Opinion

Bureaucracy And Niger Delta Development

Published

15 years ago

July 19, 2011

President Goodluck Jonathan would want to leave an enduring legacy by the time he finishes his tenure in 2015. To do this, however, he has to rely on his ministers, aides and a whole gamut of workers in the civil service. Unfortunately, we have a civil service system that is anything but efficient and result-oriented. So, it would not surprise anyone if the president’s transformational agenda is scuttled before it sets sail.

Perhaps, the president anticipates this, and has, therefore, launched a pre-emptive strike. He charged his new ministers to gird their loins for an all-out war against corruption, describing it as a monster that must be confronted and defeated. Surely, that is the way to go, and the president should insist on this tough stance, otherwise he may find his lofty plans and programmes encumbered by a sloppy, sluggish and corruption-ridden bureaucracy. This is not to say that bureaucracy in itself is bad and should be jettisoned. On the contrary, efforts should be made to instill the positive aspects of bureaucracy in our system.

In their book ‘Reinventing Government’, Osborne David and Gaebler Ted said: “It is hard to imagine today, but a hundred years ago, bureaucracy meant something positive. It connoted a rational, efficient method of organization – something to take the place of the arbitrary exercise of power by authoritarian regimes. Bureaucracy brought the same logic to government work that the assembly line brought to the factory. With the hierarchical authority and functional specialization, they made possible the efficient undertaking of large complex tasks”.

Even now, one can still point at some countries where bureaucracy has been put to good use. Here, the good fortunes of some East Asian countries, where bureaucracy played a positive role in the rapid growth of their economies, stand out. Indeed, it could be said that bureaucracy was a key ingredient of their economic .miracle. Many economic experts agree that the four Asian Tigers – Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan – owe their success not only to good visioning but to efficient and well-oiled bureaucracy.

Sadly though, this dramatic turnaround in Asia could not be replicated in many African countries, including Nigeria. Unlike the situation in East Asia, what takes centre-stage in our country is the negative aspect, which highlights the weakness of bureaucracy and this explains the poor development performance of many countries on the continent.

Issues of bureaucratic governance are seen as crucial determinants of the degree to which a country makes social and economic progress or fails to do so. This set of issues has been of concern since the advent of centralized administration, but they have taken on particular significance since the work of Max Weber some hundred years ago. In recent years, there has been increasing evidence that bureaucratic performance is important for development performance.

These days, there have been massive pressures across the world for governments to become leaner, more efficient and bring services closer to the people. In many developing countries, in particular- often as part of structural adjustment programs, there have been pressures to reduce the role of the state in relation to the market and cut the size of the civil service.

The Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC), set up by the President Jonathan and headed by General Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), to audit all Federal Government projects, said in its report that the size of government bureaucracy was unwieldy. The committee decried the high cost of governance and advised the government to prune down the ministries, departments and agencies, for more effective governance. According to the committee, the Federal Government spends about N200 billion annually on the official emoluments of civil servants.

Danjuma said that cutting down on the cost of bureaucracy would free the funds for government to provide needed infrastructure. The committee noted that government has spent N15.6 trillion on public servants alone since 1999

The 2011 budget follows the same pattern as more than N3.2 trillion of the N4.2 trillion estimates was allocated to recurrent expenditure, statutory transfers – which include payments to institutions such as the judiciary – and debt servicing. So, the government is going to spend nearly 75 per cent of the 2011 budget on recurrent expenditure. This leaves less than N1 trillion for capital expenditure. In other words, the country is spending far more on government than on critically needed infrastructure.

If President Jonathan wants to perform in the next four years, he must cut down on the cost of governance and restructure the civil service which runs the government’s bureaucracy. Any critical observer would acknowledge that bureaucracy is being used by civil servants to serve their selfish interests and line their pockets. For us in this country, bureaucracy is more of a drawback than a facilitator as envisaged by Max Weber and other great thinkers.

It is rather unfortunate that, like most other aspects of Nigeria’s national life, the bureaucracy has degenerated over the years. During the First Republic, the civil servants that were inherited from our colonial masters served creditably as veritable agents of socio-economic transformation. That is no longer the case. The notorious Nigerian factor has diluted the bureaucracy to a miserable point where it is now a burden rather than an asset to this country.

No doubt, we have a bloated bureaucracy that is more or less counter-productive. Although it provides employment; most of the people employed are unproductive and idle. The Jonathan administration must check this unsustainable trend and employ people where there are genuine jobs to be done. The case of the Imo State government, where an out-going administration employed 10,000 workers without any job description, paints a sad picture of the rot in the public service across the country.

This point was underlined recently by the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr. Chibuzor Ugwoha. He said: “We know that the commission itself was created to respond to the developmental challenges in the Niger Delta. The idea was to fast track development. And we all know in this country that the bane of our development is bureaucracy. You can never attain high level of development with bureaucracy.”

“You can follow due process and get things done without unnecessary bureaucracy that ensures that before a file comes from one point to another it takes months. No country in the world can develop with that kind of bureaucracy. That is why those who created NDDC called it an interventionist agency. It means that it is supposed to function as a task force. Every task force does not follow bureaucracy. But they will follow due process as stipulated by law,” Ugwoha said

Perhaps, one can say that the NDDC has done relatively better than other agencies of government because it has managed to break loose from the bureaucratic manacles which hinder progress and development. Other stakeholders in the Niger Delta such as the state and local governments must also wean themselves of excessive bureaucracy to be able to deliver good governance to the long-neglected people of Nigeria’s oil basin.

Agbu, a seasoned journalist, lives in Port Harcourt.

Ifeatu Agbu

Opinion

Agony In Ivory Tower

Published

2 hours ago

March 9, 2026

The Tide

Quote: A university that tolerates missing scripts, result manipulation and ‘sorting’ is not merely failing students—it is quietly destroying the moral foundation of education itself.”

The sad cases of missing scripts, compulsory Sorting, inputting of wrong results and other obnoxious practices in some public universities, leave much to be desired. One cannot imagine how a student will be compelled to suffer consequences of the flagrant negligence of a Head of Department, a lecturer, Department staff or an ICT staff.Many academic and non academic staff in several public universities seem to be performing far below standard, thus unproductive to the university system. The unacceptable cases of sorting, missing scripts, missing results, inputting of wrong grades to students, should not be mentioned in a university, not even in any academic community. This is because people who are employed to work in various positions should have cognate work experience and unquestionable competence. They should not be seen as certificate welding illiterates but people who have been proven to be worthy in learning and character, diligent and competent to carry out assigned responsibilities with minimal or no supervision.

The university as a citadel of learning should boast of men of integrity, people who are repositories of applied knowledge and competence to drive the much desired holistic development in a nation that functions on quality teaching and learning. A situation where a student having gone through the crucibles of learning and written a prescribed semester examination or class-based evaluation test, is told that his or her script is missing or that he or she did not participate in that academic exercise, or must sort to pass, is an unpardonable error and a height of callousness. In fact some lecturers and staff of Departments are using the seeming systemic defect (which is their architecture) as an opportunity to extort students. Sometimes it is discovered much to students chagrin that the supposed missing script was later discovered when a ransom was paid.

Since a lecturer, or Head of Department has in their disposal both Yam and the knife and determines who takes what (if they wish to give without strings), students have no alternative but to submit to their importunate demands in order to graduate at record time.Such practices should be unheard of in an institution that should be a vanguard of moral and ethical values and conduct. What people learn in school constitute their behavioural patterns in the society. Where the school as an agency of socialisation cannot drive positive change first in its immediate environment, then the objective of education as a bedrock for the development of society, is inevitably compromised and counter-productive. The German Reformer, Dr. Martins Luther was quoted as saying, “I advise parents not to put their wards or children in any school where the Bible is not being used as a rule of life because such institutions will unnecessarily be corrupt”.

Gleaning from Luther’s sentiment one can deduce that the lack of respect and regard for values as well as the absence of the fear of God is the greatest undoing of most public schools. Another major challenge is that lack of Information, Communication and Technology literacy or compliance on the part of some lecturers and heads of department, may have informed the decision to give students’ scripts to secretaries to compile and input students results thereby making the secretaries the determinants of students’ fate. It is not saying a new thing that some of the secretaries in the process of compiling results have inputted wrong results, omitted names or down graded some students or given unmerited grades to others.Society today is ICT-driven and ICT-literacy enhances efficiency, speed and a reasonable degree of accuracy if the person behind the computer is level headed, articulate, competent, alive to responsibilities and is aware that negligence on his or her part is not only tantamount to a disservice to the university but to the students who may not graduate at record time because of his or her (computer operator’s) gross ineptitude or carelessness.

The ICT era makes the carrying of hard copy of results obsolete as lecturers through the Heads of Department can log on to the central server of the Exams and Records (if any) or ICT unit and input students’ results directly. By so doing the incessant cases where result on spread sheet is different from the one published online, more often than not, caused by abject negligence, will be avoided. The process will also end the intermediary services of some staff in the universities’ Information, Communication and Technology Department which has become a money spinner-a lucrative source of income to many of them. In fact some ICT staff reserved the power to award grades to students depending on students’ degree of compliance to terms and conditions. They can dubiously make or unmake a student. The university community should be considered too lofty to have careless, negligent, immoral and academic or professionally deficient people as academic or non-academic staff.

The Governing Councils and Senates of universities should be proactive in addressing the menace of missing Script, inputting of wrong results and sorting. This is necessary to end the slogan “Education is scam” so the system can produce quality students who are truly found worthy in learning and in character by operators who exemplify diligence, moral and ethical values. The much-needed reform must begin within the institutions themselves, because the future of any society is shaped in its classrooms.

By: Igbiki Benibo

Opinion

Strength of Emotional Equality

Published

2 hours ago

March 9, 2026

The Tide

Quote: “Love thrives not when one gives more, but when both give fully — not in competition, not in performance, but in partnership.”

In every healthy relationship, there exists an invisible balance. It is not measured in grand gestures, expensive gifts, or public displays of affection. It is measured in something quieter and far more significant: emotional equality. When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, love becomes less of a negotiation and more of a partnership. Emotional equality does not mean both individuals express love in identical ways. It does not require matching personalities or mirroring temperaments. Rather, it speaks to balance — a shared willingness to invest, to communicate, to be vulnerable, and to grow. It is the difference between two people walking side by side and one person constantly trying to catch up.

In many relationships, imbalance begins subtly. One partner initiates most conversations. One apologizes more frequently. One carries the emotional labor — remembering important dates, managing conflicts, sensing tension, and attempting reconciliation. Over time, this uneven distribution of emotional effort breeds exhaustion. The partner who gives more begins to feel unseen. The one who gives less may grow comfortable in emotional passivity. Love, in such a space, starts to tilt — slowly at first, then significantly. Resentment can creep in quietly, disguising itself as patience. Silence may replace honest dialogue. What once felt effortless begins to feel heavy.

When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, responsibility is shared. Both people are accountable for the health of the relationship. If conflict arises, neither hides behind silence nor dominates through control. Instead, they engage. They listen. They speak honestly without weaponizing words. Equality creates safety — and safety strengthens intimacy. It allows both individuals to express needs without fear of ridicule or rejection. One of the most overlooked aspects of emotional equality is vulnerability. True connection requires courage. It demands that both partners risk being misunderstood. But when vulnerability is one-sided, it becomes exposure rather than intimacy. If one person consistently opens up while the other remains guarded, trust cannot fully deepen.

Equality ensures that emotional risks are mutual. Where one shares fears, the other shares too. Where one admits weakness, the other responds with openness rather than judgment. In such a space, authenticity flourishes. Another crucial element is validation. In emotionally balanced relationships, both partners feel heard. Their concerns are not dismissed as “overreactions.” Their feelings are not minimized or compared. When couples operate on equal emotional ground, they acknowledge each other’s experiences as legitimate. They may not always agree, but they always respect. Validation does not mean surrendering one’s viewpoint; it means recognizing that another’s emotional reality matters.

Equality also protects individuality. Contrary to popular belief, healthy love does not erase personal identity — it enhances it. When both partners are emotionally secure, they do not feel threatened by each other’s independence. Personal ambitions are encouraged, not resented. Friendships are respected, not restricted. Growth is celebrated, not feared. Standing on equal emotional grounds means neither person shrinks to accommodate the other. Instead, both expand, knowing the relationship is strong enough to hold their evolution. Power dynamics often expose emotional inequality. When one partner controls communication — appearing and disappearing unpredictably, withholding affection, or using silence as leverage — imbalance emerges.

Emotional dominance weakens intimacy. It creates anxiety instead of assurance. But when couples share emotional power, there is consistency. There is clarity. There is no need to decode affection because it is offered freely and intentionally. It is important to understand that equality does not imply perfection. Couples will still disagree. They will face stress, miscommunication, and moments of frustration. However, when emotional footing is equal, conflict does not threaten the foundation. Instead, it becomes an opportunity for understanding. Both partners approach challenges as teammates rather than opponents. They choose resolution over ego and repair over pride.

Time often reveals whether emotional equality truly exists. In the early stages of love, intensity can disguise imbalance. Enthusiasm feels mutual. Effort appears equal. But as routine settles in and novelty fades, the structure of the relationship becomes clearer. Who still initiates? Who still invests? Who still shows up consistently? Sustainable love requires sustained balance. It is built not merely on attraction, but on deliberate reciprocity. Standing on equal emotional grounds requires intentionality. It demands honest conversations about needs and expectations. It requires both partners to examine their habits — whether they withdraw during tension, avoid accountability, or rely on the other to carry the emotional weight. Emotional maturity is not about avoiding conflict; it is about handling it responsibly and returning, again and again, to shared ground.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of emotional equality is peace. There is no constant anxiety about where one stands. No guessing games about commitment. No fear that affection may suddenly disappear. Instead, there is stability. There is reassurance. There is mutual effort. In a world where relationships often blur the lines between attention and commitment, equality offers clarity. It reminds us that love should not feel like competition or performance. It should feel like partnership. When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, they build something resilient. They build trust that does not fracture easily. They build respect that does not depend on mood. They build a connection rooted not only in passion but in balance. And in that balance, love finds its strength — not in who gives more, but in how both give fully.

By: Sylvia ThankGod-Amadi

Opinion

NDDC: Time To Illuminate Homes

Published

1 week ago

March 2, 2026

The Tide

Quote:“Twenty-five years on, the Niger Delta cannot celebrate illuminated streets while families sit in darkness. Development must begin inside the home — where children study, businesses grow, and lives are built — before it glows on the roadside.”

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was established in 2000 with a clear and urgent mandate: to facilitate the rapid, even, and sustainable development of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta region. The creation of the Commission followed decades of agitation over environmental degradation, infrastructural neglect, and socio-economic marginalization in the region. Its core mandate included the development of roads, bridges, electricity, water supply, health facilities, education, housing, environmental remediation, and economic empowerment initiatives. At inception, expectations were high that the Commission would transform the Niger Delta into a model of regional development. Over the years, the NDDC has indeed implemented numerous projects across the nine Niger Delta states. Roads have been constructed and rehabilitated in several communities, easing transportation challenges.

Schools have been renovated, and new classroom blocks have been provided in underserved areas. Health centres have been built or upgraded, improving access to primary healthcare services. The Commission has also awarded scholarships to students, including foreign postgraduate scholarships, empowering thousands of youths academically.Skills acquisition and youth empowerment programmes have helped many young people gain vocational competencies.Through various interventions, the NDDC has contributed to job creation and local economic stimulation.Solar-powered street lighting projects have been widely implemented in urban and semi-urban communities. These streetlights have improved visibility at night and contributed to enhanced security in some areas. Markets, highways, and public spaces illuminated by solar lights have experienced extended business hours.

For these efforts, the Commission deserves acknowledgment and commendation. However, development must always align with foundational mandates and pressing grassroots realities. A growing concern among residents is that while streets are illuminated, many homes remain in darkness. Rural electrification and household power access remain inconsistent and inadequate across large parts of the region. In riverine and remote communities, families still rely on generators, kerosene lamps, or complete darkness after sunset. The irony of brightly lit streets juxtaposed with powerless homes cannot be ignored. Electricity at the household level directly impacts education, health, and small-scale enterprise. Students cannot effectively study at night without reliable indoor lighting.Families cannot preserve food or power essential appliances without stable electricity.

Micro and small businesses struggle to grow without dependable energy access. While street lighting enhances public aesthetics and security, it does not substitute for domestic electrification. The proverb “charity begins at home” is especially relevant in this context. True community development must first empower households before beautifying public spaces. The Commission’s original mandate emphasizes integrated and sustainable development, not isolated infrastructural gestures. Balanced development requires that energy interventions prioritize homes alongside streets. Solar technology presents a unique opportunity for decentralized household electrification in off-grid communities. Extending solar solutions to individual homes would have a transformative social impact. Home-based solar systems could power lights, fans, small appliances, and communication devices.

Such interventions would reduce poverty, improve living standards, and stimulate grassroots productivity. By broadening its energy focus, the Commission would better reflect the spirit of its founding legislation. This is not a call to abandon street lighting projects, which have their merits. Rather, it is an appeal for balance, inclusivity, and alignment with core developmental objectives. Strategic planning should ensure that rural electrification and household access form a central pillar of ongoing interventions. Community engagement and needs assessments can help determine priority areas for household solar deployment. Twenty-five years after its establishment, the NDDC stands at a reflective moment in its institutional journey. The people of the Niger Delta say: thank you for the efforts so far—but not very much—because true appreciation will come when development begins at home and radiates outward, not merely when streets shine while houses remain in darkness.

By: King Onunwor