If the Yoruba of South-West Nigeria think the world is going to wait for them to get their act together, they’ve got a thing coming. They are going to serve new cultural and economic overlords even within their own portion of the earth.

Other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria owe the Yoruba nothing, except their rights as bonafide citizens of Nigeria. It is time for the Yoruba of the South-West to review the state of their nation, regroup and regain their groove.

They can’t go about, like cry babies, bemoaning their losses to more strategic, tactical and intentional groups in Nigeria. No one gives you power or grants you privileges anymore, you earn it.

Every civilisation, or cultural tendency, is powered by the financial, technological and organisational savvy of the dominant citizens. Those currently running the South-West must understand this truth.

The easiest way to explain this is to invite you to look at the power of semiotics, or symbolism. You may have noticed that the sartorial preferences of a Nigerian President usually become more visible and dominant in Nigeria.

As soon as the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) became President of Nigeria, the “Shagari cap” became more visible. Even now, the symbol on the cap of President-Elect Bola Tinubu has almost become universal, though he has yet to be sworn in as President.

There is probably no contention that the South-West is the Athens, the region with the highest number of educational institutions and educated citizens, of Nigeria. Ogun State is said to have the highest number of universities, polytechnics and teacher training colleges.

Though the South-West may have the highest number of tertiary educational institutions, it may have lost its place as a centre of publishing in Nigeria. The Heinemanns, the Onibonoje and the Joop Berkhout Spectrum Books, may need to be reinvented.

And writers, such as J.F. Odunjo, Areoye Oyebola, O.A. Lawal, Adekunle Ojelabi, Oba Adekunle Aromolaran(current Owa of Ijesaland), Femi and Dotun Oyewole, who wrote textbooks for primary schools, also need to be reinvented.

Whereas more than half of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product is generated in the South-West, it is not clear that ownership of the wealth generated in that region belongs to the Yoruba.

At the nearly 20 most significant markets in Greater Lagos, like Alaba, Ikeja Computer Village, Ladipo spare parts market, Balogun on the Lagos Island, Oshodi, even the most indigenous Oke Aarin Market on Lagos Island, the Yoruba are practically outnumbered.

The more formal sector of the South-West economy is pretty much in the hands of foreign direct investors who graciously “award” insignificant portions of their shareholding to Nigerians, to fulfil the righteousness imposed by the Indigenisation Act.

This brings you to the conclusion that the South-West is living on old glories, the efforts of past heroes, like First Republic Premiers Obafemi Awolowo and Ladoke Akintola. You could add to that the efforts of South-West governors of the Second Republic, who looked at the challenges set by First Republic politicians and dared to excel.

Apart from governors of Lagos State, who have consistently worked to expand especially the transportation infrastructure of Lagos State, practically anyone who has been governor in the South-West of the current Fourth Republic has been “winos,” who always complain about dearth of funding.

You should please note that the new industrial startups that you see all over South-West Nigeria are not a result of government initiative. They are driven by private efforts. And that is why those initiatives provide their own water, electricity and even the access roads to their works.

What the state governments do, in all this is to impose unreasonable taxation and rates, while the staff of relevant government agencies exact unreasonable and exorbitant bribes and gratifications from the companies.

Of course, this is bad for business. The reasons why these companies won’t be in a hurry to vacate the South-West is because of access to the biggest port in Nigeria, the large inventory of trained personnel and the relative peace compared to other parts of Nigeria.

It may be hard going for South-West Nigeria that no longer seems to have the mix of academics and fine administrators as in the olden days. Imagine the winning mix of politicos, like Jonathan Odebiyi, and academics, like Sam Aluko, turning novel ideas around with public service administrators, like Simeon Adebo.

You can only get a repeat of the great feats that included the farm settlements, Wemabod Estates, industrial estates in Ikeja, Oshodi in Lagos and Lafia in Ibadan. Such combination also yielded the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), The Polytechnic Ibadan and Cooperative College Ibadan.

Those competencies yielded blue chip companies that later became Oodua group of companies that included Cooperative Bank, WEMA Bank, Vitafoam, Vono, Vegetable Oil of Nigeria, Nigerite and the sundry rubber plantations in today’s Ogun and Edo states.

You know too well that the cocoa plantations that made Nigeria the second biggest exporter of cocoa seeds, after Ghana, were a result of the efforts of the Western Nigerian Government, and not the Federal Government.

Whereas other parts of Nigeria, especially the northern region, seem to be interested and intentional in creating a pool of personnel that will take their people on to higher economic and political grounds, the South-West is doing the opposite.

There is an intense pull-him-down agenda that either castrates its brightest or sends them abroad as migrants who end up deploying their competencies to make North America and Western Europe better economies.

In case the South-West is still interested in regaining the economic paradise that it lost, the leaders may borrow from the admonition offered by the God to the people of Israel who were suffering so much deprivation as a result of their intransigence and wayward ways.

In Chapter 7, Verse 14 of the Bible Book of 2nd Chronicles, God promised, “If my people… shall humble themselves, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I shall hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

In addition to praying, the Yoruba must regain their moral high ground, what they call “omoluabi,” or gentleman’s credo, and redirect their energies, aptitude and attitude to more rewarding ventures.

While it is imperative to rekindle the drive of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria, it is urgent to resolve the differences that have led to several factions of the Yoruba Afenifere pressure group.

Also, the South-West must develop a new cadre of merchant class and technocrats, men and women with brave hearts, daring and ready to draw water from a rock! If they fail, their children will continue to flock abroad, to live as outsiders, regardless of their accomplishments.

Now that the outgoing government of President Buhari has decentralised a few items on the Federal Exclusive Legislative List, maybe the South-West will have no more legitimate excuses for their collective failures.

They can, at least, make electricity, water, roads and railway lines available to their citizens and take advantage of their proximity to Lagos State to truly deliver the dividends of democracy to their long-suffering masses. The Yoruba of South-West Nigeria can no longer continue to complain about the earned and legitimate fortune of the Igbo, but roll up their sleeves to do the necessary work.

The World Malaria Day is observed each year on April 25, to underline the need for malaria control and total elimination. Adjunct to this is the galvanization of global efforts towards advocacy and sustained political will and investment all aimed at ending the scourge of the disease in identified communities.

Since 2000, global partnerships and investments in the fight against malaria have yielded positive results – preventing some 2 billion malaria cases, saving 11.7 million lives, and putting eradication within reach.

At a historic Global Fund Replenishment meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in 2022, billions of dollars were pledged by donors to boost the fight against HIV, TB and Malaria. However, an unprecedented shortfall of more than 50% in global malaria funding is now holding countries back from maintaining life-saving malaria programmes at current levels, from and reaching everyone currently living with the risk of contracting malaria.

Consequently, according to the 2022 Malaria Report, 96% of malaria deaths globally were found in 29 countries, with Nigeria sadly among the four countries which accounted for just over half of all malaria deaths globally in 2021; alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Niger and the United Republic of Tanzania.

A number of biological threats have also emerged, putting existing and future progress at risk. However, recent investments in R&D have produced the most robust pipeline of malaria interventions in over a decade to address these threats. Despite this remarkable progress, many proven interventions are still waiting to be implemented at scale. Countries and partners are working tirelessly to hold the line against malaria, implementing innovative approaches to tailor and deliver lifesaving tools to the most vulnerable and hard to reach communities.

However, funding gaps are contributing to declining progress in the countries with the highest burden of malaria. Countries will not reap the rewards of these investments without further commitment to scale-up and roll out these innovations where they are needed most. For Africa to move forward, we really have to get rid of malaria once and for all.

Despite previous recorded successes in program implementation, there is an ever-increasing need to step up our efforts and escalate investment. Now is the time to take decisive action to deliver on our goal of zero malaria, spur overall development and achieve 2030 targets. The commemoration of World Malaria Day requires us to bolster the fight against this life-threatening disease once and for all.

The theme of this year’s World Malaria Day: “Time to Deliver Zero Malaria: Invest, Innovate, Implement” highlights the need for urgent action and further investment to ensure existing investments deliver maximum impact in the fight to end malaria. As a United Nations (UN) Malaria Ambassador for Nigeria, I would like to add my voice to the global call on countries and partners around the world to:

•Invest more in malaria programmes to bridge critical funding gaps and accelerate progress towards total elimination of malaria.

•Innovate further to deliver improved solutions to end malaria that are tailored to those who need them most.

•Implement national strategies to accelerate progress against this age-old disease, by demonstrating leadership, adopting innovative and sustainable approaches, and scaling up national malaria programmes to deliver lifesaving tools to those at highest risk.

On this World Malaria Day, I urge joint action to prioritise our interventions to fight Malaria. In addition to the human suffering, the economic toll of this disease on global productivity is very high, and even more impactful in these times of economic fragility. More than ever, we must collaborate to ensure that no child or person dies of malaria again. As we celebrate our progress, we must also drive further progress toward malaria elimination in Nigeria and Africa at large by focusing on two key areas:

*Ensure that malaria elimination remains high on Nigeria’s public health and development agenda with strong political commitment from leaders at all levels; and

*Advocate at all levels to ensure sufficient funding to sustain the progress made so far, as we jointly seek to end malaria for good.

*Encourage my fellow private sector leaders to implement Malaria prevention and treatment programmes in their companies, as we do across our businesses in the Dangote Group.

Happily enough, our fight against the malaria scourge has been buoyed by the emergence of a new malaria vaccine – R21/Matrix-M, which was developed by the University of Oxford and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), which approved the R21 vaccine use after it conducted its in-house checks, said Nigeria expects to get at least 100,000 doses of the vaccine in donations soon.

All efforts must be made to sustain the adequate sourcing and application of this innovative vaccine in the fight against malaria; akin to the noble efforts made to ensure the eradication of polio in Nigeria and Africa. We at the Aliko Dangote Foundation pledge to spearhead the collective effort to ensure adequate provision, supply and application of this malaria vaccine.

In my role as the Chairman of the Nigeria End Malaria Council (NEMC), my Foundation and I will continue to engage with the National Malaria Elimination Program (NMEP) and key stakeholders to support the efforts of NMEP to address malaria in our workplaces, communities, and especially high burden areas to renew commitments to help Nigeria attain its goal of malaria elimination by 2030.

Together, we can save our children, families, nation, and continent. The time to act is NOW!

Alhaji Dangote, GCON, is the  Chairman of National Malaria Elimination Council (NMEC), United Nations (UN) Malaria Ambassador for Nigeria.

As the announcement was made on that Sunday morning that Senator Aishatu Dahiru Binani has been elected the Governor of Adamawa State I was ready to crow that a woman has broken the glass ceiling. I am sure that many women groups, many equity-seeking groups were also happy for her, for APC and happy for Adamawa State.

Since independence in 1960 all the states of Nigeria and the Federal Government have been run by men. And see what the country looks like; it looks like a bus that has been smashed by a moving train. So the speculation has been that perhaps if a woman had the opportunity to run Nigeria or any of the states, things might be positively different. This speculation is based on the other speculation that women are less corrupt, less audacious, less greedy, less avaricious, less domineering than men and therefore would make better leaders. 

I have no evidence to support this speculation. It is just that: a speculation. Of course, there are some men and some women who could run Nigeria better than what we have had so far but where are they? They haven’t managed to get to the pinnacle of power, in the states or in the centre for some reasons, which include faulty leadership selection process. But that is a story for another day. Today is Adamawa’s day.

As we were saying, on that Sunday a man called Hudu Yunusa-Ari, he wasn’t hooded, walked into the collation centre with an officer of the law, a Commissioner of Police called Mr Mohammed Barde and an unnamed official of the Department of State Security (DSS). He swiftly announced without giving details that Aishatu Dahiru Binani had won the election as Governor-Elect of Adamawa State. After that he quickly disappeared knowing full well that collation had not been completed, knowing full well that it was not his responsibility as the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) to announce the result. It was the duty of the Returning Officer (RO), Professor Mohammed Mele. Binani took over from there and made an acceptance speech. After that Adamawa State was in confusion, as illegality had been compounded by illegality.

Let’s tell the story from the beginning. Binani, a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria had contested the primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the governorship ticket of her state, Adamawa. She defeated six men to clinch the ticket. These men included Mr Nuhu Ribadu, a former Chairman of the EFCC and 2011 presidential candidate of ACN as well as Senator Jibrilla Bindow, Governor of Adamawa State between 2015 and 2019. The main election was basically a two-horse race between Binani and the incumbent Governor and PDP candidate Mr Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri.

At the end of voting on March 18, Fintiri scored 421, 524 votes while Binani had 300, 275 votes. The Returning Officer had declared the election inconclusive as he cancelled the results in 69 polling units in Fufore Local Government Area, which affected some 37, 016 potential voters because the cancelled votes were more than the margin of victory recorded by the PDP candidate. The supplementary election was held on April 15. It is while collation of the votes cast at the supplementary election was going on that Mr Ari decided to make his illegal declaration of the result.

There was an uproar in the state. INEC decided to intervene. The collation was completed and the Returning Officer, Professor Mele appropriately announced the final result as follows: Fintiri 430, 861 and Binani 398, 788. So Fintiri was declared the winner. Binani rushed to the Federal High Court in Abuja, arguing that it was only the election tribunal that can constitutionally nullify her victory. At the court Justice Inyang Ekwo refused to hear Binani exparte motion application but adjourned the suit to April 26.

According to section 25 of the Electoral Act 2022, it is only the Returning Officer who has the power to announce the result and declare the winner of an election for a State Governorship election.

The Adamawa Governorship election was crucial for some heavyweights in the state. The former Vice President and presidential candidate of the PDP, Mr Atiku Abubakar, comes from Adamawa. The First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Mrs Aisha Buhari also hails from there. So the stakes were quite high as each of the big guns in the state wanted to ensure that the government was controlled by the party that they favour. As things are now, the glass ceiling remains unbroken in Adamawa or elsewhere. Of the 28 women that contested for governorship posts in 25 states Binani was the only person that ran on the platform of a major political party and posed a threat to the political survival of the incumbent. All the other 27 women contested on the platforms of anonymous parties, parties that were virtually unknown in their states or nationally and they were not expected to make any serious impact in the election. It appears that they were using those unknown platforms as a bargaining chip for whatever else they were looking for in the political space.

In every sense what Mr Ari did was wrong. He made the wrong decision because collation was still ongoing at the time. Even if collation had been completed he was the wrong person to announce the result. What he did was a failed heist, a bungled coup for which there must be consequences. Africans are used to coups despite the homily about democracy. But coups have consequences, palatable and unpalatable. Successful coups bring joy and comfort to the planners because they are able to take charge of their booty. Unsuccessful coups end in death or imprisonment for those who tried them. They also earn the scorn of the society for themselves and their families.

It is our hope that this failed coup will be investigated and all the plotters and co-conspirators can have their day in court. In particular, the man who made the illegal announcement and the security men who stood guard or looked the other way while the deed was done have a case to answer because what they did was not what they were assigned by the authorities to do. It is often said that it is the forbidden that is most desirable. Adam ate the forbidden fruit and we are all paying for it. If Mr Ari ate the forbidden fruit he should pay for it because he threw away the white garment of honour, which his office gave him. He is said to have served as a permanent secretary in his home state, Bauchi. He is also said to be a lawyer. With such knowledge and experience it is clear that what he did was not a mistake. It was a deliberate act of sabotage, which has affected the reputation of INEC as an election manager.

It is obvious that Binani had dreamt of being the Governor of her state. Without dreams life would be unbearable. Infact, dreams are necessary for our survival. Binani may have said to herself that if she wants the office badly enough she will get it. That is something close to desperation and desperation is capable of leading anyone to do something foolish. Her quick acceptance speech and her rush to the Federal High Court to file an exparte motion application seem to be part of the desperation of our politicians. We have had several instances of Returning Officers being asked at gunpoint by politicians or their agents to make certain announcements that are illegal. They have to obey if they love their lives. That is a big minus for our democracy. That is the equivalent of a coup.

A few weeks ago I wrote a column in which I named three sets of people who are responsible for election rigging in Nigeria. I repeat (a) politicians (b) security men (c) INEC officials. Of the three sets of people it is the politicians who induce the other two to do what they want done so that they may achieve success. This success costs a lot and success that costs too much is the equivalent of failure. Those who planned the Adamawa State coup must have felt an unsettling urgency for success at any cost. Now that the dam has broken they will have to drown themselves in a pool of reflection. Some desires are necessary to make life worth living but rigging an election to get into an office, any office, is not one of them.

The electoral coup plot was a bitter betrayal of INEC, Adamawa and democracy, and a crude combination of crookery, tomfoolery and hara-kiri. INEC has denied the allegation of partisanship in the Adamawa election but there was some kind of suspicion when it was revealed that INEC had allegedly awarded a N430 million contract for the printing of sensitive election materials to Binani Printing Press, a company allegedly founded by Ms Binani. This has not been either confirmed or denied by INEC.

The messy situation in Adamawa cannot end with just the declaration of the results and the announcement of the winner. There must be an investigation that will reveal the details of this coup so that INEC can clear its soiled name, and we can take appropriate steps to sustain our democracy. What played out in Adamawa is the stuff from which fiction is written and movies are made, some kind of mafia-style operation that the Italians would be happy to copy.

Some people are already saying that what a man can do a woman can also do or even do it better. My advice is that we do not use this single incident in Adamawa to pidgeon-hole women as unfit for leadership. Men have done far worse things in this country, which is why we are still very backward despite the huge human and material resources available in the country.

Binani had become a Senator in a state that harbours many political heavyweights and moneybags. That means that she has political muscle. Therefore the future was her oyster. This event is certainly an unnecessary distraction, which she didn’t need. I hope she will get her reputation back after this event because she is a woman of the future.

Nigeria’s President-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is back in the country. He was declared winner of the February 25 Presidential election with 8, 794, 726 of the total votes cast with over 25% in 30 states, more than the 24 states required by the Constitution. He reportedly returned to the country at 4.30 pm yesterday through the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja after a four-week vacation in Europe and Saudi Arabia. He left the country on March 21, and according to his handlers, the President-elect needed time to rest, relax, re-tune, rejuvenate and prepare for the inauguration of a new government on May 29. We were told he would be in France, the UK and Saudi Arabia where he was expected to observe the lesser hajj, that is Umrah. The trip fueled speculations about the state of his health, with many Nigerians arguing that his trip abroad was a cover up for undisclosed medical treatment. There were even videos of his sightings in Guinea, and speculations about his citizenship. For record purposes, I had argued on another platform, The Morning Show of AriseNews, the television wing of this newspaper where, as lead anchor I ruminate on sundry issues every morning - that Asiwaju Tinubu has the right to the freedom of movement and that I did not see anything wrong if he wanted to take time off to rest after what we would all readily agree was a hectic, hypertensive, campaign season.

Nigerians were however inconsolable. They wanted the President-elect on the ground. They said they were not comfortable with the idea of a President-elect who would be missing in action or become the equivalent of an unidentifiable, untraceable flying object going from France to the UK to Saudi Arabia and wherever. Where is he?, they asked. And that included even persons that did not vote for him.   To be fair, I could understand the concerns of those who raised these questions. When a man is proclaimed President-elect, he becomes automatically, a property of the state. He becomes a person and subject of state interest. He is effectively no longer an ordinary person. He is asked to move into secure state accommodation, in this case, the Aguda House in Abuja. He is given a full complement of state security. He receives daily briefings from all the security agencies. He acts in other words, as if he were already President. The only difference is that he cannot yet exercise executive powers until he is duly sworn in and he takes the oath of office. The underlying logic in this regard is that there cannot be two Presidents at a time. So, in effect, Tinubu is a President-in-waiting, and Nigerians who are concerned about his movement, health and safety have every reason to raise questions. There are also national security implications. The British, Chinese and the Americans would not allow their President-elect yo-yoing across the world weeks before inauguration. In traditional communities, such persons, waiting to ascend the throne, are kept in seclusion, to be prepared for the enormous assignment ahead and their transition from one plane of existence to the other. 

However, Bola Tinubu is back. What a big relief! His return, yesterday, it can be said, has settled the questions about his condition and health.  Those who have raised questions about his health and circumstances can now see him. It bears stating that no one would expect any further overseas travel by the President-elect before his inauguration, 35 days from now.  The timing of his return is also auspicious. The Ramadan season is over, and whoever uses religion as the excuse for being abroad, is of course expected to return. While he was away, the supplementary elections in 24 states of the Federation took place on April 15. The President-elect issued a statement commending the process and asking all elected persons to work with him. While he was away also, there were controversies about his citizenship and whether or not he committed perjury in filling the Form EC9 that he submitted to INEC. Quite a number of persons insist that the President-elect must address these two issues. 

I have argued and I stand to be corrected that the controversy about his Guinean connection and/or dual citizenship is of no moment. No right-thinking, reasonable person would imagine that Tinubu is not a Nigerian. He is in fact more Nigerian than most of us. That is why he is President today and you and I are busy still pursuing the dream. The laws of our land recognize dual citizenship, and in law that matter was settled in the Bukola Saraki case.  The conditions for citizenship are properly spelled out in Sections 25 – 28 of the 1999 Constitution, and there is no point quibbling over Tinubu’s qualifications in that regard. The other issue that has been raised has to do with perjury. But that can only be proven and confirmed by a court of law. Section 117 of the Criminal Code frowns upon giving false evidence or testimony, either orally or in writing, and Section 118 further prescribes punishment accordingly. But perjury has to be proven. It should be recalled that last year, some lawyers went to the Federal High Court accusing Tinubu of perjury. It was an ex parte motion seeking an order of judicial review with regard to Tinubu’s educational qualification. What is the status of that case? 

We have been through this route before, by the way. As Governor of Lagos State, Tinubu was similarly accused of perjury. The lawyer involved in that case was a jurist of timbre and calibre: the inimitable Gani Fawehimi.  “Gani The Law” was a formidable officer in the temple of justice. But nothing came out of that case. The matter was dismissed. The order of mandamus sought by Gani Fawehinmi was ruled out of time.  Tinubu was already Governor. The court held that the was covered by immunity under Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution. I imagine that similarly, history would repeat itself on this matter, in the same manner in which it is certain that the inauguration of Asiwaju Tinubu as President of Nigeria would take place on May 29, 2023. It is true that there are petitions at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, but anybody who knows Nigeria fairly well can confidently wager a bet that their Lordships will not give a decision to upturn the social and political order. Tinubu has already set up an inauguration committee, a 13-man committee. His associates have been sighted attending the Spring meetings of the Bretton Woods institutions in Washington DC, United States. He has been busy playing Rose Garden politics. Meanwhile, nothing has been heard from the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.  Petitions and cross petitions have been filed. Hundreds of lawyers have been lined up. We would probably be here in 50 days from now, with inauguration done attended by traditional rulers competing for attention, the international community in attendance too, a Federal cabinet in place, the woman in charge of catering for the Presidential inauguration Ball having been paid for her pepper soup, small chops, and jollof rice, and the aso ebi, skyscraper Yoruba headgear crowd compensated, a new National Assembly inaugurated, and then the election petition tribunals would suddenly start sitting… The same tribunals would be paid and offered logistics by the new government. Indeed, the Nigerian system is one of the most comedic in the world. Never mind. The lawyers will collect their pay, there will be one or two dramas in the courts, the judges will be happy to have made some fine points of law, and we will all move on.

Moving on, however, it is important, now that the President-elect is back in town that we remind him of the urgent tasks ahead: the big load on his shoulders, the thing around his neck: how to lead Nigeria out of the woods. Nigerians can expect that it would not take Tinubu a long time to set up a Cabinet. In 2015, it took President Buhari quite a while to identify Ministers. He was not alone. One state Governor ran a one-man show in his state for a whole year! He had stayed too long in Lagos before going back home to be Governor. He had difficulties identifying his own people. Tinubu would naturally put a team together without any stress. He has the necessary experience. He has done this and that before as Governor of Lagos State and as an active Godfather in Nigerian politics. Nonetheless, he has more than enough persons in his face who since the elections have been posturing as potential Ministers and advisers, re-enacting their own “Emilokan” – “it is my turn” posturing. The sense of entitlement in the Tinubu camp is so much, so loudly paraded, I would not be surprised if one or two persons in that camp end up in the hospital if they do not get what they think they deserve. But should that bother us? Nigerians are not looking for a team, post-May 29, of entitled persons, boys and girls who are in government to collect IOUs, “emilokan adventurists” in the corridors of Aso Villa. 

Nigerians want a team that can work and move Nigeria forward. In eight years, this country has taken one step forward, two steps backwards. We don’t need to argue over that. Check your pocket. Listen to the loud, tsunami-like rumblings of your stomach. Consider the rate at which burial spaces are disappearing at the cemeteries because of increased harvest of corpses. Imagine how laughter has died in the people’s throats and the pronounced jeremiad in Southern Kaduna, Benue and Plateau. Headline inflation is now over 22%. Food inflation is much higher. The country is in heavy debt. Only the other day, the World Bank told us that Nigeria’s debt service to revenue ratio is 96%. President Buhari says he is looking forward to May 29, and that he can’t wait to return to his home town of Daura. He wants Nigeria to forgive him in case he has not met our expectations. Err, he needs not worry. Nigerians are too distracted, too confused, they don’t know what is good for them. The President can be sure that he has already been forgiven except anybody wants to start another round of religious and ethnic controversy. Charly Boy says the apology is not accepted. Charly Boy, Charly Daddy, is on his own. What Nigeria needs right now is a magician. And the question is: how versed is Tinubu in the magical arts of leadership and societal transformation? He says “emilokan”: now soon, that would be fulfilled in a historical manner, the only other Yoruba man in contemporary times to be President of Nigeria. Very soon, Abuja will be overtaken by the Yoruba cap, the language spoken in the big halls of Abuja hotels would be distinctively Yoruba, “emilokan” will become “awalokan” with Tinubu’s children, in-laws and associates treading the surface of mother earth like new conquerors, backed by power aphrodisiac and possibly, Artificial Intelligence! What Nigeria needs is a President who knows what to do!

“Whatever they like, they (can) speculate, I am healthy and strong and I am okay. May 29 is not a calendar…The challenge ahead is beyond that., it is for all of us together.  And we must stay focused. That is very important. Don’t isolate one date. One date on the calendar does not mean anything. It is just an event.”, Tinubu said on his arrival yesterday. Good. We have heard. But the President-elect must be further reminded that he made many promises to Nigerians, including those who voted for him and those who did not, about his mission to restore hope. Nigerians are looking forward to the delivery of those promises. They need the renewed hope that he promised! Once upon a time in this country, and many would remember, a President told us that he was not aware of the promises in his own election manifesto. He changed the script the moment he got into power and blamed the past administration for everything that did not work. Tinubu cannot play that game. He is an APC man succeeding an APC administration. He would not have a predecessor to blame! Scratch that out of the strategy list. He cannot unleash the security agencies either after the departing administration. If anything, he would in fact be expected to give the incumbent President and other influential persons slots in his own government. 

We, the people of Nigeria, cannot control that. But we expect hope, and that the promises made will be delivered. The President-elect promised Nigerian students that he will pay them loans. Those students at home and abroad are waiting. Where will the money come from? He told us he will increase oil production to 4 million barrels per day. Nigeria has never done more than 2.2 million barrels per day.  We can’t even meet our OPEC-assigned quota. Nigeria’s refineries are down, there is a big crisis in the oil and gas sector, upstream, midstream and downstream. Will Tinubu remove fuel subsidy, immediately he assumes office, on May 29, or would he postpone the evil day complaining about consequences or some “bla bla, blu blu” excuses?. He says he will address the challenge of insecurity in the country. How? And how soon? We would all love to see a civilian leader succeed where a President with an acclaimed strong security background failed.  The days ahead are challenging indeed, not a season for proverbs and Babelic language but action, leadership and results. 

As it is, Tinubu will be President. The courts can have their say, but the power brokers will have their way. I sympathize with the people who continue to insist that something else will happen before May 29, based on the predictions of. prophets and pastors. I am unavailable for that kind of talk, to borrow a phrase that has been made popular in Nigeria by Davido, the musician. In Nigeria, you can hire a Pastor to see what you want to see, and use his social media pages (These Pastors are all over social media now) to say what you want to say. Even persons who are not pastors see visions in Nigeria. So, deal with it, what is ahead in Nigeria would prove to be very interesting. The countdown has begun.  

“Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher and cultural critic, was described as “the eloquent and menacing prophet of an impending catastrophe.” That characterization came after he warned of “an apocalyptic tenor spawning a mood of gloom and a good deal of anxiety, anger, and terror.” His warning was for the 20th century but the things he saw manifest more clearly around here this century. After witnessing the crude novelty in Adamawa which has, so far, attracted only the huff and puff of official reluctance suggesting complicity, can we still say that there is hope for sanity here? There can’t be regeneration wherever foul play is fair play. We have seen the audacious move to enthrone a governor before the election was concluded – and even without the votes. We have heard the state telling us the principal culprit is missing, and is beyond the long arm of the law. We have watched a public television station opening the legs of our democracy for the rapist’s address of larceny. We’ve seen how that station did it without the consequences usually suffered by its private-sector competitors. We are seeing how easy it is to commit the greatest of crimes and slip into the eternity of immunity. We should also see how hope for redemption is increasingly the devil’s water on the highway to optimism. But we are too ‘trusting’ to see everything we should see. “Sometimes”, wrote Ayi Kwei Armah, “a whole people need healing.” We are that people.” 

There are books and films on the life and times of Efunsetan Aniwura, the second Iyalode of Ibadan. She was rich, powerful and cold-hearted. Her success as a woman; her manly carriage and ruthlessness made her a perfect mark for envy and destruction. And she lost everything. But Iyalode did not say goodnight gently; she did what real men do. On one occasion, one of her favourite slaves, a female, laced her food with poison. That slave was stupid. She should have known that no one became Iyalode raw and untoughened in those pristine days. Efunsetan was not a fragile rodent to be killed with ordinary poison. Iyalode looked into the meal, saw death and fed it to the bearer. She challenged the culprit; the culprit confessed that she was merely a messenger. You were sent? And you didn’t tell ‘them’ that you were too small to deliver the message? That slave of Efunsetan ate the food, poison and all, and lost her life. She had to die, because, according to Efunsetan: “Àimo isé kò níí p’esin l’ógun (Not knowing how to say no to errant errands kills horses in battle).” She was right; in ancient times, men took equines to war to go and die. And millions perished, especially during the two World Wars. Throughout history, unfortunate horses died in wars they were drafted to fight. Indeed, Britain had a Horse Mobilisation Scheme under which thousands of horses were moved into the First World War (1914-1918), initially for cavalry, later for transport. History says on a single day during the Battle of Verdun in 1916, over 7,000 horses lost their lives. They had to die because their ladle did not know how to say no to hot, searing sauce.

There are many stupid horses in our government agencies; INEC has a large number of such. They are a herd always ready to deliver any message, no matter how bad, for anyone and to anyone, if the fodder is right and the legumes rich enough. If you were sent on a slave errand and you delivered it as a slave, then, you are a slave. If you were sent to deliver a message of evil and you did as asked, you are definitely evil. And there are consequences for delivering messages. When I read the statement by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, conveying President Muhammadu Buhari’s suspension of Hudu Yunusa-Ari, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Adamawa State, I shook my head for the fallen man. The man won’t stop being in the news until another stupid stallion does worse than he did. The REC fed a big dose of poison to Nigeria’s democracy with his illegal declaration of the president’s candidate as the winner of the governorship election in that state. And he was audacious and bold about it. He didn’t do it at midnight or before dawn as soldiers of fortune do. He did it as a breakfast treat for Nigeria. The APC candidate was set to lose the election but Yunusa-Ari came out to raise the dead. He didn’t wait for the collation of results that would affirm the lady’s loss; he simply used his powers to decree her as the winner. What he did was novel in the history of electoral heists in Nigeria. Since then, he has not had peace; his employers say he is on the run; a news website insists he was flown to Abuja as a hero in a private jet. Whatever it is with him, the fact this moment is that he is a fugitive; the REC has become a wreck. But did he act alone? To his right were three very powerful security chiefs in the state. I would be stupid to assume that those ones too acted alone, unilaterally. No, but they have melted away, anonymous. Yunusa-Ari is the sole soil man carrying the shit can. He is the only enemy Nigerians know by name because he delivered the message with the rash of a slave.

If you serve power and the powerful, serve them with all your sense intact and alert. Your interest, and your name, must never suffer. There were at least four big men, including the REC, on that ingloriously high table in Yola. Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri has vowed that he will punish all of them for endangering democracy. What can the governor do? He may be a raptor in power, but his falcon has neither the head nor the beak of the eagle behind those owls. If I were that governor, I would look beyond the messengers. Who had the power to direct those four chargers to be at that point that hour? We don’t know them; we can only guess and we are not guessing wild. They must be people who are not just in government but are in power. We know also that the flies of those who deployed Yunusa-Ari and others to do what they did are not following their corpses into the grave. If the unthinking tools have to go down, they have to go down alone as mere sacrifice ingredients. Messengers are expendable bullets; they are kept only for battle. When servants like those in INEC become burnt out, they are cast into Hades by the same persons who used them badly. An incredibly effective horse was nicknamed ‘Warrior’ during the first World War; his other name was “the horse the Germans couldn’t kill.” Warrior served and saved his lord and won many battles for him; he dared and overcame machine gun attacks and burning stables. He survived the war and returned to England by Christmas of 1918 only to be killed by his owner 23 years later – because of the cost of feeding him with “extra corn rations.”

Where I come from, our ancestors know it is impossible for people to escape being sent on errands. It happens. But they warned (and still warn) that if you are sent on a slave errand, deliver the message as a freeborn. That wisdom is alien to persons who have had the (mis)fortune to manage our elections since the beginning of Nigeria. We saw that in that man in Adamawa; he thought he could drop any ‘dirty bomb’ and get away with it. Now, they say he is on the run; his employers want the police to declare him wanted. There are possibly many like him – others may have been subtle (and therefore successful) in doing their own damage. Nigeria’s election chiefs work in a cut-throat, complex world of greed and temptation. The opportunity for mischief and misbehaviour is ever present where they work. Appropriating the thoughts of V, the mystery author of ‘The Mafia Manager’, because the INEC chiefs are allowed to stand with wolves, they think they should howl – but they are no wolves with the survival sense of the canid. Read their stories – they always come in as angels; they always exit injured and wrecked.

But they enjoy the work they do while it lasts. Wherever Yunusa-Ari is hiding (or not hiding) now, I can swear he is eating Tuwo with lamb limbs and thighs of rams. The reason Nigerian power-seekers will give anything to get right there in INEC – or at least tuck their agents in there. The job gives them the power to veto popular votes and be the elector of governments. The office kits them to compete with judges and the courts; the real super powers in our game of thrones. Occurrences like Adamawa’s are potent reminders that Nigeria and optimism must not cohere in the same sentence. But, there are people who would insist that the Nigerian leprosy is mere rashes; they say the blight will soon disappear with the right doctor in the ward. Some hold, in their trusting innocence, that no evil will be evil enough to shock Nigerians to positive action.

Machiavelli, teacher of painful truth, said “by the delusions of seeming good the people are often misled to desire their own ruin.” He added that the people “are frequently influenced by great hopes and brave promises.” Building castles of hope on Nigeria is futile but I get posts of hope and optimism every day from patriotic Nigerians who think, strongly, that Nigeria can still be saved. Two weeks ago, before Adamawa happened to us, I got one from one of my old professors in Ife. I got another from a reader, a fan, who strongly believes in Nigeria, its destiny and in the government that will come on May 29, 2023. My teacher wrote to me: “I’ve just read your piece on ‘The Terrorists Are Back.’ It’s as usual engaging in style. But it’s rather hyperbolic in its portrayal of what seems to be the hopelessness of the Nigerian condition. We still have cause to cheer…” The other message: “My name is Kayode Sufianu, a constant reader of your Monday Lines. I have read almost all the weekly articles since one of them was posted on my old school platform about a year ago – St Charles Grammar School, Osogbo, Class of 1974. That was the first time I got to know of your writings, regrettably. You are one of the best writers I have ever come across – the manner of expression, the almost unimaginable but apt references to writings of different authors, some of whom I never heard of nor read; deep knowledge of Yoruba culture and understanding of the Nigerian situation is legendary. You are also fearless. But permit me to say that yes, the Nigerian situation is bad, but is it hopeless? I don’t think so. However, my fear is this, if everyone, every Nigerian believes, intuits and concludes that NIgeria is irretrievable, there is a great risk that the volition will take on form and manifest. Therefore, we must nurse hope and promote it – that Nigeria will pull through and fulfill her potentials to become a great nation. Does that sort of mimic ‘renewed hope’ slogan? It’s just coincidental but perhaps against all odds, the president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, may be the one to start the renewal process. Best.” Both messages posit seriously that Nigeria is not irredeemable. They may be right; I may be wrong. They are not alone on that rostrum of hope; millions, North and South, are with them, shoulder-to-shoulder.

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher and cultural critic, was described as “the eloquent and menacing prophet of an impending catastrophe.” That characterization came after he warned of “an apocalyptic tenor spawning a mood of gloom and a good deal of anxiety, anger, and terror.” His warning was for the 20th century but the things he saw manifest more clearly around here this century. After witnessing the crude novelty in Adamawa which has, so far, attracted only the huff and puff of official reluctance suggesting complicity, can we still say that there is hope for sanity here? There can’t be regeneration wherever foul play is fair play. We have seen the audacious move to enthrone a governor before the election was concluded – and even without the votes. We have heard the state telling us the principal culprit is missing, and is beyond the long arm of the law. We have watched a public television station opening the legs of our democracy for the rapist’s address of larceny. We’ve seen how that station did it without the consequences usually suffered by its private-sector competitors. We are seeing how easy it is to commit the greatest of crimes and slip into the eternity of immunity. We should also see how hope for redemption is increasingly the devil’s water on the highway to optimism. But we are too ‘trusting’ to see everything we should see. “Sometimes”, wrote Ayi Kwei Armah, “a whole people need healing.” We are that people.

TWICE did I hear Aisha Dahiru, alias Binani, of the All Progressives Party, APC, declared the winner of the Adamawa State gubernatorial elections and the first female to be elected governor in the country. Twice did this turn out to be a hoax – a sick joke played on Nigerians. The first time was the product of propaganda; the diet on which Nigeria is run.

After the March 18, 2023, elections, it was announced on some media outlets the next day that Binani had won the elections. Many, including Great Britain, fell for the hoax. The British High Commissioner in Nigeria, Catriona Laing, took to her verified Twitter handle, screaming: “Great news! Huge congratulations to Aisha Binani! I hope you will be a trailblazer for other elected female governors.”

When the reality dawned on Laing that she had fallen victim to an orchestrated disinformation campaign, the envoy deleted her tweet. The facts were that the elections were inconclusive and Binani’s rival, incumbent Governor Umaru Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP,  in the results so far declared, was actually leading with 421,524 to Binani’s 390,275. Despite these facts, the APC, perhaps based on false information from its Adamawa State branch, insisted that Binani had won the elections.

Its National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, issued a statement claiming that: “election results show a clear and decisive victory for Senator Aishatu Dahiru (Binani), the All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship candidate. Faced with the imminent and certain prospect of losing the election, thugs and political actors led by the incumbent governor and candidate of the PDP, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, have unleashed heavily armed thugs to disrupt further collation of results and subvert the will of the Adamawa people as expressed at the polls.” 

The Harvard-trained lawyer and former human rights advocate claimed, without providing any evidence, that “the governor is reported to have torn result sheets at the collation centre in a show of unprecedented impunity and executive brigandage.” The APC insisted that Binani: “holds a clear, unassailable lead, only awaiting final collation and declaration by INEC.” However, the results with the INEC were contrary to the APC’s claims, and it directed that supplementary elections be conducted.

The supplementary elections were held on Saturday, April 15, and  the results were being collated and announced when, at 1.00 a.m. the next day, with half the results declared, the INEC announced a break and that the collation and announcements would continue at 11.00 a.m. However, at 9.00 a.m., two hours before the exercise was to continue, Yunusa Hudu-Ari, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC; Mohammed Barde, the Police Commissioner on election duty in the state wearing camouflage uniform, the State Director of the Directorate of State  Services, DSS, and the head of the state’s Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, wearing a well ironed uniform, returned to the collation venue.

REC Hudu-Ari, Commissioner of Police Mohammed Barde, and the other security chiefs who had militarised the collation centre were aware that the collation of the results was in progress and knew that only the Returning Officer, Professor Mohammed Mele, was empowered to announce the results and the winner of the elections. Despite these and the protests of representatives of political parties and election observers, the REC, backed by the security chiefs, went ahead to announce Binani as the winner of the elections. They then fled the crime scene with the assistance of well-armed policemen and security operatives. It was nothing short of an attempted electoral coup, and the action almost set the state on fire, with angry residents taking to the streets in search of the conspirators.

In a redeeming move, INEC quickly nullified the announcement and ordered the REC and its officials in the state to report to its headquarters in Abuja. Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, followed by removing Barde and replacing him with his Gombe State colleague, Etim Equa.

On Tuesday, when the INEC concluded the collation and announcement of the supplementary election results, Fintiri was declared the winner. It was clear to me that the REC was aware that Binani had lost but had deliberately moved to declare her the winner. The move may seem bizarre, but not in Nigeria, where much crazier things happen in elections. For instance, the APC candidate in the 2019 Imo State gubernatorial elections, Hope Odidika Uzodinma, who came fourth in the INEC-supervised elections, was elevated on January 14, 2020, to the first position by no less an institution than the Supreme Court of Nigeria. In the 2023 elections, candidates who did not contest in the statutory primaries ran in the elections, with some of them declared elected.

The Adamawa coup attempt was a simple one. The strategy amongst the political class, is to get declared the winner of an election and let the court do the rest of the job. Even if the court were to rule in favour of the actual winner, the loser would have been in office for some time, even years before the actual winner would take over.

So, perhaps in accordance with the script, the REC illegally declared Binani the elected governor of Adamawa State. She immediately made an ‘acceptance’ speech carried on public network television, thanking President Muhammadu Buhari for her alleged victory as the first female governor. Next, she ran to the Federal High Court in Abuja to stop INEC from doing anything about her announced victory.

In court, she claimed the fake result that declared her the winner, is authentic, that INEC voiding the result announced by the REC is an usurpation of the power of the Returning Officer and that only the petition tribunal has the power to void her declaration as the governor-elect. Binani failed to acknowledge that it was not the Returning Officer that declared her winner, and since she claims it is only the election tribunal that has powers over electoral matters, why did she not head there rather than the High Court?

So why did Hudu-Ari, a lawyer, and his fellow conspirators engage in the attempted electoral coup? An alleged security officer in a viral video claimed they were paid N2 billion. But Binani, in a reaction, said this is false. Perhaps  REC Yunusa Hudu-Ari would help clarify whether he staked his reputation, job, and freedom for free or was paid to do the job. But the problem is that he seems to have disappeared from the radar screen. However, one person who is certainly not on the run is the strong woman, Binani; she is ready for any eventuality.

So long as politics remains the most lucrative business in Nigeria and impunity reigns, it will be run like a criminal enterprise and our elections will be crime scenes to be trampled upon.