Issues for Consideration

• Parameters for Free, Fair and Transparent Elections under the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance.
• Elections Monitoring and ECOWAS Assistance to Member States.
• Factors responsible for the undermining of Free, Fair and Transparent Elections.
• Factors Responsible for the subversion of Constitutional Democratic Order.
• How to Hold Member States accountable for their Treaty Obligations.
• Sanctions Regime for Unconstitutional Change of Government.

Abstract:

Political scientists have no consensus on what constitutes a "free, fair and transparent election." Indeed, some argue that there is no free or perfect election, and that fairness and transparency are relative terms. Instead, many scholars prefer to talk about an election's acceptability, credibility, or integrity.

Even so, there is a general agreement on the fundamental principles based on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights in relation to election as enshrined in most national constitutions.

According to Article 21 of that Declaration: "Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his (or her) country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.” It goes further: “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."

The electoral normative frameworks of many countries or regional organizations, such as the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the Africa Union’s Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections and the 2001 Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), all derive their legal basis from the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.There is also the yet-to-be ratified 2014 Malabo Protocol expanding the jurisdiction of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights (ACJHR) to cover crimes under international law as well as transnational crime, with provision for the prosecution of politicians, soldiers and mercenaries who subvert constitution rule in Africa.

This paper examines the Parameters of Free, Fair and Transparent Elections as an essential source of Conflict resolution in the ECOWAS region within the context that elections are the sine qua non of multi-party democracy. Yet, without other important elements, such as constitutional term limits, protection of fundamental human and minority rights, multi-party system, political inclusivity, judicial independence, separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution, accountability and transparency, economic freedom and the rule of law, elections by themselves cannot guarantee freedom or good governance.

After all, dictatorships do hold elections. But as also noted by the Democracy Web, on the Insufficiency and abuse of Election, “Dictatorships make evident the notion that the holding of an election, in and of itself, is insufficient to establish or sustain democracy.”

Holding periodic elections under "different democratic governments" in West Africa, without the other vital ingredients of democracy, has not and will not guarantee good governance. Instead, this has become the trigger and driver of conflicts and instability on the African continent, especially in West Africa, which has been labelled the "coup zone," given the constant military incursions into politics in the region.

This paper will also examine how to hold ECOWAS member States accountable for their Treaty Obligations and the application of Sanctions Regimes to wayward administrations or individuals.

Introduction:

Definition of an Election

An Election is a process and a multi-stakeholder enterprise. It is considered the sine qua non of multi-party democracy. For this presentation, let us consider a practical definition by an authority, who is described as “an encyclopaedia” on African elections.

An election "is a contest among political parties and candidates to occupy positions of authority in a country; a contest mediated by an electoral commission; and… decided by the votes of the electorate,” (K. Afari-Gyan, 2023).

Other key stakeholders in the electoral process are the electoral commission; security agencies tasked with electoral security and handling election-related cases; civil society organizations; the government in power, which provides money for the electoral process; the courts, responsible for adjudicating electoral matters, the media, which provides platforms for the dissemination of election information, such as voter registration, the electorate, and development partners, who provide financial or technical support.  

For the electoral process to succeed, every actor or stakeholder must play their part under defined rules of engagement at all stages of the electoral cycle - before, during, and post-election period.

However, no matter how free, fair, and transparent, elections alone cannot guarantee freedom, democracy, or good governance. On the contrary, elections have been a significant source of violent conflicts and political instability in the ECOWAS region.

While political scientists and constitutional experts differ on what constitutes a "free, fair and transparent election," there is an agreement on some fundamental requirements which derive from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and similar internationally accepted instrumentalities.

"Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his (or her) country, directly or through freely chosen representatives,” notes Article 21 of the 1948 Universal Declaration:  It further states: “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."

Furthermore, the normative frameworks of many regional organizations, such as the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the Africa Union’s Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa, and the ECOWAS 2001 Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, all derive their legal basis from the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

However, experiences in the ECOWAS region have shown that without other essential elements of democracy, such as constitutional term limits, protection of fundamental human and minority rights, multi-party system, political inclusivity, judicial independence, separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution, accountability and transparency, economic freedom and the rule of law, elections by themselves have become recipes for conflicts and political instability.

ECOWAS was set up on the 28^th of May 1975 through the Treaty of Lagos to foster economic development and regional integration. But the organization faced peace and security challenges shortly afterwards, beginning with the Liberia civil war in 1989.

While economic development was its core objective, reality informed the injection of peace and security into the regional integration agenda, starting from 1990 when the Authority of Heads of State and Government directed the transfer of the responsibility for ECOWAS affairs to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs or Regional Integration followed by the transformation from an Executive Secretariat to a Commission in 2007 and Vision 2050 as the latest regional aspiration.

Key Normative Frameworks:

1. A politico-military Standing Mediation Committeeand the ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) were created in 1990 to spearhead regional interventions and these facilitated the end of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone followed by a common stance on political governance. The ECOWAS Community Court was also established through another protocol in 1990 and all these measures were instrumental in allowing the Organisation to assume the dynamic posture, which it had projected until recently.
2. The Authority's Declaration on Political Principles in 1991also reaffirmed the Community's commitment to democracy and a free market. To achieve uniformity on the roadmap to integration, the ECOWAS Revised Treaty in 1993 created the Community Parliament and other institutions, conferring supranational status on the regional Organization.
3. In December 1999, the ECOWAS Authority enacted the Protocol relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security (orThe Mechanism), to guide the construction of regional peace and security architecture. This instrument, which inspired the adoption of a similar Mechanism by the African Union several years later, has provisions for the Mediation and Security Council and the Council of the Elders/Wise as additional tools for conflict prevention, mediation, and resolution towards consolidating peace and security in the region.
4. The Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance was adopted in 2001 as an integral part of The Mechanismsetting minimum constitutional convergence criteria for ECOWAS membership based on shared values of democracy and free market, separation of powers, popular participation, the democratic control of the armed forces, guarantees of fundamental freedoms and, especially 'zero tolerance' for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means.
5. The ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF), adopted in 2008, and the Monrovia Declaration of 2010, were the other instruments adopted to strengthen the ECOWAS peace and security architecture, emphasizing preventive diplomacy and proactive mediation responses.

To ensure compliance with the normative frameworks and institutional instruments, ECOWAS leaders had maintained a principled stance with a strong political will, applying enormous pressure to check wayward administrations through a combination of sanctions and preventive diplomacy before reversals of the past two decades.

As part of its conflict prevention framework, ECOWAS also has an Early Warning System under a directorate that collaborates with state and non-state actors, civil society organizations and NGOs, to monitor and report threats to peace and security in the region.

Using the carrot and stick strategy, ECOWAS was able to suspend three member States - Guinea, Niger, and Cote d'Ivoire - between 2009 and 2010 for violating the Supplementary Protocol. With the cooperation of the African Union, the United Nations and other partners, the Organization also restored constitutional order and legality in Guinea, Niger, and Cote d'Ivoire, among others.

Parameters for Free, Fair and Transparent Elections under the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance.

The 2001 Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance has 50 Articles. The protocol has no definition of what constitutes free, fair, and transparent elections, but the articles deal with sundry issues ranging from fighting corruption to poverty alleviation and social dialogue: the role of stakeholders during elections, political inclusivity, protection of women and children's rights and sanctions against non-compliance with provisions of the protocol.

SECTION I: “CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERGENCE PRINCIPLES” OF THE PROTOCOL

Article 1 states the constitutional principles shared by all Member States:

1. a)  Separation of powers - the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary. - Empowerment and strengthening of parliaments and guarantee of parliamentary immunity. - Independence of the Judiciary: Judges shall be independent in the discharge of their duties. - The freedom of the members of the Bar shall be guaranteed, without prejudice to their penal or disciplinary responsibility in the event of contempt of court or breaches of the common law.
2. b) Every accession to power must be made through free, fair, and transparent elections.
3. c) Zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means.
4. d) Popular participation in decision-making, strict adherence to democratic principles and decentralisation of power at all levels of governance.
5. e) The armed forces must be apolitical and must be under the command of a legally constituted political authority; no serving member of the armed forces may seek to run for elective political office.
6. f) Secularism and neutrality of the State in all matters relating to religion; freedom for each individual to practise, within the limits of existing laws, the religion of his/her choice everywhere on the national territory. The secularism shall extend to all parts of the State but shall not deprive the State of the right to regulate, with due respect to human rights, the different religions practised on the national territory or to intervene when law and order break down as a result of any religious activity.
7. g) The State and all its institutions belong to all the citizens; therefore, none of their decisions and actions shall involve any form of discrimination, be it on an ethnic, racial, religion or regional basis.
8. h) The rights set out in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and other international instruments shall be guaranteed in each of the ECOWAS Member States; each individual or organisation shall be free to have recourse to the common or civil law courts, a court of special jurisdiction, or any other national institution established within the framework of an international instrument on Human Rights, to ensure the protection of his/her rights.
9. i) Political parties shall be formed and shall have the right to carry out their activities freely, within the limits of the law. Their formation and activities shall not be based on ethnic, religious, regional, or racial considerations. They shall participate freely and without hindrance or discrimination in any electoral process. The freedom of the opposition shall be guaranteed. Each Member State may adopt a system for financing political parties, in accordance with criteria set under the law.
10. j) The freedom of association and the right to meet and organise peaceful demonstrations shall also be guaranteed.
11. k) The freedom of the press shall be guaranteed.

In the absence of a court of special jurisdiction, the present Supplementary Protocol shall be regarded as giving the necessary powers to common or civil law judicial bodies.

SECTION II ON ELECTIONS

1. 1. No substantial modification shall be made to the electoral laws in the last six (6) monthsbefore the elections, except with the consent of a majority of political actors.
2. All elections shall be organised on the dates or at periods fixed by the Constitution or the electoral laws.
3. Member States shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that women have equal rights with men to vote and be voted for in elections, to participate in the formulation of government policies and the implementation thereof and to hold public offices and perform public functions at all levels of governance.
4. The bodies responsible for organising the elections shall be independent or neutral and shall have the confidence of all the political actors. Where necessary, appropriate national consultations shall be organised to determine the nature and the structure of the bodies.
5. Each ECOWAS Member State shall ensure the establishment of a reliable registry of births and deaths. A central registry shall be established in each Member State.

5.a. Member States shall cooperate in this area with a view to exchanging experiences and where necessary providing technical assistance to each other in the production of reliable voters’ lists.

6. The voters’ lists shall be prepared in a transparent and reliable manner, with the collaboration of the political parties and voters who may have access to them whenever the need arises.
7. The preparation and conduct of elections and the announcement of results shall be done in a transparent manner.
8. Adequate arrangements shall be made to hear and dispose of all petitions relating to the conduct of elections and announcement of results.
9. Member States shall use the services of civil society organisations involved in electoral matters to educate and enlighten the public on the need for peaceful elections devoid of all acts of violence.
10. The party and/or candidate who loses the elections shall concede defeat to the political party and/or candidate finally declared the winner, following the guidelines and within the deadline stipulated by the law.
11. All holders of power at all levels shall refrain from acts of intimidation or harassment against defeated candidates or their supporters.

Similarly, Article 19 says: "The armed forces and police shall be non-partisan and shall remain loyal to the nation. The role of the armed forces shall be to defend the independence and the territorial integrity of the State and its democratic institutions." It further states that "the police and other security agencies shall be responsible for the maintenance of law and order and the protection of persons and their properties."

Article 22 states: "The use of arms to disperse non-violent meetings or demonstrations shall be forbidden. Whenever a demonstration becomes violent, only the use of minimal and/or proportionate force shall be authorised; All cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment shall be forbidden; The security forces, while carrying out investigations, shall not disturb or arrest family members or relations of the person presumed guilty or suspected of having committed an offence."

Article 32 expressly states: "Member States agree that good governance and press freedom are essential for preserving social justice, preventing conflict, guaranteeing political stability and peace and for strengthening democracy."

Finally, Article 33: commits member States to “recognise that the rule of law involves not only the promulgation of good laws that are in conformity with the provisions on human rights, but also a good judicial system, a good system of administration, and good management of the State apparatus.”

Elections Monitoring and ECOWAS Assistance to Member States

SECTION III of the 2001 ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance deals with Election Monitoring and ECOWAS Assistance. It has eight Articles, with Article 11 complementing provisions of Article 42 of the 1999 Protocol relating to the Mechanism on Conflict Resolution, Management, Peacekeeping and Security (or The Mechanism).

Article 12:1 says: "At the request of any member State, ECOWAS may provide assistance in the conduct of any election," while Article 12:2, adds: “Such assistance may take any form.” Article 12:3 says: "Also, ECOWAS may dispatch a monitoring team to the country concerned for the purpose of monitoring the elections."

The ECOWAS Commission’s engagement with member States in election assistance takes the following forms:

1. Fact-finding missions
2. Election observation missions

• Situation Room on Election Day

1. Provision of financial assistance
2. Provision of logistic assistance
3. Provision of technical assistance

• Security missions, and
• Follow-up Missions between elections

The ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC)

To further improve the management, quality and credibility of regional Elections, the ECOWAS Commission, and the Election Management Bodies (EMBs) in the region set up the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions, ECONEC-RESAO, as an NGO in February 2008. As the umbrella organisation of EMBs in West Africa, the network promotes free and credible elections and envisages a region where free, fair, and credible elections are an integral part of the democratic process through, peer support, information, and experience-sharing towards the ultimate harmonization of electoral legal frameworks.

The ECOWAS Commission’s assistance to Member States on electoral matters is predicated on three (3) legal bases, namely:

• The ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance,
• The ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework, and
• The ECOWAS Handbook on Election Observation

The most widely publicized and visible activity in electoral assistance are the deployments of Short-term and Long-term Election Observation Missions (STOs and LTOs) to member States holding elections.

These missions have a two-fold objective, namely:

• To ensure that international standards of free, fair, and credible elections are adhered to, thus guaranteeing that citizens' human rights to select their leaders freely are respected.
• To ascertain the credibility of the results declared by electoral management bodies.
• Short-term election observation missions have been systematically deployed to every regional presidential election from 2005 except for the 2011 Presidential election in The Gambia, followed by the deployment of Long-term Observers from 2014.
• Fact-finding and Follow-up Missions involve consultations with stakeholders to ascertain challenges and gaps on compliance and areas of assistance between elections.

Challenges to EOMs include:

1. Insufficient funding
2. Inadequate staffing

• Need for improvement in the quality of nominees from member States. Some of them need more professional skills and sufficient knowledge of elections.
• Improvement in the quality of EOM Reports and a radical departure from the current predictable and pro-establishment style.

While electoral administration and processes in the ECOWAS region have significantly evolved, there is still a need for improvements and professionalism.

Electoral Commissions and other stakeholders should also keep up to date with the introduction of technology in elections.

Factors responsible for the undermining of Free, Fair and Transparent Elections and the Subversion of Constitutional Democratic Order

• It is important to note that the same stakeholders who facilitate free, fair, and transparent elections can undermine the process by their conducts or disposition. The stakeholders are governments, the electoral umpires, political parties and candidates, civil society organizations, the judiciary, media, the electorate, and development partners.

1. Governments

• Governments in the ECOWAS region play a critical role in elections. They are expected to provide funding; a conducive political and socio-economic environment; an impartial legal framework, and a level playing field for elections to be free, fair, and transparent.
• However, the partisan disposition of many governments, including by rigging of election to obtain or retain power; control of the Parliaments and the Judiciary; altering the national constitutions and electoral laws; narrowing the democratic space, human rights violations; applying undue pressure on the electoral umpire and clamp down on the opposition and the media, combine to undermine free, fair, and transparent elections in the region.

2. Electoral Commission

• Many electoral commissions in the ECOWAS region are only independent or autonomous in name. Most of their officials are appointed by the government and are therefore unable to resist political pressure from the government, political parties, or powerful/wealthy candidates. The manipulation of the electoral process with the connivance of polling officials who compromise their positions is also very common, with adverse impact the credibility of elections.

3. Security Agencies

• Security agencies including the armed forces and the police are supposed to be neutral during elections since they must owe allegiance to the State, not government officials. But in most cases, the government and politicians exercise undue influence or compromise security agencies. There are cases, whereby security agents on election duties look the other way when electoral frauds are committed. These practices undermine free, fair, and transparent elections in the ECOWAS region.

4. The Parliament

• The responsibility of parliaments in multiparty democracy is to make laws in the public interest. But while national constitutions and electoral laws envisage the separation of powers among the three arms of government – the Executive, Legislature, and the Judiciary – it is common for the executive arm of government to control the legislative arm. This usually starts with the election of pro-government MPs who are often beholden to the government in power. This is a recipe for flawed elections and bad governance.

5. The Judiciary

• The Judiciary, which is supposed to be the last hope of the citizens, now plays a more prominent, and sometimes controversial and disruptive role in undermining the electoral process. There is a growing perception that the political class now buy court judgments with the result that the outcomes of some major elections are now determined in the courtrooms instead of the ballot box.

6. Civil Society Organizations

• Civil society, community-based organizations, and Non-governmental Organizations are supposed to play crucial non-partisan roles in ensuring free, fair, and transparent elections. But in reality, many are comprised and now work for the government or political interests, thereby undermining the electoral process in many ECOWAS member countries.

7. Media

• The media plays both positive and negative roles that can impact the outcome of elections. The advent of New or social media has further complicated the situation. While the media can help sensitise the electorate and provide platforms for political actors to convey their messages to various audiences during elections, the media can also be a purveyor of fake news, misinformation and disinformation which could undermine the electoral process and lead to political conflicts.

8. The Electorate

• Citizens as voters are indispensable players in national elections. Without voters there will no election and at the same time, they must play their civic/constitutional duties of registering and turning up to vote on election day. They must also be sufficiently knowledgeable, politically to resist selling their votes or being used by politicians as thugs to disrupt or undermine the electoral process. The citizens must hold elected officials to account.

9. Development Partners

• Development partners play a major role in providing financial and technical support for the conduct of elections as part of contributions to building and entrenching democracy in West Africa. But experience has shown that some of them and their home countries go beyond their remit by trying to influence electoral outcomes in the region. The activities of these partisan partners undermine rather than facilitate the electoral processes in the region.

10. Money and Transactional Politics

• Vote-buying is an age-long phenomenon. The influence of money has taken a troubling dimension in West African politics. Politicians capitalize on the pervasive poverty and illiteracy to buy votes by compromising the electoral system using their agents and also bribing polling officials.
• Additionally, the undermining of free, fair, and transparent elections and what many call “Constitutional or Political Coups,”have led to instability and the resurgence of military incursions in politics in the ECOWAS region.

The root causes of conflicts or resurgence of military incursions include:

1. Alteration of national constitutions and electoral laws, authoritarianism; tenure elongation syndrome; flawed elections resulting in electoral violence, heightened insecurity and socio-economic hardships, unemployment, inability, or failure of Member States to protect or respect human rights; or fulfil their Treat obligations and breakdown of the rule of law.
2. Political godfatherism, state/institution capture, and “personalisation of democracy” are also real and present challenges to the conduct of credible elections.
3. Particularly telling is the lack of political will by the leaders. For instance, under the guise of adhering to national constitutions which they alter at will, some ECOWAS leaders manipulate the electoral processes or rig elections to obtain or sustain themselves in power. They control parliaments in their countries, silence political opponents and the judiciary, civil society organizations, with the media and citizens under severe strictures or emasculated.
4. The inability or failure of governments to respect the provisions of the relevant regional instruments listed above concerning the parameters of free, fair and transparent elections and the tendency by some leaders to undermine the same instruments by engaging in illegal alteration of constitutions and electoral laws, corruption and nepotism; incitement of supporters, as well as the disposition of politicians, who see elections as "do-or-die" affair, and their refusal to concede electoral defeats, are all elements of bad governance, which have all combined to subvert or undermine the constitutional order in many ECOWAS member countries. While the resurgence of military incursions in West Africa is a symptom of the bad governance malaise. But unfortunately, undue attention is usually paid to military coups as the sole culprit.

How to hold Member States Accountable for their Treaty Obligations

There is no lack of legal instruments to hold ECOWAS member States accountable for their Treaty Obligations, ranging from the 1991 Declaration on Political Principles to the Monrovia Declaration of 2010.

• Regional leaders should muster the political will to make hard decisions, such as calling their errant colleagues to order. Pro-people, visionary and dynamic leadership with patriotic zeal are required. For instance, ECOWAS has used the Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governanceto force a former President in the Niger Republic to abandon his plan to dissolve the national parliament in 2009.

The organization also declined to send election observers to the 2011 presidential election conducted by now-deposed President Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia. It refused to recognise the result of that poll, citing non-compliance with the regional instrument. Had the international community supported that ECOWAS principled stance, the debacle of the 2016 presidential election and Jammeh's eventual exile would have been avoided.

• More importantly, State, and non-state actors, including the electoral umpires, parliament, Judiciary, political parties, civil society organizations, the media, and the electorate, all have critical roles to play in the collective efforts to hold governments of member States accountable.

As often stated by Prof Mahmood Yakubu, Chair of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC): “It is better and more cost-effective” to leverage existing instruments to achieve credible elections “instead of deploying ECOMOG (the regional peace force) to tackle the fall-out of flawed elections.”

Sanctions Regime for Unconstitutional Change of Government

Also, appropriate sanctions must be applied to serve as a deterrent against impunity, with consequences for every violation of existing instruments and legal texts.

1. Consistent and unbiased application of sanctions:

• ECOWAS’ recent suspension of the membership of Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso and the targeted sanctions against the coup leaders and their family members as part of efforts to hasten the return to constitutional order in the three countries after military coups are consistent with provisions of the Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance,especially the “zero-tolerance” for obtaining or maintaining power by unconstitutional means. But what about the events that led to the military coups, such as tenure elongation, election rigging, corruption, government’s inability to stop insecurity or end socio-economic hardships; human rights violations and illegal alteration of national constitutions and electoral laws, which are also frowned upon by the same Protocol?
• ECOWAS member States should ratify, domesticate, and implement the Malabo Protocol expanding the ACJHR jurisdiction to cover crimes under international law as well as transnational crime.
• While military coups remain condemnable and undemocratic, it cannot be one set of rules for the errant political leaders who carry out “political and constitutional coups,” and another for military coup plotters.
• Early warning tools and provisions of existing protocols should be used to recalibrate the regional peace and security architecture, emphasizing the need for proactive preventive diplomacy, mediation, and conflict management strategies. ECOWAS should call out political leaders who contravene regional instruments instead of always waiting until the escalation of conflicts or when the military strikes to react.
• There must be a rule of thumb implementation of the various instruments and protocols. However, the imposition of sanctions, as a last resort after the exhaustion of comprehensive consultations and mediation, can only be effective when they are part of integrated mediation interventions, based on consistency, impartiality, sincerity and with all parties acting in good faith.

2. Review of the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance

• To strengthen regional peace and security and democratic governance, ECOWAS leaders have called for an urgent review of the Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, perhaps to insert term limitation for the presidency. Reviewing legal instruments for greater efficiency and effectiveness is a good idea. However, the major problem may not be with the review or introduction of new protocols but with implementing existing instruments effectively.

3. New Regional Force with Clearer Mandate

• ECOWAS leaders have also suggested the establishment of a new regional force to intervene, where necessary, whether in the area of security, terrorism or to restore constitutional order in member States.
• Meanwhile, experience from the two ECOWAS military Missions in Guinea Bissau and the Gambia show the difficulty in funding such regional forces. Also, the fact that the existing ECOWAS Standby Forcecannot be operationalized as envisaged, is further testimony to the challenge and the gap between intention and implementation of regional decisions.

Conclusion

• Going by recent experiences in the so-called advanced or emerging democracies, while free, fair, and transparent elections are a sine qua non for multi-party democracy, they do not necessarily guarantee good governance or freedom due to electoral “insufficiency and abuse. However, there are basic minimum requirements for elections to be considered free, fair, transparent, or credible.
• These requirements are outlined in internationally accepted instruments such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights,the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, and the African Union's Charter on Democracy, Good Governance.
• At the ECOWAS level, the 1999 Protocol Relating to the Mechanism on Mediation, Conflict Management, Resolution, Peace, and Security (or the Mechanism)and the 2001 Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance are the binding legal texts that govern electoral processes in member States.
• There are also the 2008 ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Frameworks (ECPF)and the Monrovia Declaration of 2010. Unfortunately, these instruments are not respected or are observed in breach.
• An election as a sine qua non for multiparty democracy, is a process and a multi-stakeholder enterprise that requires every stakeholder to play their parts.
• Subversion of constitutional order including by military takeover of government is an aberration, but there cannot be one set of rules for errant political leaders who carry out “political and constitutional coups,” and another for military coup plotters. Early warning tools and provisions of existing protocols/instruments should be used to recalibrate the regional peace and security architecture. Similarly, all efforts should be made to ensure that elections are free, fair, and credible, coupled with proactive, preventive diplomacy, mediation, conflict management and resolution, with integrated results-oriented strategies driven by consistency, neutrality, inclusivity and in the spirit of regional integration.
• Regional leaders should muster the political will to respect and implement existing legal instruments, call their wayward colleagues to order, and member States held accountable to their treaty obligations.
• ECOWAS member States should ratify, domesticate, and implement the Malabo Protocol expanding the ACJHR jurisdiction to cover crimes under international law as well as transnational crime. This will facilitate the prosecution of deviants including political adventurers, soldiers, and mercenaries, who subvert the constitutional order.

Paul Ejime, An Author, And Global Affairs Analyst, Is a Consultant On Strategic Corporate Communication, Media Development And Governance Issues, Including Peace & Security And Elections

Leadership, especially in a fractious country like ours, is not easy. Jeff Boss, an executive coach and author of the book, ‘Navigating Chaos: How to Find Certainty in Uncertain Situations’, tells us that in “addition to the responsibility of making tough decisions every day, there is another critical component that pervades a leader’s thinking, something that he or she can’t help but wonder from time to time, and that is: what will be my leadership legacy?”. Essentially, legacy is something of value, a goal or mission, that a leader wants to be fondly remembered for long after that leader has left office. How will Buhari, who will hand over power to Bola Tinubu on May 29 2023 be remembered?

While a leader’s legacy is supposed to be a by-product of carefully thought-out historical decisions based on personal values, it is not always so. Nelson Mandela became almost a living political saint not by any ‘solid’ achievement as President of South Africa but by a mere act of choosing to forgive those who jailed him for 27 years (an act that, initially enraged many Black South Africans); Goodluck Jonathan became larger than life for conceding defeat after losing the 2015 general election to Buhari and Obasanjo became a global statesman during his first coming as a military Head of State simply for handing over power to elected civilians at a time such an act was a rarity in Africa. Political leaders sometimes embark on white elephant projects like building airports and universities hoping they will be remembered for such projects. But people are sometimes selective in what they want to remember about a leader. For instance, though Babangida completed the 11.8km Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos, most of the Yoruba from the Southwest would rather remember him for annulling the June 1993 election won by their son, MKO Abiola. Jonathan was embraced by the Igbos despite not having any major landmark project in Igboland but because of the way most Igbos felt he made them feel.

For all his aloofness and emotional distance, indications are that Buhari cares about how he will be remembered. Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said recently at the launching of two books written on his assumed legacies that posterity will be kind to Buhari. The two books are ‘State of Repair: How Muhammadu Buhari tried to transform Nigeria for the better’ written by Anthony Goldman, a former journalist and ex- Africa editor of the Financial Times of London and ‘The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari’ written by Abu Ibrahim, former representative of Southern Katsina Senatorial district.

Since legacy is what a leader will be remembered for long after he or she has left office, by its nature distilling a leader’s legacy is a subjective enterprise. In a country like ours, where the sense of national identification is very low and the basis of nationhood remains contested, one leader might be adored for acts for which he or she is hated by other sections of the country and vice versa. In essence, no matter how hard any leader tries, to aspire for universal adulation in a highly fractious society like ours where no individual or institution enjoys legitimacy across the fault lines, is to aim to the clouds. By the law of unintended consequences, any leader who has spent a certain amount of time in office is bound to record some achievements and some failures. A leader simply has to operate from his or her notion of what is right and wrong and a vision to make the country better than he or she met it – and leave the judgment to history.

Another challenge in measuring a leader’s legacy is that every leader has constituencies of support and opposition. Even within a broad constituency of support or opposition, there are sub groups – each supporting or opposing a leader for different reasons. For instance, among Buhari’s early supporters were those who believed that as a retired military General he would take the fight to Boko Haram and other triggers of insecurity in the country. There were also those who saw him as the nemesis of their social class enemies who would herd most of the corrupt Nigerian elite into jail. There was equally a sub stratum of his support base who saw him as the person to restore the assumed lost glory of the Muslim North (presumably upended under the presidencies of Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan). Each of these constituencies of support will have a different opinion about his legacy.

In the South-east which could be regarded as the bastion of the opposition against his government, while there is a generalized belief that he deliberately set out to ‘inconsequentialize’ the people by his actions and utterances, his building of the Second Niger Bridge is something he will most likely be fondly remembered for after the current emotions toward him have receded with time. In the South West, he will most likely be remembered for the sheer number of appointments and infrastructural developments the region benefitted from his government alongside feelings that he deliberately laid all manner of banana peels on Tinubu’s path to prevent him from emerging as the country’s President.

Using ‘objective’ metrics may not necessarily make the job of distilling Buhari’s legacy easier. For instance, if we use the ‘before and after metric, (i.e. how the country was before he became President and how it is at the time he is leaving), there will be a wrong assumption that the ‘before’ would have been frozen in time. The truth is that things had already begun to go awry in many respects under Jonathan and no one can say precisely whether they could have gotten better or would have gotten worse if Jonathan had remained in office. The important thing is that for most Nigerians, life has become harder under Buhari and this hardship is amplified by the burden of expectation that heralded him to office.

It is also difficult to assess a leader’s legacy when the leader is still in office and emotions and feelings around the leader are still very active. People also tend to be fatigued with leaders in their second term in office, hence the notion of ‘second term curse’. Feelings and emotions towards a leader are affected by the level of insecurity and relative cost of living under the successor. If a successor performs far better than his or her predecessor in office, the predecessor’s perceived incompetence would be amplified while the reverse will be the case if people suddenly feel they were better off under the leader’s predecessor. This has been the lot of most of our past leaders who are often dressed in borrowed clothes because our past tends to be rosier than the present.

However different constituencies choose to remember Buhari, for most Nigerians, he mismanaged the herdsmen crisis, which in turn created non-state actors like Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho who moved to promise people protection from the terrorism of the herdsmen. He equally mismanaged the country’s diversity – just as he allowed several independent centres of power in his government to operate at cross-purposes.

General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau turned 80 last week on May 18, and for those who know him, or have worked closely with him and has been impacted by his humanism and generosity of spirit, he is a man to be celebrated, a strong pillar of the Nigerian estate, a living memory bank and an asset to his country. I first met him sometime in 1998. General Olusegun Obasanjo as he was then addressed, had just been released from prison by the Abdusalami Abubakar administration following the trumped-up charge of coup-plotting against Obasanjo and others. General Obasanjo himself has told his own story. But his release, some would say escape from Abacha’s trap was a special moment for many. At the time, I was a regular participant at the Farm House Dialogues, founded by General Obasanjo, under the auspices of the Africa Leadership Forum, headed by our very able boss, Ayodele Aderinwale, OFR, now Chairman of JustRite. I wrote many of the Farm House Dialogue Reports and communiques. To cut a long story short, after his release, General Obasanjo went straight home. His house in Ita-Eko, Abeokuta was filled with so many people who thronged the place to see him and congratulate him. The moment I entered the house, the first man that I saw was General Gusau. I didn’t know who he was but as is customary the right thing to do is to greet an elderly person. I was however taken aback when he called out my name as if he had known me from somewhere. I wasn’t a regular face on television at the time, so I used to enjoy the serenity that anonymity offers. Not anymore. But I wondered why the elderly man would call out my name with such certainty. Out of curiousity, I later asked people around: who is that man?

“You don’t know General Gusau?, three persons asked in quick succession. They made it look as if not knowing General Gusau was the equivalent of failing an important examination.

“You don’t know General Gusau and you call yourself a journalist?”, one person quipped. I threw a sour look in his direction. Why should that be a test of my professional ability as a journalist?

“General Gusau is one of the most powerful men in this country. Nobody can run this country successfully without him. You are surprised he knows you? It is his duty to know you. He knows everything that goes on in this country. He has his boys and eyes everywhere.”

Even at that time, I already had an idea that Nigerians are capable of writing stories, blending facts with myths. But the main story of the moment was the widespread excitement over Obasanjo’s return. Those were truly crazy days in Nigeria. The military under Abacha had imposed a regime of terror on the country, such that even babies were not spared. The catalyst for Nigeria’s descent to the lower depths, was the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election won by late Bashorun MKO Abiola. Leaving office, General Ibrahim Babangida left behind an Interim National Government (ING) headed by another Egba man, Chief Ernest Shonekan. IBB had said he was “stepping aside”. Eventually, General Sani Abacha, who had been left behind as Minister of Defence, hijacked the government, drove away the Interim arrangement, and imposed himself on Nigeria in a most brutal manner that did neither the people nor the country any good. Obasanjo was one of Abacha’s victims, although destiny soon played out. Obasanjo would later emerge as Nigeria’s civilian President in 1999, in an arrangement that was meant to correct the tragedy of the Abacha years and the pain that the military inflicted on the country.

The military do not always want to accept all the blames that the civilian population heaps on them. They do not agree that they mismanaged Nigeria, while at the helm of affairs for the better part of the last 63 years. In many accounts, Nigerian military chiefs project themselves as men who saved Nigeria, and provided such quality leadership that the civilians seem incapable of. This is probably the reason why since the return to civilian rule in 1999, the military have continued to cast their shadow over the politics of Nigeria. It is further not surprising that Nigerian public affairs commentators talk about those they call “the owners of Nigeria”. On that day in Abeokuta, all I heard about General Gusau was his reputation as “one of the owners of Nigeria”, a kingmaker, a power behind the throne. In fact, one fellow boasted that nobody could lead Nigeria without General Gusau’s hand in it. I took another look at the man. He looked quiet. His demeanour was calm. I guess you can never judge people by merely looking at them. But to be serious it is certainly not a compliment to refer to any group as “owners of Nigeria- that is totalitarianism: We are not in Hitler’s Germany. We are not in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Born Aliyu Mohammed, on 18 May 1943, the Gusau that is attached to his name is his place of birth in present-day Zamfara State of Nigeria. He graduated from the Nigerian Defence Academy in 1967, and fought in the civil war as a second lieutenant. He has since then remained a prominent figure, occupying one leadership position after another as Brigade Commander, Director of Personnel at Army Headquarters and as Director of Military Intelligence, Head of the National Security Organization (NSO) or as National Security Adviser. General is credited with having set up Nigeria’s intelligence infrastructure. In 1989, he broke up the NSO into three different organizations; the State Security Services (SSS), the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). It is a measure of the man’s capacity and influence that he is even in retirement regarded as Nigeria’s Number one Intelligence Officer and a major force in the determination of Nigerian affairs. He is one Nigerian who has been here and there, and has been on duty at every critical moment in Nigeria’s post-independence trajectory: He fought in the civil war. He served in Abeokuta as Commander of the 9 Infantry Brigade. He was General Officer Commanding (GOC) at the 2 Mechanised Division in Ibadan, Commandant of the Nigeria Defence Academy, and Chief of Army Staff. He was said to have been involved in the coup that brought General Muhammdu Buhari in 1983, and also in the coup that removed him in 1985. Nor was he popular with General Sani Abacha who removed him as Chief of Army Staff. But whatever travail he may have suffered in the course of his career, has not stopped him. He was Obasanjo’s National Security Adviser when he returned to power in 1999. He was later President Goodluck Jonathan’s National Security Adviser and Minister of Defence.

Twice, in 2006 and 2010, he had sought to be President of Nigeria but the story behind his back was that it would have been a lot too much to hand over Nigeria to the country’s top spy. It was said that nobody would be safe. Nonetheless, General Mohammed as he prefers to be known, has remained even at 80, a major power behind the throne. His influence goes beyond the military where he made a career. Over the years, he has built bridges across the country and constituencies. It is not for nothing that he is regarded as a powerful man.

I was privileged to observe him at close quarters when he served as President Jonathan’s Minister of Defence. He was always quiet, almost self-effacing, yet everyone deferred to him. General Gusau is a major lesson in how to wield power and influence without brandishing it. I would later discover that many top journalists are his friends. Journalists deal with information. They look for sources, in pursuit of the stories behind the stories. The country’s top most intelligence operative was bound to be a friend of the media. When I ran as a Deputy Governorship candidate in Ogun State in 2019, General Mohammed told me our team would not win, if we didn’t make certain choices in Ogun PDP. He was proven right. Ahead of the 2023 general elections, he had done an analysis of the political terrain and predicted what would happen. Again, he has been proven right. Many of us in this country just sleep and wake up, hustle and try to look for ways to pay our ever-increasing bills, but there are others whose day work is entirely devoted to looking into the deeper end of things.

What I admire about him is his love of knowledge, his generosity and his attention to details. I once visited The Gusau Institute – a research centre that he has set up in Kaduna. This Centre is probably the richest personal library in Nigeria today. It is a fully digitalized library, with a collection of books, documents and resource materials on military history and general subjects. I was taken round the library, and I was amazed at what I saw, including a Reuben Abati file containing letters to the editor that I wrote in the Nigerian Chronicle, as an undergraduate at the University of Calabar, opinion articles I wrote as an NYSC teaching assistant at the University of Benin, published in the Nigerian Observer, and my writings over the years that I can’t even trace. I saw publications and writings by just about anybody, including copies of examination papers ever written at the Nigeria Defence Academy. Researchers are allowed access to the Centre. Within the premises, there is yet another building, where General Mohammed has done an excellent job of documenting his own career, with pictures, documents and correspondences. I doubt if there is any other General today in Nigeria who has paid as much attention to detail. The only thing missing is that I have not yet seen a written memoir by the General. He has a story to tell, and this is perhaps the right time to tell that story. I have heard people say that he knows too much, and that a man like him should not tell stories. I disagree. While spy chiefs and military leaders trade in secrecy, the truth is that some remarkable books have been written by intelligence chiefs and military leaders. Sun Tzu was a Chinese military General. His book, The Art of War, is regarded as a major text on military strategy and warfare. What makes an intelligence officer? How do intelligence officers operate? What roles do intelligence officers play in the making of foreign policy, international affairs and national security? How secretive and accountable should they be? These are aspects of the making of Nigeria that require interrogation and I cannot think of any better person to tell such stories than General Mohammed.

I must not end this tribute however without noting General Mohammed’s example necessarily throws up afresh questions about the role of the military in Nigeria’s political space. It may have been fashionable in the 70s and 80s to hail Nigerian soldiers as strong men. It was the age of “the strong man” as a messiah in African politics. But with the wave of democratization that gripped the heartbeat of politics in the 90s, the military involvement in governance and politics began to attract heavy criticisms, By 1993, most people were clamouring for the exit of the military. “Never again”, we all chorused. There seemed to have been a consensus that the period the military ruled Nigeria could best be described as “the years eaten by the locust”, the title of two well-received collections of writings by Fr. George Ehusani. To those who have any faint recollection of that season, it may sound ironic that a top soldier is the subject of a tribute. But have the civilians fared any better in terms of personal example? Every man will be judged on his own account. It is also interesting what has become of the intelligence establishment. The DMI at some point became a place of torture and nightmare. One of the soldiers who headed the place, as things turned worse, reportedly used to boast that he would waste people. Similarly, the Department of State Security (DSS) has had mixed fortunes over the years. How many officers can still come across as officers and gentlemen? The best tribute that the younger generation can pay to General Gusau is to toe the path of professionalism, honour and loyalty. Happy birthday sir.

Several weeks ago, in the heat of the 2023 campaign, I commissioned two social scientists conversant with Nigeria to help me map out the DNA of an Obidient. They went to work. Periodically, they sent me their findings. After stating that deep down, the Obidient movement is not about Peter Obi and Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, Scientist #1 propounds that Obidients are desolate, dejected, and dislocated hitchhikers who saw a shiny wagon on a muddy road and hopped on. Scientist #2, on the other hand, sees them as reluctant anarchists plotting destruction in the bushes, only to be distracted by the sound of a noisy wagon full of hitchhikers enticing them to give the Nigerian project a final chance.

The first time they appeared close to a consensus was when Wole Soyinka intervened in the political process after the election in the infamous Datti/fascism debate. The team thought they had mastered the characteristics of the Obidient. They mentioned one particular trait, anger. They said that these were furious people who were also impatient. They compared them to one specific group during the Civil Rights Movement in the US that forced Martin Luther King Jr. to start to talk about the “urgency of now”.

The social scientists felt that the anger of these people steamed from years and years of being victims of the Nigerian state’s failure. The Obidients, the scientists, argued had become so disenchanted with their situation and the situation of their country that they have relegated the norms of their society to the back burner. They suggested that today’s global village offered new tools to these actors and amplified their sense of violation. When I asked for a better explanation, the scientists told me that what social media exposed them to about situations in other parts of the world heightened their expectations of their country’s leadership. Still, something in their pronouncements did not apply across the board.

Another case in point was when they used the example of Oby Ezekwesili’s intervention in the news story that Pastor Enoch Adebayo said that God would help the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, to fix Nigeria. For those who missed the drama, here is how it happened. According to a news report, Daddy GO sent one of his pastors to represent him at an event. When this little-known pastor, Dele Balogun, went, he read a speech. The day after, the newspapers reported what he said. And as it is tradition, they attributed the message to Pastor Adebayo.

Here is the exact thing Dele Balogun said: “Let us pray for the incoming government that God will support it and give it the grace to do the right thing… Thank God the President-elect has promised to fix Nigeria. If God helps him, Nigeria will prosper in his hands”.

The reaction of the Obidients was swift. They tongue-lashed Pastor Adeboye for keeping quiet when the elections were rigged, and voters were suppressed and killed.

Some people did not see anything wrong with what the man of God said. Any true man of God’s job is to pray for his country’s government. It doesn’t matter whether the government is elected, selected, or imposed.

Unfortunately, the Obidients do not pray like this. And they made Pastor Adeboye know that they don’t play like this.

Just like with Soyinka, the reaction of the Obidient shocked the political arena, including Obi himself. Peter Obi had to come out and disassociate himself from the tongue-lashing the Obidients gave Daddy GO Adeboye for daring to say what God told him. Obi even suggested that the people doing the bad stuff were disguised operatives from other parties trying to give his supporters a bad name.

For saying so, he got tongue-lashed by angry Obidients and supporters of other parties, from Reno Omokiri to Omoyele Sowore.

Even those who shared the news story were not spared. Former minister, Oby Ezekwesili, felt the need to defend Pastor Adeboye and to call Reuben Abati an unprofessional journalist and purveyor of fake news for tweeting the story. In the language of Obidients, Oby Ezekwesili called the story “utter rubbish”.

The social scientists agreed that there are numerous secret cells of Obidients across Nigeria. They said that the largest number of latent Obidients is in the north. They are waiting for a perfect trigger to coagulate around a mission, a name, and a movement. Despite the perception, the social scientists noted that the multitude of tomorrow’s Obidients in the north is not satisfied with their lives in relation to their peers in similar parts of the world. They agreed that a day would come when religion and tradition wouldn’t be enough to cage them and stop them from breaking loose and dethroning those who have diminished their lives.

“For now, it is enough for their leaders to point at others outside their region and blame them for the poor life they live,” the social scientists write. “That strategy is too old, but it is still working. But it won’t suffice for long. And when the north ignites, with abundant dry leaves, tears, and heartbreaks, there won’t be time to worry about trifles like respect for elders and constituted authorities. And the nation will be on fire when the north is on fire.”

In a pivotal reminder, the scientists pointed at Sudan, Egypt, and other Arab African states as examples of places where people who shared the same worldview as those in the north of Nigeria had stood up and demanded change. They believed that, eventually, it would get to the turn of northern Nigeria.

Peter Obi used to say that the society we abuse today would take revenge on our children. That was so yesterday. The new mantra is this: The society we abused yesterday is taking revenge on us. And one thing about revenge is that the first sign that it is in progress is that it decouples all the chains that connect it to a structured and functional law and order society. It baffles those who missed the cue, especially the elders, who are apostles of gradual and ordered transformation that will not upturn years of familiar social order and civilization.

In moments like this, philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, noted: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”.

Nigeria wrings everyone born and bred in it until they become an Obidient. Depending on the material one is made of, some transform after just one wring, while others require a lot of wringing, punching, and slapping.

For the social scientists, everything came together when Seun Kuti slapped a police officer on the Third Mainland Bridge, Lagos. For the first time, the two social scientists agreed – last last, Seun Kuti becomes an Obidient.

And this conclusion is one that both Seun Kuti and the Obidients will disagree on. And nothing is as Obidient as that.

Okonkwo teaches Post-Colonial African History at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr. Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef” and “Children of a Retired God,” among others

His bonhomie was unusually absent that night in 2009. He spoke little, his luminous eyes mostly staring at us intensely with an expression difficult to fathom. The “Governor of Example” (BRF) and this writer ended up being the last to leave the putative den of the “Lion of Bourdillon” in Lagos at past midnight.

Not until we were outside at the car park of our host’s Ikoyi home (sufficiently beyond his earshot), did the then Governor Babatunde Fashola (the one who had been Jagaban’s Chief of Staff for five years) share his observation: “Louis, I can tell Asiwaju is very, very depressed tonight”.

Drawing on an intimacy earned from working very closely with Asiwaju, BRF’s diagnosis could hardly be faulted. Lately, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) had suffered a series of reversals in courtrooms in Osun, Ekiti, and Edo in pursuit of mandates “stolen” in the 2007 governorship polls in what had become multiple convoluted legal tussles.

Having immersed himself as the chief inspiration and sole financier of the legal kerfuffle unfolding simultaneously on multiple fronts, Asiwaju was thus the one who often bore the burden more. So absorbed, so invested was he in those difficult moments that one could, in fact, be pardoned to imagine that even in his sleep, Jagaban probably still found himself mixing it up with the adversaries he earlier contended with all his waking moment. In the same vein heavyweight boxing champion Joe “Smoking Joe” Frazier once admitted he sometimes found himself in dreams engaged in ferocious fistic combat with eternal rival Mohammed Ali, only to wake in the middle of the night covered in hot sweat.

Such was the exacting climate under which “stolen mandates” were recovered in Ondo, Edo, Ekiti, and Osun after epic battles championed by Tinubu, the man young Nigerians (the millennials and Gen Z) do not seem to know or have been misled to hate and deny credits as arguably the biggest champion of multi-party democracy in the Fourth Republic.

“Why not contest the Lagos governorship instead?” Bello interjected. Alake and Babatope shared that view, perceiving a vacancy in Lagos’ emerging politics after Abacha.

“Well, to be honest, that has not crossed my mind,” he replied and before leaving Concord that day, promised to reach out to his base and consult widely.

The vacuum the Concord editors were seeing was in the abdication by the “Prince of Hope” (Ademola Adeniji-Adele). Upon his release from military detention in 1996, the erstwhile chairman of Lagos Island council had received a tumultuous welcome in Lagos, thus becoming the new darling of the progressive community, having played a pivotal role in June 12 protests in 1994. And when Abacha announced a transition programme, many began to see him as the next governor.

But in a moment of grave indiscretion, Adeniji-Adele would allow himself to be lured into moving the motion for Abacha’s adoption as GDM’s “consensus presidential candidate” at the party’s national convention in Maiduguri in April 1998, at the expense of the revered and consequential Dikko Yusuf. Just like other teleguided parties memorably characterised as “the five fingers of a leprous hand” by Bola Ige.

Confronted by Segun Adeniyi and this writer in an interview we conducted for Sunday Concord shortly afterward, Adeniji-Adele told us in confidence that he had been directly threatened by a notorious army Major close to Abacha, listing that as a pre-condition for him to contest the coming elections. In his own calculation, he did not consider that a significant price to pay “if only to reclaim Lagos and use it to defend Abiola’s interest”.

But the jealous Lagos progressives never forgave that betrayal. It took Abacha’s death two months later for Adeniji-Adele’s political stock to crash from the zenith of fame into the valley of infamy. The revanchist spirit that generally gripped the land thereafter meant that anyone associated with Abacha instantly turned a leper. The heartbroken progressives in Lagos were now looking for a new bride.

That was the moment Tinubu arrived. So, he could not be said to have forced his way into the Lagos governorship in 1998. Rather, unique circumstances of the moment anointed him for the historic journey ahead. His first acid test soon came over alleged discrepancies in the form submitted to INEC.

A lesser mortal would probably have buckled in the heat of the vicious smear campaign that ensued. But sometimes, the truth is not so straightforward. In the rush to submit the nomination form for Lagos governorship in 1998, Tokunbo Afikunyomi, a fellow NADECO returnee, did the filling. In some regards, he mixed up some information.

Unfortunately, once the form got submitted, all the depositions therein became binding. To claim otherwise elsewhere is perjury. Out of malice, political opponents twist this to mean he told lies about his past. It is one of the burdens Jagaban has had to bear ever since.

As an editor of a national newspaper with more than a casual knowledge of what transpired at the time, I can attest to another exaggeration in Tinubu’s much-trumpeted drug story. Ahead of the 2003 polls, someone with deep connections in the national security establishment was interested in AD’s governorship ticket in Lagos. Apparently privy to the original court papers, he twisted the story to present Tinubu as the villain and was looking for any newspaper to publish the story dangling a blank cheque, with a view to tainting him ahead of the AD primaries.

Once he found a platform and the contrived story was uploaded, conspiratorial Obasanjo jubilated thinking he finally got Tinubu in the bag. Malicious mischief was barely concealed in a confidential memo immediately dispatched to the United States by the Inspector General of Police Tafa Balogun, earnestly seeking clarity on the rather “disturbing story about Tinubu’s drug trafficking in the U.S. in the past”.

Responding swiftly in no unmistakable language in a public statement, the State Department declared Tinubu was not involved in any drug trafficking nor convicted for any drug crime.

In all the wild goose chase, the real substance of the story was not more than the fact that someone abused Tinubu’s trust. Being naturally a magnet for people, his Chicago residence was open to all folks from Nigeria in the 80s. It turned out that one of those who had been allowed access got entangled in a drug mess, warranting US investigators to list him as a person of interest and his bank accounts frozen in the interim. But after months of forensic investigation, they found nothing against him, except the “offense” that due tax was not paid on some cash found as a fixed deposit, for which a surcharge was imposed.

This essentially is the actual meat of what would be misappropriated to feed the apocryphal tale about “Tinubu’s massive drug involvement in the U.S.”, now grown into a cottage industry in the past two decades, spawning a vast army of media experts and procured pundits surfacing in every election season, elaborately theorising a petty lie.

When it was time to share the spoils of APC’s victory in 2015, it is common knowledge that Tinubu was virtually left empty-handed, without being able to nominate anyone of consequence in Buhari’s first cabinet. Party leaders he earlier helped install also forsook him. The new one he was allowed to nominate on the eve of the 2019 polls was again defenestrated soon after victory was secured. Such serial heartbreaks would certainly leave a lesser mortal broken.

But again, Tinubu’s “aforiti” shone forth.

Perhaps the unkindest cut of all is the betrayal of close disciples who had climbed on his back to power and glory. Like the biblical Apostle Peter who forsook his master three consecutive cock-crows before dawn, thrice many had denied Tinubu too. First, immediately they got appointed in Abuja in 2015. Next was 2019 after APC got re-elected. And later on the road to APC presidential primaries of June 2022 when they reckoned Jagaban was not the anointed of the “Villa cabal”.

Still, the man kept the faith.

Upon being declared winner of the February 25 polls by INEC, wherever he went or whomsoever of consequence he met, Jagaban formed the habit of flaunting his certificate of return as “my own World Cup”. But on account of his tortuous and thorny odyssey to Aso Rock in the past twenty-five years, that may as well pass for a testament in tenacity.

“For Aliko, all is well that ends well. The complex will bring to an end, our country’s many decades of shame, for being unable to refine its crude and having to depend on importation, wasting scarce forex.”

SOME years ago, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man invited media leaders to a luncheon at then Protea Hotel in Ikeja to mark his 55th birthday.

Some of his guests sat around him at the centre table. They chatted freely. Discussions about our country, the state of the economy soon veered into discussing the absurdity of our country, being a major crude exporter, and also a major importer of refined petroleum products. Our colleague from a major business paper said the local conditions were unfavourable to any investor who wanted to build a refinery. He then made a remark that I believe he would live to regret: “Only a foolish man will build a refinery in Nigeria”.

Aliko who had listened to all our business and political pontifications, interjected: “I am that foolish man”.

A pin drop silence enveloped the table as he dropped the unexpected news: “My company has just decided to build a refinery in the country. But we are doing it big”. Those were his exact words, as the multi-dollar billionaire told us he was willing to spend close to $9 billion on the project.

The media big man became speechless. The rest of us caught the contagion of being flummoxed as well, as Aliko expatiated on the project. He said it will be a petrochemical complex.

As the project was still on the drawing board, he did not tell us it will be the biggest refinery in the world, capable of processing 650,000 barrels of crude daily. All the hint he gave was that it will be ‘big’. Our takeaway was that it will be big like Aliko’s involvement in cement, sugar, pasta and other businesses.

He didn’t say it will include a fertiliser plant and a power plant that can supply enough electricity to Nigeria’s South West, excluding Lagos.

Initially billed for Ogun State, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery surprisingly shifted location to Lagos, just opposite the creek separating the two states. Governor Dapo Abiodun may want to probe his predecessor, Ibikunle Amosun, why he allowed the complex to move to neighbouring Lagos.

The gigantic project is now sitting in all majesty in the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Ibeju-Lekki, covering a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares, seven times the size of Victoria Island.

The complex is the world’s Largest Single-Train 650,000 barrels per day Petroleum Refinery with 900 KTPA Polypropylene Plant.

It comes with a 435 MW Power Plant, which will be able to meet the total power requirement of Ibadan DisCo of 860,316 MWh covering five States including Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Kwara and Ekiti.

The refinery, according to its fact sheet, can meet 100% of the Nigerian requirement of all refined products, including Gasoline, Diesel, Kerosene, and Aviation Jet.
It will also be able to produce surplus of each of these products for export.

Designed for 100% Nigerian Crude, the refinery has flexibility to process other crudes. No wonder it is located near the sea shore.

Today President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the gigantic petrochemical complex.

Just as we rejoice with Aliko Dangote and the Dangote Group family, we need to give kudos to the Buhari administration for ensuring that the complex comes to fruition, by ensuring that it was not starved of needed foreign exchange and taking a stake in it.

For Aliko, all is well that ends well. The complex will bring to an end, our country’s many decades of shame, for being unable to refine its crude and having to depend on importation, wasting scarce forex.

The ‘foolish man’ of 11 years ago has demonstrated once again that he is a man of wisdom, a peerless shrewd investor who sees clearly the ‘bigger picture’, when his compatriots are bogged down by parochialism and immediate monetary gains.

On this day – May 29; 1999. Our beloved country Nigeria returned to the much desired democratic governance. Nigerians at home and abroad were undoubtedly excited about the events leading to the inauguration day. Yours truly, the writer of this contribution was privileged and honoured to be part of the history making events. I remember vividly my role in the Inauguration committee under the leadership of Erudite (Prof) Tunde Adeniran and other distinguished Nigerians, namely: Dame Pauline Tallen, Ferdinand Agu, yours truly and Dr Gbolade Oshinowo of the blessed memory.

Before going further, please permit me to re-introduce the above topic as “Twenty-four Years Setback” for our beloved country Nigeria. May 29, 1999. It was a date to be remembered; a date with history, it signpost the beginning of an era with a windfall of approximately $400 billion dollars from just one source of revenue. Sadly, from the crushing economic pains of the day, to the social dislocations and mounting insecurity everywhere in the land, coupled with the ignoble and dodgy power play at capital city of Abuja, a common thread runs through all these: a nation in dire straits!

Admittedly, a nation progresses or regresses on the quality and values of its leadership. Credibility, trustworthiness are aspects of the integrity most necessary for a leadership worthy to be so-called.  The reputation of Nigeria in the eyes of the outside world remains unenviable, first and above all else, because its leaders have repeatedly proved less than trustworthy. After twenty-four years of democratic government in Nigeria and each of the government came with promises to end bad governance only to end with worst form of leadership. Will May 29, 2023 restore hope? Can the hope that MKO Abiola promise Nigerians in 1993 be renewed or restored?

What is more, poverty has been weaponized as a result of corruption which is the common instrument across the developing world. Corruption ‘impoverishes and kills millions’ citizens of any country where it thrives irrespective of the wealth or resources of such a country. We know that corruption takes away resources, damages the environment, impoverishes the people, but it also kills! A land that is equally afflicted by the unimaginable level of hatred leading to unwarranted divisiveness  amongst others.

More relatively, is the 2023 general elections that has completely exposed the gullibility of many of our compatriots particularly the restive youths. How do you explain the actions and thoughts of the President-elect not to be sworn in on May 29? This is an unimaginable hallucination(s) in the minds of the Obidients movement in particular. The million dollar question is that has that ever happened anywhere in the world before and Where is the precedence? The truth is that some people got it completely twisted in their shallowness.

This delusion of theirs is based on claims they are bandying about a stolen “Mandate”. The lifetime morbid risk of delusional disorder in the general population has been estimated to range from 0.05 to 0.1%, based on data from various sources including case registries, case series, and population-based samples. Delusion is Obviously worse than Megalomania. Therefore, It’s safe to conclude that, there’s no stolen mandate anywhere. Section 14(1)(2)(a) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, states that “The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice. It will be recalled that one of the grounds both the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, H.E, Atiku Abubakar, who came second in the presidential election and his counterpart in the Labour Party, LP, H.E, Peter Obi, who came third, is relying on to challenge the declaration of the President-elect  included the fact that he failed to secure 25% votes in the FCT, Abuja.

In conclusion, I will like to share with us the golden words of Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), a Singaporean barrister and statesman who served as the first prime minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990. LKY, profoundly posited: “Mine is a very matter-of-fact approach to the problem. If you can select a population and they’re educated and they’re properly brought up, then you don’t have to use too much of the stick because they would already have been trained. It’s like with dogs. You train it in a proper way from small. It will know that it’s got to leave, go outside to pee and to defecate. No, we are not that kind of society. We had to train adult dogs who even today deliberately urinate in the lifts.” 

Finally, as we look forward to May 29 in a couple of days time with a mindset of a date with destiny. I hereby wish to join all our compatriots home and abroad to dedicated this article that focuses on the desirability of May ’29 inauguration of the Tinubu’s ‘Unity-Trinity’ Presidency as a date with history. This is to also congratulate my friend and a fellow compatriot Aliko Dangote on the occasion of the commissioning of the largest plant in Africa and a milestone achievement. This is the beginning of the 4th Industrial Revolution as captured in the ‘Renewed Hope’ policy documents.

• Agenda For The Incoming Administration Of Peter Mbah

In his inaugural address on May 29, 2015, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi roused the state with the promise that his tenure would be defined by the development trajectory he would diligently pursue. Of the many facets he reeled out, two stood out. The first was the promise to pay special attention to Nsukka by giving the area a face-lift befitting a university town. He also told the people that “Ninth Mile is an economic hub that we need to harness to enjoy the benefits of our newly-acquired status as a free trade zone…to create fresh economic opportunities and reduce pressure on Enugu metropolis”. For each of them there was a well-deserved applause; nobody would begrudge Nsukka the face-lift that the State’s second largest town rightly deserves. And there was no denying the fact too that 9th Mile occupies a key position in the state’s industrialization plan.

Expectations were high indeed, after-all Governor Sullivan Chime had sold the Ugwuanyi candidacy in 2015 by declaring that he could not have hoped for a better candidate to continue in what many people considered his superlative performance. So, as Gov. Ugwuanyi’s 8-year tenure winds down, it will not be out of place to interrogate that aspect of his performance. And the verdict is obvious: while he may have delivered substantially on the uplift of Nsukka, the promise to upgrade 9th Mile as the state’s major commercial centre was, to all intents and purposes, empty.

Many people believe that the slow death of 9th Mile is the collateral damage that followed the marginalization of Enugu West Senatorial zone, especially the Agbaja area. While one must admit that it did not start with Governor Ugwuanyi, it became somewhat of a state policy during his tenure. Increasingly on his watch, the concept of Triangular Equilibrium which provided a recipe for equitable sharing of political positions and distribution of development projects among the three senatorial districts in the state was observed in the breach. Appointments were made and projects sited without regard to the triangular nature of the state, but in favour of a growing concept of an Nsukka/Enugu dichotomy that relegated Enugu West, especially the Agbaja area to the background.

Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi

The administration first set up the Urban Renewal Committee headed by two-time State Commissioner, Chief Chris Offor, ostensibly to recommend projects that will transform Nsukka and 9th Mile areas into urban and commercial centres, respectively. In the end, not much of the recommendations by the committee were made open. It is either Architect Offor and his committee made recommendations only for the Nsukka zone or those they made for the 9th Mile area did not find favour with the administration.

Over the years, Enugu West, especially the Agbaja area, has been relegated socially, politically and economically. The slow death of the state’s once-bustling industrial hub is evidence, just like the unfair distribution of political appointments, development projects and institutions across the state.

Within 40 kilometers square of Enugu East senatorial district for instance, one could count as many as 8 flourishing tertiary institutions owned by federal or state governments, private concerns and religious missions. While the new Enugu State University of Medicine and Applied Sciences (SUMAS) has sprung up in Igbo-Ano in addition to the existing University of Nigeria in Nsukka, the best that Enugu-West boasts is the one part of the Enugu State Polytechnic in Iwollo. While the main campus in Iwollo remains a glorified secondary school, another campus is fast developing in Ezzimo, Udenu local government area, home town of Chinedu Onu, Chairman of the institution’s governing board. Within the same period too, the State government is believed to have influenced the siting of a new federal institution, the Federal Polytechnic, Ohodo in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area.

While a sprawling new State Secretariat Annex now adorns the landscape of Ede Oballa in Nsukka, the city also boasts a new Conference and Recreation Centre in addition to a completed 8 kilometre Opi-Nsukka dual carriageway. Also thanks to the Offor committee’s recommendation, Nsukka now boasts a new 5,000-seat capacity Township Stadium, the 31-kilometre Udenu Ring Road and the ongoing 27-kilometre Ukpabi-Nimbo-Ugbene Ajima-Eziani Road project. This is in addition to the 76 Police Mobile Force Squadron, Ekwegbe, Igbo-Etiti (constructed by the Enugu State government) and several other road, water, health and power projects in the area.

On the other hand, successive administrations in Enugu state have, by acts of omission or commission, systematically jettisoned the initial vision of 9th Mile as an industrial hub. Nothing better indicates this than the fact that all roads leading into the 9th Mile area have, for most part in the last 8 years, been impassable. Once a converging point for travellers from the North, Nigeria’s Middle Belt, Southern Igboland and Enugu state’s eastern neighbours, 9th Mile has become an isolated settlement with all the traffic now diverted to Enugu. Whether you are coming from the East, West, North and South, commuters no longer have access to the good old 9th Mile where roads from all cardinal points once converged.

Sullivan Chime

The promise of restoring the roads that will benefit 9th Mile and save Enugu metropolis the avoidable traffic build-up that Ugwuanyi spoke of at his inauguration, was not kept. At a time calls were rising for the state government to undertake the remediation of the Obollo-9th Mile federal highway, the state government famously chose to rehabilitate only the portion from Obollo Afor to Opi for what one official called ‘VIP movements’. While this effectively cut off access to 9th Mile, it funneled more vehicles into Enugu metropolis through Ekwegbe.

In the end, rather than develop an alternative road network, it was more convenient for government to undertake the construction of ‘the State’s first fly-over’ at Nike to manage the exponential build up in vehicular traffic, instead. For a project that is largely seen as cosmetic and vainglorious, only the Ebeano tunnel under the rail line at Asata has received a bigger media hype.

The systematic neglect of 9th Mile has been showing negatively in the balance sheets of the giant companies that operate in the area. As the once busy highways became quiet, drivers of articulated vehicles who have severally been promised a ‘trailer park’ that was never built, turned the roads into parking lots. Those companies that could not survive the harsh realities, including the multinational Coca-Cola, closed their factory and moved out. Ecobank, one of the first banking institutions to open office in 9th Mile, also shut down and moved out. Years earlier, Guinness Nigeria Plc that had acquired a 19-hectare land for their first Eastern brewery, decided to invest in Aba instead.

The Lion Business Park is a private concern but the state government showed more than a passing interest by packaging it as a quasi-government project. It facilitated the acquisition of over 2,000 hectares of farmland from Imezi Owa, Eke and Akama Oghe communities for the project which was promoted as an economic game-changer that would accommodate hundreds of small and medium-scale Chinese businesses. Six years down the road, apart from the controversies surrounding the land acquisition, the business park has not moved from the grandiose plan it is on paper.

Governor Ugwuanyi is not alone in this litany of woes for Agbajaland and 9th Mile. The promise to restore the Anambra Vegetable Oil Products, AVOP, in Nachi has lasted through the two preceding administrations of Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani and Mr. Sullivan Chime. The International Market that was already under construction at 9th Mile since 2005 was allowed to die, just like the Ebeano bye-pass, the dual carriageway that took off from the old toll gate on the Enugu-Onitsha highway. Flagged off in 2007 by President Olusegun Obasanjo, the by-pass which signaled a future East-North highway, was motorable for all of 3 years before it was abandoned.

Incoming Governor Peter Mbah

The Ugwuanyi administration will, however, be remembered for two projects in 9th Mile. The first is the 2 kilometer Toll Gate – Ameke Ngwo bye pass; the second is the rehabilitation of the 12-borehole water project completed during the administration of Chief Jim Nwobodo as governor of the old Anambra State. While the byepass has helped in easing traffic flow, controversy has trailed the water project since it became evident that the government did not intend to supply any drop to the host communities of Nsude and Ngwo. While arrangements are in top gear to pipe the water to Enugu metropolis, it is likely that Governor-elect Peter Mbah has factored it into the 180-day timeline he gave for taps in the state capital to come alive again. Meanwhile the giant water reservoir at Nsude and the pipes through which water was once supplied to the host and adjourning communities, will remain dry.

Is there a political dimension to what has befallen 9th Mile? Many people believe there is; what else would make a government willingly strangle a hub that was once touted as the pride of the East and the third leg of the South-East’s commercial triangle after Onitsha and Aba?

Okwesilieze Nwodo

The concept of Triangular Equilibrium arose from the history that preceded the creation of Enugu state. The people had emerged from a bruising encounter with leaders of Southern Anambra, as the Onitsha/Awka/Nnewi axis was known, and the obvious marginalization of Wawa people in the old Eastern Region, the East Central state (1967-1975) and the old Anambra State (1976-1991). They would not wish that their own kit and kin, or any part of Enugu State, suffer such marginalization.

The concept fully manifested during the short-lived administration of the State’s first governor, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo. The fairness and balance in the sharing of political offices and siting of development projects during his tenure became, perhaps, the most distinctive feature of that era. The idea resonated with most other leaders of the state who saw in it a charter of equity. It remained a guiding rule for succeeding administrations in the state, until the outgoing administration of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi sacrificed it on the altar of a contrived Nsukka/Enugu dichotomy that relegates Enugu West, and especially the Agbaja area.

The sorry fate of 9th Mile is food for thought for the incoming administration of Peter Mbah. If indeed his private sector background is anything to reckon with, the place to start in his drive for industrialization and job creation is a deliberate policy to restore the once-bustling commercial centre of Enugu State.

Sheddy Ozoene writes from Nsude, Enugu State.