Forum

Service delivery in Nigeria:
Whether as the Electricity Company of Nigeria ECN, Nigeria Electric Power Authority NEPA or the more recent Power Holding Company of Nigeria, power generation, transmission and distribution have posed a major challenge for Nigeria. This singular issue contributes to the high cost of trade and investment in Nigeria, it has led to the difficulties faced by the real sector in Nigeria and has made manufacturing a difficult area to invest in Nigeria. Since assumption of office, the Yar’ adua administration has made some efforts to revamp the power sector. A state of emergency is planned to jump start this reform. It is difficult to ascertain how much impact this will have on service delivery by the PHCN. Is this step one Nigerians have been looking forward to? How much impact can Businesses in Nigeria hope for during this imposition?

World Over, the rule of Law is sacrosanct and is the most assured way of consolidating the gains of any reform. Are there chances that the gains of the reform of the previous administration will be consolidated under the commitment to “the rule of law” by the current administration?

We would appreciate your views on this.

Please submit your comment on this issue to info@theconvention.org

Collateral damage of corruption

A YOUNG man was staring intently at me in the supermarket checkout line. I didn't recognise him. He kept staring. I became a little irritated, but pretended to ignore him. As I bagged my groceries and paid the cashier, he accosted me, asking me if I was who I was. This kind of thing happens occasionally; my mugshot's on this page, after all. I nodded, cautiously.
"Do you remember me?" he asked. I shook my head. "My father is..." and he named a man who'd been in the news lately, in connection with certain improprieties.
"Oh my God," I said. "Please forgive me. I could never have recognised you."
"I wouldn't expect you to," he said. "The last time we met I was 7 years old."
He was 20 now; handsome, long-haired and well-built; broad shoulders and chest, dressed in a death-metal tee-shirt and black jeans. His name came back to me. Having last seen him as a happy, bright and energetic little boy, the only thing I could find to say to him now was: "I'm so sorry. How's your dad?"
His face darkened. "How do you think he is?"
"I'm so sorry," I repeated, sincerely, but lamely. "How's your mum? And your brother?"
"My brother's gone overseas to study. I'm joining him next month. Mum's coming with us. We're not coming back. It's been crazy here, man. All our friends have abandoned us. We can't live here any more. We're finished here."
"It's an investigation," I said, the lameness becoming crippled. "He'll get his chance to state his case."
"Yeah, right," he said, bitterly. "We're still finished here. People won't forget."
So early in life, he had learned the awful truth about the way it is with charges such as these. When this kind of mud is thrown at an individual, it never washes off completely. And his dad was a man advanced in years, with no time left to redeem his shattered career, restore his ruined reputation, or begin anew somewhere else; somewhere far away from the toxic whispers and snide asides they'd all suffered since the allegations of his transgressions had surfaced.
"But my brother and me, we'll be earning our own livings soon. We'll take care of mum and dad."
I shook his hand - he had a steely grip - and from the bottom of my wretched heart I wished him and his family the best of luck, resisting the urge to add some anodyne rubbish about God having a sense of balance, opening windows when closing doors, etc; of the hikmah or benefits that might emerge from grievous calamity.
This encounter will forever colour my emotional response to the righteous bloodlust that attends the authorities' action against corruption. The public's hang-'em-high demands for retribution, when unmet, turns instantly into indictments of the government for inefficiency, insincerity or, worse, complicity in the "close-one-eye" machinations of the morally suspect.
The Anti-Corruption Agency, for long sneered at as ineffective in its caution and circumspection, has lately received rare acclaim for its intensified efforts, especially against suspect policemen and civil servants.
That is as it should be, no doubt, but in the rush to judgment there should be some
thought given to the families and children of those rousted from their homes to be carted off in shackles to face interrogation on suspicion of dirty deeds.
These remain, after all, suspicions, not charges, but once their faces and names are known, that's all it takes. Public opinion is the judge, jury and executioner, impervious to any force of law or reason, and so implacable that the easiest way to ruin people has become to accuse them of wrongdoing, not to prove it.
This is by no means to suggest clemency or even compassion for the wrongdoers, nest-featherers and outright crooks making illicit hay of public funds and betraying the public trust.
But it is certainly to remind the public that due process demands discretion in these investigations. Not all spouses and children would have the gumption to parade in front of courthouses wearing tee-shirts emblazoned with slogans declaring their love for, faith in and loyalty to the accused.
This is, therefore, a cautionary warning to would-be transgressors tempted to indulge in the backhanded bending of the law and morality. It would be the height of self-delusion for them to think of such activities as acquiring the wherewithal to benefit their spouses and children, when these are the innocents whose lives will be ruined through no fault of their own.
Lynch mobs are not known for deep thought. The people's quest for justice, no matter how legitimate, needs to be channelled through due process, with all its checks, balances and safeguards against condemning the innocent or inflating a momentary lapse of judgment - an all-too-human failing - into a cardinal crime deserving of a life's destruction.
It is not a crime to be the offspring of a criminal. When the accused has not even had a chance to defend himself - when it is not even established that he is a criminal - a perverse injustice has been done in the very name of justice.
The ACA's redoubled efforts to make good the present administration's pledge to crack down on corruption should be lauded, but the consequences on the families and friends of those tainted by suspicion are hardly to be gloated over.
For the sins of the fathers to be visited on their children is an utterly unconscionable barbarism.

Let us assume that this story is applicable to the Nigerian scenario-which it is- what would be your honest reaction to this article- please feel free to send your reactions to info@theconvention.org

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