REUBEN'S VIEWS
“Omo, shine your eyes oh, all of una wey say APC no go fit do Convention, una don see am, abi una no see am? No be say we just do Convention we do better one sef.. Orrr bih. APC on top!”
“Are you okay?”
“I am okay. My party is doing well. We will win this election in 2023 and we will rule this country forever.”
“APC is not forever. Be realistic. You call what you guys did a Convention? Was that a democratic process?”
“Yes it was. I don’t expect any member of the opposition to say we did well. As the new Chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu said, you people are full of tears and sadness. And as the President said, he does not expect the PDP to be happy. All of you predicting that the APC will collapse, or that the Convention will end up as a Third World War, please listen to this Breaking News. On Saturday, the APC, Nigeria’s ruling party organized a successful Convention. The party respected all the rules. INEC kept a watching brief. Everything went smoothly. On Sunday, a new National Working Committee of the party was inaugurated. Oya, come on with your hate message”
“The whole thing was illegal and unconstitutional.”
“Hate speech,”
“Your new Chairman has EFCC cases all over his head. Many unresolved cases.”
“Hate speech. Nobody has ever convicted Senator Abdullahi Adamu. Be careful. You can be sued for defamation.”
“Is the man going to keep his seat as Senator representing Nasarawa West? You people don’t know the law.”
“That’s none of your business. When we get to that bridge we will cross it.”
“What was all that drama about unity list? Governors behaving like Zombie. The President gave them a list and everybody just complied. The whole APC Convention was a violation of the principles of internal party democracy.”
“In your head”
“One aspirant from Lagos even wept. One woman refused to step down. Another one protested that he had been a founding member of the party, only for someone to come from nowhere and parading himself as a consensus candidate.”
“That is democracy. We are a party of many sides. We accommodate everybody including people who think it is good to weep in public.”
“Is that how to run a party? Make people weep?”
“It is supremely human for people to weep, shout and disagree. Tell me something else that I don’t know.”
“I hope you know that the PDP has a case in court about that your APC Convention”
“PDP should go and worry about its own problems. That case is dead on arrival. It has become completely academic. Is it PDP that will determine what we do in APC? I keep telling you, una no well”
“We want to take power from you people? We will grab it.”
“Come and grab it and let’s see. Who will give you power?”
“No. Governor Wike has made the point. We will grab it.”
“Who is Wike?”
“Wike is the Governor of Rivers State. The Indaboski of PDP politics…. exponent of the mad man hypothesis in Nigerian politics”
“I beg. You see that your Indaboski, go and advise him, because the day he leaves office as Governor and his immunity expires, he won’t even be allowed to enter his car. We will grab him.. You saw Willie Obiano wearing boxer shorts. Wike will not even be allowed to wear common singlet.”
“Are you people okay?”
“Try us. You people go about threatening madness. We will show you the meaning of madness. You think we are joking?
“So that is why you people run a Convention of coercion. You intimidate people and you think you can intimidate all Nigerians?”
“Our party is a party of disciplined people. Our leaders took a decision and we all complied. Those who did not comply were allowed to have their way. In the end, there was peace, progress, and solidarity.”
“In your mind, hen?”
“No. In your face!”
“I can tell you for free, that your party the APC is about to implode. Not everybody is happy. I see some of your party chieftains leaving the party and forming a Third Force.”
“You know what I think? Honestly? I really think the time has come for President Buhari to declare the fight against drug addiction a national emergency.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Just what I have said, because I don’t understand why an adult like you will stand before me, in this hot sun, and be hallucinating, jabbering and jam-talking. It doesn’t look normal.”
“I am very normal. Don’t insult me because of politics.”
“You are raising your voice.”
“Don’t tell me I am raising my voice? Because of APC politics?”
“Can you calm down?”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! Diesel is about N800 per litre. Where I live, they always put off light. We are told, the facility managers cannot afford to give us electricity. Fuel is expensive. Even prostitutes have raised their rates. They have become very arrogant. When you argue, they will tell you that the Dollar-Naira Exchange rate has gone up. What has FOREX got to do with monkey business?”
“Everything, actually, because - you have no shame. I think you know that. We are having a conversation and you are talking about prostitutes. Am I expected to have an opinion on what prostitutes want or what they charge?”
“Prostitutes are human beings. They are an important part of this Nigerian economy. I can talk about them if I so wish. In fact, I can write a whole book on that sub-economy.”
“Sorry oh, the spokesman of the Prostitutes Association of Nigeria. I get that. Yes, I get it.”
“You cannot say that. In fact, your party is a party of prostitutes. Are you not even ashamed that all your major newly elected officers came originally from the Peoples Democratic party? The same people you pushed out of power in 2015, they are now the ones leading your party.”
“We like it like that. Leave us alone. It is called democracy”
“So, who is going to be your Presidential candidate?”
“How is that your problem?”
“I am just asking as a stakeholder. Are you people going to have a Consensus Presidential Candidate? A CPC!”
“Go and hold stakes in your own party”
“I am a citizen, an eligible member of the electorate. Who is that CPC candidate going to be? Will the choice be Asiwaju Bola Tinubu or someone else? I want to know who I may vote for.”
“You can keep your vote. Go and give it to PDP and waste it.”
“Arrogant”
“Yes, for a purpose. We are the ruling party.”
“Nonsense. In another two months, President Muhammadu Buhari would be lame duck. Nobody will listen to him again.”
“And so? And what if nobody listens to him?”
“And so”
“Okay you wait and see. When that duck is ready, we will serve you for breakfast.”
“But jokes apart, I hope you know that your party is still going to have problems.”
“We are a unified party. Stop spreading fake news.”
“There will be political war in 2023.”
“If you start any violence, you people will end up in prison. We will not tolerate any nonsense!”
“Are you God?” Are you people God?”
“You want power. Come and take it now.”
“Nigeria is in trouble. God help us.”
“Please. I hope you know all your Pastors are with us. You too should come and join us, join the winning train.”
“All your trains are always breaking down between Abuja and Kaduna and Ibadan and Lagos. Even airports are no longer safe.”
“It could have been worse. It could have been worse.”
“The philosophy of the defeated”
“The mantra of the triumphant.”
“Just let us get to power in 2023 and you people will see.”
“The more reason we will fight and die on top this matter. We will not allow agents of hatred to take over this nation.”
“I just hope that the people know what they are doing.”
“Which people?”
“The Nigerian people and their PVCs.”
“PVCs?”\
“Yes”
“Like seriously”
“Yes”
“You must have been watching too much television. Please I have some other things to attend to.”
“No. I have not finished. I have a point to make.” \
“Unfortunately, I am done. There is no point.”
“I want to say something about the power of the PVC and the electorate.”
“That’s fine, but please, can I take this phone call? Na God I take beg you…”
The Super Eagles of Nigeria, the country’s national team would file out today to play against the Black Stars of Ghana in the return leg of the final qualifying match for the World Cup in Qatar, November 2022. Africa has five slots in the tournament. Four days ago, the Eagles and the Black Stars in the first leg of their final encounter ended the match 0-0. That was a very disappointing match. A winner must emerge today. The winner will go to Qatar 2022. The Ghanaians have been boasting that they would stop Nigeria. They must not be allowed to do so. The matter between Nigeria and Ghana goes beyond football. It is all about national pride, brand and identity, from football, to jollof rice, women, men, culture and fashion.
Austin Eguavoen and his team must be told very clearly, that they cannot and they must not disgrace us. We are Nigerians. Our political leaders may not mean well. Our institutions may not work. The national currency may be sliding. The country’s unemployment rate may be high. But we, as a people, are diamonds. We do not like to be disgraced. We do not enjoy humiliation. We love to win.
Last week, the Super Eagles against Ghana at the Baba Yara, Kumasi Stadium played as if Ogbono soup had been splattered all over the football field. The only man who could stand firm was the goalkeeper, Francis Uzoho. Nobody must fall down anyhow today as if they are wearing banana peel boots. Nobody must put us to shame. Eguavoen and his team must not disgrace us.
Play whatever pattern you want: 4-2-3-1, 3-5-2. Just score the goals and shut up the likes of John Dumelo, a Ghanaian actor who thinks he can run his mouth all over Nigeria’s reputation. Wake up Eagles, do something good! The best gift anyone can give Nigerians at this moment is a 2022 World Cup ticket.
We may all be so busy watching the World Cup, the 2023 general election may end up as just another event.
Let’s show the Ghanaians that our football, like our jollof, is better than theirs. As they say on the streets, today na today!
Omoba Adedoyin Ajibike Okupe - the man popularly known at the “attack dog” of Nigerian politics, who eventually re-christened himself “the attack lion” is 70 today, March 22, 2022. Yesterday, friends and family gathered in Lagos, to honour him at the public presentation of a book he has written to mark the occasion: Double Jeopardy-The Doyin Okupe Story. There are further celebrations today; a church service and a party in the evening. It was a great pleasure for me to have been invited to review the book at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA). Although I got the book around 6 pm on Sunday, Dr. Okupe is one of those persons to whom it is difficult to say No. His personality is compelling. He is forever persuasive and genial. Reading the book turned out to be a great delight: for a text written in six weeks, it is an impressive outing. No one else can tell the Doyin Okupe story better than the man himself, and indeed after four decades in the Nigerian public space as a medical doctor turned political marketing guru, politician, and Presidential spokesperson, Okupe has a story to tell. He delivers his narrative in a lucid, racy, engaging and chronological manner.
I find the title of the book curious, however. Why double jeopardy? Jeopardy has a negative connotation. Double jeopardy is a legal term referring to the conviction of a person for the same offence, based on the same facts, twice. Okupe considers his unceremonious exit from the Obasanjo administration which he served as Special Assistant on Media, clearly as first jeopardy. His second jeopardy is described as his exit, without profit, from the Jonathan administration when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost the Presidential election in 2015. Okupe’s book could well have been titled “My Odyssey”. What he chronicles is a long, eventful and adventurous account of his role in the Nigerian political and social space in more than 40 years. His life has been one of privilege, accomplishments, and opportunities. At 70, he can indeed look back with a feeling of fulfillment, and pride, that he has so far had a good run, not double jeopardy and he is not yet done. Very few people have been as privileged. In the business of political marketing, perhaps the only two persons in recent memory that can be rated higher would be Chief Duro Onabule, who served as spokesperson of General Ibrahim Babangida’s military government for close to nine years, and may be Igwe Alex Nwokedi who was an outstanding communicator who served a military Head of State (General Olusegun Obasanjo) and a civilian President (Alhaji Shehu Shagari). If there is any other, such persons may not be of the same rank as Doyin Okupe in terms of reach, colour and capacity for heavy-hitting political communication. It is not for nothing that he is known as the “attack lion”. Over the years, Okupe has carved a niche for himself in that genre.
The irony is that he is originally a medical doctor. Double Jeopardy – The Doyin Okupe Story is 316 pages long. It is divided into two parts, and has a total of 40 Chapters. The first part of the book tells the story of his beginnings, upbringing, education, his life in the medical and political theatres and what he has seen in the politics of Nigeria as role player, citizen and aide to Presidents. In the second part, he presents more or less a manifesto for leadership as he expresses his opinions about key national issues such as the rule of law, the police, insecurity, structure, education, housing, youth employment, inadequate power supply and health care delivery. This therefore is part-autobiography, part-manifesto and a memoir on Nigeria’s contemporary political developments. Okupe has written an insider-participant’s account with such forthrightness that is unmistakable. He does not even spare himself. With a bold face, he documents his record as a polygamist, or serial monogamist, with a record of four wives and nine children and a retinue of grandchildren. He is himself a product of a similar background. He is the child of the 9th wife out of his father’s ten wives, and the 17th child out of 41 children.
Born in Iperu in 1952, his father, Chief Matthew Adekoya Okupe was a haulage business owner who in 1945 established a bank – the Agbonmagbe Bank which had branches in the North and the South in Zaria, Ebute Meta, Mushin, Ago-Iwoye and Ijebu Igbo. The bank would eventually become the National Bank, and transmute into a new brand, what is known today as Wema Bank. Chief Okupe eventually went into politics, a contemporary of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, H.O. Davies, Akin Maja, and Alhaji S. O. Gbadamosi. Okupe’s foray into politics was not influenced by his father, but the elder Okupe was his first hero, who taught him about values, temperance and faith. In this book, Okupe pays tribute to many mentors: those who have impacted his life positively and given him opportunities in life. These include his maternal grandmother, who taught him the art of discipline, his half-sister, Dr (Mrs) Adeola Olumide (nee Okupe), a medical doctor who insisted that the best path for him in life would be a career in medicine, Chief Akin Ogunmade-Davies who introduced him to the world of political communication and public relations, Chief Duro Onabule, who as editor of the National Concord newspaper taught Okupe the rudiments of media practice and writing, and gave him a platform to be heard. There was also Biodun Shobanjo, of Insight Communications with whom he worked on political marketing for the National Republican Convention (NRC).
Many in the Nigerian political space know Okupe for his rambunctious style. Whatever rascality anyone may ascribe to him seems to have been acquired in his days as a student at Igbobi College, Lagos where as a young man nicknamed “Dorrie”, he acquired quite a reputation for unconventional behaviour. He eventually ended up at the University of Ibadan. He gained admission to study Medicine at the age of 19. He graduated at 24. By his own account, he was an excellent student who took his studies seriously, and also enjoyed the privilege of having very good teachers. He is so proud of the training that he received, he tells his readers: “I have not practised medicine for a long time but I can still consider myself very proficient in Medicine because this lecturer of mine took me through every aspect of medicine. …Till today, you can’t fault my diagnosis. I learnt medicine from a genius. It was the knowledge in Medicine acquired from Professor Bademosi that I used in Surgery, Cardiology and other departments.” (p. 35). Well, I don’t know about diagnosis. What this writer knows is that when he was Dr Doyin Okupe’s colleague at the Presidential Villa during the Jonathan years, we used to crack jokes behind his back that he had left his chosen field of Medicine for so long, and made a detour into politics for too many years, nobody should accept any prescription from him - even for Malaria, because he might not remember!
Dr. Okupe actually practised medicine for a short while. After his National Youth Service year in 1978, he worked briefly at the St. Nicholas Hospital in Lagos, and also at Juli-San Clinic, also in Lagos. In 1982, he and two others - Dr. Seyi Roberts and Dr. Ladi Okuboyejo teamed up to set up a joint practice, The Royal Cross Medical Centre in Obalende, Lagos. The practice thrived. The young doctors had great fun, and there was Iya Modinat, who sold delicious rice “a stone’s throw from the clinic,” whose joint soon became a major attraction for many young Executives who patronized her and also stopped by at the clinic in the evenings. Dr. Okupe did not stay long in the Medical Theatre. He had developed interest in politics as a part-time vocation. He attended meetings of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), the ruling party in Nigeria at the time, but an opposition party in Lagos. He chose the NPN because he wanted to play politics at the National level. He rose quickly within the party ranks to become the Vice Chairman for Epetedo Ward, and later Secretary of Eti Osa Local Government in 1978/1980. Okupe was an associate of Dr Wahab Dosunmu who would later become Federal Minister of Works and Housing. In 1982, he contested for the Federal House of Representatives. His career as a politician had effectively begun. A substantial part of the book is understandably devoted to this new career, with Okupe’s account of his membership and participation in such political groupings as the Liberal Convention, the Alagbo Group, the National Republican Convention (NRC) which he would later serve as National Publicity Secretary, the People’s Democratic Party, the National Accord Party, and others.
His political journey is the perfect stuff of adventure. He tells not just his story, but his encounters and relationships with others, across the country, North and South. In over 40 years, Okupe comes across as an experienced politician and bridge builder who was either at the ringside or inside the arena during critical moments in Nigerian history. Readers would find particularly interesting his account of the processes leading to the formation of political parties and groups, the politics of June 12, the formation of the Oodua People’s Congress, the emergence and activities of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) as well as his interaction with key political figures: Chief Tom Ikimi, Dr. Frederick Fasehun, Rufus Ada George, Bamanga Tukur, Awwal Tukur, Bashir Tofa, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Chief Bola Ige, Chief Segun Osoba, Buruji Kashamu, Chief Edwin Clark and others.
The high point of Dr Doyin Okupe’s political career is readily his appointment by President Olusegun Obasanjo as his government’s Special Assistant on Media. This raised Okupe’s profile and shot him into national and international limelight. He gives a detailed and robust account of an appointment that gave him so much joy and fulfillment but he was shocked when the President sacked him! Thus began a period in his life that he classified as “Half-Time”, a period of about 11 years (2001 -2012) during which he tried his hands at entrepreneurship and had to hustle for survival and capital. As fate would have it, he had the opportunity of a return to the Presidential Villa under President Goodluck Jonathan as Senior Special Assistant, Public Affairs in 2012. We worked together. He was a very attentive and committed heavy-hitter. One of his first declarations on assumption of duty was that he was no longer “an attack dog” but an “attack lion”. The Jonathan administration needed a lion in its attacking mid-field. The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the coalition of opposition forces that created a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) called the All Progressives Congress (APC) bombarded the administration with hypertensive and hyperbolic attacks. Governance turned into vitriol and war by another name. There were issues on the table: the abduction of the Chibok Girls, Boko Haram. In 2015, the PDP lost the Presidential election. Okupe tells the story of the last days and what he calls “an unpleasant ending” that is - the second jeopardy. He insists that “the APC never won the 2015 Presidential election.”
At 70, Okupe has seen quite a lot and learnt so much about the nature of Nigerian politics and the character of the average politician. In reporting this, he draws attention to the intrigues in political corridors, the sycophancy of politicians, the use of money as a tool of influence and the fetishization, the reign of occultism, in Nigerian politics. A recurrent refrain in his narrative, however, is his faith in God, and how God has been faithful to him at every point in his journey, including when he first discovered that when he prays to God from the comfort of his bathroom, the “prayers are always speedily answered.” Okupe defends himself: he says he does not believe in the use of politics to amass wealth and that he has never stolen a penny. But he says he prefers to forgive those who have wronged him.
The second part of the book is his political manifesto: his plans for the reinvention of Nigeria. Whereas there is little to argue about in the earlier parts of the book which focus on the author’s experience, his prescriptions for Nigeria may generate debate and difference. It would be recalled that Dr. Doyin Okupe has since declared interest in the 2023 Presidential election in Nigeria. His chosen political platform for pursuing this ambition remains unknown. Questions have also been asked about how he intends to fund what is clearly an even more expensive enterprise, and a far more contentious proposition given the politics of zoning and power rotation as Nigeria embarks on the transition to another change of government at the Federal level. Okupe’s Double Jeopardy may well be taken as a campaign material: he presents himself warts and all, and he defines a social contract for Nigeria. Whatever anyone thinks of his ambition to be President, and the prospects, no one can deny that this is one man who has been here and there, who has lived a life of meaning and impact, and who beyond being a Prince of the Agbonmagbe dynasty of Iperu Remo in Ogun State is all things considered, a jolly good fellow, a media man, a prolific family man, a politician of great rank and so as he turns 70, he deserves hearty cheers, a song and a dance. Congratulations, Dr Okupe:
Iperu Akesan
Akesan Bale Oja
Ara Oju Ona
Obi Owo nso ti won Oro’woka
Akesan d”ade
Omo re da Oja
Olori re ni da Oja…
Best wishes and many happy returns.
It is difficult to imagine that the Church in Nigeria and its leaders would not be interested in politics as Nigeria begins preparations for the general elections in 2023. A heated and emotional controversy was stirred last weekend when it became public knowledge that the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) had set up The Directorate of Politics and Governance. Many raised an eyebrow. Why would the Church create a Department of Politics and Governance? Publisher, veteran journalist, newspaper columnist and Presidential aspirant Aare Dele Momodu described the development as “an invitation to Armageddon” in an essay titled “My Kobo Advice to Redeemed Christian Church of God” (ThisDay newspaper, back page, March 12, 2022). His main concern was what he described as “the general conspiracy theory that our church was setting up an extensive network for the obvious Presidential ambition of the current Vice President, President Yemi Osinbajo”, whereas there are other members of the RCCG, including his good self who are interested in the Presidential race. Why should the Church favour one person over and above other members?
In a notable response, Kolade Segun Oke-Owo, Deputy Director, Directorate of Politics and Governance, PFN, Ogun State, and National President, Believers in Politics writes as follows: “…The RCCG did not actually create the Directorate of Politics and governance. The creation of the Directorate is a brain child of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria under His Eminence, Bishop Wale Oke, its National President. The RCCG only became the first among other Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria under the leadership of PFN to kowtow and subscribe to the vision of the Directorate of Politics and Governance. It may also interest Uncle Dele Momodu that the National Directorate of Politics and Governance of the PFN is not headed by a member of the RCCG but a General Overseer from another denomination in the person of Rt. Hon. Pastor Femi Emmanuel.”
The fact that only a few days after the Dele Momodu essay, the Daily Trust newspaper and others published a story indicating that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has now notified President Muhammadu Buhari of his interest in the 2023 Presidential race, before that was refuted, lent greater currency to the Dele Momodu protest. The truth indeed is that over the past few months, a group of hidden and open persuaders have been threatening to sue Vice President Osinbajo if he did not throw his hat into the 2023 ring. Members of the RCCG have also not helped matters. They have often said that the General Overseer of the Church, Pastor Enoch Adeboye once predicted that a day would come when a member of the Church would become President of Nigeria. When Professor Osinbajo emerged as Vice President of Nigeria in 2015, the members were excited. They talked openly about a prophecy that was about to be fulfilled. Professor Yemi Osinbajo is not just a member of the RCCG Congregation; he is a Pastor and one of the most visible leaders of the Church. Dele Momodu’s essay is a statement of caution: that the church cannot turn itself into a political machinery and a partisan campaign platform for one individual enjoying a special advantage. He is also a member of the Church. The wife of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, also a Presidential aspirant, is equally a member and a Pastor of the Church. He wants the church to be neutral. Equality before God should translate into equality of aspirations under the umbrella of the Church. Dele Momodu’s supporters have suggested in accompanying reactions that the Church should stay out of partisan politics. In 1961, the Sage, Obafemi Awolowo had put up the same argument as Momodu’s. He said: “It follows that in order that it may discharge its functions, a religious organization must be independent of Government and its patronage and must never be subordinated to its dictates or whims… A religious organization should never allow itself to be regarded as the mouth piece and instrument of the powers-that-be…”. This may be a difficult argument to sustain.
The Church has been enmeshed in politics from time immemorial, from the Roman Empire, to the Medieval Era and to the present day. In the New Testament, the word “ekklesia” which is used to refer to the Church actually means a political assembly, a political association, a gathering. The separation of the State and the Church, or the separation of secular and religious power, has not always been so clear-cut. During the Crusades (circa, 1095 - 1291), Christians fought wars to acquire or regain territory. The Holy Book itself is full of this intersection between the Church, power struggles and secular politics. The clergy are not just spiritual leaders, they fight political battles worse than what is found in the secular community. The argument that the state and religion should be separated is largely theoretical. In 1534, King Henry VIII of England established the Church of England, away from the Catholic Church following disagreements with Pope Clement VII on the scope of papal authority over marital choices. The politics of it is well captured in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons. The Anglican Church continues to play a dominant role in British politics. Back home here in Nigeria, the kind of politics that church leaders play, including litigations and open quarrels, is far more vicious than what is found in the regular political arena. To give a case in point would be the acrimonious conflicts over control and succession in the Celestial Church of Christ since the passing of the founder, Samuel Bilewu Joseph Oschoffa in September 1985. In 2015, Pope Francis advised that Catholics must participate in politics. Just as Christians won’t hands off secular and sectarian politics, being human beings and political animals, leaders of the Muslim congregation are also just as involved.
It should be recognized also that ethnicity and religion are perhaps the two most central factors in the politics of power in Nigeria, as has been proven and examined in such works as Religion, Politics and Power in Northern Nigeria by Matthew Hassan Kukah, Iheanyi Enwerem’s A Dangerous Awakening: The Politicisation of Religion in Nigeria, and Religion and Politics in Nigeria: A Study in Middle Belt Christianity by Neils Kartfelt. Nigerian politicians over the years have used both ethnicity and religion as instruments of manipulating the people for their own purposes, exploiting the people’s fears about domination by the other. Religion has featured prominently in ethnic conflicts in the Middle Belt, on the Plateau, Southern Kaduna and elsewhere, with one group persecuting the other through repeated cycles of violence, and the State, which should enforce peace and justice, is usually partial and biased, taking sides, most cynically, depending on the religious affiliation of the persons in power at the moment. It is this linkage between religious belief and how power is exercised that has resulted in the political patronage of religious groups and the rise of partisanship in places of worship. Nigerian politicians, regardless of the express provision of the Constitution that there shall be no state religion (Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution) have nonetheless turned religion into a special centre of engagement. In every Government House in the states and the State House in Abuja, there is usually a Mosque and a Church, power shifts between both locations depending on the religion of the main leader in charge, who accordingly appoints Special Advisers and Assistants on Religious matters. Christian leaders send members of their constituency on pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Muslim leaders do the same for members of their religious community. Despite assurances over the years that the state shall no longer fund religious trips, the Pilgrims Welfare Boards of Nigeria continue to exist at all levels.
The assumption is that a Christian leader would defend the Christian faith and a Muslim leader would do the same for his own constituency as well. In every election at both Federal and State levels, Nigerians have adopted the convention of a Christian and Muslim ticket, in joint political races, to give the people a sense of balance, access and proximity to power. The most remarkable exception to this pattern occurred in 1993 when a Muslim-Muslim ticket of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) Presidential candidates- Bashorun MKO Abiola and Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe won the Presidential election. Given the manner in which religion has further driven a wedge between Nigerians, it would be difficult to reproduce that magical moment again, either now, or in the immediate future. The Church in Nigeria believes that the time has come to do more than preaching and praying and become an active political force.
In yet another statement on the matter, titled “The New Dawn: Church Prophetic Political Delivery and Responsibility of the Church (March 11, 2022)”, Bishop Theophilus Taiwo Ajose, Ph. D declared that all church fathers and leaders are required to direct their members and followers to “register for and update their Permanent Voters Cards (PVC) and “urgently join any political party of their choice at the ward (grassroots) levels and participate actively in political activities of that party while upholding righteousness.” It is important to further understand the context of this ideological declaration. Hitherto, the Church in Nigeria acted as the moral compass without necessarily being partisan. During the struggle for democracy, 1993 -1999, Catholic Bishops, leaders of the Anglican Church and the Pentecostal Federation fought for the rights of Bashorun Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe to be given their mandate. It didn’t matter that both men were Muslims. The Church was a modulating voice of reason. The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria and the Catholic Secretariat through the Justice Development and Peace Departments of the Church fought for democracy and development. The Anglican Church and the Pentecostal Federation were also in the forefront of the struggle. Many would remember the heroism of the Rt. Rev Peter Adebiyi, one of Chief Abraham Adesanya’s most trusted lieutenants, popularly known as the NADECO Bishop, Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi and his fiery sermons and the stinging interventions of John Cardinal Onaiyekan, as well as the activism of the likes of Fr. Matthew Hassan Kukah, Fr. George Ehusani, Fr. John Uba Ofei and and Fr. Iheanyi Enwerem. Catholic priests on one occasion trooped to the streets in defence of democracy! Today, Nigerian church leaders and the Congregation are more interested in fighting for their own. They want their own people in power, even at the traditional, grassroots level. But that didn’t start now.
I recall that as President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesperson in the lead up to the 2015 general elections, in the course of the campaigns, our campaign train visited as many major churches in the country as possible. We saw crowds of potential voters. Prayers were offered. There were declarations of vision and revelations. The Church was not necessarily fighting for democracy in 2014/2015. It wanted to protect its members who had become victims of religious and ethnic conflicts. Church leaders wanted a Christian President to remain in office to address the emerging crisis. Later, when I ran on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party as a Deputy Gubernatorial candidate in Ogun State in 2018/19, it was part of my schedule as the Christian on the PDP Muslim-Christian ticket to interface with the Christian community. We had a high-ranking member of the PFN in our political camp who made the necessary arrangements, and hence, we went from one church to the other, preaching to church elders. I even participated in debates organized by churches for political party candidates. It was clear to me from the interactions that church leaders in Ogun State wanted power to shift to a Christian candidate, the outgoing Governor then, being a Muslim who had spent eight years in office. If the church leaders saw any visions, they did not tell me.
It is perhaps the same drama that is now playing out ahead of the 2023 general elections. With a Muslim as Nigerian President for eight years, and with the Nigerian Christian community convinced that a Muslim-led Nigerian Presidency persecutes Christians and pampers Muslims, the Church of Nigeria appears resolved to get into the arena of action. It seems Christian forces are now ready to sponsor candidates and mobilize the Congregation, armed with PVCs. The Church has also been drawn into the politics of zoning and rotation. It won’t be long before the various branches of the PFN begin to have chapters of political parties. No one should be surprised if some churches ask every soon that they should be designated as polling units or centres! When that happens, sermons in churches would become political manifestoes. It would be a reflection of how desperate every Nigerian constituency has become, how badly religion has divided us, and how high the stakes would be in 2023.
The truth is that churches in Nigeria today have become far more secular than they were a few years ago. The original words of the Lord Jesus Christ distinguished between the secular and the spiritual thus: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12: 17). But in Nigeria today, those in charge of God’s affairs are threatening to contest with Caesar. They seek to move from a place of independence and spiritual power to the main arena. Many churches are personal estates. Many are business investments. The other day, the General Overseer of the Christ Living Hope Church with Headquarters in Anambra, Rev. Ugochuckwu Emmanuel Ekwem was caught at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport by the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) trying to smuggle 54 sticks of drugs to Kenya. Religious faith is in decline in Nigeria. Political belief is about to dilute religious belief, far more aggressively. The church is seeking redemption through politics. How far will it or can it go?
So much has happened locally and globally recently - the nerve-wracking fuel scarcity in Nigeria, the war in Ukraine, the signing of the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill and the attendant controversies, the amendment of 68 clauses in the 1999 Constitution also, so much really that the Nigerian commentariat has more or less overlooked some of the quiet significant issues within the Nigerian polity. While this may be understandable given the relative weight and urgency of news, it seems to me that one issue that should be highlighted is the political crisis in Zamfara State, and how this speaks to the character of Nigerian politicians, the politics of opportunism and the fault lines of Nigerian politics. For the benefit of those who may have forgotten, after the 2019 general elections, the All Progressives Congress in Zamfara State was declared winner of the Gubernatorial election, having won the majority of the votes. But some members of the party challenged this outcome, on the grounds that the party did not conduct a lawful primary to select the gubernatorial candidate as required by the Electoral Act. Ahead of the 2019 general election, the APC in Zamfara state was in fact, divided right down the middle.
It eventually ended up as one of the three states whose Gubernatorial elections were altered through court cases. In May 2019, the Supreme Court voided the victory of the APC, and awarded victory to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which was a very distant second to the APC. In the election, the APC Governorship candidate, Muktar Idris, was declared winner with 534, 541 votes to defeat Bello Muhammad Matawalle of the PDP who had 189, 452 votes. In the State House of Assembly, the APC won all the available 24 seats. The main ground for the ruling was that the primary conducted by the APC was unlawful. The injury to the APC was thus self-inflicted. The party’s plight was in other words, akin to an own goal in a football match. The PDP that benefitted from this did not even score up to two-thirds of the votes. Every effort to get the Supreme Court to set aside its ruling in the Zamfara case and the Imo case in which there was some strange arithmetic that threw up the fourth person in the in the election race, did not succeed, raising further concerns about the importance of pre-election matters and how political parties conduct their affairs.
In Zamfara, the obvious beneficiary of the crisis was Bello Matawalle and 24 members of the State House of Assembly who got into office by sheer default. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a Professor of Law drew attention to this recently when he argued that the courts should probably pay more attention to the expressed will of the people rather than technicalities. My response to that was that it was strange to hear the Law Professor questioning what looked like a straightforward application of the law on the basis of his own partisan commitments. The Vice President was speaking at the 53rd Conference of the National Association of Law Teachers in Kano on the theme: “Law, Democracy and the Electoral Process”. Recent developments in Zamfara State have now raised fresh questions, beyond the judgment itself.
Matawalle, who became Governor by default, was a member of the All Progressives Congress in Zamfara State in the lead up to the 2019 Gubernatorial election. He had been in the ANPP, then he later joined the PDP. He wanted to get power by all means. He tried the Gubernatorial race in 2015 against then Governor Abdulaziz Yari and failed. He would later become the face of the PDP in the state. But to consolidate his position and to strengthen himself against speculations that disgruntled elements in the APC who had disagreed with then Governor Abdulaziz Yari and were on their way to the PDP led by Senator Kabir Marafa, Abu Magaji, and Dauda Lawal, Matawalle felt a need to strengthen his hold on the PDP. He simply linked up with General Aliyu Gusau, the de facto leader of the PDP in Zamfara state and a man of great influence in Nigerian affairs, both political and administrative. This was how General Aliyu Gusau’s son, Mahdi Ali Gusau, a lawyer, became Matawalle’s running mate. As providence would have it, he became a Supreme Court Governor, with Mahdi Gusau as his Deputy.
It was obvious that the APC was not happy with their loss of the Governorship seat in Zamfara state, just as they were determined to mount pressure on other PDP Governors in the country to join the APC, or return to it. It is on record that apart from wooing the PDP governors, the APC, being the ruling party in the country also used the coercive instruments of state to intimidate the opposition members that they thought could swell their ranks. It was therefore not surprising when Bello Matawalle, began to trace his roots back to the ANPP wing of the APC. It did not matter to him that under the relevant laws, it is a political party that wins an election, not the candidate. He practically took the victory awarded by the Courts to the PDP back to the APC. This is the height of opportunism. What point is Matawalle trying to prove? Is he telling his opponents in the APC, the likes of Abdulaziz Yari, Marafa, Magaji and Lawal that he is originally an APC member, having started his political career with the ANPP and that no one can push him out of his old political constituency? So, has Professor Yemi Osinbajo been vindicated when he asked that the courts should pay more attention to the people’s political preferences and behaviour?
The major comma in Matawalle’s opportunism is that his deputy, Mahdi Ali Gusau refused to defect to the APC with him. Ali Gusau stood by his decision to stay in the PDP. He argued that the party’s electoral victory in 2019 belonged to the party not its candidates. For this, Gusau has been heavily victimized. He was accused of having dismissed members of the House of Assembly as “illiterates.” Ali Gusau may have acted out of loyalty to his father, but his conduct also shows loyalty to the platform, that is, the party, that brought him to power and a commitment to principles. He has projected a different attitude to politics, a moral high ground that is unusual. Beyond this is the vulnerability of Deputy Governors under the Constitution. Since the return to democratic rule in 1999, Governors have treated their Deputies with disdain, like spare tyres. On February 23, the State House of Assembly, the same lawmakers of Zamfara who also got to the House by default, responded to a report by a certain judicial panel which considered “allegations of abuse of office, criminal self-enrichment and failure to discharge official duties” against the Deputy Governor. Twenty two of them were in attendance. One lawmaker had refused to jump ship. The entire process was concluded within a matter of hours. Governor Matawalle had already stationed a replacement nearby – Hassan Nasiha Gusau, a serving Senator representing Zamfara Central, who was immediately sworn in as a replacement. Note the cynicism. A Gusau is removed. Another Gusau is appointed in his place!
The process for the removal of a Deputy Governor from office is outlined in Section 188 (1-11) of the 1999 Constitution. It is clear that Mahdi Gusau was subjected to a kangaroo process and a victimization trial. He being a lawyer, and the PDP have since gone to court, but of note is - Section 188 (10) of the Constitution which is clear in stating that “no proceedings or determination of the Panel or of the House of Assembly or any matter relating to such proceedings or determination shall be entertained or questioned in any court.” Mahdi Gusau’s and PDP lawyers are likely to argue however that the House of Assembly that removed him is illegal and unconstitutional, the whole House having defected to the APC, without any division within the PDP, as the Constitution stipulates, and therefore, if anything, they, along with the Governor, are the ones to lose their seats.
While it may be difficult to predict the outcome of the case in court, it is important to state that the Zamfara story is a bad omen for the polity. The fact that this has been followed up by the failure of the APC, Nigeria’s ruling party, to put its House in order is even a worse demonstration in this regard. Yesterday, for example, security personnel had to cordon off the APC Secretariat in Abuja. After initial reports that there was no division in the APC, but only disagreements, we all saw yesterday that the party is in fact divided. Nigerians politicians have a character flaw. They cannot be trusted either as individuals or as a class. They keep jumping from one part of the fence to the other for strange and selfish reasons. Is there anything that could be done by the people, or by the authorities, if not now, may be in the future, to strengthen Nigeria’s political party process, and to check the impunity of the ruling elite? In other jurisdictions, despite the quarrels within parties, politicians do not jump ship the way ours do in Nigeria, moving around like a yo-yo. We must find a way of making integrity the pillar of political participation in Nigeria. The crisis in Zamfara is all about the behaviour of the professional political class. Mattawale gets to power with the PDP and the Gusau connection. As soon as he settles down, and he thinks he has enough muscle of his own to call the shots, he dumps his benefactors, and begins to offer an unsolicited lecture on loyalty while betraying the same code. The same drama is being played out within the APC at the centre. By the time the dust settles, no one should be surprised if the APC alliance crumbles and the component parts go their separate ways, for selfish reasons.
The lesson of this is that we should begin to subject candidates seeking public office to more rigorous enquiry. All kinds of persons present themselves for public office, but by the time we realize who exactly they are, it is often too late. But think about this: when and if we manage to unmask them, can we get them removed? That is near-impossible considering the complexities of the Nigerian arrangement. Also, what is the temperament of the Nigerian politician? Would he ever stand on the side of the rule of law and resist the temptation to bend the rules in his own interest? These are issues that are germane to the democratic process but are not covered in strict terms by the enabling laws. As for the drama in Zamfara: I do not think it is over politically for Mahdi Ali Gusau. By removing him, Matawalle may have unwittingly, with his own hands, laid the red carpet for his ascendancy in politics.
It is noteworthy that this year’s International Women’s Day, March 8, that is today, will be marked against the background of blatant misogyny and retrogressive patriarchy at the 9th National Assembly of Nigeria. The theme for this year’s celebration is “Gender Equality for a Sustainable Tomorrow: Time to Break the Bias. Women play a significant role in every part of our lives – the family, climate change, agriculture, the economy and basic human relationships. In Nigeria, women constitute about 50% of the population, any form of discrimination against that substantial part of the population would amount to a reduction of the country’s capacity and an act of bias. Nigeria is a signatory to major international conventions and treaties on the Empowerment of women, including protocols to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women, or the Gender Equality Strategy 2022 – 2025. It is a fact that Nigeria publicly endorses these protocols, but without understanding the import of the same commitments.
The other week, during the National Assembly’s review of clauses relating to women empowerment in Nigeria, the lawmakers rejected the bills that are meant to further promote inclusion with regard to gender rights. These include the right of women to have their foreign spouses become Nigerian citizen; a proposal for women to claim their husband’s states of origin as theirs after five years of marriage, 35 % affirmative action for women in political parties and in appointive positions in government. The original Bill proposed by Hon. Nkiruka Onyejocha representing Isikwuato/Umuaneochi Federal Constituency also asked that additional seats should be created for women at the National Assembly – 37 in the Senate and 74 in the House of Representatives and one additional seat exclusively for women in the State House of Assembly. The lawmakers didn’t think these were important proposals. Rather, they voted for the re-affirmation of patriarchy. Currently the National Assembly has 5% female representation. Out of the 109 members in the Senate, only seven are women. In the House of Representatives, there are 12 women out of 360 members. Nigeria has never had a female Governor except Mrs Virgy Etiaba who became Governor briefly only because the incumbent Governor, Peter Obi was once impeached in Anambra State.
Should anyone be surprised? This is the same National Assembly where a lawmaker once paraded his four wives, and introduced them to the Assembly one after the other, to prove the point that he is a very capable man. The same lawmaker would return later to announce the birth of his child No. 28 and how fertile and prolific his wives are. He demanded that his house should be declared a polling booth because by 2023, if he so wishes, he would have produced up to 30 children! Indeed, this is the same National Assembly where the lawmakers have consistently rejected any Bill that is against child marriages and the rights of the girl-child. In February, the wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari and a retinue of women including the Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, visited the National Assembly to lobby for a productive and progressive amendment in support of gender equality. The wife of the Vice President, Mrs Dolapo Osinbajo also followed suit, a day after. But the lawmakers could not be swayed. They do not think that there is a need to break any bias against women. Ironically, Nigerian women are often blamed for their own woes.
On March 2, Nigerian women stormed the National Assembly carrying placards in protest. Today, in commemoration of the International Women’s Day, they have further organized a one million women march in protest. They want to “Break the Constitutional Bias, and Break the Political Bias”. They have my support.
For Nigerians, the crisis in Ukraine is not far away at all. It is next door, in fact it may be said that the war is having a major effect in many Nigerian homes and families. This is not about crude oil, the spot price of which has gone beyond $100 per barrel, and the same government that relies on crude oil receipts is now saying this is tragic for the country. This is not even about the geo-politics of the Russia-Ukrainian conflict. Russia does not want the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) setting up a military base at its door step – in Ukraine, Sweden or Finland, or anywhere near Russia. The more urgent concern and this is our departure point, is the humanitarian crisis that the failure of diplomacy and the inequity in international relations has generated in the Eastern border of Europe. Since the crisis began, I have listened with great concern to the anguish of friends, former colleagues and their family relations calling, sending messages, to report how they are affected by the war in Ukraine. A former colleague during my tour of duty at the Presidential Villa has three children in Ukraine. His sister’s son is also there. They are all hunkered down in a shelter.
My friend says he and his wife and sister are permanently on the phone trying to monitor the welfare of their children. All four – my friend’s 3 and his sister’s only son- are all studying Medicine in Ukraine. Many Nigerian families send their children to Ukraine to study Medicine, Computer Engineering, and the Sciences. Out of the 10, 000 medical doctors produced by Ukraine annually, about a third are Nigerians. The fees are affordable compared to the arm and a leg that Western Universities demand. Ukraine is also developed with strong education, science, agriculture, and engineering sectors. Historically, it was the strongest of the units that made up the Soviet Union. In contemporary times, it remains a very resourceful country with enormous strength in minerals, agriculture and science. Apart from the medical students from Nigeria, there are others studying in other fields. There is even a Nigerian church in Kiev, led by Pastor Sunday Adelaja. In total, there is probably close to 20, 000 Nigerians or more in Ukraine. Pastor Sunday Adelaja has managed to abandon the congregation and escape (he says Putin is looking for him as a target!), but the majority of Nigerians, and other Africans, are stranded. Their agony and the frustration of their families should constitute an important part of the review.
In the age of globalization, democracy and free choice, it would make no sense to query why some people leave their countries and travel to other places to find meaning and fulfilment. The history of humanity is based on migrations across geography and seasons. Nigerians in particular are extremely peripatetic. In the most remote places of the world, you are bound to find a Nigerian, studying, teaching, driving a cab, doing security work, serving in an international capacity, running a corner shop, playing football, or comfortably married with a family. But in the case of Ukraine, most of the Nigerian nationals out there are students or religious workers. Whereas it is a status symbol for an average Nigerian family to send their children abroad for studies, it is also the truth that despite the fact that Nigeria has over 100 universities, many families send their children abroad because it is easier to get admissions into foreign universities if you can afford the fees, and you are at least sure that the university calendar will not be disrupted by teachers and other university staff who are perpetually on strike here in Nigeria, over unpaid salaries and allowances.
University students in Nigeria are also forever subjected to all forms of harassment: dirty halls of residence, the menace of oppressive lecturers who sell handouts, and torment female students for sex, and a general community outside the campus that inflicts mental torture on everyone. Parents therefore try to insulate their children from the psychosis in the land, at least for a period in their lives. To keep their children in good schools, many parents sell property, take loans, or save towards the same investment and if that option is not achievable, they look for other means. I doubt if any Nigerian parent would ever imagine that with all that, their child or children would end up in a war zone. But that is what has happened in Ukraine. Many Nigerian parents took their cue from the 12 countries, including the UK, Egypt, Morocco, US, and India, that issued early travel advisories and asked their nationals to leave Ukraine immediately because it would only be a matter of days before Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine, and hence, they pulled their children and families out. But then, it is not every family that is equally circumstanced. Air fares shot through the roof. And it is natural for a largely religious community to think that a miracle would happen. Ironically, one of the men preaching such miracles was the first to flee to safety! Fact: thousands of Nigerians are stranded in Ukraine.
They are victims not just of the confusion that the war has brought, but also racism, which worsens their plight. In the wake of the Russian invasion, the people of Ukraine began to flee towards safer neighbouring countries, especially Poland, Romania, Hungary and Moldova. Persons trooped to the train stations hoping to get a place on one of the vacation trains ferrying people to safety. Nobody knows when or for how long the trains would come. But when a train then shows up, there is gross discrimination. The co-ordinators of the flight from the turbulence insist that Ukrainians must board first, then children and women in that order! But the arrangement is not colour-blind. Africans are told to wait, and so there are many of them, sheltered in nearby buildings who do not know when it would be their turn. I saw a video showing a Nigerian whose pregnant wife managed to get onto the train, and he was disallowed from getting on board. It was painful watching him screaming: “Give me my wife! Give me my wife!”
War may be the legacy that past ages bequeath to us, as Wole Soyinka points out in A Dance of the Forests, humanity being in a perpetual state of conflict across the ages, but as we have seen in the writings of Sun-Tzu (The Art Of War), Carl von Clausewitz (About War) and Raymond Aron (Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations) on the subject, and as the experience of previous wars show (World War I, II, the Korean War, the Gulf War, the Nigerian Civil War etc), there is simply nothing good about war. Nobody wins, everyone loses; it is only the degree that differs. The crisis in Ukraine has thus thrown up all the key divisions in international relations at both the person to person levels and at the bilateral, multilateral, geo-political levels to remind us all that whereas there is a body called the United Nations, created after World War II to bind the world together, the world remains divided, the people in it do not like each other and that international relations based on the principles of jus cogens, including the sovereign equality of states, enshrined in Article 2(1) of the United Nations Charter (1945), is at best a myth in reality.
There has been so much talk about human equality, a societa humana in this regard, but even human beings within the international order, do not regard themselves as equals. International law practitioners have tried to provide a linkage in terms of the alignment of sovereign equality with human equality through the UN Resolution on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P, 2005). In the situation that we are currently witnessing in Ukraine, the host community is struggling to defend itself in an unequal match against Russia. It cannot even protect its own citizens. A humanitarian crisis is afoot, with Poland, Moldova, Hungary, much smaller countries dragged into an extremely difficult situation. The Polish Ambassador to Nigeria has had to deny that Poland does not want to help stranded Nigerians. Where host communities fail to discharge their responsibilities to protect foreign nationals in their country, in the event of war and chaos, what should the home countries of the affected persons do? They are bound by the same principle.
The Nigerian Government has been criticized heavily for its failures in terms of citizen diplomacy in the face of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the fact that many Nigerians are trapped in the crossfire. From Kiev to Abuja, the Nigeria foreign policy machinery behaved as if its carburetor had issues. It failed to fire the engine correctly. The machinery abandoned the Nigerians in Ukraine even while other countries openly helped theirs and gave specific travel advisories. When the blow-out occurred, the Nigerian Embassy in Kiev issued a statement in which the officials told Nigerians in Ukraine, that if they find the situation “morally disturbing”, they should make private arrangements to keep safe, make sure they have their consular documents in place and should they wish to return, the Embassy would be available to assist with consular duties. What kind of talk was that? Is it possible not to find a war situation “emotionally disturbing?”
This caused some outrage and in the face of that, the Embassy in Kiev immediately circulated another statement it had issued on January 26, to the Nigerian community in Ukraine, but really there is no difference between the first and the second intervention. Nigerians in Ukraine were simply told that “they are on their own” in the following exact words: “Nigerians are hereby further advised to take their individual and collective safety and security very seriously, avoid unnecessary travels within the country, especially to identified hotspots in Eastern Ukraine; and ensure that they carry requisite identification at all times”. The Embassy says it would make periodic announcements and offer consular services available where necessary. Both the National Association of Nigerian Students in Ukraine (NANS-Ukraine) and Nigerians students in distress have spoken up (including Anjola-Oluwa Ero-Phillips) to declare that every effort to get the Nigerian Embassy to help them failed. Ms Eunice Eleaka, President of NANS-Ukraine, whose parents managed to evacuate before the blow-out had to send an urgent SOS message to President Muhammadu Buhari. The outrage that has greeted the mishandling of the Ukrainian crisis by the Nigerian Government is in order.
It has now resulted in a flurry of last minute activities. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs after expressing surprise that there was an issue in Ukraine (apparently the only government agency in the world that is surprised, even with the Western allies raising the alarm, weeks earlier, that an invasion was imminent), decided to summon G7 ambassadors in Nigeria, and the Ambassadors of Poland, Russia and Ukraine. The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission also woke up and started offering advice, backed by phone numbers and escape routes out of Ukraine into Poland. Nigeria also put up the equivalent of “small yansh diplomacy”, telling Russia to pull out of Ukraine and respect the international order. The best that African countries can do in this matter is spineless diplomatic twerking, to use a more decent phrase, so they should not deceive themselves, but they can do more in terms of helping their stranded citizens who are trapped in the crossfire. Nigeria’s House of Representatives did well by making the crisis a matter of urgent public importance, and resolving to send to Ukraine forthwith, the House Majority Leader and the Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to bring home stranded Nigerians in Ukraine. We would like a feedback on that. Did they travel? Are they back? How did the intervention of the House help?
It is perhaps selfish, to express concern more about the plight of our compatriots in Ukraine. Indeed, it is the whole of humanity that faces a problem. And the people of Ukraine will bear the brunt of their country being turned into the battle ground for the politics between Russia and NATO and the balance of power in the world. It would be a while before Ukraine recovers from the storm that has fallen on its roof. Its people have been displaced. The country has been thrown into turmoil. Age-old animosities between the Russian speaking Eastern parts and other groups have been re-ignited setting fire to the Minsk Agreement in Belarus, 2014. Vladimir Putin may be accused of all kinds of atrocities, and he is probably guilty, but the US and the allies are not particularly innocent either. NATO says it welcomes all countries that are interested in joining it. Putin’s Russia insists that there was a promise by NATO not to expand East-wards but since then it has added 14 new members. Putin hates the Alliance and does not want it anywhere near Russia. Those who know the story argue that the agreement of September 1990 referred to East Germany and not the whole of the East, but isn’t Putin right to argue that any further enlargement is a threat to the sovereignty of Russia? He is aggrieved because he knows that the intentions of the Allies are not necessarily holy. Has anyone thought of the Monroe Doctrine, and the 1962 US Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, the Gulf War, the attack on Libya, and the cross-current details?
The Allies have imposed sanctions, from sports to SWIFT, making Putin and Russia look like they have just walked into a trap. What is the end-game then? Could it be to cripple Russia and create rebellion inside the Kremlin and get Putin out of the way? The Russians probably have that figured out. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says: “The Western sanctions on Russia are hard, but our country has the necessary potential to compensate the damage”. It is the world that will suffer in the end, and as the agony of Nigerians connected with Ukraine has shown, there is a lot more beyond gas prices, higher inflationary rates, the clout of a divided UN Security Council and economic sanctions, with greater cost better measured in human terms.
Hopefully, by the time this commentary is in print, on February 22, 2022, President Muhammadu Buhari should have given his assent to the re-amended Electoral Act Amendment Bill which was transmitted to him on January 31, 2022. If so, the President would have laid to rest all speculations and conspiracy theories as to why he does not want to sign the Bill or the possibility of what happened ahead of the 2019 elections repeating itself. If the President does not sign the Bill into law, however, he would raise concerns about his commitment to leaving a legacy of credible elections behind and would deepen tension and uncertainties within the polity. The President does not need the stress. It is in everyone’s best interest for him to grant his assent. He can subsequently send further amendments to the National Assembly as he did with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the Appropriation Act 2022. In 2018, President Buhari rejected the proposed amendments to the Electoral Act 2010, four times, citing as justification - all kinds of irregularities, including drafting issues, sequence of elections, and even the phrasing of words in parts of the then proposed Bill.
In the end, no amendments took place and Nigerians went into the 2019 general election with the same old electoral framework that stakeholders wanted the legislature to amend. The final excuse given by the government in 2019 was that there would be no time to effect the amendments before the general elections whereas it was the back-and-forth over the granting of assent that was the problem. After the 2019 elections, the process of amending the Electoral Act began afresh under the 9th National Assembly. In November last year, an amended Electoral Act Bill was forwarded to the President for his assent. Section 58(4) of the 1999 Constitution provides for a window of 30 days within which the President can grant assent or withhold it, and in the event of the latter he can be vetoed by the National Assembly.
The President exhausted the entire 30-day window only to object to the National Assembly’s restriction of political parties to direct primary as the mode of selecting candidates for elections by political parties. He cited insecurity, the cost of conducting direct primaries and infringement on the rights of Nigerians to participate in governance as reasons. He promised that if this could be reviewed to allow for both direct and indirect primaries, he would grant his assent. The National Assembly threatened to veto the President, but it did no such thing. Instead the National Assembly reviewed the contentious Clause 84 of the Electoral Bill (originally Section 87 of the Electoral Act 2010), and replaced direct primaries, with an option of direct primaries, indirect primaries and consensus candidacy with a strict definition of what constitutes consensus and the other two options. The Committee of the Whole of the National Assembly then decided to insert in Clause 84, a provision that any one holding a political office - Ministers, Commissioners, Special Advisers and others - must relinquish such a position before he or she can be eligible to participate in the Electoral process either as a candidate or as a delegate. Previously, government appointees and political office holders could serve as delegates, go into elections, lose and then return to their jobs. In other words, the National Assembly modified and went beyond the President’s request.
The newspapers reported yesterday that the President wants this Clause removed before he can grant his assent. He reportedly met with the leadership of the National Assembly over the weekend. Some APC Governors are also said to be uncomfortable with this, as well as the definition of consensus by the national legislature and they are purportedly putting pressure on the President not to grant his assent. This is the main source of agitation and concern among Nigerians who think that an old, familiar script is about to be played out again. If the President does not grant assent, the Bill goes back to the National Assembly, the lawmakers would huff and puff, then they would re-amend the law again and add new things for effect, transmit the new twice re-amended Bill to the President, he or the Governors would again pick issues with some Clauses, wait till the last minute to register objections and then the process would begin again until time and resources would have been wasted.
This is the mischief that concerned Nigerians do not want. The objection to Clause 84 as phrased is that it automatically infringes upon the fundamental rights of political office holders to participate in the electoral process and it is to that extent illegal. What has not been pointed out is that the same Clause 84 allows any aggrieved person under that Section to approach the Federal High Courts to seek redress. Whereas Clause 84 may not derive directly from the public hearings conducted ahead of the Electoral Act Amendment process, it stands to reason that the express objective is to create a level playing field for everyone who takes part in the party nomination or candidate selection process. Hitherto, political office holders use government resources and access to state privileges to dominate party primaries within the ruling party. They are also ready tools in the hands of their principals, especially the Governors. They are expected to do the masters’ bidding since in any case they need the opportunity to return to where they came from if they fail in their bid. I see no problem with Clause 84, as it provides a recourse to the courts, and ensures a level playing field for all parties involved.
The other issue is the fear that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would be left with no option than to change the dates for the 2023 elections if the President does not sign the Electoral Bill as proposed by February 22, 2022. For now, INEC is yet to issue guidelines for the conduct of the 2023 general elections on the grounds that it is waiting for a new Electoral Act. According to Section 28(1) of the proposed Electoral Act 2022, INEC is required to issue a notice of election not later than 360 days before the appointed date for an election. INEC has since scheduled the 2023 Presidential and National Assembly Elections for February 18, 2023. To meet up with that provision and date, the deadline is February 22, 2022. So, whereas the President still has up till March 2, by virtue of Section 58(4) of the 1999 Constitution to sign the Electoral Amendment Bill, if he fails to do so, by today, February 22, INEC would be forced to reschedule the 2023 elections, or at best, use the extant law, which is the Electoral Act 2010. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) object to such a possibility. It is not only the 2023 general elections that would be affected. Off-cycle elections in Ekiti and Osun states too. The investment in coming up with an Electoral Act Amendment Bill would have been wasted and all the more positive sides of the Bill would have been discarded needlessly.
Hence, about 26 civil society organizations have threatened to embark on a protest today. They insist that President Buhari must sign the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2022 as a “matter of urgent national importance.” I can’t immediately think of any other piece of legislation that has generated this level of intentionality in recent memory. Civil Society Partners on Electoral Reform, the umbrella group of the CSOs argue that Clause 84 is not a problem, it can be amended at any time but there are more important provisions in the Bill that must not be thrown away. Enough is Enough (EiE) one of the CSOs, identified these critical provisions in an advertorial titled “Top Provisions in the Electoral Bill, 2022” at page 53 of ThisDay newspaper on Sunday, February 20, 2022. EiE argues that “Granting Presidential assent to the Electoral Bill 2022 on or before February 22, 2022 is in the best interest of our electoral democracy. Any amendments can be sent to the National Assembly later.”
According to Enough is Enough (EiE), we should not throw away the baby with the bath water, for the following reason that we need to be reminded of: 1. Clause 3(3) – early release of election funds to INEC. Indeed if all funds required for a general election are released a year ahead, INEC would be more financially independent. 2. Clause 50: Electronic transmission of results. This again is in order. Nigerians have always asked for electronic transmission of results to prevent fraud and manipulation. 3. Clause 65: Power to Review Election Results Declared Under Duress. This particular clause truly empowers the INEC. There are persons who became Governors in this country simply because there was no clause such as this in the extant Electoral Act, thus subjecting the electorate to the excruciating impact of a stolen mandate. 4. Clause 8(5): Political Neutrality of INEC Personnel. Here, it is proposed that any INEC official who is affiliated to a political party if caught, is liable on conviction to a fine of N5m or imprisonment for two years or both. This is a very essential provision. Too many electoral officials, including INEC, security personnel and ad hoc staff are embedded partisan gladiators. They help to thumb-print ballot papers. For a fee, they switch results. This particular provision puts them on notice that there are consequences for bad conduct. For far too long they have been getting away with sheer impunity. 5. Clause 47: Legalizing Electronic Accreditation of Voters. Nigerians have been clamouring for this: how technology can be used to upgrade the Nigerian electoral system. INEC may have introduced some technology in form of Smart Card Readers and Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in previous elections but because these are not provided for in the extant Electoral Act, they have been declared inadmissible by the courts in a number of cases.
Otherwise, Alex Otti of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) would have been Governor of Abia State in 2015. He won at the Court of Appeal when he challenged the 2015 Abia State Gubernatorial election victory awarded to Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Ikpeazu was removed. But Alex Otti later lost at the Supreme Court in part, because there was no provision for electronic accreditation or the use of smart card readers in the enabling law. The ruling of the Court of Appeal was accordingly set aside on technical grounds. Clause 47 in the proposed Bill would make electronic accreditation admissible as evidence, and help check fraud and manipulation. 6. Clause 54 (2) - Inclusion of Persons with Disability. If nothing else moves President Buhari to sign the Electoral Bill 2022, into law, this should. This is about the rights of persons living with Disability and it is a matter of public record that it was President Buhari that signed the Prohibition of Discrimination Against Persons Living With Disabilities into Law in 2019. He should be seen to be more interested in their inclusion, not the rights of political office holders pursuing selfish interests and their own stomachs. 7. Clause 51: Redefined Over-voting – Great provision. Only the total number of accredited voters at a polling unit will determine the validity of the voters. Hitherto, nobody paid enough attention to this. Nigeria is a country where ghosts show up on election day, including ghosts from other countries as far away as Brazil and they vote and their votes are made to count. 8. Clause 29 (1): early conduct of party primaries and submission of list of candidates. The thing speaks for itself here and it is better to quote the EiE statement: “Every political party shall, not later than 180 days (-6 months) prior to election day, submit the list of its candidates, who must have emerged from valid primaries conducted by the political party, to INEC”.
Nigeria must be one of those strange countries where the electorate doesn’t even have the opportunity to know the candidates in an election. Some political parties boast that if they put up a goat as candidate, Nigerians would vote for that goat without knowing, because the extant law weighs more heavily on the mandate of political parties. It is important that Nigerians begin to know the candidates well in advance. 9: Clause 94 – Early Commencement of Campaigns. In this section, political parties now have more time for campaigns, from 90 days to 150 days before polling day and 24 hours before election day. This is likely to increase the cost of campaigns but on a positive note, it provides the electorate a better opportunity to know the aspirant or candidate. Finally, 10: Clause 34 – Substitution of Candidate in the event of Death in an election. This is to correct the debacle in Kogi State about succession under such circumstances, following the death of Alhaji Abubakar Audu of the APC, in 2015.
It may be argued that all things taken together, the amendment of the Electoral Act 2010 is the most comprehensive and pragmatic effort that the National Assembly of Nigeria has embarked upon since it was resolved that having a credible electoral framework is crucial for the integrity of elections and the leadership recruitment process. The issues identified by EiE are practical responses to the realities of the Nigerian electoral experience, as distilled by stakeholders, processed by the legislature, and codified into legislation to raise the quality of Nigeria’s democracy. Whatever anyone may have said to President Buhari about Clause 84, relevant as it is to the interest of a self-seeking, alimental minority, the feelings of the larger majority, and the future of Nigeria’s democracy, should be more important to him. President Buhari should be more interested in keeping his promise that he intends to leave Nigeria’s electoral framework better than he met it. He has nothing to lose for doing so. He would be remembered for moving the needle forward in the direction of public good. The dilly-dallying notwithstanding, INEC also cannot give the excuse that it is waiting on the President. Irrespective of the extant law, arrangements should be made for the next elections. When the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2022 is eventually passed, necessary adjustments can be made. INEC, by conduct or inaction, passive or otherwise, must not give credence to the speculation that it may be part of a hidden agenda to compromise the democratic process. The President must be encouraged to leave a legacy of just and credible elections that he himself can be proud of. Mr. President, sign the Bill. History should not repeat itself.
On Friday, the Supreme Court of Nigeria in a split decision voted 6-1 to nullify Executive Order 10 through which the Federal Government of Nigeria had sought in 2019, to give effect to Section 81 (3) and Section 121(3) of the 1999 Constitution, as altered by the 4th Alteration Act No. 4 of 2017, with regard to the financial autonomy of state judiciary and legislature which had been observed more in the breach by state governments and their Chief Executives. The Governors of the 36 states of the Federation had kicked against the Executive Order as an abbreviation of their rights under the 1999 Constitution. Collectively they elected to go to court, and hence asked the Court (a) to declare the Executive Order 10, unconstitutional and illegal; (b) compel the Federal Government to take up funding of capital projects for State High Courts, Sharia Court of Appeal and Customary Court of Appeal, and (c) refund to the 36 states a sum of N66 billion, being amount which they claimed to have spent on capital projects for the three courts in their respective states. To resolve the matter, the Supreme Court in addition to its panel of seven Justices invited five Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) as amici curiae (friends of the Court). On Friday, the court ruled 6-1 that the Executive Order 10 is ultra vires, unconstitutional, illegal, and therefore null, void and of no effect whatsoever. Their Lordships also resolved, 4-3 that the 1999 Constitution already expressly spells out the responsibility of the states and the Federal Government concerning the funding of the State High Courts, Sharia Court of Appeal and the Customary Court of Appeal, even if it is silent on capital projects. In sum, the Supreme Court rejected the request of the Attorney General of Abia State and 35 others with regard to the aforementioned (b) and (c) parts of their prayers.
Many commentators have so far tried to be diplomatic in their response to the ruling, but from the outcome as reported, it is not difficult to see that what the Supreme Court has done is to take a technical view of the matter and offer a strict interpretation of the Constitution, the powers of the President, the relationship between the states, and the limits of the Federal Government in the exercise of its powers as spelled out in the 1999 Constitution. Did the President of Nigeria actually act ultra vires? Justice Mohammed Dattijo, delivering the lead judgment declared that “This country is still a Federation and the 1999 Constitution it operates is a federal one. The Constitution provides a clear delineation of powers between the state and the Federal Government. The President has overstepped the limit of his constitutional powers by issuing the Executive Order 10. The country is run on the basis of the rule of law.” Okay. The law is what the judge says it is. The powers of the various tiers of government are defined in Sections 4, 5, and 6 of the 1999 Constitution pursuant to the doctrine of the separation of powers. Executive powers are vested in the President in Sections 5, 130, 132, 148(1), 151 such that in general, the President of Nigeria is one of the most powerful executives in the world invested literally with the status of a constitutional monarch. In Section 130 (2), he is actually described as “the \Head of State, the Chief Executive of the Federation and Commander-in-chief of the Federation.” The strong effect of the ruling by the Supreme Court in A.G. Abia and 35 ors vs. AG Federation is that there are limits to these powers, nonetheless.
By seeking to enforce and extend Section 121(3) of the 1999 Constitution, the President, in other words, encroaches on the right of state governments to receive money from the Federation Account on behalf of the state judiciary and legislature and transmit their share to them. Thus, the Federal Executive overreaches itself when it assumes it has the powers to strengthen Section 121(3) through what amounts to additional legislation. It is the duty of the legislative arm of government to make or amend laws under Section 6. EO 10 further amounts to an interpretation of the law by the Federal Government and that Executive arm of government acting as adjudicator. The powers in that regard belong to the judiciary under Section 6. So, while the EO 10 would have protected the judiciary against the rascality of state Governors riding roughshod over the judiciary and the legislature at the sub-national level, and the judiciary would have been a beneficiary of the order, their Lordships looked beyond benefit to the judiciary and took a strictly purist and technocratic view of the law. It would be wrong to assume that the judiciary has ruled against itself. If the Federal Government is allowed to overreach itself and the President permitted to usurp the functions of the legislature and the judiciary, that would be a prescription for anarchy and an endorsement of dictatorship.
The lead judgment emphasizes the rule of law, separation of powers, the limits of powers and the federal principle. I would like to see the state legislatures begin to perform their oversight functions, to call over-bearing Governors to order. The judgment has also been described as victory for the Governors. It is most ironic that these same Governors are benefiting from a principle they themselves do not respect, an emphasis on the rule of law they have no regard for. In various states, Nigerian Governors are worse than tyrants. They seek to control judges, bribe them, humiliate them and violate their independence and integrity. It will be recalled that in one state, Cross Rivers State to be specific, magistrates not too long ago – January 2021- carried placards and organized protests because their salaries had not been paid for 24 months and nothing had been done to provide them good working conditions. State Governors also intervene unnecessarily in the appointment of judges, and seek to compromise them. As for the State legislatures, state Governors preside over them remotely. They behave like messiahs with the control of everything else. State legislatures in Nigeria are in any case pathetic. The members behave like the Governors’ houseboys, especially when the Governor’s party has the majority in the House. I argue that although the 36 State Governors may have secured partial victory in the matter of EO 10 with the Federal Government, but they lack the right to claim any moral high ground.
The judex may never at any time go to court to sue the state Executive arm of government, that would be strange but the abuse of privilege by state Governors actually got so bad, that in 2015, the Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) went on strike for two weeks. In 2020, they shut down the courts for 64 days. State Governments hurriedly signed a Memorandum of Action (MoA), the National Judicial Council also made an appeal before the strike was suspended. JUSUN asked for financial autonomy for the judiciary. The body insisted on compliance with the Constitutional provision which places the budgets of state judiciary as a first line charge on the Constitution. They have a point.. I would also like to see the state legislatures begin to perform their oversight functions, to call over-bearing Governors to order.
What the Governors do to Local governments is even worse. They rely on the powers of control conferred on the state government under Section 7 to render local councils totally ineffective. Governors decide on whether elections would hold at that level of government or not, and when they frustrate due process they appoint sole administrators or caretaker committees. They hide under the State-Local Government Joint Account and the associated committees to steal money meant for local councils. They get away with blue murder because nobody challenges them.
To put the matter in perspective, the Federal Government in 2019 introduced Executive Order 10 to correct the wrong being committed by the State Governors. It also introduced through the Nigeria Financial Investigation Unit (NFIU) a set of guidelines to ensure that state Governors would no longer withdraw monies meant for local council operations from the Joint Account (Section 162 (8)). Daylight robbery of local council resources is one of the reasons the local level of government is virtually dead. The big obstacle against the attempt by the Federal Government to enforce the fiscal autonomy of the local councils was again, the law. This is relatable to the minority judgment by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji who maintained that the EO 10 was in order “because of the hanky-panky and subterfuge played by state Governors against the independence and financial autonomy of state judiciary…This is not unconstitutional.” There has been a tendency to play down this minority view.
On Sunday as anchor of ThisDay Live: The Sunday Talk Show, I had tried to bring up the matter with one of my guests, the legendary Chief Robert Clarke, SAN. Chief Clark had admonished me not to even mention the judge’s name not to talk of offering a summary of his position. But Justice Abba-Aji enjoys the support of Professor Itse Sagay, SAN, who deserves to be quoted at some length: “I just read the judgment” he said. “I was out of the country. I just want to say broadly that I agree with Justice Abba-Aji, the minority judgment. The reason is that the constitution makes it clear that the legislative and judicial branches of state government are to get specific sums of money from what goes to the state. And if the state governors are not making them to have it, all that the executive order has done is to facilitate the implementation of the Constitution. And that is what executive orders are supposed to do. So, the Federal Government was right and I agree with the minority judgment entirely.” What are we dealing with here: form vs substance, the law as it is vs. the law as it ought to be? What is the minority opinion based upon? Was Justice Abba-Aji offering an opinion rather than a strict construction of the law as it is? But whatever it is, the Supreme Court is the apex Court of the land, and the majority decision carries the day, more so as it is focused on the very substance of EO 10.
The Nigerian President is empowered to give orders, and in this regard, there can be a recourse to Section 315(2) of the 1999 Constitution, but this particular section states clearly that the President can only act “in conformity with the provisions of this Constitution”, certainly not in breach of it. The Buhari administration has adopted Executive Orders, the first administration to do so in Nigeria in a manner that looks like a copy-cat imitation of the American Donald Trump’s Presidency. Within the first five months of his assumption of office in 2017, Trump had signed 37 EOs! But even in the US, Executive orders are administrative handmaidens to facilitate the execution of policies within the Executive arm of government, commands to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as instruments of management or to prepare a framework for proposals to the legislature, but certainly not an attempt by the Executive to usurp legislative and judicial functions. To date, the Buhari administration has proclaimed more than 10 Executive Orders. A close scrutiny may reveal that most of them would pass the test. These would include EO 1: on the promotion of transparency and efficiency in the Business Environment; EO 2: On Submission of Annual Budgetary Estimates by all Statutory and non-Statutory Agencies, including Incorporated Companies wholly owned by the Federal Government of Nigeria; EO 3: Support for Local Content in Public Procurement by the Federal Government; EO 4: On the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS); EO 5: to promote local content in public procurement with science, engineering and technology components, and to prohibit the Ministry of Interior from issuing visas to foreign nationals whose skills are available in Nigeria; EO 6: on assets connected with corruption and other related offences; EO 7: On Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme; EO 8: On Voluntary Offshore Assets Regulatory Scheme, EO 9: On Companies Income Tax. The problem with EO 10 as appropriately pointed out by the Supreme Court is its breach of constitutional provisions.
It seems to me therefore that Executive Orders are not necessarily in themselves bad; they are good only to the extent that they are in conformity with the basic law, that is the Constitution. Every affirmation of the supremacy of the rule of law is a good sign, but all parties concerned, including the apex court must be seen to be consistent accordingly, and prepared to embark on judicial activism, beyond narrow technicality, for public good, when required to do so. The ruling under review thus throws up more questions than answers: how do we truly ensure the independence of the co-equal parts of government? How do we prevent cynical elements from violating the laws of the land because it is expedient to do so? There are many Nigerians who believe that the 1999 Constitution is the biggest problem of Nigeria and that the Constitution needs to be replaced with a people’s Constitution forged and agreed upon under a democratic dispensation. They also think that for as long as Nigeria is unable to find the political will and the right political leaders to promote unity and national loyalty, so long would the lawmakers and the judex continue to talk about the rule of law in vacuo. In that sense, the Supreme Court ruling under review has not solved any problem. It is instead, a strong reminder, of the inchoateness of the Nigerian essence.
The politics of zoning is likely to make or mar the 2023 Presidential election, with implications for the stability of the country. It is one of the most contentious issues in Nigeria at the moment particularly in the two major political parties: the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), which both represent most of the contending stakeholders in Nigeria. It is often argued that zoning is not expressly stated in either the 1999 Constitution or the Electoral Act, but it is a convenient measure adopted by the Peoples Democratic Party in 1999, with the return to civilian rule, in order to ensure equity, justice and a sense of ownership in the political representation process. Even though the word zoning is not used in the 1999 Constitution, it is nonetheless in line with the ideals of Federal Character as stated in Sections 14(3), 147(3) and 171(5) and the establishment of a Federal Character Commission in Section 153 (1c) and Part 1(C) of the Third Schedule.
The principle is that in a multi-plural, diverse country like Nigeria, with over 400 ethnic nationalities, it is important that every group is given a sense of belonging, and participation, to promote national unity and loyalty, and to prevent the overt domination of some sections of the country, lording it over others in appointments and the sharing of power and access. It is in this sense that zoning or the concept of rotational presidency is a derivative of the Federal Character principle. Since independence, this principle has been a source of tension and conflict among the various ethnic nationalities, regions and zones that make up Nigeria, with minority groups protesting about their marginalization by majorities, and great discontent over the distribution of power and positions by leaders who assume office and resort to the politics of hegemony, nepotism and favouritism to the advantage of their own ethnic stock. This was an issue during the military era, under Lt. General Aguiyi-Ironsi - Igbos were accused of dominating other groups. Then, there was the civil war, and the North seized power. Over the years, other Nigerians complained of marginalization, and the Northernization of power in Nigeria. The return to civilian rule in 1999 and the exit of the military were both meant in part, to address this volatile issue and ensure true, participatory democracy sitting on a tripod of equity, justice and good conscience.
It is therefore most unfortunate that as Nigeria moves closer to the 2023 general elections, there is so much disquiet about zoning and rotational Presidency. The kernel of it is the insistence by certain Northern interest groups that there is nothing wrong in a Northerner becoming President after eight years of the Buhari Presidency. These groups including the Northern Leaders of Thought, Northern Elders Forum, Coalition of Northern Groups and the Arewa Consultative Forum and their spokespersons have at one time or the other in the last few months argued that the North has as much right as any other zone in the country to run for the Presidency in 2023, and that there is no such thing as a consensus or an agreement to zone the Presidency of Nigeria to either the South or to the South East. Most Northern commentators on the subject indeed sound irritated by the idea of Igbo Presidency or the thought that Ndigbo is the only major ethnic group that has not been allowed to lead Nigeria since the return to civilian rule in 1999. There are however exceptions from the North: the Arewa Consensus Assembly for example, has called for a Southern Presidency in 2023.
The main argument of the naysayers is as articulated by former Governor of Kano State, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso who argued in a Television Interview: “If you look at it from 1999 to date, or even after 2023, we have 16 years for PDP, eight years for APC. Now in the 16 years of PDP, we had a situation where the Presidency has been in the South for 14 years and only in the North for two years during the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of blessed memory.” Similarly, the Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Muhammed has argued as follows: “I want to let all Nigerians, especially those clamouring for the 2023 Presidency to go to the South, that it is the turn of the North to produce the next President.. We are aware of the agitations of the Southern part of the country because the leader of the country today, President Muhammadu Buhari who is from the North will finish his tenure in 2023, so power could rotate to the South. But I want to say that I am in PDP. I am not in APC that has this burden of zoning the Presidency to the South….my party was at the centre for 16 years; 14 of those years were led by people from the South, so where is the justice and the justification. Therefore, it is the turn of the North to produce the next President…”
Both Kwankwaso and Muhammad may be defending the reported plan by the PDP to throw the race for the Presidency open within its ranks, but at the heart of their argument is the suggestion that the South has spent more time in power at the centre than the North. It is a specious argument that has been taken up by some youth groups in the North and they are wrong. Nigeria did not begin in 1999. In the 61 years of the country’s independence, under both the military and civilians, the North has controlled power at the centre, for more than 41 years! So there is a case to be made for equity and justice and it is in part why many Nigerians from the Middle Belt to the South are calling for restructuring. This is also at the root of calls for self-determination and/or secession by ethnic nationalist groups in the East and the West.
For the benefit of those arguing that nobody should come to power based on sentiments, they may need to be reminded of a bit of history, which they seem to be conveniently ignoring. After the annulment of the 1993 Presidential election won by Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Bashorun MKO Abiola and the turmoil that enveloped the country, the military junta in setting up the Interim National Government (ING) had to choose as its head, a Yoruba man, and not just a Yoruba man, but someone from the same town as Chief Abiola, that is Chief Ernest Adegunle Shonekan. It doesn’t take much commonsense to see that there was an attempt here to assuage the feelings of the Yoruba and the Egba even if that didn’t last for too long. Again in 1999, with the tension over the 1993 debacle yet to settle, the two major political parties at the time: the PDP and the SDP, both chose Yorubas as Presidential candidates: Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (PDP) and Chief Olu Falae (SDP). The plan obviously was to appease the South West over the injustice that had been done to Chief MKO Abiola in 1993, and perhaps to show that Abiola’s party, the SDP still stood a chance of winning Nigeria’s Presidential election Again, for the benefit of those opposing the idea of a Nigerian President of Southern extraction in 2023, they should remember the dust that was thrown up by the North in 2010, after the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. The 1999 Constitution is very clear on succession to power in the event of the death of a sitting President: the Vice President is immediately sworn in. But Northern groups opposed the idea of then Vice President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan assuming office in accordance with Constitutional provisions (see section 146).
Nigeria almost broke up because some Northerners argued that only a Northerner could complete President Yar’Adua’s remaining one year in office. It took the National Assembly coming with a “doctrine of necessity”, something unknown to the Constitution before reason prevailed. The people behind the planned subterfuge never forgave President Jonathan. They took their pound of flesh in 2015, when they began yet another drama about how President Jonathan had promised to do only one term in office, and it was the turn of the North to produce the next President. Even Northern members of the PDP, some of whom are now opposed to power-shift to the South, engaged in anti-party activities just to get power back to the North. As a worst case scenario for 2023, across the aisle, some other power brokers, including Emirs, are now suggesting that the same Jonathan that they opposed in 2015, should be allowed to return to office, and it is not certain that they want him back for altruistic reasons or out of love. So, should political parties and their leaders be allowed to always take decisions based on expediency?
It seems to me however that the APC seems to be handling the politics of zoning for the 2023 Presidential race much better than the PDP. With perhaps the exception of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, the other APC members that have publicly shown interest in the Presidential race are from the South: Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Governor of Lagos State, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, former Governor of Abia State, Senator Rochas Okorocha (former Governor of Imo State), Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State and by proxy – Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti. So far, the APC seems to be tilting towards the South as most of its Northern members seem to be more interested in vying for the Chairmanship of the party – 12 so far in the APC Chairmanship race. APC insiders also claim that President Buhari believes that it is immoral and inequitable for a Northerner to succeed him. What is not clear is which Southerner from the South, East or South West the President is interested in, but in any case that is left for party delegates to decide. What is clear is that the APC has problems of its own, the party has been somewhat riotous as a constitutional, legitimate body in managing its own affairs, and that may be seen when and if the party is able to hold its National Convention scheduled for Feb. 26. Is there a Third Force within the APC? So it seems. Already, some members of the party are challenging the legitimacy of the Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee led by the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni. Even if the Convention holds, there is still the possibility of some aggrieved members of the party going to Court to challenge the legitimacy of the Buni committee as in the Ondo State case: Jegede vs. Akeredolu. The technical point raised by Jegede’s counsel at the time, was determined narrowly by the Supreme Court 4-3. The res in the matter, can still be revisited.
The PDP is likely to find itself in the eye of the storm if it zones its choice of Presidential candidate to the North. Except the PDP is playing some kind of game or a curious strategy, those who are pushing for a Northern PDP Presidential candidate must know that it amounts to political arrogance for anyone from the North to think he or she can win the Presidential election by jettisoning zoning or without the support of the South. The Constitutional provision on the character and spread of votes for a person to be elected Nigerian President is a bit cumbersome (see Section 133). The country is also fragile from many perspectives. We need to manage people’s expectations in the best interest of national stability. Why would the Northern PDP leaders say that they have not had their chance within the party? Do those of them who engaged in anti-party activities in 2015 have the moral right to talk about the Northern interest in 2022/23? Those pushing for a Northern Presidential candidate in the PDP apparently under-estimate the resolve of the Southern Governors Forum comprising the Governors from PDP, APC, APGA and the position as well of the various ethnic socio-political organizations - Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, PANDEF and Afenifere. Southern leaders are unyielding in their determination that the next President of Nigeria must come from the South. Both PANDEF and Ohanaeze have warned about the possible break up of Nigeria if power at the centre remains in the North. Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo wants a President of South East extraction
Unlike the APC, the PDP has a long list of Presidential hopefuls from the North: former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, Governor of Sokoto State, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, Bauchi State Governor, Bala Muhammad, former Kano State Governor, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso. If the PDP goes ahead with its proposed no-zoning policy, these Northern aspirants, would confront, for now, from the South – former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim, former President of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, veteran journalist, Dele Momodu and others within the party who may also have their eyes on the ticket. The politics of zoning is bound to widen the gulf within the party with grave consequences in the 2023 elections. In 2014/2015, the PDP lost woefully and imploded, basically because of this same division, with many of the party foot-soldiers at the grassroots level, scattering like pigeons. The standard explanation that is offered by PDP leaders is that consultations are ongoing and that many of the aspirants are also still busy with consultations. Whatever it is, the uncertainty within the party serves only the purpose of giving an advantage to other political parties at all levels.
It remains to add that while the concept of Federal Character has been grossly abused in its application, the zoning principle in politics has helped to ensure a sense of balance, rotation and inclusion, but to jettison it for purposes of expediency would be counter-productive and costly. In an ideal situation, every aspect of national life should be driven by merit, but there is nothing ideal about Nigeria, and that is why we run a turn-by-turn democracy, with emphasis on how access to power amounts to access to the proverbial national cake. The logic is simple: every group wants their own share of the cake before anyone begins to talk about merit, as if any single group in the country has a monopoly of talent. This is the Nigerian dilemma.
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Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives was the Guest Speaker at the 52nd Convocation Ceremony of the University of Lagos, his alma mater, on Monday, January 17, 2022. The theme of the lecture was: “Building Back Better: Creating a New Framework for Tertiary Education in Nigeria in the 21st Century.” The Speaker had a lot to speak about but what has caught public attention is his declaration that the time has come to increase the academic qualification for persons seeking to lead Nigeria either as President or at other levels within the political space: in other words, the President, Governors, and members of the National Assembly. He argues at page 16, of his 22-page published presentation, that just as the National Assembly reduced the minimum age of eligibility for public office, in response to the “Not Too Young To Run Campaign”, there would be a need to also review the mandatory academic qualification for persons aspiring to high offices, in order to enhance the quality of candidates who elect to lead Nigeria. I agree with the Speaker of the House of Representatives. My only concern is that in the face of a yet to be concluded amendment of Nigeria’s Electoral Act, he as Speaker of the Blue Chamber, has not yet raised it on the floor of the Assembly or cause it to be raised, in line with parliamentary procedures. He has chosen the platform of a public speech, and even more surprising is the fact that since he raised the subject, there has been very little attempt to amplify his viewpoint which I think is very relevant to current attempts to deepen Nigeria’s electoral system. My own take is that Gbajabiamila has raised a very fundamental question about Nigeria’s leadership recruitment process. Who should lead Nigeria? Who is best qualified to do so? The Speaker said that current provisions in Section 131 of the 1999 Constitution are no longer relevant in the 21st Century, and that the limits set therein are too low.
Section 131 of the 1999 Constitution simply says that “a person shall be qualified for election to the office of President if: (a) he is a citizen of Nigerian by birth; (b) he has attained the age of forty years; (c) he is a member of a political party and is sponsored by that political party; and (d) he has been educated up to at least School Certificate level or its equivalent.” Section 142 states the same provisions with regard to the office of the Vice President. The same provisions apply to other elected positions except with regard to the age of qualification as indicated in Section 65 (2(a) for candidates seeking election into the National Assembly, Section 106 (c) for the State House of Assembly and Section 187(2) for Governors and Deputy Governors. In section 137, the Constitution outlines the grounds for disqualification. But Gbajabiamila’s concern is about Section 131(d) and the insistence on “School Certificate and its equivalent” in the 21st century. What does this mean exactly, in today’s Nigeria? The answer is provided in Section 318 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, which is the Interpretation Section. Here it is expressly stated that in fact a Primary Six School Leaving Certificate is enough for anybody to aspire to any political office in Nigeria. Even the equivalent of a Primary School Leaving Certificate would be considered good enough. Section 318 defines “school certificate and its equivalent” as (a) secondary school certificate or Grade II Teacher’s Certificate, the City and Guild’s Certificate or (c)Primary School Leaving Certificate or its equivalent and -(i) service in the public or private sector in the Federation in any capacity acceptable to the Independent National Electoral Commission for a minimum of ten years, and (ii) attendance at courses and training in such institutions as may be acceptable to the Independent Electoral Commission for periods totaling up to a minimum of one year, and (iii) the ability to read v, write and understand and communicate in the English language to the satisfaction of the Independent Electoral Commission, and (d) any other qualification acceptable by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Thus, the Nigerian Constitution has created a liberal and accommodating situation whereby anybody at all can occupy important political positions in the country, and lead a country where the youths and others are some of the most vertically and horizontally educated persons in the world. Nigeria’s educated elite has no problems with education, the problem is that the educated ones run away from politics, when they attempt to be part of it, they are labeled and stigmatized, and so we have a country where the uneducated, the ignorant who have cash in their pockets, influential Godfathers, and the courage to hire social media noisemakers, who are even doubly ignorant, are the ones dictating the country’s pace. Within the purview of the extant law, no Nigerian political aspirant is required to show proof of having passed the School Certificate Examination or its equivalent. An F9 parallel in all subjects is considered perfect, even a concocted testimonial from a primary school or a secondary can take any Nigerian to the highest levels of government. That is even going too far. Some dubious proof of attendance at one or two seminars is enough, once the Electoral Commission says it is okay. In fact a certificate is not even required as we have seen in the case law on the subject. So why should anyone be surprised that half of the people who get elected to the National Assembly simply go there to sleep or that Governor behave like tyrants and that some State Houses of Assembly rarely meet except when money is to be shared?
Gbajabiamila thinks this is not good enough. So, why has he not raised it where it matters? Why is minimum qualification for elective office not one of the issues in the ongoing debate about the Electoral Act Amendment? Going to UNILAG to run his mouth sanctimoniously is hypocritical. Indeed, as he pointed out, and let us help him deodorize the point, Nigeria cannot continue to recruit the uneducated, the ignorant, the sleepy, rambling wing of society to lead it into the future. This of course is not new. Once upon a time in this country, a matter was taken all the way to the Supreme Court over qualifications and the apex Court ruled that the Constitution recognizes something called RSM (whatever that is) as the equivalent of a School Certificate as long as it is acceptable to the Electoral Commission. In another case, when the issues of qualification came up, the Court ruled that a candidate for an election does not even need a certificate. That is how this country has been elevating persons in ishiagu, Babariga and flowing agbada to go and make laws and design policies that they know nothing about. Gbajabiamila as Speaker of the House of Representatives must have seen the danger up close. He presides over a House of Representatives where at least one member has paraded his four wives as an illustration of his male virility and has also had the effrontery of announcing the birth of his 28th child as a major contribution to national progress. Hon. Al Hassan Ado Doguwa, House Majority Leader, is threatening to produce up to 30 children before the next general elections and he wants the Nigerian Government to classify his home as a polling unit if he achieves the feat. Gbajabiamila presided over that session. He turned it all into a joke.
And that is precisely our problem. We think leadership is a Nollywood episode. When the President’s qualification became an issue in the 2019 election, the Nigerian Army showed up in court to make the claim that the Army does not keep the certificates of its recruits. In other parts of the world, former soldiers who have made sacrifice for the country are treated with respect and exemptions may be made for them, but the risk we run which the House of Representatives Speaker may be alluding to is that in the 21st Century, Nigeria may end up electing into high offices persons who may know next to nothing about climate change, global trade, artificial intelligence and the internet of things and they will go abroad and sit with better educated persons and end up disgracing all of us. It is a problem also with the country’s value system. Wealth, no matter how ill-gotten, has become more important than everything else. With the way the aforementioned sections of the Nigerian Constitution are constructed, we may one day elect into office, touts and all kinds of characters who would not be fit enough to represent the country internationally. We elect holders of “school cert or its equivalents” and yet we still worry about the poor attention that is paid to education in Nigeria, the rank anti-intellectualism that pervades the land, and the perpetual conflict between the educated and the monied elite in our land? To be a big man in Nigeria, you only need to attend a seminar and communicate in English, and the English you speak may not even be good enough for you to get an exemption for IETLS from the UK Home Office or for TOEFL from US Education Authorities.
Our argument: as 2023 approaches, is that we cannot afford to elect into positions, persons with “school certificate or its equivalent”. That has to change. Gbajabiamila, even if he has been negligent on the subject is right. We cannot afford to send to international platforms, persons who do not know the difference between foreign exchange and interest rate, or what is called diaspora remittances. The kind of avoidable leadership recruitment crisis that this country has faced so far must come to an end. I am not asking for a collection of certificates. A graduate degree would be enough. The assumption is that a Nigerian graduate would at least have enough sense to read up on what he or she may not know, and ask the relevant questions. But it is not enough to be a graduate also. That graduate must have necessary cognate experience in either the public or private sector. I recommend a minimum of 10 years. A Nigerian university graduate who has been sitting at home doing nothing significant, should not be allowed to suddenly show up to seek high office. That is not what we are talking about. This is not about paper qualification, but a kind of training that guarantees the ability to think. Mexico once insisted on educated economists, Ph. D holders running its system. The 60th President of Mexico (1988 – 1994), Carlos Sarlina de Gortari had a Ph.D from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He was an economist and an apostle of free market ideas. Ernesto Zedillo was Mexican President from December 1994 to 30 November 2000. He had a Ph.D in Economics too, but the economy failed under his watch. There was also Enrique Pena Nieto (EPN), the 64th President of Mexico (2012 – 2018) who was sometime down the line accused of plagiarism in his academic thesis. It must also be noted that between 1958 and 1988, every President of Mexico was a law graduate. Their successors were similarly well educated. The eggheads of Mexico did not make much difference. In other words, strong academic qualifications may not make up for such other factors as emotional intelligence, maturity, integrity and character that may be central to the making of a political leader. That notwithstanding, it is certainly not the same when you compare the group of incompetents and strange bedfellows that occupy the policy heights of the Nigerian economy.
We need a new orientation. We need to pay attention to how we recruit leaders in Nigeria. The National Assembly must take a second look, or should have taken another look at Section 131(d) of the 1999 Constitution. Touts speak English. Yes. Thugs have access to school headmasters who can prepare testimonials and affidavits. In Nigeria - yes. The country’s Electoral Commission will accept any “equivalent”. Oh, yes. It is just too easy in Nigeria for anyone to become a major political stakeholder. The bar for legitimate political ascendancy is too low! We are already witnessing that in the traditional institutions where all sorts can wear beaded crowns. Within the larger arena, there must be due respect for minimum standards. The irony is written larger as follows: Under Nigeria’s Public Service Rules, nobody can be recruited as an Administrative Officer (AO) without a university degree or its equivalent, and yet, in the same country, the Constitution says a Primary School Certificate holder is good enough for the highest positions available in politics! Gbajabiamila failed the test when he took his opinion to the 52nd Convocation anniversary of the University of Lagos. He probably did not want to offend his colleagues in the National Assembly whose qualifications he knows cannot be vouched for, many of them don’t have the School Certificate that is the minimum. They can’t even provide the equivalent! And yet these are the same people making laws and taking decisions on behalf of the millions of well-read and capable Nigerians who stay away from Nigerians politics because they don’t want to mix and mingle with a certain Nigerian type with whom you can’t even have a simple conversation on anything. Why are we like this? Is it still possible to save Nigeria’s 2023 from the charlatans?
Is it too late? Nobody knows. The National Assembly has transmitted the re-amended Electoral Act Amendment Bill to President Muhammadu Buhari for his second consideration in accordance with Section 58 (3) of the 1999 Constitution. There are issues about mode of primaries, but there is this other big issue about a political system that recruits persons with “equivalents” in the 21st Century. The persons with “secondary school and its equivalents” are part of the problem with Nigeria.
Nigerians are very bad losers in politics, sports or both. Nothing illustrates this better than the politics of acrimony that is already emerging over the mode of primaries for the 2023 general election. But even more specifically, would be the anguish, outrage and frustration that have attended the exit of the Super Eagles from the 2021 edition of the African Cup of Nations Tournament in Cameroon. The Super Eagles finished in the preliminary group stage as the best team with all the nine points, having led Group D, where they were able to beat Egypt (1-0), Sudan (3-1) and Guinea Bissau (2-0). Four Nigerian players were included in the best XI after that round. Austin Eguavoen, Technical Director of the Super Eagles and interim coach of the team won the best coach award. The entire country was excited. Initial fears by Nigerian football pundits that the Super Eagles would fare badly if Gernot Rohr, former coach of the national team was not removed had been replaced by boundless optimism that it was fine after all that Rohr was sacked, and that without him, the country would perform exceedingly well. Eguavoen, the tested footballer who replaced Rohr, was promoted as master tactician who could in fact be promoted the substantive coach of the Super Eagles. Eguavoen was further used to justify the fact that there are good indigenous coaches who only needed to be given a chance.
It should be noted that no other factor unifies Nigerians more than football, especially when the country is competing on a continental or global stage. At such moments, Nigerians forget geography, religion and other differences that push us apart. It is only during such moments that you can have a glimpse of national pride, or patriotism among Nigerians at home and abroad from Cairo to Kaura Namoda. It was therefore not surprising to see that the Super Eagles caught the attention of the entire country with their performance during the group stage at AFCON. Men and women of means represented by the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, visited the Super Eagles and promised them a Dollar Rain, denominated in Naira, for every match they won from the group stage onwards. Between CA-COVID, the private sector coalition, and Femi Otedola, the billionaire who personally promised a largesse of $250, 000, the country’s adrenaline level rose. Go for gold, boys, we all said. The Super Eagles had won the African Cup of Nations thrice in the past (1980, 1994, 2013). They were runners up thrice (1984, 1988, 2000). At other times they got to either the quarter finals or the semi-finals. Between 1982 and 1990, they were eliminated during the group stage only once.
The bubble about the possibility of Nigeria getting to the finals of the on-going AFCON, based on group stage performance burst on Sunday, January 23 when the Super Eagles of Nigeria met the Carthage Eagles of Tunisia. In the 47th minute of the match, Tunisian ace player, Youseff Msakni sent a long volley in the direction of the Nigerian goal post. It looked like something that the goalkeeper of the Arise TV football team could easily punch away, but Nigerians were shocked to see the ball in the net, going past goalkeeper Maduka Okoye. The Super Eagles struggled for the rest of the match, but the Tunisians defended their goal, and now, the Super Eagles are out of the tournament. Nigerians are in pains. They think the team could have done better, the goalkeeper in particular. One elementary lesson in football is that no team can or should be underrated, and that every match comes with its own dynamics. And no team should rely on initial success and then go to sleep. And three, the better prepared team, the most technically smart team, psychologically strong and skilful would always win. Luck is a very small element in a sport that has risen to the level of the exactitude of science. Nigerians do not want to hear this. They are inconsolable. This is why I argue that we are bad losers. What happened to sportsmanship? Many of the people bursting a vein because the Super Eagles have crashed out of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) would not have received a penny out of the proposed Dollar Rain, anyway. Let’s look at the excuses.
Austin Eguavoen, the interim coach has since stepped down, to return immediately to his formal position as Technical Director of the Super Eagles. This means that the Super Eagles would now be managed going forward by Jose Poseiro, the Portuguese coach that the NFF engaged in December 2021, just before the AFCON. The defeat of the Super Eagles in Cameroon may be unfortunately read as a setback for indigenous coaches, unfortunately, because of Eguavoen’s stature and past records. He blames poor officiating, and the Senegalese referee, Mguette N’Diaye. Why? Alex Iwobi got a red card in the 66th minute reducing the Super Eagles to 10. Iheanacho also got a yellow card. There may have been cases of poor refereeing at AFCON, the most dramatic example being the group stage match between Tunisia and Mali which the Rwandan referee, Janny Sikazwe, ended prematurely twice as if he was in a hurry to catch up with a date. But Nigeria cannot give such excuse. Many teams have won with 10 men on the field, overcoming an 11-man team in come-back situations. Bayern beating Stuttgart 4-0, in March 2021, Chelsea 10 men beating West Ham 4-1, way back in 2006, Manchester City coming up from 3-0 down and with ten men to beat Tottenham 4-3 in the 2003-4 FA Cup, Chelsea beating Barcelona in the second leg of the 2012 Champions League semi-final, Arsenal beating Newcastle 1-0 with just 10 men in 2015, Manchester United beating Crystal Palace 2-1, with 10 men in 2016. It can be argued that there may be other considerations or that it is not always that a 10-man team can perform magic. Yes. Alex Iwobi was pivotal to the Nigerian team on Sunday. His exit from the field affected the team.
But the key issue is that the Tunisian team was better prepared and far stronger in terms of tactics. We played a Tunisian team that had 10 of its main players down with COVID. Their main coach, Mondher Kebaier was not even available. He was in his hotel room isolating, after testing positive for COVID. The Tunisians fielded their Team B. They were strong on ground, and focused. The Super Eagles throughout the first half played as if some of them had just returned from a house of pleasure, and were having trouble concentrating on the task at hand. It was clear that they underrated the Tunisians despite having been warned by the likes of Jay Jay Okocha and others that the Tunisian football team should not be under-estimated. Daniel Amokachi famously said in fact, that the Carthage Eagles have the capacity to blow hot and cold like the British weather. On Sunday, January 23, Nigerians learnt a bitter lesson about the Carthage Eagles and the British weather analogy. The Tunisia coach says they were able to beat the Super Eagles because Nigeria was predictable. Eguavoen has reminded him that Nigeria had defeated Tunisia before now with just 10 men. So, why didn’t we re-enact the feat this time around? That is the question. The Eagles were tired. They could not fly.
Twitter Nigeria and Reno Omokri, the self-confessed Buhari Hater, have not been sympathetic at all. They blame President Muhammadu Buahri, who had made a phone call to the Super Eagles, before the match, as the source of the bad luck that led to their defeat. Quoting the Book of Job at 32:8, Omokri accuses President Buhari of negative energy, and hence anything he touches, goes to dust. In Turkey, President Recep Erdogan and his sycophants would have taken this as hate speech. A Turkish journalist, Sedef Kabas is in jail for having the temerity to compose a poetic innuendo about the President’s head. Omoyele Sowore, El Zaharadeen and Agba Jalingo in Nigeria have had their own experiences in that regard also here in Nigeria. It is certainly not true that the President’s phone call led to the Super Eagles defeat, the superstitious affirmation is too far-fetched but when Nigerians mix politics with sports and everything else, there can be no limit to the manufacture of conspiracy theories. “Who gave the team, Buhari’s number?”, someone actually asked. One fellow with the twitter handle @ayemojubar turned the reactions into a choreographed farce when he picked on another public figure, Desmond Elliot: “Blame Desmond Elliot for all this.” How? Desmond Elliot is an actor and a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly. What has he got to do with the performance of the Super Eagles in the Cup of Nations?
But the man who has suffered most in the hands of football-loving Nigerians is Maduka Okoye, the 22-year-old goalkeeper of the Super Eagles. Maduka Okoye is a goalkeeper with Watford FC, UK, currently on loan to Sparta RotterDam, and on national duty for the Super Eagles in the 2021 AFCON. During the group stage matches, Okoye was the darling of Nigerians. He was highly instrumental to Nigeria’s three-match win, displaying great talent beyond initial expectations. He was hailed as one of the new faces of Nigerian football and those on whom the future depends including Alex Iwobi, William Troost-Ekong, Wilfred Ndidi, Kelechi Iheanacho, Taiwo Awoniyi, Moses Simon and others. Female fans particularly loved Maduka Okoye. They were more interested in his looks, and many of them said so on social media. The famzing was so much from cougars and all kinds of eyes-rolling, lips-pouting, Nigerian girls, I had to advise on television that the Super Eagles crew should keep ladies away from Maduka Okoye, to prevent them from spoiling him with love and affection, the same way they spoiled some other young men we know who have children from multiple continents. After Nigeria lost the match against Tunisia, the same Nigerians, men and women who praised Okoye turned against him. He was called “fine useless boy on the pitch…Okoye too sexy for the shot.” Memes suddenly emerged: “Okoye on Instagram vs. Okoye on the field” – very uncomplimentary reactions to a young man who came to help his country. On Twitter, @jibbyfordPr said “It is not Okoye’s fault. He probably thought the shot was from a photograph.” Another person: @EneMariah1 said “I think he should go for modeling. Football is not his calling sha.”
One more reaction from @chimejaypee: “He tried to pose for the shot.” Former Super Eagles striker, Julius Aghahowa also singles out Maduka Okoye for blame, accusing him of failing to save a ball that was coming directly “towards his direction.” What is the big lesson? Nigerians simply don’t want to lose at all. They will blame anybody including the weather. In life, in every sphere of it, you are only as good as your last performance. The day you fail, nobody remembers all the good things you did previously. The same people who praise you today can turn against you tomorrow, once their expectations are not met. It was never about you to start with, but their own feelings and selfishness. Can someone please explain this to Maduka Okoye to let him know that he tried his best and we must be glad that he showed up for Nigeria?
But why is everyone so uptight about Nigeria’s performance at the AFCON? You cannot sow corn and expect to reap wheat. Is that possible, within the laws of nature? Nigeria wants to win gold at AFCON 2021, but the same country was never ready to excel. In fact, the sterling performance at the group stage was a miracle. In Nigeria, we go to tournaments and expect to perform miracles – miracles that are not backed up with strong preparation and organization. We experiment and expect accidental success. That kind of approach to international competition, be it in sports, science or literature, does not yield the accidents that we expect simply because the opponents are better prepared. Rohr was Nigeria’s longest serving Technical adviser but after 64 months, he had nothing to show for it. Nonetheless, Rohr must be laughing wherever he is now. After he was sacked, he granted interviews in which he said his sack was unnecessary and he could have won the cup for Nigeria. Nobody trusted him because the best he offered and achieved was a third place position in the 2019 AFCON in Egypt. During the playoffs for the 2021 AFCON in Cameroon, Nigerians were shocked that the country only narrowly qualified. They also found it hard to believe that Nigeria had to struggle not to be disgraced by Cape Verde. They asked for Rohr’s sack. And he was booted out, and now he doesn’t even have a visa to Nigeria. He can’t even access the unpaid arrears that have now been paid into his Nigerian bank accounts. He should therefore be very careful how he laughs because he was certainly part of the problem: coaching the Nigerian national team from Europe, and failing to modernize his tactics!
There are other problems of course: the crisis of football administration in Nigeria. Those who can make a difference are not allowed to express opinions: so much division in the House of Football. Nigeria also lacks the infrastructure for developing local talent. The structures of old that produced gifted footballers from the secondary school level, Principal’s Cup have disappeared. Nigeria used to have a robust local league in the days of Stationery Stores of Lagos, BCC Lions of Gboko, Leventis United, Abiola Babes FC, Iwuanyanwu National, Enugu Rangers, Bendel Insurance, IICC Shooting Stars FC of Ibadan, NEPA FC, New Nigeria Bank FC, Calabar Rovers, Mighty Jets of Jos. Not anymore. There are many teams across the country, but their owners are not investing enough. Nigeria has the talents and a youthful population that can offer more, given the right nurturing environment. We should stop blaming phone calls, spiritual energy, Okoye’s good looks or the weather for the Super Eagles exit from the 2021 AFCON in Cameroon. The exit was foreseeable. Under different circumstances, it was avoidable.
We have had a dizzying last 10 days at home and abroad: Novak Djokovic, with his COVID time-line of humiliation, from Melbourne to Dubai, and probably back to his home land of Serbia, where a disgraceful hero’s welcome awaits him for his abominable conduct which may have far-reaching implications for his legacy and career, the Party Gate Scandal at No 10 Downing Street, where PM Boris Johnson and his team have been downing booze during COVID restrictions (May – December 2021) and pretending to be holier than thou on top of it. BoJo needs to be reminded that he is not above the law. The UK needs to remind its leader that if the Chairman of Credit Suisse can be forced to resign for failing the test of personal responsibility and accountability, and Her Majesty’s favourite son can lose his pampered kid privileges because of bad association and conduct, then journalist turned Prime Minister Boris Johnson also needs to be reminded that the laws of England do not allow him to disobey the people’s laws and his own government’s guidelines, and get away with impunity. The Labour Party is 10 points ahead in the polls, and Boris Johnson is about to lead the Conservatives to perdition. His hurriedly concocted “Operation Red Meat” and populist sops may not save him and his government. China has recorded a GDP growth of 8.1%, above the target of about 6%, but retail sales is down to 1.7 %, the property sector which accounts for 25% of GDP is in trouble, the country’s zero COVID policy has impacted on productivity and efficiency, the People’s Bank of China’s reduction of interest rates has raised questions about how far China is willing to go to make key loans cheaper for businesses even as that amounts to a loosening of President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity policies”. Nonetheless, the President of China is beating a different tune on interest rates, and the path to economic recovery. The Chinese should keep their troubles to themselves!
Back home: There is the on-going African Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Cameroon. The Super Eagles seem to be doing well. But there have been killings in the North East of Nigeria and yet the Governor of Yobe State and Caretaker Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress party (APC), Mai Mala Buni says there is so much peace in Nigeria, that the people can now sleep with two eyes closed, because President Muhammadu Buhari has tackled the insecurity problem in the country effectively. Pure sycophantic tosh. That is what that is – in a country where the people have been blinded by killings and sundry forms of terrorism in all directions. And on top of all that, in the week that just ended, more Nigerians showed interest in the 2003 Presidential race: Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Governor of Lagos State and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) increased the volume with his visit to President Muhammadu Buhari to declare his interest in the Presidency of Nigeria and seek the President’s support. Questions: Is the Tinubu dream realizable? And what next for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo just in case he is also interested? Can he stand up to his former boss and mentor? In a copy-cat move, the Governor of Ebonyi State also rushed to the Presidential Villa to announce that he is also interested in the Nigerian Presidency. He also met with the President and addressed the State House Press Corps. Can someone in charge please stop this charade of going to the President to announce Presidential interest? Nigeria does not run a branch of any political party secretariat at the Presidential Villa. I honestly hope that one of these days we would not wake up to see some elements pasting their campaign posters in front of the President’s office and other parts of the Presidential Villa! These are definitely issues of interest, but sometimes the big issues can be boring and so repetitive, “the God of small things” speaks truth to power, and that is why I have chosen today to talk about books and something else, and here goes.
In the early 90s, I was privileged to have been actively involved in the Non-Governmental (NGO) community in Nigeria, working either as a consultant or resource person on a number of diverse issues including, development funding by international aid agencies, HIV/AIDS and health reporting, public health communication, women empowerment advocacy, women’s reproductive health and decision making, youth mentoring, population management, the environment, and adolescent reproductive health and sexuality. International donor agencies were particularly interested in the latter, that is adolescent reproductive health and sexuality in the context of the spread of global poverty, population explosion, harmful cultural practices and prejudices, gender imbalance and the rapid surge in cases of HIV/AIDS, and the findings by researchers and observers alike that both the girl-child and female adolescents were among the most vulnerable categories of the world’s population. I recall in particular in those days, sessions at the Action Health Incorporated (AHI), a Lagos-based NGO established by Mrs. Nike Essiet and her husband, Dr. Uwem Essiet, with a special focus on adolescents. The Essiets conducted research and surveys, and ran advocacy and peer review clinics for adolescent girls on such topics as abstinence, reproductive health, family life, sexuality, condom negotiating skills, and the dangers of early pregnancy and marriage. The tone of the methodology was preventive: how do we prevent many young girls, burdened by all kinds of factors, from becoming victims of those same factors and how they can be empowered to negotiate and make informed choices, and live a meaningful life. One of the early gains of that period was the development of a National Sexuality Education Curriculum within the school system, and the generation of useful literature on the subject to promote awareness.
The problem as identified was that adolescent sexuality was unusually high among Nigerian adolescents. Many young girls in secondary schools were already sexually active by the age of 16, many of them with multiple sex partners. The result was a high rate of abortion, often carried out by quacks and in secrecy, because of the illegality of abortion in Nigeria and the stigma of teenage pregnancy. Many young girls had their future aborted, their potentials destroyed, and the net of poverty and social deprivation was expanded. The boys and men who put the girls in the family way were usually not affected; nor did they take responsibility. The girls were either forced to marry early or they dropped out of school. Close to 60% of abortion related cases in Nigerian hospitals involved adolescents. Many were also not protected by culture. In parts of the country, male adults married teenage girls and justified this on the grounds of religion and culture. Many of such girls were denied the opportunity of going to school, and because their bodies were not fully developed for pregnancy and motherhood, the hospitals were filled with young girls afflicted with Vesico- Vaginal Fistula. Maternal mortality and morbidity among pregnant teenage girls was high. The girls needed to be saved.
It is unfortunate however, that as I reflect on some of the early work done in the 90s, in which I was both observer and participant, the condition of the Nigerian adolescent appears worse today than it was two decades ago. The education sector is troubled, as young girls are now special targets of kidnappers, bandits, terrorists and criminals who turn them into sex slaves or brides against their wish, to their detriment. Nigeria has in place the Child Rights Act, signed into law in 2003 but many states, 12 of them have to date refused to give assent to the law. Child marriages remain rampant. Poverty has turned many young girls into prostitutes and victims in the hands of sexual predator. Rape is prevalent. Economic deprivation has destroyed family life. Parents are distracted. Teachers no longer pay enough attention to their roles in loco parentis. The gains of the past have been eroded. The present is worse than the past. Nonetheless, in a country that has one of the youngest populations in the world, a critical segment such as the youth population cannot be allowed to lose its potential to reckless sex and depravity, in an age of sexual permissiveness.
It is with these preliminary thoughts and reflections that I introduce three books that I have just read and now available for public appreciation and appraisal by Temilolu Oluwakemi Okeowo, namely Becoming An Alpha Female – A Guide Book for the Young Female, (2021, 96 pp.), Wisdom for Girls (2021, 84pp) and Letters To My daughters (2021, 82 pp.). Temilolu Okeowo is an Apostle, a Christian Evangelist of the Word, founder and Head Girl of The Girls Club of Nigeria, The Girls Apostolic Ministry of All Nations and the The Girls Club of Africa US. Inc. Since her days as an undergraduate student of Law, Ms Okeowo has been involved in advocacy for the girl child: how can she be saved in a depraved society, where a young girl is a natural victim of the combined forces of poverty, sexual predation and misogyny. Whereas the NGO work that I referred to earlier conducted research and community based counseling, Temilolu Okeowo adopts the strategy of counseling and mentoring, and her platforms are the church pulpit, newspaper writings, the social media, books and direct action. She relies heavily on the Bible, and in all three books, the moral and Biblical dimensions of her arguments are unmistakable. Okeowo does not talk science. Her mission is to prevent young girls from going to Hell and losing their souls, because of what she calls “five minutes of enjoyment.”
She leaves the reader in no doubt that she believes pre-marital sex is more than a sin, that sexual intercourse is a spiritual encounter and chastity until marriage is the best and only option for any young lady who wants to become an Alpha Female. In the book, Becoming an Alpha Female, Temilolu Okeowo articulates the main themes of her concern. In a rather feminist tone, she argues that an average woman is imbued with divine privileges and gifts that men cannot “boast of” – women are designed by God to nurture the universe and sustain it, but many women have lost their purpose in life and ruined their own potentials because of sexual intercourse with men who deposit ill-luck and evil in their destiny. In 20 Chapters, the author offers detailed counsel about what a young girl must do to achieve her full potentials in line with God’s principles. She says for example: “Girls, You are Institutions, not Barbie Dolls”, “Don’t let the World Damage You”, “Don’t End up (as) Slay Morons”, “Must You Have a Boyfriend Even at 18?”, “Pre-Marital Sex Gives the Devil an Upper Hand…”, “Don’t Let the Social Media Redirect Your Life” , “A Prayer Warrior Has the World At Her Feet”… “Stop Idolising Your Pastors”. My favourite Chapter if you may imagine is Chapter 20 on the dangers of idolizing pastors. Okeowo is forthright in declaring that some pastors are at best “evil men hiding under the cloak of man of God”, and that they are human and not flawless men who could destroy the souls of innocent young girls.
Okeowo preaches faith in God, proper alignment with God. This much is well stated in the two other books: “Wisdom for Girls” and “Letters to my Daughters”. Here, the author is the “Agony Aunt” as she provides a compilation of columns she had written in The Nation and Punch newspapers and on her Facebook page. The chapters in both books are in the form of requests for advice as well as comments, sent to the columnist/author by the public, mostly young girls, and their mothers. Accordingly, every response is directed to “my darling, precious, glorious, dignified, world-famous and heavenly-celebrated daughters”. Her tone is affirmative and optimistic. She seems convinced that every girl can be saved if only the female adolescent would avoid sex, or covenant with the Devil through pre-marital sex, and live a chaste life like Esther and Joseph in the Bible. She recommends the spiritual life, and the need to avoid a certain distraction called “boyfriend” which can only result in sexual exploitation, slavery, misery and bondage. There are practical tips about how to go through university and graduate as a virgin! In Wisdom for Girls, the author specifically tells girls to beware of men and to learn how to deal with them, and that it is possible to get pregnant as a virgin if a woman does not keep her distance from a man. Okeowo’s ideal girl is “The God Girl”, “The Virgin”. The villains of her narrative are lecherous men who take advantage of young girls with baits, randy young men who are just interested in their own lust, reckless young girls who give in to peer pressure or are simply wayward, and parents who have a duty to guide their children but are themselves neck-deep in sin, setting bad examples from generation to generation. Okeowo’s evangelical mission is to save everyone and to get those who may have been victims at one point or the other to move on, and embrace a new life, like Oprah Winfrey and Joyce Meyer.
These are altogether, books that should be read by every young girl out there who has been rendered vulnerable in a society that has lost its moral dimension. Copies of the book should be purchased and distributed widely in schools not just across Nigeria but the entire African continent. The plight of the girl-child in Nigeria as demonstrated in the pages of these three books is fairly representative of a universal dilemma, felt and experienced more, in varying degrees, in the developing world, especially, where poverty is rife, and the enforcement of fundamental human rights is culturally determined. Okeowo constructs a binary universe of vulnerable girls and bad boys/men but isn’t it society itself that should be blamed and isn’t the system of leadership and governance in need of re-consideration? The assumption that men are evil may be too much of a generalisation. I do not believe that all men and all boys are bad or that the overriding goal of every male in relation to the opposite gender is sexual intercourse. The truth is that even adolescent boys are also as vulnerable as the girls and there must be examples in that regard if we look closely enough. The argument about more responsible and intentional, value-driven parenting is unexceptionable but it truly takes a village to raise a child, and to the extent that the environment is important: certainly there must be roles for institutions- religious, civil, traditional and communal. Okeowo raises important questions about how to save the girl child. Who will save the boy-child too? And what role must governments play to protect all segments of the population? These are the other questions beyond the teachings of the Bible, beyond morality, beyond faith and individual choices.
[OPINION] Consistency in Public Intellectual Advocacy: Akin Osuntokun’s Role in Nigeria’s Ideas Industry - Reuben Abati
AdminI want to thank the organizers of this 60th Birthday Anniversary event in honour of Balogun Akin Osuntokun for inviting me to say a few words about the themes of consistency, in relation to public intellectual advocacy and to focus on a Nigerian Case Study. In doing so, I join others in congratulating the celebrant and subject on his attainment of the diamond jubilee. I cannot think of another case study as the departure point for my commentary than Akin Osuntokun himself, although an inquiry into the nature of the ideas industry in Nigeria with specific emphasis on public intellectual advocacy would be incomplete without additional illustrations of the role of others in that nexus between culture, politics and society which is the province of the operation of the public intellectual as opposed to the strict academic intellectual and writer, who is burdened by the demands of specificity and disciplinarity. I make no clear cut distinction in this regard, however, and the reason for this will be clear in a moment. Ahead of this particular occasion, I had written a tribute to Akin Osuntokun in my weekly back page column in the ThisDay newspaper (see “Akin Osuntokun at 60” by Reuben Abati, December 14, 2021) which is a reflection of my knowledge of him as a person and a portrait of his life as I know it. The present commentary can be taken as a further reading of the subject, but within the specific context of his exertions in the public domain. I seek to raise questions and navigate the subject.
The literature on the subject of public intellectualism suggests that there is no clear, single definition of who a public intellectual is, might be or become, in the same sense for example in which we talk about a carpenter or a tailor. This absence of specificity speaks to a certain diversity and plurality, with regard to context, range, and the central figures that have featured in the ideas industry in different parts of the globe. Every public intellectual is to be understood in the context of the role that he or she plays or the theatre of his or her engagement. Hence, Edward W. Said, the Palestinian-American scholar wrote that “the definition of who or what a writer and intellectual is has become more confusing and difficult to pin down.” What does it mean for example to be “public”? Does that suggest the idea of a private intellectual?” The public is an open space. What part of the public? And who is an intellectual? In many political and cultural contexts, the word “intellectual” indeed attracts a negative connotation, if not adversarial revulsion. It is not a job, except perhaps you are an academic intellectual working in a research environment, and yet it is possible to be academic and not public, and to be a public intellectual and be academic, or provide ample primary material for academic work. Thus, there are many uses of the word “intellectual” and attitudes towards it. Edward Said sees the intellectual as a “critical outsider”. Jean Paul Sartre considers him “a person of action”. Michael Waltzer, the American political theorist sees him as a “caring insider.” Akin Osuntokun fits easily into each of these definitions, an indication of the scope of his engagements in the public space.
Whereas definitions of meanings and labels may seem academic, there seems to be very little confusion with regard to the role that the public intellectual plays in society, beginning with the production of ideas, and the creation of what Amitai Etzioni calls “communities of assumptions”, that is assumptions about how society should be organized in a more utilitarian and beneficial manner. The contribution of the public intellectual is to question received assumptions, create new ones, by asking questions again and again, about public policy and cultural constructions. Public intellectuals provoke debates through books, essays, and commentaries. They do not speak to a narrow audience, not to an expert audience that understands only technocratic jargon, but to a larger community of men and women who are interested in moving society to a higher level. The public intellectual’s tool is thus therefore, disruptive thinking. He is an agent provocateur, an advocate and at the same time, an activist, holding a magnifying glass unto society. The trajectory of human society, its growth and character, owes largely to this form of intervention and disruption encapsulated in Wole Soyinka’s affirmation that “the man dies in all who keeps silent in the face of tyranny” or Nelson Mandela’s example. In more contemporary times, the face of the public intellectual has changed significantly. The democratization of the information space and the rise of the age of convergence simply means that unlike the public intellectual of past centuries, today’s public intellectual can engage through a multiplicity of platforms – books, the pulpit, lectures, speech-making, television, radio or even internet blogs. This means an expansion of influence and reach. Today’s public intellectual is an authority, but this in itself generates conflicts with established authority figures, whose attempts at weaponizing power and position are unmasked by men and women of ideas. Many public intellectuals are brands and celebrities as well.
But how do public intellectuals establish their authority, spread their ideas and influence the way we think and act? The topic for this presentation as sent to me already provides a clue: “consistency” and a clear indication that this must be in the arena of “advocacy”. But why should consistency be important? Being consistent is about commitment, courage, and a sense of being human, devoted, and ready to make necessary sacrifices. The classical definition of this would seem exemplified by the totality of Nelson Mandela’s symbolism encapsulated in his famous declaration: “For my own part, I have made my own choice. I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.” (June 26, 1961). Consistency in public intellectual advocacy confers brand, identity and authenticity. But it is not every public intellectual that lives to the end of their days. Seeking to challenge orthodoxies through struggle, direct action, ideas and insider participation comes with risks. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman orator and philosopher had his tongue freed from his body. His head was severed for speaking truth to power and for having the temerity to challenge “constituted authority.”
The dilemma of public intellectualism invariably defines its scope and relevance: more liberal societies tend to be more appreciative of ideas and those who produce them. Closed societies, under the grips of conquerors, dictators, “constituted authorities”, and tyrants naturally suppress the people’s free will and those who claim to be intellectuals. In January 2016, I wrote an essay in The Guardian (Nigeria) titled “Where are the Public Intellectuals?” My theme was what I referred to as “the decline of public intellectualism”. Permit me to quote a little from that essay. I wrote:
“Something sad has happened and is happening and is happening in our society: the decline of public intellectualism. And so I ask: where are the public intellectuals? Once upon a time in this country, the public arena was dominated by a ferment of ideas, ideas that pushed boundaries, destroyed illusions, questioned orthodoxies and enable societal progress. Those were the days when intellectuals exerted great influence on public policy, and their input into the governance process could not be ignored. Ideas are strong elements of nation-building, and even where interests are at play, you know the quality of a country by the manner in which a taste for good thinking propels the leadership process. Public intellectuals are at the centre of this phenomenon: they include academics who go beyond their narrow specializations and university-based scholarship to take a keen interest in public affairs and who use their expertise and exposure to shed light on a broad range of issues. They also include journalists, writers and other professionals who question society’s direction and offer alternative ideas. The beauty of public intellectualism is that the intellectual at work is a disinterested party, he is interested in ideas not for his own benefit but for the overall good of society and he does not assume that his opinions are the best or that he alone understands the best way to run society and its organs. The product of this attitude is that discourse, a culture of debate, is encouraged and in the cross-pollination of ideas, a good current of thought is created, truth is spoken to power.”
I have had cause to take a second look at those words. When I said “once upon a time”, I was somewhat nostalgic and was probably referring to a period in Nigerian history that could be regarded as “the best of times” in the public space, but even that would be correct in only strictly relative terms and as a measurement of how as of 2016, Nigeria had gradually become a dangerous place to express an opinion or project oneself as a public intellectual. There was a uniformity of thought, a submission to authority, group thinking and the hijack of instruments of expression by a monied, political elite that was frightening. The seeds of the present tension may well be traced to those early beginnings. “The once upon a time” , in my reckoning, was to a season of ferment when the university campuses bubbled with ideas and the Nigerian Left provided thought leadership. The universities were a melting pot for ideas as the gown fulfilled its own idea (to borrow John Henry Newman’s contextual usage of that phrase) by showing interest in the town and how the fortunes of both town and gown could transform or derail society.
Across the country, many Nigerian scholars and others went beyond disciplinarity to test research ideas in the field of action. In Ahmadu Bello University, we had Bala Usman and Patrick Wilmot, in University of Lagos: Professor Ayodele Awojobi, Ebenezer Babatope.. at the University of Ibadan: Peter Ekeh, Bolaji Akinyemi, Bade Onimode, Comrade Ola Oni, Femi Osofisan, Niyi Osundare, Bode Sowande. At the University of Calabar: Eskor Toyo, Ingrid Obot-Essien, Herbert Ekwe Ekwe, Edwin and Bene Madunagu. At the University of Ife: Wole Soyinka, Biodun Jeyifo, Ropo Sekoni, Uzodinnma Nwala, Godwin Godini Darah, Segun Osoba, Kole Omotoso, at the University of Port Harcourt: Claude Ake, Chidi Amuta. University of Benin: Festus Iyayi, Tunde Fatunde…
Civil society was no less vibrant from the labour movement to the creative industry and civil society organizations: Mokwugo Okoye, Wahab Goodluck, Hassan Sunmonu, Gani Fawehinmi, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Arthur Nwankwo, Rear Admiral Ndubusi Kanu, Alao Aka-Bashorun, Olisa Agbakoba, Clement Nwankwo, Commodore Dan Suleiman… And in the media: Sad Sam Amuka Pemu, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, Stanley Macebuh, Odia Ofeimun, Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, Essien Effiong, Godwin Sogolo, Dapo Olorunyomi, Nosa Igiebor, Onome Ovie-Whiskey, Dare Babarinsa, Kunle Ajibade, Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, Yakubu Mohammed, Olatunji Dare, Chinweizu, Niran Malaolu.. I left out the clergy: Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi, Rev. Adetunji Adebiyi, Rev Fr. Matthew Hassan Kukah, Fr. George Ehusani, Fr. John Uba Ofei, Archbishop Olubunmi Okogie, John Cardinal Onaiyekan. Before the more contemporary examples, Nigeria’s colonial and early post-colonial history was littered with examples of men and women who were either thought leaders or public intellectuals, and whose contributions made significant difference. The academic distinction between thought leadership and public intellectualism does not need to detain us, here. As we can see, society is moved forward by a combination of influencers and public-spirited figures from diverse backgrounds, playing a mixture of roles.
I raised the question in 2016, because it was the moment when the decline of public intellectualism in Nigeria was most apparent, in my view, although much earlier in 2006, Jimanze Ego-Alowes had written a book titled “How Intellectuals Underdeveloped Nigeria and Other Essays.” In 2010, Rudolf Okonkwo wrote an article titled “The Comedy of Our Public Intellectuals.” I went further:
“In addition to other reasons, it may well be that our intellectuals are tired of engaging Nigeria. Having tried over the years to engage the governance elite with ideas and to show that only good ideas should govern society and having been spurned by the politicians, Nigeria’s intellectual elite seems to have become so frustrated, it has retired largely into a state of indifference and inertia. What is the point knocking one’s head against a wall? But intellectuals in society cannot take such a stand. That will amount to an abdication of responsibility: when intellectuals do no more than make righteous noises, the harvest in the long run, is counter-productive.”
I gave some other reasons including the existence of a climate of fear and the hypocrisy of the power elite and the seeming disappearance of a culture of reason, opinion and debate. It may be necessary to define, even if preliminarily, what may be responsible for the oscillation between active advocacy and reticence, between action and fatigue in the social structure of public intellectualism in Nigeria. Our first concern is how Nigeria continues to consume its own intellectuals. Once upon a time in this country, that familiar phrase, again, university teachers were sacked and there was a so-called environmental sanitation exercise the system targeted at those lecturers who allegedly “were busy using government time and resources to teach what they were not paid to teach!” The Nigerian system never recovered from that campus cleansing by the military. Over the years, the Nigerian public space has been driven by a culture of anti-intellectualism, tightly knit into the fabric of every public process. Admittedly, there were times when the military and the civilian authorities tried to embrace and co-opt public intellectuals into the public process. There have been success stories in that regard. Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, Professor Ibrahim Gambari and Professors George Obiozor, Joy Ogwu and Bola Akinterinwa did well leading the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), but there were also many ugly stories of public intellectuals being brought into government seemingly to demystify them. General later, President, Ibrahim Babangida made a good show of decorating his administration with high-profile public intellectuals but in the end, did he listen to them? The only other Nigerian Presidents who gave public intellectuals, substantial space in the running of government were Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, but even then what has been the impact of the presence of intellectuals in government? The Nigerian public service system is rigged to fail.
It must be noted nonetheless that there was at a point a discussion by Nigerian public intellectuals to move from the arena of advocacy into governance in the mould of Sartre’s “man of action” or Waltzer’s “caring insider.” Many public intellectuals including journalists who find ready role models in their own profession either later took government positions or jumped into the arena of politics. Their experience has been varied. Akin Osuntokun, for example once tried to obtain a form to run as a candidate for the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. With all his education and exposure in both the public and private sectors, he was disqualified on the grounds that the screening panel doubted his primary school leaving certificate. Doubt? Or they had proof? Or they just made it up? A far less qualified person was given the ticket. The man won the election but he practically played possum throughout his tenure in the National Assembly. There was no way Osuntokun would have gone to the National Assembly of Nigeria to sleep, a forum that has now become a sleeping room for retired and tired bones.
The Osuntokun experience was the experience of many others who thought that as change agents they could make a difference from within as “caring insiders”. Perhaps the more instructive example in this axis would be the experience of Professor Pat Utomi in the last general elections. Professor Utomi is without doubt one of Nigeria’s leading public intellectuals. He has tried to be President of Nigeria on the platform of a lesser known party. He was in fact the founder of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and he ran for President in 2011. He lost. In the lead up to the 2015 general elections, he was part of the process and group that formed the All Progressive Congress (APC), a major opposition party, a special purpose vehicle, and an amalgam of strange bedfellows who eventually won the 2015 Presidential election. In 2019, Utomi tried to be Governor of his home state, Delta State, in the South South of Nigeria. For decades, Utomi had articulated his vision of governance, politics, entrepreneurship, and policy in books, essays, public lectures, television programmes, and consultancies. His attempt to become Governor of Delta State in 2019 took him to a new level of understanding about the depravity of the Nigerian and of Nigerian politics itself. His experience, agony and frustration is well-captured in his book. “Why Not?: Citizenship, State Capture, Creeping Fascism and Criminal Hijack of Politics in Nigeria (2019). Why Not? Indeed. It is a question many Nigerian public intellectuals who seek to promote change from within the system often ask.
It may also be the case that the public intellectual class in Nigeria is a victim of its own expectations. The territory comes with a celebrity status, an acquired brand, and for some, Solomonic intimations of being special and wiser than the average man. It is not just established authority figures, many of who rise to positions of importance by sheer default, even the people themselves whose common good the public intellectual defends are suspicious of intellectuals. Nigeria lost its moral compass even before the military took over power at the centre in the 60s and the situation has worsened with the return to democratic governance. Military dictatorship has been replaced by civilian intolerance. Access to prominent office is now equated with intellectualism as Nigeria recruits into high office, persons without morals, depth, or purpose. The people themselves are not looking for morals or purpose. The electoral process has become a money-making process dominated by moneybags of dubious credentials. The people do not care. For them, leadership is a scam. Nigeria has produced a generation of citizens whose alienation from state and society does not accommodate the kind of idealistic, certainly not abstract values, that public intellectuals push. The more urgent worry is how the Nigerian public elite, a class that is expected to be above board, has also become embroiled in the politics of religion, geography and ethnicity, creating such terrible mongrels as an Igbo public intellectual or a Yoruba public intellectual.
My third argument in this regard is the effect of the internet on public intellectualism. In North America and Europe, certain public intellectuals explore the possibilities of the blogosphere and social media to advance public causes in a constructive manner. The intellectual elite that led the Nigerian struggle in the 70s and early 90s has grown into a dinosaur class that thinks that the social media is a playground for children. I have not done any empirical research to provide statistical, social science support for this, but a broad, anthropological investigation would confirm that the more informed public intellectuals are suspicious of the social media space or they do not know how it works and hence, the space has been abdicated for its inevitable seizure by 140-word influencers, and citizen photographers and reporters and in turn, this may have influenced the objection to the social media by authority figures, and their agents. The social media space in Nigeria can become far more influential the moment the Nigerian public intellectual begins to embrace technology as a tool of the revolution. Any attempt tp constrict the space for free expression and interaction would be an express violation of the 1999 Constitution.
The question may be asked: who reads? The production of ideas must or should be complemented by a learning and reading culture and ecosystem. The audience of the Nigerian public intellectual has shrunk badly in the face of a continuing neglect of the education sector. In 2021 alone, more than 500 schools were shut down in the northern parts of the country, due to cases of kidnapping, and terrorism. The number could be higher. Schools in the South report the proliferation of a culture of cultism and violence in schools. Both the states and the Federal Government promise higher investments in education, but the promise looms larger than the actual effort.
It is the worst of times, simply put, for Nigerian public intellectuals and scholars. As for the latter, majority of who teach in universities and research institutions, their salaries are not paid regularly, they are perpetually on strike and their so-called dialogue with government representatives is best regarded as a conversation between the deaf and the dumb. It is the worst of times, again because no zone, no square metre, no constituency is spared. A culture of intolerance seeks to impose a culture of fear and silence on the land. A noteworthy example in this regard would be the plight of Matthew Hassan Kukah, Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese of the Catholic Church of Nigeria and former Secretary General of the Catholic Secretariat in Lagos. Kukah would fall under the category of Said’s “critical outsider”, and also as a person of action” as defined by Sartre, and he probably has been one of the luckiest public intellectuals at a time with access to the corridors of power. But because this is “the worst of times”, he has lost that access. It is a measure of the times we live in that when Kukah spoke in the past, he got some attention as a cleric with a history of commitment and consistency. These days he gets a knock on the head literally. In February 2020, when he criticized the security situation in the country during a Homily at the Funeral Mass of a seminarian who was killed by kidnappers, Kukah was almost expelled from Sokoto. He stood his ground. He refused to be intimidated. In January 2021, he repeated the offence and he has done so again and again at every possible forum. Could this be what the organizers of today’s public conversation mean about consistency in public intellectual advocacy? Or are some public intellectuals more privileged than others?
In broad terms, this is the terrain in which Akin Osuntokun operates, and the challenges that he faces and the community of assumptions to which he belongs. Public intellectualism is not a job. It is a choice, a mission. For more than 30 years, Akin Osuntokun has been involved in virtually every sphere of engagement as an intellectual in society, helping to re-imagine society. The hallmark of his involvement is his consistency, his capacity to adapt and his unflinching embrace of the culture of ideas and creative thinking about the demands of society. My first son and I once spent two nights with him in his house in Abuja and in the course of that visit, he took me to the garden at the back of the building where he had started a small farm: snail farming - and he was excited telling me about how to farm snails. There was also a fish pond: cat fish swimming inside water rather luxuriantly. I also got some lecture about fish farming. Osuntokun also disclosed that he actually also had a bigger farm somewhere. I looked forward to a free meal of snail and catfish whenever I visited him. But that didn’t happen. About a year later, Osuntokun himself complained to me that his farming project did not work. The only thought in my head was resentment at the people who ate or stole all the fish and how I never got the chance to have a taste. Osuntokun may have not been able to build a consistent profile in farming, but he has in the course of his career and efforts done much better in the field of public intellectualism. His background, education and experience would seem to have propelled him inexorably in the direction of the public sphere. Public intellectuals are cultural and social products, determined by factors that require closer interrogation in order to understand that striking dialectics between publics and intellectuals.
In my earlier commentary, I highlighted background and genetics as a factor in Akin Osuntokun’s evolution as a key player in Nigeria’s public space. He comes from a family of intellectuals: his great grandfather was a community thought leader, a warrior in many battles in Yorubaland: Kiriji, Ekitiparapo and Jalumi wars. His father, the late Hon. Joseph Oduola Osuntokun was a product of the famous Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone; he was also a leading school principal and a prominent member of the Action Group in Western Nigeria until he and others parted ways with Chief Obafemi Awolowo, part-genesis of the crisis in the Western Region at the time. The elder Osuntokun was also a writer. A few years ago, Akin Osuntokun published his father’s autobiography, titled My View of The Coin.
Two of his uncles have also been prominent in Nigerian History: Professor Oluwakayode Osuntokun, Gold Medallist in Medicine and one of the leading scientists in the world. There is also Professor Akinjide Osuntokun, Emeritus Professor of History, author, newspaper columnist and former Nigerian Ambassador to Germany. Psychoanalysis is a useful tool in the reading of writers and public intellectuals: the meta-textual context provides a clue to the author’s visions and ideals contrary to the unsuccessful “death of the author” propounded by Roland Barthes and other structuralists and post-structuralists. The meaning in Akin Osuntokun’s writings and his consistent public intellectualism advocacy can be found within the author’s own sociological sphere. The scion of a warrior, in pursuit of an ideal vision of society, Osutokun also sees the public space as an arena for war, a struggle to be won between binary ideological and moral choices: what is wrong and what is right, what is good as opposed to what is bad. This probably explains the argumentative nature of his writings and the specificity of his choices. The other part of this war is a determination to sustain a family tradition: in politics, culture and the intellectual space.
Culture and tradition also both feature prominently in Osuntokun’s choices as a public intellectual. Osuntokun is a student of politics and social theory and in this regard two strands of influence are projected in his public work: his commitment to tradition and his exploration of the values of African traditional thought. He has over the years been involved in Yoruba traditional processes, he identifies himself affirmatively, without any ambiguity. He has served in community capacities as the Basorun of Okemesi, his home town in Ekiti State. He is currently the Balogun of the same community. He is also the co-ordinator of the Ooni caucus, a socio-cultural interventionist group for the promotion of Yoruba interests and culure, founded by the present Ooni of Ife, HRM Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II. But whereas Osuntokun explores culture and tradition as basis for understanding social theory, his main model is Max Weber, author of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which is considered one of the most important books on sociological inquiry in the 20th Century. Echoes of Weberian thought inform Osuntokun’s writings, the commitment to social action and understanding. One of his most recent writings, yet to be published, a research essay written during his one-year stint as a Fellow at the University of Oxford, is a study of the linkages between the thoughts of Max Weber and the tropes of the Ifa eschatology in Africa.
Akin Osuntokun has worked in government; he has been active in politics, and journalism. But his example raises a question: should the public intellectual be partisan? Is the purpose and relevance of the public intellectual mitigated by his membership of a political party? In the public arena, in more than 30 years, Akin Osuntokun has never hidden his political affiliations, and whereas he cultivates and projects the habits of the contemplative class, he remains unapologetic about his political, cultural and intellectual affiliations.
At 60, his work in the public space is still developing and crystallizing, but the form is established in his many interventions as a modern time intellectual. His kind of example should provoke further thoughts about the interface between state and society, the kingdom of ideas and the arena of power and the relevance of public opinion and intellectualism in a society such as ours that is in urgent need of good reason, common sense and a reconsideration of the leadership recruitment process. More so as Nigeria faces a new phase of transition, economic and political with implications for long-term stability.
Reuben Abati
Lagos, Dec. 16, 2021.