Jonathan’s declaration: A Post-Mortem By Comrade Timi Frank — Nov 18, 2014 | In my column published on this page on 28th October, titled: “Before Jonathan Declares” I admonished Mr. President not to neglect to show Nigerians convincing proof of his stewardship in the last six years to warrant his plea for reelection during his declaration for 2015. I had said: “Finally, as Jonathan declares, it will do him a lot of good to show Nigerians verifiable achievements in the last six years upon which he wishes to seek reelection rather than the cosmetics he is parading in the media. What has been his record of justice, development, and social engineering? Has he ruled progressively or retrogressively? This and many more questions Nigerians expect him to answer as he declares to seek reelection. With the level of unemployment in the land, pesky power supply, insecurity, dwindling revenue to states, poor healthcare, poor educational facilities, social collapse and biting poverty, Nigerians will surely decide for change when the appropriate time comes.” This, I am afraid, he woefully failed to do because a man, they say, can only give what he has. Today, I want highlight a few critical sectors of the economy where the reforms of the omnibus Transformation Agenda have failed to unfurl. Take for instance the power sector. Mr. President counted as part of his achievements the full privatisation of the power sector and I say to what end? Does it mean that Nigerians now enjoy uninterrupted power supply or pa less for darkness? Fifteen years ago, when our democracy was relatively new, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) told Nigerians that we had a 6000mw installed capacity of electricity, and “within a year, this would go up to 10,000mw.” Fifteen years later, with over $50 billion spent on the power sector alone, we are now being told by the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration that power generation in Nigeria has “increased from 3000mw to 4000mw.” According to a study conducted on electricity distribution among the six geo-political zones in late 2009, Nigerians were said to enjoy only four to six hours of power supply per day; hence many Nigerians daily spend their meagre resources to augment the rather poor electricity supply through generators. Notwithstanding, Mr. President omitted to recognise in his homily that in 2011 he told Nigerians that by June 2012, they will all cast away their generators. I know that Nigerians have not thrown away their generators but rather are buying more sophisticated ones to meet their daily electricity needs. In this country, studies have shown that Nigerians expend over N796 billion on fuelling electric power generators annually, a development which is not only the highest in the world but blatantly outrageous and untenable. So, where is the miracle Jonathan gleefully referred to when he said that “our power generation and distribution companies have now been privatised. We are firmly on the road to guaranteed regular power supply in the months ahead. This our bold move, is paying off!” What is there to cheer when the present administration is today expending taxpayers’ money to fund a fully privatised sector, still without result? Nigerians and members of the international community must have chuckled silently when Mr. President started by saying, “This day affords me the opportunity to continue the conversation of development we started together.” What development? Jonathan also noted that work on the Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge rail line, is ‘progressing’ and that the tracks would be completed by December this year. He added for emphasis that upon completion of the project in the first quarter of 2015, it would be possible for Nigerians to live in Kaduna and work in Abuja and I say welcome to Nirvana! However, he failed to mention that the Abuja-Kaduna rail modernisation project with a cost of $874,308,704, commenced in December 2010 with a completion period of 36 months. So it is far from salutary that what was billed for completion in 2012 still formed Mr. President’s campaign promises for 2015 just like it was in 2010. Are we progressing or retrogressing? Another faux pas by Mr President was his promise to conduct the groundbreaking ceremony of the $16 billion Export Processing Zone Project in Warri, Delta State the weekend following his declaration. The programme was hurriedly cancelled a day to the event when rampaging ex-militants seized the waterways and prevented Mr. President and the Governor of Delra State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan from gaining access to the area. As a result of the botched $16bn EPZ groundbreaking, furious Itsekiri Leaders of Thought called on Mr. President and Governor Uduaghan to resign over their failure to “curtail the ex-militants” whom they claimed the President had “spent billions of tax payers’ money in rehabilitating.” The Itsekiri Leaders of Thought further contended in a statement that “It is the responsibility of every sitting President and Governor to ensure that they are not cowed by threats; otherwise all manner of groups will rise up every now and then and keep on threatening them. Therefore, if a President keeps on succumbing to threats by his own people and he cannot curtail them, then he has goofed up and should resign as it is done elsewhere in the world.” Mr. President also attempted to pull the wool over the face of Nigerians when he said he succeeded in eliminating fuel queues, but Nigerians know better. “We have also succeeded in eliminating the long queues that previously characterised our filling stations, through regular and sustained product supply,” Mr. President had announced. But I make bold to say that there are no queues because Nigerians are paying through their noses for fuel in a country abundantly blessed with the product. Queues were there because fuel imported with taxpayers money were in the past diverted to neigbouring countries through our porous borders. Gas stations don’t dispense fuel free. So why should any one beat his chest that there are no more queues in the country? I think I would have applauded Mr. President if he had told Nigerians that our four refineries are now producing at 100 per cent of installed capacity because that would have led to the reduction of fuel prices currently at N97 for petrol, kerosene at N150 and diesel at N250 per liter respectively. Mr. President, Nigerians want to know the level of work on your administration’s planned three Greenfield Refineries billed for Lagos, Bayelsa and Kogi States and scheduled to come on stream by 2017. It could be recalled that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) Limited had in 2010 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the joint sourcing of funds for the construction of three new refineries and a petrochemical plant in Nigeria under a $28.5 billion provisional deal. The project was envisaged to increase Nigeria’s refining capacity to over one million barrels per day (bpd) from the current 445,000 bpd capacity and stem the flurry of importation of refined petroleum products into the country. Also, Front End Engineering and Design (FEED), site preparation and infrastructure had been scheduled to start in February 2012 to be followed by construction works in July 2012. So, Mr. President, how far? The aftermath of the 2012 fuel subsidy uprising has since shown that over $1.4 trillion allegedly used to import fuel was fake. The culprits today lay buried in the slow grinding maze of the judiciary and Nigerians may never get justice. Why not tell Nigerians how many subsidy thieves have been successfully prosecuted? The fuel never came in, the little that came in through genuine major marketers who could not afford to soil their business integrity, were diverted. As long as this administration keeps powering the economy with imported petroleum products, the present no queues situation remains unsustainable and the exorbitant price of refined petroleum products will continue to bleed the average man on the streets. Again, Mr. President further claimed that out of the 35,000km of federal roads nationwide, only about 5,000km were motorable when he assumed office in 2010. “Today, that number has increased to about 25,000km,” he said. I beg to ask sir, if the federal roads in the South East are part of the 25,000km you said are now motorable? Mr. President should kindly recall that the former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, who is also the chairman of the Board of the Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC), spoke on behalf of the South East during his declaration. Nnamani was also the Vice Chairman of the declaration committee. He had called on the region to support Mr. President because they do not want the Second Niger Bridge abandoned. He also said the region wants Mr. President to continue in office because only he can fix the region’s busiest highway, the Enugu-Onitsha highway which he described as being in a “catastrophic mess.” (The Enugu/Port Harcourt highway is far messier, I dare say). For emphasis, Nnamani promised that Mr. President will see first hand the mess that federal roads in the region are in during his tour of the South East for electioneering campaigns. Nnamani, apart from occupying a relevant office in your administration that has to do with infrastructure, is a leader in the South East, so he is in a better position to know the state of federal roads in the region except Mr. President still wants to claim otherwise. On my part, I have no comment! But across the country, I want to say that what we have seen in terms of construction and rehabilitation of major road arteries is at best perfunctory. For instance, the construction of the Abuja-Lokoja road which started during Obasanjo’s administration is still far from completed. The flurry of publicity stunts in the name of road construction flag-offs by this administration, have remained one thing – flag-off! What is the level of work on the Second Niger Bridge? It was one of Mr. President’s campaign promises in 2010. What is the level of work on the East West Road despite being funded by the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P), Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and a $300million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB)? Mr. President neglected to list his achievements on these projects because there is no cheering news from there! All the achievements paraded during the declaration were at best phantom and mere bubbles. They are still light years away from the reality. The few examples above show that it would be foolhardy to believe that a man can do in four years what he could not do in six years.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 04:50:45 +0000
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