When King Charles, the head of the Church of England, is crowned on May 6, there would be two very unusual non-Protestant special guests at the ceremony, among others: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who is Hindu; and the Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and next First Minister of Scotland, Humza Haroon Yousaf, a Muslim.

Not two unusual guests. Three, actually. The third, Ireland’s Prime Minister and son of a Hindu Indian doctor, Leo Varadkar, is openly gay; one of the only five openly gay world political leaders.

It gets even more interesting. Before King Charles’ arrival at Westminster Abbey, the Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, would be waiting. Buddhist Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, would be in charge of security; Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, whose mother is a Sierra Leonean, would be on hand to welcome dignitaries; and the cashier for this extraordinary event and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, would also be there with his Chinese wife.

King Charles who himself is the father-in-law of African American Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, appears to have embraced this new multicultural face of modern Britain. 

Three weeks and two days after King Charles’ coronation and about 3,900 miles away, another crowning would be happening in Nigeria – the inauguration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who won the recently concluded election on the ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). 

The names and faces speculated for Tinubu’s cabinet are nothing remotely resembling the Westminster mosaic.  The inauguration, in fact, comes on the heels of one of the fiercest, most fractious waves of ethnic tension in the country following a general election. 

Politicians stoked the old, dangerous religious and ethnic fault lines leaving the country more divided than it was before the polls. The fiction that tribe and tongue were dead and that the last general election would be the burial ceremony appears to be well and truly over.

Even though Nigeria’s highlife music legend, Oliver De Coque, famously said, “Ana enwe obodo enwe” (literally meaning a town is owned), before Nigeria’s civil war ethnic tensions were not as salient. Politicians made home wherever they found themselves. 

That was why for many years the Nnamdi Azikiwe-led National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) dominated politics in the West, especially in Lagos, even though Azikiwe was from the country’s South-East. Some of the closest confidantes of the Premier of the Northern region and leader of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) Sardauna of Sokoto Ahmadu Bello were from outside the core Northern region.

Businessmen and women from the South-East, concerned mainly about creating wealth and prosperity invested in Lagos and in other parts of the country without qualms, while Nigeria’s civil service reflected not quota or ethnicity, but competence and merit. 

And then the war happened. In spite of Nigeria’s efforts to heal and reconcile after the three-year civil war the genie of tribe, religion and ethnicity was released, first by the military, and then by politicians, turn by turn. The country has now spent the last five decades struggling with the worst demons of identity crises. We are still trying to answer the question, who are we?

The presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, for example, campaigned in the South East that he deserved their vote because he has an Igbo wife. And then, to the embarrassment of his Igbo wife, he went to the North to say, “Only a Northern president can best serve the interest of Northerners.” Others are on their own.

When one of Nigeria’s leading entrepreneurs, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, said Igbos in Lagos who were attacked during the recent elections should rest assured that the “Yoruba rascals” responsible for it won’t go scot-free, he didn’t mean to further stoke ethnic tensions. 

In an election in which victims of violence were not only Igbos, but even some who looked like Igbos, however, Iwuanyanwu obviously forgot that it was not only his kinsmen that deserved protection from “rascals”, but indeed every voter or citizen in harm’s way.

The kindred spirit in Iwuanyanwu long silent in the face of the horrific violence in the South-East that has claimed the lives of scores of innocent people in the last few years, mostly Igbos, found expression hundreds of miles down South when, as a red cap chief, he felt obliged to stand up for kith and kin. 

Yet, such awkward moments in Nigeria are not only the lived experiences of red cap chiefs, politicians, or indeed ordinary citizens. Some years ago, I experienced it firsthand. My son, then in his early 20s, refused to fill out the part of a form that required his “state of origin”, on the grounds that the only state he knew was Lagos, his state of residence.

How did Britain which appeared to be one of Europe’s racial and multicultural backwaters before 9/11 manage to reinvent itself in two decades while the bright hope of one Nigeria appears to have fallen off the wagon?

What has Britain done differently? It has not arrived yet, especially with lingering concerns about its policing and the virtually white-top echelons of FTSE 100 firms. Yet the British parliament has grown from 2001 when there were only two Muslim MPs to 19 four years ago.  After the 2019 election, 66 or 10 percent of Members of the House of Commons were from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The changing face of British politics was not an accident. It was not entirely unforeseeable a decade ago that Sunak, Varadkar and Yousaf would rise to the top. Once Asians, who make up one-tenth of the British population, grew from their corner shops, became prominent in the economy and deepened integration while recognising their minority status, their rise to political prominence was only a matter of time. 

Even though more political parties would be represented in Nigeria’s 10th National Assembly than at any other time in the last 24 years, tribe, religion and ethnicity are still heavily in play. The evidence re-echoed in the recently leaked audio of Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, allegedly telling a Pentecostal pastor that the 2023 election was a “religious war.”

The younger population, less attached to ethnicity and religion, tend to have a more liberal attitude. My son, for example, like many of his generation, was prepared to forfeit a business opportunity if filling out his “state of origin” was a precondition for eligibility.

In the rat race for nativism, not many appear to be concerned about the rapidly dwindling resources from commodity rent, combined with an even more rapidly growing population. Or that squabbles over spoils not only divide citizens from different states but also those from the same states but from different local governments and communities.

On top of this, our institutions are still very weak. Not much gets done except you know someone or know someone that knows someone. Not that ethnic diversity is a bad thing in and of itself. The US, perhaps one of the world’s most successful stories of a melting pot, is proof of the power of the rainbow. 

Nigeria’s story has been one of how not to play ethnic or identity politics. It has been a story of how to weaponise identity to serve a small political elite that hardly remembers or cares where the next man is from when they gather to share the booty. 

The way to keep the “rascals” at bay is to recognise that it’s not only street thugs that should be called out. Thugs across party lines in the corridors of power dressed in fine, flowing garbs or stiff collars are just as guilty. 

If we’re serious enough, it shouldn’t be hard to produce the sort of mosaic inner circle expected at Prince Charles’ coronation at the inauguration of a Nigerian president. Britain offers a usable example.

I deployed creative threads in imaginary Facebook conversations to drive home my point about how Nigerians tear one another to shreds on the internet in my column, ‘Hate in the Age of Charlatans’ on 31^st August 2017. Unfortunately, with such recurring madness, the Nigerian social media landscape has become renowned for unbridled toxicity. In fact, the situation has worsened following the conclusion of the 2023 general election. The current war of words centres around a (purported) conversation between Bishop David Oyedepo, founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide, and Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the last election. Incidentally, I was not even aware of the brouhaha until I returned from church Sunday afternoon to receive a WhatsApp message from Valentine Obienyen titled, ‘Obi Versus Oyedepo: Too bad!’ 

I have known Valentine, Obi’s spokesman, for almost two decades and consider him a friend. In the short (two paragraph) message, Valentine explained what he described as the context to a conversation between his principal and Oyedepo. He also alluded to “our prodigal brother from Nnewi” as the source of the leak. As a regular recipient of messages from Valentine (he writes almost every day), I can easily guess whom he is referring to. Valentine alleged that a committee had been established (he didn’t state by who) to review all calls made by Obi in the last three years for the purpose of charging him for treason. He concluded: “Till now, they are yet to see any. The badly doctored conversation with Bishop Oyedepo released by our Nnewi prodigal brother is the much they have discovered so far. They edited out the Muslim-Muslim ticket that led to the discussion, where Obi said that in a society like ours, religious balancing was a necessary consideration and that their recklessness had made Christians to assume it was a religious war.” 

By the time I went online to access the tape, I realized that a ‘civil war’ had already broken out on Twitter. It is the only social media channel where I maintain a semblance of presence, (apart from WhatsApp, the global headquarters of rumour-mongering). I also noticed statements by other actors who distance Obi from the video which they dismissed as “deep fake”. As an aside, I find it amusing that people who only knew Peter Obi yesterday and have no clue about the several battles he and Valentine had fought together were ‘sacking’ his long-time spokesman on their Twitter handle! Besides, the number of people who now issue ‘directives’ on Twitter either in the name of Obi or that of the Labour Party is beyond ridiculous.

Ordinarily, the content and context of the viral audio, even if true, touched on basic rights in a democracy. Adherents and followers of different faiths are first and foremost citizens and are therefore legitimate segments of our electorate. Nothing in the constitution or the electoral law forbids politicians from going to an Imam, Bishop, or Rabi to seek support for their aspirations. The only issue is that appeals for such endorsements must respect the separation between faith and blatant partisanship and not be divisive. That perhaps explains why the controversy around the audio conversation should not be left for spokespersons who in any case are busy contradicting one another. I believe that Obi and Oyedepo may need to address the issue directly to clear all doubts.

I am aware of the danger of mixing politics with religion. But since there are discordant tunes about the authenticity of the audio, I want to err on the side of caution until we have clarity. What I find interesting is that those who easily jump to believing negative stories about other people from the same media outfit are now up in arms because this doesn’t align with their own agenda. That should teach them a lesson in fair hearing. But there is another issue here which I have also dealt with in the past and which we cannot afford to gloss over in our own interest. The grievous violation of citizens’ private telephone conversation opens more fundamental questions about our defective democracy than the meaningless chatter over “Yes, daddy”. Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution states very clearly: “The privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations and telegraphic communications is hereby guaranteed and protected.”

When you pick up your phone to communicate with a friend, family member, or even casual acquittance, according to Pronoma Debnath, an American Cybersecurity Fellow with the Strauss Center for International Security and Law who has done extensive work on surveillance, artificial intelligence, and digital rights, you do so on the assumption that your conversation will remain confidential. “The ability to communicate securely and privately is extremely important for individuals’ peace of mind, confidence, relationships, and livelihoods,” wrote Debnath. That unfortunately is no longer the situation in Nigeria. 

Breach of confidentiality is an issue we must confront because it touches on the rule of law—the cornerstone of a functional democracy. Even the ‘Lawful Interception of Communications Regulations, 2019’, prescribes stringent conditions under which citizens can be wiretapped by relevant security authorities to forestall abuse. Such action can only be in the interest of national security, for the purpose of investigating or preventing a crime or giving effect to international mutual assistance agreements to which Nigeria is a signatory. And it requires written application before a Judge supported by sworn affidavits by either the National Security Adviser (NSA) or the Director General of the State Security Service (SSS) or their designees not below the rank of an Assistant Commissioner of Police. 

Let’s be clear here. In this age of technology, surveillance can be done in several ways and by actors that do not necessarily work for the state. Many of the gadgets we use can also be deployed by unscrupulous people with money to procure hacking software for their sinister agenda. To that extent, we cannot always jump to conclusions about sources of information. What we should not tolerate is an environment where phone hacking and dissemination of confidential conversations become a regular feature of our national life. That bodes ill for everyone.

The ultimate responsibility lies with media practitioners who must learn from what happened in the United Kingdom with the ‘News of the World’, a weekly newspaper published every Sunday for 168 years, from 1843 to 2011. One of the numerous publications in the stable of the legendary Rupert Murdock, ‘News of the World’ was at one time the highest-selling English-language newspaper in the world. But on 7^th July 2011, it was forced to write its own obituary over allegations of phone hacking, with a ‘Thank You & Goodbye’ edition that happened to be its last. The painful lesson from the events that led to that tragic end for the newspaper, as I wrote in my column afterwards, is that journalism and journalists cannot live by a code of ethics different from those we demand of others. And the profession is not, and should never be, a licence to break the law. 

My intervention was based on the April 2007 gubernatorial election tribunal case between Rauf Aregbesola, then of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Olagunsoye Oyinlola of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The latter had released phone logs containing conversations allegedly held between Aregbesola’s lawyer and a judge. In the case between Segun Oni of PDP and Kayode Fayemi of ACN, also on the 2007 election fiasco, the former also presented phone logs of alleged conversation between then ACN leader (now president-elect), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and then Court of Appeal President, Justice Ayo Salami.  

Questions I raised in my intervention included: “If we assume (and this is just an assumption) that the logs were indeed genuine, how did the petitioners come about them when in law phone companies can only release such to security agencies and only in exceptional circumstances? Could we then assume that in the two instances, the mobile lines of the affected persons were hacked into? Or did someone simply pay some corrupt staff of the affected mobile networks to get those logs? Whatever happened, if phone logs could be easily secured (or more appropriately, procured) by any unscrupulous politician, what kind of security system are we then operating in our country? I feel more worried to learn during the week that our mobile networks are so unprofessional that even governors now demand call logs, and perhaps also voice and text data, apparently of their political opponents!”

In that piece I also wrote: “Whatever the political motivation for the nonsense going on, there is a bigger issue of national security which is being obscured here: the moment we open ourselves to a situation in which phone logs and other data which should ordinarily be confidential could easily fall into wrong hands, then we are no better than a banana republic. It also means that serious potential investors will be wary of operating on our shores. The sense of outrage that we have seen in the United Kingdom in the last one week shows quite clearly how serious issues of intrusion into privacy of this nature are. 

“Without prejudice to whatever investigation the National Judicial Council (NJC) may be conducting into the allegations against Justice Salami, I believe it is much more important for us to get to the root of how politicians now have access to the call logs of their opponents. In a nation where virtually all citizens, from the president to the neighbourhood vulcanizer, now depend on mobile telephone operators (mostly foreign owned), this is not an issue we can afford to take lightly. The office of the NSA should investigate not only whether some call logs are genuine but also how they were obtained. And culprits should be made to face criminal prosecution if only to serve as deterrence to others that such infraction is not an acceptable behaviour in our country.” 

Overall, we know that two things can be wrong at the same time. A conversation that imputes an election to be a ‘religious war’, if confirmed, is dangerous to the health of our society. But we should also not condone hacking. Nobody can feel safe when they are being snooped upon by political/business opponents or rogue state agents who may then sell their private conversations to the media. We should not wait until we become victims of such breach before we act. 

Meanwhile, it is remarkable that Christians will celebrate Easter this year at a period Muslims are undertaking the Ramadan fast. I therefore wish adherents of both faiths the compliments of this glorious season. Let us hope the enduring lessons will serve us in Nigeria.

Congrats, Kofar-Mata

For professionals in the army, foreign service, civil service etc., career progression is based on hierarchical order. And getting to the top depends on several factors, including vacancy. It’s even more difficult for diplomats and civil servants in Nigeria where the requirement of federal character makes it imperative that filling such vacancies be based on states of origin. That’s why I was delighted last week when I saw the name of my friend, Yakubu Adam Kofar-Mata (from Kano) among the list of six persons elevated to the position of Permanent Secretary by President Muhammadu Buhari. I congratulate Kofar-Mata and wish him success in his new assignment.

Of ‘Awalokan and Emilokan’

BY M T. Uman

Dear Segun, your column, ‘Between Ndigbo Awalokan and Yoruba Emilokan’, was quite insightful as usual. Unfortunately, there is no line within the reach of the Nigerian political elites that they have not already crossed. This has been evident since 1993 when members of the resurgent Pentecostal led the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to oppose Moshood Abiola’s same-faith ticket. That was how religion became another factor in the calculations of politicians across the country.

The entry of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) into politics in 2003 gradually drew Muslim leaders into national politics, as they were hitherto more interested in consolidating Sharia in their home states. This support reached a crescendo in 2015 when he eventually won the presidential election. They were less involved in 2019 when Buhari was already in office, but they picked up the gauntlet in 2023 when CAN orchestrated a vigorous campaign against the choice of a Muslim running mate by the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Personally, I haven’t seen how the religious affiliation of any Nigerian leader has helped the generality of his co-religionists and denied others. Any benefits are personal to individuals on account of their closeness to the leader. Muslims still go to Hajj as usual and Christian pilgrimage has become an established event. The dictum of Shehu Usman Dan Fodio to the effect that “a community can endure with unbelief but cannot endure with injustice” should be guide enough to leaders of whatever faith.

One thing I have noticed is that people do forget that zoning and rotation are convenient arrangements politicians brought into being to share power “on behalf of their people.” Each party has its own “zoning cycle”. I have always believed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), going by its past, should zone its presidential candidate to the North after Goodluck Jonathan’s turn as president on the platform of the party. By the same logic, the ruling APC was duty bound to present a presidential candidate from the South after Buhari. Even though the party almost didn’t, but for the doggedness of Tinubu, the winner of its primaries – and the presidential election.

Meanwhile, ethnic profiling has been with us for a long time. But its current strength is a great worry, especially with propagation by social media. Leading political figures have a duty not to see profiling as a vote-winning strategy and must do all within their powers to temper the enthusiasm of their supporters in their ready recourse to it.

Usman, a former Director, National Universities Commission (NUC) wrote from Kaduna

Once again, the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission imposed a heavy-handed fine on Channels TV, following a petition by an aide of Bola Tinubu. Ironically, the petition was based on some comment by the Labour Party vice presidential candidate Datti Baba-Ahmed who, during a live interview, said something to the effect that swearing Tinubu into office in May would “end” democracy in Nigeria. This not-so-subtle manipulation of a state agency by the aides of an incoming president signals a pattern of power abuse that will only worsen.

Baba-Ahmed was wrong to the extent he assumed that swearing in the beneficiary of a flawed election would be the death of Nigeria’s democracy. No, that is not how the end will come. Democracy will be squelched to death in the hands of executioners claiming statesmanship; its end will be from the chokehold of maniac politicians whose bid to make the polity conducive for their characteristic lawlessness will drive them to use the instruments of democracy to undermine democracy.

If their obsessive focus with the Labour Party presidential candidate and his followers in the aftermath of the election process proves anything, it is that these declared winners are bothered. The resolute existence of the Obi-dients delays—and therefore denies—the legitimacy of the APC. That is why, though they won an election, they can hardly settle to enjoy their victory. They remain stuck on their opponent’s popularity. So acutely are these supposed winners unsettled by the Obi-dients, an army of self-motivated political contenders with a narrative capacity that substantially upends the Tinubu propaganda machine, that they are not even discussing the future under their government. Their mad preoccupation with making the Obi-dients go away will drive them to break many things, chief of which will be democracy itself.

Unfortunately, they will be indulged by agencies like the NBC who, like most Nigerian public institutions, lack autonomy. The NBC’s media arbitrating activities tend towards a studious calculation of partisanship politics that favour them personally rather than any well-considered principles of how media houses in a democratic society should run. Previously, I have pointed out the anachronism of agencies like the NBC in the age of liberalised media and global media technology. Their duties were meaningful in bygone eras when the government controlled the media and when the military ran the country.

The NBC code made sense at the time because you could rightly claim that since most people were exposed to a narrow range of media options, it was possible to manipulate society.

Now we live in an era where people’s media options are not only endless, but audience-ship itself has become quite fragmented. Hardly any media can claim primary influence over public opinion. The agenda-setting feature of the media is easily contested now, and the traditional ways we imagine media influence have changed forever. Communication is no longer between the media houses and the people sitting inside their homes watching TV or listening to the radio. The world we live in now is overrun with infinite sources of information, a chaotic field of endless chatter where people are more energised to talk than even listen.

Despite all these massive shifts happening in the media, the NBC insists on micromanaging media content (and even for private enterprises). To an extent, the high-handed manner they hand out fines to media houses based on some nebulous idea of what threatens the polity suggests they struggle with re-imagining their relevance in the 21st century. When you hear some NBC officials speak on their expectations of media “objectivity,” you know these guys are still stuck on old ideas. They are still regurgitating textbooks written by dead white guys (whose scions have long revisited those old ideas in the light of new realities!).

They seem incapable of rethinking and revising their roles to make themselves more relevant in the contemporary era, and that is why a serial petitioner like Bayo Onanuga could use them to run partisan errands. He knows he can send an agency like the NBC the message of a slave, and they will not summon enough wit to deliver it with the nobility of a freeborn. Their frigidity and the abject lack of moral reflexivity will end democracy faster than any comment by a single politician on a live television show.

Let nobody be fooled, our modern world is complex; it will take much more than Datti-Ahmed’s comments about ending democracy in Nigeria to incite people to the insurrection that will truly end democracy. Nigerian politicians base their media regulation antics on the conviction that the impulses of the people they insistently impoverish can only be stimulated into violent action by the media. They insist media regulation is equal to social tranquillity. Nothing can be more delusional.

Does the media tell the people what and how to think, or it is those who already harbour certain thoughts and grievances who are drawn to specific media channels to affirm their ideas? If the media exercises so much power over people’s will, how come the NTA that dedicates its contents to pacifying impulses has not succeeded in whipping us in line? Hardly anybody—not even the most virulent APC supporter—watches NTA. The version of Nigeria the NTA sells resonates with almost no one, not even government officials. The fact that those who complain loudest about a broadcast station like Arise TV and its unruly anchor are still stuck on the channel is more telling about the nature of news viewership.

As for the media houses who will be the target of these power drunks in the coming months, I hope they know better than grovel. Despite all the claims the media makes about informing and enlightening the populace, they are still—at the end of the day—a business. They ought to be free to exercise initiatives that help their enterprise without worrying that clueless civil servants will frustrate them with stupid fines. So, next time, before interviewing a guest likely to say controversial things, they should first write the NBC a cheque equivalent to the annual salary of their DG and send it ahead. Then go ahead and interview the person. If the NBC’s nostrum is issuing an invoice each time your initiatives run counter to their small-minded partisanship, then meet them halfway by buying off their nuisance.

Another option is to go to court and challenge the NBC code altogether. The open-ended nature of the code makes the media vulnerable to bad-faith actors who will continue to (mis)interpret its recommendations either to shrink public discourse or to deflect from their incapabilities. Any attempt to pacify vandalisers of civic freedoms will only make the media culpable in their own abuse. Do not let them diminish you; do not yield your freedom to these myrmidons of darkness whose actions do far more to infuse darkness into Nigeria’s democracy. Evil is implacable. You can only triumph when you beam the light.

Finally, is it not interesting that Onanuga, who earned his professional credibility for standing up to the military government’s clampdown on press freedom, is manifesting the same tendency under a democratic government? He could have asked Channels TV for an opportunity to refute Datti-Ahmed’s arguments, but no, he had to play the tyrant. It makes you wonder, did those activists of yesteryear stand up to those abusers of humanity because they once believed in human freedom or simply because they wanted to usurp their power? Did the military government pursue these one-time activists because they saw them as a threat to their dictatorial rule or because they saw through their pretences? On days like this, I imagine that from the interior of a hilltop mansion somewhere in Minna an old dictator watches these democratic tyrants adorn their little feet with his old jackboots. Observing them traipse the creaky floorboards of history, he roars with laughter at the uncanniness of a history repeating itself as tragedy and farce simultaneously.

The dust is yet to settle on Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu’s “political rascal” statement. Today, we present, with slight editing, the views of respected Professor Olabode Lucas on the burning issue; titled “The verbal sparks from Awka”; enjoy it:

“Penultimate Saturday, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, the brilliant economist turned politician, rolled out the drums to celebrate his one year in office as the governor of Anambra State and, in doing so, tried to showcase the achievements of his administration during the one year. The occasion was attended by eminent personalities in and outside the state and they included Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president who Governor Soludo affectionately referred to as ‘my Baba.’ There was no doubt that Soludo wanted as much publicity as he could get for the event. Yes, eventually the event got more publicity than what the governor had bargained for because the speech by the chairman of the occasion, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, generated a lot of controversy. In his speech, Iwuanyanwu referred to the Yoruba people, who are in conflict with his Igbo people in Lagos, as ‘political rascals.’ This speech has caused a lot of political sparks and deepened the current seemingly unbridgeable animosity and suspicion between the Igbo and the Yoruba people which, unfortunately, has been festering since the colonial era.

“Chief Iwuanyanwu, who is the chairman, Council of Elders Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide, used these derogatory words against the Yoruba people in front of a mainly Igbo audience who cheered him enthusiastically. Obasanjo was in this audience and many people expected him to berate Iwuanyanwu for his undiplomatic language but, instead, he praised the chief for his role in helping him to form his first cabinet in 1999. In addition, in his speech Obasanjo threw his own verbal salvo when he alluded that the Igbo people were being subjected to Igbophobia.

"Chief Iwuanyanwu’s effusion at Awka was a continuation of unending suspicion that has characterized the relationship between the Igbo and the Yoruba ever since the British brought the two ethnic groups together in a country. Although the two ethnic groups were in the forefront of the struggle for the independence of the country, this was not sufficient to prevent them from being at each other’s throat on some contentious issues. All efforts to bring the two groups together politically as we saw in the recent move to initiate a ‘handshake across the Niger’ have always ended in failure because of the deep-seated suspicion between the two ethnic groups.

“During the colonial era, the theatre for the antagonism between the two groups was in Lagos, the then capital of the country where most of the political activities in the country took place. The Igbo people met the Yoruba people in Lagos as a highly sophisticated, enlightened group who were well educated. The Yoruba people were dominant in virtually all the sectors such as education, commerce and the civil service. This, no doubt, bred resentment and the Igbo with determination decided to catch up. The late Chinua Achebe, the literary guru of Igbo descent, in his book ‘There Was a Country’ had this to say on how the Igbo bridged the gap between them and the Yoruba: ‘The Yoruba had a huge historical and geographical head-start; but the Igbo wiped their handicap in one fantastic burst of energy in the twenty years between 1930 and 1950’. This touted achievement of the Igbo people by Achebe made the then Ibo State Union in one of its conferences to refer to the Yoruba ‘as a decadent race’

“Where did the rain start to beat the two ethnic groups? Contentious issues that divided the two groups during the colonial era probably had their beginning with the inability of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo man, to become in 1952 the Leader of Government Business/Premier of Western Nigeria, which was a region populated mainly by the Yoruba people. The Igbo people felt that Azikiwe, who was their idol, and his party, the NCNC, were deprived of victory by the Yoruba-dominated Action Group party. Since that time, an average Igbo person had not forgiven what they erroneously termed ‘the betrayal of 1952’. Many independent commentators had faulted the assertion that Azikiwe won the election of 1952 and even Azikiwe himself in his book titled ‘My Odyssey’ did not claim to have won the election. However, the defunct West African Pilot continued to propagate this falsehood for many years.

“The status of Lagos was another issue that also divided the Igbo and the Yoruba during the colonial era. At the 1953 constitutional conference, delegates from the then Eastern Region who were mainly Igbo made it clear at the conference that they regarded Lagos, the country’s capital, as ‘no man’s land’ despite the fact that a prominent Igbo political scientist, Kalu Ezera, had, in his book, previously referred to Lagos as a ‘Yoruba town’. The Igbo people and the NCNC, which they supported massively, succeeded at that conference to get Lagos, a Yoruba town, as the Federal Capital Territory. This arrangement, which continued until 1967 when Lagos State was created by Gowon’s administration, was resented by the majority of Yoruba people with their slogan ‘Lagos belongs to the West’.

“The antagonism between the Igbo and the Yoruba during the colonial era was fuelled by the newspapers owned by the two groups. The West African Pilot owned and edited by Nnamdi Azikiwe defended the Igbo cause and aspirations while the Daily Service edited by H.O Davies and later by S. L. Akintola was the Yoruba’s mouth-piece. The West African Pilot at every opportunity denigrated Yoruba leaders like Kofo Abayomi, Adeyemo Alakija, Akinola Maja, H.O. Davies, Akintola, and F. R. A. Williams. The West African Pilot through its editorials and news items built up the Igbo as a master race and projected Nnamdi Azikiwe as the only leader worthy of emulation in the nationalistic struggle. The Daily Service, while projecting the Yoruba cause, was less vitriolic.

"The suspicion and antagonism between the two groups was probably responsible for the refusal of Nnamdi Azikiwe to form a pre-Independence coalition government with Chief Obafemi Awolowo that could have ushered in independence for the country despite the intervention of President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. The arrangement could have made Azikiwe the first prime minister of independent Nigeria; instead, he opted to be a ceremonial president in an NPC/NCNC coalition government.

“The political antagonism between the Igbo and the Yoruba continued after independence. The main political tendency in Yoruba land was kept out of government for a considerable length of time from 1954 to 1964 at the time when the NCNC formed the coalition government with the NPC at the federal level. During this period, the Igbo dominated the federal government and cornered juicy contracts, appointments and scholarships to themselves. The same scenario was enacted in 1979 when the NPP, a party dominated by the Igbo people, had a working arrangement with the NPN.

"The Igbo came back from the civil war with a lot of resentment and bitterness for the Yoruba people because of the role they perceived was played by the Yoruba and their leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The Igbo people believed that the policies initiated by Chief Awolowo as Commissioner of Finance during the war brought about the collapse of Biafra. Many Igbo also felt that the Yoruba should have joined them in bringing an end to Nigeria. The Igbo showed their resentment to Awolowo by giving him less than one percent of the votes cast in their region during the 1979 presidential election. All in all, for most of the political events since independence, the Igbo and the Yoruba have always been at opposite sides to each other.

“In all these disputations between the Igbo and the Yoruba, the Igbo have always presented themselves as victims and that is why some of their leaders throw occasional verbal salvos like the one thrown by Chief Iwuanyanwu at Awka to denigrate the Yoruba people and their leaders. That is why Nnamdi Kanu could call on EndSARS protesters from his cell to destroy properties of Yoruba people in Lagos. The Yoruba, though not perfect and have faults of their own, have been very accommodating to the Igbo people with the opportunity given to them to prosper immensely in Yoruba land. The Yoruba people claim with justification that there is no reciprocity for their good gestures from the Igbo people.

“Whatever is the situation between the two groups, they have to accommodate each other as long as they belong to this geographical entity called Nigeria, which is yet to become a nation in the true sense of the word. For now, I cannot see an end to these disputes as more destructive verbal salvos like the recent one from Chief Iwuanyanwu would still come from the leaders of the two ethnic groups to denigrate one another”.

The above is from Professor Lucas, who writes from Old Bodija, Ibadan. Other views on this contentious issue are welcome!

What I have read – at least, thus far – this morning, extracted from a one-and-a-half long interview, conducted  a week ago with Channels Television, brings once more to the fore, the critical responsibility of the media in transmitting the spoken, even recorded – word to the public. This is especially crucial in a time of civic uncertainty. When remarks are taken out of context, spliced into a new one, provided a sensational headline, distortions become stamped on public receptivity, and the central intent of one’s remarks becomes completely unrecognisable.

I denounced the menacing utterances of a vice-presidential aspirant as unbecoming. It was a gladiatorial challenge directed at the judiciary and, by implication, the rest of the democratic polity. But what on earth has happened to my even more urgent condemnation of the physical violence inflicted on those designated “strangers” in Lagos in the lead up to, and during governorship elections? This prejudicial selectivity is a betrayal of trust, and I find it contemptuous of public deserving. My critique of incipient fascism in the movement remains grounded in indisputable evidence. Throughout the interview, I continued to stress that the final word had yet to be pronounced on the elections – that omission renders the full message tendentious!

My rejection of fascism is nothing new. On three occasions, I was able to send a message to Peter Obi that if he lost the election, it would be his followers who lost it for him. It was depressing to watch his lieutenant, a crucially positioned voice of a movement that has “broken the mould”, threaten the totality of social existence. Whatever our ideological leaning, is Donald Trump the ideal template for a burgeoning democracy in the nation?

On a minor note, I remain concerned by the alleged complaint by me of people not following “instructions”. If words are garbled in recording, the speaker can be reached for clarification – else, simply leave out the unclear section completely to avoid misrepresentation. After all, piecemeal transmission is legitimate proceeding, as long as a part is not presented as the whole. I am not a member of the Labour Party, so how can giving ‘instructions’ become my role? Like a number of others, I have admittedly contributed to the making of this moment – going back several years – and it is painful to have the followers of such a movement, send it slithering backwards and down the fascistic slope. 

I hope Channels plans to provide the entire interview.  After months of having to endure total fabrications of partisan utterances that are strange to me, even in their very choice of words, it is most aggravating to have this, the first I have conceded in my authenticated person, casually subjected to selective editing and dissemination.

Let us play by the rules of mutual obligation, or else abandon public discourse altogether.

‘Wole SOYINKA is the first Black Nobel Laureate in Literature.a

Real losers of 2023 Nigerian general elections are not the electorate who were deprived of their rights to freely choose candidates of their choice nor the first-timer youth who were disappointed by the Nigerian state nor the candidates who lost or won as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The biggest losers are President Muhammadu Buhari, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, President-elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Nigeria as a political entity.  Except for Bola Tinubu who carries the burden of legitimacy arising from flawed process and total miniature votes garnered, the others will live with scar and collective guilt slammed on the country by ethical deficit in delivery process of the elections.

With general disenchantment over the conduct of the 2023 Nigerian general elections by over 145,000 national and foreign observers deployed across the country, INEC failed to leave a split opinion on its capacity to conduct a free, fair and credible elections, a development that will hunt Mahood Yakubu, Mohammed Buhari and Nigeria for a long time to come.  The exercise was not only a horrendous phenomenon on the psyche of Nigerians but a fleeting nightmare.  

A consensus negative opinion on the flawed elections by European Union, African Union, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Commonwealth, The International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI), Joint Election Observation Mission (IEOM), four former African presidents, and Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), is an affirmation of global skepticism about Nigeria’s reputation.  They all concluded that the electoral process lacked transparency, which encouraged manipulations and undermined voters’ confidence.

This trust deficit was also highlighted by Chatham House when it declared that INEC had learnt nothing from its past failures.  Specifically, it said, “The INEC’s performance and controversies over these results mean that the electoral reforms and lessons declared to have been learned were not fully applied and, as an electoral body, it was significantly less prepared than it claimed.”

As a consequence of these opinions, President Buhari might have missed the opportunity to etch his name in gold over his failure to provide a secured and enabling environment for free, fair and credible elections.  As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, he failed to optimally use his offices, including effective deployment of the police, army, DSS, and other security agencies to protect voters during the elections.

Nigerians were mortified by horrendous images of election violations, and no rationalization could justify such criminal acts.  An election where about 27 persons were killed nationwide over violence, ballot snatching, thuggery, voters’ suppression, ethnic bigotry, use of tribal gods and deities, even in the presence of security operatives in some instances, can only be a national shame.   

Besides, whatever is left of Buhari’s legacy might have been further weakened by the naira redesign and currency swap policy which brought untold hardship to citizens during period of the elections.  Perhaps, the intention of the policy was to eliminate monetary inducement and vote buying, unfortunately, Buhari and the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, were outwitted by politicians through use of extra-constitutional and procedural means to contrive and achieve sinister objectives.

For the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, there might be no second opportunity to redeem his character.  With a budget of over N305 billion and other sundry support, he had no reasons to have failed.  Yakubu gave assurances in both local and international events, including Chatham House, of his Commission’s preparedness, pledging that with use of technology, including Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), results would be transmitted in real-time to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

These assertions receded into irrelevance when INEC failed to comply with the Electoral Act and its own guidelines.  The Electoral Act, 2022, requires INEC to upload the elections of polling units in its portal as stipulated in Section 60 (5) and Clause 38 of the INEC Regulations and Guidelines.

Specifically, Clause 38 of the INEC Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections, 2022 states: “Upon completion of all the Polling Unit voting and results, procedures, the Presiding Officer shall:-(i) Electronically transmit or transfer the result of the Polling Unit direct to the collation system as prescribed by the commission. (ii) Use BVAS to upload a scan of ES8A to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), as prescribed by the commission. (iii) Take the BVAS and the original copy of each of the forms in tamper-evident envelope to the Registration Area/Ward Collation Officer, in the company of security agents. The polling agents may accompany the Presiding Officer to the RA/Ward Collation Centre.”

With non-compliance and deviation from these regulatory provisions, INEC opened the electoral process to manipulations, resulting in lack of justice and fulfilment for voters.  

These violations have exposed existential gaps in the capacity of Mahmood Yakubu to deliver on a significant national assignment.  This might cast aspersion on his reputation and capabilities.  Indeed, this election is a minus for his profile, as no government or any serious organisation may want to bequeath him with such responsibilities in future.  

Unfortunately, the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, is a product of INEC’s flawed process, and this has triggered legitimacy challenge that is further fueled by lean number of votes secured at the election relative to total votes cast.  Tinubu polled 8.87 million (the least by any presidential candidate since 1999), representing 36.61 per cent of total votes, and 10.08 per cent of all eligible voters.  Out of approximately 93 million registered voters, only about 25 million, representing 28.63 percent, actually turned out to vote.

Implicitly, Bola Tinubu was not only elected by minority voters when viewed against 25 million persons that voted, and in a country of over 200 million people, skepticism resulting from INEC’s multiple irregularities are unhelpful to his presidency.  Perhaps, this accounts for the absence of national pomp and celebration that would have heralded his victory.   

Without prejudice to outcome of current litigation, going forward, Bola Tinubu should activate his social capital to open up channels across to influential groups and personalities in the country, including his political rivals aimed at legitimizing his presidency, and achieving unity through formation of all-inclusive government.

INEC’s performance has also rubbed off on Nigeria’s image as a corrupt country.  Through the foreign observers, perception of the international community about Nigeria as a corrupt country might have worsen on account of their opinions over lack of transparency and operational failures that characterized INEC’s performance.  

In the 2022 Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Nigeria was ranked 150 out of 180 countries, and also placed as second most corrupt country in West Africa.  By INEC’s standard and performance, it has unwittingly further confirmed Nigeria as a corrupt country, and deepened global negative impressions.

Nigeria lost the opportunity to demonstrate before the world of its preparedness to be a leading light in Africa and world affairs, using the elections as spring board to exhibit its leadership potentials and capacity.  Hopes for these attainments have, however, been frustrated and shattered by INEC.

Besides, with world’s attention on Nigeria as connoted by presence of foreign observers, Nigeria should have used the elections as public relations tool to strengthen the country’s image through conduct of free, fair and credible election under a transparent atmosphere. This would have left foreign observers rattled as to Nigeria’s new values and ethical orientation.

It was an event Nigeria should have used to shore-up its dwindling reputation.  It is more effective than image-laundering programme where huge amount of money in foreign currencies is budgeted for public relations and reputation management.  With good image, Nigerians’ dignity and respect would be restored, and largely put an end to discrimination at border posts in foreign countries.   

This experience should serve as a lesson on the need to be transparent in conduct of future elections.  Former American President, Jimmy Carter, who was in Nigeria in the past to observe elections vowed never to observe elections in Nigeria again after his ugly experience of brazen violation of electoral process. He was upset with the impunity with which politicians used thuggery to deprive electorate from freely voting for candidates of their choice.  

It is hoped that Nigeria will not allow a repeat of this ugly experience.  It is time to make political offices unattractive to discourage desperation which is the underpinning motive for all these electoral atrocities.    The electoral body should be reformed and repositioned with people of integrity as drivers aimed at restoring electoral integrity.

Dr. Mike Owhoko, Lagos-based journalist and author

One basic identifier of a society desirable of advancement is how it treats its most vulnerable, the very old and the very young. Over the years, Nigeria has proved beyond any form of doubt, that it is not ready for such responsibility. That is why as a people, we have learnt nothing from some of the unavoidable tragedies we have experienced in recent times. And there is no evidence that things are likely to change, at least from the way we have handled the most recent tragic events.

Throughout history, most of the cutting edge safety measures were developed as responses to fatal accidents, that is how societies have been forced to learn as it becomes hard to predict with certainty where the next accident is going to happen. That is why in more organized societies, leaders have open minds with accidents and other related mishaps so they can learn how to prevent such in future.

The recent death of 12 year old Whitney Adeniran in circumstances that can be described as both unfortunate and regrettable has added yet another blot on how careless we are in managing emergencies. While we were still analyzing that of Whitney, another incident which led to the death of a 16 year old student in another school has been trending. What all these points to is our chronic incapacitation in managing health emergencies, or emergencies of any type, made worse by our lack of basic access to healthcare, and a culture of  “it is not my portion”.

However, many are of the persuasion that after a series of incidents involving either its teachers or students, Chrisland School, should as a matter of urgency take a second look at its processes and systems. There is a need to reevaluate its internal mechanism vis-à-vis its responses to incidents and reputational management. In the minds of the public, it is becoming one incident too many, and if the name of the school keep popping up from time to time, it will get to a situation, like it is presently, where incidents involving the school would be decided on the altar of public opinion by people whose take on serious issues are dented by sentiments.

The management of Chrisland Group of Schools seems oblivious of the fact that the organization has grown beyond the small establishment set up by the founder over 45 years ago. It has grown into an educational behemoth thus the need for a total and drastic change of management strategy and processes in line with the principles enunciated by Marshall Goldsmith in his classic book titled “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.” Chrisland needs a kaizen approach in engaging with stakeholders, Public, Media, Parents, students and the communities of her locations.

But in all of these, there is need for the Lagos State government to take a second look at the ways and manners its officials react and handle issues of this magnitude.  Going for the usual people pleasing knee-jerk shutting down of the school leaves far more than desired. Shutting down the Chrisland School at Opebi when the incident did not happen at the school premises shows an appeal to populism instead of handling the issues professionally.

It is interesting to note that the said accident happened at a Lagos state owned facility; shouldn’t the management of the stadium be held responsible for the absence of a mini clinic at the facility? How come the Lagos State Sports Commission or whatever agency in charge of sporting facilities in the State does not have an ambulance point at all its facilities across the State? Moreso, if the government agency that manages the mini stadium had safety officers that were up to their game, the outcome might be different. It is my hope that as we await the full autopsy report, that it won’t be a case of electrocution because that would be quite unfortunate that the life of the young lady was cut short in that manner.

Sometime last year, a viral video of an event centre where children were having a picnic went viral showing uncovered live electric wires carelessly zigzagging across the place with children running around oblivious of the dangers lurking around such facilities. Such may have been the case with the unfortunate incident that led to the death of Whitney Adeniran. In a more organized society, the Lagos State government should be held responsible for failing to ensure safety measures were put in place before an event takes place there. Also, they ought to have properly ensured that vendors at the facility maintained relative safety standards. But they failed.

That is why many are at a loss with the way and manner the Lagos State Attorney General and his office has been going about this case as if they have a bone to grind with Chrisland School that has nothing to do with the incident.  What justification does the State government have for shutting down the school while leaving the facility where the incident took place open till date, without as much as carrying out an assessment of the facility to ascertain the real and remote causes of the accident? It shows that the government and its agencies are at a loss on issues of safety management.

The Lagos State Attorney General ordered a coroner inquest into the incident but went ahead to hurl the school before the courts for criminal charges while in-depth investigations are yet to commence. From where then did the charges of manslaughter come from because investigators claim they are still working on compiling their reports? It is in the interest of Lagos State government to carry out the process in ways that won’t give the impression that it had a predetermined position on the case before embarking on the legal process.

Equally shocking is the brazenness with which the Attorney General has been conducting himself over this unfortunate incident as if it is a booster for his popularity in the State. Many professional colleagues within the legal profession were at a loss that he even attended the court proceeding, he did not stop there; he went further to grant an interview on live television, an act that could be prejudicial to the case.

If the Attorney General is sincere that his suit is aimed at ensuring that organizations put safety in place when they’re hosting events, then his first port of call should have been the Lagos State Sports Commission and the managers of such facilities across the State. Is such action by the AG not likely to lead to a bias as it could shape the tone of the litigation? How many safety safeguards have Lagos State put into her public schools?

How many have they put into their various stadia, how many safeguards on our roads with beleaguered people in traffic every day? I do not want to agree that the actions of the Attorney General are politically motivated as some are suggesting in some quarters but it has become imperative for the State Government to call its officers to order so as not to drag the name of the State governor in their personal issues. Coming to that Court on the day that school was arraigned was suspicious of self-seeking showmanship which puts a question mark on the Attorney General’s claims to partiality in the case.

It is disturbing the way the Attorney General is strutting all over the place, granting interviews and pushing his face into public consciousness all of a sudden, a development some have expressed discomfort with as it smells of a personal campaign to give impression of hard work and commitment as lobbying for the next state government’s cabinet is now on top gear. I have no dog in this fight and Let’s be clear, I am not a fan of Chrisland School’s sloppiness; I am a South west Nigerian by identity, completely non-partisan but an unrepentant advocate for forthrightness. I came home to Nigeria to vote during the elections. My premise is therefore based on nudging the Governor, His Excellency, Babajide Sanwoolu is not to taint his administration by appearing to have condemned Chrisland before ensuring fair assessment of all sides to this very delicate issue. A just cause should not ride on the back of injustice. But from what I saw on Channels’ TV YouTube, your AG is inserting himself too much into this matter and the optics are tacky on your administration.

Finally, and once again, Chrisland School, if children are in your care, you have a duty of care to ensure they return home safe. Chrisland also ought to have a waiting emergency vehicle in place with paramedics to take that child to the hospital as soon as they found out that the State Government has nothing of such. The story from the girl’s mother that none of this was done is unfortunate. You owe that woman an explanation. 

Arobieke, a Legal Practitioner and an International Development Expert wrote from Washington.

Politicians – particularly most of the current Nigerian variant(s) – are almost permanently incurably unreasonable by deliberately refusing to learn from history. Of course, we do not expect them to learn from it since this will be ‘abnormal’ if they do! It is astonishing that this group of people simply referred to, collectively, as political elite (including their fellow shallow-thinking followers) always squeeze out ways by which they return the country’s politics to the ignominious past when/where many of the challenges Nigeria is now battling with got rooted! That epoch is what clear-headed progressive citizens are working in ways that will make it remain where it ought to be – the past. Unfortunately, it appears that the country is not yet out of the woods concerning the foregoing. In fact, the realities concerning the 2023 elections, in places known to many, appear to be comparable to the build-up of negativities for the political turbulence that occurred shortly before the January, 1966 military intrusion into Nigerian politics. We will be needlessly opening old wounds if events accompanying this and other such intrusions (that were more like brigandage) are relayed. This is why it is saddening that Nigeria is being prepared for more ugly paths, considering the actions/inactions of today’s similar dramatis personae earlier alluded to.

We are referring to unpatriotic elements that have been exploiting Nigeria’s fault lines for decades and relentlessly guiding the available unashamed gullible citizens to scorn Nigeria’s best for these politicians’ political gains. The mania for self-centredness by this group (with the wherewithal to ‘take off’ from this country, if there is crisis) is what led Nigeria to, subsequently, get a military head-of-state that was so anti-intellectual that he sadistically opined that university students were, then, always engaging in “Aluta”  for rights because they were overfed from subsidised food; thus, his government withdrew subsidy for this purpose. This is someone who eventually set up a private university and ‘obtained’ a doctorate from a public university! As we were saying, this and more damages were eventually done to these tertiary academic institutions. What was/is expected by these mediocrities? Simply, pauperisation of intellectuals and collapse of intellectualism! These institutions have not been able to recover from these continuous attacks on intellectualism; or how do we explain the government’s order that all the tertiary academic institutions should be closed down because of 2023 elections? Was Nigeria at war? To those mediocrities, elections are more important than public education! How do we know a government of anti-intellectuals?

We know that there are some internal problems within these institutions but there has never been the magnitude of attacks on them by anti-intellectual-powered forces like the ones from the ‘outgoing’ group of people in the central government! It is like they planned to come into power to crush scholarship in Nigeria! They have really ‘tried’ in this regard and will be remembered for it! We hope other subsequent governments will not come into power to intensify these attacks and fulfil their purpose(s)! The unfolding reality before our eyes – if nothing positive is done now – is that the future is really bleak for these public higher educational institutions; most especially the universities among them. It is increasingly clear that Nigerian politicians (either in government or not) place more value on street urchins and political thugs than good education for the populace. After all, ignorance and poverty resulting from lack of education and skills aid in spawning most of the societal miscreants that are desired by these depraved politicians. The preceding scenario fit in with others in the narrative of political class’ conspiracy against the masses.

The elections of the 25th February and 18th March, 2023 showed that the country still have a long way to go even with the Electoral Act 2022 that earlier gave some of us reason to hope for sanity in Nigeria’s elections. Unfortunately, the Act was brazenly violated, in broad daylight, by politicians and their cohort. In a grim determination to do or die, they shamelessly engaged in electoral offences with well-stated punishments perhaps in connivance with security personnel! This is not our opinion; these allegations have been well-reported in many local and foreign news outlets. If truly the Nigerian security personnel got compromised and were involved in those violations, then the mess we are currently in will definitely continue beyond now, for a long time, as there is yet no answer, in Nigeria, to the question “quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Some of the politicians may have ‘succeeded’ in their dubious actions, today, but the accompanying stench will remain for a long period. We know that they do not care about this fact. For instance, after elections, who will take care of the thugs they armed for that purpose? Are they not part of those causing menace in the society? How many of these thugs’ children are being trained by politicians in any educational facility anywhere? Do thugs even bother to ask about where politicians’ children are?

Only ‘stupidity’ will make one knowingly make himself/herself available to be part of politicians’ cannon fodder! The last statement may contain strong words but is it untrue? Note that politicians will never think about the wounded, maimed and dead among these ‘stupid’ thugs. They (politicians) will simply move on! Politicians will not willingly add value to thugs! The reason is that thugs must remain so to be useful for thuggery during future elections! Although, some thugs are mutating/‘upgrading’ to educated illiterates migrating to traditional/social media platforms and cyberspace to spew filth! It must be said that only covetous and thieving hands will like to reap where they did not sow! The country cannot continue on this current political path and expect good leaders. Flawed electoral processes are not likely to produce the desired good leaders because something cannot be placed on nothing. This idea of people committing verifiable electoral offences and getting off scot-free must be curtailed in order to stop impunity in our electoral process. A consequence of unenforced laws is the emboldening of law-breakers to fearlessly engage in more criminalities to the detriment of law-abiding citizens. It is so pathetic that those being referred to as ‘leaders’ (misleaders) are among these law-breakers! Democracy should not be equated to lawlessness! Nigeria has good laws that must be obeyed/enforced – collectively; this is a tidier way to go!

*Andrew A. Erakhrumen currently teaches at the Department of Forest Resources and Wildlife Management, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria.