By Pini Jason
IN the ’80s, the decade of Nigeria’s brightest journalism, Ado’b Obe of West Africa Magazine popularised the phrase, “legitimacy engineering”.

If you remember, the eighties was also the decade of dizzying military musical chair that produced a permanent class of coup plotters, some of whom are today’s pseudo-democrats!

Legitimacy engineering refers to those actions a new man in the saddle of power takes to win over, or con the people, to his side. During the period of legitimacy engineering, if the new man in power desired to decree or legislate the country out of existence, he could! In the military era, it usually began with populist declarations and included the usual swagger about being “action man”. The most popular act was to label predecessors, usually the obstreperous and garrulous civilian politicians, as corrupt; put them on kangaroo trials; jail them up to 125 years, and execute some by firing squad. Thereafter the “saviours” proceed to rob the treasury mindlessly while we cheered.

The popular legitimacy engineering for civilian politicians is to cry about “empty treasury” and “a high debt profile”, putting a negative spin on everything a predecessor did, discrediting the performance of predecessors, squeezing the contractors by accusing them of inflated contract, poor job or abandoning the contracts, thereafter proceed to cancel the contract of the uncooperative contractors and re-award at a higher cost.

As part of his legitimacy engineering, Governor Rochas Okorocha ate bean cakes, akara, fried by a woman squatting by a stinking gutter. He controlled traffic at a popular junction on Orlu Road and got a photo opportunity and applause as a “man of the people”.

Different stories

But by far his most popular antics was to tell different stories to different audiences about Governor Ikedi Ohakim’s 10,000 Job for Youths programme. During the election campaign, Okorocha said the jobs did not exist; that Ohakim did not employ anybody.

At his inauguration he claimed the jobs were offered three days to the end of Ohakim’s tenure. In his maiden broadcast he claimed the youths were employed three weeks prior to Ohakim’s exit. When the beneficiaries protested against their suspension, his deputy claimed the jobs were politically-motivated and “some of you do not have proper jobs, you do not have offices, tables and chairs”.

Later the youths were directed to designated Catholic churches in the local governments for verification. After verification, the panel said about eight thousand were verified while about two thousand did not appear; and they were declared “ghost workers”. They tried to pin the ghost workers on Ohakim.

Dr Olusegun Aganga, Minister of Trade and Investment, recently told Nigerians that they uncovered 43,000 ghost workers in seven Federal ministries alone. Would we put that on President Jonathan? My friend Chris Onyemenem, Director-General of National Identity Management Commission also uncovered 4,000 ghost workers among 10,300 employees of the Commission. Shall we blame it on Jonathan?

Really, this story is about Mrs. Chinwendu Ihuoma Madumere, one of the beneficiaries of the 10,000 Jobs for Youths programme.

As reported by Owerri-based Announcer Express newspaper of Monday July 18, 2011, Mrs. Madumere, a microbiologist from Okigwe LGA was one of the 13 candidates who scored 80 percent and above at the aptitude test taken by 19,000 candidates (not 500,000 as claimed by mischievous propagandists) and the only one from Okigwe LG who scored 80 percent. She rightly expected that she would be one of the 2000 candidates reabsorbed after the review.

But, as she claimed, names of those who scored 40 percent appeared. An embittered Mrs. Madumere is now questioning the criteria used to recall the 2000 beneficiaries. Was it religious denomination or what?

Mrs. Madumere whose posting was Mbieri General Hospital said it was morally and spiritually wrong to think that those who collected their appointment letters in 2010 with scores of 40 percent were the right beneficiaries of the scheme while those who got theirs in 2011 with high marks due to sequences of release of the list in batches are beneficiaries of “political patronage”.

There will continue to be debates about the Ohakim Job for Youths programme. But let me elaborate on a few points that Mrs. Madumere raised. Some people, out of ignorance, deliberate mischief or both, have sniggered at some of the beneficiaries scoring 40 percent. That is true.

The reason is that the consultants were instructed to ensure that every local government equally benefited from the job offer. However, the cut off mark was lowered to 40 percent in cases where some local governments did not have enough candidates scoring up to 50 percent.

Secondly, interviewing and placing 10,000 candidates is not an overnight job. Thus, as Mrs. Madumere rightly said, the issuance of letters was sequenced in batches. Some of the batches have earned salaries for six months before Okorocha came to office!

However, we cannot rule out the possibility that, in the frenetic last days of the elections, some highly placed civil servants, who were all along angling to compromise the scheme, cashed in and issued fake letters. Indeed, a Permanent Secretary was fired by Governor Okorocha for that. A malfeasance like that cannot vitiate the credibility of the scheme.

Political motivation

I laugh when people say that the job offer was politically motivated. So what? Tell me what action of any government that is not politically motivated, whether it is citing of industries, roads, water schemes, health centres, scholarships or provision of jobs? People must note that Ohakim, who had pledged to provide additional 20,000 jobs by the end of 2011, did not go into the April election to lose.

If he had won, would he have dismissed the job beneficiaries? If he was already paying them, why is Chief Okorocha still engaged in this needless demagoguery meant to deceive the gullible in Imo State? In any case, why are we arguing about giving Imo citizens jobs? What is the purpose of government if it cannot provide jobs for its citizens?

If Chief Okorocha wants to retrench workers in order to fund his free education, he should tell Imo citizens that loss of jobs is the price they have to pay for free education! If more workers will be sacked to pay the new minimum wage, he should tell the people. I must concede to Okorocha the prerogative to do some cost cutting to fund free education.

But the demolition of the Deputy Governor’s Lodge, the Banquette Hall and the Executive Chamber to award new contracts belies all that. Why not tell Imo people the truth instead of posturing as a liberator and using Ohakim as a convenient scapegoat? Those families whose means of livelihood have been sacrificed are Imo citizens. They will not buy Okorocha’s grandstanding.

Free education is good. But of what use is it to Imo people if, after education they cannot be employed in their own state? It will amount to double loss to Imo state if they continue to migrate to other states in search of jobs, thus adding value to other states instead of Imo state.

Very soon legitimacy engineering will be over, the novelty of Okorocha as Governor will wear thin, the euphoria will ebb, those applauding now will discover that they have been oiling their own shackles, and the people seized by what JAC Brown called heightened suggestibility and emotionality will wake up to the truth that Ikedi Ohakim’s sin was that he dared to dream big.

  Let’s have an inclusive dialogue now!

IT will do Nigeria good if the proponents of Islamic banking are also told that non-interest banking may be a good idea but is inauspicious for now the country is stewing in the hot juice of Islamic fundamentalism. Boko Haram or Maitasine, does not make sense to any non-Muslim, particularly from the South.

To the non-Muslim Southerner, it is sheer madness, just like Fulani herdsmen raping and killing women of all ages in Imo State and dumping their dead bodies in burrow pits!

*Most Islamic states or predominantly/substantially Islamic states are dominantly unstable. The fear of non-Muslims that Islamic banking would funnel money into Nigeria to promote fundamentalism, thus destabilise Nigeria must be addressed. And the fear by Christian leaders that Muslim leaders may use funds from Islamic banking system to buy converts from Christian business men who are desperate in a desperate Nigeria.

*That a bank licensed by Nigeria and funded by money coming out of non-Muslim Niger-Delta, would be authorised by law to reject the funding of non-Muslim projects like piggery,is grossly unfair to non-Muslims of the South in particular.

All banks are licensed to create money in the Nigerian economy and the Nigerian economy is fuelled over 90 per cent by oil from non-Muslim Niger-Delta.

It is as bad as the 12 Northern Sharia states who reject the sale and use of alcohol in their states. Hisbah (Sharia) Police in Kano, from time to time, impound trailer-loads of alcoholic beverages on Federal highways and destroy even after courts of competent jurisdiction had ordered their release on ground that the consignments in question were merely in transit to other states of the Federation.

The big irony is that Kano and other Sharia states still share in the VAT collected from alcohol consumed, presumably, by non-Muslims! What a provocative hypocrisy?

All of the above contradictions need to be addressed.
Man does not live on bread alone.

Emeka Onyesoh, Enugu.

The problem many Nigerians have with the non-interest banking is that they don’t understand that it is not being promoted by the Federal Government or the Central Bank of Nigeria. The CBN is just a regulator! What emerges from Mr. Onyeso’s intervention is that the CBN has to do a lot of enlightenment!
Pini Jason.