The Saga at the NIIA: Delineating between Falsehood, Fiction and Facts
Some members of staff of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) embarked on a strike on Wednesday, 14 October, 2015 to protest against alleged maladministration of the Institute by the Director General, Professor Bola A. Akinterinwa, inma, fniia, fssan. The elements of the strike, deductible from the interviews granted by the protesters and from the inscription on their placards include stolen government funds by the DG, several months of unpaid salaries of contract staff, environmental degradation and diversion of available capital funds to the international conference centre being built by the DG.
The protest is quite healthy even though it did not follow laid down regulations. The right to demonstrate is lawful but the freedom to protest must not in any way be detrimental to the freedom of non-protesting people. Besides, the seriousness and quality of a protest is determined by the reasons given for embarking on the strike. If we take a closer look at the situation of the strike at the NIIA, it is clear that the reasons given are a mixture of falsehood, fiction and facts. This mixture does not allow for objectivity of evaluation of the extent to which there has been maladministration, the extent to which there has been diversion of public funds either to private pockets or to the Institute’s project. Consequently, there is the need, at least for posterity, to delineate between the aspects of falsehood, aspects of fiction, and aspects of facts.
In doing this, it is useful to remind here that that the NIIA is a moral person, made up of physical or individual persons, and dealing with ideas of the same people working in or coming to or writing about the Institute. The NIIA as a moral or corporate person is governed by rules and regulations. The NIIA as a community of people has duties and obligations to respect as a result of the regulations established for the NIIA as a corporate body. The NIIA as a community of ideas deals with creativity by agreeing or disagreeing with the viewpoints as contributed by people with ideas.
Without any whiff of doubt, ideas are like an atom, which is described at the Ordinary Level Physics as the smallest indivisible particle of an element but which at the Advanced Level is destructible through atomic fission processes. Uranium, with an atomic weight of 239 was given as a case study. Explained differently, the NIIA, as a community of able minds or as an idea-manufacturing institution, necessarily plays host not only to conflict, but also to poverty, of ideas essentially because of psychology of human differences. The point being made here is that the protest saga at the NIIA is essentially about a group of people who refuse to live by the rules and regulations established for the NIIA as a corporate body. The protesters want to achieve their objectives by intimidation and manu militari to which the DG is strongly opposed.
By adopting an approach of intimidation, the protesters create new ideas. Many of the new ideas follow parallel lines which mathematically cannot meet. The challenge therefore is which of the parallel lines should be given priority: the regulatory line of the NIIA as a corporate body or the selfregulation of the protesters as staff of the Institute? This is why it is submitted in this column that, even if the various reports and interviews written and granted by all parties to the saga, ideas are indestructible even if they conflict. An idea becomes a truth the moment it is given birth to. One can agree with it and one can also disagree with it.As clearly shown above with the case of the indestructibility of an atom, the argument of indestructibility existed for a given time and that period of time cannot be destroyed. Let us now deal with the protest as a manifestation of an idea so that the protest can be explained and understood in its appropriate context.
Polemology of the Protest
The protest is a manifestation of a crisis which is at the lowest point on the continuum of violence. A polemological approach in the analysis of the crisis, especially in terms of the causes, dynamics, and implications is necessary.
The Causal Factors
The causal factors for the protest can be explained and understood at three complementary levels: remote causes, coincidental causes and immediate causes.At the level of the remote causes are the issues of timeliness, international monitoring, acts of gross misconduct and grievance resulting from non-appointment as Director General (DG).
On timeliness, the DG put in place a policy of promptness in action which requires that the day’s work begin at 8.01 dot. The policy also requires that any action required to be taken by any staff must be done within 48 hours of working days. The first and chief opponent is the Director of Library and Documentation Services, Mrs .Abimbola Dada, claiming that Directors should not be compelled to come at 8.00 am. This is one of the elements of the alleged mal administration by the DG.
The DG holds management meetings twice a week: Tuesday and Thursday. The meeting begins at 8.00 am. To a great extent, every member, inclusive of Mrs. Dada, has been compelled to adapt to the rule. This is also an element of the high handedness of the DG.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, each Director has a 20-minute consultation with the DG. The Director of Administration and Finance, Ms. Agatha Ude, has audience with the DG from 8.01 am to 8.20, she is on record to be generally very punctual. She also brings up issues of administrative concern. The next twenty minutes, 8.21 am to 8.40 am are for the Director of Library and Documentation Services but hardly was she available for any audience because of lateness.
The Director of Research and Studies, Professor Ogaba Danjuma Oche, has the period from 8.41 am to 9.00 am. Most of the times, he did not show up for any audience. This simply implies that there are no issues to raise and to be addressed by the DG. The Director of Special Duties (International Cooperation and Public Affairs), Mr. Alex Ekeanyanwu, has the period from 9.01 am to 9.20 am.
What is important to note here is that the 20 minute audience is meant to articulate the issues for discussion by the Management the following day. In other words, issues, raised on Monday are discussed in the Management meetings of Tuesday. The decisions taken on Tuesday as well as new matters arising on Wednesday are tabled for further discussion at the Management on Thursday. Issues raised on Friday are renewed for discussion the following Monday .Apart from the Director of Administration and Finance and the Director of Special Duties, the other two Directors hardly had anything to contribute.At best they generally acquiesced to the position of others.
As the DG frowns at being a Director without actually directing, he is being accused of mal administration and highhandedness.
Regarding the issue of international monitoring, the DG directed all the Research Fellows to meet on daily basis at 9.00 am to discuss current international happenings and to focus attention on their implication for Nigeria’s foreign policy. The Fellows complained against doing so on daily basis. The DG underscored the importance of the currency of the situation.And true enough, leading research institutions have what is called “situation room” where current national events are monitored, diagnosed and implications articulated. The Fellows complained to the Governing Council which accepted their preparedness to only hold such discussions twice weekly. Even though the discussions were held regularly for more than seven months, the Research Fellow began to hold discussions on world affairs irregularly twice a week. In this regard, there are two competing right: those of the DG as the Chief Executive and Accounting Officer, and those of the Governing Council as an acting supervisor.
What is noteworthy about this point is that the Research Fellows who do not have one hour only for daily monitoring of international happenings have the whole day to engage in remunerated teachings in the University of Lagos, Lagos State University and the National Open University of Nigeria. The DG insists that priority of the NIIA in all research activities. The public may wish to ask where the Institute is on this: why should Research Fellow paid purposely for research not be prepared to keep themselves abreast of current developments? How can they assist Government if they are ignorant of international question as they arise? Can someone who is not informed by able to inform others?
On acts of serious misconduct, let us put the discussion in an interrogative format: The DG had issued a query to the Director Administration and Finance for forgery, falsification of records, removal of queries in her official records and renumbering the pages. Why is the query of the DG is seen as mal administration or highhandedness? Ms. Agatha Ude changed the results of promotion exercise and the matter was referred to the Governing Council but the Council consciously stepped it down for deliberation at its meeting. The DG owes it a responsibility to ensure discipline. Why protest to cover up acts of gross misconduct?
The Director of Research and Studies, Professor Oche, was queried on why he summoned candidates being assessed for professorship to his office to reveal to them that the DG was secretly planning to send their papers abroad for assessment. This is a serious breach of trust, a very serious breach of confidentiality of assessment. The candidates petitioned to the Governing Council and the DG was directed not to send their papers abroad. The tradition of the Institute has been to send papers to wherever there are available assessors. The papers of the incumbent DG were sent to Europe. Why should the DG be compelled to send papers to Nigerian assessors?
Perhaps more disturbingly, the Governing Council compelled the DG to re-write the covering letters to the assessors in the belief that the DG had gone beyond the constitutional required guidelines for assessment. We do not want to open the Pandora box. However, when the DG was to give an updated information on the status of assessment, he said he was actually waiting for the status report from the Council since the Council had been directly seized with the matter. Council had been speaking with the assessors. One member acknowledged speaking to an assessor but not raising the issue of promotion. What is the position of Council on professor Oche’s breach of confidentiality trust? What is the need for interference of the Council in the processing of assessment?
There is still another area of serious gross misconduct. The main protesters, especially Associate Professor Frederick Agwu, Professor Ogaba Oche, Dr,. Joshua Bolarinwa, and Mr. Ajiboye Oni, rented their official boys quarters out contrary to extant rules. In the letter of allocation of a 40bedroom flat at the NIIA, Plot 938 official quarters on Idejo Street, it was clearly stated that renting the whole or any part of the flat out to a fee paying visitor constitutes a gross misconduct. The penalty for this is dismissal. The DG had drawn the attention of the Council to this and the decision of Council is that the illegal occupants should be given six months to vacate. The six month notice expires at the end of October 2015.
This is an act of gross misconduct that is frightening the protesters. This is why they want the DG to go, but the going of the DG cannot remove of the fact that there are unsettled issues.
In fact, there is the related problem of rental payments. In 2011, the Management decided that every occupant of the Block of ten flats should be paying flat rate of N40,000 per month. Until the recent when the resources of the Institute were dwindling and the DG directed that all occupants should assume full responsibility for the payment of their social bills (security, gardener, refuse, water supply etc.). The occupants refuse that all payments should be deducted from the N40,000 being deducted from their salaries.
In fact, the argument was raised that some occupants could not pay the rent of N40,000. Thus prompted the Council to most unfortunately, decide that 8½ of the consolidated salaries of the occupants be deducted. The implications of this are not far-fetched: Dr. Efem Ubi, a Research Fellows I, pays only N12,000 for a-standard 4-bedroom flat, with a self-contained Boys Quarters and two parking slots. Dr. Joshua Bolarinwa, a Senior Research Fellow, pays only N15,000 for the same facilities. Associate Professors Charles Dolibo and Frederick Agwu, as well as Mr. Joseph Ajiboye Oni a Deputy Director, pay N27,000 while the Professors, Bukar Bukarambe and Osita Agbu pay N37,000. In the same spirit of the policy of pay according to your income, the DG pays N90,000.
This policy of Council rejects Government’s policy of Monetisation. The Council argues on the one hand that the NIIA need not comply with the Monetisation Policy which frowns at free accommodation to civil and public servants. On the other hand, the same Council wants the occupants to benefit from the policy in different ways. The DG position is that if the Council is considering fairness and justice it must not be selective, especially under common prevailing condition. The truth is that, even at the contributory level of the occupants, Dr. Efem Ubi and Associate Professor Fred Agwu refused to pay the N60,000 which all other occupants have paid. The DG directed that the Director of Administration and Finance issue a query to the recalcitrant occupants, she refused.All in all, everyone hides under the protection of the Council.
Aspects of Falsehood and Fiction
First, on the issue of non-payment of several months of salaries of contract staff, they have been paid up till July 2015 even though the June 2015 overhead allocation from which contract salaries are paid, was only released a week ago.
Secondly, on diversion of all funds to building project, thus compelling the attainment of the mandate of the Institute, how do the protesters explain the fact that under the administration of the same DG being accused, the Institute has held 18 Brainstorming Session? How do they explain the fact that, in spite of their protests, all official assignments are still performed? How do they explain the fact that on November 11, a Special Nigeria-China Dialogue is holding?
On non-purchase of books, are the protesters quickly forgetting the many books acquired gratis by the DG from the UNESCO, thanks to Nigeria’s very professional and competent Permanent Representative to the UNESCO? Have there not been Public Lectures? Have there not been diplomatic briefings? Are they denying that, while their protests are on, Professor OsitaAgbu and Dr. Godwin Ichimi not in China for academic meeting? Are they also denying the fact that Mr. Sharkdam Wapmuk was not in India for another academic meeting by ICWA, whom we have partnership? What of the NIIA-Russian Dialogue? Or the NIIA-China Dialogue ?Are all these not part of academic mandate?
Thirdly, on the funding of a building project, it should be made crystal clear that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made a zero allocation for the NIIA. It is thanks to the efforts of the DG, particularly for his recognition and appreciation of the repositioning of the NIIA that the sum of N125 million was appropriated and, for that matter specifically to assist in the completion of the project. The budgetary papers are available for verification.
Consequently, if the toilets are dirty, what is the function of the Director of Administration? It may look funny, the DG has on many occasions cleaned up the toilets when staff buses had not arrived and when there were visitors, such as visiting former Presidents. It is alleged that books are not purchased.Are the protesters ignorant of E-library?
Most importantly, is it really possible to give what one does not have? In conclusion, the aim of this column is simply to invite attention to other aspects of the public debate without seeking to repeat what had been raised.As DG, I am not to fear the protesters but the Government which gave me the responsibility to promote the interests of the Institute.
Finally, on the issue of building since it is a matter that the Governing Council had handled and referred to appropriate authorities. Consequently, it is not appropriate to have it discussed here.