By Kenneth Okonkwo
A policy is defined by the dictionary as a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organization or individual. It is a plan or course of action, of a government, institution, political party, or enterprise, which is intended to influence and determine decisions, actions, and other matters.
Any institution without policy is like a rudderless ship that is riding an unchartered route which will soon hit a rock. The secret of a successful organisation is creativity, commitment, consistency and sacrifice. Nigerians are very
creative, but the greatest albatross to our mani-
festation as the most powerful nation in Africa
and a super power country on earth is our in-
consistency in policies. President Olusegun
Obasanjo told us how he met a Nigerian based
abroad and encouraged him to come home
and invest in our solid mineral resources. The
man told him that he was joking. Obasanjo
replied that he was not joking. He now asked
Obasanjo what the policy on solid minerals
in Nigeria was, including the laws guiding
its operations. Obasanjo looked up and down
and didn’t know when he accepted that he
appeared before the man as a joker. He came
back and tried to put together a policy for solid
minerals and attempted putting some laws
into place which the succeeding administra-
tions couldn’t follow up with. Till today, many
do not understand the solid mineral policy of
Nigeria and this has resulted in bandits, terror-
ists, thieves stealing the solid minerals for their
own benefits, which include using the realised
funds to continue sponsoring their terrorists’
nefarious activities.
At the twilight of Obasanjo’s regime, he
sold two of our comatose oil refineries to Dan-
gote. His successor, the gentleman President
Shehu Yar’Adua, did not allow the private jet
carrying Obasanjo home, after the handover,
to touch down in Otta when he reversed the
agreement and returned the refineries back
to the ownership of the government. Sixteen
years after the reversal, the refineries are
still lying comatose with successive govern-
ments paying all the workers of the refineries
for going to 30 years without working for a
single day. Retired oil refinery workers are
paid gratuities and pensions without having
worked for Nigeria. The same situations oc-
curred in Nigeria Airways, Nigeria Shipping
Line, Nigeria Telecommunication Service,
Nigeria Postal Services. This country has lost
tremendous resources as a matter of policy
somersaults. The most troubling problem with
policy somersaults is the lack of trust of the
people in their government. Businessmen are afraid to invest because they are scared
of losing their money when the succeeding
government changes the rules in the middle
of the game. Politicians are scared of contest-
ing elections because they are scared that the
Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) will change the rules in the middle of
an election when they have already applied
their time and resources into it. The greatest
cause of inconsistency in governmental poli-
cies is the dishonesty and lies of the leaders.
The Legislature ought to be the bastion of
democracy. It’s what differentiates democracy
with military regimes. They make laws and
hold other arms accountable to the laws they
make by exposing their corruption, wasteful-
ness and inefficiency through their oversight
functions. Anytime the Legislature fails, de-
mocracy fails. Not even the executive enjoys
immunity in the face of the overwhelming
constitutional powers of the Legislature, as
the Legislature is empowered to remove an
erring executive through impeachment. But
when the Legislature chooses to become cor- rupt and allign itself with the executive, there
will be no checks and balance among the
three arms of government and the democracy
is doomed. Immediately the Senate President
announced that the Senate will investigate the
issue of oil thieves, most Nigerians shouted,
even through main stream media, that it’s a
journey in futility. They immediately queried
the outcome of the investigation into the Ni- ger Delta Development Commission fraudu-
lent awards of contract and the outcome of the
purported forensic audit panel raised to audit
the activities of the leadership of the Com-
mission, incidentally, by the current Senate
President, Godswill Akpabio, when he was
the Minister of the Niger Delta.
Senator Akpabio pointedly then accused
the Honourable members of the National As-
sembly of majorly being responsible for all
the failed contracts in the Niger Delta. When
he turned on the heat on the members, they or-
dered that his mic be switched off. At the end
of the day, the purported audit of the Commis-
sion’s account was concluded and submitted
to the appropriate authorities and was swept
under the carpet. One would have thought
that the Senate President would have started
his administration with the completion of the
probe he initiated as the Minister of Niger
Delta when he became Senate President, but
he somersaulted and rather chose to continue,
most probably in the opinion of most Nigeri-
ans, on embarking on another frivolous inqui-
ries about oil thieves in the Niger Delta that
will probably end up in a trash can or dustbin
of history.
When this government came in on May
29, the first policy it illegally proclaimed was
that fuel subsidy was gone, without any offi-
cial plan to mitigate the consequences of such
colossal reversal of national entrenched policy
of subsidy for decades in the country. It went
further to annul the two parallel exchange rate
market dispensation regime it inherited from
its predecessors. When it removed the oil sub-
sidy, oil price jumped from about N185 per
litre to about N617 per litre within one month
of the oil subsidy removal. The exchange rate
collapsed from about N450 per a dollar to
about N1,000.00 per a dollar with no end in
sight.
With international oil price rising to about
$99 to a barrel, the landing cost is estimated to
be above N700, with the exchange rate tow-
ering more than N1,000.00. The Trade Union
Congress President, Osifo, submitted without
mincing words, that some form of fuel sub-
sidy is back, despite the weak defence put up
by Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director
of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company
Limited (NNPCL). If the market forces con-
trol the price of fuel and the international price
of crude rises from about $50 to $99 and ex-
change rate price rises from N450 to N1,000
per dollar, yet the pump price of fuel remains
the same at N617 as it were when things have
not changed, is that not an abracadabra or what
Nigerians will refer to, jocularly, as “no bi juju
bi dat?”. Insincerity by our leaders reflect in
everything that is done in Nigeria. Today, with
the high unbearable cost of fuel, people are
still queuing for hours to get fuel because it’s
becoming increasingly scarce since the with-
drawal of importation of fuel by other marketers who cannot afford the new landing cost of
fuel with the current exchange rate. This gov-
ernment has somersaulted on the issue of fuel
subsidy after making Nigerians pass through
hell with this anti people untimely removal of
oil subsidy and contrary to the proclamation of
this leader at inception, fuel subsidy is back.
This government is not alone in somer-
saults. INEC has become the Chief of som-
ersaulters. In the upcoming election to the
governorship seat in Bayelsa, the Resident
Electoral Commissioner in the State, emphati-
cally declared that the Commission will up-
load the scanned result of the polling units re-
sults on the IREV portal using the BVAS from
the polling units in real time for the viewing
pleasure of the people. This sounds much like
Prof Yakubu Mahmood, Chairman of INEC
and Festus Okoye, former National Commis-
sioner on voter education echoing throughout
Nigeria that the electronic transmission of
polling units results immediately after election
is mandatory and must be accomplished in ac-
cordance with electoral laws. They failed and
in order to cover their dishonesty, they went to
court to tell the court that the transmission was
discretionary not mandatory. What a somer-
sault! Today nobody can vouch for what INEC
will do at the uncoming elections in Bayelsa,
Imo and Kogi because of policy somersault
with the resultant effect that voter apathy will
reign supreme. Also the sole manual collation
of results, which have been outlawed in the
past and which rendered election rigging, bal-
lot box and ballot papers snatching, with the
resultant effect of violence unnecessary, has
returned because politicians now know that
there’s the possibility of making INEC to only
use manual ballot papers to concoct results to
their benefits without electronic transmission
of polling units results. It’s in this regard that
Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa gubernatorial elections
are predicted to be bloody except for any di- vine intervention.
It’s unfortunate that even the judiciary has
done a lot of somersault in their decisions.
The Supreme Court in the case of Oyetola v.
INEC, in the resolution of the Osun guberna- torial election, stated clearly that “The poll- ing units results transmitted to the collation
system provides the relevant collation officer
the means to verify a polling unit result as the
need arises for the purpose of collation.”