Mo and Jeamie had the basic spoken skills that could enable them to exchange simple greetings like "hello," "how are you?", But this couldn't sustain them in prolonged conversation and writing. For Vladimir, his competence was good, but he lacked enough vocabularies to engage in dialogue and writing.
How has this scholastic journey impacted on these internationals?
The relative fluency of speaking English of Mo and Vladimir was impressive. This is a direct correlation of their long immersion in American society. Mo has been around for three years while Vladimir has stayed on for four and a half years.
Jeamie is here for a semester, yet he has gone beyond elementary knowledge to sustaining prolonged dialogue. “Since I came, I can speak better, I’ve more confidence. Most Koreans in ULM like me because I can speak the language very well within a short period that I arrived," he states in a tone of self-accomplishment.
Mo and Jeamie have to contend with an identity issue. The knowledge of English has beset in their lives split identities. Mo is a different person when expressing anger in Arabic and another personality when manifesting anger using the English language. There is always switching of mannerism and code between the two scenarios.
Dual identities come in the form of age to Jeamie. In the US he's 24 years old, while in Korea he's 26 years old. The difference is an account of different calendar systems that are in use by the two countries. The calendar system in Korea and the Arabian world is lunar, but it's Gregorian in the U.S.
The quest to learn English language has offered different romantic experiences in the private lives of these internationals. Mo’s relationship is waxing stronger because he finds the English language more effective in expressing love to his girlfriend than using Arabic. His girlfriend is thrilled by this.
The adventure for Jeamie has left a crack in his heart because his girlfriend has just broken up with him. The time-spatial differences between Korea and the US have made communication extremely difficult. The lovebirds are busy. While Jeamie is studying in the day, the girlfriend is sleeping and vice versa. Thirteen hours difference in time makes communication a rough experience.
Love life for Vladimir is another slant. He’s no doubt enjoying his relationship but wouldn’t think of marrying an American. He would rather date a non-American.
“The difference is that the girls here don’t cook, once they’ve money they go to restaurants to eat. But in Serbia, girls and mothers cook healthy meals for their families at home.” He expresses his turn off for American girls.
Socialization and its role in learning English and belonging to American society are different experiences for these young men. Vladimir draws a similitude between American and European cultures. This affinity makes friendship with Americans easier
Mo had a joyful experience back in San Diego, California where he made a lot of American friends that aided his learning and socialization. He has no American friends in Louisiana. However, his knowledge of the language has been because of his rapport with Americans in San Diego and his interaction with non- Arabian internationals who had no choice except to communicate in English because of their diverse cultures.
Jeamie has quite a gamut of American friends, but they're of a little asset to him in learning the language. He finds international students handy in learning. He says, “I learn more from fellow international students because English isn’t their first language. For example, I have a friend from Slovakia whose second language is English, we communicate better than Americans. Americans speak very fast and speak a lot of slangs.”
These men are very confident and optimistic about their futures. Taking everything together, their decisions to learn English and learn in English have opened and widened their competitiveness in the labor markets of their countries.
Mo counts himself as a candidate that can hold his own in Saudi. Jeamie is poised to make an edge in Korean competitive labor market after his studies in Korea University. Vladimir sees himself as a more employable candidate than European locals after graduation.
Asking Olivia Barfield, an American student, about her perception of these internationals’ sojourn to learn English, she says, “It’s a good idea to come here. I think it’s difficult…you’re submerging yourself into something different.” She advises international to take easier classes first before moving on to difficult ones to avoid being overwhelmed.
Dr. Mara Loeb, a former Chair of International Students Association of University of Lafayette at Monroe, describes it as "It's like finding yourself in a desert island. It's the bravest thing to do, it’s like studying two things at the same time. They’re adventurous and confident.” On her own, she advises internationals not to go back to their old friends but mix and attune themselves to American culture to aid their learning.
They also have advice for Americans. Urging American students to mix with international, Olivia says, “Americans need at least give international students a conversation after classes, learn from them…there’s much more than that (America and being an American), and there’s so much more to learn.”
"They need to see every international as their friend because when I go out there, I see non-Americans as my friends, they need to talk to people and make new friends." Dr. Loeb concludes.
Mo Alsalahi visited Riyadh city to commune with relations. Hardly did he know that this visit would make lasting changes to his life. In this particular town that he visited, what jolted him was he couldn’t communicate with many people he met. In this town located in the suburb of Riyadh, everybody speaks the English language- a reflection of Riyadh’s metropolitan culture, away from the conservative Islamic culture that characterizes the general Saudi Arabian society.
It's not the communication gap alone. Mo's self-esteem diminished as a monolingual that is soaked in Arabian culture.
"It's a kind of fancy thing to have the English language in your life, you look more educated and sophisticated," he confesses after this experience.
This was a turning point for him: a decision to come to the US to study English language and study for his second degree in English. This turn of event resonates in the stories of many internationals studying in the English language.
For Jeamie Cho, an international from Korea, fierce competition among working-class Koreans to get a highly paid job in mega-corporations was the motivator. He explicates that there is not enough manpower in Korea with English language competence. Good corporations are asking for English language competence from job applicants. He decided that if he must learn English, the US is his chosen destination.
The competition wrapped up around English language competency is deeper in Saudi Arabia mass media where the production and technical aspects of the business are Anglicized.
"Competency in English is necessary to get a job in Saudi. For example, in directing and producing, all the technical jargons are in English." according to Mo.
The impetus for Vladimir Jakovljevic was the athletic scholarship he got to study in the US. He added that higher education is strenuous and sloppy in his country, Serbia. The well-structured educational system in the US was also a stimulus.
There is a high premium placed on English language competency in the labor markets of these internationals’ countries.
For all of them, English is neither their first nor second language, yet it’s taught in elementary and high schools in their countries. One wonders then why the need for competency that spurs them to embark on a journey of English language discovery to the US.
For Mo, Jeamie, and Vladimir, the English language curriculum in their individual countries fall short of competitive standard and rigorous procedures capable of producing high English language competence in students. Mo and Jeamie had the basic spoken skills that could enable them to exchange simple greetings like "hello," "how are you?", But this couldn't sustain them in prolonged conversation and writing. For Vladimir, his competence was good, but he lacked enough vocabularies to engage in dialogue and writing.
How has this scholastic journey impacted on these internationals?
The relative fluency of speaking English of Mo and Vladimir was impressive. This is a direct correlation of their long immersion in American society. Mo has been around for three years while Vladimir has stayed on for four and a half years.
Jeamie is here for a semester, yet he has gone beyond elementary knowledge to sustaining prolonged dialogue. “Since I came, I can speak better, I’ve more confidence. Most Koreans in ULM like me because I can speak the language very well within a short period that I arrived," he states in a tone of self-accomplishment.
Mo and Jeamie have to contend with an identity issue. The knowledge of English has beset in their lives split identities. Mo is a different person when expressing anger in Arabic and another personality when manifesting anger using the English language. There is always switching of mannerism and code between the two scenarios.
Dual identities come in the form of age to Jeamie. In the US he's 24 years old, while in Korea he's 26 years old. The difference is an account of different calendar systems that are in use by the two countries. The calendar system in Korea and the Arabian world is lunar, but it's Gregorian in the U.S.
The quest to learn English language has offered different romantic experiences in the private lives of these internationals. Mo’s relationship is waxing stronger because he finds the English language more effective in expressing love to his girlfriend than using Arabic. His girlfriend is thrilled by this.
The adventure for Jeamie has left a crack in his heart because his girlfriend has just broken up with him. The time-spatial differences between Korea and the US have made communication extremely difficult. The lovebirds are busy. While Jeamie is studying in the day, the girlfriend is sleeping and vice versa. Thirteen hours difference in time makes communication a rough experience.
Love life for Vladimir is another slant. He’s no doubt enjoying his relationship but wouldn’t think of marrying an American. He would rather date a non-American.
“The difference is that the girls here don’t cook, once they’ve money they go to restaurants to eat. But in Serbia, girls and mothers cook healthy meals for their families at home.” He expresses his turn off for American girls.
Socialization and its role in learning English and belonging to American society are different experiences for these young men. Vladimir draws a similitude between American and European cultures. This affinity makes friendship with Americans easier
Mo had a joyful experience back in San Diego, California where he made a lot of American friends that aided his learning and socialization. He has no American friends in Louisiana. However, his knowledge of the language has been because of his rapport with Americans in San Diego and his interaction with non- Arabian internationals who had no choice except to communicate in English because of their diverse cultures.
Jeamie has quite a gamut of American friends, but they're of a little asset to him in learning the language. He finds international students handy in learning. He says, “I learn more from fellow international students because English isn’t their first language. For example, I have a friend from Slovakia whose second language is English, we communicate better than Americans. Americans speak very fast and speak a lot of slangs.”
These men are very confident and optimistic about their futures. Taking everything together, their decisions to learn English and learn in English have opened and widened their competitiveness in the labor markets of their countries.
Mo counts himself as a candidate that can hold his own in Saudi. Jeamie is poised to make an edge in Korean competitive labor market after his studies in Korea University. Vladimir sees himself as a more employable candidate than European locals after graduation.
Asking Olivia Barfield, an American student, about her perception of these internationals’ sojourn to learn English, she says, “It’s a good idea to come here. I think it’s difficult…you’re submerging yourself into something different.” She advises international to take easier classes first before moving on to difficult ones to avoid being overwhelmed.
Dr. Mara Loeb, a former Chair of International Students Association of University of Lafayette at Monroe, describes it as "It's like finding yourself in a desert island. It's the bravest thing to do, it’s like studying two things at the same time. They’re adventurous and confident.” On her own, she advises internationals not to go back to their old friends but mix and attune themselves to American culture to aid their learning.
They also have advice for Americans. Urging American students to mix with international, Olivia says, “Americans need at least give international students a conversation after classes, learn from them…there’s much more than that (America and being an American), and there’s so much more to learn.”
"They need to see every international as their friend because when I go out there, I see non-Americans as my friends, they need to talk to people and make new friends." Dr. Loeb concludes.
© Tawfiq Abdullah
About Me
I am a marketer, communicator, and blogger. I worked extensively in the private sector as a business executive and organizational communicator, precisely in sales training. I bagged a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), an MBA from the Lagos State University. I am an associate of NIMN and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana where I am about to defend my Master’s thesis to bag the MS Communication degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
I am a marketer, communicator, and blogger. I worked extensively in the private sector as a business executive and organizational communicator, precisely in sales training. I bagged a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), an MBA from the Lagos State University. I am an associate of NIMN and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana where I am about to defend my Master’s thesis to bag the MS Communication degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Monday, July 9, 2018
Still on the Cattle Colony: Why the Idea is Failing?
By Tawfiq Abdullah
At the peak of the clashes between Fulani cattle herdsmen and farmers across the country over the destruction of farmlands during the grazing of cattle by the Fulani pastoralists, President Mohammed Buhari’s administration introduced the cattle colony policy. The Nigerian public backlashed the policy. Attempts by the federal government to find an enduring and peaceful solution to the cattle rearing problems have been stymied since then.
The adverse reaction from the public was expected because the policy was goofy from the planning stage, both in communication and policy analysis.
The word “colony” elicited the ugly, perhaps ambivalent memories of colonialization of Nigeria under the British rule. Colonization is the occupation of peripheral territories by a powerful central government. It is dated back to ancient civilizations. The Greeks, Romans, and Phoenicians colonized regions for farming, sourcing of raw materials, trade and other reasons.
Fast forward to the modern era, we had European countries like Britain, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, and later the United States in the 18th century that colonized Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.
Colonialism through the ancient time, the medieval period, and to the modern time have one thing in common. Some aliens come into territories of locals seeking land for settlement. After being granted some initial space, they overran the locals, claimed more area, and dominated their land, socially, economically and politically.
Labeling a policy as “colony” in the 21st century Nigeria is, therefore, tactlessly framed. The policy was inadvertently designed to receive pushback from Nigerians. Neither did the overbearing attitude of Fulani herdsmen who had recently taken to militarism to flourish their cattle business helped the situation, nor the indifference of the Fulani-man-led federal government to the herdsmen’s excesses.
Cattle colony is not a new idea. It is initially a Pakistani invention, and it still has the "colony" appellation as practiced in Pakistan till the present time.
Pakistani society is homogeneous and close-knit than Nigerian society. There are more similarities among the people than what differentiates them. They have more things in common than what separates them. It is a predominantly Islamic country with about 96.4% of its population as Muslims. Other religions are less than 4% of the population. There are fewer ethnic groups in the nation compared to Nigeria. About sixty languages are spoken in the country with Urdu as lingua franca and English as the national language.
The high homogeneity that distinguishes Pakistan makes it a fertile ground for cattle colonies because there are little differences among its population culture-wise. The differing minority can be subsumed under the dominant majority without a snag in the polity. Cattle colony was established there with little or no friction.
The implementation of cattle colonies in Nigeria would not be a walkover for Buhari's administration and any other after it because Nigeria is different. The Nigerian society is highly fragmented. Nigeria has over five hundred ethnic groups and languages, including the major ones. There are diverse religions in the country with Christianity and Islam being the major ones.
The heterogeneity of Nigeria is vast and cultural divergences are enormous. The pushing of the federal government to have the presence of cattle colonies in all thirty-six states would not sit well with all segments of Nigerian society because of the inherent cultural diversity that defines Nigeria.
What is the way forward?
Communication must be integrated into the core of policy formulation in the country. In the public and private sector, communication is strategic and professional communicators should be allowed to polish the communication aspect of government policies. The government realized this late as seen in the Agriculture Minister’s thread of communication flip-flop on the policy of cattle colony as he has been giving it different names: ranching, grazing settlement, cattle colony and recently dubbed it National Livestock Transformational Plan (NLTP). From Audu Ogbe’s analysis of NLTP, it is the same thing as cattle colony as practiced in Pakistan.
The NLTP can only succeed if there is symmetric communication among all the stakeholders in the cattle business. For the newly renamed cattle colony to work out, the federal government must climb down from his high horse, invite the states, local governments, and traditional institutions concerned to the roundtable for negotiation. Everyone concerned must negotiate on a leveled pedestal. They must negotiate from the same level of power. Each one’s fears and concerns should be heard and taken care. Every stakeholder’s opinions must be received and mutually respected in the policy formulation and outcome. The end must be a win-win for all parties.
The federal government needs to be sincere in intention. The cattle colony policy and the recent version, NLTP, look more like a hoodwinker to grab the land of other ethnic groups for the Fulani group. It is more suspicious and vexing with the fact that the government is headed by a Fulani man. This is a government whose security council is a Fulani-dominated one. The policy is perceived as both an attempt to beguile and use superior political power to dispossess other ethnic groups of their land.
The sincerity of intention must translate to a clear policy. Clarity is important to avoid suspicion, brick walls, and conflicts in the way of policy formulation and implementation, especially a sensitive one as cattle rearing. Audu Ogbeh said in his analysis of the NLTP that herdsmen would be allowed to move their cattle from one colony to the other. Nigerians want a zero-tolerance of cattle movement in the open as in civilized climes. This is the reason for the call for cattle ranching, and the federal government must respect the wishes of the people.
The federal government does not need a blanket policy or law to solve the constant clash between farmers and pastoralists. Nigeria is a federation, and the peculiar differences of the federating units should be considered in policy matters. We do not need cattle colonies in the thirty-six states of the country. Some states have kicked against it in consideration of their local interests. The federal government should respect states and local governments’ preferences.
Where the states have accepted to have a cattle colony located in their territories, a one-size-fits-all and rigid approach should be avoided. Each states' preferences as enshrined in the state's grazing law must be respected.
The cattle colony idea would have been achieved with a decree in the military era but the principles of democracy the country is currently practicing make it impossible for one segment of the country holding the reign of power to lord it over others.
It is commendable that we are emulating a working model as the cattle colony from the master of the game, Pakistan. While copying and pasting good practices from other countries, we must learn to copy and paste with discretion and in consideration of our local peculiarities.
Let’s be smart!
Tawfiq Abdullah
About Me
At the peak of the clashes between Fulani cattle herdsmen and farmers across the country over the destruction of farmlands during the grazing of cattle by the Fulani pastoralists, President Mohammed Buhari’s administration introduced the cattle colony policy. The Nigerian public backlashed the policy. Attempts by the federal government to find an enduring and peaceful solution to the cattle rearing problems have been stymied since then.
About Me
I am a marketer, communicator, and blogger. I worked extensively in the private sector as a business executive and organizational communicator, precisely in sales training. I bagged a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), an MBA from the Lagos State University. I am an associate of NIMN and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana where I am about to defend my Master’s thesis to bag the MS Communication degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Tuesday, July 3, 2018
The Maiduguri Police Strike and the rest of Us.
Policing is categorized as an essential service and should be treated as its essentiality implies by all governmental agencies and officials in charge of police affairs. It was, therefore, a disturbing incident when policemen took to the street in Maiduguri, Borno to protest the non-payment of their allowances.
It is no more a surprise because the unusual incident is a miniature to various police strikes we had in the country in the past, even though the police authority would not admit it. Before the smoldering tension snowballs into a catastrophic flame, we need to look at what that short but ominous protest means to all of us as Nigerians.
If not contained, the protest portends another strike in the Nigerian Police, one comparable to the one we had on February 1, 2009, that resulted in the sack of the then Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun, and some high-ranking police officials.
Perchance there is strike now, President Buhari would be unwilling to give Inspector General Ibrahim Idris the boot. Given the many security blunders he had committed in the past and President’s Buhari insistence on keeping him, despite popular outcry to replace him, there is a slim chance of his replacement.
The loyalty of the country’s security apparatuses to the president matters more to the president than their commitment to the Nigerian constitution and the Nigerian people. Ibrahim Idris and others controlling the security architecture of the country have earned the trust of the President which make them irreplaceable. The solution to the festering security crisis in the country may be far away as the President is unwilling to rejig the current security structure.
We are far from safe as a people and entrusting the security of our lives and properties to the Nigerian police is with a dose of skepticism. A demotivated cop would not give his best on the job because his needs are not met by his employer.
Unpaid bills and needy family back at home would be problems coming in the way of the job. The priority to secure lives and properties is replaced by the preference to put bread on the table, pay children's school fees, and what have you? No wonder they usually arrived late to scenes of crime. Unmet needs have replaced the urgency to police the people.
In spades and scale of killings that have broken out in the life of Buhari’s administration, having police protest anywhere in the country makes the hope of stemming the massacre a gloomy one. The available police personnel is already overstretched, a reason for the recent recruitment of 6000 more hands into the force. Unpaid allowances would only aggravate the already not too good situation.
We have had more than enough killings during Buhari’s administration. We cannot confirm the accurate figure of those that lost their lives to the herdsmen insurgency in the North Central of the country. This is a time to satisfy the policemen in any aspect of their job so that attacks on peoples' lives and properties can be arrested by the police force.
The police force is designed to mingle with the civilian population with civility and helps in maintaining peace and order in the society. Denying the cops manning the apparatus of policing of their rightful allowances is dehumanizing. It affects their emotion at work and their interaction with the people they are supposed to protect.
In the Maiduguri protest, we saw masked cops wielding tree branches in the air, an insignia of protest. Some of them were shooting into the air. How would they account for these bullets that were shot into the air? Perhaps, there is no accountability for weapons as we were made to believe.
The fall out of what we saw of the Maiduguri protest is that the civilian population is at risk of attack from the police at the slightest provocation. Policemen have been reported to demand for bribes from people and resulted in the killings of the uncooperative civilians. The death of a bus driver, Muyiwa Ijaduola at Igando, Lagos who died from the beating by a female cop in 2016 is a reference. Denying arm-carrying police of his emolument can drive him to the edge to do the unthinkable because of his fiery emotion precipitated by unjust denial. No wonder some of them used guns meant to protect innocent people to attack same people.
The Maiduguri strike is an indication that there are pockets of demotivated cops around the country with bottled up grievances. Only the brave ones had come into the open to express their frustrations. The police force is not a unionized body and ordinarily, does not protest or strike because esprit de corps is entrenched in its rank-and-file. It is when the authority does not treat the cops with normality that aberrations of this kind, like the Maiduguri protest, happens.
Before the embers of police demotivation scale up to a crisis, the appropriate levels and offices of Nigerian government should rise to give our cops the right treatment they deserve. We have lost more than enough lives to insecurity during President Buhari’s tenure that was avoidable.
Enough is enough!
Facebook: Tawfiq Ola Abdullah
About Me
I am a marketer, communicator, and blogger. I worked extensively in the private sector as a business executive and organizational communicator, precisely in sales training. I bagged a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), an MBA from the Lagos State University. I am an associate of NIMN and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana where I am about to defend my Master’s thesis to bag the MS Communication degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
About Me
I am a marketer, communicator, and blogger. I worked extensively in the private sector as a business executive and organizational communicator, precisely in sales training. I bagged a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), an MBA from the Lagos State University. I am an associate of NIMN and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana where I am about to defend my Master’s thesis to bag the MS Communication degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
I am a marketer, communicator, and blogger. I worked extensively in the private sector as a business executive and organizational communicator, precisely in sales training. I bagged a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), an MBA from the Lagos State University. I am an associate of NIMN and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana where I am about to defend my Master’s thesis to bag the MS Communication degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)