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Nigeria: Midterm Results Disappoint
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jun 12, 2009 (090612)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"Every Nigerian hopes Yar'Adua's administration will start
delivering those political goods which every society is entitled
to, and what Yar'Adua promised in his Inaugural Address. But the
strength of the hope dwindles with each passing day. As Nigerians,
we must raise our voices to demand for these goods, and pray for
our leaders to appreciate that they are in office to solve societal
problems - not just to make a few friends, relations and cronies
better off." - Nasir El-Rufai
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains brief excerpts from the
extensive background analysis by Nasir El-Rufai, "Umara Yar'Adua:
Great Expectations, Disappointing Outcome," and a press release
from Human Rights Watch calling for President Yar'Adua to act to
improve Nigeria's human rights situation.
El-Rufai was a prominent member of the administration of former
President Olusegun Obasanjo, known as a "technocrat" and
"reformer," serving in Obasanjo's second term as minister
responsible for the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja). He was also
active in planning the transition after the 2007 election, and is
completing his master's in public administration at the Harvard
Kennedy School. In addition to the brief sections excerpted here,
El-Rufai's essay is of interest for the extensive details provided
about the background of President Yar'Adua and an inside look at
the political maneuvering connected with his election.
The full essay by El-Rufai is available on http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com or http://tinyurl.com/m5cfok
A Human Rights Watch letter to President Yar'Adua and other
background information are available at http://www.hrw.org/africa/nigeria
Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today (http://www.africafocus.org/docs09/nig0906b.php) focuses on the Niger Delta in particular, including the $15.5 million settlement
in Wiwa v. Shell and the current military operations and civilian
displacement.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Nigeria, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/nigeria.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
Umaru Yar`Adua: Great Expectation, Disappointing Outcome
Nasir El-Rufai
30 May 2009
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com
http://tinyurl.com/m5cfok
1.The Challenge of Writing on Umaru Yar'Adua
...
And because Umaru Yar'Adua has been in office for so short a time,
not much has been written about him. This essay will therefore be
a summary of what the utterly free but unreliable Nigerian media
and bloggers have published, tempered by my personal knowledge of
Yar'Adua since I first met him in 1972, and what others that have
grown up, lived and worked with him have related to me.
...
I will compare Yar' Adua's promises and commitments upon his
swearing-in, with actual outcomes achieved. I will review his
political, economic and foreign policy vision, policies and actions
to establish how transformational he has been.
2. Nigeria in May 2007
...
Nigeria in May 2007 was in high spirits - we were about to
successfully transfer power democratically from one elected
government to another, handing over a sound economy that is almost
debt-free with healthy reserves of over $45 billion. For the first
time since Nigeria's first republic was terminated, there was a
window of opportunity to break from the past. ...
For some of us in President Obasanjo's government, the elections
were disappointing but the best candidate won. We have elected our
first University graduate as President, a person we were convinced
was a decent man, and raised the possibility that we will break the
vicious cycle of bad leadership that has defined our nation. We
were optimistic about the future.
...
It was a time of great relief for us too - we will soon be free to
pursue our private lives. I was personally uneasy about the poor
succession outcome, inadequate preparation of Umaru Yar'Adua for
the office he was about to be sworn in, the flawed elections and
the legitimacy burden arising therefrom, and the abysmally poor
briefing of the incoming team of the opportunities and challenges
before them.
...
11. The 2007 Presidential Elections, Transition and Handover
There were many concerns within Nigeria and abroad that the 2007
Elections may not hold. There were grounds for these concerns -
Obasanjo had lost the trust of Nigerians after the inchoate attempt
to amend the Constitution. The voters' register was still not ready
and published 90 days to the Elections as required by law.
Biometric voters' identification cards promised by the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) had not been issued, and there
were cases of massive disqualifications of candidates, replacement
of candidates by parties and several lawsuits arising therefrom
that the levels of uncertainty in January to March 2007 were quite
high.
The Elections took place amidst poor preparation and horrendous
logistic failures. All the politicians and political parties were
determined to rig the results without regard to the will of the
voters. As Minister of Abuja, I was determined that the elections
in the Federal Capital Territory were free and fair. ... I was
particularly harsh with the leadership of the ruling party which I
was a member, as I knew they had the first-mover advantage in that
area.
The FCT elections were violence-free and had very few reports of
rigging. Nationwide, the elections were fraught with many
documented irregularities. But most Nigerian citizens were
generally relieved that the elections had actually taken place -
warts and all, and that Obasanjo had not been given any excuse to
declare any emergency to stay in power longer.
...
The transition is complete. Now we can all get on with our lives,
assured that we have elected a good man, who will build on the
foundations we laid under Obasanjo, correct any human errors and
move Nigeria on the path of its manifest destiny. I was relieved.
How wrong we all turned out to be!
Part 3 - Umaru Yar'Adua as President
12. Optimism, Expectations, and Early Steps
The Inaugural Speech that President Umaru Yar'Adua gave was
inspiring and raised the nation's hope and expectations. He
admitted the flaws in the Elections that brought him to power and
promised to set up a panel to study what happened so Nigerian can
reform its electoral system. He promised a generational shift that
will herald new governance from those born after Independence. ...
Yar'Adua undertook to rebuild infrastructure and human capital,
accelerate economic reforms and address the Niger Delta issue. He
pledged to create more jobs, lower interest rates, reduce inflation
and maintain the stability of the exchange rate. He promised to
make rail development a reality and achieve dramatic improvements
in electricity supply. He said he was committed to being a
'servant-leaders' who will be a listener and a doer - who will
tackle poverty and protect lives and property of all citizens. This
speech will be the benchmark for evaluating Yar'Adua's performance
in office now, and forever, and we will rely on it in this essay.
...
13. Promises vs. Accomplishments - Inaugural Speech v. Actual
Deliverables
In what appears to be the most serious signal of retrogress,
Yar'Adua's Attorney-General and Minister of Justice announced on
August 6, 2007 that the ICPC and EFCC will now prosecute corruption
and money laundering cases only with his express permission. The
public reaction to this announcement was overwhelmingly against the
administration. The next day, the administration backtracked and
reversed itself. This became the beginning of a series of actions
taken to weaken the war against corruption. A few months later, the
BBC published a short story that described the state of the
anti-corruption war, and things were to get much worse.
...
One of Yar'Adua's positive first steps was the inauguration on
August 28, 2007 of the Electoral Reform Committee (ERC) under the
chairmanship of respected jurist and former Chief Justice of
Nigeria, Mohammed L. Uwais. At that and other occasions, Yar'Adua
emphasized the need for financial autonomy for the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), emphasized that only credible
elections will guarantee peace, and promised that by December 2009,
a reformed electoral system will be in place in the country. ...
The initial dawn of optimism waxed and intensified as it became
clear that Yar'Adua was not only NOT Obasanjo's puppet, but intent
on demystifying his predecessor's eight years in office. Within a
year, this view and expectation had waned as it became clear that
nothing was getting done. ...
It was in the reversal of the war against corruption that the
Yar'Adua administration did the most damage to its credibility with
Nigerians and the international community. The systematic
destruction of the EFCC by the Yar'Adua administration began as
soon as James Ibori - former governor of Delta State (and a
recruiter, ally and financier of Yar'Adua), was charged for money
laundering and corruption at the Federal High Court in December
2007. ... A quick succession of events led to the extra-legal
removal, demotion, and dismissal of the EFCC's respected chairman
- Nuhu Ribadu, and the deployment of all the investigating EFCC
staff trained by the FBI and London Metropolitan Police. Two
attempts were made on Ribadu's life and he is currently on exile as
a visiting fellow at Oxford University, UK and Center for Global
Development, USA. In a detailed interview with PBS, Ribadu
recounted his experience, concluding that "when you fight
corruption, it fights back".
Since the firing of Ribadu, all the case files on the so-called 31
corrupt governors have disappeared or declared non-existent by
Farida Waziri, his successor at EFCC. ...Other well-known cases of
corruption that the administration has blatantly refused to
prosecute include bribery payments by Willbros - an oil services
company, corruption involving Siemens - a German engineering
company (in which senior PDP leaders collected $10 million in
bribes) and the well-known Halliburton/KBR case in which $180
million were pocketed by various officials.
Yar'Adua's wife is widely believed to be engaged in
influence-peddling and all manner of interventions in public
procurement and executive appointments - something documented so
clearly and accurately by Nigerian bloggers based mostly in the
USA. ...
(Note - Perhaps the most influential and factual of all the
bloggers is Omoyele Sowore of Saharareporters. A public
administration graduate of Columbia University, he is based in New
York and has been the scourge of both the Obasanjo and Yar'Adua
administrations. See http://www.saharareporters.com)
...
14. Has Yar'Adua Delivered "Political Goods"?
...
As far as human security is concerned, it would appear that things
have either remained the same at best or got a little worse. The
Niger Delta issue has not been addressed. Attacks on pipelines and
flow stations persist, and kidnappings have increased
exponentially. The much-vaunted "Niger Delta Summit" is yet to take
place. An important report produced by a technical committee set up
by the Yar'Adua administration is yet to be approved for
implementation since submission in November 2008. The quality of
the Nigeria Police remains poor but a committee on Police Reform
submitted a report which is expected to be implemented with
financial contributions between the states and the Federal
Government.
... Rule of law is one thing President Yar'Adua would like to be
remembered for. How he will be remembered is of course too early to
tell. There is a lot of sloganeering about rule of law, but with
Andoakaa, Okiro and Waziri as the public faces of this, the
Nigerian media and civil society are rightly skeptical. ...
The third political good is free and open participation in the
political process - do Nigerians have political rights? Some rights
certainly do exist, but one can say, not enough. Votes matter
little in elections in many parts of Nigeria in 2007 and now. ...
...
Investments in human capital - education, health and social
services, and in physical infrastructure are necessary for a
productive populace and connection of markets for goods and
services. The administration has done little to add to the
inherited levels of the supply of these goods. In Nigeria today,
electricity generation has fallen from 3,200MW in May 2007 to less
than 1,000MW and all inherited power investments put on hold while
being endlessly investigated and falsehood propagated to discredit
badly-needed investment decisions. The railway investments have
been suspended too, but the privately-owned telecoms sector
continues to boom - over 50 million Nigerian now carry cell-phones.
...
Legitimacy: Yar'Adua came into the presidency through an election
which observers within and outside Nigeria have condemned as the
worst in our history. For nearly one-and-half years, his presidency
was threatened by what the Election Tribunal will decide. These
legitimacy challenges which were not helped by 4-3 split decision
of the Nigerian Supreme Court on the presidential election.
Yar'Adua enjoyed a wave of initial popularity that would have
overcome this challenge, but he lost that within months due to some
of his own ill-advised appointments, decisions and inactions.
Though he is not personally ostentatious, the association with
corrupt governors and dodgy businessmen, the elaborate weddings of
his two daughters and the many stories of his wife have put
question marks on his true levels of modesty, honesty and
integrity.
16. Conclusions and Way Forward
As I write this essay, President Umaru Yar'Adua's associates have
started his campaign for a second term in office. That he is still
'planning' the first term and there are concerns about his health
have not discouraged the campaigners. As is usual with Yar'Adua, he
will publicly decry their activities, but privately get his inner
circle to encourage and fund the protagonists!
Every Nigerian hopes Yar'Adua's administration will start
delivering those political goods which every society is entitled
to, and what Yar'Adua promised in his Inaugural Address. But the
strength of the hope dwindles with each passing day. As Nigerians,
we must raise our voices to demand for these goods, and pray for
our leaders to appreciate that they are in office to solve societal
problems - not just to make a few friends, relations and cronies
better off.
In my considered view, three issues cry for attention in Nigeria,
and which if addressed will enable the country resolve its numerous
challenges in the long run - electoral reform to make votes count,
investments in physical and human infrstructure, and security and
improved governance of the states in the Niger Delta. ...
Nigeria: Abusers Reign at Midterm
Ten Steps for Yar'Adua to Improve Human Rights Record
June 7, 2009
Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/06/07/nigeria-abusers-reign-midterm
(Dakar) - President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria, halfway through his
presidential mandate, has undermined the country's foremost
anti-corruption body, done little to rein in an abusive police
force, and failed to address the root causes of the escalating
crisis in the Niger Delta, Human Rights Watch said today. Human
Rights Watch said in a letter to Yar'Adua that there have been
serious setbacks during the first two years in addressing Nigeria's
chronic human rights problems and endemic corruption.
Human Rights Watch's letter includes proposals for concrete steps
to address the country's pressing human rights concerns. It
describes endemic government corruption and mismanagement, which
rob ordinary Nigerians of their basic right to health and
education; ongoing state-sponsored violence by the security forces,
including extrajudicial killings and torture; the civilian fallout
of clashes between the military and armed militants in the Niger
Delta; and outbreaks of sectarian violence, which over the past two
years have claimed hundreds of lives.
"President Yar'Adua has had two years to show that he meant
business when he promised to strengthen the rule of law," said
Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.
"But instead, it is business as usual. The people responsible for
the wholesale pillage of Nigeria's oil wealth and for arming Niger
Delta militants have been left untouched, and the victims of police
violence have seen no justice."
Human Rights Watch acknowledged tentative steps the Yar'Adua
administration has taken to address Nigeria's human rights
concerns, but noted that these efforts have so far amounted to
little more than policy statements and a series of new committees,
panels, and ministries that have had little, if any, positive
impact on the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Yar'Adua and his
administration have failed to address the root causes of Nigeria's
human rights problems or change the atmosphere that allows abuses
to persist.
Human Rights Watch proposed a 10-point human rights agenda. The
recommendations include: passing a proposed Freedom of Information
Bill; improving oversight of state and local government
expenditures; holding accountable government officials responsible
for embezzling public funds or instigating political violence;
passing legislation barring discrimination against "non-indigenes";
investigating and prosecuting members of the security forces
implicated in extrajudicial killings, torture, or other serious
human rights violations; dismissing the chair of the electoral
commission; and appointing an inspector general of police committed
to ending police abuses.
Yar'Adua pledged in his inaugural speech to pursue an impartial,
"zero-tolerance" policy toward corrupt officials, but instead he
has fired the dynamic chief of the anti-corruption commission and
has not held accountable key ruling party politicians who have been
credibly implicated in the massive looting of the state treasury.
The National Assembly, controlled by the ruling party, has not
passed the Freedom of Information Bill, which would empower
Nigeria's citizens by giving them access to government financial
records.
Two years after the violent and deeply flawed 2007 elections that
brought Yar'Adua to power, elections are still determined by fraud
and violence rather than the will of the people. The April 2009
gubernatorial election re-run in Ekiti State was marred, as
Yar'Adua described it, by reports of "violence, intimidation of
voters, bribery of electoral officials, and other breaches of the
law."
Despite this acknowledgment, Yar'Adua has refused to remove the
widely discredited chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commission, Maurice Iwu, who presided over and legitimized the
results of the Ekiti as well as the 2007 elections. In addition,
the Yar'Adua administration has yet to investigate properly, much
less hold to account, those who sponsored or carried out the 2007
election violence that left at least 300 dead.
The administration's strategy for the worsening crisis in the Niger
Delta - an offer of amnesty to militants, military offensives, and
the creation of a Niger Delta ministry - has failed to address the
root causes of the worsening crisis there, Human Rights Watch said.
The government officials who have sponsored violence for political
gain in the region and the corrupt ruling party politicians who
have squandered and embezzled its vast oil wealth remain free of
scrutiny, inquiry, and prosecution.
Inter-communal violence, which has claimed 12,000 lives in Nigeria
over the past decade, broke out again in November 2008 in Jos,
Plateau state, leaving hundreds dead and thousands displaced.
Yar'Adua has yet to end the impunity that perpetuates this violence
or to address its root causes, most notably the discriminatory
policies against "non-indigenes" - those who cannot trace their
ancestry to the original inhabitants of the area where they live.
Human Rights Watch noted that the police force is in dire need of
a new inspector general of police committed to reforming this
notoriously corrupt institution.
The police force under the current inspector general, Mike Okiro,
remains deeply mired in endemic corruption and widespread abuses.
The Yar'Adua administration has made little effort to investigate
and prosecute police officials responsible for scores of
extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects as well as ordinary
citizens, and for routine torture of criminal suspects during
interrogation.
"President Yar'Adua should take immediate steps to address
Nigeria's dismal human rights record," said Dufka. "If he wishes to
build his legacy on the rule of law, he needs to exercise bold and
courageous leadership to tackle the impunity that fuels abuses and
address their root causes. The lives of ordinary Nigerians are in
the balance."
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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