The week ahead – What a wishlist

The U.S. military on Tuesday called on Nigeria to conduct an independent investigation of allegations in a Reuters report that the Nigerian Army killed children in its fight against insurgents. “The Department of Defense is concerned by the allegations reported in the Reuters article, and we join our colleagues from the State Department in urging the Government of Nigeria to conduct an independent investigation,” a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement. Reuters’s report was based on the accounts of more than 40 soldiers and civilians who claimed to have witnessed the Nigerian military kill children or seen children’s corpses after a military operation. The report estimated that thousands of children were killed by the Army and added that six of the incidents were investigated in which at least 60 died. One of the victims claimed that her children were killed because they belonged to terrorists. In an earlier report, Reuters had accused the Nigerian Army of running a secret abortion programme on female victims of terrorists, adding that no fewer than 10,000 pregnancies had been terminated since at least 2013. The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Nigerian authorities to investigate the allegations. Abuja has called the news organisation malicious and described the allegations as fake news. Speaking at an event on Monday, the Information and Culture Minister Lai Mohammed said Reuters had made such allegations “without a scintilla of evidence.” “We state categorically that this story is a scary instance of fake news and disinformation combined. The writers deserve an award in fiction writing,” he added.

Allegations of human rights abuses against the Nigerian military in general, and especially the Nigerian Army in its prosecution of the war against terrorism in the North-East, have abounded for years. In 2015, an Amnesty International report detailed arbitrary killings by the army in the North-East. Expectedly, the military denied the allegations, accusing Amnesty International of waging a campaign of calumny against it and Nigeria as a whole in what has become a patented boilerplate response. Although the federal government promised to investigate the allegations, nothing has come out of the investigations. Without wasting ink on the US’ hue and cry, there is little doubt that forced abortions will be investigated, and even if it is, its findings will not be released. For all of the stick, it gets for its badly-diminished state capacity, the military’s ability to sustain that operation for nearly a decade is too profound and painstaking a job for it to indict itself. This is not without precedent. Several state-backed atrocities carried out by the military have either not been investigated or were investigated, and their findings buried “in the public interest”. The one exception was the Lekki Massacre, and this was because of the global spotlight of the #EndSARS protests, which meant that the massacre was filmed live and watched by thousands. The military’s denial of the existence of the abortion programme is symbolic. For a very conservative institution like the military, which enjoys government support, it effectively considers its statement on the matter the end of any concern about its actions–a stance the Buhari administration is likely to support. The slight difference, in this case, is that the US military’s comment might signal a shift in American policy towards Nigeria with regard to military cooperation and weapons sales. It is debatable, however, if this will impact Nigeria as it could push the country into partnering with competing interests such as Türkiye and Russia in terms of cooperation or purchase of weapons from non-Western countries. In other matters, however, it is seen as trying to improve its image, especially on issues regarding the prosecution of Boko Haram suspects. Nigeria’s Attorney-General Abubakar Malami says the FG will soon resume the mass prosecution of Boko Haram suspects held in selected military formations, citing federal funds approval as the reason for movement on this issue. In 2017, the government commenced a trial for persons suspected to be Boko Haram insurgents, with the proceedings taking place at a military base in Niger State. At the time, the United Nations had raised concerns about human rights issues in relation to the suspects. During the trial between 2017 and 2018, more than 100 people were convicted, and several others were discharged on the grounds of no-case submissions. This is a more cost-effective way of reducing the burden of care on the military, and it may later realise the worth of the democratic process over quick fixes. Wars, especially of the asymmetric nature that the Boko Haram insurgency has been, are not won simply by force but also must include a hearts and minds element. When civilians compare their treatment under the insurgents and the Nigerian state, and it appears that the former is more transparent and fair, even if they were the source of the violence, the insurgents might gain the upper hand in their hearts and minds war. Based on that premise, we urge the Nigerian government to carry out its own transparent and independent investigation and be seen to punish culprits, no matter how high up, to engender justice and trust.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, plans to set up voting centres for over two million Internally Displaced Persons across the country in the lead-up to the 2023 elections. The voting centres will be sited in IDP camps. According to the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, many IDPs live in Borno, Zamfara, Benue, Nasarawa and 23 other states. The Ministry officials put the figure at 3.2 million people, including children and infants. The Chairman of the Board of Survey and Technical Committee on Equipment Acquisition at INEC, Mohammed Haruna told the Punch last week that the commission was setting up voting centres for the displaced persons to ensure that no one was disenfranchised in 2023. Haruna added that with the spread of insecurity across the country, INEC would conduct elections in IDP camps where they still exist but would adopt a different approach for the internally displaced persons living in communities. According to analysts, the number of eligible IDP voters may be less than two million.

In the lead-up to the 2019 elections, INEC developed a framework on voting by IDPs as a guide for conducting voting operations in impacted communities to drive inclusion. A set of regulations and guidelines accompanied the framework. This “special voting regime” and procedure was established to target 930,000 internally displaced persons in the North-East and other victims of natural disasters, insecurity, land disputes and other emergencies across 15 of Nigeria’s 36 states. Fast forward to now, and the number of IDPs has increased to about 3.2 million – a statement on the current government’s track record on security – although observers say eligible voters within this pool may be less than two million. While INEC has recently been strict on its adherence to the provisions of the Electoral Act, the Frameworks and Regulations/Guidelines for IDP voting raise important legal issues with regard to the electoral law that makes it mandatory for registered voters to cast their votes in the locations where they registered. Those issues have not been adequately addressed by the electoral management body or in the courts. Going further back in time, the reason the Jonathan administration postponed the 2015 general elections by six weeks was to enable the military and allied forces to liberate towns held captive by Boko Haram, who, at the time, controlled large swathes of the North-East. That six-week offensive ensured not only the resettling of some refugees in communities they were displaced from but also the conduct of the elections in many liberated areas. Seven years later, the story has been one of a nearly complete reversal, and there is no bigger rebuttal to the government’s claim that no inch of territory is being controlled by armed groups (with Boko Haram in mind) than INEC’s effort to set up polling units in IDP camps. Beyond the noble plan of getting everyone with a voter’s card to vote, the overarching security concerns will remain, as well as the aforementioned legal concerns about displaced persons voting in elections in places where they are not resident or eligible to vote. INEC faces the unenvious task of balancing legal, emotional and inclusion (ensuring that registered voters are not disenfranchised) considerations for this special class of voters. It is unclear if it will rise to the task.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has raised the number of major oil marketers in Nigeria from seven to 20, as part of measures to tackle the lingering fuel scarcity in the country, the Punch reported. This upgrade, which is the first in over 25 years, has increased the number of major marketers operating in the downstream sector to 27. Before this week, the seven major oil marketers in the country were TotalEnergies, OVH Energy (Oando), MRS, Conoil Plc, Ardova Plc, 11 Plc, and NNPC Retail. With the upgrade to major marketers status, the firms would now get products directly from the NNPC at regulated prices of ₦148/litre. Transport fares in Lagos and its environs rose by more than 100 percent this week as NNPCL and oil marketers battle to find a lasting solution to fuel shortages. A Vanguard report said commercial drivers in the metropolis have completely phased out ₦50 and ₦100 fares, as no distance, no matter how short, is less than ₦200. The Department of State Services last week ordered all “entities” involved in the distribution process to make petrol available to Nigerians at the official rate or face the “wrath of the government.” The security agency and stakeholders in the petrol supply chain arrived at this decision at the end of a strategic meeting at the DSS headquarters in Abuja. The agency’s spokesperson, Peter Afunanya told journalists that it would take steps to deal with elements who try to use artificial fuel scarcity to threaten national security.

Nigerian regulators’ response to the energy crisis is a textbook example of regulatory management that says a lot, does not do much and leaves citizens stranded and suffering. Firstly, the NNPC is the sole importer of particularly petrol in the country due to price regulation of the product, a task it has shouldered for more than four years now because other marketers stopped importing the commodity due to the difficulty in accessing FX. This means that the NNPC bears the cost of the subsidy through a process it tags as under-recovery before whole selling to the major oil marketers either at the ports or its depots. Secondly, the NNPC has about 21 depots, which are meant to store petroleum products, particularly petrol. Still, most are reportedly not functioning, just like Nigeria’s four refineries, which are also under the NNPC’s management. Thirdly, the petrol subsidy is projected to consume ₦4 trillion in 2022, a major cost for a country running a total annual expenditure budget of over ₦17 trillion, with annual earned revenues likely to be under ₦7 trillion. Fourthly, the NNPC continues to shroud the actual daily petrol consumption in mystery. Recently, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) stated that Nigeria consumes 66.8 million litres of petrol daily. In contrast, the Nigeria Customs Service accused the NNPC of releasing 98 million litres daily. Adding all these to the fact that the NNPC failed to remit any funds to the federation account for the last nine months suggests that the NNPC is just a front being used by its officials, masters and partners to swindle and maim the very Nigerians it was created to serve. It is a multiple whammy of cause and effect, with mismanagement and crony capitalism serving as its ground zero. In keeping with Nigeria simply doing things in a very Nigerian way, the DSS, whose primary responsibility is to gather civilian intelligence in the shadows, have responded with the threat of coercion. The DSS’s interest in the availability of petrol cannot be divorced from its fears of popular unrest that nagging petrol scarcity can cause, especially in the festive season. Like every other security agency, the DSS exists primarily as a regime security preservation tool and sees any public dissent, no matter how unrelated, as a direct threat to the President and reacts in such a manner. In its intervention in the fuel crisis, such concerns about civil unrest are not a headache the DSS and its friends cannot handle, given their track record of clamping down heavily on protest movements. However, like every other agency, it prefers appearance over substance and the appearance of doing something to help the situation may help it with plaudits where it expects, but it will not magically improve the quality of Nigeria’s storage capacity, nor will it end the endemic scarcity. OPEC said in its oil market report for November that the NNPC produced 1.186 million barrels per day of oil in November, an increase of 171,000 barrels per day. This is reflected in the daily petroleum stock figures the company has posted lately. As of 11 December, the company had a closing stock of over 663 million litres of petrol on land, which amounts to a daily sufficiency of 11 days at the semi-artificially determined daily consumption of 66-odd millions used in the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper for 2022-2024. This is four days higher than the 489 million closing stock it had on land as of 27 November. It is why the company had the confidence to increase its marketers and depot supply chain and offer to clear the backlog of demands owed to members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN). One of the most popular bragging rights of the Buhari administration is its “ability” to “save Christmas” by ensuring a rancour-free year-end celebration, a shift away from traditional year-end festivities that were often accompanied by fuel scarcity. This solution to the now nearly year-long fuel scarcity is the classic Nigerian one – rather than deal with the fundamental issue of price control through an unsustainable subsidy regime, and it has instead tried to increase the number of people who have direct access to the subsidy patronage in the hope that this will improve supply. But the problem will not go away – Nigeria cannot afford the ballooning subsidy bill, and it must either raise fuel prices or remove the subsidy totally to solve the problem truly. Fuel is still available if people are willing to pay between 70% to 100% above the regulated price. This indicates that the issue is not a supply problem but a pricing one, and it is this pricing problem that should be solved squarely.

U.S. President Joe Biden will announce American support for the African Union’s admission to the G20 group of the world’s largest economies as a permanent member, a White House official said on Friday. Biden will make the announcement when he meets presidents of African countries during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington this week, White House adviser Judd Devermont said. “We need more African voices in international conversations that concern the global economy, democracy and governance, climate change, health, and security,” he added. Devermont said the move comes after requests from African Union Chair and Senegalese President Macky Sall and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. South Africa is the only G20 member from Africa. In August, the United States released a new strategy document for sub-Saharan Africa, stressing the region’s importance and the threats posed by China and Russia and vowing to extend defence cooperation with like-minded African countries. In November, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington would have to do things differently to help Africa with its infrastructure needs, and it was time to stop treating the continent as a subject of geopolitics and rather as a major player on its own.

The Biden administration’s concession to Africa is more symbolic than it is practical. Membership of the G20 is reserved for the world’s 20 biggest economies, and it is hard to see how this can work, especially as South Africa is already a member. Much criticism has trailed US security diplomacy in Africa, which is a successor to the oil politics of the early part of this decade. In preparation for a possible confrontation with its geopolitical rivals in the Far East, America’s pivot to Asia is making it struggle to keep old partners in a rapidly multipolar world. Its advocacy for more African voices “in international conversations that concern the global economy, democracy and governance, climate change, health, and security” will not be actualised by engaging with heads of state in a continent with declining democratic credentials labouring under a raft of coups. The US understands this, but what it understands more is its interests. In December 2018, the Trump White House announced the plan to counter and contain China and Russian influence in Africa – a plan that, for all intents and purposes, included working with dictators to actualise outcomes. The Biden administration has not only refused to back out from that plan, but it has also doubled down in a bid to increasingly isolate China. It has been far from smooth sailing as the more Washington doubles down on its anti-Beijing crusade, the more its allies shudder and, in some cases, even try to play nice with China, as seen in President Xi Jinping’s rather warm reception in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The US-Africa summit, in the final analysis, will not do much to advance the cause of democracy on the continent, and this is not something that the US will expend energy on beyond press releases of condemnations when things go south. The first-ever US-Africa summit in 2014 promised a new era of cross-continent business and investment opportunities. It largely ended in photo opportunities. Eight years on, the world has changed, and Africa has changed with it.