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Programme: CITY TALKS WITH REUBEN ABATI

Time: 12:00pm

Topic: PRESIDENTIAL RUNNING MATES AND UPDATES

Date: Saturday, june 18th, 2022

Guest: Felix MORKA(APC Spokesperson), Debo Ologunagba, (PDP Spokesperson)

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Yesterday, Nigeria declared a public holiday, and marked the 29^th anniversary of June 12, 1993, the day Nigerians trooped out en masse to elect Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, a South Westerner, a Yoruba man, as President of Nigeria. On that day, Nigerians discounted primordial sentiments and ignored the centrifugal forces at the heart of the Nigerian question. For the first time since the first legislative election was held in Nigeria under the Clifford Constitution in 1922, the usual divisive factors of religion, geography and ethnicity, did not matter. Abiola was a Yoruba man. He won convincingly in more than the two-thirds of the states required by the Constitution. He even beat his main opponent, Bashir Tofa, of the then National Republican Convention (NRC) not just in the pre-election debate and campaigns, with his wit, humour, knowledge, stature and charisma, he went ahead to trounce Tofa in his own ward and state in Kano. It is instructive that Bashir Tofa has remained a footnote in Nigerian history since then. He was no match for Abiola and has not even been able to match him in death.

Abiola did something unusual. He presented before Nigerians, a Muslim-Muslim ticket. His running mate was Baba Gana Kingibe, another Muslim, a Northerner. Nigerians didn’t bother about that. They wanted change. They wanted progress. They sought freedom from the shackles of military tyranny. Abiola preached a message of hope. Since the January 1966 coup led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, truncating the liberation from colonial rule, Nigeria found itself in the grips of corrosive, corrupt, and obnoxious military rule. There was a brief spell of civilian rule between 1979 and 1983, but the military seized power again, at a time when strong-man, military rulership was the mode in most African countries. In the 1990s, a wave of democratization eventually took hold in the global arena and Nigeria feeding on this, under General Ibrahim Babangida, launched a political transition programme that became an exercise in trickery and deception.

This also was the season of glasnost and perestroika, a big unraveling and the end of the Cold War and the beginning of transformations across the globe. Nigeria got caught in that cauldron of change. MKO Abiola, as events happened, won the election. But he was denied victory on June 24, 1993, with the annulment of the election. General Ibrahim Babangida, IBB as he is also known, was the head of the military junta that committed this perfidy, this subversion of the people’s will, and although he has claimed that he was not alone and that his hands were tied, the event of June 12, 1993, an election won by a man he considered his friend, will remain a day in infamy as a symbol of betrayal, insincerity and political suicide of the first rank. It must be remembered that Abiola’s victory would have marked a second liberation for Nigerians, liberation from the shackles of military tyranny, even if now in retrospect, nobody can say definitively how that denied Presidency would have turned out. It was all a matter of justice, democracy and the people’s sovereignty. It is therefore poetic justice that June 12 has remained a major signpost in Nigerian history. It is also remarkable that President Muhammadu Buhari is the one who decided to move Democracy Day from May 29, the traditional day for handing over of batons in the nation’s calendar, every four years, to June 12, to remind all Nigerians of the significance of that date. This will form a major substance of Buhari’s legacy, at the level of simple commonsense, if not any heavy substance.   

What endures is the symbolism and martyrdom of MKO Abiola, and what Buhari has done is to take that phenomenon to an appropriate location in national memory in a country where it is ever so convenient to forget. For the benefit of those who may have forgotten, Nigeria became a pariah nation. The international community turned against Nigeria. Civil society groups rose against the Nigerian government. The green passport became a source of embarrassment in all parts of the world. It was a difficult season to be a Nigerian. The media, the church, and progressives of all hues took to the streets and stood at the barricades to demand an end to military rule and the restoration of Abiola’s mandate. IBB, now known as the Maradona, stepped aside. An interim government led by Chief Ernest Shonekan, better described by the Yoruba phrase “fidihe” government took over, but that government lasted only 83 days. It was eventually booted out by the dark-goggled General Sani Abacha, who imposed a reign of terror on the country. Journalists were murdered. Where the husbands could not be found, their wives and new babies – Dapo Olorunyomi’s new born baby for example, were targeted by “the wereys” that had taken over Nigeria. MKO Abiola stood firm. He had the support of committed democrats and progressives from every part of Nigeria. He led the struggle with courage and resolve at great personal risk.  On July 11, 1994, he made the Epetedo Declaration.

It was a statement of defiance, bravery and heroism. He eventually paid for that with his life. What Buhari has done in this part of Nigerian history by declaring June 12 - Democracy Day, is to deal a mortal blow to the revisionist attempt to reduce June 12 to a Yoruba struggle. It was not. It was a pan-Nigerian attempt to save Nigeria.  The beneficiaries of the martyrdom and the heroism of others have not necessarily been the right persons. Joe Igbokwe has written an instructive book in this regard titled “Heroes of Democracy.” There is also June 12: The Struggle for Power in Nigeria by Abraham Oshoko. Other books of interest would be those by direct participants in the saga including The Struggle for June 12 by Frank Kokori; The Tale of June 12 by Omo Omoruyi, Clapping with One Hand: June 12 and The Crisis of A Nation by Olawale Oshun;  and Humphrey Nwosu’s Laying the Foundation for Nigeria’s Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election and its Annulment. Nwosu was the Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) that conducted the 1993 elections. The June 12 crisis destroyed his career in the public arena.    

June 12, 1993, this year is being commemorated at an auspicious moment. The Party primaries have been concluded. Presidential standard bearers have emerged. It is no longer the season of military rule – Nigerians have since said “Never Again” to that but old anxieties have not disappeared. In 2014/2015, Nigerians thought they wanted change. They asked for it. The only change they got was the change of personalities, and the worsening of the Nigerian condition. Eight years later, nobody can boast that the Buhari administration has been able to change anything or inspire hope. Rather, Nigerians are looking back to the past in anger. Many even thought former President Goodluck Jonathan should return to rescue the country that he handed over to the exceptionally clueless gang that took over from him. That has not happened, and I hope all the noisemakers who thought that was even possible in the first place would be humble enough to think twice. Where then, are we, as a country?

We are preparing for the 2023 general elections. We have 17 or 18 Presidential candidates. INEC, the electoral umpire has set a deadline of June 17 for the uploading of  names and affidavits on the INEC Nomination Portal. The INEC Chairman, Yakubu Mahmood has announced the relevant conditions and guidelines. As of the time of this writing, only the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has announced its Presidential running mate; by this time next week, all running mates at the Presidential level would have been announced. Given the nature, structure and circumstances of Nigerian politics, the 2023 process has already been reduced to a two-horse race, between the PDP and the APC. Some commentators argue that attention should be paid to the Peter Obi phenomenon. Quite rightly so. He was a two-time Governor in Anambra State under the platform of APGA. He later switched to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In 2019, he was chosen as running mate to Atiku Abubakar of the PDP. In 2023, he declared interest to run on his own on the platform of the PDP. He has since gone to the Labour Party (LP) where his major challengers have turned out to be his own Igbo kinsmen, Callistus Okafor and co, at a time when Ndigbo, having been denied a top spot placement in the PDP and APC needed a platform of their own to project the idea of an Igbo Presidency.

There are about five Igbos as standard bearers in the 2023 process:  Dumebi Kachikwu (Delta Igbo- ADC)..Peter Umeadi (APGA), Peter Obi (Labour Party), Okwudili Nwa-Anyadike (NRM) and Dan Iwuanyanwu (ZLP) but Ndigbo is not talking about their own. They are talking about a meeting to decide who to choose between Atiku (PDP) and Bola Tinubu (APC). Peter Obi is clearly the frontrunner among the Igbos on the list. He enjoys massive support among young people of Nigeria, particularly from the South. They call him Obi-Bangladesh, Obi-China because of the transformative ideas that he espouses. But he is at best, probably a man ahead of his time. Social media does not win elections. On the practical field of play, Peter Obi does not have Atiku’s or Tinubu’s kind of money in an election that is already a cash and carry affair. On that list of standard bearers, there is also Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), a man who is defined by Kano politics and his own politics of personality. Kwankwaso’s best bet is Kano, not Nigeria.

There is also Lateef Kola Abiola, the first son of Bashorun MKO Abiola, as flagbearer of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP). My suspicion is that LKA is just showing face, but his effort is noteworthy: The son who wants to redeem his father’s legacy! Omoyele Sowore (AAC) wants to take Nigeria back to the people who truly own it, but the established rent-collectors, “the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low places that seek bribes and demand 10 percent, those that seek to keep the country divided permanently..., the tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian calendar back by their words and deeds” will not allow him. They did not allow Awolowo. They did not allow Abiola. They will certainly not allow Obi, Sowore or anyone who sounds like they want change.     

This is why the two prominent figures we are left with are Atiku and Tinubu. The duo offers us, same of the same. They have both been promising change, progress and development. They are both not in a position to change anything. They won’t. Nigeria is in a difficult place, confronted with the equivalent of a Hobson’s choice. It is also perhaps why the major argument today is the choice of a running mate for Atiku and Tinubu. Ordinarily, a Vice President occupies “an awkward office” as US Vice President Walter Mondale once argued. Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson’s Vice President for eight years said “The only business of the Vice President is to ring the White House every morning and ask - what is the state of the health of the President?” The Vice President of Nigeria does not even have as much power as the VP in the United States who has a voting slot in the event of a tie in Congress. Nigeria’s VP is a creation of Section 141 of the 1999 Constitution. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Federation, also, the National Security Council, Chairman of the National Economic Council, and a number of parastatals including the National Boundary Commission. His real and relative power however depends upon the duties delegated to him by the President who within the purview of Section 5 of the 1999 Constitution is a monarch, regardless of Section 141 of the Constitution. The value of the Vice President is provided for strictly with regard to the obvious purposes of ethnic and geographical balance, federal character, inclusion and willy-nilly, as a spare tyre in the event of the President’s travel on holiday, death, permanent incapacity, removal from office, or resignation as defined in Sections 143 – 146 of the Constitution.  

This matter is so important that after the conclusion of the party primaries on Thursday, June 9, 2022, the main task is now the announcement of running mates by the Presidential candidates. Everything is tied to this ahead of the June 17 deadline that has been announced by INEC. The focus is on the two main candidates: Atiku and Tinubu. For Atiku, the task is probably easier. His choice is limited to a Southern running mate of Christian extraction. He cannot choose a Muslim. He cannot choose a Northerner. To do so would be suicidal. In the last week, his choice has also been narrowed down to two names: Nyesom Wike, Governor of Rivers State and runner-up to Atiku in the PDP presidential primary, and Ifeanyi Okowa, former Senator and Governor of Delta State. Both are Christians. Of the two, Wike is Atiku’s best bet. He may come across as brash and intemperate, unlike the more urbane Okowa, but Atiku does not need an “ice cream seller” or “a tomato seller” who cannot win massive votes. Wike has built for himself a broad network of influence across Nigeria that can help the PDP. He has strong administrative experience: Chief of Staff, Minister of State and two-term Governor, and enough financial war-chest that can shock even Elon Musk. Okowa has issues even in his own home state. He has very little name recognition. Atiku can choose Wike and tame him to learn how to be sober.

Tinubu has a bigger challenge. He wants to win. He and Atiku are on the last mile with their ambitions. It is now or never for them. Whereas it would be easy for Atiku to narrow down his choice for a VP, for Tinubu, it is a different ball game. We understand he is better off with a Muslim from the North, preferably from the North East. There are good and bad Muslims. If Tinubu must pick a Muslim running mate, as has been argued, his best choice is Kashim Shettima, former Governor of Borno State.  

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place/Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from Heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting/They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them/All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” – Holy Bible (NIV), Acts of the Apostles – 2:2

It was Pentecost Sunday on June 5, the day Christendom celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles as seen in Acts of the Apostles: 2:2 - but in Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria, it was Black Sunday, as demons from nowhere descended on St. Francis Church, Owa-luwa Street in that historic town. It was 12 noon.  The Mass for the day had just ended, but as the congregation filed out of the Church, they were confronted by a team of daredevil assailants who first detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) – so the Police Command says, before turning their guns on the hapless, unsuspecting worshippers. In broad daylight, the House of God became a war zone and an abattoir. More than 38 persons including the aged, children, men and women were mowed down, massacred. It was a most heinous scene of mass murder. Church officials quickly shut the doors to the church, and began to work their phones as the massacre continued outside. The people were helpless. No help came. It turned out that the police unit in the town did not have operational vehicles! By the time the madness was over, the floor of the church had turned crimson red. It was a gory sight of blood, tears and sorrow. St Francis Church is less than 200 metres away from the palace of the Olowo of Owo, the town’s traditional ruler. The dead and the injured were taken to the Federal Medical Centre and St. Louis Hospital, from where doctors sent out distress calls to the public, begging anyone with blood in his or her veins to rush down to donate blood, in order to save lives.    

This happened a week after the Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Bishop Samuel Kalu-Uche and two others were abducted in Abia State. They regained freedom only after paying a ransom of N100 million. On Saturday, June 4, at the Lugbe market in Abuja, a 30-year old member of a local vigilante group was killed for committing what was called “blasphemy”. The same day, gunmen invaded the home of a Catholic priest at St. Mary Immaculate Church in Aho Community, Owukpa in Ogbadibo Local Government Area of Benue State. The priest was not at home at the time of the attack, so his cook was abducted. It would be recalled also that in May, Deborah Samuel, a 200 level student of Shehu Shagari College of Education was also lynched and set ablaze for blasphemy. In the last two months alone, there have been reports of attacks on churches and abduction of priests and church-goers including Saint Patrick Catholic Church, Gidan Maikambo in the Kafur LGA of Katsina State – two reverend fathers and two boys, also at Saint Pius X Parish, Ikot Abasi Akpan in Akwa Ibom State – a catholic priest, and at Solid Rock Kingdom Church where the founder, clergyman John Okoriko was kidnapped.

Also, on March 28, over 100 persons travelling by train between Abuja and Kaduna were attacked by terrorists. Many died. Many were injured. Over 60 persons were abducted. More than 70 days later, they are still in the custody of their terrorist-abductors. In the South East, violence has become routine – in Anambra, in particular, where an emergent group that goes by the name of UNKNOWN GUNMEN has developed a signature style of attacking Local Government headquarters, police stations, and army formations, in open defiance of the rule of law. They also decapitate their victims, after killing them. The North East, the hotbed of terror and insurgency for more than 12 years remains unsafe. The North West is not safe either. Ethno-religious violence in the Middle Belt has reignited old animosities and sentiments. The South West which has been relatively safe in more contemporary times, has now been thrown into a regime of fear and confusion. Owo which had been a peaceful community, for example, has been robbed of its innocence forever. There are parts of the Northern flank of Yorubaland that are now regarded as the den of kidnappers. Fears have been expressed that there are sleeping cells of terrorists who have infiltrated every nook and cranny of Nigeria waiting to pounce and attack whenever their puppeteers give them orders them to do so. These narratives as reported have been horrifying: whole families have been wiped out, a couple visiting family friends was slaughtered, dreams have been shattered, hope has been damaged.

What is happening in Nigeria? The Pope has prayed for the victims of the Owo massacre and for Nigeria. Yesterday, the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Owo Local Government Area held a prayer session at the premises of St Francis Church, Owo and also held a protest over the “evil” occurrence. Owo Council CAN Chairman, Revd. Joshua Oladapo said: “This is a clarion call, to not only the Nigerian leaders but the international community that these incessant attacks on, most especially the Christian body, the peaceful communities in our nation, should not continue.” The point needs to be reiterated that nobody deserves to die or suffer the way Nigerians die, get killed, massacred, beheaded, displaced, assaulted, crushed, and endangered in a mindless manner that throws up a gory spectacle of man’s inhumanity. Human life is the cheapest commodity in Nigeria. Listening the other day, to an interview with Methodist Prelate, Samuel Kalu-Uche and his graphic description of his encounter with his abductors and their glittering, well-sharpened blades of death and the evil in their souls, was scary enough. Nigerians are taken like lamb to slaughter in the North, the East, the South and the West, because the state has failed the people. The state stumbles and falters and the people pay the price for its inefficiency, incompetence and lack of will power to do good in the form of body bags and unending jeremiad. It is ironic that even those who visit mayhem on the land justify their actions on the grounds that they too are angry with government or politicians. There can be no justification, however, for the reign of evil that we have seen. Even the unborn is no longer guaranteed any dignity in Nigeria. In the March 28 attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train, two pregnant women were abducted along with others. One of them gave birth while in captivity. The terrorists even invited their own doctors and midwives to attend to her! Terrorists in Nigeria run medical services and have access to medical consultants. The woman and her child are still in that space. The other pregnant woman was released on “compassionate” grounds. Sad.

While both Christians and Muslims have suffered the pain and misfortune of being Nigerian, living inside Nigeria – that would seem to be the collective burden we all share, in other words, the thingi-fication of our citizenship, it is curious that Christians, Catholics in particular are the main targets of the hoodlums wreaking havoc on the country. The Nigerian Constitution guarantees the right to life (Section 33), right to the dignity of the human person (Section 34), the right to the freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Section 38) and the freedom of assembly and association (Section 40). In Borno, Anambra, Kaduna, Plateau, Sokoto and Owo, these rights are violated with utter impunity, and yet nothing happens until the same rights are violated again.

The pattern is poignantly familiar: some demons show up and inflict injury on our collective psyche, the Nigerian government at all levels, issues statements of condolences and commiseration, and prayers, threats are further pronounced to the effect that the perpetrators of the “heinous, evil, grievous, dastardly, callous, inhuman act will be brought to justice.” In fact, “the government will spare no effort and leave no stone unturned, and will make sure that all resources of state are deployed to address the security challenge in the country.” Everyone says more or less the same things. The vocabulary for addressing mindless killings is so limited that it now sounds like fancy semantics. After a few days, the government and the professional mourners move on with their lives. Nobody learns any lessons. Nobody makes any effort. Shortly after, another violent event occurs and we go through the same routine again, like a perpetual Mobius Strip, in a cyclical bind. If it is possible to even benefit from the misfortune, Nigerian politicians would take advantage of it.

Empathy is important. Politicians must identify with the people whose votes they believe would bring them to power. When the same people are in distress, leaders must stand up to help them.  On Sunday, June 5, when the Owo massacre occurred, leaders of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the Presidential aspirants on the platform of the party had been invited to a dinner with the President at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, ahead of the party’s National Convention scheduled for June 6 – 9, 2022. The dinner could have been rescheduled. But it was not. It went ahead. The usual, standard argument is that the business of the state cannot be hampered by any adversity or that the Leviathan must refrain from showing fear or panic. Except that this could be an academic thing to say. The truth is that politicians tend to consider their own matters more important than the people’s interests unless they can exploit the latter to promote the former. 

Nonetheless, I consider the reaction of the Governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu to the Owo massacre noteworthy. He left the peppersoup and jollof rice that had been prepared for the dinner with the President at the Villa and rushed back to Ondo State, upon hearing that there was tragedy back home and in fact, in his home town and local government. Some other stomach-centred leader could have stayed back and give the excuse that it was better to have dinner with the President. Akeredolu rushed home to share in the grief and lamentations of his people, and shed a tear or two. More importantly, he struck the right notes when he told the people of Ondo state not to engage in any retaliatory attacks.  Religion and ethnicity are combustible issues in Nigeria. A week earlier, it had been said that those who attacked the Methodist Prelate were Fulani. The Prelate even accused the Nigerian Army of complicity, an allegation that was promptly and robustly denied. It would have been disastrous for any responsible leader to encourage an ethnic labeling of what happened in Owo. It was such divisive politics that caused Nigeria’s civil war of 1967 -1970. With its current fragility, and the expansion of its centrifugal joints, Nigeria is in a delicate situation. It cannot afford another blow-out because it cannot survive it and that is why Nigerian leaders must begin to wear their thinking caps.

It was certainly not strange that the Governor and the people of Owo and Ondo State received so many political visitors on Monday, June 6, yesterday. The timing was auspicious. It was the eve of the ruling party’s Presidential primary in Abuja, an event that had been thrown into confusion with the party Chairman’s alleged announcement of a consensus candidate who was diplomatically thrown back into the fray by the Presidency, disowning the deed, thus raising the stakes, in what would be a make or mar Presidential primary for the APC. Owo suddenly became a last minute PR space for the gladiators. Four Presidential aspirants abandoned their last minute campaigns and rushed to the town: Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun and Ekiti Governor –Kayode Fayemi.. Amosun and Fayemi arrived together like twins – they have been twinning for a while in the public space- but Tinubu and Osinbajo arrived separately. Out of the lot, only Tinubu reportedly dropped “something” – a tidy, small change of N75 million – N50 million for the victims, and N25 million for the Church. Small change, yes, and you know why. But how come nobody else donated “something” as Nigerians would say? Osinbajo, Amosun and Fayemi could at least have donated blood at the Federal Medical Centre and St. Louis Hospital to help save lives. Nobody from other political parties, not even the PDP, was on the guest list in Owo, at least not yet. Those who visited have since returned to Abuja for the unfolding epic battle over the election of a Presidential standard bearer for their party.  The APC clearly faces an existential dilemma. Even the delegates are bewildered.  

Whatever the politicians of the APC decide today is their business. Those who win or lose do not deserve our tears or plaudits. It is not an accident that the APC holds its Presidential primary against the background of more bloodshed and pain in the land: it is a sad, graphic, reminder of the agony to which Nigerians have been subjected. It is why the main subject of engagement by any presidential aspirant should be the security and welfare of the people, and their happiness. Money - no amount of naira or dollars, can buy happiness for the people of Nigeria. But good, quality, responsible and responsive leadership can. The man for the job of Nigerian President must be that person who can put an end to the reign of murder, impunity and madness and make this land, whole in pursuit of the common good.    

Nigeria’s 18 registered political parties have been busy, in recent times, with their primaries, in line with the schedule of activities approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the regulatory and oversight body in charge of general elections in the country. The Commission had set a deadline of June 3 for the completion of all party primaries. This was so until May 27, when INEC announced a six-day extension of the deadline, a development which in no way violates any law, but which nonetheless raised questions of bias and collusion between INEC and the ruling All Progressives Congress Party (APC). The matter is as follows: In the first week of May, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), the umbrella body for all the 18 registered parties had pleaded with INEC to extend the deadline for primaries and the submission of names of elected candidates by another 30 or 67 days which would then place the deadline in August, to enable the political parties tidy up their affairs.

The parties said they were facing serious constraints. INEC refused. Its excuse was that any extension at all would disrupt the schedule of activities and that the electoral process being time-sensitive was not something the Commission or anyone could toy with. Political parties were further admonished to develop a culture of discipline and respect for rules. Other political parties began the rush to meet the stated deadline. One party, the ruling party was the most laggard of all. It kept changing and adjusting its plans, programmes and activities. As of Thursday, May 26, the party had conducted only its primaries into the House of Representatives, the Houses of Assembly and Gubernatorial positions. It was yet to conduct Senatorial primaries and the screening of the remaining 23 Presidential aspirants that bought its most expensive nomination and declaration of interest forms for N100 million. Some of the original 28 aspirants had chickened out and forfeited their deposits. Meanwhile, the party had eventually announced May 29 and 30. It clearly faced the prospect of conducting a Presidential Primary without screening the aspirants, which was unthinkable. 

On Friday, INEC announced an extension of the deadline for primaries by six days relevant only to primaries that had not been conducted, and to create room for INEC to train three officials from each party, on how to load names of candidates and their affidavits on the INEC Nomination of Candidates Portal. INEC argued that it was merely using an open window of six days in its schedule of activities. INEC may not have broken any law, but those who are suspicious about its volte face have a point. The case against the Commission is circumstantial but not without value. The extension was announced on the eve of the PDP Presidential Convention after the party was no longer in a position to shift its own programme.

So, at what point did it occur to INEC that a six-day extension was possible? This was at a point when the main opposition party could no longer benefit from the extension, and its rival, the ruling APC would have the opportunity of spying on the outcome of the neighbour’s primary. To the extent that INEC is expected to be completely neutral and independent, its decision to shift the goal-post in the middle of the game was ill-advised. Its duty is to create a level playing field, not give unnecessary advantage to any party. It may insist that it remains independent but that is enough -it must be seen to be so. No one should be surprised if this shifting of the goal post, INEC affirming its position one week, and recanting another week, becomes a measurement of its performance. Going forward, INEC must eschew the tendency to vacillate or demonstrate suspicious malleability. In politics, the law is as important as other considerations ex facie curiae- of morality, confidence and trust, and the integrity of institutions. INEC is perhaps a bit too busy at the moment to pay quality attention to these fine details, busy as it is preparing for off cycle Gubernatorial elections in Ekiti State on June 18, and Osun State on July 16, but those fine details are critical and we have seen quite a few in the primaries conducted so far and their fall-outs.

Let us begin with the excessive commercialization, the “obscene monetization” of the Primaries process, to borrow a phrase from Alhaji Mohammed Hayatudeen, who had to withdraw from the PDP primary on that account. Money has always been an issue in Nigerian politics, but the obscenity of money in the 2022 party primaries is unprecedented. Civil society groups had argued for a repeal of the 2010 Electoral Act and a new Electoral Act with an intention to correct many of the direct and indirect ills in Nigeria’s electoral process. One of the lessons we have learnt in recent days in the course of the party primaries, is that not even the new law corrects the problems. The way money – not Naira, but dollars – has been flowing up and down since the party primaries commenced is frightening. Nobody has accused the lesser known political parties, 16 in total, of money politics, maybe it is the scale that is manageable, but in the two major political parties, the process has been dictated by dollar currency. It is now popular opinion that Nigeria is an emerging two-party state, and except something else happens, Nigeria is currently divided between PDP and APC. In-between, in the last two weeks, are the monetized, over-dollarized, party delegates who make a choice on behalf of party members.

Who is a party delegate? Under Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act 2022, a party delegate is someone who is duly elected, at the local government level in a democratically organized congress, and who is eligible to participate in the congresses, conventions and meetings of the party under an indirect primary system as defined in Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act, which expressly also prescribes the direct, indirect and consensus modes of holding a party primary.  The exclusion of statutory delegates – persons holding public office from the Presidency, to local councilors to party structures and the failure so far of the attempt by the National Assembly to re-integrate them, grants special advantage to delegates who are beneficiaries of that omission. The President having also so far not signed the re-amended Section 84(8), and he has not broken any law in that regard, means that in the primaries that we have witnessed so far, only elected delegates have been the major players. In one or two states, direct primaries have been adopted, but for the most part, the mode of primaries has been indirect. Getting a consensus has been very difficult, except that where we have seen certain aspirants returned unopposed, without consensus, there have been problems. The adoption of an indirect mode of primary should be noted in terms of the reduction in the number of delegates. The process so far has also been swift and manageable because of the adoption of an indirect system. The inclusion of statutory delegates would have been unwieldy and problematic. It has also meant that the aspirants have had to spend less money. But even then, the quantum of election spend has never been more embarrassing.

The extent is demonstrated by some of the melodrama on display. The best job today in Nigeria is to be a delegate at a party primary, at any level. It is a limited, time-specific assignment but it is proving to be a lucrative enterprise. In the absence of statutory delegates, most delegates are at best agents of stakeholders. They are ordinary party members who have no idea what happens within the party and whose assigned task is to vote at a primary, and for them, whatever happens after the event holds no meaning. What is meaningful to them is the fact that they get paid handsomely for the job at hand. A direct primary mode as argued for in places like Ogun (APC), and Sokoto (APC), would have prevented this to some extent, but the indirect primary has meant that the ignorant and unconcerned delegate is the king in the current candidate selection process.

He or she is available for sale to every bidder. He or she can choose to collect money from every aspirant and yet choose to vote as the spirit directs. This has created problems in many cases between the sponsor and the agent. In Kaduna North Federal Constituency, for example, Adam Namadi Sambo, son of former Vice President Namadi Sambo, reportedly gave out N2 million each to 38 delegates, and yet he got only two votes and lost. He has since insisted that his money should be returned! In Ondo state, one aspirant Senator, Ondo Central (PDP), Ayo Akinyelure seeking second term, bought vehicles for party leaders. He lost. He has since asked that his cars should be returned. In Oyo State, a serving Senator who gave out money to aspirants lost woefully. He started gasping for breath. He was revived by concerned supporters who took on the task of fanning him with paper and any available object. In Delta, a House of Reps aspirant was so shocked by his loss that he fainted! There have been reports of aspirants who sold houses and other prized possessions only to lose and end up in hospital wards. 

Most delegates simply obeyed the law of the stomach – man must eat, and danced to the tune of the highest bidder. Someone I know, who took part in the primaries, seeking a Senatorial position, said he had never seen anything so absurd. “It was like an auction process at Sotheby’s”, he said. “The delegates would come to you and ask you to pay a certain amount because your opponent has offered a certain amount. If you play ball, they will leave you alone for a while only to return later to say that a candidate in another party had made a higher offer, and you are expected to add more to your bid. If you again play ball, it would not be long before they would return to ask for more money.” My friend said that at some point, he had to give up. He had not seen anything more bizarre. The delegates were not even asking for inducement in Naira, they preferred US dollars! He concluded that the average delegate was the problem. He or she would have to be transported to the venue of the primary, housed, fed, and paid. The more delegates you could bribe, the better your chances. No wonder there were very loud quarrels over delegates lists in Ogun, Lagos, Rivers and Ebonyi! However, many aspirants lost their deposits because the delegates got better offers. In Nigerian politics, things get worse, always.

It has been recommended that all the delegates who took part in the current primary process should be probed. They have made too much money and are beginning to misbehave, eyeing other people’s women, and disturbing neighbourhoods; some have even bought new cars, and thrown celebratory parties. Their bank accounts should be scrutinized. The aspirants should be probed too. On Saturday, May 28, officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) stormed the MKO Abiola Velodrome – venue of the PDP Presidential Convention in search of suspicious distribution of money to induce delegates. Their velvet vests stood out conspicuously. Many politicians are laughing at their exhibitionism. Who catches a thief by being so physically present? And in any case, election money is not distributed in the open. It is done overnight, long before the event – in hotels, government lodges and other hidden places. What may be admitted, however, is that the presence of the EFCC at the PDP Presidential Convention has sent a strong signal that the current electoral process is corrupt. EFCC should adjust its strategy. It should follow the money electronically. It should target the aspirants before the event, and be more discreet in doing so. We may well have to get to a point whereby aspirants have to declare their assets before obtaining the declaration of interest and nomination forms, and after participating in party primaries. Nobody should also be allowed to use the electoral process for the purposes of corrupt self-enrichment, or fund-raising, simply because the law is silent in that regard. If anything has been proven, it is that the Electoral Act 2022 still needs to be reviewed. There is however no law, no matter how beautifully crafted that Nigerians cannot circumvent. A law serves its purpose only if it is enforced.  

The party primaries were marred by violence in many states, including Lagos, Ogun, Taraba, and Rivers.  Deaths have been reported. In Taraba (PDP), the Governor’s convoy was pelted with stones during the governorship primaries. In Ogun (PDP), and Rivers (APC), there was pandemonium and gunshots as well. In Akwa Ibom (APC), Kano (PDP), and Ogun (PDP), there were parallel primaries. In Rivers (APC), the Magnus Abe faction boycotted the primaries. In Lagos (APC), two governorship aspirants were disqualified. They have since threatened to go to court. In Delta and Sokoto, Gubernatorial aspirants – Festus Keyamo, Cairo Ojougboh in Delta and Abubakar Gada and Balarabe Salame in Sokoto also boycotted the process. In Anambra (PDP), Enugu (PDP), Ebonyi (PDP) and Abia (PDP), there have been defections (Senator Enyinanya Abaribe) and protests – (Sen. Ike Ekweremadu). Whatever anyone thought  a new, updated, and improved Electoral framework would bring has been shown to be defective from the start of its implementation. The National Assembly has since regretted its amendment of Section 84 (8) of the Electoral Act, the own goal it scored against itself and traditional, statutory delegates. It is also in court over the controversial Section 84(12) of the Act. The same Governors and Godfathers that the law was meant to keep at bay are ironically the ones dominating the process. The law has not checked money politics. It has also not checked the demons of ethnicity, regional politics, primordial sentiments, godfatherism and clientelism as amply seen in the just concluded PDP Presidential primary in Abuja. 

Thus, there has been no stronger case made for change and renewal in Nigeria. The entire Nigerian political class is guilty. Where is that saint, with the magic spell, that would save Nigeria? We search in vain for change and progress, especially now that politicians are even trying to create dynasties for their children from Oyo to Jigawa. And who says the chosen aspirants would be good for Nigeria?

Nigeria’s political parties, particularly the two major ones – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC, are in deep crisis and there is no doubt that the smaller parties, already reduced to the level of spectators in the on-going unfolding grand spectacle of politics and melodrama are just as circumstanced as well. My observation is that Nigeria’s political process leading up to the 2023 general elections, promises to be an interesting mix of everything that is good and bad about politics. The prospects are disturbing. What we have seen so far offers little hope. The 2023 general elections may well turn out to be the most problematic since the country’s return to democratic rule in 1999. What are some of the red flags? Let’s start from last week when most of the political parties conducted their ward congresses, to select delegates ahead of the primaries holding this week and the past weekend. There have been reports of violence, uncertainty and confusion. The major political parties even tried to shift the dates, and they did.

The apparent reason was that they were waiting and hoping that the President would assent to the single-item amendment of Section 84 (8) of the Electoral Act 2022, to allow super, special, statutory delegates, that is persons holding elective positions to be part of the delegates selection process at congresses, meetings and the primaries. To the dismay of the party members and the entire political class, the President last week travelled to the United Arab Emirates to attend an event. Before his departure, he signed into law, the Nigeria Health Insurance Authority Bill. He apparently considered that to be more urgent than the National Assembly’s “expeditious consideration” of Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act 2022.

On his return to Nigeria, on Saturday, we were duly informed that the President still did not sign the re-amended Act, instead, he forwarded it to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the office of the Attorney General of the Federal (AGF) for counsel. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s main political parties have been desperate. Last Saturday, there were speculations that the President would grant his assent to the re-amended Electoral Act 2022 before the close of day. Well, that didn’t happen. Three days later, nothing also happened either. As of today, the President is still waiting for advice. The breaking news is that he has done nothing wrong! The Constitution allows him a window of 30 days to concur with, reject, or veto a legislative proposal. He is most certainly still within time.

Elsewhere, I have listened to the argument that President Buhari, obviously a beneficiary of the last minute remedial amendment, would play ball. But he has refused to do so. He is obviously not interested in any benefits. Rather, he has chosen to hide under the cloak of the law to take his pound of flesh!  It should be recalled that he advised the National Assembly while giving assent to the Electoral Bill 2022, as it then was, in February, to reconsider Section 84(12) of the same Act, as it became, with regard to selection of delegates for primaries and the time frame within which appointed officials could be part of the process. The National Assembly refused. Their key objection was that the state Governors were too domineering and needed to be cut to size and that only elected delegates, democratically elected in an indirect system could participate in party primaries. The matter has since gone to court from a High Court in Umuahia, all the way, to the Supreme Court in a suit filed at the apex court by the President and the AGF who invoked the original jurisdiction of the apex Court.

I raised an objection about this last week, simply about the President and the country’s Attorney General invoking the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in their personal capacities as it seemed, but the Attorney General of Rivers State has since been joined in the matter before the Supreme Court, to give the case a cloak of authenticity. For the benefit of those expecting and pushing that the President should give his assent to Section 84(8) as amended, the President can easily hide under the fact that he is not out of time, and that in any case, other related matters are before the courts of the land. I don’t see the Attorney General of the Federation advising him to sign, as quickly as expected. INEC has also made it clear that it has no plans whatsoever to adjust the electoral timetable, and hence, that body would refrain from taking any step or offering any advice that could tie its hands.

Even if President Buhari were to wake up this morning, however, and perform the strange act of signing, impulsively, without advice, it would make no difference whatsoever. The 2023 process has already begun! Delegates have been elected and selected in all the political parties. The APC conducted its ward congresses nationwide last week. The Peoples Democratic Party has also done same and conducted primaries for House of Representatives, Houses of Assembly and the Senate. It is elementary law and a notorious fact that the law cannot have retroactive effect. The latest time any further amendment to the Electoral Act 2022 can have any effect is hereafter, at least with specific regard to the contentious, amended, late-in-time, provision in Section 84(8), which existed in Section 87 of the repealed Electoral Act 2010, but was omitted, overlooked, excluded, and expunged in the new Electoral Act 2022. By so doing, members of the National Assembly scored an own goal against themselves. They excluded themselves. What an absent-minded team of lawmakers? Nobody, not even the legislative aides, were present-minded enough to do a line-by-line check of the proposed new law.

Now, someone suddenly woke up during recess or was prompted by a third party and they all rushed back, Red and Green, to re-amend the law, during extra-ordinary sessions and so-called “expeditious considerations”. Jokers! President Buhari has just shown them that they are in fact an incompetent Assembly, and they caused the current anxiety by their own utter negligence. Let them live with it. Let them watch the primaries on television. The process in any case, has already begun. There is no way the President can lawfully or legitimately, or anyone for that matter, shift the goal post in the middle of the game.  This is what happens when emotions and selfish interests stand in the way of law-making.

My fear is that Nigeria may have again lost the opportunity to have credible elections and the  Buhari administration may have also lost an opportunity in that regard also. Nigerians seem to be heading into a “Wahala season”, to borrow a phrase, from the streets. The lawmakers who made a new Electoral Act 2022 shot themselves in the foot. Now, they are biting their fingers. Karma is a he-goat. The public interest must always prevail. The same Governors and Godfathers that the lawmakers wanted to curtail are now the same persons dictating processes in the states ahead of the party primaries. In more than one state, aspirants have been asked to sign Memoranda of Understanding that they would support whoever the Governor or Godfather anoints at any level. This is generating tension in Rivers, Lagos and Kano; in some states, specifically Enugu State, some characters, political aspirants, have signed an MOU to hand over the future of the state to one man, namely the incumbent Governor! In Kano, Governor Dr. Ganduje has publicly announced his successor. Democracy is being thrown under the bus right before our eyes!

Even at the Federal level, it is being said that President Buhari has an anointed successor and up till this moment, persons best identified as cockroaches and rabbits have been running around in the ruling party pretending to be the heir-apparent of the Nigerian throne. The only man that is benefiting from all of this is President Muhammadu Buhari himself. Everyone goes to him seeking his blessing. They all come to us to say that they have the President’s blessing, and the President says nothing, other than the famous disclosure that he has an unnamed candidate whose true identity he would prefer to hide. It is for this reason that the APC has a large crowd of Presidential candidates, and the party can’t even immediately screen its Presidential aspirants in a decisive manner. In the long run, these aspirants will constitute a problem for President Buhari and his legacy.

 I imagine that some of them will drop out before the party’s Presidential primaries at the end of the month, most of them anyway took the forms and paid N100 million because perhaps small blood rushed into their brains and they became delusional. But they may become bitter allies. The main loser, then, when this is all over, sadly, would be President Muhammadu Buhari himself. It would be remembered how under his watch, an election turned into a long-predicted war, and the falcons stopped listening to the falconer, and “things fell apart.” He still has enough time to restrain the dogs of war: the zoning crisis, the ogre of consensus which has brought out the guns in Rivers and Lagos, the time-bomb of anointments, the devil of money politics, the ridicule of every Dan and Harry seeking to be President, and the money madness that has been unleashed on the land by desperate politicians. 

It is probably safe to assume that by next week, we may begin to have a sense, and gain more understanding, and clarity, of the unfolding electoral chaos in this country. For now, it is clear that even if President Buhari signs the Electoral Act as amended, it would be entirely of no moment with regard to the current process. Otherwise, the door will be left open for a plethora of litigations with opportunistic lawyers trying to pursue both valid and frivolous cases in the process. This is why the courts need to wake up. Judges must be ready to throw out any case that looks like an attempt to waste time unnecessarily. I argued last week that this is boom time, meal time, harvest time for lawyers, let me add: but it must certainly not be so for judges. With members of the Bar and politicians misbehaving aplenty, we need the judex in Nigeria to remain sane and decorous, and be the oasis of restraint, civility and good judgment as Nigeria moves into a transition season, from now till 2023, to herald the emergence of a new set of political leaders. 

Nonetheless, Nigerians are perhaps truly in trouble as alleged and reported. The emergent character of the 2023 process is that Nigeria is running a political system that is dominated by ego, ethnicity, religion and the sheer arrogance of political aspirants. This is the case from the Presidential to the local government level. For the avoidance of doubt, the main issues have been geography, religion and ethnicity – three potent and potentially combustible issues in Nigerian politics. One year to the transition, Nigeria’s political discourse is dominated by the same debilitating, primordial, and retrogressive issues. It is a bad sign. It is a cause for alarm and anxiety. In comparison with two major general elections in recent times, Nigeria comes up really short on the serious issues index in the public domain. France has just completed an election, in April, in which incumbent President Emmanuel Macron was voted in for a second term of five years, the first French President to win re-election since Jacques Chirac in 2002, defeating the far left candidate, Marie Le Pen, and the far-right candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon.

The campaign was about issues that are of direct relevance to the people. The election went into a run-off as expected between  Macron and Le Pen and yet, the results showed the emphasis on ideology and issues. France is looking forward to a legislative election on June 12 but the French have made a choice based on the issues that affect them directly. The majority had their way. Please, where is the Nigerian voter? In Australia, the general elections have also just been concluded, throwing up Anthony Albanese, former Opposition leader of the Labor Party, to replace the Conservative Coalition led by now former Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Albanese promised wages growth, gender equality and more commitment to climate change. And the people voted accordingly. The Greens and Independents and women groups got more votes from climate change supporters and thus enforced a change of government. The new Prime Minister was sworn in yesterday, and almost immediately, he travelled out to attend a Quad security partnership meeting in Tokyo, Japan where he is expected today to meet with US President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The issue in Australia was majorly climate change: the floods and the bush fires, and how Morrison’s government acted as if it was asleep, most of the time. When will Nigerians punish a sitting government, with their votes, for negligence and insensitivity?  In Nigeria, nobody knows what anybody stands for. What are the big issues being debated in Nigeria by the political parties and the aspirants ahead of 2023?

All I hear is zoning, ethnicity, nepotism, religion and money. Nigeria is at a crossroads and it is a bad kind of confused state, where witches and wizards are already having a conclave session. Who will help President Buhari ensure that he finishes well? …“Proverbs to bones and silence” says Wole Soyinka in his book, A Dance of the Forests. Proverbs…indeed.  

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It is goldmine season for Nigerian lawyers, meal time, boom time as every election season has been, but now more than ever.  Every electoral process, pre- during, and after - often provides opportunities for aggrieved politicians to take their disputes to court, and over the years this has been so much the pattern that lawyers often brandish the elementary fact that election petitions are sui generis, that is that they are in special category of their own, unique, peculiar. The originating process for election cases is the filing of petitions based on the framework provided in party guidelines, the Electoral Act and the Constitution, the basic law, and in accordance with stipulated rules of procedure. Some lawyers - from the ordinary ambulance chaser to the Senior Advocate of Nigeria have so  mastered the game that most politicians know who to go to when it is election time, and which judges and courts to consult. Many senior lawyers have their pre-eminence built on their reputation to pursue election petitions.

The net effect is that many politicians, veterans of election petition cases, have also become bathroom lawyers. These persons are so adept at the tactics of election litigation that they sometimes sound smarter than the counsel, when it comes to forum shopping, the resort to obnoxious ex parte applications and how to get judges to descend into the arena and pollute the temple of justice. It is such time again and we have seen signs of this as litigants are now taking pre-election disputes to High Courts. One major feature of the new Electoral Act 2022, which became effective in February 2022, is that pre-election cases are now to originate from the Federal High Courts, but even striking is how the new law provides so many grounds for likely litigations. In 2015, after the election, it was observed that litigations were few. In 2019, there was quite a number. In 2023, there would be a deluge, and the catalyst for this would be the contradictions and omissions in the Electoral Act 2022 which repealed the 2010 Electoral Act.

I should not be misunderstood. The review of the country’s electoral framework was a major subject of advocacy by the Nigerian civil society, lawyers, politicians, the media and stakeholders. Nigerians wanted an electoral system that would address the people’s grievances, as defined by omissions in previous electoral cycles, and the need to bring Nigerian democracy at par with best practices elsewhere, if not exactly, but at least to strengthen the credibility of the process, through technology, and the power of the people to make informed choices. Previous attempts to repeal the Electoral Act 2010, ahead of the 2019 elections failed. The 8^th National Assembly could not find a common ground with the Executive as the President picked issues with language, timing and the contents of the proposed amendments. He rejected the Bill three times. When it became clear that the rigmarole would not end and that the elections were around the corner, the Buhari government claimed that it was better to avoid “uncertainty”.

The popular opinion on this was that the government was not ready for any reform, and would rather play safe to retain power under familiar electoral arrangements. But the agitation for electoral reform did not subside. The pressure remained so strong that the succeeding 9th Assembly that assumed office in June 2019 had to declare as one of its major priorities, a new electoral framework consequent upon a repeal of the Electoral Act 2010. In November 2019, the duo of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege (Delta Central) and Senator Abubakar Kyari (Borno North) moved the motion on the floor of the Senate for the required exercise. In February 2022, the outcome of the process, including public hearings, debates and harmonization between both Chambers of the National Assembly, a new Bill was sent to the President for his assent.  When it appeared as if the President was not going to act within the stipulated time frame or that he would attempt to veto the Bill or raise objections that would amount to a repeat of the debacle of 2018, civil society groups who had been active participants in the process trooped to the streets. Opposition parties made an issue out of the President’s tardiness. Even members of the ruling party became rebellious over the right mode of party primaries that should be adopted in order to ensure a level playing field and check the menace of overbearing state Governors and party overlords who use influence, cash and the power of incumbency to subvert internal party processes.

In the end, the President signed, although with an advisory that the National Assembly should amend Section 84(12) of the Act which in his reckoning violates Section 42(1) of the 1999 Constitution. The lawmakers amended the mode of primaries providing for direct, indirect and consensus options with a strict construction of the meaning of consensus. I shall return to this anon, but for now it is to be said that the redefinition of the Electoral framework was a sort of self-redemption for President Buhari and his administration. Electoral Act 2022, like the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the Discrimination Against Persons Living With Disabilities (Prohibition) Act would be remembered as part of his legacy. The Electoral Act is also a kind of victory for civil society, its persistence and the solidarity of other stakeholders. For the National Assembly, it is a sort of vindication; for once, Nigerian lawmakers, the class of 2019 in Abuja acted intentionally and with courage. Before then, time, money and energy had been wasted to the consternation of the public.     

The law also came as great relief, in part because of some of the game-changing provisions therein, to wit: Section 3(3) which says that funding required for a general election must be released not later than one year before the elections. This makes sense but I doubt if the provision has been complied with. Section 8(5) - on the complete neutrality of INEC officials; Section 29 on early conduct of party  primaries  and submission of list of candidates; Section 34 on the substitution of candidates in the event of death in an election; Section 47: which legalizes the electronic accreditation of voters; Section 50: which allows for electronic transmission of results; Section 54 (2) which allows for the participation of persons with disability; Section 51 which redefines over-voting; Section 65: gives INEC the powers to challenge any fabricated results and declare same void; Section 94 on early commencement of campaigns, 150 days before polling day. These are some of the top provisions in the Act, although there are oversights as well: the failure to include independent candidacy which is now one of the 44 Bills in the Constitution amendment process, diaspora voting which has been overlooked in both instances, and the failure to agree on an Electoral Offences Commission.

But very early in the day, we are beginning to see how controversial the new law may turn out to be. No law is perfect, but this is a landmine for litigations. First, Section 84 (12) which says basically that political appointees must resign their positions ahead of the party primaries in order to create a level playing field for all delegates and aspirants. This particular provision has pitched state governors and the Federal Executive against the National Assembly resulting in litigations from Umuahia to Abuja. The Federal High Court in Umuahia in a matter brought before Justice Evelyn Anyadike by Chief Nduka Edede ruled that Section 84(12) is unconstitutional, illegal and void to the extent of its inconsistency with Sections 37, 42, 66, 107, 137 and 182 of the 1999 Constitution. The Court ruled that the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation should delete the said Section 84 (12) from the Electoral Act. Neither the National Assembly nor the Electoral Commission was joined in the matter. The former engaged the services of Kayode Ajulo Esq. to file an appeal, and after seeking leave of the Umuahia Court which was granted, Ajulo has since filed appellate processes. While that was pending, the Peoples Democratic Party had also filed an appeal in the matter in a suit titled Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) vs. Chief Nduka Edede and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF). On May 11, the Court of Appeal, Owerri Judicial Division, sitting in Abuja ruled in this particular case.

The ruling of the Court of Appeal has created more confusion than anything else, and it is perhaps the structure of the judgment itself that is responsible for this. The text of the lead judgment (there were no dissensions) began with declaratory affirmations that went beyond the main prayers before the court. Whereas it is elementary law that judges can express opinions, obiter dictum, what is of moment is the main substance of the case, the ratio. In this case, after considering the facts of the case, and the issues, the Appeal Court ruled that the High Court in Umuahia lacked jurisdiction and that the plaintiff, lacked locus and a cause of action. In effect, the case in Umuahia which Federal Ministers and others have been relying upon for protection was a nullity. But the same Court of Appeal then went further to say if this had not been the case, it would be proper to declare Section 84(12) unconstitutional. They opined that the matter would be best resolved by the Supreme Court. The media and interested politicians took the Court’s comment and went to town with it. It is not the duty of the Court to play Father Christmas. The Court must speak with clarity, and refuse the temptation to go on a frolic of its own.  

What is further curious is the report in the newspapers, yesterday, that since April 29 President Muhammadu Buhari and AGF Abubakar Malami had gone to the Apex Court to seek an order of the Court to strike out Section 84(12) of the Act.  The National Assembly has also filed a counter-affidavit. But what is the interest of the Federal Government in this matter seeking to invoke the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court? It would seem in this instance that what the Federal Government is doing is trying to take a second bite at the cherry. The President having granted assent to the Electoral Bill 2022, has already exercised his discretion. To have assented accordingly and now go to the Supreme Court is a most unusual move. The executive is at liberty to send further amendments to the National Assembly, to do otherwise would amount to self-indulgence. In yet another case filed by Mike Ozekhome, SAN on behalf of the Governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele, which has now been withdrawn, the constitutionality of the same Section 84(12) was also raised by counsel. We certainly have not heard the last story on the matter of Section 84(12).  

Similarly, Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act 2022 has also raised concerns. The National Assembly suspended its recess and returned to give “expeditious consideration” of the Section 84 (8), to modify it.  In the process of amending the Electoral Act, the lawmakers had forgotten to include statutory delegates in the list of those who could be delegates at party primaries. Section 84(8) refers to democratically elected delegates as persons who can participate in party primaries and conventions; having now realized that they had written themselves out of the law, the lawmakers sought to correct that oversight. This is a reinstatement of a similar provision in the Electoral Act 2010. Otherwise, it would have meant that the President, the Vice President, Members of the National Assembly, Governors and their Deputies, members of State Houses of Assembly, Councillors and other elected officials would have been excluded from the party primaries, not being delegates. But there are landmines here, and the most prominent being the likelihood that the President may not grant his assent to it before the commencement of the election of delegates. The two major political parties have fixed their conventions for the end of the month. Should the President sign after the election of delegates, it means that any special delegate that participates in the Conventions would have violated the same law. That will be a case of the law having retrospective effect which could become a ground for litigation by qualified persons challenging the validity of such participation. It is a potential source of dispute.

The same can be said of Section 84(3) of the Electoral Act which says that neither the party nor INEC can disqualify a candidate except through a court of law. As follows: “A political party shall not impose nomination, qualification or disqualification criteria, measures, or conditions on any aspirant or candidates for election in its constitution, guidelines or rules for nomination of candidates for elections…” This section of the Electoral Act is meant to check the excesses of political parties. Political parties often insist on the authority that they are entitled to conduct their own affairs without any interference by the courts except where it can be established that party rules or the laws of the land have been violated. In the on-going process, political parties have been screening candidates, and we have had many aspirants claiming that they are loyal party members and would abide by what the party says. There are persons who have also been told that incumbents have been anointed for another term and no one should bother to challenge them, and certain persons may be expressly disqualified on this. If an incumbent is not doing well, should any party talk about offer of first refusal or impose the incumbent? We can only expect many cases in court over this, beginning with the pre-election dispute already declared by a PDP member, Mr. Cosmas Ndukwe who is asking the court to stop the PDP presidential primary on the ground that the party has violated its own Constitution on the issue of zoning.

While there is no doubt that the Electoral Act 2022 has introduced some reforms, it would certainly require further amendments. In repealing Section 31(5) of the Electoral Act 2010, the new law at Section 29(5) and 29(6) grants locus in matters involving false submission of information to only an aspirant who took part in the party primaries, not any person, and under Section 84(11) and (12), only the Federal High Court has jurisdiction over party primaries. The Federal High Court is likely to be overworked! Even when an observer has truthful information about a particular aspirant, he would be dismissed as a busy-body meddling into internal party matters. There would be busy days ahead for lawyers. Let them enjoy the harvest.   

City FM is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Programme: CITY TALKS WITH REUBEN ABATI

Time: 12:00pm

Topic: Cost of nomination forms & resignation of political appointees

Date: Saturday, May 14, 2022

Guest: Adamu Garba ( Fmr. APC Presidential Aspirant)

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https://zoom.us/j/92877141732?pwd=VEJWb29OL2VVekZUTHRpdWYxK0xxZz09

Meeting ID: 928 7714 1732
Passcode: 600206

The current presidential election process in Nigeria, the sixth, since the return to democratic rule in 1999, is like no other before it. It is the most contested, the most controversial, and the most demonstrative of the fault lines, and notably, the moral depravity in Nigerian politics and society. By this time in every other Presidential election before now, there was more or less a clear sense of direction and whereas there were contenders, they were few known figures. This time around, the race for the Presidency especially in the two main political parties – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) has become an all –comer’s affair, a lottery in fact, if not a comedy, at the lower end of that spectrum- a farce, a burlesque. About a week ago, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) closed the sale of its expression of interest and nomination forms, and after screening the 17 aspirants that showed interest in the Presidential position, the party came up with a short list of 15. Fifteen: the highest number of eligible aspirants ever in the 24-year history of the party! Today, Tuesday, May 10, the rival APC closes the sale and submission of its expression of interest and nomination forms, having extended this by a week to accommodate the Ramadan holiday.

 The last time I checked, the APC was talking about 40 aspirants, and 24 of them having paid the high fee of N100 million, and the party boasting of over N2.4 billion in its coffers. No other electoral process has been this costly since 1999! By the time the APC closes shop for submissions today, Nigeria would have most probably on its hands, over 40 aspirants trying to be President in just two political parties. There are 16 other political . Where are they? Nobody is talking about them. They have been crowded out by the PDP and the APC, most effectively. Due to lack of capacity and prominence, it would be difficult for any other political party in Nigeria at the moment to provide better traction at the Presidential level, even if many of those other parties may have better aspirants, and that is the truth. How inclusive is the emerging democratic process? How diverse, open and fair are the options available to the Nigerian electorate? The two major political parties: the APC and the PDP project much that is wrong with the current transition process and the move towards 2023. It is worse that there is only one female Presidential aspirant!

And why do we have so many Presidential aspirants, so many that nobody is even focusing on what goes on at the State and local council levels in all the 36 states plus FCT and the country’s 774 local governments, or in other political parties?  It is perhaps not so unusual in other political jurisdictions. In the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential primaries in the United States, a total of 29 candidates declared their intention, the largest number in any Presidential primaries in the US since 1972. The primaries in the US are organized in all the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the five US territories and abroad. It is not the kind of overnight affair that we have in Nigeria, rather it is staggered, and it is in comparison based on the principle of proportional representation.

In 2020, on the US Republican side, as early as April 2019, Bill Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts, Joe Walsh in August, former Governor of South Carolina, and US Rep. Mark Stanford, showed interest in the primary, but the party had earlier chosen Donald J, Trump, who was eligible for a second term.  He became the presumptive Republican candidate in March 2020, after securing a majority of pledged delegates. Trump couldn’t be bothered anyway. He referred to those who dared to challenge him as “stooges”. Trump’s advantage was his incumbency in 2020. Four years earlier a total of 17 candidates tried to get into the primary on the Republican side. Trump won narrowly, even with his 44.95% majority.  Those who point to the US example as evidence that there is nothing wrong if 40 or more persons show interest in the Nigerian Presidency, drawing comparisons from the US, may have the plain evidence of numbers, but the truth is that both systems are different. The numbers do not explain everything. Nigeria’s current situation points to other metrics of analysis, within a cultural, social and individual context.

The Presidential position in Nigeria is the most contested and the most attractive in Nigeria today because the position has been demystified so completely, I would not be surprised to wake up tomorrow morning to hear that a herbalist or a vulcanizer has purchased a Presidential nomination form. This demystification has been gradual, and it speaks to the failure of successive leaders to use the office to do grand things, failing to act at critical moments, alienating the people, creating spectacles of doubt and trust, and thus evoking in the general populace the thinking that even the right-thinking, lowliest placed can lead Nigeria. The bar has been set so low, it seems anybody can be President of Nigeria today. The other day, I was asked: what exactly does it take these days to be President of Nigeria?  While I was trying to put an answer together, I was reminded that once upon a time in this country, a cobbler once aspired to be Legal Adviser of a political party: SDP, Kano State. When the cobbler was told that he needed to be a lawyer to provide legal adviser, he was said to have retorted famously that it did not matter! I dismissed the story as entirely apocryphal but I was again reminded that in this same Nigeria, political parties once appointed men as Leaders of the Women’s  Wing of political parties, and 60-something-year-olds as youth leaders. The Presidential race ahead of the 2023 elections, notably in the two major political parties is beginning to look exactly like that.      

You only need to have a group of friends or access to enough money and then wake up on the wrong side of the bed, one early morning and then just decide that if you and your friends can afford the cost of the relevant forms, you too can be President of Nigeria. Money has been the bane of Nigerian politics. It is worse today.  Sums of N100 million or N50 million may look like chicken change to the Nigerian elite, when that is converted to the dollar, but to the ordinary Nigerian who has no job, facing a high cost of living crisis, and a hostile environment, that is more than a fortune. That poor Nigerian has had to witness one big man after another churning out that fortune to buy a form or two, in the past weeks, in what is at best a gamble. Many of the aspirants know that they won’t go beyond the primaries, or may never win, but they are into the lottery all the same. The Electoral Act 2022 sets a ceiling on campaign finance but it seems that this is being observed already in the breach even before the ink on the law dries off. Nobody is even concerned about the law. The Chief Law Officer of the Federation wants to be Governor in his home state of Kebbi and he is the one saying that a electoral provision arising from an enactment of the National Assembly codified as Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act does not matter, indeed that it will be expunged and deleted summarily, in line with a controversial court ruling, so why should anybody bother about what the law says?

This scant regard for the law is most signposted by the involvement of the Central Bank Governor of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele in the political process. The ding-dong over the alleged political interest of the CBN Governor has been one of the major highlights of the 2023 pre-primary process. For more than a month, a group of persuaders have taken it upon themselves to persuade the CBN Governor that he must seek the Presidency of Nigeria and that he is the best man for the job. The #MeffyforPresident group, as it is known, has held public events, printed posters, placed advertorials in the media, and paraded campaign vehicles in a show of strength and readiness. Twice, Emefiele has had cause to inform Nigerians that he is focused on his job as CBN Governor and that it is God that chooses leaders. Last Friday, a group of Mefy supporters, majorly Rice Farmers decided to take the bull by the horns. They collected expression of interest and nomination forms on behalf of the CBN Governor on the platform of the ruling APC party – N100 million!

This time around, rather than talk about his focus on his job, as the manager of Nigeria’s monetary policy, Emefiele did not disown the persuaders. He said he is consulting and seeking Divine Guidance given the seriousness of the matter, with a caveat that if he chooses to join the Presidential race, he would pay the N100 million from his own earnings in a banking career that spans 35 years. By saying so, the CBN governor simply crucified himself with his own mouth. He has confirmed that he is in fact a politician and that he belongs to Nigeria’s ruling party. It has since come to light that he has been a card-carrying member of the APC since February 2021, and the Chairman of his local ward – Ward 6 in Ika South Local Government Area of Delta, Nduka Erikpume, has confirmed this to be true. Can Nigeria’s CBN Governor be a card-carrying member of a political party and engage in partisan politics? His supporters point to the fact that in the United States, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is a member of the Democratic Party. Before her, her predecessor, Steve Mnuchin was a Republican. The example has also been cited of the Central Bank Governor of Ivory Coast, Tiemono Meyliet Kono who has now been handpicked by President Alassane Ouattara as his country’s Vice President. But what does the law say in all these places? And what does the law say in Nigeria? In the US, the Treasury Secretary, the Fed Chair, and even Supreme Court Justices are identified by their ideological and party affiliations. In Ivory Coast, the CBN Governor had to resign before he assumed office as Vice-President.

In Nigeria, the CBN Governor does not want to resign. He has gone to court, through his counsel, Mike Ozekhome, SAN, in Abuja to argue that he can be Governor of the CBN and an APC Presidential aspirant at the same time, and that Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act as amended, does not apply to him, he being a public officer (under Section 318) and not a political appointee. The matter has been adjourned till May 12, and the defendants – INEC and the AGF, have been put on notice. This would probably end up as one of the most interesting developments in the 2023 electoral process, and the biggest drama in the history of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). It is the duty of the courts to interpret the laws. But it is noteworthy that before the matter is determined, many other stakeholders have been making noteworthy legal, moral and political statements. Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, former Minister of Education and former Minister of Solid Minerals Development says it means that for seven years, Emefiele had handed over, the CBN, a body that is supposed to be independent, representing the interest of all Nigerians, to one political party!  That is a very serious indictment. The PDP added salt to the matter by saying that the CBN has been turned into the “finance department of the APC”. Emefiele is further accused of having broken all relevant laws: Sections 6, 9 and 112 (2)(c ) of the CBN Act, Section 18 of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA), and Section 030422 of the Public Service Rules. Femi Falana, SAN says Emefiele has a legal hurdle to cross. Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN of Ondo State, Ebun Olu-Adegboruwa (SAN), and Oby Ezekwesili, think that Emefiele’s reported ambition is a “a joke taken too far” and like many others, they think he must resign forthwith, or be fired by the President. Emefiele is right now ending his career as the first CBN Governor to jump directly from his office into the frying pan of partisan politics with oil splattered all over him and the entire institution from the Bankers’ Committee to the Banking Halls.    

Somehow, some attempt has been made to mitigate the accruing damage by the report in the last 72 hours that some characters have also purchased expression of interest and nomination forms for the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, as if to show that Emefiele has done nothing wrong. The key difference is that Adesina has not uttered a word. I think he should. He is probably silent because he knows that the AfDB is not Nigeria: rules apply there! His silence fuels the speculations. As things stand, Emefiele and Adesina may never submit any forms for consideration and hence, the public reactions and the law suits including the ex parte application filed by Naapah Bariledum at a Federal High Court, in Port Harcourt, to stop Emefiele, would become academic. But would Emefiele and the CBN ever recover from this? I doubt.   

It is a shame that, in addition to this sordid drama, what is predominant in the Nigerian political landscape is the politics of zoning, ethnicity and religion. There is very little about ideas. France has just completed a Presidential election in which the issues were well-defined, from far-right to the centre and the far-left, and the people made their choice. In Nigeria, there is so much smoke and no clarity. In the APC, every Presidential aspirant talks about how they have been endorsed by President Muhammadu Buhari. If indeed this is true, the President must help bring sanity to this confusing race. The seriousness of the office of the President of Nigeria must not be diminished. It is the most powerful office in the land, without doubt, but it is also the office now in most urgent need of protection from ridicule and hijack.