CONFEDERATION of African Football president Patrice Motsepe has expressed his condolences following the loss of lives at a stadium in Madagascar.

A stampede of spectators trying to enter Madagascar’s national stadium for the opening ceremony of the Indian Ocean Island Games left 12 dead and injured around 80 on Friday.

Videos shared on social media showed Red Cross workers giving medical attention to scores of injured people next to the athletics track as Prime Minister Christian Ntsay said 11 of the injured were in a critical condition.

“CAF President Dr Patrice Motsepe conveyed his heartfelt condolences and the condolences of CAF to the families and the Fédération Malagasy de Football in respect of the 12 people who lost their lives and all the persons who were injured during the football match at the Mahamasina Municipal Stadium in Antananarivo, Madagascar,” a CAF statement today said.

“CAF also extends its condolences to the Government of Madagascar and the friends and the colleagues of the 12 people who lost their lives.

“CAF is also wishing the people who were injured a speedy and full recovery.”

According to Reuters, it was not immediately clear what caused the stampede, but at least 15 people were killed in a similar incident at the Mahamasina stadium in 2019.

“An unfortunate event happened. There was a stampede at the entrance. There were a lot of injuries. We will observe a few seconds of silence because compatriots have died when they wanted to enter,” President Andry Rajoelina told the crowd in the stadium after the incident.

[Ntn]

Inter Miami head coach, Tata Martino does not think the club’s captain, Lionel Messi, should be compared with Brazilian legend Pele.

Martino believes that Messi and Pele featured in different eras in the USA so the comparisons do not do justice to both.

With Messi now playing in Major League Soccer (MLS), many started comparing the Argentina captain with the Brazilian icon again, who played for the New York Cosmos in the past where he scored 64 goals in 107 matches.

Messi has scored 11 goals in eight games across competitions for Inter Miami so far.

The former Paris Saint-Germain star would easily break Pele’s record in America if he keeps the streak going.

Speaking after Messi’s MLS debut against New York Red Bulls on Saturday, Martino said, (via GOAL): “The league that received Pele is a way different league than the league that Lionel Messi has come to.”

[DailyPost]

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, has requested well-wishers to refrain from placing congratulatory billboards in his honour.

The Director of Press, Office of the Minister, Anthony Ogunleye, stated this in a statement in Abuja on Sunday.

“The attention of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has been drawn to lamp post billboards, full scale billboards and other adverts congratulating him on his appointment as minister.

“While the minister deeply appreciates the warm wishes and support of the citizens, he kindly, but strongly requests that such billboards and advertisements be discontinued forthwith.

“The minister acknowledges the overwhelming goodwill from the residents of the FCT and beyond and understands the sentiment behind these congratulatory displays and is genuinely touched by the show of support.

“However, in the spirit of public service and commitment to his responsibilities, the minister wishes to focus his full attention on assisting President Bola Tinubu in realising his vision and renewed hope agenda for Nigeria,” he said.

Mr Ogunleye said that Wike’s foremost duty lies in contributing to the development and growth of the FCT and the well-being of residents and the nation as a whole.

He added that the minister held in high regard, the aspirations and expectations of the FCT residents, and he remained dedicated to fulfilling his role with utmost sincerity and dedication.

According to him, this can be achieved by concentrating all efforts on the task at hand and joining hands with public servants to serve the country to the best of their abilities.

“Wike sincerely hopes that the public will understand his perspective and continue to extend their support and cooperation.

“He looks forward to working hand in hand with all stakeholders to build a stronger, more prosperous, and united FCT and Nigeria,” the director said.

[NAN]

…….Accuses AU, ECOWAS Of Silence

Former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank, on Sunday, condemned the rigging of Presidential election in Zimbabwe by the ruling ZANU-PF Party.

Frank in a statement in Abuja, also accused the Heads of State and Governments of the African Union and indeed the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) of eerie silence in the face of electoral injustice being meted on the opposition presidential candidate in Zimbabwe widely believed to have won the election.

According to Frank, such electoral coups in the form of rigging often snowball into military coups and violent change of governments because of discontent and deep seated anguish of the people who have been denied the right to freely choose who to lead them by fraud and force.

He insisted that Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa was declared winner in questionable circumstances following widespread irregularities orchestrated by the ruling party in instilling fear and suppression of votes in opposition strongholds.

He noted that candidate of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), Nelson Chamisa, was robbed of votes as attested by international observers and South African Regional body that monitored the election.

According to him, foreign poll monitors insisted that the elections had failed to meet regional and international standards just like the outcome of the February 25, 2023 presidential election in Nigeria that failed on all parameters due to overbearing influence of the ruling party and its use of financial inducements, intimidation and harassment of opposition and voters to deny Nigerians of their rightful choice.

The head of the European Union’s observer mission said the vote took place in a “climate of fear”, while Southern African regional bloc SADC’s mission raised issues including voting delays, issues with the voter roll, bans on opposition rallies and biased state media coverage.

“For example, voting was forced into an unprecedented second day because of delays in the printing of ballot papers in some key districts including the capital Harare, an opposition stronghold principally to deny Chamisa of votes,” he said.

He condemned a situation where African ruling parties are increasingly violating the electoral rights of the opposition parties and their candidates through rigging saying the trend will continue if measures are not taken to make African Heads of States to respect the sanctity of the ballot box.

He urged regional political blocs like the AU and ECOWAS to urgently call the President of Zimbabwe to order as a step towards curbing coup d’état now rearing its ugly head in many Africa countries like the recent one in Niger Republic.

“This is what African leaders are doing that is leading to military coups in the continent of Africa. An electoral coup has just taken place where the sitting President has outrightly rigged the election against the expressed will of the people.

“But neither African presidents nor AU has condemned what has happened in Zimbabwe. But if there is a military coup in Zimbabwe tomorrow, they will all begin to issue war threats in a bid to restore democratic rule,” he said.

He called on the United States of America, United Kingdom and other international bodies, to
lend their voice to condemn the electoral heist in Zimbabwe if they are genuinely interested in ending coups in Africa.

“So we are telling the international community that until they come together to make sure that African elections are transparent, free and fair, coups will not end in Africa,” he declared.

He called for urgent international sanctions against the President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa and any President that rigs election in Africa to fraudulently perpetuate themselves in office against the wish of the people.

“The United Nations must ensure that henceforth Presidents or heads of governments that were rigged into office are not invited to attend its General Assembly or any of its international gatherings,” he said.

[DailyIndependent]

The South-west Directors of Veterinary Services in Nigeria have officially verified the emergence of two Transboundary Animal Diseases (TADs) within the region.

These diseases are African Swine Fever affecting pigs and Anthrax affecting herbivores.

In a statement seen by Nairametrics, Dr. Taiwo Jolaoso, the conference’s Chairman, emphasized that TADs constitute highly contagious livestock epidemics capable of swift global dissemination, carrying adverse socio-economic and public health ramifications.

The federal government, therefore in a joint press release signed by Dr. Columba Vakuru, Chief Veterinary Officer of Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, Director General of NCDC, highlighted that a risk assessment indicated a high likelihood of an anthrax outbreak in the country which means addressing these diseases necessitates collaborative efforts among various countries.

Measures taken

Additionally, the statement indicated that necessary actions have been taken to decontaminate and disinfect all affected farms and slaughter slabs.

Concurrently, plans are underway to establish protocols for issuing movement permits in the region.

The statement underscored the intention to heighten public awareness, particularly among high-risk groups like butchers, hunters, animal product processors, marketers, and livestock farmers.

This effort aims to contain the further spread of these diseases. Pig farmers were advised by the conference to enhance their biosecurity practices and avoid overstocking their farms.

Regarding Anthrax, the conference emphasized the necessity for all stakeholders to avoid contact with sick or deceased animals, particularly if they display signs of bleeding from their openings.

The statement underscored the crucial importance of promptly reporting such cases to the nearest veterinary office.

Furthermore, the government acknowledged the disease’s significant potential impact on human health.

To address this situation, the government has elevated its response to level two within the incident management system and appointed an incident manager for effective coordination.

[Nairametrics]

On October 21, 1968, a letter was written by a group which went by the name, Egbe Mekunnu Taku, literally, Association of the Adamant Poor, to the then Military Governor of the Western State, Major General Adeyinka Adebayo. The letter explains, and succinctly too, the anger of poor and impoverished people all over the world against governments’ punishing policies. Angered by Adebayo’s jerking up of tax, from a flat rate of three, to six pounds, the association, which comprised mostly farmers, the bulk of whom were taxable workers of the time, literally dared the leopard in its den by lighting fire-lamp to catch a glimpse of its scary face. As a result of the increment, cost of living suddenly skyrocketed, even amid the civil war that the Yakubu Gowon government was fighting against the then Eastern State. Tax at this time was like the ubiquitous petrol of today which cuts across all and sundry. The Egbe Mekunnu Taku letter goes thus: “It is quite evident that there is absolutely no sale of cocoa which serve (sic) as the main source from where we the farmers get our yearly income and that we are living at the mercy of the Almighty God. We beg to say that we are at present experiencing a good hardship in regard to our individual mode of living at the farm; our old ones as well as the young ones are crying of hunger (sic) day in and day out whilst many of us go about without food at times for days… this current tax assessment is considered to be too much for the individual to meet…”

At first, Adebayo met with leaders of the unions of farmers under the aegis of Egbe Agbekoya, (Farmers Against Oppression) Olorunkoya (God is Against Oppression) and Mekunnu Parapo (Association of the poor) in Ibadan, Ogbomoso and Abeokuta. The leaders were Mustapha Okikirungbo, Tafa Popoola, Adeniyi Eda, Adeagbo Kobiowu, Rafiu Isola and Mudasiru Adeniran. On November 15, 1968, the governor again met with them at Idi-Ayunre and Olode villages, via Ibadan, flying to the former meeting venue in a helicopter, due to the bad road. He was however shouted down by anti-tax sloganeering. Adebayo nevertheless continued with this tax regime, despite the massive resentment. Believing in the power of the gun and armaments to suppress the farmers rather than a continuation of dialogue, in radio and newspaper announcements, government threatened that, “as from tomorrow, those who have not paid their tax will be blacklisted as human parasites and saboteurs and treated as such” (Daily Sketch, June 30, 1969). Thus, between 1968 and 1969, farmers, led by ringleaders like Adegoke Akekuejo, Tafa Adeoye, Folarin Idowu, Mudasiru Adeniran and Tafa Popoola, shouting, Oke mefa l’ao san! Oke mefa l’ao san! – We will only pay 30 shillings! – marched from village to village in their anti-tax mobilization against the military government, towards Mapo hall. They ransacked offices, with a complete state of anomie foisted on the region. Government’s deployment of violence to quell the peasants’ uprising only worsened the violence, leading to several deaths of policemen and farmers. The rioters set free 464 prisoners at Agodi Prisons on September 16. 1969. This was the anomic state until Chief Obafemi Awolowo met with Tafa Adeoye and other groups at the Akanran village on October 15, 1969 which created an armistice.

But for the dystopia that arose as a result of the Adeyinka Adebayo-led government’s increased tax and the graveyard calm of today, there is hardly any difference between the hardship faced by western state farmers of the late 1960s and the excruciating pains that have been the lots of Nigerians in the last three months under Bola Tinubu. Since May 29, grueling poverty, social discord and spike in rates of crime have been on the increase after the off-the-cuff removal of subsidy by the government. Government’s subsequent responses to the groaning have been more of a staccato than a respite. Nigerians cannot see any coordinated or mapped out outflow from the fuel subsidy removal and unification of Forex. Many marvel that a government whose head had serially mouthed his long-term hunger to be in the driver’s seat of the presidential office could demonstrate such gross unpreparedness and perfunctoriness towards the challenges arising from administering office.

So, last week, the governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, articulated same grouse and sang same song ceaselessly sung on the streets of Nigeria since May 29. While addressing journalists in Benin City, Obaseki lacerated the buttocks of the Tinubu government, expressing shock at its inability to effectively plan a workable response to the fuel subsidy removal. The subsidy removal, the governor said, has seriously impoverished Nigerians, as well as inflicting hardship and suffering on them. Worse still, he said, the palliative policy of the government, due to its peremptory attitude to the plights of the people, has morphed into an unmitigated fraud, with the economy under Tinubu taking a turn for the worse. In all, these can be attributed to Tinubu’s effeminate grasp of the economy.

“I am shocked that people who campaigned around the country, saying that they will remove subsidies, had no clear plans on what to do after subsidy removal. They don’t know what to do and how to support those who will be victims of subsidy removal. I am shocked and scared of what we are passing through today, where the government doesn’t seem to have a plan or solution on how to respond to the consequences of the policy measure put in place by their administration. With the way they have mismanaged our national economy, we have to deal with inflation, between 20 and 25 per cent. It means that the people will feel more pain, especially the weak and vulnerable in the society, particularly our pensioners, as whatever they get as their entitlement will do only little for them,” he said.

Almost immediately after Obaseki said this, Nigerians wondered what the Tinubu government’s response would be. Permit me as I digress. When Dele Alake, erstwhile image maker of the president, gave that self-justificatory claim that the president appointed him into the Solid Minerals Resources ministry, rather than the Information ministry, because of “the nature of this sector to our economic growth and vitality of this country which is dear to the heart of Mr. President,” I grimaced. Going further, he claimed that it was “just very apt and proper for him to send me here because he knows and trusts that I have a demonstrable sense of responsibility and courage to drive the agenda.” My take was that Tinubu was smart enough to realize early that he could not afford to recreate another Josef Goebbels in the information ministry, shortly after the monumental disaster of Lai Mohammed. A combative Alake was fit and proper for the hocus-pocus of presidential elections but off-putting for a government that postures as friend of the people.

We, for a minute, forgot that this was not a continuation of the Muhammadu Buhari government and Lai Mohammed was not in the saddle, even as he luxuriated in his paradise of lies. Then, we graphically imagined the usual potpourri of governmental playing-God, hogwash and arrogance, the usual broth dished out as Aso Rock’s replies to perceived enemies, would be pelted on Obaseki. It was however gladsome when we realized that a new Sheriff of the Information Ministry had come into the saddle. He even announced that his term of office was not going to be a roller-coaster of lies. At an official reception by the ministry for him, Mohammed Idris Malagi promised that there would be no room for lies and fake news. “For me, I am actually a reporter reporting for duty and I meant it with every sense of the word. The president has asked me to come and tell you that this is a brand new Ministry of Information and National Orientation….We are going to say it as it is. Mr. President is somebody who is truthful, honest, transparent. He has said that when we come, we should own up where there are mistakes, we should own up where we erred, we should not be shy to say, ‘No this is wrong and we are going to correct it.’”

From where did Malagi get those superfluous superlative adjectives of Mr. President being “truthful, honest, transparent” and all those what-ought-nots? Or perhaps, the Honourable Minister merely wanted to flaunt his English and Literary Studies background by showing off his arsenal of ironies, paradoxes and metonyms? If not, it is a general opinion that those superlatives are misplaced for the subject under reference. As far as Nigerians are concerned, the Honournable Minister should reserve his “truthful, honest, transparent” arsenal of ironies, paradoxes and metonyms about the current managers of our destinies for his next work of fiction.

And then, in his first official reaction on behalf of the federal government, Malagi unmistakably reversed the promises he made to Nigerians. You would imagine that the disputatious ghost of Lai Mohammed had risen in Malagi. Reacting to Obaseki’s national alarm on the whimsical navigation of Nigeria’s economy by Tinubu, Malagi began his intervention from a rather simplistic and ad-hominem plank. Obaseki, he said, had of recent, “shifted focus to the nation’s economic challenges as cannon fodder to divert attention from his poor performance at the state level.” That rhyme sounded kindergarten and a refrain of bad managers of office holders. It is a familiar route always trodden by information managers who forum-shop in hazy attempts to deflect justified arrows shot at their bosses.

Even members of the APC, in their closets, are worried about the policy somersaults and reactive colour of this government. Germane issues critical to people’s lives are left unattended to. For instance, Malagi, in hitting Obaseki, demanded that leaders should align criticism with reality. Here we go, Honourable Minister: What is the reality of Nigeria today? In simple terms, the reality is that Tinubu’s economic policies in the last three months, without debate, have pauperized Nigerian people colossally, more than previous governments’. There does not appear to be any mental rigour birthing those policies as they seem to be unintended governmental reactions. What broader economic picture could a fuel subsidy removal, inflicted at the spur of the moment, have on Nigerians when the president himself confessed that it was a product of a haphazard seizure “by the spirit of courage” without any governmental blueprint? While it is true that virtually everyone – World Bank, IMF and various economic experts – “have consistently advocated for the removal of fuel subsidy because of the fiscal distortions and burden it has placed on the economy,” as Malagi said, none of those bodies reckoned that a leader would be as unconscionable as to remove fuel subsidy without a requisite well-thought-out panacea to ease its resultant excruciating pains.

Malagi then tumbled into cants, sophistries and illogical ad-hominem arguments that made his intervention very watery, self-serving and insincere. In one breath, he accused Obaseki of “benefitting from the fuel subsidy removal, which is evident in the more than doubling of the FAAC allocation” and advising that, “rather than delving into narratives which do not provide the complete picture, the focus should be on how the Edo State Government will be using available resources to drive impactful projects that genuinely uplift the people of Edo State.” In those very disjointed ripostes, Malagi literally “aimed at the man,” and in the process, shifting his focus from the critical issues raised by Obaseki. While doing so, he enveloped himself in a blanket that could not allow him see the larger issues of the parlous state of the economy under Tinubu and the cries of the people. Because he could not see nor perceive the people’s cries, in frustration, Malagi then shot at the man who dared to bring out the log in Tinubu’s eye.

There is no doubt that the overwhelming cries of Nigerian people woke the Tinubu government from its somnambulist first three months in power. When it then woke up, government then rambled to offer N8000 to the “poorest of the poor.” Seeing that this would not work, it again cloned the same discredited Godwin Emefiele borrowing method to shore up the economy. Immediately, the Tinubu government then asked for a loan of $3 billion from JP Morgan, via the NNPC. Yet, the economy is gasping and clutching to straws. Tinubu hasn’t shown that he runs a government that is prepared for the acute challenges of office. Obaseki adequately articulated this effeminacy of control, a view of not only the common man on the streets, but one that is not dissimilar from those of respected economic experts. They all worry at the anti-people thrust of the three-month stay in office of Tinubu, especially the ostensible paucity of thought process that goes into his government’s economic policies.

The N185 billion palliatives is undoubtedly the most outstanding of the government’s policy. Its aim is to mitigate the grueling effect of the economy on Nigerians. Each state was allocated the sum of N5 billion. If you ask me, there is virtually no difference between this palliative and the parlous N8000 it earlier proposed. Only that, this time, the federal government has succeeded in offloading blames from the people to the governors. When Tinubu, last week, told the people to hold their governors responsible for whatever was the outcome of the palliative’s distribution, it was obvious to me that the aim of redesigning the curve of the palliative tokenism had been achieved. It was a masterfully crafted scapegoatism.

Questions have been posed severally on the N5billion allocation. One is that, did it occur to government that the poor in, say Kano, are not the same in number with those in Ebonyi? If this is the case, why give them uniform amounts? Second, if the money is a loan to the states as it has been confirmed to be, why is the federal government assuming patrimony over it? Why make it look as if the Federal Government had done the states some good that needed trumpeting to the world? Again, why make this policy look like an Uncle Grisham Comes To Dinner, as if it was the newest intervention ever? The Buhari government did something similar, in what was referred to as the Paris Club payment to states.

Malagi must know by now that Nigerians believe that Godwin Obaseki has earned his epaulettes for his Nostradamus peer into the future. On April 7, 2021, while hosting the transition committee members at Government House in Benin City, just as he did last week, Obaseki raised a similar alarm. Nigeria was in huge financial trouble, the governor shouted. Reason? Buhari had ordered a subterranean printing of Nigerian money to fund shortfalls in allocations shared to states. “In another year or so, where will we find this money that we go to Abuja to share every month? Last month, we got FAAC for March; the Federal Government printed an additional N50 to N60 billion to top-up for us to share…My worry is that we will wake up one day like Argentina, the naira will be N1,000, N2,000 and will be moving because we don’t have money coming in. You are just borrowing, borrowing and borrowing without any means or idea of how to pay back,” he said.

Hell was immediately let loose. Megaphones like Malagi were amplified to the limit of their decibels. Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, budget and national planning, led the army. “The issue that was raised by the Edo State governor, for me, is very, very sad because it is not a fact. What we distribute at FAAC is revenue that is generated…it is not true to say we printed money to distribute at FAAC, it is not true,” she said. Lai Mohammed joined the inglorious orchestra. Ingenuously called Ways and Means, it was later revealed that the government had printed money to the tune of N22.7 trillion.

Rather than waste precious time and space to demonize Obaseki, Malagi should know that Nigerians adjust themselves to listen when Obaseki raises alarm on the economy. He earned his keep by the certitude of his projections. It is old grandmother tale to use political party affiliation as cudgel of censure. Nigerians are interested in logic and facts of issues.

The National Security Adviser (NSA), Malam Nuhu Ribadu, says the country is still losing 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily to local and international thieves despite efforts to end the menace.

Ribadu confirmed this when he led a presidential delegation to inspect oil and gas facilities at Owaza in Abia and Odogwa in Etche Local Government Area of Rivers on Saturday.

He said the activities of oil thieves and pipeline vandals had impacted negatively on the nation’s economy and were partly responsible for the rising cost of living in the country.

“It’s unfortunate that few individuals would steal our common resources, and in the process cause unbelievable loss to both the nation, communities and the people.

“Nigeria has the capacity to produce 2 million barrels of crude daily, but we are currently producing less than 1.6 million barrels due to theft and vandalism of pipelines.

“So, we are talking about 400,000 barrels of crude oil going to waste with few criminals and economic saboteurs not even getting much out of it,” he said.

Ribadu said the operators of artisanal refineries collect a small quantity of crude oil when they broke the pipelines while larger volumes of oil were spilled on the environment.

“The value of 400,000 barrels of oil today is about 4 million dollars, and every day, we lose this amount because of this irresponsible behaviour.

“If you multiply 4 million dollars by 365 days (one year), you will see that it is a lot of money running into billions of dollars.

“Currently, the country is in desperate need of money as the Naira is continuously losing its value because we earn less money.

“If we earn more money, it will not only help strengthen our currency but reflect in everything, including cost of living in the country,” he added.

The NSA said that the President Bola Tinubu administration was concerned about the development and was already taking actionable steps to address the matter.

He said huge investments made by the government in building infrastructures for the common good of all were being destroyed by few individuals, and in the process, destroying the environment.

Ribadu called for a united front to tackle oil theft and end decades of attacks on the nation’s oil and gas infrastructures.

“We are working hard with the security forces and those employed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited to secure our facilities and end this madness called oil theft,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that on the presidential delegation with the NSA were the Minister of Defence, Baduru Abubakar, and Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Christopher Musa.

Others included the Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Hassan Abubakar; Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, and Minister of State (Oil), Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri.

The Minister of State (Gas), Petroleum Resources, Ekperipe Ekpo, and senior management officials of the NNPCL as well as other top security personnel were part of the team.

[Guardian]

Towards the end of 2022, as his country began preparations towards general elections scheduled to take place in the penultimate week of August 2023, Zimbabwe’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, contracted an unusual bout of generosity denominated in United States dollars. First, he disbursed $500,000 to his ministers, comprising 20 cabinet ministers, 13 deputy ministers, and nine provincial ministers supposedly as housing loans. Next, he doled out $350,000 to directors of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). The 270 members of parliament – both elected and nominated – each received $40,000.

As Zimbabwe went to the polls on August 23, it was impossible to escape the feeling that the president had bought and paid for another term in office. In locations known to be sympathetic to the opposition, mostly in the urban areas, voting materials failed to materialise, mysteriously showing up instead in very remote rural areas, thought to be sympathetic to the ruling ZANU-PF party of President Mnangagwa. To manage the resulting uproar, the president decreed an extension of voting into the following day, the 24th.  The damage had been done. In all major strongholds of the opposition, it seemed clear that the government and its hand-picked Zimbabwe Electoral Commission had succeeded in suppressing turnout among voters not sympathetic to them.

With the ballot degenerating into a farcical embarrassment, the ruling party chose to kill all forms of independent monitoring of the election. On election day, they arrested 41 independent election observers deployed by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) and the Election Resource Centre (ERC) in an act calculated to intimidate and frighten independent civic monitoring of the election-related abuses. A release issued by the police on election day accused the detained observers of being in possession of such dangerous weapons as “93 smart cellphones, 38 laptops, two smartwatches, two modems, one WiFi router, one external hard-drive, Nokia feature phone (Kambudzi), one printer, 1 x 24 port switch, various computer chargers, power back-up unit and headphones.” The design was not difficult to read.

President Mnangagwa has been in government since Zimbabwe became independent in 1980. In 2017, he emerged as the head of the government after masterminding the ouster in a coup of Robert Mugabe, the ruler who had led the country since independence and whom he had served as vice president. In 2018, Mnangagwa won a disputed mandate in his own right as president. In this ballot in 2023, he sought a renewal of that mandate. But all indications were that he was not interested in giving the people of Zimbabwe a choice over the outcome. It seemed clear even before the first ballots were cast that it “was unlikely the ruling ZANU-PF party would allow any loosening of its 43-year grip on power”. Most informed observers expected that whenever the ZEC chooses to announce the results, it will award enough numbers to President Mnangagwa to declare him “winner” in the first ballot. That is exactly what eventuated as this column went to press 48 hours after the ballot.

Zimbabwe is only the latest in a succession of African countries where elections increasingly have nothing to do with the will of the people. In Sierra Leone, which voted in June, the electoral commission allocated numbers that seemed designed to ensure a pre-determined outcome on the first ballot, promising only to publish disaggregated results “in due course”. That has yet to happen. Nigeria’s election, which occurred in February 2023 was marred by credible claims of high-level partisanship by the election management body which has increasingly become devoid of credibility. They remain mired in legal challenges, which are unlikely to be settled before the end of the year.

President Museveni’s violent re-election in Uganda’s 2021 elections remains pending in litigation before the East African Court of Justice in Arusha. In June, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, also in Arusha, ordered Tanzania to desist from the practice of using government-appointed district officers to rig elections for the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). This is significant because it is the first time a regional court in Africa is wading into the manipulation of elections by ruling parties across the continent.

Even regional election observers are no longer safe from the whiff of being compromised. In Nigeria’s February 2023 elections, the ostentatiously named West African Elders Forum (WAEF) deployed what it called an Election Mediation Team led by John Mahama, Ghana’s former President. But it was not secret at that time that Mahama was in the running to become the candidate for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Ghana’s presidential election due in 2024. His presence at the head of a significant election intervention team in Nigeria was either a calculated piece of mischief or an effort to ingratiate himself with the winners in Nigeria in order to blunt any intention on their part to support the ruling party when the contest takes place there in 2024.

Across the continent, incumbents with spent legitimacy go into elections with terminal hubris. With public resources, they compromise every institution in the election management and dispute resolution chain, frustrating the basic structure and rules of electoral contests. For clarity, elections are ordinarily supposed to be governed by determinate rules designed to ensure that the outcomes are indeterminate until results are announced. Now across the continent, ruling parties make the rules indeterminate and suborn the courts to ensure that this is the case, all to ensure that the outcomes are pre-determined.

When he suffered his outbreak of generosity late last year, President Mnangagwa did not just stop at bribing the cabinet, security services, and MPs. Not to be left out, be doled out U$D400,000 to all judges of superior courts of record, including the judges of the High Court, the Constitutional Court, and of the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe. The judges received this largesse as “housing loans” but President Mnangagwa curiously forgot to require them to sign any loan agreements. Coming shortly before the judges were expected to assume jurisdiction to adjudicate over the outcome of the country’s elections, it was not surprising that many people took the view that the payments had “the odour of a bribe.”

It was not difficult to see his strategy. All disputes over the elections will end up before the same judges in cases in which they will have two options. They can either respect the implicit bargain and rule in favour of the ruling party or they should be prepared to have their “housing loan” recalled if they fail to do so. Their fate could even be worse: ZANU-PF could decide to have any judge that rules against them charged with corruption and then impeached and removed as a judge. The Judicial Service Commission, which is responsible for judicial discipline, is chaired by the compromised Luke Malaba, Chief Justice since 2017, who was born on May 15, 1951. Under Zimbabwe’s constitution, he was due to retire on May 15, 2021, when he turned 70. Instead, President Mnangagwa unilaterally and without constitutional authority extended his tenure by five years under contract, an arrangement that makes him worse than a presidential lap dog dressed up in judicial robes.

In many African countries, increasingly, elections have become costly misadventures implemented to arrest choice and put democracy in reverse. Citizens, driven to despondency by the malevolent refusal of incumbent politicians to afford them credible choices at the ballot box or to respect the will of the people disclosed in elections, are now in one country after another tempted to transfer their allegiance to wannabe messiahs in military fatigues.

Across many African countries, what seemed to be a consensus on military coups has broken down. The fact that military adventurers are returning to political rulership with public support in some African countries is the result of the destruction of public faith in elections as a system for installing legitimate leadership. If the civilians don’t step back, the reversals could become a contagion.