Mr. President, Nigerians deserve better

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: August , 2011

The accident that took place on the Okene-Lokoja-Abuja road has concentrated my mind since late Tuesday when the gory news filtered into the newsroom. A luxury bus in the fleet of Chisco Transport Company left Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Monday night for Abuja. The ill-fated passengers never completed the journey.

At about 2.30 am on Tuesday, armed robbers waylaid the bus at Zariagi, Kabba Junction, near Lokoja. The robbery, in itself, is not the tragedy, unfortunate as it was. For many Nigerians, the fact of the ubiquitous armed robber is one of the many hazards they have learnt to live with.

Hardly a day passes without the story of dare-devil robbers hawking their lethal wares, making the rounds. Hapless Nigerians are routinely murdered in their homes, churches, markets, banks, name it.  There are no off limits. And there are no sacred places. Incidents of armed robbery have become so routine that they no longer make the front pages of newspapers.

But what happened in the wee hours of Tuesday in Kogi State was not just another armed robbery. According to the two people who survived the calamity, robbers wielding dangerous weapons, who operated unmolested on the road that has become so notorious, stopped the bus and ordered all the luckless passengers to alight. When they did, knowing the consequences of even a whimper, they were told to lie face down while they were being robbed one after the other. The robbers were still at the business of dispossessing their victims when another bus and a truck ran into them. What happened next was a tragedy that should have provoked national outrage in any other country. Not in Nigeria!

It is instructive that as I write, there is no official figure of how many people were killed. While officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) claim that 14 people were gruesomely sent to their early graves, other sources, including the police, claim that as many as 50 people may have died.

As I write, I am not aware of any statement from the Presidency. The police have made one arrest. And guess who? The driver of the bus that ran over the passengers, the fact that he was also, in a sense, a victim notwithstanding.

Kogi State Governor, Ibrahim Idris, visited two of the survivors on Wednesday at the Specialist Hospital and Federal Medical Centre in Lokoja. He promised to pay their hospital bills and donated N100,000 to each of them. The cost of preserving the bodies of the dead will also be borne by the state, he assured. But those who were crushed beyond recognition were buried in mass graves.

That is likely to be the last that would be heard of that gory incident. None of the robbers will ever be caught. In fact, in the next few days, they will mount another road block and send innocent people to their early graves on the same road.

Of course, some people have suggested that night travels be banned. Good! But the question is, how safe are those travelling in the day time? The fact of the matter is that armed robbers have overrun this country and the government has no clue whatsoever how to rein them in.

For a country that is not at war, the number of people that are being murdered everyday is scandalous. To make matters worse, nobody is ever punished for these heinous crimes and we claim to have a government?

Isn’t the raison deter for every government to ensure the territorial integrity of the country and guarantee the lives and property of all who live within its borders any longer? Is it no longer true that a government that cannot accomplish this primary task has no reason to exist?

Ironically, President Goodluck Jonathan wants Nigerians to believe he is on a mission to transform Nigeria even when he has publicly pronounced that his is a government without an agenda. He only promised Nigerians good governance, he insists. How he can provide good governance without an agenda remains to be seen.

But what the Lokoja tragedy and the reaction of the governments, both at the federal and state levels, have confirmed is that as a people we have lost every sense of shock and outrage. Nothing shocks us anymore. If 50 people could be wasted in such tragic circumstances without the Inspector General of Police relocating to Kogi until the hoodlums are caught and brought to book, then you are bound to ask what human life is worth in this country.

It is not as if one is just coming to this realisation because successive governments (both military and civilian) have treated Nigerians with utter contempt.

But if we have a President that claims that he wants to transform Nigeria, one would have expected that he would do things differently. The focus of such a transformation agenda should be the long suffering masses. What will be the worth of a transformation agenda that cannot guarantee the lives of the people?

Nigerians love life. They are not suicidal. Even in their misery, they believe that tomorrow will be better. They are optimistic people. But to live the dream of a better tomorrow, one has to be alive. The inability of the government to guarantee the lives and property of the citizenry is perhaps the greatest crime the state is committing against the people. Why are we ceding the Nigerian space to violent criminals with the government throwing up its arms in the air?

Security should be at the top of the agenda of President Jonathan’s government. Innocent lives should not be wasted by armed hoodlums while the President looks on helplessly. Rather than plotting how to elongate his tenure, the President should roll up his sleeves and provide leadership. Agreed, there are so many problems on his table. But the issue of security should be a good starting point. Nigerians deserve better.  They deserve to live.

Islamic banking: Why not?

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Published: July 2, 2011

So much noise has been made in recent times over the issue of Islamic banking. As it is often the case in Nigeria, the matter has divided the country very sharply, assuming the dangerous and regrettable north versus south, Christians versus Muslims divide with each side wielding cudgels of animosity and ill will. The positions are hardening dangerously.

In this pointless crisis, the protagonists, most of them Muslims from the North, including the loquacious Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Lamido Sanusi, are as guilty as the antagonists. Needless to say that some of the most trenchant opponents are Christians from the South.

So, if Islamic banking eventually becomes a reality, the battle cry will be that those who allegedly swore many years ago to dip the Koran in the Atlantic Ocean must not be allowed to succeed in their quest to Islamise Nigeria. Such a refrain will not only resonate loudly here, but also stoke the latent embers of Christian fundamentalism. If the project fails, it will yet be another proof to a section of the country that Christians are opposed to their way of life as dictated by their religion.

Whichever way the pendulum swings, one thing is certain. The religious and ethnic fault lines that have been the bane of the country’s unity and progress will widen treacherously and become a chasm. Yet, here is a purely economic issue that should be viewed strictly from that prism.

Islamic banking or participant banking, according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, “Is banking activity that is consistent with the principles of Islamic law (Sharia) and its practical application through the development of Islamic economics.”

The underlying principle is the belief that “Islamic law prohibits usury, the collection and payment of interest, also commonly called riba. In addition, Islamic law prohibits investing in businesses that are considered unlawful, or haram (such as businesses that sell alcohol or pork, businesses that produce media such as gossip columns or pornography, which are contrary to Islamic values.” Simply put, the payment or acceptance of such specific fees for loans of money is perceived as haram, something that is forbidden according to Islamic injunction. The aim, it is claimed, “Is to engage in only ethical investing and moral purchasing.”

The word riba means excess, increase or addition, which according to Sharia terminology implies any excess compensation without due consideration. But it is interesting to note that here consideration does not include time value of money, which is at the core of all interests charged in conventional banking activities.

Islamic banking has had phenomenal growth over the years. Although it is more popular in countries with majority Muslim population, it has also spread to countries with predominant Christian population, growing at a rate of 10-15 percent per annum. The result is that today, Islamic banks have more than 300 institutions spread over 51 countries, including the United States of America. It is estimated that almost $1 trillion sharia-compliant assets are managed worldwide by Islamic banks. According to CIMB Group Holdings, Malaysia’s second largest financial services provider and fifth largest in Southeast Asia by total assets, Islamic finance is the fastest-growing segment of the global finance system and sales of Islamic bonds may have risen by 24 percent to $25 billion last year.

 

But it is worth noting that these impressive figures, as huge as they are, represent less than one percent of total world financial assets today. The implication is that Islamic banking still takes the back seat in global finance. The majority of the banking community still prefers the conventional banks.

But there is no gainsaying that the idea of Islamic banking and its underpinning principle cannot be ignored.    Perhaps, that explains why the Vatican, the seat of the Catholic Church, at the height of the global financial crisis admonished the conventional banks to look at the rules of Islamic finance to restore confidence amongst their clients. “The ethical principles on which Islamic finance is based may bring banks closer to their clients and to the true spirit which should mark every financial service,” the Vatican’s official newspaper Osservatore Romano said in an article in March 2009.

This admonition should resonate loudest in Nigeria. If there is any country that needs financial institutions driven by the principles that govern Islamic banking, it is Nigeria where conventional banks, having been blinded by greed and penchant for shady deals, have repudiated all known industry etiquette. The quest for unearned profit has created financial institutions without human face, banks that would rather be undertakers of businesses than serve as catalyst for industrial growth.

 I would rather deal with a financial institution that pays attention to the human dimension of the economy which is totally lacking now in the country. It is bad news for business when banks pay paltry four percent interest on deposits but charge 22 percent on loans. A financial system that guarantees unsecured facilities to politicians because of the “quick returns on investment” but denies genuine businessmen same is bad enough. But it is double jeopardy for the country and its economy if the same vested interests are allowed to hound “interest free banks” out of the economic space.

And come to think of it, is there any law in Nigeria that forbids interest free banking? How does Islamic banking negate Nigeria’s secularity?

Will I be required, as a Christian, to convert to Islam before obtaining loan from the bank? Even if that is the case, will I no longer have a choice?

Unless there is a proof that Islamic banks will be veritable sources of slush funds for terrorists, it is tantamount to red herring for some Christian leaders to cry wolf, knowing full well there is none.

But Sanusi has not helped matters. In his usual penchant to grab the headlines, he has made himself the issue in this controversy. Not many people remember again that the policy was actually initiated by his predecessor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo.

Through his characteristic indiscretion, he has not only nudged the country, once again, to the religious edge, but also created the false impression that Islamic banking is the answer to all the economic woes of Nigerians.

Yet, he knows that in reality there is no such interest-free banking anywhere in the world in the sense it is being promoted here because it is a fact that Islamic banks charge for the time value of money, which is the common economic definition of interest. There is, to borrow a cliche, no free lunch, not even in Islamic banking halls.

If Islamic banking is the talisman used in exorcising poverty, how come that over 60 percent of Muslims living in countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc live in abject poverty? Was it not poverty that triggered the “Arab awakening,” the revolution that has swept away many sit-tight leaders in Arab world and threatening some others?

Yet, Sanusi’s haughtiness is no excuse for religious merchants profiteering from the misery of their fellow countrymen and women to fan the embers of religious discord. Let Islamic banking be if it must. And let the multi-billionaire Christian pastors apply for licence and go into Christian banking if they want.