Opening Remarks by Pastor Bakare: Why We No Longer Blush - Corruption as Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
by Save Nigeria Group (Official Fan Page) on Monday, July 9, 2012 at 6:53pm ·
Being the Welcome Address by the Convener of Save Nigeria Group (SNG) at the State of the Nation Lecture delivered by Prof. Niyi Osundare at Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Lagos, on Monday, July 9, 2012.
Protocols:
It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of us all at the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), to welcome this distinguished gathering to our State of the Nation Lecture themed: “Why We No Longer Blush - Corruption as Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Anyone who has followed events in our nation from January 1, 2012 until now should easily connect with why we have chosen to hold a spotlight on perhaps the most cancerous of our country's myriad afflictions - CORRUPTION. It is not that our country has been corruption-free since independence, but the dimension it has taken in recent times is alarmingly unprecedented, to say the least.
During the Occupy Nigeria movement in January, we made a conscious decision to unblock the minds of our people by stretching the argument beyond the symptomatic subsidy debate to the root cause, employing slogans such as “Remove Corruption, Not Subsidy” and “Kill Corruption, Not Nigerians.” The collective imagination of our people was ignited as they gathered in their millions to demand that their country be given back to them by the gods of graft.
It was a momentous arousal of a people that were not factored into the equation by those who thought they had beaten them to submission and they would never regain the stamina to resist for more than forty-eight (48) hours before they would be disarmed by the reality of cold fireplaces in their empty kitchens. They were greatly shocked to see the spirited and well-ordered mass movement display an uncommon rejection of bad governance and economic mismanagement by those in power.
That peaceful uprising touched the raw nerves of the troublers of our country, and the tanks and troops that should have been deployed against the terror that rocks us were let loose against peaceful protesters whose only weapons were the placards in their hands and the songs on their lips. This was backed by all the fascist propaganda they could muster to drown the message and attack the messengers. Some of those who were supposed to be our allies at the Labour end started to sing from the same hymn book as the oppressors of our people, lending their voices to choruses on the fear of ‘regime change’ and other themes of blackmail.
All the sordid revelations of the past six months have distinguished the forces that are bent on freeing our people from the stranglehold of corruption from those who seek to keep them in perpetual subjugation. However, the attendant shenanigans of the fight back by corruption in Nigeria today has the potential to dampen the morale of the people if we do not continue to give meaning to the meaningless situation we are in.
This is why we have here today one of the greatest teachers God has gifted humanity in our time to bring these issues into sharp focus. Prof. Niyi Osundare is a man of clear thoughts and the right words to express them. He is of the diminishing tribe of true intellectuals who have not embraced the ‘AGIP culture’ in our country. I have had occasion to refer to his writings on the pulpit and his words are always reminiscent of the words of Jeremiah, the radical prophet who employed a metaphor akin to today’s theme to describe the societal mess of his day. Listen to Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 6:10–15 (NKJV):
10 “To whom shall I speak and give warning, That they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, And they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the LORD is a reproach to them; They have no delight in it. 11 Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD. I am weary of holding it in. "I will pour it out on the children outside, And on the assembly of young men together; For even the husband shall be taken with the wife, The aged with him who is full of days. 12 And their houses shall be turned over to others, Fields and wives together; For I will stretch out My hand Against the inhabitants of the land," says the LORD. 13 "Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is given to covetousness; And from the prophet even to the priest, Everyone deals falsely. 14 They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, Saying, 'Peace, peace!' When there is no peace. 15 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; Nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time I punish them, They shall be cast down," says the LORD.”
We are in for a most memorable day as we prepare to listen to Prof. Niyi Osundare live. And for the chairman of this occasion, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), I must put my admiration of his candor on record. He has, over the years, labored for a decent society based on the rule of law from his days of activism in university to the larger Nigerian plane as a foremost constitutional lawyer. In April 2011, he spoke his mind clearly on the bare-faced conjuring of electoral figures when it was not politically correct for him to do so given the sharp divisions in the country.
Woe awaits any nation that does not have men of such stature who are prepared to speak the truth no matter the circumstance. Gathered in this hall are many eminent Nigerians of conscience who are worthy veterans in the task of rebuilding our country -- I salute you all.
Without any attempt to do any part of the work of our eminent guest speaker, let me welcome us to this event with a story of possibility from Georgia that should strengthen our hope in changing our country in spite of the circumstances. It was told by Plamen Monovski, the CIO of Renaissance Asset Managers:
“When the prime minister comes to sell you an IPO, you, the investor, take the meeting. When that prime minister turns up with no bodyguards and shows remarkable knowledge of the company he is promoting, you, the investor, take notice. When Nika Gilauri, the premier of Georgia, tells you that the prosperity of his country has been achieved because it has become one of the “least corrupt” countries in the world, you, the investor, take note.
But it wasn’t always like that. After the demise of the USSR, Georgia was not only one of the most corrupt of the former-Soviet republics, it was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Bribe-to-drive was the norm; police stopped cars at least twice an hour to extort a non-trivial sum of money. The then-interior minister infamously quipped: “Give me petrol only. My people will take care of their own salaries.” Being a traffic cop was so lucrative that you had to pay a bribe of between $2,000 and $20,000 to get the job in the first place. Graft was endemic. Georgians passed more envelopes to bent officials than the post office does letters. Meanwhile the economy crumbled and the state was left bankrupt and powerless.
The election of Mikhail Saakashvili changed everything. A bold reformer, he was swept to power in the “Rose Revolution” at the end of 2003 by the overwhelming desire for radical change. His closely-knit team is unified by a common vision and supported by a compliant parliament and judiciary.
The new government wasn’t just radical - it shocked and awed. Ministers, oligarchs and officials were sacked or arrested. Those who resisted were dealt with decisively, sometimes brutally. The state confiscated $1bn worth of property. Custom officials bore collective responsibility; an entire shift would be punished if one officer was caught accepting bribes. Corrupt professors were kicked out with a lifetime ban from academia. But the piece de la resistance was Saakashvili’s order to sack the entire 16,000-strong police force on a single day, to replace them with some of the best and brightest university graduates. Today, Georgia ranks alongside Finland as having the least corrupt police force in the world and their standout uniforms are rumoured to have been designed by Armani.
The campaign expanded irresistibly. Tax offices were equipped with CCTV; university exam papers were printed in the UK and held in bank vaults until needed; and officials were constantly tested in sting operations. The proactive assault on graft was accompanied by a PR campaign to undermine respect for criminal groups and introduce respect for the law. The campaign then turned to the sectors. First up was the power sector that was widely used as a cash cow for well-connected oligarchs. In less than a year, Georgia went from net importer to exporter of electricity and the sector became the target of long-term foreign investment.
Tax collection followed. Georgia’s tax base consisted of just 80,000 companies in 2003 and tax collection was a mere 12% of GDP. Saakashvili slashed red tape and introduced flat personal and corporate taxes. Eight years later over 250,000 companies are on the register, and pay the equivalent of 25% of GDP. Georgia now boasts one of the most liberal tax regimes in the world, on par with the Gulf States and Hong Kong. Lastly came deregulation, with many rules and agencies simply abolished, removing channels of corruption in the process. Among other things, car registration became so easy that used cars became the largest export item in 2011. Georgia moved swiftly from the bottom of the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking (112) into the top 20 (16) by 2012. Foreign investment followed and fuelled a multi-year surge.
But perhaps, the most lucrative Georgian export would be the fight against corruption itself – from which many states mired in graft could benefit. The Georgians patented a process whose steps are replicable: establish early reform credibility by radical action, launch a frontal assault excluding no sacred cows, attract new blood, limit the role of the state via privatization and deregulation, use technology and communication to maximum effect, and above all, be bold and purposeful. Georgia’s close and distant neighbours should take heed. Their prime ministers and presidents have got their job cut out for them."
Hopefully, all who tout and pay lip service to a mouth-watering transformation agenda in Nigeria will wake up and smell the coffee before it is too late. Without a doubt, time has come for Nigeria to embrace the spirit and letter of such radical reformation to avoid the needless, prevalent and sickening bloodshed that now characterizes our national life.
Once again, many thanks for your presence and undivided attention.
God bless Nigeria.
Pastor ‘Tunde Bakare
Protocols:
It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of us all at the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), to welcome this distinguished gathering to our State of the Nation Lecture themed: “Why We No Longer Blush - Corruption as Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Anyone who has followed events in our nation from January 1, 2012 until now should easily connect with why we have chosen to hold a spotlight on perhaps the most cancerous of our country's myriad afflictions - CORRUPTION. It is not that our country has been corruption-free since independence, but the dimension it has taken in recent times is alarmingly unprecedented, to say the least.
During the Occupy Nigeria movement in January, we made a conscious decision to unblock the minds of our people by stretching the argument beyond the symptomatic subsidy debate to the root cause, employing slogans such as “Remove Corruption, Not Subsidy” and “Kill Corruption, Not Nigerians.” The collective imagination of our people was ignited as they gathered in their millions to demand that their country be given back to them by the gods of graft.
It was a momentous arousal of a people that were not factored into the equation by those who thought they had beaten them to submission and they would never regain the stamina to resist for more than forty-eight (48) hours before they would be disarmed by the reality of cold fireplaces in their empty kitchens. They were greatly shocked to see the spirited and well-ordered mass movement display an uncommon rejection of bad governance and economic mismanagement by those in power.
That peaceful uprising touched the raw nerves of the troublers of our country, and the tanks and troops that should have been deployed against the terror that rocks us were let loose against peaceful protesters whose only weapons were the placards in their hands and the songs on their lips. This was backed by all the fascist propaganda they could muster to drown the message and attack the messengers. Some of those who were supposed to be our allies at the Labour end started to sing from the same hymn book as the oppressors of our people, lending their voices to choruses on the fear of ‘regime change’ and other themes of blackmail.
All the sordid revelations of the past six months have distinguished the forces that are bent on freeing our people from the stranglehold of corruption from those who seek to keep them in perpetual subjugation. However, the attendant shenanigans of the fight back by corruption in Nigeria today has the potential to dampen the morale of the people if we do not continue to give meaning to the meaningless situation we are in.
This is why we have here today one of the greatest teachers God has gifted humanity in our time to bring these issues into sharp focus. Prof. Niyi Osundare is a man of clear thoughts and the right words to express them. He is of the diminishing tribe of true intellectuals who have not embraced the ‘AGIP culture’ in our country. I have had occasion to refer to his writings on the pulpit and his words are always reminiscent of the words of Jeremiah, the radical prophet who employed a metaphor akin to today’s theme to describe the societal mess of his day. Listen to Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 6:10–15 (NKJV):
10 “To whom shall I speak and give warning, That they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, And they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the LORD is a reproach to them; They have no delight in it. 11 Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD. I am weary of holding it in. "I will pour it out on the children outside, And on the assembly of young men together; For even the husband shall be taken with the wife, The aged with him who is full of days. 12 And their houses shall be turned over to others, Fields and wives together; For I will stretch out My hand Against the inhabitants of the land," says the LORD. 13 "Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is given to covetousness; And from the prophet even to the priest, Everyone deals falsely. 14 They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, Saying, 'Peace, peace!' When there is no peace. 15 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; Nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time I punish them, They shall be cast down," says the LORD.”
We are in for a most memorable day as we prepare to listen to Prof. Niyi Osundare live. And for the chairman of this occasion, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), I must put my admiration of his candor on record. He has, over the years, labored for a decent society based on the rule of law from his days of activism in university to the larger Nigerian plane as a foremost constitutional lawyer. In April 2011, he spoke his mind clearly on the bare-faced conjuring of electoral figures when it was not politically correct for him to do so given the sharp divisions in the country.
Woe awaits any nation that does not have men of such stature who are prepared to speak the truth no matter the circumstance. Gathered in this hall are many eminent Nigerians of conscience who are worthy veterans in the task of rebuilding our country -- I salute you all.
Without any attempt to do any part of the work of our eminent guest speaker, let me welcome us to this event with a story of possibility from Georgia that should strengthen our hope in changing our country in spite of the circumstances. It was told by Plamen Monovski, the CIO of Renaissance Asset Managers:
“When the prime minister comes to sell you an IPO, you, the investor, take the meeting. When that prime minister turns up with no bodyguards and shows remarkable knowledge of the company he is promoting, you, the investor, take notice. When Nika Gilauri, the premier of Georgia, tells you that the prosperity of his country has been achieved because it has become one of the “least corrupt” countries in the world, you, the investor, take note.
But it wasn’t always like that. After the demise of the USSR, Georgia was not only one of the most corrupt of the former-Soviet republics, it was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Bribe-to-drive was the norm; police stopped cars at least twice an hour to extort a non-trivial sum of money. The then-interior minister infamously quipped: “Give me petrol only. My people will take care of their own salaries.” Being a traffic cop was so lucrative that you had to pay a bribe of between $2,000 and $20,000 to get the job in the first place. Graft was endemic. Georgians passed more envelopes to bent officials than the post office does letters. Meanwhile the economy crumbled and the state was left bankrupt and powerless.
The election of Mikhail Saakashvili changed everything. A bold reformer, he was swept to power in the “Rose Revolution” at the end of 2003 by the overwhelming desire for radical change. His closely-knit team is unified by a common vision and supported by a compliant parliament and judiciary.
The new government wasn’t just radical - it shocked and awed. Ministers, oligarchs and officials were sacked or arrested. Those who resisted were dealt with decisively, sometimes brutally. The state confiscated $1bn worth of property. Custom officials bore collective responsibility; an entire shift would be punished if one officer was caught accepting bribes. Corrupt professors were kicked out with a lifetime ban from academia. But the piece de la resistance was Saakashvili’s order to sack the entire 16,000-strong police force on a single day, to replace them with some of the best and brightest university graduates. Today, Georgia ranks alongside Finland as having the least corrupt police force in the world and their standout uniforms are rumoured to have been designed by Armani.
The campaign expanded irresistibly. Tax offices were equipped with CCTV; university exam papers were printed in the UK and held in bank vaults until needed; and officials were constantly tested in sting operations. The proactive assault on graft was accompanied by a PR campaign to undermine respect for criminal groups and introduce respect for the law. The campaign then turned to the sectors. First up was the power sector that was widely used as a cash cow for well-connected oligarchs. In less than a year, Georgia went from net importer to exporter of electricity and the sector became the target of long-term foreign investment.
Tax collection followed. Georgia’s tax base consisted of just 80,000 companies in 2003 and tax collection was a mere 12% of GDP. Saakashvili slashed red tape and introduced flat personal and corporate taxes. Eight years later over 250,000 companies are on the register, and pay the equivalent of 25% of GDP. Georgia now boasts one of the most liberal tax regimes in the world, on par with the Gulf States and Hong Kong. Lastly came deregulation, with many rules and agencies simply abolished, removing channels of corruption in the process. Among other things, car registration became so easy that used cars became the largest export item in 2011. Georgia moved swiftly from the bottom of the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking (112) into the top 20 (16) by 2012. Foreign investment followed and fuelled a multi-year surge.
But perhaps, the most lucrative Georgian export would be the fight against corruption itself – from which many states mired in graft could benefit. The Georgians patented a process whose steps are replicable: establish early reform credibility by radical action, launch a frontal assault excluding no sacred cows, attract new blood, limit the role of the state via privatization and deregulation, use technology and communication to maximum effect, and above all, be bold and purposeful. Georgia’s close and distant neighbours should take heed. Their prime ministers and presidents have got their job cut out for them."
Hopefully, all who tout and pay lip service to a mouth-watering transformation agenda in Nigeria will wake up and smell the coffee before it is too late. Without a doubt, time has come for Nigeria to embrace the spirit and letter of such radical reformation to avoid the needless, prevalent and sickening bloodshed that now characterizes our national life.
Once again, many thanks for your presence and undivided attention.
God bless Nigeria.
Pastor ‘Tunde Bakare
No comments:
Post a Comment