Prof. Usman Yusuf is the former executive secretary, National Health Insurance Scheme. In this interview, he talks about developments in Niger republic and how they are impacting neighboring Nigeria.

A window for opportunity for dialogue has been opened with Islamic clerics moving over. Where government efforts are not yielding fruits, do private efforts appear to be indeed paving the way for peaceful resolution?

This window has always been there, it’s just that this government did not explore this window before going the military way; this window has always been there. There is a reason, you never start any negotiation with threats.

The threats have been passed before?

Absolutely, So ECOWAS dropped their last plan on the table, putting threats and saying, “if you don’t do this, we will do this, if you don’t do this, we will do this, then you say let’s talk? No, that’s exactly what is giving them legitimacy in Niger, when they come in to attack us and people are rallying round, even those that did not like him, they are rallying round. So, this clearly shows the inexperience of our president as the chairman of ECOWAS; you do not bring violence upfront, there are lots of avenues and we have seen that.

The ECOWAS, what do you think they should have done, you said that negotiation should have been first, to invite the hunter or send a delegation.

Exactly what the elders in the North are saying because we know the people in Niger, they are our people, they are Zaburumas, they are Hausas, they are Kanuris, they are Fulanis; 53 percent of Nigerieans are Hausas, we have shared not only borders, 7 states in the North share borders with them; 5 out of the 7 northwestern states share borders with them, and Borno and Yobe too. We share heritages of language; we inter marry, we have religions same and all of a sudden both will go to fight them? Of all African nations, Niger has been the most steadfast ally of Nigeria, from the time in memory. Division of that border is just artificial.

In what ways have they aligned with Nigeria?

During the civil war, Gabon and Cote d’ Voire, the same Cote d’ Voire that is pushing to go into Niger, were against Nigeria. France, this same France we were fighting for in Niger were against Nigeria, and there was a treaty 60 years old, between Nigeria and Niger, that Niger should not damp River Niger upstream and in exchange, Nigeria will supply Niger with electricity and it has been cut off, as part of the sanctions, it’s wrong. The president of the federal republic of Nigeria cut the treaty unilaterally without consulting the national assembly. He didn’t have the right and the power to do that; he did that on behalf of ECOWAS. I have said before that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, you are now the president of ECOWAS.

He is the chairman of the summit of heads of states, he’s expected to provide leadership.

Leadership to Nigeria first, his primary responsibility; his primary constituency is Nigeria and Nigerians. Whatever is good for Nigeria should be what is put to the table.

So sometimes I think that perhaps what President Tinubu and ECOWAS are doing is some form of game of brinkmanship, push them to the limit, let the war exercise start, let the troop deployment start, he may not intentionally mean it, so as to force a response.

It’s absolutely wrong, this is what we call blaster, you don’t start a negotiation as a responsible leader and a responsible nation like Nigeria that way. “If you don’t do this, I’ll do this”.

They have joined issues with Nigeria, they have provided support intelligence and they have provided the sale of the Tucano jets.

Don’t talk to me about Tucano, Tucano is another big issue that we shouldn’t be talking about; they provided intelligence; in Agadas, United States has over 1,100 soldiers there, one of the largest drone bases, they are looking over you, maybe they are seeing what we are doing now, they are looking all over the Sahel, or have they ever provided intelligence to Nigeria, our Boko haram, where those Chibok girls are? Those bandits and their movement? They knew. Because one time they came with their helicopter and devastated a band of terrorists and picked one of their hostages and left, and now all of a sudden, they are telling us intelligence. Where have they been all this time?

I am saying it again and again and again, President Bola Ahmed should be very careful and not take us into this Niger, or it is going to be a proxy war between Russia and NATO and it’s going to be bad news for us; we Nigeria, we cannot go to Niger and forcefully, well the people that conducted that coup against Bazoum and his brigade of guards, so we are going to kill all the brigade of guards and pull Bazoum and be there forever.

Now that we have the window as the Islamic clerics for the first time, forcing that commitment from the military coupists to begin negotiations, how do we take advantage of it- ECOWAS, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the chairman

First thing, I said is take that threat of violence off the table, that window has always been there, all he needed was to call people within the North, please go through this channel; he should have done all these consultations before even convening ECOWAS meeting and at the ECOWAS meeting, he will present Nigeria’s position. Nigeria is the biggest power in ECOWAS and it will dictate the narrative, when you go and say when Americans are edging you, go and fight, and you place that on the table, everybody else will accept; well now Ghanaians are saying ”no way”, you’re not coming with us. It’s only Cote d’ Voire that is committing troops and we don’t have the troops for goodness sake, where are you going to get the troops in Nigeria?

Each of the 6 geo-political zones in Nigeria is on fire, you cannot pull troops out of the North west, neither can you pull troops out of the North east, the North central or the South east or the South-South. Where are you going to pull the troops from? South west, the number would be minuscule, where are the troops. And Nigeria is essentially broke, Nigeria is borrowing money to pay salaries, how are you going to fund this. My worry is that the United States or NATO would come and say “we will give you logistics, we will give you air cover, we will give you drone cover, we will give you funding to go and do their Business.” That’s why we are raising our voices, we are not going to allow that, I’ve said it again and again, any war against Niger is essentially waging war against northern Nigeria because we will bear the brunt of this.

Should ECOWAS come in directly or should they encourage the Islamic clerics and use them to further strengthen this opportunity?

It’s not even ECOWAS, its President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his advisers. He’s been poorly advised.

So, should we discard the use of ECOWAS?

Oh yeah ECOWAS, we can do this, thank you very much, drink tea, go home, lets handle this. We are taking care of this.

What should be our minimum demand from the couples? Is it to restore Bazoum?

You cannot enforce that, you had better be able to make good on any threat you make, if you make a threat and you can’t make good on that, you look weak. The Americans say we’ll do this here, they have the capacity to do it. Let’s not be edged to doing America’s bidding. There are a lot of ways to do that, just like we did. What we expect them to do is -take that threat of violence off the table, ease the sanctions. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, you turned off that light, the switch, on a treaty that has been there. Unilaterally, put it back, what this is showing is goodwill, the best we can get is to pressure the junta to come up with a transition timetable as soon as possible, to ease out and allow democratic process to run.

A transition timetable even before previous military governments in Nigeria kept shifting till they perpetrated themselves in office

With the pressure of everybody else, it has been done before. President Obasanjo did it. Before you go even to ECOWAS, here you are, a president who’s barely 9 weeks old, he just recently moved into the villa, he has not even unpacked his bags, he wants to go to war, he doesn’t even have his team; the only people he has are his advisers and the Service chiefs, the Service chiefs have not even got their feet wet. They haven’t even found out what’s wrong in their places and how to make assessment and you’re taking the nation to war.

He has said it is ECOWAS that is taking the action and not himself.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is sitting on that table because he’s the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, without that, he wouldn’t be there. He is responsible as the leader to say “I am going there, wherever you are” ECOWAS, United Nations, AU, you are there to protect the interest of Nigeria.

Should we as good neighbours spanning several decades, try to resolve this matter and engage them bilaterally, rather than multilaterally using ECOWAS; Should the president have said ”let me speak to the coupists directly, Niger republic, bilateral relations framework, ” should that have been an option?

What this is showing exactly is the inexperience of the government in the international scene. What this Niger crisis shows is that he shoots before asking questions. There has been a precedent, a history of Niger going into the coup and even killing a president and Nigeria coming in. Even in 2000, during President Obasanjo’s reign, in 1999, President Manaisara  was shot at the airport, there was a coup. President Obasanjo was just one year old.

ECOWAS did all the meetings and what happened. They said President Obasanjo, because he’s experienced and he had his cabinet, the minister of Foreign affairs was Sule Lamido. They went through the back door and continued negotiations, what happened was that eventually when he was moved from power, there was a transition and Mohammed Tanja became the president.

[Sun]

The attention of the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN) has been drawn to an article titled “FG ignores 17-year-old concession fee debts, renews terminal leases” published in The Guardian newspaper of Wednesday, August 23, 2023.

STOAN and its members, who are concessionaires at the nation’s seaports, hereby refute the false and libellous publication, which was obviously aimed at tarnishing their image. Clearly, the article was a hatchet job aimed at damaging the hard-earned reputation of port terminal operators and portraying them in bad light in the eyes of the public. The author of the article, in a desperate attempt to do her hatchet job, and unconcerned about the fact that she would mislead the public, did not as much as bother to crosscheck her facts with the terminal operators that she listed in her report or with the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) to which the operators make payments.

It is preposterous for the reporter in question to allege that “while some of the concessionnaires are still owing their concession fees since 2006 up till date, as well as failing to develop the port infrastructure as required of them in the contracts, they have had their various lease agreements renewed after much pressure from certain forces in government mandating the inter-agency committee involved in the renewal processes.” This claim, which was presented in a manner that appeared to be the personal opinion of the writer, was not crosschecked with either the terminal operators in question or the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), which oversees their operation and collects revenues due to the Federal Government. Making such false, unsubstantiated claims does not just fall short of basic journalistic standards; it is also libelous.

STOAN is aware that some retrogressive elements and entrenched interests who profited from the chaos of the pre-concession era are bent on reversing the progress made at the seaports over the past 17 years. These elements have become desperate and are looking for opportunities to tarnish the image of port operators.

We remind the author of the article and the general public that prior to the port reform and attendant port concession exercise of 2006, Nigerian ports were in a chaotic state due to the high rate of inefficiency that characterized cargo handling operations. Ships waited for more than 30 days to find berthing space while consignees struggled to get their goods out of the port due to severe port congestion and lack of cargo handling equipment. Corruption was rife at the port as consignees had to bribe port officials to position their cargoes for Customs examination or load containers on trucks.

The ports were also very porous. Vandalisation of containers and imported vehicles, ‘flying of containers’ (meaning illegally taking containers that were not duly released by Customs out of the port), ‘machine outside’ (the forgery of Terminal Delivery Orders and Customs release documents at business centres around the ports) and several other criminal activities were the order of the day. Miscreants popularly known as wharf rats were the lords of the port. Dockworkers were poorly paid while the labour unions of that era ruled with fear. Union officials of the pre-port concession era detained ships and willfully paralysed port activities at the slightest provocation without regards for the economic implications of such actions.

But all of that has changed, thanks to the bold move of the Federal Government to reform and concession the ports in 2006. The port concession transferred cargo handling operations from NPA to professional private terminal operators, who won lease agreements ranging from 15 to 25 years. NPA remained the landlord and technical regulator of the port and provider of marine services.
Seventeen years into the port concession exercise, there is a general consensus that the exercise has fully delivered on its promises. The landlord model of port concession adopted by the
Federal Government has freed the government of the financial burden required to develop and operate the ports. This burden has been transferred to the private terminal operators also known as concessionaires. In addition to not spending money to develop the ports, the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Ports Authority, now realizes much more revenue through the ports.

For the avoidance of doubts, private terminal operators have invested more than two billion US dollars in port development over the past few years. This amount is far above the amount spent by the Federal Government in developing the ports in the 30 years prior to 2006. Also, the annual income of government through the ports has grown exponentially from less than one billion dollars to as much as $6.54 billion annually realized through the payments to NPA, Customs, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and other agencies of government. Where would this increased revenue have come from if terminal operators were not meeting their obligation as falsely alleged by The Guardian?

A recent study conducted by Akintola Williams Deloitte titled ‘Public Private Partnership (PPP) as an Anchor for Diversifying the Nigeria Economy: Lagos Container Terminals Concession as a Case Study’, affirmed that the ports witnessed increased ship traffic and cargo throughput, leading to 400 per cent rise in container throughput from 400,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2006 to 1.6 million TEUs in 2014.

The report also affirmed the eradication of ship waiting time at the port, as ships now berth on arrival. Vessel turnaround time has also been reduced from 30 days to less than a day while the average dwell time for cargo clearance reduced drastically from over 30 days to 14 days.

The ports concession, according to the Deloitte report, also saved Nigerian importers and exporters about $800 million (N400 billion) annually, which, hitherto, was paid to shipping companies as congestion surcharge. Also, through improved security and lighting of the terminals, the ports are now better secured for cargo and safe for port workers.

The port concession exercise has also created more jobs and led to better welfare and remuneration of port workers, including dockworkers who were shortchanged under the old order. This much was confirmed by the President-General of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN), Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, when he commended the Federal Government for concessioning the ports to private terminal operators, saying the exercise has impacted positively on the lives of port workers.
Adeyanju said prior to the port concession in 2006, the wages of dockworkers were nothing to write home about.

“The era of using dockworkers as slaves in their fatherland no longer exists. We want to thank the Federal Government for concessioning the ports because that reform has changed the lives of dockworkers all over the nation’s seaports.

“Before concessioning, the wages of dockworkers was nothing to write home about. In those days, an average dockworker that worked for eights hours a day would go home with four thousand naira at the end of the month. We used to have stevedoring contractors but they did not care about the welfare of the workers. Some of the stevedoring contractors even ran away with the pensions of dockworkers.

“But since the terminal operators came in, we have seen the difference between the stevedoring contractors of those days and the terminal operators of today. We have been enjoying the present arrangement. My happiness today is to see dockworkers retire back home with something reasonable as retirement benefit,” Adeyanju said during the signing of a new three-year Collective

Bargaining Agreement by members of the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN) and the union in March 2021.

The Chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), Princess Vicky Haastrup, who led other concessionaires to sign the Collective Bargaining Agreement, also corroborated Adeyanju’s position. She noted that terminal operators have ensured industrial harmony at the seaports by prioritising the welfare of dockworkers.

The gains of Nigeria’s port concession exercise are not in doubt as the exercise has received several commendations from home and abroad. The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), former Ministers of Transport, lawmakers and many other high-ranking officials have all commended the port concession exercise, which has brought tremendous benefits to the Nigeria economy. The numerous accolades for port concession would not have come without the huge investment made by terminal operators and the harmonious working relationship between NPA and the operators. The renewal of expired port concession agreements is, therefore, hinged on the sterling performance of the terminal operators and the desire of concessionaires to inject fresh funds into the ports. It has nothing to do with political patronage as mischievously stated in the Guardian article.

The writer of the Guardian article further exposed her ignorance and mischief by alluding to the repair of quay aprons at the port. For the avoidance of doubt, the provision of marine services and repair of quay aprons rest with the NPA and not terminal operators. The reporter would have been given the correct information if she had bothered to contact the right sources.

A former General Manager Public Affairs of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Chief Christopher Abiodun Borha, who played a key role as the spokesman of NPA during the port concession exercise, captured the sentiments of the port community about the exercise thus: “Not only was the port concession excellent, it should serve as a guide and it has served as a guide for ports development.”

According to Borha, the purpose of Nigeria’s port concession “has been achieved 100 per cent”.
We, therefore, caution journalists and media organisations to crosscheck their information with all concerned parties before publishing articles that make unsubstantiated claims and damage the reputation of port investors.

It is our expectation that The Guardian will give the same prominence to this rejoinder as it gave the malicious and fictitious publication in question.

[Guardian]