By Olusegun Adeniyi
Following the adoption of ‘a motion of urgent public importance’ moved by Hon Amobi Ogah, the House of Representatives resolved last week to investigate the ‘$460 million’ Chinese loan secured by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration to procure and install Closed-Circuit Televisions (ICCTV) cameras in strategic locations within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. This is the third time the House will ‘probe’ this project. That no report was previously issued, and they cannot even get the accurate contract figure is very telling about how they keep records in that place.
Perhaps I should refresh the memory of our Abuja lawmakers. In May 2016, the House established an ad hoc committee headed by Hon Ahmed Yerima to investigate the scandalous project. From what transpired during that exercise, the CCTV cameras were part of the National Public Security Communications System (NPSCS) contract awarded in 2010 to a Chinese company, ZTE Corporation, at a total cost of $470 million (not $460 million). The Chinese Exim Bank provided a $399.5million loan while the federal government paid the balance of 15 percent, amounting to $70.5 million in counter-part funding.
However, when committee members visited what was supposed to be the switch centre at the Nigeria Police Headquarters in Abuja, they were shocked to discover that out of the 1,000 cameras imported at the time, only 40 were said to be “online”. The remaining 960, according to police officers manning the centre, “are down”. Since the project was to generate data by using the code division multiple access (CDMA) technology, even the small amount of equipment brought in soon became obsolete. An angry Tony Nwulu, a member of the visiting House committee, said the project was “planned to fail from the beginning.” At plenary, another member, Hassan Saleh, alleged that ZTE Corporation installed substandard CCTV cameras and that they built into the contract a condition (either accepted or not seen by the officials who signed on behalf of Nigeria) that details should never be made public!
Meanwhile, the contract was awarded without the required Certificate of No Objection from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) which meant it bypassed due process. Then BPP Director General, Mr. Emeka Eze, confirmed that much to the House committee. But the Nigerian Communications Satellite (NigComSat), which acted as consultant for the project, blamed its eventual abandonment on funding. A former NigComSat Director General, Mr Ahmed Rufai, who served as a member of the project management team, said the federal government failed to provide the required “operational funds” to run the system which he claimed was completed in 2012. “The situation with the project is like buying a new car and refusing to provide money to buy fuel”, Rufai told the lawmakers. “How will the car function?” Corroborating Rufai, the then Managing Director of ZTE Corporation, Mr Hao Fuqiang, said the project was shut down around 2013 due to “non-operational” fund. But he failed to respond to the allegation that N10.8 billion worth of import waivers were granted to ZTE Corporation by the federal government because of the same contract.
Despite all the public revelations, Nigerians never got to know the findings from the House probe. But in yet another exercise on 24 October 2019, the House Committee on Finance, then chaired by James Faleke, demanded further explanations on the Abuja CCTV camera project from the Ministry of Finance at a budget defence session. “Before this administration, we collected some loans and the one that strikes me the most is the 460 million dollars (again, a wrong figure) for CCTV installation in Abuja,” Faleke had told then Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed. In response, Ahmed (currently, the World Bank Group Executive Director representing Angola, Nigeria, and South Africa) said: “We are servicing the loan, but on the project, we will have to ask the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Authority because the project was deployed in the FCT. I have no information on the status of the CCTV.”
While the lawmakers did nothing with the damning revelation by Ahmed, it was enough for the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to institute a court action, using the Freedom of Information Act. Like many of the numerous cases by SERAP, it went on for years. But a few days before the late President Muhammadu Buhari left office in May 2023, SERAP secured a landmark judgment. Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the federal government to publish the total amount of money paid to Chinese and local companies and contractors as well as the status of the Abuja CCTV project.
What happened after the judgment? Nothing! Even the House of Representatives whose probe prompted SERAP to seek judicial intervention was not interested in the matter. Now, the same House is setting up another probe either to entertain the pubic or engineer a shakedown. But whatever may be their motivation, the story of the Abuja CCTV project is the classic metaphor of Nigeria’s public sector. From the financiers to the equipment suppliers and installers, a $470 million project was designed in the full knowledge that it would fail. The project predictably failed, and public money is now being expended to fund many legislative investigations in a questionable rigmarole that goes on forever.
In Nyesom Wike, if you can excuse his political hubris, the FCT has a Minister who is delivering road infrastructure at an unprecedented pace. But security of lives and property, for which the CCTV cameras project was initiated 15 years ago, is now a serious challenge. More unfortunately, while another dubious foolery goes on in the House of Representatives, Nigerians are being taxed to pay both the principal and interest of a $470 million loan secured for a project that began and ended as an intentional fraud.
Christopher Kolade’s Parting Words
President Bola Tinubu was merely echoing the sentiment of most Nigerians when he described the late Dr Christopher Kolade as someone who “was exceptionally brilliant, statesmanly, diligent, and had unimpeachable integrity.” But what most people were probably not aware of was the incredible mentorship role the acclaimed broadcaster, diplomat, and corporate leader, played for members of the younger generations of Nigerians. I am a beneficiary of that 20 years ago through the Nigeria Leadership Initiative (NLI) founded by the former Finance/Trade and Investment Minister, Olusegun Aganga, with Kolade as founding patron.
Since the passage of Kolade, I have been reflecting on those memorable four days I had the privilege of spending with him and others as recounted in my 25th January 2006 column, “When Last Did You Shoot an Elephant?”. Before I go to Kolade’s powerful invocation which I have read again and again in recent days, let me first provide the background. As editor of THISDAY Newspaper in November 2005, I got an invitation from Aganga (with whom I had no prior association or contact) to a special Aspen Leadership Seminar on Nigeria to be held in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. While I was curious about the names of other participants, Aganga, (then Managing Director of Goldman Sachs in London) only assured me they were all distinguished Nigerians from home and the Diaspora. It was when I got to the UK that I realized who they were and even now, two decades later, I still fail to understand what qualified me to be among them.
We were 28 in all. 14 from the Diaspora and 14 from home. From the Diaspora (based on their designations at the time) were Mr. Adebayo Ogunlesi, then the executive vice chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston in New York (now, a bigger fish in the global financial ocean); Professor Tayo Akinwande, then of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Dr. Festus Dada, President of Crown Medical Group, California and Professor Femi Oyebode, then Head of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Birmingham. Others were Mr Jide Zeitlin, then CEO of The Keffi Group; Mr Dele Olojede, first African Pulitzer prize winner in journalism; Dr. Seyi Solebo, then a paediatrician with Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust, UK; Mrs. Lola Oni, (MBE), then Professional Service Director, Brent Sickle Cell & Thalassaemia Centre, London; Ambassador Ayo Oke, then Head, Office of Deputy Secretary General, Commonwealth Secretariat. There was also Professor Jacob Olupona of Harvard University, as well as Dr. Olu Obaro, then head of department of Radiology at The King George Hospital, Ilford, London; Mr Gboyega Delano, President/CEO, Ilora L’Original Beauty Concepts, Inc; Mr Jimi Morgan, FCA, of J. Morgan & Associates and Aganga, the promoter and coordinator of the programme.
From home were Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, then the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman; Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, then the FCT Minister; Mrs Bola Adesola, then Executive Director at First Bank; Mr Bunmi Oni, then MD/CEO of Cadbury Plc; Mr Tony Elumelu, then MD/CEO of UBA; Mr Jim Ovia, then MD/CEO of Zenith and Mr Asue Ighodalo of Banwo & Ighodalo. Others were Father (not yet a Bishop at the time) Matthew Hassan Kukah, then of the Catholic Archdiocese of Kaduna; Major General Sarki Mukhtar (rtd), a former military governor; Mrs Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, Founder (and then CEO) of LEAD-Africa; Dr. Adhiambo Odaga, then Ford Foundation Representative in West Africa; Dame Bridget Itsueli of Lagos Resource Centre and Mr Hassan Oye Odukale, the then MD/CEO of Leadway Assurance. I am sure readers would by now be surprised, as I then was, on why Aganga added my name to the list of these eminent Nigerians.
At the secluded four-day seminar, we were joined by Kolade, who was then Nigeria’s High Commissioner in the United Kingdom. And it was obvious he was part of the idea considering his profound contributions which form the kernel of this intervention. Modelled after other Aspen Institute’s leadership offerings from the Henry Crown Fellowship Programme to the Africa Leadership Initiative, the seminar was text-based and moderated by two respected scholars: Peter Reiling, a former Columbia University professor, and Keith Berwick, a four-time Emmy Award winning television broadcaster and former University of California professor of history. Using the Aspen format, they drew on the wisdom and experience of participants to prompt an in-depth dialogue on a range of leadership issues.
Throughout the four days, Kolade sat with us from morning till evening and participated in all the sessions. He also gave the opening remarks which reveal his thoughts about Nigeria:
“When Segun (Aganga) came to me with this idea, I bought into it immediately because many of our country men and women say that the Nigerian dream is broken and, in a way, I quite agree. But I also know that it can be fixed, and some people must do it. That is exactly why I have pursued the Nigerians in the Diaspora wherever I met them as I asked whether they did not see themselves as playing a role in the development of our country.
“I need to state, however, that by inviting you here from home and abroad, we are not trying to develop new leaders. That is not the role I see for you because you are already leaders in your different fields. Indeed, there are many Nigerians in leadership roles, people who are making waves but have not applied their minds to rebuilding the Nigerian dream. Each person in this room can claim to have led successful initiatives in Nigeria but what I see missing is collective ownership, that is why we must all join hands together.
“We have a high concentration of Nigerians in leadership positions in the Diaspora, and my own role is really to awaken them, to mobilise them to come together and help fix our broken dream. But as I speak to those of you in the Diaspora now, there are many people in Nigeria who see you as mere ‘Andrews’ who ran away from the problems at home and I have actually come across many Nigerians abroad who speak of their country in the second person, that is not the kind of attitude we should encourage.
I believe it is time we brought together Nigerians who in their own little ways are making efforts so that through common ownership, we can rebuild our society. That is the genesis of my involvement in this project. Ownership is an abstract thing, but it is one thing you must have to be effective in any project. All of you in this room are much younger than me and if you think my generation brutalised Nigeria and that we are responsible for your problems today, it is okay. But you must also realise one thing, my generation does not own tomorrow, it is your generation that owns tomorrow. What should therefore preoccupy your minds is how to fix Nigeria rather than waste your time on blaming and condemning who broke it.”
With that, Kolade set the tone for the conversations about Nigeria that lasted four days. But it was his closing remark that was most profound, especially for our young people in a season like this. I will soon get to it. Meanwhile, some of the recommended publications we were enjoined to read ahead of the seminar and which formed the basis of our four-day interactions were, ‘Nicomachean Ethics and Rhetoric’ by Aristotle, ‘Leviathan’ by Thomas Hobbes, ‘The Paradoxes of Sovereignty’ by Karl Popper, and ‘The Muqaddimah’ by Ibn Khaldun. Other recommended books were ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ by Nelson Mandela, ‘Letter to the Earth’ by Mark Twain, ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’ by Leo Tolstoy, ‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘No Longer At Ease’ by Chinua Achebe, ‘Capitalism and Freedom’ by Milton Friedman, ‘The Social Contract’ by John Jacques Rousseau, ‘The Communist Manifesto’ by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, ‘Equality and Efficiency: The Big Trade-off’ by Arthur Okun, ‘The Merit of Agriculture’ by Thomas Jefferson, ‘In Our Postmodern World’ by Vaclav Havel, ‘A Search for Self-Transcendence; Business and the Good Society’ by James O’Toole, ‘The Prince’ by Niccolo Machiavelli and, of course, my favourite, ‘Shooting an Elephant’ by George Orwell.
The conversations that followed were revealing as participants shared diverse life experiences. But what made the sessions most insightful was that at every point during the programme, Kolade made interjections to remind us of why we were there, while also reinforcing the argument that what has been lacking in Nigeria is collective ownership. After the sessions, he hosted us to a dinner at his official residence in London. And then he gave this final message:
“What this gathering reminds me of is the Biblical story of Nehemiah who, while sojourning in Babylon, had to go and rebuild the broken walls of Jerusalem. Many of you are today in foreign lands but Nehemiah’s case was even worse because he was carried into captivity. Yet he volunteered to build the broken walls of his people. How did he do it? He prayed, he fasted, and he acted; after assessing the situation. And he adopted a strategy. For Nigeria, you need to do a Nehemiah which means you have to combine strength with talent because it will not be easy.”
At this point, Kolade paused, perhaps for the effect of what he would say next to sink in:
“As you go out of here with enthusiasm in your desire to help your country, I must warn you of one thing, so you would not go with any illusion: the Nigerian terrain can kill the soul. That means you must be prepared for disappointments.”
From that pioneer session in January 2006, there have been many other cohorts. In fact, the following class of Senior Fellows included former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, Prof Muhammed Ali Pate (current Coordinating Minister of Health), Mr Taiwo Oyedele, Dr Okey Enelamah, Mr Moyo Ajekigbe, Dr Titi Banjoko, Mallam Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim, Senator Udo Udoma, Mrs Maryam Uwais, Mr John Momoh, Dr Reuben Abati, Dr (Mrs) Sarah Alade, Prof Chidi Odinkalu, Prof Tunji Olaopa, Mr A.B. Mahmoud, SAN, Prof. Tayo Adeleke, Mr Gbenga Oyebode, Mr Folusho Philips, Mr Gbolade Oshibodu, Mrs. Clare Omatseye, Mrs Funke Opeke, Mrs Sola David-Borha, Ms. Hauwa Magoro, Mr. Tajudeen Ahmed, Mr. Fela Durotoye, Mr. Aminu Umar-Sadiq and Dr. Tunde Ajia. Several other distinguished Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora have also, at different times, attended the NLI seminars.
In all these years, the late Kolade has been a father figure for the idea that was designed to instill in leaders and aspiring leaders (in both the public and private secrets) the right values and the impetus to create in Nigeria the good society. Through the NLI, according to Aganga, Kolade’s mentorship “has reached over 400 Senior Fellows, Fellows, and Associates across all public, corporate, and non-profit sectors, with a global reach.” And at every session, he always encouraged participants to reimagine the values that shape our country and what each person could contribute to its peace and prosperity.
Without any doubt, the late Kolade was a great Nigerian patriot who loved and served his country to the very end. May God comfort the family he left behind.
• You can follow me on my Twitter handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com
