Published on 09/10/2007

Abuja as a capital is an ideal place for the North in all sense of the word. They figured out that if another civil war starts, a military Head of state from the North would have more than enough time at his disposal to quickly relocate to a military base in Kaduna or any other city in the North...

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"Economy is the science of getting the maximum from life."
Garry Becker. Nobel laureate in economics 1992.

"Minds are like parachutes, they work best when opened."
Lord Thomas Dewar.

"The Yes-man is the enemy; your best friend will argue with you and even fight with you."
Aleksandr Soltzenitsyn. (Russian Nobel laureate in literature)

"...The Siloviki's code of honour is much like the Chechen's code of honour - the unconditional protection of their own and the manipulation of others if it is necessary. They save their own but betray and frame agents who are recruited with the help of dirty tricks and money. Considering the current psychology of the Siloviki, who are busy with their own business affairs and tricking or framing others, the concept of "our own" has shrunk to mean one person - oneself. Everybody else falls into this category of "disposable agents." who van be tricked, framed or discarded. Today there is no such thing as 'our own’ people. The concept of 'our own' has relevance only for Swiss bank accounts, and everything else is expendable. The vermin think only about making a lot of money and don't care about great Russia, the power and influence of which they measure in direct proportion to the quantity of money stashed away in their private accounts ..."

Yulia Latynina. Famous Russian political analyst.
Excerpt of column titled "Protecting our own."

*Silovili is a Russian word collectively used for officers of the Russian KGB
and Military. (Commentary by me)

**Chechens are a minority ethnic group in Russia. This region, very rich in oil has fought two fierce civil wars with the Russian army within the past 10 years in order to break away from Russia. (Commentary by me)

"Imagine a situation in which a good acquaintance - but not a close friend - suggests that you start a joint venture that requires you to invest all your savings. If you hesitate, he whips out a revolver and threatens to shoot your close relatives. This is how Russia's most recent suggestion for co-operation with the United States on a joint anti-ballistic missile defense system comes across. But the main point is that if the United States were to accept the Russian offer, it would have to entirely reject its present strategy of intercepting enemy warheads in space using missiles with a range of more than 2000 kilometers. In addition, the joint project would mean that the billions of dollars that the United States had already spent on its unilateral anti-system would be for naught. The other problematic aspect of Russia's proposal is that it would require an unusually high level of trust in each other to make this new relationship work. And Russia has done everything in its power to undermine this trust. A case in point: Ivanov has promised that if the United States does not cancel its plans to place a radar in the Czech Republic and elements of anti-missile batteries in Poland, Russia will deploy Iskander rockets in Kaliningrad aimed at U.S. installations in Europe. If Russia deploys these weapons, it will violate the terms of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. This in turn could lead to a new stand off with Europe. On the surface, Moscow has offered to create a joint global anti-missile system that would significantly improve U.S.-Russian relations. But Moscow has threatened a new military stand-off if Washington refuses its proposal anf if it develops its anti-missile system in Europe. Thus, Moscow has proposed an absolutely meaningless and unrealistic initiative that will only distract and irritate Washington at a time when the Kremlin is frantically looking for U.S. support for Putin's successor."

Alexander Golts. Columnist on Defense issues for Moscow's English language newspaper.
excerpt from recently published column titled; "An Anti-Missile Proposal Doomed to Fail."

ABUJA: AN IDEAL CAPITAL FOR THE NORTH.

Abuja as a capital is an ideal place for the North in all sense of the word. They figured out that if another civil war starts, a military Head of state from the North would have more than enough time at his disposal to quickly relocate to a military base in Kaduna or any other city in the North, from where a well planned attack or defense could be launched and co-ordinated. Moreover, incase of another civil war, the enemy would have to cross the River Niger or/and Benue which makes his task much more difficult. The fact that the new capital is located in Abuja gives any Northern military Head of state a psychological and military advantage. They won't feel "vulnerable" again. No wonder after the failed Okar coup where he announced the secession of the South from the North, Babangida quickly relocated to Abuja. Thus, the decision to relocate the capital to Abuja provided much more security to a Northern Head of state, in case of a civil war, but makes a non-Northern Nigerian President very vulnerable, and as our analysis has shown, does not make the President of Nigeria safer in anyway should a war breaks out between Nigeria and a foreign country.

DILEMMA: HOW TO SELL THE ABUJA PROJECT TO NIGERIANS

Having agreed on Abuja as the new capital of

Nigeria

, the Northern Military officers had a formidable problem before them to tackle in order to realise their objective. How would they sell this idea or project to Nigerians, most especially non-Northerners, in order not to raise any suspicion? Although, it was a military regime, nevertheless, they couldn't just say outright that the capital would be relocated to the North just like that without any cogent reason. More so, since the former capital, Lagos, was regarded as a Yoruba territory, and the Yorubas were on the federal government side during the civil war, they needed to be careful and diplomatic about how they go about it.

The Northern military officers also could not just announce that the new capital would be relocated in any of the already existing major Northern cities like Kano, Kaduna, Zaria, Sokoto e.t.c. That would definitely raise suspicion too. They needed a more civilised or refined way of selling the idea. The first step in selling the idea of a new capital was discrediting or representing Lagos as an unsuitable city for

Nigeria

's capital because of his closeness to the ocean. Other flimsy excuses like congestion and equal access to all Nigerians were added for solidity and hide the 'real' motive. However, the biggest trick that was played on Nigerians by the Northern military officers was the "equal accessibility" of a new capital to all Nigerians! They sold it to us well and we swallowed it completely!

I am sure if you are objective and follow my analysis with an "open mind," by now, you should be convinced beyond any reasonable doubts that the "hidden motive" for relocating Nigeria's capital from Lagos to Abuja was not because the Northern military officers really cared about the security of

Nigeria

and Nigerians. The capital was relocated to the North for their own "personal security" and other "strategic" economic and political reasons which include the following:

(1) To have a "complete control" of political events in the country;

(2) To "enforce" the "artificial" and "non-existing" unity of the country, by tying the South to Abuja, thus making the possibility of breaking up the country much more difficult;

(3) Incase Nigeria eventually breaks up, they already have a modern capital of their own completely at their disposal, completely built with the Niger delta money.

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LET'S COMPROMISE AND MEET "IN THE MIDDLE" TACTICS/TRICK

The choice of Abuja as the new capital of Nigeria reminds me of one of several manipulations in negotiations called "Let's compromise and meet in the middle." This is how it works:

Imagine a very rich seller asking for $200,000 for his house, whose market price was between $185,000 and $195,000. The buyer was also well aware of the market price of the house but unfortunately, his reserved price i.e. the maximum price he could afford to pay for the price was just $170,000. However, the buyer instead of asking the seller for a discount with a promise to pay the balance later, decided to be unreasonable and asked the seller to sell the house for him for $100,000. The seller, of course expressed his surprise and refused flatly to sell his house for that price. The buyer, instead of offering a reasonable price, decided to do a "price manipulation." After doing some head scratching, he asked the seller to let him have the house for $105,000. The seller again refused. The buyer then increased his price to $110,000. The seller pointed out to the buyer that he was not being reasonable with his offer because the market price for his house was $195,000.

The buyer realising that he was not making any headway, decided to play a trick on the seller. He told the buyer "Okay Mr. S, let's reach a compromise. Let's meet in the middle. Let's add our two prices ($110,000+$195,000) together and divide it by 2." The seller got hold of his calculator, did the calculation and arrived at $152,500 which was $17,500 less than the buyer's reserved price of $170,000 but was still $42,500 far short of the seller's selling price of $195,000. When the seller pointed out to him that his new price was still $42,500 short of his asking price. The buyer told him that he had in actual fact increased his offer substantially from $100,000 to $152,000 which was 50% more than his first offer. But the seller did not bulge. Then the buyer told him that he should not be greedy and reminded him that after all he was his neighbour and moreover, the buyer was a very rich man with uncountable number of houses. He quickly added that selling "just this one house" to him from his numerous houses would in no way make him poorer in any case because the $42,500 difference was nothing to him (the seller.) Furthermore, he complained to the seller that this was the "only" chance for him to ever buy a house in his life, and if he missed the opportunity, his children will become destitute. The seller looked very angrily and with pity at the buyer and said in a harsh voice: "Okay let's compromise, bring the $152,500." The buyer thanked the seller and quickly wrote a check of $152,500 for the seller.

A LOSS-WIN TRANSACTION FOR MR. S.

Now, let us analyse this transaction objectively. In this transaction, the buyer saved at least $32,500 (if we assume that the lowest market price for the house was $185,000) while the seller, unfortunately lost at least $32,500 in the same transaction. In other words, it was a WIN-LOSS transaction and not a WIN-WIN transaction which all parties in any business transaction must strive towards.

The buyer was able to secure the deal because he played the "Let's compromise and meet at the middle" trick on the seller and made the seller to have unnecessary and unjustified "guilty conscience."

Unfortunately, the seller allowed himself to be manipulated by the buyer. What would you had advised the seller to do in this situation? The seller should had "neutralised" the arguments of the buyer by telling him that it was not a must that he should buy that particular house and since $152,500 was the highest amount he could afford, he (the buyer) would do better to look for another house within that price range elsewhere while he (the seller) in turn would do better by looking for another buyer that could afford to pay the market price of his house. In addition, in reply to the buyer's statement about his uncountable number of houses, he should had told him that the number of his houses should not be the issue in the deal and that since he was a business man, therefore, he was selling his house to make a profit and not for the sake of philanthropy. The seller should not had given in to the blackmail of the buyer.

This example above illustrated exactly what happened between the North and the South. The North, in this case was the poor buyer while the South was the very rich seller. The North successfully played the "Let's compromise and establish our new capital in the middle "for the sake of peace, fairness and unity'" trick on the South, knowing very well that the middle, no matter how it was calculated, would definitely be in the North since the north had a larger, but predominantly dessert and impoverished landmass compared to the very rich land in the south. The North used "emotional and demagogic" arguments to lure the South into a very costly and unnecessary project which was financed "completely" by the oil in the Niger Delta.

The insecurity of Lagos as a capital, because of its closeness to the ocean, was exaggerated by the North in order to make it (Lagos) unsuitable for a capital. When the issue of the enormous investments needed to build a new capital from scratch was raised by the South, the North assured us that we, i.e. Nigeria (in this case the South) had more than enough resources to finance the project. The huge investments needed to build Abuja was purposely underplayed. This should not surprise us. After all, Gowon, during his 9 year stagnant and visionless reign, said many times that "

Nigeria

's problem was not money, but how to spend it." Unfortunately, some Southerners who naively believed in in the "fake, artificial and non-existing unity" of the country fell for this mischievous plot not knowing that they were being manipulated. Other Southerners were bought over with a piece of the action (Abuja contracts)

Thus, the decision to relocate the capital from Lagos to Abuja was in favour of the North alone, in all sense of the word, but cost the South, especially the South-South (the Niger deltans) and South-East billions of dollars that should had been committed into the development of their land. Abuja was a very BIG WIN for the North but a very BIG LOSS to the South, most especially the owners of the resources that was used to finance this elephant project.

PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE

As I have said before, building a new capital from scratch is a very, very expensive expenditure even for very rich countries. There was virtually no need for Abuja. The country could have still got along with Lagos quiet well. The decision to build Abuja was a "totally" wrong, unjustified and very costly economic decision for a developing country like Nigeria that could not boast of stable electricity; water supply; adequate and functioning infrastructures; reliable and well-funded educational system; efficient and affordable health care services; adequate pension programs, even up till now. These are what ought to had been tackled first. Then, invest heavily in industries, agriculture and information technology in particular. These would had served as an impulse or locomotive that would had driven the economy to great heights. Abuja shouldn’t had been the priority.

FISCAL POLICY: AIM NOT ACHIEVED

There are cases in economic development when large government spending helps to boost the economy. But it was not the case with Abuja and Nigeria. Why? Because virtually all the construction and supply contracts to build Abuja were heavily inflated, imported and last but not the least, they were carried out by foreign companies. So, instead of the contracts creating jobs for Nigerians and boosting our economy, it was the negative effect that we got because the money spent on these projects did not circulate in our economy but were received by foreign banks. Thus, it was a double loss for the South.

TO BE CONTINUED…