Federal Government - Nigeria Will Survive

NIGERIA'S challenges as a nation are not beyond God, the Federal Government affirmed yesterday.
Vice President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who expressed the government's optimism while speaking at the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Central Parish, Abuja, remarked that "sometimes the challenges we may go through as children of God and as a nation signify that God is in charge of our lives."
But the Action Congress (AC) and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) have implored Nigerians and the Federal Government to work for constitutional reforms and pursue genuine developmental measures while eschewing actions that threaten stability.
Jonathan noted that when the nation was confronted with the challenge of the swearing-in of the new Chief Justice of Nigeria, Aloysius Katsina-Alu, God averted the confusion in which the country might have found itself.
The Vice President said it was because Nigerians prayed that made God to turn the situation around. He disclosed that the provision of the Oath Act which empowers the sitting Chief Justice to swear-in his successor was evidence of God's intervention.
Jonathan thanked all Nigerians for their tremendous support and prayers for President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, and all leaders at different levels and the country in general.
In his sermon, Pastor Elijah Olukayode Daramola, whose message focused on grace identified seven key roles which it plays in the life of Christians.
He urged Christians to shun unrighteousness in order to enjoy the sufficient grace which God has provided in the year 2010.
Also among those at the church service were the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Babatunde Omotoba; former Deputy Speaker House of Representatives, Chief Chibudom Nwuche, and other government functionaries.
The AC challenged Nigerians to take their destiny in their own hands and push hard for electoral and constitutional reforms in 2010, if the country was to have a free and fair election in 2011 and "if, indeed, our democracy is to survive."
In a New Year message to Nigerians, contained in a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party assured that on its part, it would continue with the struggle to ensure that Nigerians can freely elect those who will govern them, and also continue to put the government of the day on its toes through constructive criticism.
``We live in very dangerous times. Things have never been so bad for Nigerians and democracy has never been so threatened as it has been in recent times, when the country has become rudderless and the so-called ruling party has all but gone to bed," AC said.
``But we must remind Nigerians of the saying that heaven helps those who help themselves. It is up to our people, victims of the total collapse of governance by the PDP-led federal government, to shake off the yoke of bad governance.''
However, the party said Nigerians should not be under any illusion that the Federal Government would alleviate their sufferings or lift the country from the abyss to which it has fallen in the past 10 years plus of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rule.
``Whether under Yar'Adua or Goodluck Jonathan, nothing will happen in the few months remaining for this administration that will turn around the fortunes of our country for the better. Therefore, Nigerians must set their eyes far beyond this administration, far beyond 2010," the AC said.
``But the foundation for better days must be laid today, and the first step is to fight for electoral reform, which will be key to the organisation of successful polls in 2011.''
The party also said the issues thrown up by the lingering ill-health of President Yar'Adua have underlined the urgency of the review of the 1999 Constitution.
The party went on: ``The imperfections and ambiguities in Sections 144 and 145 have proved to be a kind of straw - thin as it may be - on which those opposed to a legal transfer of power to the VP (Vice President) have been hanging their specious arguments, including that the President can even rule from Mars or Jupiter!
``And of course, there is the absurdity of saddling the federal cabinet with the task of kick-starting the process of determining whether or not the President is fit to continue in office. One does not need to look into a crystal ball to know that in these climes, where public office is seen as a platform for national cake sharing, ministers will never initiate the move to remove the man who appointed them.''
Looking back at 2009, the party said there was no doubt that it ranked as one of the worst for Nigeria.
It continued:``Let's start from the most recent of the events that made 2009 the year we will rather forget. The failed attack on a U.S. passenger jetliner by a Nigerian, Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, has dragged our nation into the ranks of emerging terrorist hotbeds to be kept at an arms length by the international community.
``That incident couldn't have come at a worse time for a country that is still struggling to clean up its image, after the shame of the massively-rigged 2007 general elections; the confusion resulting from leadership vacuum after our President left for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia without legally transferring power and the country's worsening position in the global corruption ratings. We only hope those who have been wasting our scarce resources on a spurious re-branding process will now know that the game is up. What image is there to re-brand now? We must re-build our image from the scratch. And good governance is the starting point, not meaningless clich�s.
``We must also not forget the worsening security situation in the country, from the antics of the rampaging religious extremists in the north - who have continued to kill, rape and maim because the government lacks the will to stop them - to the kidnappers for ransom in the south and the armed robbers all over the place!
``Then of course the events that represent the clearest manifestation yet of the much trumpeted failure of governance at all levels: The banking crisis - though avoidable if the regulators have done their job - that has now washed away over 4,000 jobs; the capital market that has emerged as the world's worse performing index in 2009; fuel and energy crisis (Nigeria has been in a death grip of fuel scarcity for several weeks now, while the 6,000 megawatts of electricity promised by the government have metamorphosed into 6,000 megawatts of lies, to quote a newspaper); the educational crisis, highlighted by the closure of our public universities for several months; and of course the total collapse of our infrastructure.
``On the political scene, INEC Independent National Electoral Commission - PDP's Siamese Twin in election rigging and vote manipulation - showed in the Ekiti governorship re-run that it is almost irredeemable! The re-run was worse that the original election whose result was challenged by our party. It was a missed opportunity for Nigeria to show it is ready to depart from the part of failed elections!''
The party said the only success achieved by the Yar'Adua administration after much confusion - the amnesty programme which has succeeded in restoring some tenuous peace to the Niger Delta - was in the process of unravelling.
``If care is not taken, this government, through the sheer incompetence of those charged with furthering the peace process, may yet snatch failure from the jaws of victory in the Niger Delta,'' the party said.
Urging Nigerians to keep hope alive, AC added that such hope must be tempered with the reality that the government does not have what it takes to change things for the better, and thus must be "voted out of office!"
On its part, MEND called on the Federal Government to immediately release the white paper on the recommendations of the Technical Committee on Niger Delta.
It said the Federal Government's shelving of the recommendations of the Ledum Mitee-led committee which submitted its report to Yar'Adua on December 31, 2008, was one of the reasons that informed MEND's refusal to accept last year's amnesty offer.
The group's spokesperson, Jomo Gbomo, told The Guardian in an interview that government raised a red flag when it ignored the key recommendations of the committee.
MEND which considers the amnesty a failure even though it led to the release of Henry Okah from teason trial, said its assessment was based on the fact that the programme has been tarnished with politics, deceit and greed. Besides, it stated that the post-amnesty phase is a disaster that has led the criminal elements to riot at Aluu, Rivers State and rape at will.
Gbomo said: "The most critical element to have been won was the hearts and mind more than the monthly stipend which will only make these grown men lazy. Amnesty was not the appropriate tool to use but in the circumstance where innocent persons like Henry Okah were being held on trumped-up charges, it was accepted to improvise with it. Because that tool was not appropriate, it has led us all back to the starting block."
MEND described as a blatant lie the government's claim that over 15,000 militants embraced the amnesty programme. According to Gbomo, at most the real militants that embraced the programme were not more than 500 while the rest of the other figure comprises of jobless youths and criminals.
"With the United Nations involvement, the exact number of combatants would have been made public and the same goes for the weapons returned.
The UN would have come out with a long-term-post amnesty plan instead of what we are seeing which is not realistic for the long term," said Gbomo.
When The Guardian contacted the spokesperson of the amnesty committee, Dr. Timiebi Karimopo-Agary, she explained that the official in charge of the collation was yet to give her an update on the exact number of militants that accepted the offer.
MEND has meanwhile hinted that the country would witness "intelligent and focused militancy that will be definite and ferocious in its attacks" in order to get the Niger Delta question resolved this year.
Gbomo said MEND would be ferocious under a formless but highly efficient structure. He further explained that the Niger Delta struggle would now be carried out by the genuine freedom fighters who are better focused to "deliver the lethal plague" in bringing the agitation to its logical conclusion.
Gbomo. said: "2010 will be an interesting year because we will see how the president's stay outside the country will play out with a sidelined Vice and now with the involvement of the north in international terrorism exposed, the sympathy of the world will shift to the Niger Delta region. The unrest in the region will escalate and we believe that the Niger Delta will be emancipated or very close to it."
MEND said the Niger Delta crisis has not been resolved because the "northern elite see the region as a mining field that should not be controlled by the land owners."
MEND, however, insisted that the country must act as a true federation and the resources of every region should be controlled by its people.
Gbomo added: "The day true federalism is practised will be the end of the crisis in the region. Amnesty on its own will not bring the desired peace. It is only with a cocktail of justice, true federalism and respect for the other tribes that make the entity called Nigeria that genuine peace can come to Nigeria."