Deregulate the Federal Government

By Msonter Anzaa

Recently, there have been consistent radio adverts urging Nigerians to accept deregulation as the magic wand invented by our team of expert economists for solving our national problems. Deregulation simply means non-direct involvement of government in the deregulated sectors. It could also be called privatization.

It might help to recall that privatization has been around for some time now. Towards the end of the Obasanjo administration in 2007, a lot of our national assets and "liabilities" were privatized. Notable among them were the oil refineries. There was controversy and rumour that the federal government colleges alias "unity schools" were also to be privatized. The reason was that private operators are more efficient in running these companies adn can check corruption more easily. However, following the outcry, the Yar'Adua administration reversed the "sale" of some of the corporations and from the probes that followed, we learnt that "due process" had not actually been followed. The privatization "thing" rested a while. But the Goodluck Jonathan "transformation agenda" transformed it to deregulation.

Will Boko Haram "Devour" Jonathan?

By Msonter Anzaa

The radical Islamist sect responsible for widespread violence across Northern Nigeria, Boko Haram has issued another threat against the Nigerian government. News reports are awash with accounts of this carefully planned and executed affront on the Nigerian state by the group. Every day, security officers and civilians alike are brought down in their own country for no other offense than belonging to a society where for whatever reasons, they have to pay for the grievances of a violent minority. As the group continues its violent campaign almost unhindered by a merely reactive and obviously poorly commanded security system, a number of questions have to be considered. Is the Boko Haram beyond the ability of the federal government, and how much longer must we wait, and how many more lives must there be lost before this malaise is engaged firmly and deleted from the Nigerian society?

The Trouble with Nigeria

By Msonter Anzaa

To begin this piece, I want to make two things clear. One is that I am not attempting to substitute a similar-titled book by Chinua Achebe, published many years before I was born, and which treats the subject matter more broadly. Two, I do not consider that the trouble with Nigeria can be reduced to a simple matter that can be exhaustively discussed in a piece like this one. In fact, this essay addresses only an aspect of the larger army of problems facing this nation.

Achebe opens his book with these words. “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.” Indiscipline is just a chapter in that book, and I intend to discuss it here.