Even the most ardent supporter of the President, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) must be happy to see him pack his nuisance and return to Daura (or Niger, wherever) come Monday. If there is a regime in this world on which the sun cannot set fast enough, it is Buhari’s. He rode into the presidency in 2015 with his babariga pockets filled with tokens of goodwill and high expectations of renewal. Eight years later, he had bankrupted everything with his sadism and indolence. He came into power in a blaze of glory but his departure will be accompanied with deep sighs of “good riddance.” One good thing about his sociopathic nature is that he will not even be moved to care how much he has let down everyone who once took him seriously.

As much as the buck stops at his table, he could not have been the kind of failure he was without his enablers. They are many, but the most vociferous of these minions was his media team. For a collective that never advanced an original thought or devised any meaningful strategy of public engagement, they had a larger-than-life reach. From buffering Buhari from reasonable public opinion to obfuscating serious issues, they enabled his apathetic stance while the nation faltered under his watch. If they had summoned their will to a higher moral resolve, perhaps Buhari would not be leaving so much wreckage and carnage behind.

If there was something that quickly defined the Goebbelsian ethos of the Buhari regime at its inception, it was the number of media aides recruited. For a man who would not even appoint his federal ministers, he was rather quick to inaugurate a whole nest of media howlers. Close to hand, he had people like Femi Adesina, Garba Shehu, Bashir Ahmed, Tolu Ogunlesi, and Lauretta Onochie. Some of them were accomplished professionals before they took up the job of image laundering for the presidency, but you can hardly look back at key moments during their term and cite instances when they had a shining moment of professional management of public relations and communication. By May 29, when the sun sets on their time, they would all have been indistinguishably diminished by the multi-dimensional failings of the government they served.

At the back end, the administration also maintained a troll farm. There, they had tucked the rabble-rousers, whose job was to loiter around the highways and byways of the internet, defending Buhari against every reasonability and generally darkening counsel with words without knowledge. Partly due to the redundancy of these associates and perhaps too, because of the lack of any apparent strategic thought that went into planning the information management aspect of the Buhari presidency, what the bloated media team ended up delivering was eight years of cacophonous public communication. On his own, Buhari is sure to fail at any leadership role. With the choir he appointed, his shortcomings got more loudly amplified.

To be fair, media managers in the new media age face a peculiar dilemma in managing public relations and communication. Now that virtually anyone for whom the odds align can sidestep the traditional media gatekeepers and reach an indeterminate public directly, responding to the public can be vertiginous. Media aides to non-performing politicians like Buhari have it far worse—for good reasons. They must confront and control public perceptions and sentiments that can be so powerful they trump objective reality. Also, considering how more easily information can be released into the public sphere to stir mischief these days, media aides to politicians find themselves working in a permanent crisis zone where they are putting out either series of small fires or a conflagration (or both at the same time). Continuously being in a self-defence mode can do things to one’s cerebral capacities, and the frequent misspeaks and missteps that typified these aides’ jobs since 2015 is proof that the aides’ wit became addled over the years of managing Buhari’s crisis-prone government. The highest they achieved was a raucous and rancorous engagement with Nigerians whom—judging from their frequent putdowns—they passionately despise.

Yes, one must admit that being a media aide to a Nigerian politician is unenviable responsibility. We live in a polity where poverty is endemic, political promises are aplenty, and people confront their leaders with a sense of urgency that can be incompatible with the slow-paced nature of democratic deliberations. You cannot blame people jaded by the persistent failures of leadership for wanting quick-fire solutions. Sadly, the cohort of mostly myopic leaders that Nigeria is plagued with can hardly envision solutions to what bedevils us. Consequently, our interactions with them cannot but be defined by antagonisms, bitter exchanges, and mutual frustrations. That is why media aides to politicians turned their social media handles into workstations where they engage the public in crass and classless exchange of clap backs and other claptrap.

When leaders have nothing to show as solid achievements, their media aides must justify their existence by becoming one-trick ponies whose expertise begins and ends with fighting random people online. Aides managing a truant boss like Buhari have had it really hard. They spent the eight years inventing stories, deflecting questions bordering on accountability to the public, punching down at political opponents and their supporters, pandering to their current paymasters while putting up a grand show for prospective ones, and generally maintaining a facade of government functionality. While it must have been exhausting work for them, many of those activities are ultimately useless because neither their approach nor the substance of their communication advanced the course of democracy (or even our national values).

Our relationship with our leaders has ontologically been acrimonious, and they lack the political savviness to redefine it meaningfully. Our leaders probably cannot function without antagonising Nigerians, and their public relations managers too cannot act outside that frame. The conception of their professional responsibility is locked into that debilitating cycle such that they can hardly imagine public interaction without slap downs and punch downs. Even if they discern that the irascibility some people display online is borne of frustration with a polity where nothing ever happens, they still cannot demonstrate empathy. They must necessarily antagonise their fellow citizens. Once behind the high walls of Aso Rock, they can no longer afford to see humans whose survival is threatened by the cluelessness of their employers and who have every reason—and right—to make demands on the government. All they see are pesky irritants who will not let them eat in peace. Their revert is duplicity, deceit, and the shallow-mindedness that suffuses every part of their communication.

Looking at the spin they put out during those times Buhari was hospitalised outside of the country, you saw people in whom there is no truth. You assess how they dragged the presidency on social media like a rag cloth, and you see professional misfits. You consider the childishness of those who classified a section of Nigerians that refuses to drool before them into “wailers,” and what you see are small-minded bigots in high places. When you recall how these people poorly responded to the serious issues of insecurity that imperilled many Nigerian lives, you see people drained of their humanity. When you evaluate their double-fanged responses to the problems of corruption and its consequent denudation of the Nigerian value system, you see a bunch of frauds who add a lack of reflexivity to their hypocrisy. When your measure their dismissive attitude toward the economic hardship that Nigerians suffered under the watch of their inhumane principal, you see people shorn of their capacity to be reasonable humans.

On Monday, they will exit their respective offices (save for those lucky to be reabsorbed by the incoming administration). We will not miss them. Goodbye to their játijàti!

Since he who asserts must prove, the onus is now on the Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle to provide evidence that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, demanded a bribe of $2 million from him. “It is not just to always blame governors. It is not only governors who have treasury, the federal government also has. What does the EFCC boss do to them? As he is claiming he has evidence on governors, let him show to the world evidence of those at the federal level,” Matawalle said in a recent interview with BBC Hausa Service. “If he (Bawa) exits office, people will surely know he is not an honest person. I have evidence against him. He requested a bribe of $2 million from me and I have evidence of this. He knows the house we met, he invited me and told me the conditions. He told me governors were going to his office, but I did not. If I don’t have evidence, I won’t say this.” 

The battle between Matawalle and Bawa is bound to be interesting, beginning from next week when the governor would have been stripped of his immunity from prosecution. I choose to reserve my opinion until the governor presents concrete evidence to back his weighty allegation, but Bawa must understand that you don’t fight corruption with street gossip or fishing for evidence. What irks Matawalle is the reported invitations to outgoing governors and their commissioners over alleged corruption and abuse of office. Targeting state governors while turning a blind eye to the misdeeds in Abuja, according to Matawalle, is unacceptable.  

Whatever his motivation, Matawalle has a valid point on the EFCC modus operandi. The idea of ‘probe’ that the commission revels in is a throwback to the military era when accused persons were presumed guilty until they could prove their innocence. Under democracy and the rule of law, the presumption is that of innocence until evidence is adduced in a court of law to secure conviction. Leaving federal officials to target governors, as self-serving as Matawalle’s argument may be, is also wrongheaded. There are several federal government agencies that manage resources far bigger than what is available to all the states combined. Yet, heads of these agencies are never subjected to public ridicule like governors routinely are by the EFCC, as Matawalle stated.  

Meanwhile, the commission should be concerned about its future under the presidency of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Two years ago, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu signed into law a controversial bill that empowers the Lagos State Anti-Corruption Commission to take over “all anti-corruption and financial crimes cases” involving the finances and assets of the state government being investigated by any other agency.” The executive bill initiated by the governor enjoyed speedy passage by the House of Assembly before being signed into law. Section 13(5) says, “The Commission shall have power to the exclusion of any other Agency or body to investigate and coordinate the investigation of corruption and financial crime cases involving the finances and assets of the State Government.” The Lagos law was meant to castrate the EFCC whose powers over states have always been in contention. We wait to see what Tinubu will do with EFCC once he moves from the passenger’s side to the driver’s seat of power in Nigeria, but the Commission’s problem goes beyond one man. 

In January this year, a former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president, Mr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, questioned the legality of EFCC on several actions, especially regarding states. Section 214(1) of the constitution (as amended), according to Agbakoba, says: “There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigeria Police Force, and subject to the provisions of this section, no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.” Since EFCC was a creation of the National Assembly (and none of the constitutional amendments we have had over the years has inserted it into the Constitution), Agbakoba avers that the commission does not have the powers to interfere with the activities of state governments. “The Supreme Court in many of its decisions has held that federalism means two autonomous and independent governments and if that is correct, the EFCC does not have the right to go to the state and examine their accounts,” Agbakoba argued. 

Established in 2003, there is no doubt that the EFCC has done much in the past two decades to fight corruption. The commission has secured high-profile convictions, especially of governors, and helped to raise the consciousness of Nigerians regarding the lack of transparency and accountability that defines public service in our country. But it is also evident that the EFCC is derailing, and its method is becoming counterproductive. Naming and shaming may have its use, but it is neither sustainable nor is it the right way to fight a serious crime. There are many glaring examples to cite but one stands out. 

Shortly after Mr Willie Obiano handed over as Governor of Anambra State on18^th March 2021, he was intercepted and stopped from travelling to the United States, arrested, and transferred to Abuja. While being held incommunicado, the EFCC let it filter out that Obiano was being held for fiddling with the ubiquitous ‘security vote’ and was to account for some N47 billion. Then the EFCC leaked a video of Obiano being interrogated by their operatives as well as a photograph of him in an undignifying posture. While the uproar that greeted the unprofessional conduct was yet to die down, Bawa hit the media with allegations about another unnamed governor. “Very soon, Nigerians are going to see some of the things that we are doing. I can tell you for free that the new Department of Intelligence that we have created is working wonders. They have come up with a lot of intelligence,” Bawa said. “In one of them, a governor in a Northcentral state within the last six years (one individual) has withdrawn over N60 billion in cash.”  

We hope the EFCC has a watertight case against this “N60 billion in cash” Northcentral governor. But nobody is surprised that despite the drama, the Commission has not been able to press any serious charge against Obiano. It is typical. Two years ago, the Corruption and Financial Crimes Cases Monitoring Committee (COTRIMCO) set up in November 2017 by the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, blamed delays in financial crimes cases on a combination of factors, but chiefly on poor prosecution. According to COTRIMCO, “offenders are charged to court before proper investigations of the charges are done, and afterwards, expecting the court to detain such alleged offenders till conclusion of their investigations”.   

As I have reiterated many times on this page, fighting corruption goes beyond making sensational claims not backed by evidence. What is required are investigative and legal structures that will lead to trials and convictions of those who are guilty, without tarnishing the reputation of innocent people. That Nigerans are not yet able to draw the line between when the EFCC is putting up a media show and when it is engaged in the nitty gritty of fighting corruption is the reason the Commission is fast losing credibility.  

Beyond the Matawalle and Bawa battle, there are interesting days ahead for the EFCC. Whatever happens, the Commission must understand that fighting corruption requires some measure of tact and sobriety. Investigation of such serious crimes takes time, painstaking efforts and a coherent strategy founded on due process of law. The Gotcha approach that has become EFCC standard practice, as I have highlighted on this page several times in the past, can only provide momentary entertainment. That is not what Nigeria needs at this time given how the malaise has almost destroyed the moral fabric of our society.  Not to mention the economy. What we require is a thorough, methodical, and strategic war against corruption. It is not too late for the EFCC to change their tactics. 

Dangote: Nigerian Name, Global Brand 

On Monday in Lagos, Alhaji Aliko Dangote raised the stakes higher when President Muhammadu Buhari was joined by colleagues from Ghana, Togo, Niger Republic, Senegal, and a representative of the Chadian president to commission his mega refinery. Situated on 6,180 acres (2,500 hectares) of land at the Lekki Free Trade Zone, the Dangote Refinery boasts of the largest sub-sea pipeline infrastructure in the world (1,100 kilometres) for crude supply. And with the capacity to process about 650,000 barrels per day, it is also the largest single-train refinery in the world. 

While I join in commending Dangote for breaking business barriers on the continent, I am aware that there are people who do not share in the euphoria of the moment. I have heard the argument that Dangote enjoys enormous government patronage and support for his projects. And not all of them can be dismissed as sour grapes. When a man amasses the humongous wealth available to Dangote in our kind of environment, there will always be legitimate questions to ask, especially by competitors. But as the late global icon, Mr Nelson Mandela of South Africa, also reminded us in the counsel he gave to his country’s music star, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, “It is what we make of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”  

Former Cross River State Governor, Mr Donald Duke, once told me that he first met Alhaji Aliko Dangote in 1978 (the year he started his trading in commodities) and that he could still remember his (Dangote’s) business contemporaries at the time in Lagos. After reeling out a few names that I was hearing for the first time, Duke muttered: “only God knows where those guys are today. So, that tells you something about Dangote’s resilience”. From sugar to salt to flour to fertilizer to frozen fish to baby food to poly bag to cement, Dangote was just another trader (and importer) less than three decades ago. Today, he is a producer of some of those commodities not only for our country but also for the African market. 

Last month, at the invitation of its Chief Upstream Operating Officer, Mr Bala Wunti, I was in Lagos to speak at the Annual Value Assurance Review (AVAR) of the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS). But as I recalled in a short piece that I wrote the day after, the most insightful presentation came from Dangote who shared some of the challenges he faced while trying to build the refinery. He was compelled to construct his own port at Lekki. He erected over 200 kilometres of gas pipelines across different projects. He built his own power plants. He bought his own cranes and mined his own granite. There is hardly any sector that Dangote has not had to invest in because of the absence of critical infrastructure that can support mega projects in Nigeria. What his story therefore teaches is that as tough as the Nigerian business climate may seem, those who dare still wins. 

Meanwhile, the interesting subtext to the Dangote Refinery story is the role played by three principal characters: Ibikunle Amosun, Dapo Abiodun and Babatunde Raji Fashola. The refinery was to be cited at the Olokola Free Trade Zone in Ogun State then governed by Amosun. Chairman of the trade zone at the time was Abiodun, the current governor. When the project could not fly in Ogun State after several months of negotiations, Dangote came to Lagos where Fashola (then state governor) embraced the idea. But it was a herculean task convincing Ibeju Lekki landowners and Lagos white cap chiefs to buy into the project. At one meeting in 2014 where Fashola “handed over” Dangote to these chiefs, there was open dissent. But he was determined to have the project in Lagos. Given what transpired a decade ago, if the project had failed, those who conspired against Dangote in Ogun State would probably be hailed today for their “foresight”. Now that it has worked out, the same people are reading from the Book of Lamentations while those who opposed Fashola in Lagos nine years ago are waxing lyrical about the refinery. Such is life!

I congratulate Dangote on this rare feat as I wish him success in his next frontier-breaking endeavour. 

In 2019, Kwarans turned to AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to lead the state through the worst socio-economic crisis since its inception. He promised to make government work for all, share the dividends of democracy to the remotest of communities, and make resources work for the public good. Four years later, records show that the newly-elected chairman of Nigerian Governors' Forum (NGF), AbdulRazaq has created jobs, boosted enterprise and industry, and rebuilt the economy on a new foundation for growth and prosperity. 

There is, however, one more thing. Though it appeared under-celebrated, he might have pushed innovations and reinvented Government more than most governors in recent years.

From 2019 to 2023, Kwara now has added at least six new institutions with most being products of legislation, targeting far-reaching reforms in public service delivery, social development, and economic prosperity.

These include Kwara State Social Investment Programmes (KWASSIP); Kwara State Geographical Information Service (KW-GIS); Kwara State Sports Commission; Kwara Health Insurance Agency (KWHIA); Kwara Leading Education Achievement and Reform Now (KwaraLearn); Kwara Education Trust Fund (KWETF); and Kwara Residents Registration Agency (KWSRRA). 

As this article would reveal, the introduction of these institutions had a significant impact on the scope of the administration, as well as deepened reach and efficiency, and delivery of government policies and programmes in the last four years. 

Kwara State Social Investment Programmes (KWASSIP)

The establishment of this agency will never be talked about enough. So also will the impacts. 

For a state sliding down the tables on critical socio-economic indices such as poverty index, unemployment, and comatose local enterprise, a well-rounded policy had to be introduced to arrest the consequences of a failing economy and social system. 

The introduction of KWASSIP, a localised but upgraded version of the federal government's NSIP, with four components, has not only reversed the trends but also pushed Kwara further up the tables in the socio-economic ratings in the country. 

KWASSIP is the first legislated social investment programme in Nigeria. The legislation is now being emulated by the federal government. 

Unemployment in the state was 21.1% during Q3:2018. However, the unemployment rate for Kwara state improved to 13.8% during Q2:2020 from 21.1%, representing a 7.3% improvement, according to the National Bureau of Statistics Report (2020). 

Similarly, the state's poverty index rate which stood at 30.2% in 2020, dropped significantly to 20.4 as at 2022, according to the World Bank State by State Poverty Index in Nigeria -- just two years after the creation of KWASSIP. 

Under the four components, KWASSIP has about 200,000 beneficiaries including 'Owo Arugbo', 'Owo Isowo,' 'Digital Kwara,' 'Kwapreneur,' and 'Kwasupport.'

A well-run social investment scheme reduces hunger and poverty, promotes enterprise and local businesses to keep the economy running. Hence, it averts a significant shortfall in revenue generation as a result of a dearth of economic activities. 

Although the internal revenue generation plummeted in 2020, a year after it hit an all-time high, it quickly bounced back in 2021 and by 2022, it posted unprecedented records. 

It would be hard not to connect the stability the social safety scheme provided in safeguarding and protecting the people and the economy from hunger and collapse before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is equally noteworthy how it became the state's coordinating agency for national, multinational and global interventions from development partners including the federal government, Bank of Industry, World Bank, United Nations, Google and Microsoft. This expertise has reinvented key partnerships and attracted opportunities worth millions of dollars to the state. Yet, the future looks even more assured. 

Kwara Leading Education Achievement and Reform Now (KwaraLearn)

With a firm understanding of the place of education in human development, one is safe to say AbdulRazaq may become the most impactful and influential Kwara governor for many generations. 

At the center of this belief is his ambitious repositioning of basic education in the state. Although the public is quick to reference the renovations of over 600 schools, impartial employment of about 5,000 new teachers, and prompt payment of their salaries when counting his interventions in the basic education sector. The game changer in the Kwara basic education sector is KwaraLearn. It was introduced to change the system of teaching and enhance learning outcomes in the public schools. 

Prior, the reports from the State of Basic Education in Kwara State study conducted by the KwaraLearn team were disturbing. For context, data collected from 64 schools and 2,558 pupils showed that only about 1 out of 5 could solve a simple word problem using division or subtraction. Similarly, only about 4 out of 10 could study about other subjects throughout the grades, indicating weak numeracy and reading skills. 

The kernel of the issue was teachers' utility and attendance, pedagogical practices displayed by teachers, and the amount of instructional support that they received.

The introduction of KwaraLearn, a transformative programme using data and technology to implement modern approaches and instructional techniques, is leading the delivery of 21st century education in Kwara. Kwara's comes only after Lagos' and Edo's in the entire country. 

As of April 14th, 2023, the end of second academic term, the programme is now running in 10 LGAs in the state. Data released by the agency also puts the number of pupils impacted by KwaraLEARN at 125,461 in 873 public schools. 

KwaraLearn has successfully re-trained over 6,000 government teachers in line with standard pedagogical practices and distributed 5,669 tablets to guide lesson plans and assessment, eradicating perennial lack of standardisation of lesson plans and adherence to curriculum. It is also fostering work accountability and improved learning outcomes. 

With distribution of 1,184,915 textbooks and teaching aids, it is expected to enhance the reading levels in all subjects. It is good news that there have been good postings on all the key performance indicators of the programme, including teachers motivation, teachers and students attendance, time on task, and outcome of learning. But it is even better news that Kwara is tipped to be one of the top 5 subnationals in education in the country in the near future. Do you feel the immortality of AbdulRazaq now?

Kwara Geographic Information Service (KW-GIS)

The Land and Property management system in Kwara State could make use of technology and become data-driven to improve accountability and efficiency. 

Therefore, the Kwara State Bureau of Lands, Office of Surveyor-General, Physical Planning Authority and Directorate of Urban and Regional Planning ceased to exist as separate Agencies with the establishment of Kwara State Geographic Information Service (KW-GIS) by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. 

As spelt in the bill of creation, the development merged all the four (4) previous Agencies to perform their functions and duties under KW-GIS.

They are now known as Directorate of Lands, Directorate of Physical Planning and Development Control, Office of Surveyor-General/Directorate of Survey, and Directorate of Urban and Regional Planning respectively.

The four previous Agencies also come under the leadership of the Executive Chairman, Kwara State Geographic Information Service (KW-GIS).

KW- GIS' objectives were to improve land and property files, decrease data loss, preserve mutilated records, enable easy retrieval of data, receive reports and statistics, and improve long term planning. This is being run with a computerized information system for Land and Property Administration.

Before the creation of KW-GIS, land and property administration in the state was considered obsolete, bogged down by bureaucracy, and mired by unplanned physical development and lack of accountability. 

In its 2022 report, KW-GIS generated about N1bn in its operations through applications for land titles from prospective landowners in the state. 

Coming barely two years after establishment, this feat was made possible due to reforms introduced to achieve the vision of modern land administration in line with international best practices which has helped in stabilizing the service.

Admirably, the use of automated operations had also made the application and processing of a Certificate of Occupancy (CofO) possible within 30 days and prospective builders in the state could obtain a building permit within 15 days of application.

But it is all the more remarkable that Kwara State Government has not only successfully built a system to avert the loss investment opportunities which is often one of the banes of improper land administration, but it has also launched an ambitious urban and physical planning to maximise social growth and economic development in the future. 

With its unveiling of the Ilorin Urban Masterplan which is the second of its kind since the creation of the state in 1975, the state capital has been repositioned for sustainable socio-economic development in the next 20 years. It is cheery news that the government is looking into producing the same for the other two senatorial districts. The introduction of KW-GIS shows the possibilities of innovations and goodness in reinventing government. Nothing must be spared in strengthening the agency for better services. 

Kwara State Sports Commission 

Sports, despite the fact that it used to be one of the high points of the state, was in comatose in 2019. It suffered from lack of critical investments in facilities, bureaucracy, and bad management. But within four years, Kwara found national acclaim in sports development. The turnaround included the reintroduction of the sports festival in 2020– 15 years after it was last held. Afterwards, the state football team, Kwara United, returned to the premier league for the 2021/2022 season. 

To build on the achievements, critical changes needed to be made to truly open up sports development in Kwara State in line with emerging sporting realities. 

In August 2021, Kwara State Sports Commission was created to reduce bureaucracy, foster sports engagements and management, and lead reforms to enhance sports development. 

The Commission was carved out of the Ministry of Youths and Sports Development. 

As it is evident in the sports participation, promotion and developments, sports-loving states have made a trend of focusing on management of sports under a commission. Such now includes Delta, Edo, Lagos states, etc with Kwara becoming the 9th state to join the league in the country. 

In what stakeholders called an improved participation in sports, Kwara is one up in sponsoring athletes to National and International Tournaments

The Commission is also credited with leading Kwara United to the qualification for continental competition after many years. 

It is now leading the ongoing efforts to give infrastructural facelift to several sporting facilities in the state by fostering key partnerships with private bodies and philanthropists. The fruits of this include the regrassing of the Kwara State Stadium Mainbowl with the support of A.U Mustapha SAN, the remodeling of the Stadium Complex entrances courtesy of Rotamedics Pharmacy. 

This is in addition to supervising the construction and management of the following impressive government sports facilities including the soon-to-be-completed 8-wing Squash Court, new Table-Tennis Hall, renovation of the Swimming Pool complex, newly renovated baseball and volleyball park, Kwara Football Academy students' hostel, among others. These were facilities majorly left to rot out of neglect because of proper sports administration in the state. 

The creation of the sports commission is not only solving that but is proving capable of decentralising sports, building investors' confidence, and producing talents for the global scene in the next few years. It could not have come any better than now for the state to catch up with lost grounds in the sports sector. 

Kwara Health Insurance Agency (KWHIA)

Barely a year into his administration, Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq launched a health insurance scheme for residents, saying the initiative would boost life expectancy and the economy. It was another major step in Kwara’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 by 2030, which promotes access to good health and well-being. 

Quite a segment of the public has argued that it is not new. The point has been that two previous administrations headed by Bukola Saraki and Abdul Fatah Ahmed pursued community health insurance and state health insurance respectively. However, while Saraki's community health insurance scheme did work and became outdated, Abdulfatah's only existed on papers despite being launched. It was not active. 

The implementation of Kwara Health Insurance Agency (KWHIA) is officially credited to the administration of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq who got it funded and running.

This is a worthy addition to the achievement of the governor in the primary health care sector, together with the resuscitation of Kwara State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (KPHCDA). 

As of the official launch of Phase II of health insurance enrollment in October 2022, the scheme had over 50,000 beneficiaries in two years. 

It had earlier enrolled 29,000 Kwarans through the FG-funded Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), which the state invested in, before onboarding the 21,750 new enrollees to bring the total beneficiaries of free healthcare in the state to 51,750 for 2022 - 2023.

What is impressive is the scope of the agency in partnering with private bodies, philanthropists, and community development associations to widen the net of beneficiaries, making healthcare accessible to an average Kwaran.  

KWHIA offers three distinct State-sponsored health care plans to residents of Kwara State at subsidised rates. The Informal Health Plan which targets artisans, farmers, self-employed, families is put at N6,000/Year. The Formal Health Plan which is for local and state civil servants, private organizations go for N9,000/Year. The last package, Equity Health Plan, is available for low-Income families, vulnerable groups at rates stipulated by laws. 

The healthcare package benefits include consultation, eye care, neonatal, impatient care, chronic care, maternal care, emergency care, laboratory investigations and diagnostic tests, surgical services, among other specialities numbering over 250 scopes. 

Between 2020 and 2022, KWHIA shows that it performed 107 surgeries, including 48 cesarean sections and 138 deliveries; managed over 200 diabetic and hypertensive cases; with at least 1,324 other services during the period.

The scheme deserves a top mention in AbdulRazaq's people-driven policies and decisions in his first tenure. 

Others are Kwara Investment Promotion Agency (KWIPA) and Kwara Ease of Doing Business Council. While the former is not running in full gear yet, the latter is leading the state's reforms on Ease of Doing Business. According to the 2nd Subnational Ease of Doing Business ranking by Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Kwara recently moved three places up to 27th from 30 in 2021. 

Although elections have been held and winners have emerged, the true winners are Kwarans who have a chance to continue benefiting from the above-mentioned institutions that were all created in the last four years in the state. But it does suffice to put the records in context for the sake of the greater Kwara story when more will be written for May 29, 2023 to May 29, 2027, by His grace.

Abdullateef is Special Assistant to Kwara Governor on Communications 

How much petrol is consumed daily in Nigeria? The NNPCL and The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) do not know. Neither does the Ministry of Petroleum Resources nor the Ministry of Finance. The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) does not know. Nobody in the Nigerian government seems to know how much petrol is consumed daily in Nigeria. Every agency has its own estimated daily PMS national consumption rate. Yet, the amount of implicit fuel subsidy paid is based on the daily volume of PMS consumed and the difference between the implicit cost of importing the PMS and its actual price at the pump. Padding the daily PMS consumption rate is the foundation of the cesspool of corruption that constitutes the fuel subsidy regime.

The daily PMS consumption rate was less controversial and more reliable prior to 2011. The daily PMS consumption rate was 21.45 million litres in 2002,  21.72 million litres in 2003 and 25.91 million litres in 2008. It was 26.74 million litres and 29.81 million litres in 2009 and 2010 respectively. In February 2020,  after a detailed study, the DPR  concluded that the national daily PMS consumption rate was 38.2 million litres. Thus, the best indicators of the daily PMS consumption rate can be obtained from the 2002-2010 trend with the February 2020 DPR rate as a control. The daily consumption rate from this trend eliminates the corrupt padding of daily PMS consumption rate data after 2010.

In 2011, the average daily PMS consumption rate was 29.3 million litres, while the government paid  subsidy of 2,110 billion Naira based on  an estimated daily PMS consumption rate of 56.9 million litres. The government claimed that the difference of 27.6 million litres per day was smuggled to neighbouring countries. However, this difference was due to companies making false subsidy claims on undelivered fuel. These corrupt practices were revealed by the 2012 Farouk Lawan House of Representative Ad-Hoc Committee investigation and report. The committee found deliberate neglect for record keeping, payments for billions of litres that were never supplied, and more than $6.8 billion refunds due to the Treasury. The Federal government’s Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede committee indicted 25 companies for  over payments of $2.5 billion and questioned an additional $1.5 billion worth of transactions. In 2012, 1,360 billion Naira was paid as subsidy based on the importation of 43.1 million litres of PMS per day. But, the daily PMS consumption rate was 30.3 million litres. The remaining 12.8 million litres per day of PMS was never delivered.

Subsidy payments of 1,320 billion Naira were made in 2013 on the basis of a daily PMS consumption rate of 48.1 million litres. However, daily PMS consumption rate was 31.3 million litres, leaving a 16.8 million litres per day discrepancy due to corrupt padding. In 2014 and 2015, OPEC data from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources showed daily PMS consumption rates of 45.1 million litres and 48.7 million litres respectively. However, subsidy payments of 1,220 billion Naira and 654 billion Naira were made on daily PMS consumption rates of 52.0 million litres and 51.8 million litres for 2014 and 2015 respectively. The daily PMS consumption rates were 32.4 million litres in 2014 and 33.5 million litres in 2015. The figures from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NNPC and other MDA were padded for corruption purposes.

The falsification or padding of daily PMS consumption rate data for corruption purposes continued unabated during the 2016 to 2023 period. In November 2016, the NBS claimed that 51.9 million litres per day of PMS was consumed in the first 9 months of the year. The NNPC, on the other hand, claimed that 47.6 million litres of PMS a day was consumed. Subsidy payments of 240 billion Naira were made. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2016 was 34.6 million litres. The difference of 13.1 million litres per day was padding of import data and never delivered. In 2017, the PPPRA used 55 million litres a day for fuel subsidy payment of 154 billion Naira. OPEC/NNPC data was a daily PMS consumption rate of 50.2 million litres. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2017 was 35.8 million litres.  The difference of 19.2 million litres per day was padding of import data and never delivered. In 2018, the NNPC confirmed that it has “no confirmed data or statistics on fuel consumption in the country.  corporation relies on figures provided by PPPRA”.  The PPPRA assumed a daily PMS consumption rate of 53.6 million litres for subsidy payments of 1,190 billion Naira. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2018 was 37.0 million litres. The difference of 16.6 million litres per day was padding of import data and never delivered. An NBS spokesman declared, “At the moment we (NBS) do not have any reliable data on fuel consumption yet”. In order to determine the actual PMS daily consumption rate, the DPR commissioned a new technology called the Downstream Remote Monitoring System (DRMS), aimed at checking illegal activities in the downstream sector and providing accurate data.

In October 2019, PPPRA reported a daily PMS consumption rate of 57.2 million litres for subsidy payments of 508 billion Naira. The rate was so high that the NNPC set up the automated Downstream Operations and Financial Monitoring Centre (DOFMC) to determine the actual national PMS daily consumption rate. Subsidy payments of 508 billion Naira were made in 2019. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2019 was 38.2 million litres leaving a difference of 19 million litres a day due to padding and corrupt practices. The Ministry of Petroleum Resources put the daily PMS consumption rate in 2020 at 52 million litres for subsidy payments of 864 billion Naira. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2020 was 39.4 million litres. In 2021, the NNPC stated that “ import in the year 2021 was 22.35 billion litres, which translated to an average supply of 61 million litres per day”. Subsidy payments of 1,430 billion Naira were made. The daily PMS consumption rates was 40.7 million litres. The NNPCL falsely claimed that the difference of 20.3 million litres per day was smuggled to neighbouring countries. We have shown that there is little or no smuggling of Nigerian petrol to neigbouring countries. This is just an IMF myth that is not supported by petrol input-output data of these nations.

In January 2022, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, declared that the daily PMS consumption rate was 65.7 million litres. The NNPCL stated that the average daily PMS supply from January to August 2022 was 68 million litres based on truck-out data. But, the daily PMS consumption figure was 42.0 million litres. The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, argued that PMS smuggling was responsible for the discrepancy in data from different government sources. He stated, “The imported products come to Nigeria, and from there filters out of our borders to neighbouring countries. We are inadvertently subsidizing the whole of Africa.” But, smuggling the difference of 26 million litres per day across our national borders implies that 788 PMS tankers with 33,000 litres capacity illegally crossed the borders daily. This does not make much sense. It is more likely that the daily PMS consumption rates data are being falsified and padded to enable the stealing of public funds under the guise of subsidy payment. The YTD daily PMS consumption rate as of April 7, 2023 was 65.9 million litres according to the NNPCL. The actual daily PMS consumption rate was definitely lower at about 43.3 million litres.

We have shown that the difference between actual daily PMS consumption rates and the inflated or padded daily PMS consumption rates used for subsidy payment most likely captures the extent of corrupt practices in the subsidy regime rather than PMS smuggling to neighbouring countries. This is probably why the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said, “ “At this rate, I have said if anyone is looking at a criminal enterprise, look no further than the fuel subsidy,”. However, the government cannot fight corruption in the subsidy regime by increasing PMS prices. It should know how many litres of PMS is actually consumed in Nigeria daily. All offshore/onshore  export/import terminals, special purpose vessel storage, loading and discharging jetties, product depots, tank farms, production facilities and flow stations should have certified dynamic flow meters such as Positive Displacement meters, Turbine meters, Ultrasonic flow meters, Coriolis meters and Differential Pressure meters. The DPR clearly stated this in its 2019 “Procedure Guide for the Determination of the Quantity and Quality of Petroleum and Petroleum Products in Nigeria”. If this guide is updated and implemented rigorously with the aid of the latest Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, existing refineries repaired and more refineries built, there will be no need for a PMS price hike under the guise of fuel subsidy removal.

Just like with the greatness of men, the greatness of books can also come in many shades, as the bard has observed “Some are born great, some achieve greatness and others have greatness thrust upon them”. There is a new book in town that in one day of existence has done more than most books and their authors can dream of doing in a lifetime. The book is written by two veteran journalists, Wole Shadare and Gboyega Adeoye. It is titled “Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines” and was presented to the public in Lagos on May 9, 2023.

In just one day of existence, Wole Shadare and Gboyega Adeoye’s book did not only generate a special request by public demand for an encore and continuation but also a movement with a plan. The day of the presentation of “Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines” was also a day of reunion for many leading and authoritative figures of the Nigerian aviation industry. In a hall packed full of regulators, operators, vendors, leading academics, consultants and media gurus, the assembly led by a panel of discussants agreed and requested that the book was incomplete and that it should have a sequence to make up for what was left out of this edition. The topic of the panel discussion was around the “Imperatives of reward system in Nigeria’s aviation sector” and the authors, under what can be termed as “due pressure”, agreed to coordinate an Aviation Hall of Fame that will recognize the efforts of the many Unsung Heroes and Heroines of the Nigerian aviation industry. The authors also agreed to write another book that will treat the missing elements of the just published “Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines”. Not a bad way to hit the shelves.

If they are roses, they will bloom, what we have today is a delightful circa 300 pages of history and sometimes hagiography, technological and operational knowledge and anecdotes as well personal stories arranged in ten chapters that can each stand and hence be read alone. Chapter after chapter, we are taking on a tour of the Nigerian Aviation industry from its development, to airline business, to the chronicles of airlines as the industry faces regulation, to the chronicles of regulators and those leading them. We are then taking on a guided visit of a gallery of images and profiles of individuals that have contributed to the industry, from those that surfaced as protagonist of privatization to those who before privatization were the icons in the air. Two separate chapters are dedicated to those termed by the authors of the book as heroes of development and aviation ambassadors. As a tribute to those that came before them, the authors dedicate a penultimate chapter in the book to the frontrunners of aviation media. “Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines” ends with a chapter dedicated to those two protagonists whose earthly journeys have come to an end.

Remember to tell them you saw the brand at Inside Nigeria

The final out put of this book is an aviation hall of fame, the efforts that led to it are however those of two teachers disguised as reporters who give the reader lessons in aviation without saying “let me teach you”. The language is simple, clear and direct while the content is informative. In the section themed “Rocky Road to Aviation Regulations”, we are informed that for almost three decades the aviation regime in Nigeria was self regulatory and that before third party independent regulation was birthed, a seminar was held. We were also given details of how professionals were appointed and dismissed by those with political powers under the civil and military rule. It is difficult to passively read the section dedicated to the origin, development and end of Nigeria Airways, the nation’s carrier that meant different things to different people. I have pointed out elsewhere that Nigeria Airways is a good example of lessons on how much people can create if they put their mind to it and how much people can destroy if they don’t put their mind to it. This book expatiates that point in an excruciating way.

In the chapter dedicated to airline deregulation, we are treated to the appearance and performance of private aviation companies and managers, it is an interesting medley of dreams and visions, skills and chance, competence and stubbornness. The questions around why airlines fail in Nigeria are asked and some answers are provided in this book. The glance given to aviation agencies is a kind one that profiles contemporary agency managers and allows them to showcase their best behaviours.

The chapters dedicated to the heroes of privatisation, icons in the air, heroes of aviation development, aviation ambassadors, frontrunners in aviation media are celebrations of those that have left a mark in aviation. Those chapters also tell the reader what the authors consider great in aviation and how the mentioned icons made their way to the aviation hall of fame.

“Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines” is written as a book for anyone interested in aviation and it will certainly benefit those new to aviation as well as those that are experienced but want to reflect on the industry. Regulators and operators will learn a lot about how we got to where we are in aviation today. I am however sure that readers with no direct interest in aviation but with interest in management and business as well as politics and governance in Nigeria will learn more than a few things from reading this book.

Issues for Consideration

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

Abstract:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction:

Definition of an Election

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key Normative Frameworks:

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

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

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

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

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

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

SECTION I: “CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERGENCE PRINCIPLES” OF THE PROTOCOL

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

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

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

SECTION II ON ELECTIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elections Monitoring and ECOWAS Assistance to Member States

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

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

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

1. Fact-finding missions
2. Election observation missions

• Situation Room on Election Day

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

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

The ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC)

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

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

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

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

These missions have a two-fold objective, namely:

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

Challenges to EOMs include:

1. Insufficient funding
2. Inadequate staffing

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

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

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

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

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

1. Governments

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

2. Electoral Commission

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

3. Security Agencies

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

4. The Parliament

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

5. The Judiciary

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

6. Civil Society Organizations

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

7. Media

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

8. The Electorate

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

9. Development Partners

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

10. Money and Transactional Politics

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

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

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

How to hold Member States Accountable for their Treaty Obligations

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

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

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

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

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

Sanctions Regime for Unconstitutional Change of Government

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

1. Consistent and unbiased application of sanctions:

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

2. Review of the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance

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

3. New Regional Force with Clearer Mandate

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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