All those who underrated António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations have been proven totally wrong. Regardless of being somewhat self-effacing, he has turned out to be a consummate diplomat and exceptional leader.
He has added “visionary” to his intimidating credentials. His previous position as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (from May 2005 to December 2015) has quadrupled his emotional intelligence far beyond what he experienced as a former Prime Minister of Portugal.
While he is clearly a goal getter, he understands perfectly how the United Nations as an organisation works. Virtually all major decisions are conceived and vigorously debated at the committee level before being sent upstairs to the Council through the Secretary-General. That is where Guterres has proven to be an adept hand at managing complex geo-politics and the cross-currents of huge egos as well as rapidly shifting intrigues and power play. The people around him appreciate his brilliance but have managed to demonstrate that they are not overwhelmed by it.
Indeed, his genuine humility is his most endearing characteristic and attribute.
It is not by pure happenstance that the newly elected President of the United Nations General Assembly is Nigeria’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande. Officially, going by the website of the United Nations, what prompted António Guterres to place Nigeria at the top of the list of countries to be subjected to the stress test was the warning by Mo Ibrahim, Founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.
“Africa’s greatest asset is also its defining challenge – its growing population of young people. With 60 percent of its population under 25, Africa is the world’s youngest continent. By 2100, almost half of the world’s youth are expected to be from Africa (predominantly Nigeria).”
Added to this was the muscular petition from foremost human rights lawyer, Femi Falana:
“Owing to unequal justice (in Nigeria) that has become the hallmark of the nation’s criminal justice system, the prisons and police cells are filled with victims of our unjust socio-economic system. On account of prison congestion due to inadequate funding, majority of the inmates who are awaiting trial are locked up with convicted prisoners.
Upon their release from dehumanising prison conditions, the awaiting trial inmates and convicts’ team up to join criminal gangs constituted by frustrated young men and women in the larger society.
The criminal gangs drawn from the ghettoes in the cities are fighting back on the streets in broad daylight and in the homes of the rich and not so rich people in the dead of the night. Instead of teaming up with the victims of frustration to terminate institutionalised injustice in the land, Nigerian lawyers are using the law to defend the status quo under the rule of law.
The NBA, which does not hesitate to mobilise hundreds of lawyers to defend indicted senior lawyers and judges, has not deemed it fit to extend free legal services to indigent defendants facing trial for poverty-related offences in the courts.
It is common knowledge that Nigeria operates a double criminal justice system – one for the rich and one for the poor. Majority of indigent defendants who are tried in the magistrate and area courts have no access to lawyers. Regardless of the gravity of certain offences, indigent defendants are represented by young and inexperienced lawyers assigned to them by the state.”
The Secretary-General of the United Nations was “shocked to the marrow” when the front-page editorial of the “Nigerian Tribune” newspaper of June 14 2019 landed on his desk:
“Nigeria’s outrageous railway contract sum”
“The country was shocked to the marrow recently when it became public that the Ghanaian-European Railway Consortium (GERC) had agreed to construct a 340-kilometre standard gauge railway line in Ghana for $2.2 billion. This is against the background of the cost of the 156-kilometre Lagos-Ibadan railway line, handled by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and put at $2 billion.
The implication of this is that while a kilometre of railway line costs $6.5 million in Ghana, the same length costs $13.6 million in Nigeria. It is nothing short of a scandal that the Ghanaian project handled by a European consortium, which is reputed for charging more for infrastructure construction, is far cheaper than the Nigerian contract. We make bold to say that the country has been fleeced through the project, and we are unequivocal in our condemnation of this.
Why would the construction of a kilometre of railway line in Nigeria cost more than double what it costs in Ghana? This certainly is an indefensible rip-off of the country by a few people in connivance with a foreign interest. It is even more perplexing that this fraud is taking place in the life of a government that has made fighting corruption a plinth of its administration. This certainly is a scam of the country.
It is a conspiracy of those in government against the people of Nigeria. It is an unpardonable theft of the common patrimony by the perpetrators of the act. This must be condemned by every Nigerian citizen. The civil society cannot afford to keep mute about this. Nigerians must rise as one people against those whose stock in trade is the perpetual pilfering of the commonwealth.
But apart from the differential in the costs of the two projects being a demonstration of a rape on the country, it is also agonizingly symbolic and reflective of the differences between the two countries. It explains why Ghana is advancing and Nigeria is on a retreat. It explains why electricity generation and supply is improving in Ghana while same is worsening in Nigeria.
It shows why Ghana is making giant strides in infrastructure and Nigeria is doing a catch up. It explains why international organisations are abandoning Nigeria for Ghana. It shows that while government officials in Ghana are working for the people’s well-being and the good of their country, government officials in Nigeria are all out to corner the nation’s resources. It shows that while the leadership in Ghana protects the country from external extortion, leaders in Nigeria connive with foreign organisations to rob their country. It shows that while government officials in Ghana have respect for the people, leaders in Nigeria hold the people in disdain. Ghana is everything Nigeria is not.
Therefore, we call on Muhammadu Buhari to rise to this occasion and save Nigeria from the hands of those who are bent on bringing it to its knees. The president cannot keep mouthing his plan to stop corruption without any demonstrable action on his part. Wishes are not enough to address corruption; it requires definite actions. We beseech the president to ensure that this case does not go the way of others before it. Acting on this and bringing to book everyone involved in this horrendous scam will salvage the nation’s image.
The government must institute a probe and get to the root of this scam. Everyone connected to it must be exposed. Anything short of this will signal a condoning of fraudulent practices by the president. The president cannot afford to fail on this one. As observed by Paul Kagame of Rwanda, eradicating corruption does not take an eternity to achieve where the will to do so is not lacking. Buhari must convince Nigerians that he is willing to stop corruption in Nigeria.
Buhari must understand that when those in leadership are allowed to milk and bilk a country without any consequence, the country weeps and the people groan.”
Even more explosive and distressing was the front page of “Vanguard” newspaper of June 19 2019.
J. K. Randle
