Monthly Archives: August 2021

Kiambaa residents queue to vote at Karuri Primary School. [George Njunge, Standard]

This week has witnessed heightened political jostling for the next tenant of the House on the Hill. As expected, the men who think they deserve the seat of power were holed up in cozy boardrooms, exclusive lodges and/or premier residential addresses to share out the nation. The hoi polloi do not matterafter all, they can always be herded like sheep for slaughter.

The clique of about seven men who have traversed our public lives like a colossus over the past four decades seem and/or believe they are invincible. To them, the presidency and the perks that come with it is their birthright. The irony of it all is that we have walked this road over and over again since the 2002 General Election. No lessons seem to have been learned nor does there appear to be any change of tact to bring a sense of creativity or innovation.

In his book,The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene explores an intriguing discourse on how to access, apply and retain power. While many of the laws offer insights to those who aspire to rise to the pinnacle of political power, I find some to be inconsistent with modern societal norms and democratic governance structures.

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For instance, in law number 15 he argues for a case of crushing your enemies totally. Otherwise, they can retreat and prepare for decisive revenge. While this is philosophically sound, the practical application of the law in a constitutional democracy would be daunting. In our Kenyan context, for example, how can an elected president or governor who ran on a joint ticket with a deputy crush them totally without destroying their own power base?

Access to information

In a broader sense, several of the laws imply an autocratic leadership style and socio-economic dis-empowerment of the masses to hold on to power. This sounds familiar in our local case where, by default, no elected political leader wants enough of his people empowered. They loathe their voters having access to the right information, attaining economic independence, questioning their performance record, and/or demonstrating tangible achievements for the benefit of those that put them in power.

The practical relevance of these laws in the 21st century knowledge and innovation-driven economies will require special leadership capabilities. The explosion of the power of social media and internet-driven gig economy has shifted politico-economic power balances within and across nations permanently.For economists, the impact of national leaders on economic growth and development, and hence the welfare of citizens, has been a hard nut to crack. The primary challenges have been on finding exogenous (random) factors and comparative data to evaluate the leaders individual contribution to economic growth without bias. Nonetheless, there have been few credible studies that provide reliable evidence that national leaders influence economic growth and development.

In 2005,Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken adduced one of the most credible evidence on the importance of national leaders in influencing economic growth of a country. This effect can either be positive or negative, especially in autocratic regimes where the leader has fewer constraints in exercising their individual leadership power. A positive economic growth arises from the leaders ability to affect policy outcomes, invest in the right public goods and services, chose pro-growth policies, and overcome national scale coordination problems.

Furthermore, a national leader bears the sole responsibility to either attract well-intentioned and capable planners to run the government or select the vainglorious and/or thieves. The leader also has power to influence institutions that are empirically proved to influence economic growth. On the contra, the individual leader can cause negative growth through the tendency to steal, condone corruption and lead the country into war.

Equally, they can also destroy institutions of governance like Parliament, Judiciary and constitutional bodies, and fill strategic offices in government with cronies rather than meritocracy based appointments. Other studies by Londregan and Poole in 1990 find coups are less likely when economic growth is good, while Fair Ray (1978) finds a president is less likely to be elected during a recession in the United States.

Investments in public goods

Weber Maxs (1947) theory of social and economic organisation argues that an individual national leader can stimulate growth be emphasizing on good investments in public goods. These include investments in education, health and infrastructure, or pursuing national policies that facilitate international trade and effective monetary policy. On the negative side, the capacity of the leader to make war or pursue systematic corruption suggests means of economic-wide influences.

In Africa, Frank Gyimah (2021) examines the impact of African leadership characteristics and regime transitions on economic growth. Using a sample of 44 sub-Saharan countries from 1970 -2010, he finds democratic leaders are able to attract direct foreign investments and hence cause positive economic growth. On transition elections, he finds business cycles that reduce growth. Overall, he concludes that there is a limit to which an aging leader can stay in office.

Given, leaders like Charles Taylor of Liberia, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe had huge negative impacts on the socio-economic welfare of their respective countries.

The fact that presidential candidates can unashamedly prioritize boardroom deals to share power among themselves without weighing the interests of the electorate speaks volumes. The rate at which they abandon their political vehicles to power also signifies a genuine lack of ideological persuasion to drive meaningful economic reforms. It is one thing to gain political power, it is a totally different ball game to use the power so attained to drive economic reforms that grow and redistribute wealth in an equitable, fair and just manner.

From the foregoing demonstrable evidence, there are three critical considerations that we the electorate must zealously guard in 2022. One, if the end justifies the means for the political elite, then it becomes our solemn duty and moral obligation to protect our individual and collective self-interest. If greed for power drives those that seek to lead us, then our socio-economic welfare must dictate how we exercise our freedoms and liberties at the ballot.

Economic self-preservation

Two, given the ability of individual leaders to influence policy outcomes, re-organize institutions, eradicate or abate corruption, lead us into war, and promote meritocracy or perpetuate mediocrity, then our economic self-preservation needs must be our primary consideration in choosing our national leader. In this way, their capacity to lead, temperament, ability to inspire, decisiveness and emotional intelligence should and ought to be the irreducible minimums.

Finally, time has come for us as the electorate to appreciate the fact that nature does not harbour vacuums. Our inability to harness and coordinate our individual and collective power of the ballot has been exploited by a few to monopolize power. In many ways we have been reduced to economic and political squatters in our own country. We have been made to believe there exists an invincible Deep State and we only exist at their mercy. A classic demonstration of this is the BBI drama (by the time of writing this article, I do not know of its fate).

The purpose of economic evidence and history is to learn lessons from the past, prepare for today and predict the future. Since the collapse of one-party dictatorship in 1991, we have had three regimes with diametrically different economic outcomes. Of the three regimes, the most consequential is the one in which we transcended tribal barriers and individual leadership greed to select the most qualified and competent of them all. Its just the stupid data. Thats it!

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Our welfare is inevitably wedded to our choice of national leaders - The Standard

Department of Defense generals have known since 2005 that the Afghan military and National Police were not mentally capable of defending their nation without the backbone of the United States, said a special operations general who was involved in advisement and training.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley received reports as early as 2012 outlining the military's flaws even though he expressed surprise after the Taliban took over in a matter of days.

There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days, Milley said during a press conference Wednesday.

OBAMA IS ARCHITECT OF AFGHANISTAN MESS, SAYS FORMER SPECIAL OPS GENERAL

However, Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc told the Washington Examiner that he wrote dozens of reports over repeated deployments beginning in 2005 outlining the fledgling Afghan militarys reluctance to fight.

Bolduc, currently running for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, oversaw the Armys special ops team in Afghanistan from 2005 through 2013. Starting as battalion commander, then a one-star general, he helped create a program that installed local police departments in hundreds of villages across the country.

The Afghan military was wracked by poor leadership, soldiers who left their deployments without permission, performance issues, and a lack of timely paychecks, among other problems, he wrote.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of NATO and International Security Assistance Force troops in Afghanistan, visits the 1-16th Infantry 2nd Battalion at Qalat Mangwal, Afghanistan, during a battlefield circulation, May 8. ISAF, in support of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, conducts operations in Afghanistan to reduce the capability and will of the insurgency, support the growth in capacity and capability of the Afghan National Security Forces, and facilitate improvements in governance and socio-economic development, in order to provide a secure environment for sustainable stability that is observable to the population. (Photo by U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Joshua Treadwell) (Released) U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Joshua Treadwell

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I submitted reports from 2005 to 2013 on how incapable the Afghan National Police and military were, Bolduc said. We knew their capacity to fight the Taliban without support was just not there. It was not there. They could not defeat them.

Bolduc said he was surprised to hear President Joe Biden say that the country could be defended by the military when Americans left.

We had been reporting on how bad the military was, how incapable it was, Bolduc said. [They had] poor morale, and they refused to fight in a firefight against other Muslims, regardless if they were Taliban or al Qaeda. Some of our casualties were because of this. They would stop fighting, and we would come out to get them to do their job and we would get shot.

Afghanistans national troops did not have the sense of pride and duty to their nation that is second nature to Americans, he said. However, it was a different scenario with local police, who had always defended their villages and families from intruders. As a result, they were excited about the new jobs with training, uniforms, and weapons provided by U.S. special operations.

Don Bolduc with a group of Afghan counter-terrorism fighters in 2002 Don Bolduc

BIDEN AND MILLEY MISLED ABOUT AFGHAN ARMY NUMBERS

The Local Police Program was a great success and ultimately drove back the Taliban, putting 90% of the country under government control by 2013, he said. It was disbanded by the Obama administration in 2014 in lieu of a noncombat training operation with the national military.

Bolduc vividly recalled the meeting in which he was told that the program would be disbanded. It was attended by Milley, who was one of his commanders, Barack Obamas chief of staff Denis McDonough, and NATO commander Joseph Dunford, who would later become Joint Chiefs chairman.

[McDonough] said, We are going to transition out of the villages and into noncombat ops. I respectfully said to my superiors, This is going to be a disaster in the rural areas, and we need to do a couple more years, Bolduc recalled. We even had the date circled on the calendar when we predicted this program would be finished.

At the expected completion, the Afghan government would be able to manage the program, and the villagers would have the confidence and skill to fight off the Taliban successfully, without assistance from Americans.

McDonough, Dunford, Milley, and others had perturbed looks on their faces after hearing the challenge to their new mandate. Bolduc described their reaction as not well received. I was told afterward that I should not have spoken up.

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Milley had been a fan of the program, Bolduc said. He did not speak to Bolduc again, and the brigadier general was transferred to a position commanding U.S. forces in Africa a few weeks later. Bolduc was then passed over for a two-star general promotion and retired with numerous honors in 2017.

There have been many significant accomplishments by our service members in training, equipping, and assisting the Afghan military, but the Afghans' ability to defend their country has always been in doubt, Bolduc said. Im glad I came out against their strategy because it needed to be said, even if it cost me my promotion.

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Tags: News, Afghanistan, Military, Defense, National Security, Mark Milley

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Original Location: EXCLUSIVE: DOD knew as early as 2005 that Afghan military was weak, former general says

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EXCLUSIVE: DOD knew as early as 2005 that Afghan military was weak, former general says - Yahoo News

perspective

COVID-19 pandemic presents Nigeria with an opportunity to exit the malaises of fire brigade and lottery syndromes, and retool governance to achieve development, writes Hon. Toby Okechukwu

Beyond the high mortality and human suffering, pandemics greatly shaped human history. As aptly captured by Stanley Johny, pandemics have triggered the collapse of empires, weakened pre-eminent powers and institutions, created social upheaval and brought down wars. Walter Scheidel also lists pandemics, wars, revolutions, and state failures as the four horsemen, which have flattened inequality. I couldnt agree more.

In the 6th century, the Justinian Plague irreversibly weakened the Byzantine Empire. Between 1347 and 1353, the Black Death, which killed between 75 and 200 million people had enormous effect on the berthing of industrial revolution. The Spanish Flu (1918 to 1920) contributed substantially to Germanys loss of the World War I. It was also detected in Onitsha, Nigeria, on October 14, 1918 and the ensuing food scarcity was responsible for the introduction of cassava as a staple food (and a good substitute for yam).

COVID-19 was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 31, 2019 and characterised as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. In Nigeria, the index case was reported on February 27, 2020.

Even though the real impact of the pandemic and its attendant lockdown is still being articulated, it is evident that it has been far-reaching and devastating on Nigeria. The immediate shocks caused by COVID-19 have drastically reduced our oil revenues, pushing Nigeria to massive borrowing that has returned us to the debt trap exited in 2005.

The pandemic has also induced a free fall of the Naira. Inflow of foreign exchange was halted as foreign investors queued for dollars to exit their investments.

The pandemic also had a devastating impact on households and businesses. Governments were compelled to reorder their expenditures in favour of the social sector, while the already decaying socio-economic infrastructure in Nigeria remains underfunded.

But it is not all gloom and doom. The pandemic lockdown unlocked an unprecedented digital revolution as many of us, especially the privileged ones, relied on digital transformation in areas like remote work, telemedicine, e-learning and much more. This in turn created an armada of digital entrepreneurs from among our young people. It led to a renewed focus on research and development.

The nexus of governance and development

In the broadest sense, the challenge of development is to improve the quality of life higher incomes, better education, higher standards of health and nutrition, less poverty, cleaner environment, equal opportunities, a more secure society and greater individual freedom. Therefore, when crises such as a pandemic directly impact them, as was the case with COVID-19, we must know that development is in peril and governance must come to its rescue.

Therefore, if we want to deliver sustained growth, create more jobs and economic opportunities, expand social inclusion and social safety nets to Nigerians in times like this, then we must turn to good governance and strong institutions. Therein lies the nexus of governance and development.

Our repeated failure to activate governance to save development each time it is threatened by a crisis is the jinx we must break, and public administration is an effective tool we need to do it.

Strategies for breaking the jinx

During the darkest days of the World War II, Winston Churchill famously said: Never let a good crisis go to waste. While we debate the nature of good and bad crisis, I urge us to internalise the context of that statement, look for the silver lining in the cloud and retool governance to achieve development. I will now advise on various strategic approaches we can adopt.

Introduce smart legislations: The US economy was in tatters during the Great Depression that lasted from 1929 to 1933, but a raft of smart legislations under the New Deal agenda rebooted the economy and today.

At the outset of COVID-19, the UK Parliament was virtually enacting laws in real time to respond to the challenges brought about by the pandemic. In Nigeria, the House of Representatives also rose to the challenge, but their efforts, such as the Hon. Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamilas Infectious Disease Control were caught in the throes of political headwinds and conspiracy theories. That nobody has cared again to find out what sicknesses it sought to cure or proffered any alternatives exposes our proclivity for fire brigade arrangements. Also, despite a House resolution upon my motion calling for the mobilisation our local resources in the fight against coronavirus, Nigeria is yet to manufacture a dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

But we cannot sidestep smart legislations if we truly want to respond to the challenges of the moment, build institutional frameworks that restructure our nation, enable the growth of our economy, improve the business environment, achieve competitiveness, but above all, strengthen governance to deliver development.

Invest in the future: As I mentioned earlier, crisis can become a driver of societal change. As stated by Raghuram Rajan in his book, The Third Pillar, after the Black Death, technological progress took over. He notes that the 17th century philosopher, Francis Bacon, saw gunpowder, printing and the compass as the three greatest inventions known to man. Their arrival in the West played a part in the expansion of markets and heralded the rise of the nation-state.

During the Nigerian-Biafra Civil War, Biafran engineers and scientists developed several breakthrough inventions, innovations and technologies. Most of them could have provided the technological underpinnings of industrial development and advancement after the war. But we failed to invest in that future.

Today, we are at the cusp of another societal change as COVID-19 has provided an opportunity for us to innovate and go digital. We must invest in the future by scaling up investments in the expansion of digital infrastructure, promoting digital transformation and encourage investments in ICT and innovation. We must break the jinx of inaction and realise that access to digital technologies will create jobs, increase incomes, enhance learning, close the digital divide, and very importantly, improve governance to unlock development.

Strengthen institutions: In the wake of the Asia Financial Crisis in July 1997, a combination of economic, financial and corporate problems led to the collapse of the emerging market economies of East Asia that had earned the sobriquet of Asian Tigers. In response, they undertook fundamental reforms that strengthened their economic and financial institutions. Today, they are in a much stronger position as drivers of the global economy.

When we witnessed a sharp decline in crude oil prices in 2016, our economy slipped into a recession. The fallouts of the pandemic has again exposed our vulnerabilities to external shocks such as the fall in crude oil prices. Evidently, Nigeria is plagued by the Dutch Disease or what Prof. Charles Soludo calls the Lottery Syndrome whereby a nation spends recklessly in the spirit of the boom of today without planning for tomorrow. Although the oil prices are going up today, we are unable to reap its benefits due to our inability to meet our OPEC production quota. And since we are spending 98% of our entire revenue on debt servicing, we are left with little option but to keep borrowing.

This is the time to reform our petroleum industry and strengthen the institutions that will drive the diversification of our revenues to protect us from external shocks. A groundswell of institutional reforms also yearn for urgent attention in terms of inter-agency, inter-organs of government checks and balances as well as synergy in providing social services and delivering on development expectations of the citizens.

Reposition the educational system: No nation can grow beyond its knowledge power. The capacity deficit that was on display at the pandemic peak in Nigeria underscored the knowledge gap, which our economy and the social service sector, grapple with.

The current embarrassing rate of unemployment put at 33% of the population reflects the preponderance of educational curricular and administrative structure that may not be in sync with global best practices and our realities. We need to re-visit our educational system as a matter of urgent national and public importance.

Reform the Security Sector: All the foregoing strategies would make little impact without a comprehensive reform of the security sector. How can we make progress in a situation where school children are being abducted en masse, schools are shutting down, farmers cannot go to farm, livelihoods are destroyed, where businesses either pay huge sums of money to various criminal cartels or fold up, and where Nigerians cannot commute safely between towns?

Police duties are quintessentially street-based. It should logically pitch its base at the grassroots. So, the debate over the creation of state police is needless because it has been long overdue. Ours is perhaps the only federal system in which police functions are centralized and we are paying dearly for it.

Since the agents of insecurity emanate from society, a critical strategy of reforming security governance is to focus on non-kinetic measures. In this regard, the question of human security, which addresses the crucial, questions of freedom from vita social wants, is critical.

Leadership: Although the leadership question appears to be an overbeaten scapegoat of development failures in underdeveloped climes, we are at a loss what else to redirect our accusing fingers to. In her seminal book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times, Doris Goodwin identifies four different leadership types: transformational leadership, crisis leadership, turnaround leadership, and visionary leadership. We need all these types of leadership in Nigeria to break the jinx.

The founding leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, writes in his memoirs: We had been asked to leave Malaysia and go our own way with no signposts to our next destination. We faced tremendous odds with an improbable chance of survival. On that 9th day of August 1965, I started out with great trepidation on a journey along an unmarked road to an unknown destination. We see that destination today; a tiny island in Asia has leaped from Third World to First World.

However, we must realise that we need a transparent and functional electoral process, including electronic transmission of results from polling units, to produce good public leaders and reap the benefits of governance and development.

A corollary to leadership is visionary plan for social services and development.

The choice we must make

It is my earnest desire that we realise the rare opportunity before us and ensure that we do not relapse to our signature malaise. Instead, let us emulate Malaysia and Singapore, which utilised their own crises as springboards to launch forward. We must also seek to maximise the opportunities presented by the oil and energy crisis, infrastructural crisis, employment crisis, and farmers/herders clashes, among others.

The choice is ours to either find solutions or weaponise them against one another. But my stand is that we should see the present challenges as a takeoff moment.

Hon. Okechukwu, Deputy Minority Leader, House of Representatives, presented this at the 2021 international conference organised by the Department of Public Administration, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, recently.

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Governance and Development in the COVID-19 EraTHISDAYLIVE - THISDAY Newspapers

Haiti was hit Saturday morning by an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. Official reports currently place the number of fatalities at more than 700, but thousands remain unaccounted for, meaning the death toll will in all likelihood rise dramatically in coming days.

The long tremor was felt throughout the country, with its epicenter located near the city of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, 100 miles southwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In 2010, Port-au-Prince was devastated by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people, injured even more, and displaced 1.5 million. The poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti has yet to recover from that disaster.

Even though the densely populated capital was spared this time, the toll from the latest earthquake in terms of deaths, injuries and material damage will nonetheless be high. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) issued a red alert for the disaster and estimated that fatalities could reach into the thousands. High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread, the USGS said.

In the southwestern peninsula, the hardest hit region of the country, the earthquake damaged or flattened many buildings, including churches and hotels, trapped people under debris and caused flooding after underground pipes ruptured. The largest city in the region, Les Cayes, with a population of 150,000, saw the collapse of several buildings, including the largest supermarket, jeopardizing the supply of food and other necessities to residents.

Complicating search and rescue efforts, a mountain road connecting Les Cayes to the peninsulas second-largest city, Jeremie, has been cut off by boulders after major landslides and rockfalls that were triggered by the earthquake. The main public hospital in Jeremie, with a population of 130,000, rapidly filled to capacity with people with broken limbs, said Ricardo Chery, a local journalist. The roof of the cathedral fell down, said Job Joseph, a resident.

The official provisional death toll is already severe. According to a communiqu issued by the Haitian Civil Protection agency, 724 people are confirmed dead and more than 2,800 are injured. Its director, Jerry Chandler, said that the few existing hospitals in the region are struggling to provide emergency care. At least three hospitals, in the communes of Pestel, Corailles and Roseaux, are completely saturated with victims.

The communiqu reports that at least 949 houses, seven churches, two hotels and three schools were destroyed, while 723 houses, a prison, three medical centers and seven schools were damaged. Port, airport and telecommunications infrastructure, however, are said to have not been badly damaged.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was appointed after last months murder of Haitian President Jovenel Mose, has declared a month-long state of emergency. But there has been little government help on the ground.

Rescue operations, carried out by the local population with their bare hands or with makeshift means, could be complicated by tropical storm Grace, which is expected to hit the country Monday evening. Significant rainfall could create mudslides and further destabilize buildings.

While Haiti has been repeatedly hit by disasters of a natural origin, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, their catastrophic impact is bound up with the conditions of abject poverty, endemic corruption, unending political instability and profound socio-economic crisis that are the legacy of decades of imperialist oppression, above all at the hands of US imperialism.

Swaths of the Haitian population face grinding poverty and hunger, and the countrys meager health care services are overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Caribbean nation of 11 million has been in the throes of a political crisis since Mose was assassinated on July 7 in what appears to have been an operation ordered by a rival faction of Haitis corrupt, pro-imperialist ruling elite. Citing concerns for his safety and a lack of security, the judge placed in charge of further investigating the assassination plot and bringing charges against those arrested withdrew on Friday.

The emergency response to the earthquake has been made even more complicated because road access to the peninsula region struck by the quake has been cut off by violent armed gang warfare at the southern entrance to Haitis capital. With the support of competing sections of the Haitian elite vying for power, criminal gangs have proliferated as instruments for the violent suppression of the Haitian working class and oppressed masses.

In a thoroughly cynical statement issued Saturday, US President Joe Biden claimed that The United States remains a close and enduring friend to the people of Haiti and will be there in the aftermath of this tragedy.

What hypocrisy! Since its first invasion of Haiti in 1915, US imperialism has a record of ruthlessly suppressing popular opposition to the imperialist dominance of the island nation. For three decades during the 20th century, Washington backed the brutal Duvalier dictatorship. In 2004, American troops intervened at the head of an international military invasion to oust the elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and initiate more than a decade of neocolonial-style occupation by forces organized under the auspices of the United Nations.

The point-person who Biden has named to supervise the latest US support effort, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, is one of the leading political-ideological proponents of human rights imperialism. She played a major role within the Obama administration in pressing for the US regime-change war in Libya, a brutal air war that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and plunged the North African country into a bloody civil war that continues to rage a decade later.

The type of support the Haitian people can expect from the Washington is exemplified by its response to the last major earthquake in 2010.

Under conditions of a popular groundswell of international sympathy and support for the Haitian people, Washington and its allies made a show of providing assistance to Haiti. International donors pledged $10.4 billion for Haiti, including $3.9 billion from the US. But while feigning humanitarian concerns, the western powers, led by the US, Canada, and France, pursued entirely predatory objectives. These included: propping up a puppet regime capable of maintaining political stability, that is subjugating Haitis impoverished masses; providing political cover for the brutal treatment and expulsion of Haitian refugees; and promoting Haiti as a cheap labor producer for the international garment and other industries (the Caracol project).

The chief figure overseeing this relief effort was former US President Bill Clinton.

In the ensuing decade, the Haitian masses saw very little of this money. The lions share of it was sucked up by the major transnational corporations in charge of reconstruction projects and by the handsomely-paid bureaucracy of various international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). What little found its way into the country itself was gobbled up by various sections of the venal Haitian ruling class.

A high point in these sordid relations was the 2010-2011 presidential elections, which saw Hillary Clintons State Department intervene to install Michel Martelly as Haitis next president, a right-wing musician with close ties to the former Duvalier dictatorship. Before Clintons intervention, Martelly had placed third in the first round of the elections and would have been excluded from the second round, which was limited to the top two vote winners.

Martellys chosen successor was a little-known businessman, Jovenel Mose, who came to power in rigged elections, again with US support. Mose went on to head a corrupt, right-wing government that depended on political support from Washington and on armed criminal gangs at home to bloodily suppress growing popular opposition to its IMF-dictated austerity policies. This earned him the hatred of the population. Following Moises assassination last July, and amid a bitter power conflict within Haitis political elite, Henry was hand-picked by the United States, France, Canada, and the other members of the so-called Core Group of nations to take over.

Today, just as in 2010, Haiti remains the poorest and most socially unequal country in the Western Hemisphere. While the masses of Haiti remain mired in poverty, the former US president and his wife Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, have seen their own wealth soar, raking in an estimated $230 million in income since Bill Clinton left the White House.

After Saturdays latest devastating earthquake, aiding the people of Haiti and rebuilding the country on the basis of human needs rather than the interests of the native elite and the foreign banks and corporations can be achieved only through a struggle to overcome the bitter legacy of decades of imperialist oppression. This requires uniting the working class in Haiti, the US and throughout the hemisphere in a common fight for the socialist transformation of society.

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Thousands feared dead as devastating earthquake hits Haiti - WSWS

Lack of transparency has aided incompetence in the sector

The entire country was recently plunged into blackout when the national grid collapsed and lost 3,489 megawatts (MW). That about 99.7 per cent of the countrys daily generation would collapse in one day reinforces existing concerns about the structural defects of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). It has proved incapable of stabilising the power grid, transmitting generated volumes with minimal losses and putting an end to frequent power outages. More tellingly, the national blackout coincided with the release by the Senate of a N132 million fraud at the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company Plc (NBET).

Both developments the nationwide power outage and the unbudgeted N132 million NBET expenditure clearly illustrate the absence of accountability in a sector that has a fully constituted NERC running its affairs. For the nationwide power outage, reports indicate that it was the fourth time the country would be experiencing system collapse in 2021. This is despite the huge investment of over $1.6 billion to upgrade TCNs transmission infrastructure through the World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), and other multilateral organisations. The TCN has also received budgetary allocations to support its transmission infrastructure upgrade, yet it is at best a lame duck, unable to support the objectives of the power sector privatisation consummated in 2013.

According to operations report, in the first week of March 2021 for example, the power sector lost about N6.8 billion to constraints and other challenges which included unavailability of transmission infrastructure. Clearly, the TCN cannot guarantee stable transmission of power to the Discos for onward distribution to end-users. It also constraints the national economy from growing as industries and commercial entities, including small and medium-sized enterprises heavily rely on diesel and petrol generators to stay afloat. Any country keen on sustainable socio-economic development cannot overlook the inevitable reorganisation needed at the hugely dysfunctional behemoth called TCN.

Data from the system operator of the TCN reveal that the national grid has recorded steady collapses, but no one is ever called to account by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) for what could be considered a drawback on the power sector. This is also what is on display at NBET. Reports from the Senate Committee on Public Accounts which was adopted by the Senate, noted that the NBET spent N95.320 million on overseas training for its staff, which never took place; N34.163 million on unverifiable services and N2.583 million on uniforms for outsourced drivers. As indicated by the Senate, a federal government entity spending N2.583 million on uniforms for outsourced drivers is clearly illegal considering that it is solely the responsibility of the contractor to kit its employees. Additionally, the money spent on overseas training for NBET staff between October and November 2014 was in violation of a presidential directive against such expenses. The Senate also pointed out that the expenditure has no documentary evidence to back its execution.

The business of NBET as a bulk power trader in the sector is essential, just as its processes are expected to be transparent and fraud-proof. To have an NBET with questionable transactions is akin to putting the fate of the countrys electricity market in jeopardy. Clearly, both cases at the NBET and TCN are evidence that accountability in Nigerias power sector is not yet the priority of the government or the regulator, NERC. They also suggest that the reasons why top private investors and investments seldom look towards Nigerias power sector may not be all about the absence of funds to invest, but about the lack of trust in a market that lacks transparency and accountability.

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ACCOUNTABILITY AND THE POWER SECTORTHISDAYLIVE - THISDAY Newspapers

South Africa has among the highest recorded levels of social protest of any country in the world. The reasons behind this are more complex than often assumed.

The scale and severity of the looting and sabotage in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng in July, following the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma, has brought social protest and civil unrest into the popular discourse.

But much of the commentary on the July riot which cost over 300 lives and billions of rands in damage to the economy has neglected the long history of violent protest in the country. The truth is that, while disgruntlement by Zumas supporters was the trigger, the roots of social unrest go much deeper.

What is more, the available data shows that the number of protests in South Africa has been steadily rising over the past 20 years. For instance, there has been an almost nine-fold increase in the average number of service delivery protests each year comparing 2004-08 with 2015-19.

There is also evidence that social protests are increasingly violent and disruptive.

Read more: Violence in South Africa: an uprising of elites, not of the people

It is important to understand what lies behind this trend of growing social unrest, which makes the country precarious, and what might be done to tackle the underlying causes.

If the government wants to avoid a repeat of the social and economic catastrophe of the July 2021 riots even if on a smaller and more localised scale it should look back to learn some important lessons about why protest happens and how to address this.

There are a number of key factors in understanding the reasons behind social protest in South Africa:

First, it is important to recognise that the people and places with the highest levels of social and economic deprivation are not those most likely to protest. For example, protests over service delivery the provision of basic services such as electricity, water and sanitation are heavily concentrated in the metropolitan areas, such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, eThekwini, Tshwane, Nelson Mandela Bay and Mangaung. Yet rural municipalities actually have much lower levels of service coverage.

Access to basic services has also improved across the country over the past two decades. But delivery protests have increased exponentially over the same period. There are evidently deeper and more complex reasons behind how and when ineffective delivery of municipal services ends up in social conflict.

Second, it is often a sense of unfairness (inequality), not just levels of provision, that lead to grievances and resentment which spark social protest. For instance, long-standing differences in amenities between neighbouring communities send a clear signal that the government is not willing or not able to meet their needs in an equitable manner.

A case in point is informal settlements which have often been hotspots for protest action. Rural migrants arrive in the city with expectations of a better life, only to end up living in squalor. Until the government can implement a realistic and scalable plan for upgrading informal settlements, this is likely to continue.

Third, government departments tend to get fixated with meeting numerical targets at the expense of service quality and what matters most for communities. Recent research suggests that municipal officials get locked into a culture of playing it safe and compliance in delivering services and related public investments rather than innovation and genuine transformation.

An infamous example is the delivery of toilets in an open field where municipalities get the credit and contractors get paid for erecting them, whether or not there are any houses or people living in the vicinity.

Government needs to stop paying lip service to the principles of community consultation and local participation, and take this work seriously. The extra time and effort are justified by aligning municipal plans and investments closer to peoples actual priorities. Local buy-in can also help ensure that investments in public infrastructure are protected and maintained.

Read more: Understanding violent protest in South Africa and the difficult choice facing leaders

Finally, feelings of frustration and anger have been heightened by years of waiting for promises to be fulfilled. International studies suggest that communities are more likely to protest when they can clearly attribute blame, and where visible institutions are perceived to possess the means for redress.

Municipal services have a clear line of sight, where communities can easily measure and attest to progress in their experience of daily life. Mismanagement and corruption have led to the collapse of many municipalities over recent years. This is especially so in smaller cities and towns, with images of sewage running down the street and no water in the pipes. In this way, grievances over service delivery are a common trigger for social protest. But the grievances often reflect a much broader basket of discontent.

Over the last 18 months, the hardship and suffering facing poorer urban communities, in particular, has been compounded by their disproportionate loss of jobs and livelihoods during the pandemic. The reality of hunger and food insecurity is a moral issue but also critical for social stability.

The recent extension of the R350 (US$23) special COVID-19 monthly grant should help to alleviate some of the immediate pressures on poorer households. But, the country also needs a clearer plan of how to tackle the problem of food insecurity.

At the heart of the matter, South Africas deep-seated social inequalities and segregated living conditions provide fertile ground for popular discontent. There is no easy fix for these.

Metropolitan populations continue to expand. This places added pressure on poorer communities forced to cope with rapid densification, strained services, informality and sparse economic opportunities. Fractured communities and weak, under-resourced governing institutions further complicate the task of upgrading and transforming these neighbourhoods.

Read more: South Africa's 1994 'miracle': what's left?

Meanwhile, affluent households can buy their way into places that are safer, better planned and have higher quality facilities. They can opt out of public services by paying for private schooling, healthcare and security. This accentuates the socio-economic divides even further.

There is a real danger that the current fiscal crisis will further corrode public services. This will encourage more and more middle-class families to buy into private provision. Unless the government gets to grips with this issue, the widening chasm between middle and working-class communities will amplify perceptions of unfairness and exacerbate social instability.

Read more from the original source:

What lies behind social unrest in South Africa, and what might be done about it - The Conversation CA

President Vladimir Putin says reality is that Taliban has taken control of most of the country, and separately, Russian envoy to Afghanistan insists there is no alternative to the insurgent group and resistance to it will fail.

Russian has called on the global community to prevent the "collapse" of Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover, saying there is no alternative to the insurgent group and resistance to it will fail.

"The Taliban movement control almost the entire territory of the country," President Vladimir Putin told a televised press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Kremlin on Friday.

"These are the realities and it is from these realities that we must proceed, preventing the collapse of the Afghan state," he added.

Both leaders said Afghanistan figured prominently during the outgoing German leader's final working visit to Russia.

He went on to say that Russia learned itself how counterproductive it is to impose foreign forms of government on Afghanistan, referencing the Soviet invasion of the country that ended in withdrawal in 1989.

Criticising the "irresponsible policy" of imposing "outside values" on war-torn Afghanistan he said, "You cannot impose standards of political life and behaviour on other people from outside."

The Russian president also highlighted the importance of preventing "terrorists" from entering neighbouring countries from Afghanistan, including "under the guise of refugees".

Putin said it was not in Russia's interests to dwell on the results of the US military campaign in Afghanistan and that it was important to establish good and neighbourly relations with Afghanistan.

He said that Moscow and its partners should unite to help people in Afghanistan.

He said Russia was interested in the country being stable which it was not at the moment.

In her remarks, Merkel said her country's priority is to help those who helped NATO mission in Afghanistan to "safely depart" and "evacuate as many people as possible to Germany".

READ MORE:UN: Taliban hunting for Afghan targets in 'door-to-door visits'

Russian envoy: Resistance to Taliban is doomed

Meanwhile, Russia's envoy to Afghanistan praised the conduct of the Taliban on Friday in the days since its takeover, saying there was no alternative to the group and resistance to it would fail.

The comments by Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov reflect efforts by Russia to deepen already well-established ties with the Taliban while stopping short, for now, of recognising them as the legitimate rulers of a country.

Speaking to Reuters news agency from Kabul, Zhirnov said the security situation in the capital was much better than it was before the Taliban took control of it and spoke optimistically about the future.

"The mood in Kabul can be described as one of cautious hope," said Zhirnov.

"There was a bad regime which disappeared and people are hopeful. They say it can't be worse so it should be better. But this is another test for the Taliban to pass. After they restore order, they should start improving the socio-economic situation," he said.

Kabul has been largely calm, except in and around the airport where 12 people have been killed since Sunday, NATO and Taliban officials said.

READ MORE:Afghan women voice their fears about Taliban rule

'Ticket to a new life'

Zhirnov's said efforts to hold out against the Taliban by former Afghan officials from Panjshir valley north of Kabul would fail.

"They have no military prospects. There are not many people there. As far as we know they have 7,000 armed people. And they already have problems with fuel. They tried to fly a helicopter but they have no petrol and no supplies," he said.

Zhirnov also questioned the idea that all of the Afghans trying to flee the country were doing so because of the Taliban.

"Many people now see this situation now as a possible ticket to a new life (in the West) and this may not be related to the Taliban," he said of the chaotic exodus.

READ MORE:Anti-Taliban forces coming together in Panjshir Valley, says Russia

Cautiously optimistic

Moscow has been cautiously optimistic about the new leadership in Kabul and is seeking contact with the insurgents in an effort to avoid instability spilling over to neighbouring ex-Soviet states.

The Kremlin has in recent years reached out to the Taliban which is banned as an "extremist" group in Russia and hosted its representatives in Moscow several times, most recently last month.

READ MORE:Taliban marks Afghan Independence Day by asserting victory over US

Source: AFP

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Russia: Taliban controls most of Afghanistan, bids to topple it doomed - TRT World

The eve of a democratic Nigeria witnessed high incidence of ethnic-related rivalry and violence in the North Central zone, to which Plateau state belongs.

These ethnic rivalries posed serious socio-economic threats to the state and the fortunes of the people are being jeopardised.

Ethnic rivalries are as old as the world itself.The Plateau ethnic rivalry has received both local and international attention, even though the solution to the recurrent conflicts has not been attended by successive governments.

The ethnic rivalry seems to have been heated up overtime by the high visibility of mobilised, politicised and ethnicided armed ethnic groups found in most multi-ethnic states, as found in Jos, Plateau state. This political undertone given to this conflict has made it highly impossible for both the federal and Plateau state governments to find a lasting solution to the crisis.

The recent unrest in Bassa, Riyom local government area of Plateau state and subsequent attack on innocent passers-by in Gada Biyu has proven that the bad elements are still wearing the cloths of ethnicity and religion on the Plateau.

They are likely to be the conspirators in the Jos unending conflict that started 20 years ago.It is because of ignorance and mindless hate that these conflicts have continued to advance beyond a manageable stage. It was on a beautiful Friday in September 2001 around 4pm while listening to Voice of America (Hausa Service) that the sad development broke in the air and Jos was in flames.

This sad development will remain in history as one of heartbroken news that ever passed through my ears and 20 years down memory lane, the state is still searching for peace.

One would have thought that the horrors, the bloodshed and the losses Plateau has witnessed in the last few decades are enough lessons to serve as a warning signal to avert further distruction of lives and properties. The renewed ethnic conflicts in Bassa, Riyom and Jos North (Gada biyu) have proven that the conflict entrepreneurs are still alive and are working to sink Plateau into another unrest.

Since then, Plateau state has been experiencing wave after wave of violence, killings and reprisals, more wanton and brutal with each occurrence. We have seen repeated attacks on cattle, and the persistent destruction of farmlands in recent times in some parts of Jos and its environs.

Bassa, Bokkos, Riyom and Barkin Ladi local government areas are now the centre of the repeated attacks attributed to kidnappers and gunmen.What makes my heart bleed is the seeming movement of this conflict to no end in sight. This conflict has brought us to the brink of food insecurity. Education has been halted and economic activities have been drastically weakened

The rural economy is on the verge of total collapse. Health services cannot be accessed. Development has been reversed. Thousands of Plateau citizens are displaced. Every time we are convinced it cannot get any worse, we are plunged deeper into the mess. It is unarguable that what emerges clearly from the situation in Plateau state is that all sides are complicit in the killings and violence.

What is making the conflict more complex to manage is due to ethnic and religious dimension it has taken. People have chosen to align with their own (tribe) even when they are the architects of the recurrent incidents that have caused the lives of countless people and rendered millions homeless.

Plateau state was an important mining area in Nigeria and is a major exporter of tin and columbite. The tin is melted just outside Jos, the state capital and its largest town.The metals are shipped by rail to Port Harcourt for export.

Other minerals, notably, tantalite, kaolin, tungsten (wolfram), zircon, and thorium compounds, are also exploited on the Plateau.Lead, zinc, and silver are mined on a small scale in the eastern part of the state around Wase, Zurak, and Kigom. We have to deconstruct that in humane artificial wall in Jos and environs.

A christian should be able to move freely with a relaxed mind at Unguwan Rogo, Zololo etc anytime. Likewise, a muslim should not be afraid to be at Unguwan Rukuba, Rukuba road etc at any moment.

Since the outbreak of this ugly terrain in Plateau state, security agencies have detailed an accurate report of attacks carried out by deviants from every side.

The failure of successive governments in Plateau to implement different reports of committee of enquiries is gradually making this conflict to become a norm. Lack of political will to address and go after the conflict entrepreneurs has given room for more recurrent incidents as many has it that nothing will happen to them as criminals with same crime history.

In 1976, Plateau state was carved out of the former Benue-Plateau. It is bounded by the states of Kaduna and Bauchi on the north, Taraba on the east, and Nasarawa on the south and west.

The Jos Plateau rises to about 5,250 feet (1,600 m) above sea level in the states north-central part, and the Benue river valley stretches along the southwestern border.Although there are wooded valleys in the southeast, the vegetation is mostly open grassland.

It is now occasion by hedges of cacti and scattered trees, which is used for grazing and farming. Although the state is best known for its mining production, agriculture is the major occupation of the people. Acha, millet, yams, sorghum, corn (maize), potatoes, cowpeas, rice, fruits, and vegetables are the cash crops and occupation of the people of the state. Fulani herdsmen graze their cattle on the tsetse-free Plateau and supply milk to the dairy at Vom.

The states of Borno, Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Niger and Yobe have witnessed more violent crisis attributed to bandits and kidnappers that are wearing the Boko Haram cap.

The conflicts in states of Plateau, Taraba, Kaduna and Benue have paid the supreme price of hypocritical violence related to ethnic and religious conflicts.

The face off between Jukun and Tiv in some of parts of Taraba, Eggon and Alago in Nasarawa state, the current wage of violence in the Northwest have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that conflict entrepreneurs have no respect for our tribes or religion during the execution of their evils. It means that in most cases, these conflicts continue to occur because of hatred that is running through our blood stream.

We have failed to embrace recourse to law, the failure to accept responsibility and the failure to align with peace, is what has brought the state to its knees and it is about to be a norm as these criminals are not only entertained but are seen as hereos.

Since the return of the fourth Nigeria Republic in 1999, farmer-herder violence has killed quite a number of people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

It followed a trend in the increase of farmer-herder conflicts throughout much of the western Sahel, due to an expansion of agriculturist population and cultivated land, deteriorating environmental conditions, desertification and soil degradation, population growth, breakdown in traditional conflict resolution mechanisms of land and water disputes as well as proliferations of small arms and crime in rural areas.

Insecurity and violence have led many populations to create self-defence forces and ethnic and tribal militias which have engaged in further violence. The majority of farmer-herder clashes have occurred between Muslim Fulani herdsmen and Christian farmers, exacerbating ethno religious hostilities.

It means that disputes involving indigenes and those being referred to as settlers are common nation-wide particularly in the developing world.

The Ifes and the Modakekes, the Ijebu of Lagos state and those of Ogun state, Ijaws and the Ilajes in Ondo and Delta states among few too many to mention ethnic conflicts in Nigeria and other parts of the world. It is only an enemy of Plateau that will wish the state to go back to the ugly days.

The emergence of Simon Bako Lalong administration in 2015 came with peace and good governance as one of the policy trust of his government. The establishment of peace and conflict resolution agency coupled with some of the measurers taken have shapen the thinking of many sons and daughters of Plateau that there is no alternative to peace.

The story is the same in all parts of the state including the communities that were tagged no go areas. Plateau has had enough of this violence and crime against humanity that caused them the best market in West Africa the popular Terminus (Main Market) and too many to mention of the state valuables that should give the Youths more jobs.

This must not be allowed to become our new normal. It is time for us as a nation to face the reality that we have an emergency on our hands. A catastrophe that must be decisively dealt with before it snowballs into an existential crisis. We must stop treating these acts of criminality with kid gloves and enough of this bloodshed that keep repeating itself.

There must be the safety of lives and property in spheres of human endeavours and without peace and security, there would be a loss of confidence in the government.This is the more reason why I have maintained in the past that impunity must give way to punitive measures. When criminals profit from their criminality, crime will increase.

Once these criminals have clarity on what awaits them should they toe such evils paths, then their audacity to commit evil will be weakened, and gradually, this ugly chapter in our national life will become a thing of the past. Let a state of emergency be declared in the security sector so as to deal decisively with the criminals currently testing the power of the nation state apparatus from north down to the south.

To this end, I must commend Governor Lalong always for demonstrating high level of commitment to ensure that the gang of mischievous elements are not allowed to sink Plateau into another well of violence.

As citizens that have paid the supreme price of these violence in the last 20 years in Plateau state, working closely with Governor Lalong to broker peace is not a choice but an only option. It is an expensive venture.

Lets give peace a chance and build our lost bones together to return Plateau state as a destination for all like Dubai where everyone will go and do business lawfully. This is the template of Governor Lalong because peace and unity are the prerequisites of development.

Mohammed, President, Arewa Youth Advocate for Peace and Unity Initiative, writes from Bauchi.

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Read more from the original source:

Jos crisis: Time to end artificial wall of hatred - Blueprint newspapers Limited