Where witches contend and exchange punches, mere men do not stand by to watch. But part of the job of a journalist is to see and report; sometimes he runs commentaries on bouts – not minding if the pugilists are gods or principalities. There is an ongoing offshore Bola Tinubu versus Atiku Abubakar rumble-in-the-jungle, a perfect heavyweight bout between power potentates. These two used to be very good friends and political soul mates. But Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar were also allies and in-laws. Yet, when it was time for Caesar to confront Pompey by crossing the Rubicon in January 49 BC, he did so without looking back. Caesar crossed that river after charging his army with the famous lines: “Let us go where the omens of the gods and the crimes of our enemies summon us. The die is now cast.” With those words, Julius Caesar determined his own fate; he sealed the fate of Pompey and altered the course of their country’s history forever.

In faraway Chicago, United States, Atiku and Tinubu spent the whole of last week panting for balance as they perched on the alien branch of the US judicial system. For whatever reasons, Tinubu has been fighting very hard to fire-proof his university records. He failed the first time; he failed the second time less than 48 hours ago. The court bout continues today over who has or does not have certificates. Tomorrow, it will be over; we will know who is a liar between the two friends; we will know if our president is a man or woman; we will know if Tinubu will be free and Atiku will be silenced forever.

In its handling of this case, the American judiciary has comported and discharged itself with admirable cleanliness. We’ve seen speed; we’ve seen so much openness, decorum, competence and diligence. We’ve seen a strict adherence to rules and facts. In the rulings, there were no abusive words, no bad grammar, no dodgy logic, no invidious, shameful technicality. There was no duplicitous dithering in delivering prompt justice; the sentences were simple, the language was plain, there were no ambiguities on what the court meant and what it said. I would recommend all that ennobling work ethic to what we have here as judiciary.

Nigerians who are following the US case are shocked at the consideration for time and respect for timeliness by the two courts that have handled the matter. Nigerian judges and lawyers surely have something to learn from those judges.

Evergreen English novelist, Charles Dickens, wrote in his ‘Bleak House’ that “it won’t do to have truth and justice; we must have law and lawyers.” I rewrite that to read: it is not enough to have law and lawyers; it is more important to have truth and justice. But you can’t have justice where the process is programmed to surrender to roadblocks and succumb to bottlenecks. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois delivered its ruling two days ago. It gave an order and remembered to give a deadline for compliance with that order. Very quickly and with an air of finality, it stressed that it would “not extend or modify these deadlines” because of the injustice that would attend its doing so. The court even told the party that lost not to bring an application for a stay of its order saying “… any request for a stay before this court will be denied.” The words of Justice Nancy L. Maldonado in making those declarations were clear and direct.

The case suffered no wicked adjournments and delays. Is that not how it should be, ordinarily? 17th century English philosopher and jurist, Sir Edward Coke, wrote on the imperative of speedy trial of cases. It is to him we owe the phrase “justice delayed is justice denied.” William Shakespeare in ‘Hamlet’ describes “the law’s delay” as the “whips and scorns of time.” Everyone, including those who do it, knows that delayed remedy is zero remedy. Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, said something similar: “Delay of justice is a denial of justice…To put right this wrong, we will in this court do all in our power to enforce expedition.” I wish I could find a phrase like that to quote from the Nigerian judiciary. A judicial system that is built on opacity of procedure and deliberately slow administration of justice will ultimately breed its own destruction. How? Victims of delayed justice feel helpless; they see the system as being rigged against them; they feel cheated, frustrated and angry; they develop their own idea of justice without recourse to the courts; they take the law into their own hands.

Chicago State University has been firmly asked to bring to court the bird in its pocket. We wait to see the colour of that bird. While every Nigerian holds their breath on how this Chicago case ends, I suggest they go back and read how the Pompey versus Caesar contest ended. We have the whole of today to do that.

Tomorrow will come and we will see the end of the Atiku-Tinubu mud fight in a foreign land. While we wait and watch the tragedy, shall we ask questions of our country and interrogate why we are where we are? This is particularly important when you know that whatever happens in that Chicago case may not have any positive impact on the life we live. We are on holiday because independent Nigeria was 63 yesterday. But I feel what we marked could not have been a celebration of the country’s’ independence anniversary; it looked more like the funeral of its promise.

We have become a country of beggars. Almost every call or text message is a desperate request for help. I am almost certain that the economic pain we feel today has never been felt by any generation of Nigerians since the country was created by the British in 1914. Apart from the power people and their friends who spawn excess, everyone else yawns in want. If the country hasn’t collapsed, tell me what has happened to it.

The United States dollar crossed the expressway and exchanged for one thousand naira last week. In simple terms, it means a bullion van of one billion naira now weighs just 100 bales of $100 dollar bills (one million dollars). What is the worth of an increasingly worthless currency?

Exactly one hundred years ago (1923), the photo of a German lady using banknotes to light her stove shocked Germany. Yet, a year earlier, some boys were shown flying a kite made of their country’s useless currency. There was, in another photo, a man using the currency notes as wallpaper because it was cheaper to use than buying “the cheapest rolls of wallpaper.” Before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the exchange rate of the German mark to the American dollar was 4.2 to one; same as the British shilling, the French franc and the Italian lira. But Germany lost the war and entered turbulence. By November 1923, the German mark had fallen to 4.2 trillion marks to one US dollar. “A wheelbarrow full of money couldn’t buy a newspaper,” a commentator reminisced, and added: “Shopkeepers couldn’t replenish their stock fast enough to keep up with prices, farmers refused to sell their produce for worthless money, food riots broke out, and townspeople marched into the countryside to loot the farms. Law and order broke down. The German attempt at democracy had been completely undermined.” Is that where Nigeria is going?

What is the future of presidential democracy in Nigeria? I do not know if our politicians are hearing what the people are saying about this question. They say it benefits only politicians and their palaces and that it has wrecked the people. Democracy has failed Nigerians and everyone knows.

Guinea’s military Head of State, Mamady Doumbouya, addressed the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, September 21, 2023. He questioned the credentials of Western democracy and the good it had done for the people of Africa. Did our leaders listen to his concern on the unequal distribution of wealth which he said created endless inequalities, hunger and poverty? “When the wealth of a country is in the hands of an elite while newborns die in hospitals due to lack of incubators, it is not surprising that…we are seeing transitions to respond to the profound aspirations of the people,” he said. Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu also told the United Nation’s Secretary General, António Guterres, two weeks ago, that to engage in talk shows while real poverty “wreaks real havoc in real time” was unacceptable: “Trace those of us here to our foundations and you will find that we have ties and links with poverty. We must not be ashamed of that history, but poverty is unacceptable. I am one of the lucky survivors of gripping poverty.” That was from Tinubu. But it is not enough for this man of means to fetishize (or romanticize) his years of want. Today’s poor do not need his story; what they need are positive actions against the demons of misery strutting the landscape. The same man, on Sunday, in his independence broadcast to the nation, announced an additional N25,000 monthly for low-grade workers for the next six months. Faced with threats of workers strike, his government later expanded the award to cover all treasury-paid workers; some hours later it jacked up the pay to N35,000. Just like that. Good. But the president has not told us what would happen to the beneficiaries after the golden six months.

With our country clocking 63 years in pain and turbulence, shouldn’t we decide now that enough is enough? Michelle Obama said during the recent US Open 2023 that “when things lie in the balance, we all have a choice to make. We can either wait around and accept what we’re given. We can sit silently and hope someone else fights our battles. Or we can make our own stand.” Some of us took a stand a long time ago: we won’t be silent or keep quiet. We won’t stop asking Nigerians to accept to be their own physicians. For members of my own generation, how many years have we lived? If things continue as they are, how many more do we have? Bob Marley’s ‘Exodus’ tells you to open your eyes “and look within.” And you look as commanded. And the song asks if you are “satisfied with the life you’re living?” Of course, you have looked “within” and what you see you do not want (even for your enemy) but you think you are forever helpless. It is like everyone desiring heaven but nobody wanting to die. How do we enjoy the bliss of paradise without dying?

At independence, our national anthem came with a promise that “our flag shall be a symbol/ that truth and justice reign.” The generation of Nigerians who sang that song promised “to hand on to our children/ a banner without stain.” We proceeded to ask God of all creation to grant us one particular request: “Help us to build a nation/ where no man is oppressed” so that “with peace and plenty/ Nigeria may be blessed.” We aborted that promise. That abortion was celebrated with pomp in Abuja yesterday by those in power; the poor marked it asking why they had to be hungry when their country was said to be very rich. There is so much wealth around and about us but there is also so much misery and want. Paradox is the only figure of speech that will explain that. Our situation is difficult to explain but it is not very different from an epoch strung together by Charles Dickens in the opening lines of his ‘A Tale of Two Cities’: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…” We know what the other way of Heaven is. That is where 63-year-old Nigeria is, right now.

On April 3, 2003, Nigeria’s Supreme Court decided a remarkable appeal. It began in September 1983 from the results declared in the ballot for the position of governor of Niger State, North-Central Nigeria. The principal candidates were Auwal Ibrahim, the then incumbent and candidate of the ruling National Party of Nigeria, NPN.

His main opponent was Alhassan Abubakar Badakoshi, the candidate of the Nigeria Peoples Party, NPP. At the end of the ballot, the Federal Electoral Commission, FEDECO(as the electoral empire was then known), announced Auwal Ibrahim as duly returned for another four years as Governor. 

A dissatisfied Alhassan Badakoshi proceeded to the election petition tribunal. On December 31, 1983, the military sacked all elected civilians from office. Alhassan Badakoshi died nearly 20 years later on March 16, 2003. But 19 days after his death, on April 3, the Supreme Court finally decided that he was in fact the rightful winner of the election for the governor of Niger State in 1983. 

This case illustrates in many ways the kind of fate that has befallen the courts under elective government in Nigeria. As this writer has pointed out elsewhere: “Every election cycle in Nigeria has three seasons. The campaign season belongs to the parties, the politicians and their godfathers. This is followed by the voting season, during which the security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission hold sway. Thereafter, matters shift to the courts for the dispute resolution season, which belongs to the lawyers (mostly Senior Advocates of Nigeria) and judges.” 

The result has been to unduly judicialise politics and politicise the judiciary, with at least three notable consequences. 

First, an exponential inflation in political cases has clogged up the courts, retrenching them as legitimate arbiters on questions of justice and outsourcing that role, instead, to hucksters and vigilantes.  Second, with politicians desperate to be anointed winners by judges, judicial corruption has become a norm not an exception. The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, affirmed as much in a 2020 report. 

Third, as a consequence of these two factors, the processes and quality of judicial preferments have become unduly co-opted and corrupted, eroding the judiciary of its constitutive claims to independence, integrity or trust. The consequence is that judicial tenure is no longer as secure as it used to be, evident in the enforced removal of the two most recent Chief Justices of Nigeria, CJN. 

To understand how this eventuated, it is necessary to look back a little. 

The role of the judiciary in determining winners and losers in elections has escalated beyond any reasonable prognostication since Nigeria’s return of civil rule in 1999. When it sacked the civilian government on the last day of 1983, the military regime of General Muhammadu Buhari launched a judicial commission of inquiry into the operations of the FEDECO, chaired by Bolarinwa Babalakin, a senior judge who later went on to serve on Nigeria’s Supreme Court. In its final report submitted in 1986, the Bolarinwa Babalakin Commission of Inquiry first called attention to the corruption of the judicial role in election dispute resolution, remarking that “the verdicts in a number of instances constituted a rape of democracy perpetrated through the law courts.” 

 This trend would deepen with the return to elective government in 1999 after 15 years of continuous military rule. And 20 years ago, in 2003, leading Nigerian public law scholar, Obi Nwabueze, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, accused the Supreme Court and the judiciary of playing a “discreditable part” in the erosion of judicial credibility through questionable decisions conferring judicial legitimacy to manifestly rigged elections.   The nadir was in 2007, when 1,282 offices out of a total of 1,496 or 85.7% of elective offices contested ended up in election petition tribunals, leading The Economist to describe Nigeria as a unique form of “democracy by court order”. Others have argued that elections in Nigeria are a systematic case of “rigging through the courts” and the most recent descriptions have accused the courts of undermining the faith of voters in democratic process.

By contrast, 2015 was the first time that Nigeria’s presidential election did not end up in court, reflecting the consensus that the elections of that year were relatively well organised with results that largely reflected the will of the people. It was also the first time that the proportion of elections ending up in courts was less than 50% (663 petitions or 44.32%). The 2019 elections produced 766 petitions (51.2%), roughly the same number as the 769 (51.4%) seen in 2011. Just last week, the President of the Court of Appeal disclosed that the 2023 elections have produced 1,209 petitions. At 80.82% of the offices contested, this confirms that the 2022 elections rival the 2007 elections in infamy.

  The all-consuming process of election dispute resolution have cumulatively drained the judiciary in Nigeria of the intangible institutional assets of character, credibility, impartiality and independence. As the judicial role in elections has intensified, senior politicians and political parties began openly to vie for control in preferments to senior judicial office. In 2011, this crisis broke into the open with then Chief Justice and the President of the Court of Appeal trading mutual acrimony over grave allegations of influence peddling in the Sokoto State governorship election petition. 

Two years earlier, in April 2009, then Governor of Kwara State, Bukola Saraki, procured the removal of the Chief Judge of the State, Raliat Elelu-Habeeb, by purporting to act on a summary resolution of the State House of Assembly, which he totally controlled. Her crime was that she was considered too independent. In proceedings that followed, the Supreme Court determined on February 17, 2012 that the removal was unconstitutional as it was not preceded by a disciplinary investigation by the National Judicial Council, NJC.

Even as this judgement appeared to reassure about the independence of judicial tenure, contemporaneous developments were essentially to negate its effect, leading to an intensification of the politics of appointment to the headship of the judicial branch at both state and federal levels. The reason for this is evident: the presiding judicial officer is the conduit for control of appointments, capital projects and budgets, as well as influence in the court system over which he or she presides. That person also controls the assignment of cases or constitution of panels in the most sensitive cases. Together, the presiding judicial officers determine who gets to sit or be excluded from election petitions. Above all, presiding judicial officers are constitutionally required to constitute panels of investigation where the impeachment of a Governor or the President (or their deputies) arise. The politicians can’t afford to have in such positions persons whom they don’t control.

For instance, when in 2004, Jacob Ugwu was due to retire as the Chief Judge of Enugu State, the NJC initially recommended Raphael Agbo, the most senior active judge in the state, to succeed him. The then state governor, Chimaraoke Nnamani, had other ideas and maneuvered to get Agbo elevated to the Court of Appeal, creating an opening for his preferred candidate – Innocent Umezulike, who, at that point, was only sixth in seniority among the judges on the High Court of Enugu State. 

When former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, could not get his preferred candidate in 2012-2013 to become Chief Judge of the state, the courts in the state were locked up for the last two years of his tenure over the disagreement. 

In Kano State, to avoid appointing as substantive Chief Judge, Patricia Mahmoud, a Christian from Benue who had been a judge with reputation for independence on the High Court of Kano State since 1991, an arrangement was reached to elevate her to the Court of Appeal. Justice Mahmoud had acted temporarily in 2015 in the office of Chief Judge of the State. 

Evidently, the norm of seniority which favours the most senior active judge for appointment to the position of the Chief at the point that a vacancy is declared has failed to hold up well. This has become grist for the political mill in a season of perpetual politics. Initially, politicians appeared to believe that they needed to have excellent lawyers on their side in the multi-dimensional contests for power. Increasingly, however, as the judicialisation of Nigeria’s electoral process has deepened, it is now clear this is not good enough. To stand any chance, they now must also have their own judges in their bedrooms where possible, in their back-pockets when necessary, and at their beck and call at all times. 

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

IT was a short honeymoon. I expected it to be so. The Minister of Works, Senator David ‘Dave’ Nweze Umahi, was just 38 days in office when the staff of the Ministry publicly demanded his removal.

Hundreds of workers at the Ministry’s gates on Thursday, September 28, 2023 shouted “Umahi must go!”as they protested his perceived dictatorial tendencies.

Minister Umahi had that morning, as a disciplinary measure, instructed that the gates of the Ministry be shut against workers he claimed came late. After some hours, he directed that the gates be opened. He might have expected the staff to be grateful. Rather, the workers in retaliation locked the Minister in. They accused him of high-handedness, bringing in consultants to do civil service jobs, refusing to meet the unions and violating the Public Service Rules by locking out workers.

First, the Minister’s action is illegal. Section 18(1) of the Trade Disputes Act states that: “An employer shall not declare or take part in a lock-out…”

Secondly, no law or rule in the country empowers a minister to directly carry out disciplinary actions against a civil servant. Thirdly, the Public Service Rules which governs the workers has no provision for collective discipline of staff when they might not have been guilty of the same offence or in the same degree.

Fourthly, the offence for which Umahi purported to be punishing the workers is classified as ‘Misconduct’ under Section 3 of the Public Service Rules. According to that section: “Misconduct is defined as a specific act of wrong-doing or an improper behaviour which is inimical to the image of the service and which can be investigated and proved.” Umahi had neither investigated nor shown any proof that the workers were guilty of misconduct.

In fact, the rule states on lateness that the civil servant can be queried for “habitual lateness to work” not for a one-off lateness. In which case, the affected staff would have been a habitual late comer, would be issued verbal, and later written query. The Rule says: “The query should be precise and to the point. It must relate to the circumstances of the offence, the rule and regulation which the officer has broken and the likely penalty.” The officer must be given the right to respond to the query, and if his response is found to be unsatisfactory, then disciplinary action is contemplated. Even at that, the officer to be disciplined by a Ministry has the right to appeal to the Federal Civil Service Commission.

When Umahi realised that the matter was getting out of hand, he sent messages that the workers representatives should come up to his office. They refused, saying if he wanted to talk, he should come down to address them at the barricaded entrance.

After a cumulative five-hour stand-off and Minister Umahi could not leave to attend to other matters, including receiving a visitor said to be a serving governor, the Minister obliged. He went down and called for a truce.

What the workers in the Ministry have done is to insist that their Minister, or indeed, any minister for that matter, should respect the rules and respect the staff in as much as they are also obliged to respect him.

When Umahi was appointed Works Minister, I knew that if he had not repented his ways, he would soon clash with the staff.

In the first paragraph of my October 11, 2022 column titled, ‘Umahi: Impunity, falsehood and denials as governance.’ I had written that he “reminds me of the colonial District Officer who was a law unto himself. I know Abakaliki, the state capital was a major centre for slave trade four centuries ago, but Umahi governs the state as if it were still a slave colony where people have no rights.”

The column was based on the  strange behaviour of Umahi as Governor of Ebonyi State. On Tuesday October 4, 2022, during an inspection of work at the Ebonyi Airport, Onueke, he claimed some civil servants came late to work. The alleged late comers were forced to sit on the road while soldiers in Umahi’s convoy whipped them with horsewhip. When the scandal broke, Umahi while not denying that he got the workers whipped, claimed the victims were not civil servants, but “miscreants”. I had pointed out that flogging is not in the civil service rules and that even if the civil servants turned out to be miscreants, they deserve their day in court rather than Umahi constituting himself into the prosecutor, counsel, judge and appeal court.

On October 4, 2019 Umahi’s convoy was temporarily blocked by mourners in Onicha; he got them arrested. Then next day at a public function in the Government House, Abakaliki, he gave a chilling directive: “Next time the ADC should order for a shoot. It is very illegal to block the governor. And if anybody is killed in the course of that, it is allowed in the law.”

He gave a similar directive in March, 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown when 37 persons were arrested and quarantined for disobeying the COVID-19 lockdown order. He directed the security men at the isolation centres to shoot any of those arrested who may try to escape.

Also, during the period, it was mandatory for everybody in the country to wear face masks. But there were some people violating the directive. In Ebony State, Umahi directed that all those caught without face mask should be seized and caned publicly.

Umahi as the law in Ebonyi State detained without trial, the Sun Newspaper reporter, Chijioke Agwu, for allegedly publishing in the newspaper’s April 17, 2020 issue an inaccurate report on Lassa fever outbreak in the state.

He later set the journalist free, but banned him and Peter Okutu of Vanguard Newspapers for life from entering any government facility in the state. He forgot that he himself could not be governor for life. Three days later, he got Mr Okutu detained for allegedly being “fond of degrading Ebonyi State”.

Umahi told journalists that they would not be given the right to trial under the country’s laws: “If you think you have the pen, we have the ‘koboko’(cow hide whip). Let’s leave the court alone. Ebonyi people are very angry with the press and let me warn that I won’t be able to control them or know when they unleash mayhem on you if you continue to write to create panic in the state.”

Clearly, Minister Umahi, by his altercation with the workers in the Works Ministry, has not changed his ways. But he needs to or how does he intend to minister to the needs of Nigerians if he continues to be lawless?

I speak as a Nigerian. That it took the courageous activism of HE. Abubakar Atiku to force the discovery of information concerning the President of Nigeria is a disgrace to our national institutions.

As a nation, we have a full retinue of staff at the Department of the State Security, the National Intelligence Agency, the Independent National Electoral Commission, the Embassy of Nigeria with the full complement of staff in Washington DC and the Nigerian Judiciary that have variously ruled on matters concerning President Tinubu's academic qualifications. Yet, we can not have a definitive conclusion about whether he has the academic qualifications he claimed he had or not. Disgraceful.

That all the aforementioned institutions allowed a man to be sworn in without definitive statements about his qualifications is a national tragedy. For 23 years the issue of President Tinubu has been a recurring decimal in our national equation. Under his reign, a current youth corps member is serving as Minister, and people under investigation by EFCC and made public are sitting in the Federal Executive Council. And they all passed through security screening.

The office of the President of Nigeria is so important both in its moral authority and its strategic importance to our national security and safety that nobody who has possible blind spots that can make him or her a potential asset for foreign intelligence or governments should be allowed a mile near that office. This should be a primary burden on all our national institutions. Legal technicalities and silence by state institutions should be deemed high treason.

It highlights my previous statement that a constitutional amendment to finish all electoral cases before the assumption of office is now a matter of urgent national priority. The current disgraceful proceedings against a Nigerian President in a foreign court under election petition matters are damaging to our collective moral and legal standing as a people.

If it turns out tomorrow that our President presented a forged certificate to INEC, Nigerians will bow down their heads globally in shame. On the other hand, if it turns out that his certificate is genuine, again our reputation as a people is still in tatters because of the failure of national institutions to perform due diligence no matter who is involved. On both counts it reinforces global perceptions and prejudice against Nigerians. We all bear the burden.

A forged certificate finding leaves President Tinubu in a vulnerable position morally and legally. As he did not present primary and secondary certificates to INEC, a forged CSU certificate makes him unqualified to stand for the office of President as he does not possess the minimum qualification S.131(D) of the 1999 Constitution as amended. of course, the next issue is the case of perjury, the presentation of false documents under oath.

How INEC, accepted a university degree without the qualifying certificates would continue to be a national mystery. A language in our electoral legislation to forestall such obvious infractions is required.

The decision of the District Court and the whole proceedings is not a moment of triumphalism but a sober moment of introspection. It is a moment when as a nation we ask ourselves:

What are our national values?

Who or which institution should have ordered the full investigation of the questionable certificate?

Considering that he did not present a primary or secondary certificate should our courts be concerned with the technicality of the tendering process of the CSU certificate or the disgrace and global moral damage a forged certificate would wrought on Nigeria?

Why did our national security system not conduct a discrete investigation and advise the candidate and INEC about the status of his certificate?

A few years ago The DSS, in an act of institutional independence and courage, wrote to the Senate to reject Police Commissioner Magu as EFCC Chairman not minding his nomination by a sitting President. This was based on their intelligence report of his nefarious conduct that pales into insignificance against a possible forgery case by a President. Why the silence now?

For me, the issue is beyond legalism. If and that is a big if, the certificate is forged, President Tinubu should resign immediately. It is not a legal matter but a national honour and moral issue. If he does not, the National Assembly should do the needful to restore our dignity as a people. I also expect the Supreme Court to rise to the occasion and restore order to our electoral process.

If the certificate is not forged, the President should conduct a wide-ranging reorganisation of our national security system for failure to save the country from this needless embarrassment and reputational damage.

On either count, the National Assembly should start a constitutional amendment process to end all election judicial challenges before the assumption of office of all elected persons at all levels.

A reform of the judiciary to introduce an automated case assignment system, the introduction of a transparent process for recruitment of judges, and the public display of evaluation of judges' performance annually using the agreed framework to increase public oversight of judicial officers and improve the administration of justice. The growing unanimity in arriving at decisions in our courts is disturbing.

The bold challenge of President Tinubu by HE Abubakar Atiku in the US is the most prominent sign of state failure. It is depressing but maybe it is an inflection point to alter the character of the Nigerian state to live up to the words of the second stanza of our old national anthem

Our flag shall be a symbol

That truth and justice reign

In peace or battle honour'd,

And this we count as gain,

To hand on to our children

A banner without stain.

In 1993 Sam Oni, Atedo Peterside and I signed an invitation to Professionals to come out and show that politics was too important and too serious to be left to politicians alone. That was in the aftermath of the annulment of the elections of the 12th of June. The holla to Professionals followed reactions to my Oped piece in the Guardian titled ‘ We must say Never Again’
The Concerned Professionals germinated from that call to prayer for a Tribe of Educated Middle Class people to act before the adventurers laid their country waste.

CP deployed brain and brawn. In advertorials it pointed to how Nigeria should be governed and in Street protests it tried to help people find their voice. But when the military retreated to the Barracks CP withdrew to Corporate suites in the presumption Democracy had triumphed and Government would be about the will of the people and the advance of the common good.
A quarter of a century later its evident how wrong we were.

Very few serious people would call Nigeria a democracy, unless they mean it in the Fela usage of dem-all-crazy. Politicians have poisoned young people with ethnic hatred and the social media has become R rated for it instead of the domain of rational public conversation.

Politics has become firmly about spoils and the idea of service is scorned. Competence, commitment and creative problem solving in the interest of the people is mocked. No wonder we are the poverty capital of the world and the green passport signal for poor treatment abroad.

Many are asking how we got here as they withdraw their children from schools abroad because it is beyond their reach as you need more than a thousand Naira to buy one dollar.
We need a new tribe of the concerned. We are not back to 1993. We actually have traveled further South to 1964/65.

When I raised concern about the troubles of the polity among old friends and wondered how we could intervene for correction, one of the most passionate of the original Concerned Professionals who has become a Boardroom key player said he had given up on politics and politicians as a path to salvation. He said he would rather we looked at the Italy Model. His idea of the Italy model was to focus on using success in Business to advance the lot of the people by creating jobs, fanning talent and spreading skills and education that result in prosperity, while ignoring politics as the domain of scoundrels.
I acknowledged his sentiments but recognized fresh thinking could help a salvage mission for a country in distress.
I am convinced that pooling citizen power into a Dam for release unto activity not of partisan political nature could have salutary impact.

But we have to call out a new tribe of patriots. Former Vice President Yemi Oshinbajo had toyed with the concept of a new tribe. It seems unfinished Business for him . But the time for the clarion call is now. It is time for a separation of the remnants and calling them to Nehemiah duties. And I am in the Spirit of Independence this October 1 calling them to meet in Abuja next week.
Given where we are, a new tribe of patriots is needed and I have calling elements of this tribe together.

These tribesmen must be citizens firmly rooted in the universal dignity of the human person and acknowledge with our old national anthem that ‘though tribe and tongue may differ in brotherhood we stand’. Faith in the possibilities of a ‘civilization of love’ would be valuable attribute.

These new tribesmen will be motivated by delayed gratification such that the most desired personal reward is immortality in the hearts of men and welcome of the creator,for those with a transcendental vision of man.

The new tribe of patriots need a Fela Durotoye type of believe in the possibilities of the Nigerian project as producing one of the most desirable places to live in.
Whatever we do to find a new way would require that we learn how to refine politics while at the alternate salvation path because our politics has managed to find a way to spoil even that which does not concern it. This is why regulatory risk is a bigger risk for business in Nigeria than market risk.

Surely to do nothing is not an option. Neither is the kind of politics and elections we keep subjecting ourselves to likely to take us anywhere outside of Mockery Avenue.
So what is so deficient about politics that we must clean up to save Nigeria. Tardy civil society and weak institutions headline our problems alongside a media structure much too dysfunctional to serve

well the course of a democratic order. In addition, we cannot make progress if we do not acknowledge that when character is lost all is lost.
Character matters and principles, important for trust and confidence in collaboration flow from character.
Character and integrity seem to have escaped from the lexicon of today’s Nigerian politics.

Fidelis Oyakhilome, former Police Commissioner, Governor of Rivers State and Drug Czar had prophesied as reported in a Newbreed magazine cover story that the day was coming when people of criminal stock would dominate the politics of Nigeria.

No thanks to the enthronement of money politics, transactional dispositions in the arena, the nature of the political parties we have, and the mass poverty of the land the crook has a far higher chance of getting elected or appointed than the competent and committed saint.

South Africa saw an early stage of this phenomenon developing and set up the the Zondo commission on state capture. We have been in the mortal grip of state capture for years such that it seems the goal for seeking public office, yet there is no focused effort at eliminating it.

The new tribe of patriots must not only hold close to heart the fact that Nigeria lies prostrate largely because of corruption and uphold integrity in public life it has a duty to shame the corrupt and celebrate those who are transparent in their dealings.

Our politics stinks partly because a person can say one thing in the morning, another in the afternoon and yet another in the evening and continue to be taken seriously. Public sentiment should be unforgiving where no new information justifying the change of mind is offered.

Public life should be based on ideas and rational conversation around those. But our experience is that unprepared politicians quickly turn to emotions which exploit the gap between us and them.
Central to the mission of the tribe must be the awakening of civil society, a much misunderstood phenomenon in Nigeria. Here it is perceived as the domain of a few vocal individuals who set up organizations to be advocates for select causes. In truth civil society is about horizontal linkages between citizens promoting associational life that daily advance how society acts for the common good of all.

To save Nigeria today civil society must push back on the advance of crime, people without antecedents of sacrificial service to their neighbors, and transactional mercantilism into the arena of politics.
Beyond what it does to help clean up the arena of politics, the new tribe must spread elements of the Italy model to help the emancipation of the economically challenged.
Nigeria will rise up again, that ring tone I had for years, is appropriate trumpet blast this October 1 dawn.

Patrick Okedinachi Utomi, Political Economist and Professor of Entrepreneurship is Convener of the New Fabian Society and the Big Tent.

The meeting between the Federal Government and Organised Labour, yesterday ended in deadlock as leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and their Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, counterparts, rejected the government’s offers.

However, the meeting will reconvene at 4 p.m. today.

Sources at the meeting told Vanguard that the labour leaders rejected President Bola Tinubu’s N25,000 provisional wage award for low-grade workers to cushion the effect of the removal of the petrol subsidy.

The labour leaders told Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, to prepare to take all of them to jail because the government had been threatening them with a court order, saying “This is not acceptable.”

Recall that President Tinubu in his nationwide broadcast, on the occasion of Nigeria’s 63rd Independence Anniversary, had said: “Based on our talks with labour, business and other stakeholders, we are introducing a provisional wage increment to enhance the federal minimum wage without causing undue inflation.

‘’For the next six months, the average low-grade worker shall receive an additional Twenty-Five Thousand naira per month.

“Commencing this month, the social safety net is being extended through the expansion of cash transfer programmes to an additional 15 million vulnerable households.”

However, Vanguard reliably gathered that Organized Labour in its meeting with the Federal Government team at the Permanent Conference Room, Presidential Villa, Abuja, rejected the N25,000 provisional wage award and demanded 200 per cent of the current minimum wage.
Besides, Labour insisted that the provisional wage increase should be for all workers, pending the enactment of a new Minimum Wage Act next year and must not be limited to only six months.

The labour leaders equally insisted that the conditional cash transfer for the poorest and vulnerable people should be increased to N25,000 for 15 million vulnerable Nigerians, against the N5,000 the previous administration was paying.

After many hours of horse-trading, the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, who is leading the government’s delegation, broke the meeting for the government team to consult with the President on the new demands

Gbajabiamila, it was learned, was accompanied by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong.

Some other issues raised by the NLC and TUC leaders included tax rebates for low-income earners, removal of Value Added Tax, VAT, on diesel for the next six months and provision of Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, and buses within the next two months.

The meeting that commenced at about 3.25 pm, ended around 7.15 pm to reconvene by 4 pm today.

Labour’s NEC to meet today on govt offers

Vanguard gathered that labour leaders would also hold their National Executive Council, NEC, meeting today to brief NEC members about the offers by the government.

The NEC is expected to take a position and give the leaders the new mandate to take to the government.

But briefing journalists after the meeting, the Chief of Staff to the President and leader of the government team, Femi Gbajabiamila, announced that Tinubu accepted organized labour’s demand that the wage award be across the board.

He said: “We’ve been at a closed-door meeting with labour and government side since three o’clock. So, it’s been about four four-hour meetings.

“A lot of issues were addressed. Issues that concern the Nigerian workers, the average Nigerian worker. I can’t begin to reel them out here. But I am happy to say that after four hours, we have reached certain agreements that are for the benefit of the Nigerian worker.

“Agreements on the wage bill, agreements on committees on salary increment, CNG buses, on several other things, I believe both labour and government side?

“Hopefully, we expect that labour will call a meeting of their various branches and executive tomorrow (today) to present the agreements that have been reached, and we pray and believe and hope that the strike will be called off tomorrow.

“So I want to once again thank Labour for taking time out on a good Sunday like this one when they should be with their families to come and discuss in the interest of the workers. Thank you very much.

FG, meeting with NLC, TUC ends in deadlock
“There was a lot of chatter on Twitter about the issue of low-income workers only falling into the category of the provisional wage increase. We did communicate with the president and he quickly did say and agreed that all categories of workers would be given the wage bill.

‘’There is nothing like low income, mediun income or high income. I think it was worthy of clarification tonight.”

Making clarification on the N25,000 provisional wage award, he said: “There was a lot of chatter on Twitter about the issue of low-income workers only falling into the category of the wage bill.’’

Also speaking, the President of NLC, Joe Ajaero said: “I don’t have much to say than what the Chief of Staff has said. We have been meeting and we have looked at almost all the issues, all the promissory notes from the government.

‘’We will look at how to translate them to reality. Then we are going to take those promises to our organs. Of course, you know these people here cannot just wake up and review and call off action.

“So like he (Gbajabiamila) said, we are hopeful that our organs will have a look at them and give us a fresh mandate on what to do next. So it’s a simple one.”

On his side, the acting President of TUC, Tommy Etim Okon, said: “We do hope that by tomorrow, we are going to meet with our organs.”

Sources at the meeting told Vanguard that the government team had wanted organized labour to announce a suspension of the indefinite strike which it declined.

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mallam Mohammed Idris, also said in a statement issued at the end of the meeting yesterday: “The Federal Government has announced N25,000 only as provisional wage increment for all treasury-paid Federal Government workers for six months.

“The Federal Government is committed to fast-tracking the provision of Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, buses to ease public transportation difficulties associated with the removal of PMS subsidy.

“The Federal Government commits to the provision of funds for micro and small-scale enterprises. VAT on diesel will be waived for the next six months.

“The Federal Government will commence payment of N75,000 to 15 million households at N25,000 per month, for a three-month period from October-December 2023.”

According to the statement, the meeting resolved that “the issues in dispute can only be resolved when workers are at work and not when they are on strike.

“Labour unions argued for higher wage awards and the Federal Government team promised to present labour’s request to President Bola Tinubu for further consideration.

“A sub-committee to be constituted to work out the implementation details of all items for consideration regarding government interventions to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal.

“The lingering matter of Road Transport Employees Association of Nigeria, RTEAN, and National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, in Lagos State needs to be addressed urgently and Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who participated virtually, pledged to resolve the matter.

“NLC and TUC will consider the offers by the federal government, with a view to suspending the planned strike to allow for further consultations on the implementation of the resolutions above.

“Those at yesterday’s meeting included Governor Abdulrazak Abdulrahman of Kwara State and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF, and Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, participated virtually in the meeting, chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila.

“Also in attendance were the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong, the Minister of State, Labour, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anite, the Head of Service of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.

The Labour delegation was led by NLC President, Joe Ajaero, Deputy President, TUC, Dr Tommy Etim Okon, NLC General Secretary, Emma Ugboaja, Secretary, Nuhu Toro, TUC General, among others.

Meanwhile, Organised Labour has ordered the state councils and affiliates to ensure total compliance with the nationwide strike directive.

Not leaving anything to chance, organized labour has also set up a strike zonal coordinating committee towards the success of the indefinite nationwide strike.

In a circular by Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, General Secretary, Emmanuel Ugboaja, to all the 36 state councils and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, NLC directed the councils to hold joint meetings with the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, and work together to ensure total compliance with the strike directive.

The circular, titled “Indefinite nationwide strike”, read: “In furtherance to the notice of the indefinite nationwide strike scheduled to commence on Wednesday, October 3, 2023, all chairpersons of NLC state councils are kindly requested to take immediately the following steps to ensure a successful outcome.

‘’To immediately send a circular notifying all affiliate unions and workers in their states on the need to comply with the strike. Ensure that their respective compliance teams leave no stone unturned in discharging their responsibilities, especially in areas of strategic importance to the overall success of the action.

“Hold joint meetings with the TUC and work together to ensure total compliance with the essence of the action; continue providing the progress reports of their activities as the action begins to the national secretariat and the platforms.

“The success of this action is critical for the survival of workers and the masses. That this will happen is dependent on our collective determination and commitment. No one else can do it for us.”

Similarly, NLC and TUC have inaugurated zonal strike coordinating committees to work with state councils, affiliates and other allies to effectively prosecute the strike.
It was gathered that the coordinating committees were inaugurated on Saturday.

The United States District Court in Northern District of Illinois has ruled in favour of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, and ordered the Chicago State University to release President Bola Tinubu’s academic record by Monday (today).

But Tinubu’s lawyers insisted that the documents would not be relevant in Atiku’s appeal against Tinubu at the Supreme Court.

The PUNCH reports that Atiku had earlier secured an order from a US magistrate for CSU to make Tinubu’s academic records available to his legal team.

The magistrate, Jeffrey Gilbert, had ordered Tinubu’s alma mater to provide all relevant and non-privileged documents to Atiku’s legal team within two days.

The documents sought by the PDP candidate, through his counsel, Angela Liu, include Tinubu’s record of admission and acceptance at the Chicago State University, dates of attendance as well the degrees, awards, and honours obtained by Tinubu from the CSU.

But as the deadline given by the magistrate drew nearer, Tinubu’s lawyers approached the US high court, arguing that the earlier decision by the magistrate needed to be reviewed by a district judge.

The request for a review and delay of the magistrate’s order till Monday was eventually granted by the US district judge.

Tinubu’s application, filed by his New York-based lawyer, Oluwole Afolabi, advanced two reasons.

First is that his academic records in issue are not useful in Nigerian courts as claimed by Atiku because “the Nigerian election proceedings and the Nigerian courts have explicitly been unreceptive to the discovery.”

His second reason is that Atiku’s request “is unduly intrusive because it allows the applicant (Atiku) to conduct a fishing expedition into the intervenor’s private, confidential, and protected educational records.”

The former vice president in a fresh response filed last Wednesday, in Chicago, Illinois, charged the court to overrule Tinubu’s request in its entirety.

In a fresh judgment obtained by The PUNCH on Sunday, Maldonado noted that CSU did not object to Judge Jeffery Gilbert’s decision that the academic record be made public.

The court held that Atiku’s interest outweighs any intrusion on Tinubu’s privacy interests in his educational records.

The judge overruled Tinubu’s objections to the ruling by the magistrate ordering CSU to make his academic records available to Atiku.

Judge Gilbert also adopted the magistrate’s ruling in full.

The memorandum opinion and order read in part: “For the foregoing reasons, the court overrules President Tinubu’s objections to Magistrate Judge Gilbert’s recommended ruling, and therefore, adopts the ruling in full.

“Mr Atiku’s Application is, therefore, granted. In light of the pending Supreme Court of Nigeria deadline, represented to the court as October 5, 2023, and based on CSU’s representations that it is ready to comply with the discovery requests and produce a witness, the court sets an expedited schedule for completion of discovery.

“Respondent CSU is directed to produce all relevant and non-privileged documents in response to Requests for Production Nos. The Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of CSU’s corporate designee must be completed by 5:00 p.m. CDT on Tuesday, October 3, 2023. Given the October 5, 2023, filing deadline before the Supreme Court of Nigeria, the court will not extend or modify these deadlines.

However, the judge stressed that his verdict “is expressing no view on the merits of Mr. Abubakar’s underlying claims regarding President Tinubu or his graduation from CSU, or on the validity of the Nigerian election. Nor is the court taking any position on what any of the documents or testimony from CSU may or may not ultimately show.”

“The court simply finds, on the narrow question before it, that Mr Atiku is entitled to the production of documents and testimony that he seeks from CSU,” he said.

Reacting to the verdict, a member of the PDP National Executive Council, National Deputy Youth Leader, Timothy Osadolor, described President Tinubu’s appeal as a needless route.

Osadolor, in an interview with The PUNCH, said “If he was convinced that has had nothing to hide, there was no need for those appeals against the courts.”

According to him, the US judgment will reinforce Atiku’s appeal before the Supreme Court.

“Tinubu is not who he claims to be and that is what our candidate and our party want to prove.”

Efforts made to reach the spokesman for the All Progressives Congress, Felix Morka, were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, one of the President’s attorneys, Oluwole Afolabi, has played down the importance of his academic documents, saying it will be of no use in Atiku’s Supreme Court appeal in Nigeria.

Reacting in a WhatsApp note published on Sunday by PM News, Afolabi stated that the Electoral Act does not allow for the introduction of new evidence on appeal.

“A party must provide a list of the documents he intends to rely on at the time his petition is filed. A party cannot spring a surprise on his adversary by introducing evidence that was not filed along with the petition,” Afolabi said.

Similarly, the Coordinator of the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team, Babatunde Ogala (SAN), said, “The documents can no longer be used. It is of no value. We have passed that stage.”

“One is whether President Tinubu attended Chicago State University. The answer is yes. Second, what were his grades in school? The school had already provided that,” Ogala said.

The Kano State Governor, Alhaji Abba Yusuf, has announced N20,000 stipend for schoolgirls in the state to encourage them to attend school.

The governor, who made the announcement on Sunday in his Independence Day speech at the Sani Abacha Stadium, Kofar Mata, Kano, said over 45,000 schoolgirls would benefit from the pilot scheme.

He said, “To support girls-child education and encourage parents to send their daughters to school, we are issuing a stipend of N20,000 to over 45,000 girl-child as a pilot scheme to support them to continue schooling. We are also re-introducing the girl-child school buses to transport them to and from schools.”

Yusuf also announced that his administration would establish more primary and secondary schools across the 44 local government areas of the state “in our quest to mop up all out-of-school children roaming our streets.”

He added, “Schools are being renovated in batches; we are providing free uniforms, school bags, and shoes at the pilot stage, and we are providing free exercise books and textbooks to primary and Junior Secondary School pupils. And arrangements have reached an advanced stage in providing one free meal (per day) to primary school pupils.”

The governor said his administration would also be sponsoring 1001 first-class graduates to study for Master’s degrees at universities abroad.

He restated the commitment and determination of his administration to tackle the challenges of unemployment, poverty, and youth restiveness bedeviling the country.

On the independence anniversary, Yusuf paid a glowing tribute to the great nationalists and patriotic freedom fighters who sacrificed everything to ensure the freedom of the nation.

The immediate past governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, may remain a little longer in detention as the federal government over the weekend distanced itself from a N50 billion planned non-prosecution plea bargain with the embattled former governor of the apex bank.

Emefiele was reported to have entered into a plea bargain with the government on condition of surrendering N50 billion to facilitate his early release from the custody of
the Department of the State Services (DSS).

The plea bargain was also said to be aimed at cancelling the trial of the former CBN chief on a series of charges including money laundering, breach of Public Procurement Act and abuse of office.

The attorney general of the federation and minister of justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, said there was no iota of truth in the plea bargain deal.

Fagbemi said neither his office nor the presidency has had anything of such nature with Emefiele.

The position of the minister was contained in a statement by the director of information in the ministry of justice, Mrs Modupe Ogundoro.

The statement reads in part “The attention of the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice has been drawn to a report alleging that the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele and the Federal Government of Nigeria, have agreed to a non prosecution plea bargain arrangement.

“The report further alleges that Mr.Emefiele and the Federal Government of Nigeria, represented by the attorney general, have signed a non-prosecution plea bargain agreement and that the agreement is awaiting the signature of President Bola Tinubu.

“The Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice hereby states clearly that these reports are completely false.

“It would be noted that the legal team representing Mr. Godwin Emefiele had expressed their intention in court at the last hearing to initiate a plea bargain arrangement.