It's Just An Empty Threat- ASUU Replies FG

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has replied the federal government over its threat to sack university lecturers if they fail to call off its ongoing strike.

According to the striking lecturers, the threat would not only fail but will worsen the situation, hence "another long path to making the strike linger more than necessary."

The ASUU National Treasurer, Dr. Ademola Aremu, while responding to the government's directive, said the threat does not hold waters as it has confirmed the fears that the federal government cannot be trusted.

He said, "With the latest action, the federal government has shown that they are not committed to all they have been saying. We are saying that since we agreed at the meeting that the sum of 200 billion naira is for 2012 and 2013 revitalisation, the federal government should deposit same in the Central Bank of Nigeria. We are already in November and December is around the corner. If they don't do that now, when do they want to do it? We are saying that the non-victimization clause should be included as agreed while the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement should be included as agreed with the presidents".

"It is a pity if the federal government is not willing to perfect the resolutions reached with the union. This is why we find it difficult to trust our leaders by their words. How can someone be threatening to sack lecturers when universities are already short-staffed by almost 60,000. We are not in the military era. The military tried it and failed. This one will fail again.

"They can re-open the school. ASUU did not shutdown the universities. It was the management of the schools that ordered the students to go back home."

Happy 100 Days ASUU; ASUU Goes International As French Journalist Writes An Article On The Ongoing Strike (MUST READ)

First of all, I want to wish ASUU a hearty congratulations on clocking #100days. This is by no means a small feat.

Students who ordinarily should be preparing for the new session haven't even completed the existing one before ASUU reared it's ugly head.

On ASUU's part, it is No Retreat, No Surrender, while on the Federal Government's part, it is a case of It's Either My Way, Or The Highway.

When two elephants fight, the grass surely suffers.

To show how international ASUU has gone, it featured on Al Jazeera's #AJStream some weeks ago, now it has even gone French, as some French journalist covered the news.

This strike has to be called off for the purpose of the students. This is totally unfair and totally insensitive to the plights of the future leaders of tomorrow.

It is becoming embarrassing that in this time and age, our education system is in total collapse.

Early this morning, I posted a story about how no Nigerian university made the top 400 in World University rankings.

Whereas, three South African universities made the list. Thought we were Giants of Africa.

Well I featured in this article to give my candid view about the ongoing ASUU strike and I will be the happiest man in Nigeria if this strike is called off in the interest of what's left of our education sector.

Big ups to Clio Bayle of My Science Work..

Kindly click on this link to read this article- http://www.mysciencework.com/en/news/10723/three-months-in-university-strike-in-nigeria-threatens-students-future

NIGERIA LOSES $1.6BN TO CRUDE OIL THEFT ANNUALLY – SHELL

 

Shell Petroleum Development Company, has expressed concern over the activities of crude oil thieves and illegal refineries operators in the Niger Delta, saying that the country was losing $1.6bn annually to oil theft.
The company cited its forced shut down of the Nembe Creek Trunk lines, NCTL, in Bayelsa State, a facility which produces about 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day and its declaration of force majeure on Bonny Light export.
This, according to the company, was to enable it remove crude oil theft connections, investigate suspected oil theft leaks and effect repairs.

Speaking at a workshop organised for media practitioners in Yenagoa, Shell Manager, Government/Community Relations, Evans Krukrubo,  said over 90 per cent of its pipelines in the region had been ruptured by suspected oil thieves.
He noted that the shut down of NCTL production would impact negatively on Bayelsa’s share from the Federation Account.
Represented by Funkakpo Fufyin, the company said the recent upsurge in illegal refining business in the Niger Delta should be a major concern to all stakeholders.
He said: “We are not worried by the money lost by Shell, but the harm and destruction unleashed on the environment.” He blamed most of the spills in the region on crude oil thieves and illegal refinery operators, when compared to operational failures.
He  cited Bodo, in Rivers State, Imo River, NCTL and offshore of the Niger Delta as areas  identified as major hotspots for oil bunkering and sabotage.
Krukrubo called on security agencies and state government to assist the firm in curbing the activities of oil thieves and illegal refinery operators.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA TO BAN PURE WATER IN 2014

Determined to check the continued despoliation of the environment, the Federal Government yesterday said plans are underway to ban the use of plastic bags in the country.Minister of Environment, Mrs. Hadza Mailafia, who dropped the hint during the 2013 World Environment Day celebration in Abuja, said government would favour the use of paper bags in their place.Mailafia, who said the ban would take effect from January 2014, also said the Federal Government was also considering banning the use of sachet water.


According to her, the move to ban the plastic bags are necessitated by the numerous health and environmental hazards associated with their use.

The minister noted that unlike the paper bags that could easily decompose, plastic bags are non-biogradable materials which could stay in the soil for years, contaminating water sources when washed into the rivers by the rain.

Relying on the Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO’s, statistics, the environment minister said one-third of global food production is wasted from farm to stock which is equivalent to 1.3 billion tonnes of food annually; while an estimated 870 million people go hungry worldwide. She said more than 20,000 children under the age of five also die daily from hunger.

MIKE IKHARIALE: POLICE’S MISCONCEPTION ABOUT TINTED GLASS ON VEHICLES

For some time now, owners of vehicles with tinted glass in Nigeria have been going through a rough time with policemen who see the situation as one from where they can make up for the personal and institutional revenue losses that have been plaguing them ever since the removal of roadblocks from the nation’s highways.

Without going into the legal and policy arguments on the issue, it is obvious that some vehicles (outside the statutorily designated exceptions) are actually so opaquely tinted that any rational person seeing them would naturally think that the occupants are into something sinister. They are so darkly tinted that someone outside, no matter how close, cannot see whoever is inside. Any scrupulous law enforcement-minded person would naturally suspect that there is something fishy about such unusual vehicles.

On the other hand, most vehicles, especially vans and SUVs that are manufactured in North America, Europe and Japan come with tinted glass with the thickness graduated from the front to the rear. In all these vehicles, it is never a problem for anyone standing close to see or identify the occupants. In fact, the front passengers’ windows are generally and rightly of a lighter tint.

The reason why these cars are tinted range from the need to enhance the performance of the air-conditioning system, protection from harmful glare and the general room-type comfort of modern automobiles. They don’t have criminals and other deviants in mind and as a matter of fact, none of these factory tints will meet the demands of anyone trying to avoid visibility as they are reasonably transparent.

Unfortunately, in Nigeria we have developed a national worldview that seeks to avoid rational responses to emerging challenges by resorting to extreme and bizarre solutions that are, in most cases, counterproductive or are indicative of palpable intellectual laziness. Nowhere is this mentality more prevalent than in the areas of crime prevention and law enforcement. That is why it is often possible for the police to block road traffic with lines of vehicles stretching into kilometres just because they are “searching for criminals”. Common sense should have made it clear that only a foolish and suicidal criminal will wait patiently in a roadblock queue to be apprehended.

Little wonder therefore that no wanted person has ever been caught at such foolish and annoying checkpoints. The only possible thing happening at such places is the opportunity of the officers manning them to collect illicit tolls and unlawfully enrich themselves at the expense of security.

Specifically about tinted glass ban in Nigeria, the only reason that the authorities thought it necessary is their belief that criminals also use them to shade themselves from detection. It ought to be the rational expectation that any vehicle that is tinted has unwittingly invited the scrupulous law enforcement officer upon itself as that would be easily profiled to be something questionable. Unfortunately, that will be the car they would approach obsequiously and be asking “Oga, anything for your boys?” Their only alternative is to lump all those with tinted glass together as criminals who must then cough up something if they are to continue on their journeys.

Recently, the Senate sensing the abuses and unfair harassment that have followed the recent IG’s directive on tinted glass has initiated a legislative process intended on repealing or nullifying the Motor Vehicles (Prohibition of Tinted Glass) Act, Cap M21 Laws of the Federation (Formerly Decree 6 of 1991). A proper reading of section 1(1) of the act shows that the Police have been wilfully misinterpreting it to harass innocent road users who have the misfortune of driving vehicles with any form of tint. What the law actually prescribes is that “no person shall cause any glass fitted to a vehicle to be tinted, shaded, coloured lightly or thickly or treated in any way as to render obscure or invisible persons or objects inside the car.”

The critical issue here is not whether the tint was factory-fitted or not, it is whether it obscures or makes occupants invisible. Simple! The police know they cannot sustain their nebulous argument based on this Act before a court of law. So it is just a source of illegitimate revenue and power show.

As long as the tint on a vehicle does not render “obscure” or “invisible” whatever is inside it, there can never be a sustainable charge on it. It is not the expectation of the law that any subjective interpretation by a police officer who probably needs an eye test for his poor vision to be the conclusion as to what is obscured or ordinarily invisible. Of course, there are some wilfully tinted vehicles that do not allow for either vision or identification of occupants. These are the targets of that law and certainly not those factory-fitted ones that were tested for transparency in the general interests of traffic safety for the occupants and every other person concerned where they were made. It is inconceivable that a vehicle would pass the rigorous inspection of safety personnel in the manufacturing countries if the glass, as tinted, would lead to the inability to see those inside or for those inside not to see what is happening outside.

If the Police could just do what is right instead of the present situation of wholesale embarrassment and harassment of innocent road users, there should be no need to nullify the present statute. Perhaps the dictatorial origins of the Decree that metamorphosed into the present law are beclouding the logical and inevitable juristic perception that the demands of the rule of law under a supreme constitution have brought into being: the days of subjective interpretation of military decrees are far gone. All Nigerian laws, to be valid, must now meet the standards of objectivity, reasonableness and constitutionality. The present abusive, indiscriminate and oppressive application of the tinted cars laws by the police cannot stand the muster of judicial review and that of common sense.

It is the subsisting injustice that the current initiative before the senate on tinted glass seeks to stop. Otherwise, it is a law that was necessitated by the reality in the country but which the enforcers have discredited irretrievably. It is not a crime for a vehicle to have a tinted glass that does not obscure visibility either from outside or from inside it.

REFORMING OUR DYSFUNCTIONAL PUBLIC SERVICE -NASIR EL-RUFAI

Public Service in Context It is both a truism that no nation develops beyond the capacity of its public service, and there is broad consensus amongst Nigerians that our public service is broken and dysfunctional.

The quality of public servants and the services they provide to our nation are both below expectations. From the glorious days at independence when the best and brightest graduates competed to join the administrative service up until 1970s, our public service is now seen as employer of the dull, the lazy and the venal. We need to retrieve our old public service – effective, well paid and largely meritocratic, attracting bright people imbibed with a spirit of promoting public good.

The Nigerian civil service evolved from the colonial service with its historical British roots of an independent, non-political and meritocratic administrative machinery for governing the country. Each region then had its civil service in addition to the federal service.

What is the public service? How did our public evolve from inception to excellence and now its current abysmal state of ineffectiveness? How can the public service be reformed, re-skilled and right-sized to provide the basic social services that will earn the trust of Nigerians and foreigners alike?

The Public Service – An Overview

The public service consists of the civil service – career staff whose appointment, promotion and discipline are under the exclusive control of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), national assembly service, the Judiciary, public officers in the military, police and paramilitary services, employees of parastatals, educational and health institutions. By September 2005, when the Public Service Reform Team (PSRT) was constituted, the number of federal public servants was slightly above one million.

The estimated number working for the 36 states and the FCT was another 2 million, broken down as follows:•

Federal Core Civil Servants, including some 2,000 directors 180,000•

Uniformed Services – Military, Police and Paramilitary Services 457,000•

Parastatals, Agencies, Educational and Health Institutions 470,000•

Total Federal Public Service 1,107,000• Public Officers at the State Level – 36 States (Estimate) 856,000•

Public Officers in the Federal Capital Territory Administration 19,000•

Public Officers at the 774 Local Governments and 6 FCT Area Councils 620,000•

Total Sub-National Public Service 1,495,000•

TOTAL: Public Sector Employees in Nigeria 2,602,000Adjusting for the increasing numbers of aides of the president, ministers, governors and legislators, it is not unreasonable to put the total number of those working directly for governments at about three million. So while our national population has increased by about 160% between 1960 and 1999, the size of our public service increased by 350% in the same period. Our public service is clearly over-bloated.Other initial diagnostics and findings of the PSRT were sobering to say the least.

The civil service was rapidly ageing, mostly untrained and largely under-educated. Their average age then was 42 years, and over 60% were over 40 years. Less than 12% of the public servants held university degrees or equivalent. Over 70% of the service were of the junior grades 01-06, of sub-clerical and equivalent skills. About 20% of the public service employees were ‘ghost workers’ – non-existent people on the payroll which goes to staff of personnel and accounts departments.

In the FCT, out of an initial headcount of 26,000, we found 3,000 ghosts in the first round of audit. By the time we introduced biometric ID and centralized, computerized payroll, we found nearly 2,500 who failed to show up for documentation!While the public service pay is low relative to the cost of living, the overall burden of payroll as a percentage of the budget is huge. In most states other than Lagos, Kano, Kaduna and Rivers States, an average of 50% of the budget goes towards the payment of salaries – to about 1% of their population – an unfair and unsustainable state of affairs! Out of the N2,425 billion included in the 2011 Budget for recurrent expenditure, between 73% and 84% for each MDA constitutes personnel cost. We found in 2005 that the breakdown of federal public service emoluments by class of service as follows:•

Core Civil Service – 18%• Military, Police and Paramilitary – 35%• Parastatals, Education and Health – 47%The PSRT inherited a federal public service whose central management organs – the FCSC and the office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation had become inept and ineffective, and morally flexible at best. We learnt that appointments, promotion examinations, promotions, postings and discipline were bought and sold by civil servants the same way shares are traded on the stock market. Surprisingly and with some relief, we did not see these malfunctions in the armed services.

The HR system of the Army, Navy and the Air Force were intact, and to some extent even the Police and other paramilitary services had better human resource management systems.In a State of Denial?The bulk of the public servants continue to be in denial and have refused to take responsibility for the sorry state of affairs, blaming their political masters for the dysfunction in the public service.

They blame the collapse of merit and excellence in the public service on the Murtala-Obasanjo retirements “with immediate effect” that occurred in the mid-1970s. Others attribute the current situation to the Civil Service Reform Decree No. 43 of 1988 of the Babangida administration. The deterioration of pay and fringe benefits relative to the cost of living as a result of the Structural Adjustment Program in the late 1980s has also been identified as contributory to the de-motivation, deskilling and dispiriting of the public service.

The truth may be a combination of all three and more, compounded by the inability of the public service to update its attitudes, working methods, skills and technology. The public service has been short-term in its vision, self-centered in policy formulation and corrupt in programme implementation.

Instead, it has focused on taking care of itself and interests to the detriment of the nation and system which sustains it. The public service failed to reform itself between 2001 and 2005 when two successive Heads of Civil Service were tasked to do so. It was therefore inevitable that driving the public service reforms of 2005-2007 had to be transferred to the economic team, with President Obasanjo leading the charge himself.

An outsider was needed to administer the required medicine, but still needed the cooperation of the patient, which was not forthcoming.Public Service Reforms in PerspectiveIt is therefore uncontestable that the public service became dysfunctional following years of neglect and failure to reform. The public service was both large and unwieldy, accountability was weak and professional standards low.

The federal bureaucracy has also sprawled with considerable overlap of functions between agencies, and between tiers and arms of government. There was an urgent need for both civil service and parastatals reforms, and in spite of all efforts, little progress has been made in that regard.The need to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the public service have been recognized from pre-independence days by instituting several administrative reforms.

The first of these was the Tudor Davis Commission of 1945-46. The Morgan Commission of 1963 not only revised salaries and wages of junior staff of the federal government but introduced for the first time a minimum wage for each region of the country. The more recent ones include the commissions headed by Simeon Adebo (1971), Jerome Udoji (1972), Dotun Philips (1986) and the Allison Ayida Panel (1995). The Dotun Philips reforms properly and correctly aligned the civil service structure with the constitution and presidential system of government , designating permanent secretaries as directors-general and deputy ministers.

Unfortunately, the reforms devolved human resource functions with respect to junior cadres to ministries with disastrous consequences which needed dealing with.The Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) was established in September 2003 as an independent agency in the Presidency to ensure the reform of all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of all arms and branches of the federal government, and submit quarterly reports to the President.

The Public Service Reform Team (PSRT) had the BPSR as its secretariat and met weekly every Tuesday to deliver on its mandate. Some of the achievements of that round of reforms include:1. Restructuring of Pilot Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs): The PSRT produced two generic guidelines approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in March 2006 for the reform and restructuring of MDAs and Parastatals.

Initially 5 pilot MDAs volunteered for restructuring and this was expanded to 14. This entailed cleaning up the staff headcount and payroll, and redesigning the MDA structure to have between 4 and 8 departments and 2-4 divisions per department. These were approved by the FEC on May 16th, 2007 and applicable to all MDAs immediately.2. Cleaning up of Civil Service and Parastatals Nominal Rolls:

The Oronsaye committee of the PSRT developed eight criteria for the retirement of public servants to enable the clean-up of the headcount and reducing the negative impact of the devolution of HR functions to MDAs in 1988, and the failures of the FCSC and OHCSF to discharge their functions. An appeals process was put in place to minimize victimization and errors.

For the civil service, about 45,000 names were prepared by MDAs and forwarded to BPSR for consideration and approval by PSRT, and then forwarded to the FCSC for removal. An initial batch of 36,843 officers were put through pre-retirement training, disengaged and paid about N24 billion as their severance entitlements.

Unfortunately, about 20,000 of these severed civil servants have found their ways back into the civil service, thereby defeating the clean-up exercise.For the 400 or so parastatals and paramilitary services, the estimated number of staff to be severed was 75,575 at a cost about N57 billion. Parastatals reform and right-sizing was to be undertaken jointly by BPSR and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).

Sadly, this was never fully realized.3. Monetization of Fringe Benefits: All benefits-in-kind like free housing, furnishing, car and driver for various cadres of public servants and political office holders were abolished for ministers, permanent secretaries and equivalent cadres and below. All government-owned houses except 13 classes of official residences were sold to occupants or via public bids. All official vehicles were discounted by 50% and sold to officials.

Other pool and utility vehicles were auctioned in public bids. Personal drivers, cooks and cleaners were laid off and made staff of the affected officials.4. Pay Reform and Medium-Term Pay Policy: The Ernest Shonekan Pay Review Report was referred to PSRT for consideration and implementation. Shonekan found that public service pay was on average 25% of private sector for the same or similar jobs. A pay increase of 15% was therefore recommended and effected in January 2007, with a plan to increase pay by 10% per annum but linked to productivity such that in 5 years, near pay parity with the private sector will be achieved.5. Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS):

This is a computerized, biometric platform intended to provide a reliable and comprehensive database of employees in the public service to facilitate manpower planning, and eliminate headcount and payroll fraud. IPPIS approved by the FEC in February 2006 and implemented in phases. The first phase covering 6 MDAs and the central management organizations of the public service went live in April 2007, saving N416 million from the payroll of the 12 agencies in its first month! Sadly, the vested interests in the public service have frustrated its mainstreaming and application to cover all MDAs and other public service organizations since then.6. Review and Update of Public Service Rules and Financial Regulations:

The BPSR undertook a holistic review of the Public Service Rules and Financial Regulations and produced a White Paper which was amended and approved by the FEC on 9th May 2007.Another review committee led by Adamu Fika lamented the low morale and widespread malaise in the service and observed that the integrity deficits in the FCSC and the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation are responsible for inefficiencies and corruption that have become pervasive in the service.Next Steps in Reforming the Public Service

This administration has a unique opportunity to correct these by appointing not only a reformist head of civil service, but the nomination of the chair and members of FCSC within the next few weeks with the mandate to clean up the service, and build on the reforms of 2005 to 2009.The next steps are clear. Learn from recent past, build on foundations laid by PSRT and correct any errors we made.

The quality of the public service must be improved by attracting the best and brightest. This requires reducing the current pay disparity between the public and private sectors of the economy. To rejuvenate the service, new blood must be injected at all levels from the academia, private sector and Nigerian Diaspora based on merit.

These will be impossible unless the ageing and un-trainable public servants take early retirement.Who can perform in today’s work environment without the knowledge of IT, of using Google, Twitter and BlackBerry messaging tools? Any public servant that cannot use the computer and its various tools ought to give way to our army of young people that can. The number of MDAs duplicating functions, and their manning levels must be reviewed downwards to enable our nation afford the higher pay that our public servants deserve. We cannot maintain the same numbers we have and pay them any higher.

All these require careful thought, thorough collection and analysis of data, and political will. Our public service is once again at a cross-roads. It is up to the President to make the choices necessary to make it better, or much worse.

Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, OFR was Senior Policy Adviser to General Abdulsalami Abubakar (1998-99), Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (1999-2003), Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Member of the Economic Team, (2003-2007) and Chairman of the Public Service Reform Team (2005-2007

PRIVATE JET OWNERS IN NIGERIA TO PAY LUXURY TAX

The Federal Government is planning to impose a form of luxury tax on owners and operators of private jets in the country, top officials of the Ministry of Aviation have confirmed.

The plan, currently being fine-tuned by the Aviation Reform Committee, which is also looking into certain areas of the aviation sector, will be perfected very soon.

According to the top government officials close to the move, the plan to impose the luxury tax will be preceded by the new general aviation policy, which is currently being drafted by the government.

Ahead of the release of the general aviation policy, the Aviation ministry has reviewed the 2006 Civil Aviation Act, which will lead to the promulgation of a new Act.

It was learnt that the ministry was planning to send the draft Civil Aviation Bill to the National Assembly.

However, the ministry is currently taking the draft bill to some stakeholders for their input and comments.

In the proposed general aviation policy, the government is also planning to stop private jet owners from making use of the Air Operators Certificate. An AOC is a permit that allows aircraft owners and operators to do commercial flights.

Government, it was gathered, reasoned that since private jets owners did not operate commercial flights, it was needless to continue to require them to possess the AOC.

However, sources close to the situation said the proposal to exempt the private jet owners from possessing the AOC before they could be permitted to fly under the policy would be followed up with the introduction of the luxury tax.

A source privy to the plan explained that the luxury tax on all private jet owners. “is patterned after what is in operation in Brazil and most European countries.”

The source said, “You know the government is exempting private jet owners from possessing AOC in the proposed general aviation policy that will be unveiled very soon. As soon as this is implemented, the government will start asking all private jets to pay the luxury tax.”

The official added, “The idea is that since chartered aircraft operators and regular commercial airlines are already paying ticket sales tax and passenger service tax to the government, private jet owners should also pay a form of tax, which most countries of the world called luxury tax. The plan to exempt private jet owners from possessing an AOC before they can fly is just part of the whole policy proposal.

“All these foreign private jets coming into the country must either come under an AOC and be mandated to pay ticket sales charge and passenger service charge, or you stay under private category and pay luxury tax. Once you are flying within the country for some time, you must fall in one of the categories.”

When contacted, the Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Joe Obi, said there was the need to wait for the government to unveil the new general aviation policy.

In a text message response sent to our correspondent, Obi said, “Let’s wait for the new policy to be released first.”

If the government implements the luxury tax policy, popular business moguls, bank executives and religious leaders who own private jets will be mandated to pay the tax.

They are the President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote; Chairman, Globacom, Dr. Mike Adenuga; Chairman, Zenon Oil, Mr. Femi Otedola; General Overseer, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye; and General Overseer, Living Faith World Outreach, Bishop David Oyedepo.

The government had suspended the importation of private jets for some months now, owing to the new general aviation policy being put together by the Aviation ministry.

Top ministry officials said the new policy had been completed, except for some legal details relating to the Civil Aviation Act, 2006.

Private jet ownership in Nigeria grew by 650 per cent from 20 in 2007 to over 150 jets in 2012.

Some wealthy Nigerians had acquired at least 130 private jets with a sum of N1.02tn ($6.5bn) in the last five years, it was gathered.

Some stakeholders, however, reasoned that the new general aviation policy was part of government’s plans to grow Nigeria’s private jet sector, apart from building more private jet terminals at various airports across the country.