Loomnie

The courts have given the Nigerian cabinet 14 days to determine whether the president is fit to lead the country. You might recall that the president has been away from the country on treatment for close to two months.

From Reuters:

Judge Dan Abutu ordered the cabinet to pass a resolution on Yar’Adua’s fitness within two weeks after a former lawmaker brought a legal case against the government, saying his failure to transfer power was in breach of the constitution.

Foreign Policy’s Elizabeth Dickinson praises the courts:

There have been other, less blockbuster examples: the courts succeeded in trying tobacco companies for their activities in Nigeria. They’ve gone after Pfizer for drug tests that prosecuting laywers (one is pictured above) say were illegal. Lawyers worked through the courts to end the military detention of the country’s most notorious rebel leader prisoner. (Yes, probably a good thing he was detained. Not so good that he was kept first in Angola and then in a secret cell.) And a whole crew of self-proclaimed human rights lawyers are literally in court every day to defend the country’s people against such ills as police abuse and government-orchestrated property siezures.

Now we’re seeing the same thing again. When Nigerian democracy doesn’t work, the courts are the only place to turn. And turn they do. The lawsuit that mandates this vote on Yar’Adua is just the first of a flood of law suits now demanding that the Nigerian government transition into the hands of the vice president, Goodluck Jonathan. Even if the cabinet votes to keep Yar’Adua in power, the courts will be back to challenge them. You can’t go missing for two months without at least a few of Nigeria’s many lawyers noticing.

The Nigerian government has decided to implement a common year-end for Nigerian banks. The point is that, because banks have had different fiscal cycles they could move money around amongst each other to inflate the value of their total assets. Which was part of what contributed to the banking crisis of ’09. The immediate reaction:

Already reports from the banks reveal that the inflated figures usually declared as value of total assets would shrink noticeably. A source at the First Bank who pleaded anonymity told NEXT, “You should expect shrinking in the total asset positions of the banks. That has already started to manifest in the industry.” The source added, ‘‘Whether or not the banks declare losses, the books would shrink. The same money people kept circulating and adding to their books would no longer be available. We were more than double counting the same money, and this was possible because the banks had different accounting year end. ‘‘

As I wrote in my column of today, Nigerian banking sector is corporate Nigeria. From the same Next report:

Another banker observed that, “The stock market would run into more trouble. About 60% of the market’s All Share Index (ASI) is controlled by banks. Listed securities are mostly banks. With this they would sell down. It means they would release more into the market and then prices would further go down. One thing is certain; the ASI would be further depressed.”

60%!? We have not started building a financial sector at all!

Remember Hernando De Soto’s assertion in The Mystery of Capital that success in capitalism is tied to the structure of property and property rights? Seems like someone in the Nigerian government has been reading the book.

In ThisDay of today:

The Federal Government yesterday said  the ongoing land reforms process is intended to launch the large majority of Nigerians into economic empowerment by providing them with access to land titles which can easily be traded for money.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works, Housing and Urban Development reform, Dr. Tukur Ingawa, speaking at the national workshop of the National Technical Development Forum on Land Administration:

“As operators in the field, you must be aware of the advantages of modernising the processes of land administration. The procedure for obtaining title to land must not be allowed to remain slow and irritatingly inefficient. The security of title documents and other defers that impede transactions in land must be given due considerations”

And

In his remarks, Chairman, Presidential Committee on Land Reform, Professor Akin Maboguje said the land reform agenda was borne out of very deep conviction by President Umaru Yar’Adua that a very critical and potent factor in alleviating the poverty of the large majority of Nigerians especially those living in the rural areas is to determine, validate and register the property right they own in their land assets.

In Vanguard of yesterday:

The reform is aimed at removing the hitherto slow, frustrating and cumbersome process of land administration and pay the way for modernisation processes of land administration in the country.

According to the current land laws – the Land Use Act of 1990 – land in the urban areas of each state is held by the state governor, in trust for the people; the right to land in non-urban areas is held by the local government authorities. The governor and the local government authority issue certificates of occupancy. From the reports and the terms of reference from the president it does’t seem like this is going to change….

Let’s wait and see the outcome/recommendations of the committee.

See this presentation on CNN. When we think of the Niger-Delta region and the movements we should remember that the region is one of the most environmentally degraded areas in the world, that this degradation happened in the recent past, and that it is still ongoing. We should not lose sight of that when we condemn the movements. Don’t get me wrong, this is not to show my support for the kidnapping of oil workers and their families, it is to provoke you to think about how life might be living under the conditions. Empathy has a serious role to play in understanding, and so proffering solutions to, the situation in Niger-Delta region.

Image via Wikipedia

It is probably obvious, by now, that I like BusinessDay. This is their editorial today:

In what seems to be a major policy thrust in international economic relations and in resolving the festering Niger Delta crisis, President Umaru Yar’Adua on Monday, at the meeting of G8 leaders holding in Japan called for global clampdown on trade in stolen crude oil.
The president emphasised that stolen crude oil deserved the same global treatment as that of stolen diamonds.

Yar’Adua said measures must be taken to “dismantle the criminal dmension” of the problem in the Niger Delta. And for good measure, he said the problem in the region was being aggravated by international cartels.

The Nigerian leader drew attention to another aspect of the Niger Delta challenge, the criminal aspect, in this case “those who use the cover of militancy to steal our crude oil and engage in all forms of violence.”

We commend the president for drawing attention of the international community to this ugly trend. This is an issue that hitherto had been discussed in hushed tones and privately, too. It is an open secret that Nigeria’s crude is stolen daily, that beyond the official production figures given to meet OPEC quota and local consumption, a lot more is produced through illegal bunkering and from offshore rigs.

According to Freedom House, a US-based oil industry analyst, out of the 1.9 million barrels of crude oil Nigeria produces per day, she loses 10 per cent to oil thieves, part of the proceeds of which are spent on criminal activities in the Niger Delta.

We can draw a parallel with the role diamonds played in the civil wars that took place in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s. The rebels that waged war in Liberia were able to sustain their rebel activities, which ultimately escalated to become a civil war on account of the money they made from illegal mining and sale of diamonds.

A number of questions, naturally, arise from President Yar’Adua’s submission. Who are those involved? Apart from the militants, who hide under the cover of agitation, are there international thieves helping to fuel the theft of Nigeria’s crude oil?

If they exist, is there a nexus between the objective they pursue and the criminalisation of the Niger Delta struggle?

In all of this, what is the role of the multinational oil companies engaged in oil exploration in the country especially in the Niger Delta region?

There is talk about the use of satellite to monitor offshore oil drilling. Is it effective and if yes, are those in charge giving the Nigerian government the true picture of the situatiion? If they are doing that, has the government taken any steps to address it?

More importantly, does Nigeria have the capacity to monitor offshore exploration activities of the oil companies and enforce compliance to production limits?

Answers to these questions are important as they will point the way to dealing with the issue.

President Yar’Adua chose the right platform to raise the issue. The international oil companies are all from the G8 countries. Their governments will need to do internal checks to ascertain the culpability or otherwise of their companies in this criminal behaviour.

We urge him to quickly take the matter to the United Nations as he has promised. Only concerted efforts at the global level can arrest the situation.

The president’s pledge that the much talked about Niger Delta Summit would hold is reassuring. Resolution of the crisis in that region of the country holds the key to Nigeria’s economic and social transformation.

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