WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-10-21 Time: 19:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Chidi Amuta
There is a growing notion that democracy frustrates or even obstructs development in poor Third World countries. Because the institutions for the delivery of public good and its support services are largely unformed in such places, the rituals of democracy appear like obstacles to progress. In itself, the machinery of government is ordinarily slow.
Bureaucracies are tedious, ponderous and sluggish. Add to this the conflicting interests of selfish factions and the pressure of interest groups. Parliaments debate even the simplest decisions endlessly and await the inducement of lobbyists to get bills past countless readings. Executives become mired in the shark pool of bad politics where the law of survival overrides all others. Years roll by. Nothing good comes the way of the people whose apathy and indifference deepens.
But in Nigeria, this belief is beginning to be challenged by the performance and conduct of a few good men (no women governors here yet, sorry!) . As the incumbent state governments in most parts of the federation head towards their respective third anniversaries, standards of performance and patterns of achievement are beginning to emerge. As a people, we generally tend to be cynical about the performance and behaviour of our governors.
Some of them are unruly, ostentatious and sometimes foolish. A minority are irredeemably incompetent. But sometimes our reservations and haste for performance is occasioned by dire economic conditions or just a tradition of political blood letting and media bludgeoning. In spite of these reservations, something healthy is emerging among our state governors. An informal peer rivalry and healthy competitiveness is on the ascent. Governors are falling over each other to appear to be doing something for the people.
It is a different matter if some of these efforts are thought through or form part of any coherent appreciation of the development needs of the state in question. It does not matter if some of the roads lead to nowhere in particular or the housing units are located in the middle of uninhabited bushes. At least nearly everybody appears to be doing something to justify their heavy demands on the public treasury and their imminent return to the electorate for mandate renewal or a desperate hustling for some form of legacy. Better something than nothing.
To aid some form of rational assessment of governance performance among states, the controversial Governors Forum has evolved an effective and well structured peer review machinery for measuring the performance of governors. Its secretariat is manned by high calibre technocrats. They have set up a very mobile performance monitoring and programme evaluation mechanism. They go round the states to assess performance and implementation. Information so gathered is placed at the disposal of state governments so that they know what others are doing well or not so well. In the process, it becomes possible and easy to know who is leading in what areas. State governments can now literally assess themselves and learn from others. This is a healthy development which is not widely known to the general public.
Among the isolated pockets of commendable achievement that litter the nation’s 36 states, the achievements of the incumbent administrations in two states – Rivers and Lagos States – stand out in many ways. First, the two states occupy a very strategic position in the geography of the country. Their location on what we may loosely describe as the Atlantic sea board places them in a unique position to affect the relationship between Nigeria and the world outside. By virtue of their economic and demographic configurations, the two states are eminently positioned to affect the lives of most Nigerians perhaps more than any other set of states.
The nation’s most important sea ports are in both states. Easily the most important airports are also in both states. Rivers houses most of our strategic oil and gas installations. Port Harcourt is the watering hole of oil industry staff as well as the host city of oil and gas-related companies. Lagos is host to the heartbeat of our banking and finance, commerce and trade, manufacturing and services as well as an increasingly sophisticated entertainment and hospitality industry.
In many ways, good or bad governance in both states has a ripple effect on the rest of the country and beyond. If Lagos and Port Harcourt become so insecure as to become ungovernable, we might as well say good bye to Nigeria. The oil industry will shut down. Banks and the Nigerian Stock Exchange will disappear. Most manufacturing will cease. Your overseas trips for leisure, medical treatment or business will be curtailed to say the least. Your foreign business partners will be hesitant to come visiting. You may not be able to clear your goods from any ports. The Nollywood people will flee from their Surulere base and our housewives will find little to engage their idleness. Too many good things will go wrong.
More seriously, among the governors desperately jostling for attention in the country, Governors Babatunde Fashola of Lagos and Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers state have embraced the unique challenges of their states with unusual creativity and a level of performance and achievement that is unusual in these parts. Clearly, what is emerging between these two strategically placed states is, to my mind, a veritable axis of possibility and potential goodness for Nigeria.
These two states are by no means poor by Nigerian standards. Lagos has a GDP of over $34 billion while Rivers has about $25 billion. Their per capita incomes rank among the highest in the land. Lagos has $3,649, while Rivers has close to $4,000. Internally generated revenue figures in both states are equally impressive with Lagos reportedly raking in an estimated N15 billion as against Rivers’ N5-6 billion. Their combined population if we are to believe the 2006 population figures would be in the region of 16 million (9 million for Lagos and over 5 million for Rivers). Taken together, these two states would dwarf over 70% of the member states of the African Union (AU). These facts are important if only to correctly position the combined strength of the two states and to show what could be lost or gained depending on whether they are governed properly or poorly.
Both have in recent times faced almost identical challenges in the areas of security and decay of infrastructure. For a long time, Lagos and its succession of governors was content with its reputation as one of the world’s most extreme of destinations. Its traffic snarls were legendary, its criminals and fraudsters were world class, Scotland detectives used to come to the famous Oluwole fraud factory to learn a few things about ingenuity. The streets were very unsafe while its neighbourhoods including those harbouring the rich and influential were glorified slums.
That was until the onset of the Bola Tinubu administration in 1999. Systematically thereafter, we have witnessed the gradual but systematic transformation of Lagos from the refuse heap of the continent into a tolerably habitable location. Last Christmas season, Lagos recorded a near zero incidence of reported violence crimes. The streets are safe again. Places long renowned for filth, crime, and chaos are now passable. Oshodi, Mile 12, Mile 2 etc. have all witnessed phenomenal renewal. The menace of Area Boys may not have been totally eliminated. But most for the area boys have either been put out of business or are now gainfully employed in sundry menial and artisanal jobs as Lagos continues to be renewed.
It is not just the physical renewal that is an issue in both states. There are other state administrations that are also busy bull dozing roads, inaugurating airports, building bridges, schools and hospitals. What is striking about Rivers and Lagos States under Governors Fashola and Amaechi is the infusion of development with clear ideological orientations. Fashola would seem to be pursuing a liberal free market option driven by an enlightened state. The belief seems to be that government needs to create an environment in which the myriad enterprises in Lagos can thrive and pay their taxes for the further development of the state.
In Rivers State, Goveror Amaechi is pursuing a clear social democratic agenda. The informing belief seems to be that a well educated citizenry with the requisite skills that has access to good healthcare and general infrastructure is the greatest guarantee of future development and prosperity. In pursuit of this, the governor hit the ground running three years ago. His programmes in health and education are among the most ambitious in Africa. He is building close to 1000 model primary schools with the aim of replacing all existing schools in the state in the long run.
The new primary schools boast of facilities that would be the envy of secondary schools in most parts- IT, sporting facilities, stocked libraries etc. The model secondary schools are even more phenomenal. Each of them is designed to accommodate 1000 students with classrooms for no more than 25 students per class. A hundred teachers housed in three bed room modern apartments will look after the children drawn from across social classes and geo-political divides. Over 20 of these mini universities are at various stages of completion in different locations of the state. Hundreds of students from the state are on scholarship in some of the best institutions in Canada, United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom, India etc.
This vast investment in human capital is being complemented by an equally ambitious healthcare development programme. In excess of 150 health centres with the most modern amenities are being completed in addition to a string of secondary and tertiary hospitals. In one day alone, the state hired 200 doctors! An aggressive project of urban renewal is going on in Port Harcourt. Literally, the entire city is like a construction site while a new city is about to take off from the rain forests in the outskirts of the old city.
The upshot of all this is that if the present pace of development in both Lagos and Rivers states are sustained, the rest of the nation stands to benefit because of what both states stand for and where they are located.
This is not to say that other state administrations are not making significant strides. In a number of states, a new crop of state governors are shortening the time frame between promise and the meeting of expectations in ways that were hitherto unusual in these parts. In states like Edo, Imo, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Niger and Ondo, giant strides are being taken in spite of obvious handicaps in resources. We are beginning to see very determined and timely delivery of programmes and projects that touch the people nearest.
The upshot of all this is that if the present pace of development in both Lagos and Rivers are sustained, the rest of the nation stands to benefit because of what both states stand for and where they are located. The imperative of the spectacular achievements in Lagos and Rivers is the need for greater co-operation among states that have identical visions and perspectives. Governors Fashola and Amaechi need to forge closer links between their key functionaries, irrespective of party difference, if only for the promise which the development of their states holds for the rest of Nigeria.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 20 October 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201010210694.html?viewall=1